Holding Your Breath Within a Bag of Holding [3.5, E6]

[Lonely Tylenol]

OK, so here's the context for this situation:

One of the PCs in my group, a Wilder, committed the grievous crime of kidnapping (twice), and was subsequently arrested and tried for his crimes (and found guilty). While being transported to the prison, the Wilder escaped from his transport squad by Dimension Hopping away and breaking into a sprint down a dark alley, where two other PCs (a Wizard and a Druid) were waiting to commit size shenanigans in order to allow the Druid to swallow the Wilder within a Hoard Gullet. The two then made their escape to the nearest city gate, whereupon they met resistance; the Wizard changed into a form with a burrow speed and burrowed off, while the Druid (who, by the by, is fourth level, so no Wild Shape, but he was sort of trapped in the body of a wolf until he acquired Wild Shape to allow him to revert to human form because of raisins) bolted for the gate. He managed to scale the wall, becoming grievously injured in the process by the archers and pikemen at the gate, and then made the leap over the city wall, plummeting to his death thanks to a botched Tumble roll and high falling damage.

Now, here's the problem:

The Druid, who had consumed a potion of Hoard Gullet so as to be able to swallow the Wilder, has nearly an hour left in his potion. He cannot manually dismiss the spell, nor can he projectile vomit out the Wilder in his current (dead) state. The party Wizard, who is still alive and well, is level 4, and does not know any spells that would allow him to dispel the Hoard Gullet effect. Nobody else has a way to end the spell's effect prematurely. Hoard Gullet functions like Bag of Holding, which states in its description:


If the bag is overloaded, or if sharp objects pierce it (from inside or outside), the bag ruptures and is ruined. All contents are lost forever. If a bag of holding is turned inside out, its contents spill out, unharmed, but the bag must be put right before it can be used again. If living creatures are placed within the bag, they can survive for up to 10 minutes, after which time they suffocate. Retrieving a specific item from a bag of holding is a move action—unless the bag contains more than an ordinary backpack would hold, in which case retrieving a specific item is a full-round action.

So it's assumed, I guess, that a Bag of Holding has about 10 minutes' worth of air inside of it. Is it possible, as per the suffocation rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm), to continuously hold your breath for 2*Constitution rounds, take a breath or two, and repeat this process, to extend this duration to the full hour, allowing them to survive successfully in the extradimensional space until the duration expires of its own accord, or is he just going to suffocate inside of the wolf, and this bag of cats scenario is going to result in the death of two PCs (as well as an actual bag of cats that was swallowed before this point for unrelated reasons)?

[Erik Vale]

I would say yes.

However, how would the wilder know the druid was dead as to hold his breath?
*Chirp*
Assuming he has no way of knowing, he suffocates.
Assuming he has some way of knowing the instant the druid dies, and he then proceeds to put that plan into action, he survives... Assuming that your discounting that the kittens are also breathing... Ok, he's boned.

However, this is what happens when you are a criminal and help said criminal.

Edit: Another possibility is to have the spell self dismiss as the druid is dead, I'm not sure if that works by RAW though. If it doesn't work, I'm having a funny mental image of a dead incantrix that still glows with a bevy of magical defenses that didn't help, acting like a torch for the rest of the day.

[Greenish]

…You should write a campaign journal.


As for holding breath, I think that's technically an option by RAW, but it just seems wrong, since it's not like holding your breath is going to magically allow you to survive with a fraction of the oxygen you normally require for an hour. That's real world logic, though, so how well it holds up in a game depends.

[Gavran]

I'd read that as "after 10 minutes, dead" rather than "there is air enough for any amount of living creatures, regardless of size and quantity to breathe for ten minutes."

Mostly because I find the concept of "rationing" air by holding your breath to be absurd.

[Lonely Tylenol]

I would say yes.

However, how would the wilder know the druid was dead as to hold his breath?
*Chirp*
Assuming he has no way of knowing, he suffocates.
Assuming he has some way of knowing the instant the druid dies, and he then proceeds to put that plan into action, he survives... Assuming that your discounting that the kittens are also breathing... Ok, he's boned.

The plan as he was swallowed was for him to practice holding his breath in case they weren't able to get him out within ten minutes for whatever reasons, so the PCs actually thought that one through ahead of time.

