Portable hole

[kabreras]

Hi there,

I was wondering, why is a portable hole so small compared to a bag of holding ?

I barely can contain more than a BoH T4 and cost twice the prize

Portable hole : 7.8 M3
BoH T4 : 7 M3

Seems odd to me

[eggynack]

It looks like the portable hole can accommodate a theoretically infinite amount of weight, bound only by the volume of the stuff in it. That's certainly an advantage of some kind.

[Nettlekid]

It's also easier to carry around, since Bags of Holding are still pretty decently-sized bags (and the most expensive one is pretty heavy regardless of what's inside.) Plus, the Bag of Holding doesn't say anything about how big the opening can get, so you might not be allowed to stick any huge thing inside it. The Portable Hole is always light as a feather, can roll up and fit inside your pocket or even your sock, and opens up wide enough to put like, ponies inside. They both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Of course, they're both greatly inferior to an Enveloping Pit (MIC) used by a Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil, or Neutral Evil character (or someone with enough UMD to imitate alignment.) It's enormous, with a volume of 5000 cubic feet (10x10x50, so 20 times more spacious than the most expensive Bag of Holding), with all the aforementioned benefits of the Portable Hole.

[sleepyphoenixx]

First, your math is off. A portable hole has a volume of 282ft³ or ~86m³.
A Bag of Holding IV has 250ft³ or ~76m³.
While that alone is hardly worth double the price a portable hole is effectively weightless while a BoH IV weights 60 pounds.
A portable hole also has no weight limit.

[Lord Vukodlak]

A Type IV Bag Of Holding has a capacity of 250 cubic feet and 1,500lbs.

A Portable Hole is Six feet in diameter and 10ft deep which gives us the capacity of 284 cubic feet(rounded up),
However there is no weight limit, a stone golem could squeeze into that space for easy transport.
The portable hole it self is also weightless, a type IV bag of holding weighs sixty pounds.
And it has a larger opening, some items might be to large to fit in the bag's opening.

[Scow2]

Portable Holes also don't rupture!

[kabreras]

First, your math is off. A portable hole has a volume of 282ft³ or ~86m³.
A Bag of Holding IV has 250ft³ or ~76m³.
While that alone is hardly worth double the price a portable hole is effectively weightless while a BoH IV weights 60 pounds.
A portable hole also has no weight limit.

My maths are correct 282 cu ft = 7.8 M3

I wish it was 86 M3

Enveloping pit is one of those many underprized MIC items...

[Scow2]

As others have pointed out - it's not the volume capacity that makes it attractive. It's the mass capacity. You'd usually fill a Bag of Holding LONG before its volume capacity is threatened.

[Chronos]

Yeah, in order to actually meet the volume limit of a Bag of Holding, you'd need all of your loot to made of balsa wood.

[nobodez]

A Type 4 BoH holds, as others have pointed out, 1500 pounds, or 250 cubic feet (680 kg and 7 cubic meters for the metrically inclined).

250 cubic feet is also 1870 gallons. 1870 gallons of water weigh 14,961 pounds, so make sure you don't open your BoH underwater, or it bursts.

1500 pounds of gold coins is 75,000 gp (or 75,000 platinum, or silver, or copper, they all weight the same).

75,000 gp have a volume of 1760 l (1.76 cubic meters). So you also can't fill your BoH with gold either.

But, you can fill a Portable Hole with Gold, it's quite easy.

Assuming a gold piece is pure gold, then it would have a volume of 470 cubic millimeters (though, as a coin, there's some waster space, so let's assume a volume of 600 cubic millimeters, for a square prism 1.55 mm thick and 19.65 mm on an edge). With our 600 cubic mm volume, that equals 0.6 cubic cm or milliliters, which means 1.67 coins per ml. 1,667 coins per liter, and 1,666,667 coins per cubic meter. At 7.8 cubic meters of volume, the portable hole can old just about exactly 13 million gold pieces.

I'd rather carry 13 million gold pieces than 75,000 gold pieces.

And that's not even counting the enveloping pit, which is even better.

EDIT: Don't forget, your bag of holding already has 18.5 pounds of something in it as soon as you open it (since 250 cubic feet of air weighs 18.49 pounds).

[Rakoa]

Don't forget that the Portable Hole makes a nice trap, too.

[ericgrau]

Yeah, in order to actually meet the volume limit of a Bag of Holding, you'd need all of your loot to made of balsa wood.
Not quite, those handy 10 foot poles and so on are terribly difficult to fit in there. Maybe the largest bag could fit one if we assume the shape of the insides is oblong.

The portable hole is better in many ways but it is also expensive.


Don't forget that the Portable Hole makes a nice trap, too.
Not as effective as you'd think against PCs or NPCs carrying bags of holding. Great way to ruin their gear, but you're also out 20,000 gp.

[Chronos]

That's assuming that the inside of a Bag of Holding even has a shape. If it worked like things in our world, it would have to have a shape... But then again, if it worked like things in our world, it couldn't exist at all. Maybe they really don't have a shape.

[ericgrau]

The bag of holding opens into a nondimensional space: Its inside is larger than its outside dimensions.
Which means the inside is a space which has dimensions. Much like a regular bag only larger. And before the smart*** remark, no, "nondimensional" is not referring to lengths it's referring to planes.

It wouldn't be too far fetched to assume that the inside is a scaled up version of the outside meaning it is twice as long as it is wide. Which means the very largest bag, a type IV, just barely fits a 10 foot pole. The type III could barely fit one diagonally but you couldn't get it in and out.

