D&D 5E Bag of Holding Question

[LordEntrails]

Letting the characters just assume to always be carrying everything they ever found, whenever it's convenient, just feels like sloppy storytelling to me.

That's not what I said. I didn't say let them carry everything. I said my players currently, and all the ones I've played with over 40 years, have all been reasonable about the mechanics of a bag of holding without us having to meticulously track anything. I often have the players questions each other "Is there room in the bag for the giant's head?" "Do we have more room in the bag?"

That works great for me. If it doesn't work for you, then I gave two suggestions; 1) let the players track it. Or 2) use a random die method.

But in the end, what is fun for you and your table?

Im looking for something in between. Im not looking to account for everything but I dont want them just putting anything and everything in a bag of holding.

Weight is the easiest imo. But then again I'm using FG and its easy for one player to put all the items in a container and have FG calculate the weight for us.

I would not worry myself about gems, coins, and jewelry. Those things don't weight much or take up much room. So then you probably could just use something like slots based upon volume. basically one slot per cubic foot. Weapons and lanterns (with oil) take up one slot. light armor, 1; medium armor 2, heavy armor 3 slots. Or whatever you feel is good.

Again, I would keep it simple, but then I hate playing Bankers and Bookkeepers.

 

[R_J_K75]

That's not what I said. I didn't say let them carry everything. I said my players currently, and all the ones I've played with over 40 years, have all been reasonable about the mechanics of a bag of holding without us having to meticulously track anything. I often have the players questions each other "Is there room in the bag for the giant's head?" "Do we have more room in the bag?"

That works great for me. If it doesn't work for you, then I gave two suggestions; 1) let the players track it. Or 2) use a random die method.

But in the end, what is fun for you and your table?

Weight is the easiest imo. But then again I'm using FG and its easy for one player to put all the items in a container and have FG calculate the weight for us.

I would not worry myself about gems, coins, and jewelry. Those things don't weight much or take up much room. So then you probably could just use something like slots based upon volume. basically one slot per cubic foot. Weapons and lanterns (with oil) take up one slot. light armor, 1; medium armor 2, heavy armor 3 slots. Or whatever you feel is good.

Again, I would keep it simple, but then I hate playing Bankers and Bookkeepers.

I agee with the last paragraph. KIS. But also more realstic than giving PCs carte blanch.

 

[Voadam]

I'd never allow it either. But I did put a '57 Chevy in a warehouse in Teziir. It was funny but they couldnt use it.

Groovy.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I'm happy to just have it be a bag of infinite volume that can only hold 500 pounds. I like (roughly) tracking encumbrance, and I like having the bag not be able to carry the whole dragon's horde, I like that everything has to fit through a 2 foot diameter opening, but keeping track of cubic feet in a space of undefined but evidently limited dimensions does not particularly add to my fun.

I assume based of the 4 foot deep thing that the designers just derived 64 cubic feet from the volume from a 4 foot cube and figured that, given its non-rigid nature, it would roughly correlate. Or, alternatively, they had an 8 by 8 grid comparable to the inventory system of a crpg in mind, and derived 4 feet back from that.

 

[Voadam]

So in tonight's game I had an NPC gnome cult leader offer to make something for the PC kobold bard (member of the same cult) because "You did good kid. Keep up the good work." and I asked the player what the ideal type of thing he would want.

"A Bag of Holding."

A four foot long Santa sack would not do it for a two-foot tall 8 strength PC.

I gave him a cult appropriate crafted kobold-sized Heward's Handy Haversack.

Time to look up the specifics again on the Haversack.

Non-narrative extradimensional spaces are now entering my 5e game at the PC item level.

 

[MarkB]

So in tonight's game I had an NPC gnome cult leader offer to make something for the PC kobold bard (member of the same cult) because "You did good kid. Keep up the good work." and I asked the player what the ideal type of thing he would want.

"A Bag of Holding."

A four foot long Santa sack would not do it for a two-foot tall 8 strength PC.

Again, those are not its exterior dimensions. It's a regular-size satchel with a shoulder strap, as pictured in the DMG.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Again, those are not its exterior dimensions. It's a regular-size satchel with a shoulder strap, as pictured in the DMG.

The DMG states that "This bag has an interior space considerably larger than its outside dimensions, roughly 2 feet in diameter at the mouth and 4 feet deep." I'd say the text is ambiguous, and the illustration is a hint toward the solution. Hoever, if we decide that 2 ft in diameter at the mouth is the interior dimension, we have no idea of the width of the opening. Except that interior space is "considerably larger", so the outside opening must be (significantly) less than 2 ft wide. If we take the illustration as proof, the length of the shoulder strap is around five time the length of the opening's dimension. Crossbody shoulder strap are usually in the 50 inches range (says a site specializing in selling bag strap replacement parts. I am by no mean expert) so that would make the real outside length of the satchel around 10 inches. Or 25 cm. Seriously reducing the usefulness of the item. That would make a strict limit on what you can put inside through the opening. Only tiny creatures could enter the bag and making a handy haversack enter the bag (which is possible, since it is an explicit textual warning in the Handy Haversack's description) wouldn't really be possible.

 

[R_J_K75]

View attachment 142470
Groovy.

Bruce Campbel? Hard to tell with my poor glasses Rx and a whole lot of Budweisers.

 

[R_J_K75]

Non-narrative extradimensional spaces are now entering my 5e game at the PC item level

Glad I could be of help.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I treat the interior extra-dimensional space as extra-dimensionally malleable, so you could store a pike in it, for example. Unless someone is trying to carry a pillow factory, it‘s the weight that is the only factor I bother tracking (and I have automation for that).