Bigby's Tripping Hand

[Thurbane]

In last night's game, I used a Bigby's Tripping Hand spell against a Magma Hurler that our group was fighting. This was my first appreciation of how truly useless this spell is.

If I undertsand correctly, fist I make a melee touch attack to initiate the trip (attack bonus = caster level + casting attribute mod + 2 for the hand's 14 STR). Not too bad. Then, the target gets a Reflex save to negate the spell entirely. Finally, assuming I hit and the target fails it's save, I make a trip check, opposed by the target. The check modifier is +1 per three caster levels, and +2 for the hand's 14 STR. This is pathetic - unless I'm tripping a gobin or kobold, my chances aren't good.

What sort of a spell relies on 3 rolls to succeed before you can affect the target? If the attack rolls misses, the save succeeds or the opposed check fails, the spell fails. Compared to, say, Grease, this spell is thoroughly usless.

Am I missing something, or is this spell total rubbish?

 

[jaelis]

I think you have it right. I would guess that the Reflex save is in fact an error. It makes the spell too weak like you say, and also in a case like this I would expect the spell description to specify how the save is supposed to work. And none of the other Bigby spells has a save.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Don't forget that it's also negated by spell resistance. Other than that, you're not missing anything. Well, actually, it does have medium range. Even if it had no save, I'm not sure the spell would be useful at high levels, but then again it is a low-level spell.

 

[blargney the second]

Its value is primarily comedic.
-blarg

 

[Folly]

It does seem like the reflex save is an error. But remember that the trip check of the target is either str or dex check modified by size bonuses. This means like any tripping mechanism, it works great on medium or smaller things and not so well against big things.