Your favorite Bigby

[AuraSeer]

I'm curious. What do you folks think is the best Bigby's Hand spell for its level? Obviously the Crushing Hand has the most raw power, but many casters have other things to do with their 9th-level slots.

If you were designing a high-level sorcerer, and you wanted to give him only one Bigby, which would you pick?

 

[Dwarmaj]

I like the Clenched Fist because of the Stunning power. I don't have any 9th level spells yet, but I'm sure I can find one better than Crushing Hand.

 

[Crothian]

Speaking of which, has anyone done conversions for all the other Bigby spells? I think there were the five listed above and thirteen more.

 

[Victim]

I like both the grappling hands (crushing and grasping). Because the grapple check has Large bonuses and benefits from 2 stats - the Hand's Strength and your spellcasting stat - instead of one, the opposed rolls will be vastly in your favor against man sized foes.

 

[Darkness]

Speaking of Bigby's: I just love that hand + beholder pic in the PHB...

 

[gfunk]

Interposing hand is so-so for its level (5). You would mainly want to use it on big, bad boss monsters while you pelt them with spells. The problem is that those boss monsters tend to be rather large and can probably push the hand back. Alternatively, if they are spellcasters, they can just fire spells past it. Works best for medium-sized fighter types, but for that I would prefer Hold Monster.

Forceful hand (6) is pretty limited IMO. Bull-rushing can be devastating at the right time, but for a sorcerer its not a very good utility spell.

Grasping hand (7) is decent. Again best used on fighter types. Since it doesn't inflict damage spellcasters can T'port or D. Door out of it w/o problem. If you want to imoblize people, Forcecage is much better, albeit quite expensive per casting.

Clenched fist (8) gives the best bang for the buck. When used against an isolated foe it can be devastating. If you are focusing on evocaton (and which sorcerer doesn't ) it can really be a difficult Fort save to make. Also the to hit bonus scales very nicely with level. When combined with certain high-level spells, like Time Stop, it can be a near insta-kill.

Grasping hand (9) looks good on paper but unfortunately doesn't stack up terribly well against other 9th level spells.

 

[AuraSeer]

Grasping hand (7) is decent. Again best used on fighter types. Since it doesn't inflict damage spellcasters can T'port or D. Door out of it w/o problem. If you want to imoblize people, Forcecage is much better, albeit quite expensive per casting.

Not to nitpick, but Forcecage doesn't prevent the transit spells either. In fact, if you're inside a cage, you can cast any spell you want without trouble. When you're grappled, casting any spell requires a Concentration check (DC 25 for Teleport).

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I like crushing hand. Sure it doesn't stack up well agaisnt time stop or gate or shapechange, but all 3 of these are so broken and frequently only justified by Dude its a 9th level spell.

But I'd generally prefer it to meteor swarm which is just a sucky evocation spell. almost insluting that that crappy spell is the height of the wizards big boom spells his/her calling card of spell types, especially when clerics get the massively damaging storm of vengence(massively silly since they seem weaker in weather control than both the druid and wizard, clerics get it I think purely because of the name), though crushing hand is weaker than wail of the banshee IMO.

Still it has some uses especially when facing foes without backup, unless the foe can turn etheral or teleport or something once it's aniled it's pretty much done for.

 

[Victim]

I like crushing hand. Sure it doesn't stack up well agaisnt time stop or gate or shapechange, but all 3 of these are so broken and frequently only justified by Dude its a 9th level spell.

But I'd generally prefer it to meteor swarm which is just a sucky evocation spell. almost insluting that that crappy spell is the height of the wizards big boom spells his/her calling card of spell types, especially when clerics get the massively damaging storm of vengence(massively silly since they seem weaker in weather control than both the druid and wizard, clerics get it I think purely because of the name), though crushing hand is weaker than wail of the banshee IMO.

Still it has some uses especially when facing foes without backup, unless the foe can turn etheral or teleport or something once it's aniled it's pretty much done for.

Massively damaging Storm of Vengeance? The only good damaging effect occurs on round 3 of a spell that requires Concentration. If nothing interrupts you during that time, they deserve the potential 60d6 that you can drop on a target.

To return to the topic, Grasping Hand is good when you want to neutralize a non spellcaster, or if you have a rogue standing by who wants some sneak attacks.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Massively damaging Storm of Vengeance? The only good damaging effect occurs on round 3 of a spell that requires Concentration. If nothing interrupts you during that time, they deserve the potential 60d6 that you can drop on a target.

To return to the topic, Grasping Hand is good when you want to neutralize a non spellcaster, or if you have a rogue standing by who wants some sneak attacks.

What exactly do you plan to do to interpupt it. Round 1 the world goes to heck you'd be lucky to walk in a straight line for 10 steps much less launch an even remotely successful attack toward the cleric. Of course how the cleric targets anyone with 6 lightning bolts(massively breaking the daamge caps by the way) when visibility is reduced to like 5' I don't know.