D&D 5E (2024) Getting ready to use the Portable Hole + Bag of holding trick

Xenolith234 · Wednesday at 9:06 PM

ECMO3 said:
I ended up not using it and we won the fight, although I went down, the Cleric went down again (after I healed him) and the Barbarian went down 2 more times.

In the loot we found another portable hole ... and two more bags of holding.

Hole-y mackerel.

TheSword · Thursday at 7:28 AM

ECMO3 said:
I ended up not using it and we won the fight, although I went down, the Cleric went down again (after I healed him) and the Barbarian went down 2 more times.

In the loot we found another portable hole ... and two more bags of holding.

Do you think the universe is trying to tell you something?

Or maybe the DM reads EN World!

Chaltab · Thursday at 8:42 PM

Clint_L said:
How does your character know about the portable hole trick?

It's part of the item description so it's presumably something you learn by spending an hour with it or casting Identify.

I like to imagine that bags of holding and portable holes are legally required to come with a warning label to this effect. I mean we put warning labels on cigarettes, drugs, ma tresses... surely some wizard guild would have thought of raising public awareness.

MarkB · Friday at 10:09 AM

Chaltab said:
It's part of the item description so it's presumably something you learn by spending an hour with it or casting Identify.

I like to imagine that bags of holding and portable holes are legally required to come with a warning label to this effect. I mean we put warning labels on cigarettes, drugs, ma tresses... surely some wizard guild would have thought of raising public awareness.

More to the point, if you rule that the characters don't know this info and give them both items, how do they go for weeks afterwards without ever just happening to put one inside the other? The portable hole is effectively a small room that you can step into, and would need to step into to reach items at the back, does the guy with the bag just never happen to do that?

James Gasik · Friday at 1:55 PM

MarkB said:
More to the point, if you rule that the characters don't know this info and give them both items, how do they go for weeks afterwards without ever just happening to put one inside the other? The portable hole is effectively a small room that you can step into, and would need to step into to reach items at the back, does the guy with the bag just never happen to do that?

When these items were placed in the 1e DMG, a book which was not meant for players to read (with the author even going to the point that any player perusing the tome was worthy of a "less than honorable death", lol), players had no clue that this thing could happen. Identify was not a spell your Magic-User was guaranteed to have, nor use, since it cost 100 gp to cast, and even then, it had a chance to identify items, and the spell temporarily drained you of 8 points of Constitution!

So yes, accidentally placing a bag of holding inside a portable hole was not only a strong possibility, but the kind of "gotcha" that early D&D was infamous for- the survivors would know better, presumably.

MarkB · Friday at 2:50 PM

James Gasik said:
When these items were placed in the 1e DMG, a book which was not meant for players to read (with the author even going to the point that any player perusing the tome was worthy of a "less than honorable death", lol), players had no clue that this thing could happen. Identify was not a spell your Magic-User was guaranteed to have, nor use, since it cost 100 gp to cast, and even then, it had a chance to identify items, and the spell temporarily drained you of 8 points of Constitution!

So yes, accidentally placing a bag of holding inside a portable hole was not only a strong possibility, but the kind of "gotcha" that early D&D was infamous for- the survivors would know better, presumably.

Indeed, but my point was more that if a DM in a contemporary game gives out both those items and then just relies upon "well, the players know better" for his game to not spontaneously transform into a planar adventure at some random point, it's a bit hypocritical to then turn around and say "but you couldn't know about that" when they employ that same knowledge proactively.

Chaltab · Friday at 6:23 PM

James Gasik said:
...nor use, since it cost 100 gp to cast, and even then, it had a chance to identify items, and the spell temporarily drained you of 8 points of Constitution!

The hell business does a first level spell have draining you 8 Constitution points.

James Gasik · Friday at 11:19 PM

Chaltab said:
The hell business does a first level spell have draining you 8 Constitution points.

"Never give the players an even break." - E.G. Gygax, probably.

TheSword · Saturday at 4:22 AM

James Gasik said: When these items were placed in the 1e DMG, a book which was not meant for players to read (with the author even going to the point that any player perusing the tome was worthy of a "less than honorable death", lol), players had no clue that this thing could happen. Identify was not a spell your Magic-User was guaranteed to have, nor use, since it cost 100 gp to cast, and even then, it had a chance to identify items, and the spell temporarily drained you of 8 points of Constitution!

So yes, accidentally placing a bag of holding inside a portable hole was not only a strong possibility, but the kind of "gotcha" that early D&D was infamous for- the survivors would know better, presumably.

Now they are no longer phrased that way, and the identify spell does not have a chance to fail, doesn’t drain your life force and doesn’t cost a small fortune at 1st level.

It’s almost as if they wanted to concentrate on making the game fun for players or something.

bedir than · Saturday at 4:33 AM

ECMO3 said:
I ended up not using it and we won the fight, although I went down, the Cleric went down again (after I healed him) and the Barbarian went down 2 more times.

In the loot we found another portable hole ... and two more bags of holding.

No you can do PH+BH without losing the rest of your loot!