[Thrudd]

I always thought the purpose of the portable hole was so that you could throw it into the bag of holding and make it go boom, or jump in with your bag of holding and play plane-roulette. :) Now you're taking the really long way home.
You never give a portable hole until the party already has a bag of holding or two, just in case they don't know what it is.

Me (DM)"You find what looks like a folded up piece of the thinnest cloth you've ever seen. It is completely and absolutely black. It has a magical aura. "
PC's: "meh, we'll identify it later."
Me: "what do you do with it?"
PC's: "put it away"
Me: "where do you put it away, exactly? Who takes it and where do you stash it?"
PC's: "geez! in the bag of holding with all the other crap..."
Me: "haha! suckers!" KABOOM

[Humble Master]

This is obviously why Portable Holes were made...
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s720x720/522630_10150900661888625_829178624_12894060_157796 545_n.jpg Seriously however, the no weight limit is probably the biggest factor. You could always use Shrink Item to fit stuff in there anyway. Also the fact that the Portable Hole is weightless is pretty nice. 60 lbs is actually very heavy.

[Jack_Simth]

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s720x720/522630_10150900661888625_829178624_12894060_157796 545_n.jpgThat is completely impractical, even if you're mounting it on a ballistae. The Type 1 Bag of Holding weighs in at 15 pounds, just for the bag (ignoring the rest of the rig). Meanwhile, heavy bolts weighed ten pounds each (http://medievallifestyle.com/siege-engines/ballista.html). You're basically tripling the weight of the bolt. It isn't going to fire right. You're going to have to get a Large+ creature and mount the thing at the end of a twenty foot pole.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I once filled a portable whole with mud, then tossed in a gagged Lich bound in heavy manacles and chains.(like for a funeral at sea). I then turned that mud to stone folded up the portable hole placed it into a lead lined container which I then buried in an abandoned mine before collapsing the mine and letting it flood with water.

So the Lich is locked in stone, unable to move or to speak, in a portable whole that is buried about half a mile underground in a collapsed mine that's completely flooded. The Lich mocked me to do my worst, claiming I'd never be able to locate his phylactery.


That is completely impractical, even if you're mounting it on a ballistae. The Type 1 Bag of Holding weighs in at 15 pounds, just for the bag (ignoring the rest of the rig). Meanwhile, heavy bolts weighed ten pounds each (http://medievallifestyle.com/siege-engines/ballista.html). You're basically tripling the weight of the bolt. It isn't going to fire right. You're going to have to get a Large+ creature and mount the thing at the end of a twenty foot pole.
Haversack weighs 5lbs and several of is pockets count as bags of holding.

[Jack_Simth]

I once filled a portable whole with mud, then tossed in a gagged Lich bound in heavy manacles and chains.(like for a funeral at sea). I then turned that mud to stone folded up the portable hole placed it into a lead lined container which I then buried in an abandoned mine before collapsing the mine and letting it flood with water.

So the Lich is locked in stone, unable to move or to speak, in a portable whole that is buried about half a mile underground in a collapsed mine that's completely flooded. Yeah his phylactery won't me much help to him.
There's ways out of that. A stilled, Silent Dismissal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dismissal.htm) will get him out, as he's technically not on his home plane. He'll need to have the relevant feats, of course, and he'll need to have access to the spell... but that is escapable in D&D. Alternate methods: Still/Silent/Eschew Materials:
Meld Into Stone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/meldIntoStone.htm), Stone Shape (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/stoneShape.htm), Disintegrate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/disintegrate.htm), Greater Dispel Magic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dispelMagicGreater.htm), or Transmute Rock to Mud (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/transmuteRockToMud.htm) (although several of those only give the lich space, and need to be followed up with something else, like Plane Shift or Gate).

Also, lead oxidizes (slowly) in water.

[Spuddles]

You can also stack Portable Holes inside Portable Holes.

The best thing to do is stack Enveloping Pits inside Enveloping pits, then fill them with Kobolds and building materials. Pocket City.

[Lord Vukodlak]

There's ways out of that. A stilled, Silent Dismissal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dismissal.htm) will get him out, as he's technically not on his home plane. He'll need to have the relevant feats, of course, and he'll need to have access to the spell... but that is escapable in D&D. Alternate methods: Still/Silent/Eschew Materials:
Meld Into Stone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/meldIntoStone.htm), Stone Shape (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/stoneShape.htm), Disintegrate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/disintegrate.htm), Greater Dispel Magic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dispelMagicGreater.htm), or Transmute Rock to Mud (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/transmuteRockToMud.htm) (although several of those only give the lich space, and need to be followed up with something else, like Plane Shift or Gate).

Also, lead oxidizes (slowly) in water.

Theoretically escapable but in this case the Lich was screwed did I mention they were dimensional shackles? If knew the spells capable of letting him escape they weren't prepared and.. you need a relatively peaceful and comfortable environment in order to prepare spells which the lich completely bound an unable to move was clearly not in.

[Thrudd]

That is completely impractical, even if you're mounting it on a ballistae. The Type 1 Bag of Holding weighs in at 15 pounds, just for the bag (ignoring the rest of the rig). Meanwhile, heavy bolts weighed ten pounds each (http://medievallifestyle.com/siege-engines/ballista.html). You're basically tripling the weight of the bolt. It isn't going to fire right. You're going to have to get a Large+ creature and mount the thing at the end of a twenty foot pole.

LOL I don't think it was meant as something to seriously consider. It's hilarious and absurd.