Making the bounty bagger

[Admiral Squish]

Hey, playground! I need some help. Well, a lot of help. I'm trying to make an item for a bounty hunter, based somewhat off the mechanic from stranger's wrath. If you haven't played it, basically, the bounty bagger lets you suck up a helpless or dead creature within 5 feet as a full-round action or two, for transport to the nearest bounty store.

The problem I'm having is this: How do I make this work? He can't be just carrying them around everywhere. Extadimensional space might work, but that brings up issues with air and food and water and what sort of space they're actually in, and then I have to make rules about how they might be able to escape... yadda yadda yadda. Not to mention it's expensive! So far, the simplest and most elegant solution I can think of is it shrinks them down to tiny or diminutive for a minimized duration, then drops them into a little jar-thing of quintessence. I'm not EXACTLY sure how quintessence interacts with spell durations, but I think it's safe to assume it wouldn't wear off while the creature was immersed. Then, it would be easy enough just to pop the baddie out, scrape off the quintessence, and collect the money.

What I really need the help with:
How do I get an effect that shrinks a broad group of creature types and sizes down to a specific size?
Does quintessence work the way I'm assuming it does?
How much does quintessence cost?
How much quintessence would be needed to fill a 6-12 in. diameter sphere?
How much would this device cost? Either as a single unit or as a grabber-item and quintessence-filled 'cartridges'?

[imp_fireball]

Create an item that sucks them into a demi-plane containing a permanent portable mansion effect. If you want, you could make it a portable dungeon.

No need to change their size as the item opens to accommodate them prior to transporting them to the alternate universe. If you want it to work on multiple creatures at once, increase the area of effect. You can make it work on non-helpless creatures, provided you give them a reflex save to avoid.

Done.

On that note: Does quintessence exist in D&D? If not, just re-fluff.

[Saya]

Remember, an easy way to lower an item price, given DM permission (if you're not the DM), is to make it cursed, or put heavy restrictions on the item use, you can poke around to see how much it reduces cost by.

Simple curses you can apply can be for example, only bounty hunters of a certain guild can use it, only the bounty hunter's race/class/something else unique can use it.

[Admiral Squish]

Create an item that sucks them into a demi-plane containing a permanent portable mansion effect. If you want, you could make it a portable dungeon.

No need to change their size as the item opens to accommodate them prior to transporting them to the alternate universe. If you want it to work on multiple creatures at once, increase the area of effect. You can make it work on non-helpless creatures, provided you give them a reflex save to avoid.

Done.

On that note: Does quintessence exist in D&D? If not, just re-fluff.

Biggest problem: prohibitively expensive. Let's see... according to the creating magic items rules, it's looking to be about... 160,000-170,000 Gp, for a command word item. Not sure how much more or less that would be to change the place from awesome pad into dingy prison. On one hand, it's much less pleasant, on the other, the materials would definitely have to be much, much more sturdy. Then, there's the issue of warping them into and out of a specific cell, creating a self-perpetuating food supply, and preventing them from simply busting down the cell doors.

Then, we get into issues of escape via magic, your target resting/healing/recovering PP/preparing new spells while in transit, rallying their buddies into a jailbreak that you now have to go in and put down...

All in all, a WHOLE lot of book-keeping I'd rather avoid.

As for your quintessence question, Quintessence. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/quintessence.htm) That's pretty much as definitively existing in D&D as it gets.