Mage Hand as far as I know can take the hide action, which works if a target is not seeing you. Right now hide is very broken and you can do it mid combat as long as you are far enough away from the vision cones. And so a normal mage hand can essentially hide and then push. Have the caster way out of combat and you essentially can freely push enemies without even encountering them. Same with an imp or arcane trickster mage hand, but even worse cause they can be invisible thereby getting hide easier and thus pushing so much easier.
And the concern is a balance thing, and Larian balancing the game around the homebrew, when the homebrew should instead be balanced to the system.
If the game is based around it, it'll become a shove fest. And if it isn't but shove is unchanged, the challenge is completely removed and classes feel more like set dressing. If shove is balanced it'll actually feel like a rewarding mechanic that isn't an instant win button and a natural part of the game.
Also I have a laundry list of problems with mage hand, shove just being one in said list. I've ranted on it a lot.
I'll have to try hiding out of sight and sending the mage hand in for shoving then. That sounds useful so thanks for that. I don't remember the Mage Hand lasting very long though. Like last time I tried that the hand disappeared after one turn because it took so long to get to the target. And it didn't even do anything to the enemy which I assumed was because it used the Strength of the caster. If that's the case then it will probably be no more useful than when my Str 10 Wizard tries to shove.
And I'm concerned about balance, too. I'd hate to see the game balanced for the edge cases and the cheese. I keep seeing stuff nerfed out of the game and arguments for more nerfing. (My Ranger still wants his Dire Spider companion back. At least I think it was a Dire Spider. It was useful and patch 4 turned it into a nearly useless, wussy wood(?) spider.) If this EA is at the base level difficulty and all the useful features are nerfed out people will turn to the cheese to get through and if that's removed then mods to change the game which only helps people who can write mods or who can find a mod that does what they want. And if people can't enjoy the game without mods they're not going to feel good about their purchase. I'd like the next patch to include difficulty levels so Larian can leave the fun stuff in for base and easier difficulties and pull out or nerf things for the harder difficulties; but I'm not holding my breath.
And I still don't understand how having an effective shove gimmick turns the game into a shove fest unless the players simply have no self control. But if they're having fun does it even matter? The important thing is that it should be possible to get through base difficulty without dying. Not easy, but possible. Having a base difficulty that requires you constantly reload and try again or which requires you know exactly what's coming isn't fun. The game should be balanced for "first contact". That first play through should be survivable and fun on the base level. Not easy and you may barely escape some fights and have to rest and try again. But I hope they don't make it like that ridiculous video game from '80s(?) which was video playback from a laser disc player driven by simple left/right/dodge/jump actions. People had to memorize the order of each action to get to the end and there always seemed to be a line of people ready to pump quarters into it. (of course I was still playing the vector games like Tac-Scan, Space Duel (one-player, two-ship mode), and Tempest so we all have our weaknesses).
and my wireless keeps glitching so I'm going back to sleep.
