Trouble with Portable Holes

[UltimaGabe]

The different between the uses for a portable hole and a bag of holding is mainly the amount of stuff it can carry. A Bag of Holding has a very limited amount of carrying capacity- being, it has a weight limit. No matter how small the stuff is, if it weighs over the bag's limit, you can't carry it. A Portable Hole, however, simply opens a 10-foot deep hole- whatever you can fit in the hole, you can carry without any weight or encumbrance. Also, the opening for a portable hole is quite big, allowing for big things to be put inside it, unlike the bag of holding's bag-sized opening.

Say, for example, you've got your entire party and half a dozen survivors of some catastrophe all standing on a slowly-sinking platform, and you all need to get to safety- but all you've got is one Dimension Door scroll, and a Portable Hole. What are you gonna do? You can't take all those people with that one scroll of Dimension Door! Disaster seems inevitable!

Here's what you do: have all but the wizard hop into the portable hole, fold it up, and have the wizard pick it up and Dimension Door away. Simple as that.

 

[wizofice]

One of the old Dragon Magazines has a great article called "101 Uses for a Portable Hole." A great idea they have is to create a split level cylinder just big enough to slide into the Hole and would be great for a halfling or gnome to live in, with built in bed, shelves, ect. If you're really small you could make it three levels. You can use it at night, or if you don't need to breathe (through magic other means) you could have a friend carry it with you inside. I've always wanted to try this out with a wizard.

KerlanRayne

My pixie psionicist has a wine cellar, library and bedroom now. We also used the hole and bag combo to send a very nasty fallen solar to the Astral plane right in the middle of his demonic invasion of a particular plane.

Say, what happens when a portable hole is placed inside another portable hole? Or a bag of holding within a bag of holding?

 

[Rel]

My players spent a good portion of the last session planning a detailed ambush that involved the use of a portable hole. I'll spare you the details about the scenario, as they aren't really important to the queston--suffice to say that I found the description in the DMG somewhat vague, and I'm not sure I really understand how this item is supposed to work.

I think the factual rules have been pretty well covered so I just wanted to chime in and say that I wish that the Portable Hole worked more along the lines you were thinking, fourthmensch. I feel that the one as written in the DMG should be called The Wide Mouth Bag of Weightlessness.

"Back in the day", I played under a DM one summer who had a Portable Hole work the way you were proposing and it was incredibly fun coming up with new ways to use it. I'll be the first to admit that there would be some problems adjudicating it but I still say that the Portable Hole ought to make an actual hole in stuff and not just an opening into an extradimensional space.

Also, I love your sig quote from The Stars My Destination, among the best science fiction novels ever written.

 

[fourthmensch]

OK, thanks for all the responses. I think this was just a case where what I intuitively expected was different from the apparently obvious description.

I think for now I'll stick with the official version of the portable hole as a better version of a bag of holding.

Rel, I'm sure that in the future I'll discuss with the players the possibility of altering the portable hole into something more interesting. Perhaps I'll call it... Wily Coyote's Bag of Fun. And I'm glad you caught the quotation.

 

[TwilightWhisper]

Say, what happens when a portable hole is placed inside another portable hole? Or a bag of holding within a bag of holding?

I've always ruled that they'd cancel each other out and everything within both is shunted to the astral plane. That is the 2nd edition ruling. It seems logical on a mechanics/non-power play level.

 

[Vrecknidj]

Some questions/comments I have while reading this thread:

1) If an incorporeal creature goes inside a portable hole, and then moves through the wall of the inside of the whole, where does it go?

2) A portable hole is a great way for a necromancer to tote around a small army of undead--no need for air, etc., etc.

3) This is really sort of a predecessor question to 1) above: can an incorporeal creature go into a portable hole?

Dave

 

[BSF]

Some questions/comments I have while reading this thread:

1) If an incorporeal creature goes inside a portable hole, and then moves through the wall of the inside of the whole, where does it go?

2) A portable hole is a great way for a necromancer to tote around a small army of undead--no need for air, etc., etc.

3) This is really sort of a predecessor question to 1) above: can an incorporeal creature go into a portable hole?

Dave

For a standard Portable Hole, I would judge that an incorporeal creature could not leave through the "wall" since that is really the boundary of the extra-dimensional space.

A portable hole is a great way to transport a lot of undead.

I think an incoporeal creature could enter a portable hole through the mouth.

 

[tensen]

If this is not the case (and I agree that the item description implies that it is not), then how is a portable hole any different from a bag of holding? Why is it a separate magical item if they accomplish the same thing (eg, extradimensional storage)?

Well by your question... I ask you this. Why is Heward's Handy Haversack a seperate item from a Bag of Holding?