So I play a lot of Arcane Tricksters and I have played with a lot of DMs and I have found a wide variance on how much they allow with Mage Hand Legerdemain in combat.
For example - the mage hand is out/active and the rogue is in combat. He wants to use a bonus action to pull a flask of oil (or holy water or acid) out of his pack and dump in on BBEG. Dumping oil is clearly allowed as it is in the description of mage hand.
Ranking the DMs I have played with 1-6 easiest to hardest.
1. The Santa Clause DM - It is one bonus action and it automatically gets on the BBEG.
2. It is one bonus action and you need to roll a slight of hand contested by acrobatics to see if you successfully dump it on him.
3. It is one bonus action and you need to roll a dexterity-based improvised weapon attack
4. It is one bonus action and you need to roll Arcana against his AC (thematically I really like this)
5. It is one bonus action to take it out of your pack and a 2nd bonus action to dump it on an enemy, so it takes 2 turns. It is a strength-based improvised weapon attack to hit with it.
6. The Grinch DM - Even though it says in the spell description you can dump out oil, you are not allowed to dump it on an enemy.
I have seen all of these examples with DMs and because the rules are ambiguous, all of these are defendable. I played with DMs that did all of these and 1 to 6 it DRAMATICALLY changes the power level of an Arcane Trickster Rogue in tier 2.
How do you play it? Which is best?
For example - the mage hand is out/active and the rogue is in combat. He wants to use a bonus action to pull a flask of oil (or holy water or acid) out of his pack and dump in on BBEG. Dumping oil is clearly allowed as it is in the description of mage hand.
Ranking the DMs I have played with 1-6 easiest to hardest.
1. The Santa Clause DM - It is one bonus action and it automatically gets on the BBEG.
2. It is one bonus action and you need to roll a slight of hand contested by acrobatics to see if you successfully dump it on him.
3. It is one bonus action and you need to roll a dexterity-based improvised weapon attack
4. It is one bonus action and you need to roll Arcana against his AC (thematically I really like this)
5. It is one bonus action to take it out of your pack and a 2nd bonus action to dump it on an enemy, so it takes 2 turns. It is a strength-based improvised weapon attack to hit with it.
6. The Grinch DM - Even though it says in the spell description you can dump out oil, you are not allowed to dump it on an enemy.
I have seen all of these examples with DMs and because the rules are ambiguous, all of these are defendable. I played with DMs that did all of these and 1 to 6 it DRAMATICALLY changes the power level of an Arcane Trickster Rogue in tier 2.
How do you play it? Which is best?