Amp'ed Mage Hand

[rayous brightblade]

What is the point of spending a focus point for this spell. It seems to just change it from unattended to attended by you or a friendly creature and is easy to access. There is a bit which says "the hand grasps and holds the object before the hand moves the object" which might be supposed to mean something but seems to have no mechanical effect (I have no clue why this sentence is there, mage hand already says it grasps the target object).

As of now i see no reason to use this amp unless you really need to grab an allies secondary weapon from 30-60 feet away. Also the only alternate amps that work for it are warp space (not very useful) Inertial Barrier (only on yourself and why wouldn't you use any other psi cantrip) or Shatter space (ok, this isn't terrible)

If they got rid of the friendly creature limitation and allowed it to use the steal action using spell attack instead of thievery, allow fine manipulation at a distance (for disable device, opening doors, etc) or increase the max bulk it might be a decent option, but currently Distant Grasp has effectively 1 less amp than the other options.

Can anyone convince me that there are reasons to use your focus point on mage hand?

[Kyrone]

An option to disarm (picking the weapon if you managed to do it) or trip (grabbing the creature legs) with it would make it more interesting.

[rayous brightblade]

Kyrone wrote:

An option to disarm (picking the weapon if you managed to do it) or trip (grabbing the creature legs) with it would make it more interesting.

The reason i didn't mention those is every distant grasp psychic will have telekinetic maneuver by level 3. If it could do the maneuvers that spell can do there would be little reason to have that spell

[Xenocrat]

This is apparently a way to use two actions to move a consumable item or backup weapon from one character to another without anyone having to physically move. In the rare event his is important enough to do, it will have some utility and save some party actions, I guess.

So two actions to cast, item is moved to the receiving character, who still has to use an action to grasp it and another action to activate it if it's an elixir, potion, etc. or the usual attack/cast a spell actions if its a weapon or scroll. You save the action of whoever had the item to draw it, the action to move, and the action to move back where they started, assuming that positioning matters that much.

If they want to keep this spell as a psi cantrip I would make the amp also increase the speed equal to range. It's not much, but it means the item can travel 30 or 60 feet in the same round you cast it and you won't need to waste additional actions sustaining, which would kill its already marginal use if the giver and recipient of the item are more than 20' apart.

[cavernshark]

Alternatively, allow the Amp to use a third action to take an optional Interact action in addition to grabbing the item and moving it. Now you can grab a potion, reposition it, and administer it without striding. Or just put the new item in reach for the other player by putting in their hand.

[Luigi Lizza]

I think Mage Hand needs an Amp Heightened effect. If I'm going to play a Psychic specialized in telekinesis, I would like to be able to lift big boulders and stop a truck by 20th level.

[Physicskid42]

Maybe some version of a permanent telekinetic haul could be a feat.

[keftiu]

It feels like the use case for this is so, so narrow. I don’t get why it’s a core subclass mechanic.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

Definitely feels like this amp doesn't really do anything significant, and would like to see it boosted to do something more interesting with action economy or opening up distant actions beyond moving stuff around. It's a hand it should be able to do stuff hands should do (pick locks, toss or catch, write, push, drag, steal, trip or shove)