For one, Disable Device at 30ft means disabling traps while being outside of the "oh crap" range for most traps, so that even if you fail you'll most likely escape unharmed.
Sleight of Hand means you can steal the keys off a guard through the bars of a prison, or pick an item off a table through a window, or steal someone's hat from a side-alley and many other things.
Unless the item in question is hidden in a pocket, you can probably get your hands on it at range without being suspicious. Often even approaching the thing you want to snatch calls attention to yourself, which you will now avoid.
Also, technically it doesn't even mention you have to be able to see the item to steal, so you could probably even pickpocket someone from 30ft away.
And I'm guessing the higher DC includes moving the item to your hand through the air; so that if you beat the check they don't notice the item moving and have no option to stop you.
All in all, it seems there's plenty of situations where these ranged skills would come in useful.
The rules, as written, don't say.
There are no specific rules regarding the contents of an invisible mage hand but there is evidence that objects held in the hand may be invisible.
While we don't have many general rules regarding invisibility (mainly just what's in the "Hidden" sidebar in the PHB), we do have an invisibility spell and an invisibility monster action to base our decision off of. We also have usability to consider; why would the designers give us the ability to turn the mage hand invisible if it gives away its position as soon as it picks something (anything) up?
Invisibility the spell says that all objects worn or carried by the target are invisible. This seems fairly harmless and renders the spell kind of useless if it doesn't give completely invisibility to all objects carried and worn.
Under the control of a skilled arcane trickster, the mage hand can be used to manipulate objects, pick locks, pick pockets, or carry an object or objects weighing up to 10 lbs. It can also turn invisible, per the arcane trickster's class feature.
With that in mind, we can probably make some assumptions about the hand:
- It is probably the size of an average person's hand
- It is dexterous, or at least as dexterous as its controller
- It can manipulate small objects such as a lockpick
- It can steal things from people
We also know the following:
- In other cases in the rules, invisibility turns held objects invisible. This alone is not reason enough, but because it makes the spell invisibility useful (otherwise enemies would see your sword and attack you sight unseen) it is important to the argument (usability, as I mentioned above).
- The arcane trickster is a class archetype based around a rogue who uses magic to play tricks and get away with his roguish activities.
- The arcane trickster gets special rules for his mage hand.
Taking these things into consideration, it seems quite in line with the design goals of 5e and the overall flavor of the class to allow objects held in the hand and completely obscured by it to become invisible. This includes as many coins as can fit inside the closed fist, a dart, dice, a key, lockpicks, or other small, "palmable" objects. Larger objects, such as weapons, planks of wood, mugs of ale, and so on, would be visible because they are not completely obscured by the mage hand.
My reasoning for this:
- Invisibility the spell and invisibility the monster action generally grant invisibility to the target and all items worn or held.
- The arcane trickster relies on subterfuge and trickery. Why give them an invisible mage hand if it can't hide anything inside it? That's like saying, "Here's a beer, but don't drink it!" Or maybe more like, "Have this beer, you can drink it, but only when no one is looking. Oh yes and you're in a crowded marketplace."
- For the skeptical DM: It doesn't hurt anything to allow this! In fact, it will probably make your games more fun when your Arcane Trickster's player is having more fun.
- It isn't broken. It doesn't imbalance anything in the gameplay and it's easily overcome or made up for in other areas by a good DM. Personally, I don't think it even needs to be "made up" for. It is by no means a showstopper.
Best Answer
Your fellow player is wrong. There is absolutely nothing in ranged legerdemain that connects it to mage hand under the rules, and there needs to be to have the effect that they are claiming.
There is clearly a thematic linkage between the mage hand you use to enter the class, and the ranged legerdemain feature that the class grants. Equally clearly, ranged legerdemain represents a significantly superior ability with telekinesis than mage hand does: by taking levels in the class, you have gotten better at doing these kinds of things. But mechanically, the two are separate, and anything they wanted it to inherit from mage hand, they would have pointed out. For example, ranged legerdemain states a weight limit of 5 pounds—the fact that mage hand has that limit didn’t count and it had to be restated for ranged legerdemain.
They could have also chosen to make ranged legerdemain directly “inherit” from mage hand, and start with all of mage hand’s properties as a default and then listed exceptions. The wording they typically use is something like “as mage hand except...” This is extremely common, for example, with dimension door, which has a lot of limitations and interactions to inherit: see the boots of escape, the feathered headdress, the mirror transport spell, a ring of transportation, etc. For example:
(Feathered headdress magic item description, emphasis mine)
The very fact that the system has a standard wording, and they didn't use it, is telling here.