D&D 5E Spellcasters and Balance in 5e: A Poll

[FrogReaver]

Page 177 top left. "The DM might also call for a Dexterity (Slight of Hand) to determine if you can lift a purse off another's person or slip something out of another person's pocket"


PHB page 98: "You can perform one of these tasks without being noticed by a creature if you succeed in a dexterity (Slieght of Hand) check contested by the creatures Wisdom (Perception) check."



No but it doesn't say you can't either. Further it says you can steal things more difficult than this and it says you can do it on a bonus action - which generally only applies in combat.

If you could not use it for combat it would say so, as the regular mage hand description says with respect to attacks.



As noted earlier the pouch has to be removed and that is going to be as easy to see "levitating out of the container"

"Without being noticed" means not noticed. Noticing it "floating in the air" is noticing it and to be clear your earlier if we use this logic wouldn't he see it "levititating out of the container" while it was being taken too?

This of course assumes the item itself does itself not become invisible when taken by an invisible mage hand.


No but failing a perception check against an invisible mage hand lerdemain means he "does not notice" that the mage hand took something .... because that is what the rules say.


Actually everything mentioned under the stealth skill in the PHB talks about concealing "yourself" or your person, not a thing and SOH talks specifically about "slip something out of another person's pocket"

Now I am not suggesting that I would never use stealth for something like this, but the specific overides the general and the specific rule for MHL is that it uses a SOH check to not be noticed.

I'm done with this tangent because you cited pages that had nothing to do with the claim we were arguing about, even after I asked for the explicit PHB for the specific claim we were debating.

 

[FrogReaver]

The bars are 1/2 inch apart, so any of a multitude of tiny creatures would escape as would anything that could make themselves gaseous or incorporeal or small enough to fit through through a spell or ability.

So you use the solid version on tiny and gaseous/incorporeal creatures... Not a huge issue.

But more importantly your comment here is a huge reach and I don't like discussing when people start reaching to this extent. So I'm bowing out.

 

[Steampunkette]

On the stealing spell components thing: Yup. It works.

Mage hand Arcane Trickster or Regular Hand otherwise, sleight of hand lets you snag that pouch, which must be available for the mage to use it, otherwise it's useless. I.E. you can't have your component pouch in a bag of holding, reach in, grab what you need, and use the "Cast a spell action" because taking anything out of a bag of holding is, itself, an action. Same thing for taking items out of a backpack. It'd have to be on your hip or in your hand.

Of course a Focus also works for that, and you can't generally sleight of hand something out of someone's hand.

But even if they -didn't- have a focus, you're still only stopping spells that require material components, and only until they either get the pouch back or get components from some other source.

 

[ECMO3]

What's the scenario? Are you trying to take it in the middle of combat?

Yes. Trying to take it out of his pocket, off of his belt, out of his pack etc, using a bonus actuon as it says you can do in the PHB under mage hand legerdemain.

 

[Don Durito]

I think stealing a component pouch is really a bit of a dick move, as we all mostly ignore the component thing because it's a drag.

If you actually have your players buying bat guano from the market than it's different.

But really, how do you think the players would react if they go to cast a spell and you say "sorry, your passive perception wasn't high enough to spot your spell components being stolen"?

 

[Maxperson]

Yes. Trying to take it out of his pocket, off of his belt, out of his pack etc, using a bonus actuon as it says you can do in the PHB under mage hand legerdemain.

The vast majority of sleight of hand stuff is on unsuspecting targets. 5e explicitly makes everyone in combat on high alert, as well as moving to avoid attacks and such. IF I even gave a roll to check sleight of hand in the middle of violent and chaotic combat, the DC would be 25 or 30. More than likely it just wouldn't work. Now if you wanted to try it on an unsuspecting wizard enjoying a drink at the bar, go for it.

 

[CleverNickName]

SOH is also a pretty clever way to plant a small item on someone, too. Something that can be tracked with divination magic, for example, or a polymorphed creature in the shape of a beetle...

 

[Maxperson]

I think stealing a component pouch is really a bit of a dick move, as we all mostly ignore the component thing because it's a drag.

If you actually have your players buying bat guano from the market than it's different.

But really, how do you think the players would react if they go to cast a spell and you say "sorry, you passive perception wasn't high enough to spot your spell components being stolen"?

I got the feeling he was talking from a PC point of view trying to stop the BBEG.

 

[ECMO3]

The vast majority of sleight of hand stuff is on unsuspecting targets. 5e explicitly makes everyone in combat on high alert, as well as moving to avoid attacks and such. IF I even gave a roll to check sleight of hand in the middle of violent and chaotic combat, the DC would be 25 or 30. More than likely it just wouldn't work. Now if you wanted to try it on an unsuspecting wizard enjoying a drink at the bar, go for it.

The specific beats the general. In general 5E assumes high alert, but the hand is invisible and it specifically says the Rogue can do this on a bonus action in the description. That makes no sense if it is not a combat use. Crawford has said that you can use the normal mage hand during combat for the same things you can normally do with it out of combat.

Also the rules say specifically it is a contested SOH vs perception check. If it was a straight check that was not in the rules specific to this spell I might agree with a DC 20-25, but this is a spell that causes a contested SOH check.

 

[Stalker0]

If it's hanging on his belt it's attached to something that's attached to him. Makes logical sense to me. One might could unattach it from him, but that's going to be DM call on how well it's attached. If the DM rules it can be then it's probably not a SOH check to do this either, probably a straight dex check with the possibility of disadvantage due to the movement in combat complicating things.

I now quote the PH on sleight of hand.

"The GM might also call for a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check to determine whether you can lift a coin purse off another person"

Now its still a DMs call of course, and personally in combat I would at minimum make it disadvantage....but I don't think its a "lenient ruling" to allow a rogue to grab a caster's spell component pouch with some kind of check. There is a reason they are called "cut purses"

Most of our encounters have been a single encounter a day and they go 4-6 rounds usually.

3 rounds has been my experience even in my frequent 1 encounter per day sessions. The harder fight is more than balanced by the more firepower the party throws at it.