D&D 5E How many rations fit in a bag of holding?

[derickmoore25]

Been trying to find the math to figure this i'm sure someone out there can find it.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[derickmoore25]

Simple.

You can fit in the two weeks of iron rations that I wrote down on a character sheet sometime in pre-history (OSR/1e) and have never bothered to update.

YMMV.

That is completely unhelpful its a serious question. Just because most campaigns don't track them doesn't make it true for all.

 

[Jaelommiss]

A bag of holding stores a maximum of 500 lbs or 64 cu. ft. Rations weigh 2 lbs. A maximum of 500/2 = 250 rations can be stored, assuming rations have a density greater than 0.125g/cm3*.

An egg is roughly 1.045g/cm3, an apple 0.743g/cm3, and oats are around 0.410g/cm3. All of those are above the required density. Additionally, rations will be specifically packaged to take as little volume as possible. I see no way that rations could fall below the 0.125g/cm3 threshold. The Bag of Holding's absolute maximum weight will be the limiting factor rather than space, so the previously stated 250 rations is the maximum.


*64 cu. ft = 1812.28 L
500 lb / 2.2 = 227.27 kg
227.27 kg / 1812.28 L = 0.1254 kg/L = 0.1254 g/cm3

Edit: The least dense of all foods I found was cooked bread at 0.2g/cm3, which is still denser than the limit of 0.125g/cm3. Even rations were below that, the difference could be filled with heavier supplies such as tents while the remaining rations are stored in packs.

Edit 2: The DMG (page 111) says that a small or medium creature only need 1 lb of food daily, despite rations in the PHB weighing 2 lbs. 500 lbs of bulk foods (grains, nuts, dried fruits) would give you 500 days of food. Flour has a density of ~0.60 g/cm3 (well above minimum density), and costs 2cp/lb (PHB 157). For 10gp you could get 500 days of food if you had access to water to make dough and some way to cook it.

 

[Mercule]

That is completely unhelpful its a serious question. Just because most campaigns don't track them doesn't make it true for all.

If all the bag is being used for is holding rations, I'd take it as a serious(ish) answer. So long as the party spends the "restock fee" whenever they get back in town, I'd just handle it as being effectively unlimited. There are, of course caveats like starting the campaign in some sort of wasteland or some such.

Alternatively, using the math above, it looks like a bag of holding can safely store about 8 months worth of food for a single person.

 

[derickmoore25]

The campaign is in a dessert wasteland. Its survival themed. The reason i asked however is a player wanted buy a smaller magical version of a bag of holding combined with cold magic. i was trying to find out how many fit to figure how much a bag cost relative to its size for pricing the smaller one that keeps meat cold. I used Jaelommiss's math to do it.

 

[Jaelommiss]

The campaign is in a dessert wasteland. Its survival themed. The reason i asked however is a player wanted buy a smaller magical version of a bag of holding combined with cold magic. i was trying to find out how many fit to figure how much a bag cost relative to its size for pricing the smaller one that keeps meat cold. I used Jaelommiss's math to do it.

If it's a desert, then water will be the limiting factor.

There are tons of water condenser designs that involve drawing moisture from the ground or plants that could be easily amplified using at-will cold magic (ray of frost and frostbite cantrips come to mind). Giving them some sort of metal foil would help them a LOT, possibly entirely trivializing water as a limited resource. For ideas, look here. If the foil they use is enchanted to stay slightly cooler than the air below it, then water will condense incredibly quickly. Using a clear material and adding vegetation helps, however it still works with an opaque layer and a pit dug down to moist dirt.

Carrying water would be massively heavy, though if they have a large waterskin that can be placed in the Bag of Holding as food supplies dwindle then they will be able to carry far more water with them later on.

 

[derickmoore25]

They have been playing for about 6 month's and managed to work out all the parties water and food issues between settlements. But one of them wants to start using a predatory mount. Thats what the bag is for the meat eating mount to get from settlement to settlement.

 

[Ancalagon]

Interesting! You will need to figure out how much meat the mount needs per day too... What is it, out of curiosity?

Oh and if will probably need water too.

 

[derickmoore25]

I'm using 10 pounds of meat which is a little less then lions eat in our world.