D&D 5E Would you do a skill check? If so, what kind? [Slight LMOP Spoiler]

Thanks for all the responses! This has been a helpful discussion for me.

Both my son and I had missed that mage hand doesn't permit attacks and has a 10 pound limit. (We didn't stop to look up the spell). But we all had so much fun with his creativity in this regard, I think I'd like to find a way to allow him to use Mage Hand this way some of the time, but I want to also keep in mind this wise advice:

iserith said:

It could get tricky if you rule that mage hand can be used to make attacks though, so I would suggest having that work only in particular circumstances.

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So, are there restrictions/mechanics/limitations any of you would suggest, to keep the cool factor of this approach without abusing it?

The night in question I think I let him use his proficiency bonus but not a strength, dex, or int bonus.

Some possibilities I've pondered since:
Some sort of check to see if the hand manages to keep hold of the "weapon" after the attack
only allowing "improvised weapons" (like the femur) to be used this way
ruling that on a hit the Mage Hand drops the "weapon" (figuring greater than 10 pounds of force is involved)
making the attack at disadvantage OR
allowing only proficiency bonus (as last time) OR only Int (or Arcana) bonus but not proficiency OR no bonuses at all

ArwensDaughter said:

So, are there restrictions/mechanics/limitations any of you would suggest, to keep the cool factor of this approach without abusing it?

The night in question I think I let him use his proficiency bonus but not a strength, dex, or int bonus.

Some possibilities I've pondered since:
Some sort of check to see if the hand manages to keep hold of the "weapon" after the attack
only allowing "improvised weapons" (like the femur) to be used this way
ruling that on a hit the Mage Hand drops the "weapon" (figuring greater than 10 pounds of force is involved)
making the attack at disadvantage OR
allowing only proficiency bonus (as last time) OR only Int (or Arcana) bonus but not proficiency OR no bonuses at all

Click to expand...

Generally, when I think about mage hand being used offensively, it's pushing something off a shelf and hitting an enemy on the head or the like, not being wielded with any sort of accuracy. But I think if you limit it to improvised weapons (see the rules on the same) with the weight limit in mind that should be good. It may then tend to be used only when it's cool since it will be generally inferior to other normal attack options.

I'd rule that he took the femur out of the range of the spell's power to reassemble the skeleton, so it just worked.

I mean, it's not like 'self-assembling skeletons' is going to be such a theme in your campaign that allowing him that one time ruins it. That said, if there was a 1:1 balance of skeletons and people, and everyone else then said 'oh I run and do the same thing', then I'd have started making checks.

I think it's best to reward the first one to the game with a cool idea, and not to give copy-cats the same reward. Not to say 'oh you can do it and the others can't', but 'by the time you get there the skeletons are more well-formed so it's tougher to do. Make a Strength check.' would fly just fine. The first person feels super clever, the next in line has to work a bit harder.

But that's a stylistic decision by me, how I run things, not a rule.

Let him have the femur, the skeleton crawls and tries to grab the players, handstand walks and hith with his spare leg or instead of the femur gets another bone attached.
For what you want to do I would roll STR save against the spell DC (8+Proficiency+Int) or a skill contest, STR of the push against Int.
RAW you can not attack with mage hand, and the bone would fly away with a push above the force 10 pounds would do.

I would let the original grab just work (because it's fun), but I would limit the mage-hand-wielding-femur attack to 1 HP damage on a hit. (But then skeletons are vulnerable to bludgeoning, so I guess it would turn into 2 HP.)