Some clarifications on Mage Hand

[ThePurple]

Is the hand physical?

It's described as a "spectral, floating hand". It's physical in the sense that it is capable of interacting with objects in the physical world but not physical in the sense that it actually has any mass, weight, etc. of its own.

Could it trip up something when placed behind it?

As the power is written, no, it can only interact with objects, which is a category for everything that it's a creature. I also believe that most GMs would generally agree that this includes objects on a creature as well since those objects tend to share the creature's defenses/move around with the creature if you want to try and use the "I use mage hand on the target's boot" as a workaround.

Could an ally use it as a 'boost' to reach a ledge out of reach?

Even if you *were* allowed to use it on a creature, mage hand can only exert 20 pounds of force. Unless that creature were less than 20 pounds, Mage Hand wouldn't be able to help them.

You can't make an attack with it, but dropping certain objects from a height is legit, right? i.e, dropping a throwing hammer on a 1hp minion is going to kill it

I would argue that, because you can't make an attack with it (nor can you make complex movements), the dropped hammer is going to be trivially easy to avoid and would never hit a creature aware of the incoming attack. I might allow it as a way to kill a guard as part of a Stealth-based castle invasion type skill challenge, but, in combat, it would be useless (also, you've got Magic Missile, which does more damage and automatically hits; why would you want to use Mage Hand?) except as a way to interact with an object (e.g. pull a lever, retrieve a lost weapon).

It should be important to remember that just because a minion has 1 hp doesn't mean that they'll die to a paper cut or some other event that is painful but largely irrelevant to whether a person could fight (even the most basic human can survive being tripped, falling a few feet, or getting a bump on the head). The minion rule is the gaming equivalent of the cinematic notion that some bad guys die or are incapacitated by a single blow. It still has to be a significant blow, however; a minion-type in a movie wouldn't die just because the hero stabbed it in the hand or foot or was hit in the knee by a pebble.

as a minor action this can be done several times a turn.

Well, mage hand can only hold onto or manipulate a single item each turn, can't move and pick something up as part of the same action, and it takes at least a 10' fall for anything to do fall damage. As such, you have to spend a minor action to pick up the object, a move action to get to a height that will allow it to do falling damage, and only then you can spend the free action to drop it. At best, if all you do is focus on Mage Hand hammer dropping, you'd be able to drop 1.5 hammers every round, which is actually really, really inefficient.

I used mage hand to shove an explosive device on a timer into a baby dragons mouth

"Shoving" constitutes an attack, in my mind, so it would be trivially easy for the dragon to avoid. Unless the dragon is somehow incapable of defending itself and also has its mouth open (most creatures don't sleep with their mouth wide open enough to be able to shove an explosive device into it), you wouldn't really be allowed to do this. Even if it was asleep, the dragon would probably wake up as soon as you "shoved" the device inside (which means it could take a free action to spit it right back out).

Also, concerning the "explosive device", what explosive device was your GM having you use? Fighting a baby dragon (and having it be a test adventure) makes me think you'd be using a low level alchemical device and the only one with a timer that I can think of is a clockwork bomb that deals 1d10 fire damage. Even if it were some other kind of alchemical device, I would still probably rule that it wouldn't instantly kill the dragon (since, you know, *dragon*) and instead have it be treated as a coup de grace (automatic crit), which wouldn't even deal that much damage considering it's an alchemical item.

If you're talking about something on the level of modern plastic explosives, that's not really a level 1 type item.

then used mage hand to tie a rope around its snout.

Keep in mind, 20 pounds of force or less, so it's not really tying it tightly. Also, it's a single hand. Tying a rope with a single hand is actually extremely difficult and basically impossible if the creature you're attempting to tie up doesn't want to be tied up.

Also, just because it all happens in the same round doesn't mean that it happens simultaneously or without *any* capacity for the creature to react. Most of those actions would awaken it pretty much immediately in my book and allow the dragon to start fighting back. Even if it couldn't open it's mouth, as the GM, I'd probably argue that the dragon could use its breath weapon or bite attack (all of which deal some kind of elemental damage) to destroy the explosive before it can go off (since, you know, it's on a timer).

Is this a legal use of the skill? It was certainly a fun use!

If your GM says it's legal, it's legal. It might not be legal according to the rules, but the GM is the final arbiter as far as all things rule based on concerned.