Greater Mage Hand or Unseen Servant

[Amakule]

I've been trying to decide which one is better to generally have for a low-level sorcerer. Greater Mage Hand requires concentration, but Unseen Servant can only do one simple task.
For the purposes of this debate, assume it's the only spell known.

[avr]

Mage Hand, greater or otherwise, is generally inferior to walking over to the item in question and just picking it up - the spell components prevent it being subtle. So, I'd go with Unseen Servant as being slightly subtler and possibly helping a little with the action economy.

[Amakule]

What about things out of reach? An unseen servant is less capable than you are.

[Arcanist]

Mage Hand, greater or otherwise, is generally inferior to walking over to the item in question and just picking it up - the spell components prevent it being subtle. So, I'd go with Unseen Servant as being slightly subtler and possibly helping a little with the action economy.

I prefer Servant Hoard when wanting to spoil my friends fun with the Action Economy, Its also funny to have your Servant Hoard throw small rocks at an enemy caster to make there spells fizzle out :smallamused:

[avr]

Unseen Servant can't do everything, but exactly what are you going to use Greater Mage Hand for? It's not clear to me that it has even one use.

[avr]

I prefer Servant Hoard when wanting to spoil my friends fun with the Action Economy, Its also funny to have your Servant Hoard throw small rocks at an enemy caster to make there spells fizzle out :smallamused:
A better spell, but it should be; isn't it level 4 or 5?

[Arcanist]

A better spell, but it should be; isn't it level 4 or 5?

3rd level spell, if your a Lich and your getting spellstitched it is worth it to get.
For Luxury and for combat :smallamused:

[Darrin]

I prefer Servant Hoard when wanting to spoil my friends fun with the Action Economy, Its also funny to have your Servant Hoard throw small rocks at an enemy caster to make there spells fizzle out :smallamused:

Throwing small rocks at an enemy caster would most likely involve an attack roll. It could fly above the enemy caster and drop the rocks into his square.

Unseen Servant gives you a leg-up in the Action Economy. The unseen servant gets a move + standard action or a full-round action, and thus you can convert one of the caster's move actions into another standard or full-round action by directing the unseen servant to do something. Whatever that something is, it has to be somewhat uncomplicated, but here's a list of things an unseen servant can do (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8235936&postcount=8).

[ericgrau]

Ya unseen servants quite explicitly may not attack. Without attack rolls combat options are limited. Likewise I don't think either will be that stealthy since someone will see the object moving. The main use for both is utility. For that greater mage hand has greater range, greater weight capacity and can reach things that are very high up. So it's usually much better for utility. But unseen servant lasts hours per level so it's much more re-usable, especially at higher caster level when the duration is higher. At lower levels that's still true for dungeons but not for the wilderness where the duration will run out.

I'd get the best of both worlds and carry a scroll of the one you don't pick. That way 99% of the time you use your favorite but the one time it doesn't work you pop the scroll.

Once you get 2nd level spells a neat trick is to greater mage hand an everburning torch 130 feet in front of the party. Then cast pyrotechnics (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/pyrotechnics.htm) when foes appear. Throws an entire army into disarray, or more generally an entire encounter.