Also, the DM ruled that the three kittens, the sack full of vipers (look, it's a long story, OK?) and the Wilder each got their own distinct 10-minute air pocket, because while in the extradimensional space, they are not technically interacting with each other. I think it's sort of fuzzy logic, but whatever, the PCs get ahead on this one...


However, this is what happens when you are a criminal and help said criminal.

Yeah, the likely outcome to this is if he survives the hour is that he is immediately captured when he is ejected from the dead wolf, and then publicly executed at a later date for trying to flee, so this may be purely academic, but... There are still four PCs in this group who aren't dead or in exile, so we may be able to save him as the axe falls, so to speak.


…You should write a campaign journal.

Thanks, but unfortunately, I wasn't much a part of this one. :smallredface: I'm pretty sure two or three of us have campaign journals, though (I was offering 300xp for each journal entry submitted to me while I was DMing, and the DM who replaced me followed this precedent), and we have a website where we post things, so perhaps we should post our journal entries and side-story stuff there at some point.


As for holding breath, I think that's technically an option by RAW, but it just seems wrong, since it's not like holding your breath is going to magically allow you to survive with a fraction of the oxygen you normally require for an hour. That's real world logic, though, so how well it holds up in a game depends.

I explained to the players over a year ago that I was going to default to game logic in a "game logic vs. real-world logic" scenario, after one of the PCs (an engineer whose character had no engineering experience or magical training to speak of) asked if he could invent a compressed air cannon by concentrating all of the force a Gust of Wind spell spits out in a 5' by 5' square, into a space about an inch in diameter, although the spell doesn't actually work that way (it has a fixed MPH the wind moves, but not a fixed output of force), so his cannon would have had just under 1psi of pressure anyway. I know this sounds silly, but this would be a weird time to reverse the precedent.

So I'm actually looking for RAW/RAI, here. :smalltongue:

[Bronk]

Since the hoard gullet works by creating a second, magical stomach which follows the rules of bags of holding, all the wizard has to do is to physically remove the gullet from the druid, and turn it inside out.

"If a bag of holding is turned inside out, its contents spill out, unharmed..."

[Invader]

If he was shrunk down to fit inside it stands to reason he won't use as much oxygen as a standard medium sized creature.

[Platymus Pus]

If it act's like a bag of holding break it like one

[Erik Vale]

Then he spills into unknown dimensions, rendering him effectively dead... Unless you want to start some wacky Planescape game.

[TroubleBrewing]

Unless you want to start some wacky Planescape game.

Aren't ALL Planescape games inherently wacky? :smallbiggrin:

[holywhippet]

What size changing tricks were used? Are they likely to run out before the air runs out?

[Fouredged Sword]

Wouldn't the hoard gullet spell dispel on the death of the creature it's cast on? I was planning to have a dragon swallow a bunch of molten copper (to spew on the party or form quick walls with fabricate). I was under the impression the contents of the bag are forcibly expelled upon death.

[Cheiromancer]

I don't know if you want to introduce "realism" into your fantasy game, but it seems that D&D is extremely strict in its suffocation rules. James Beach writes (http://www.frontiernet.net/~jamesstarlight/Suffocation.html) that a resting person can survive 24 hours in sealed 10 ft. cube. A six-foot diameter, 10 ft. deep cylinder (like a portable hole) has just over a quarter the volume of a 10 ft. cube, and so a person should last 6 hours and change. It's the same volume for a type IV bag of holding. The write-up for the portable hole (or bag of holding), on the other hand, says a medium sized creature suffocates in 10 minutes. Even the smallest bag should let you survive for 45 minutes if you are resting.


Suffocation, CO2 poisoning.

One of the things I had to bother to research was the consequence of being shut up in a hermetically sealed space. (No air or other gases can get in or out). Particularly, how long can you survive in a portable hole, a sealed room, or an underground chamber sealed off by a cave-in? As it turns out, after considerations of the partial pressures of oxygen and CO2, it isn't a lack of oxygen that will kill you but an over abundance of CO2 that will poison you to death. As such, when you hear people talk about how much air or oxygen they have in such a space you should know the real concern is the CO2 levels being given off by respiration, combustion, or other sources of CO2.

As it turns out, a 10 X 10 X 10 foot space, or 1,000 cubic feet, will be filled with a lethal concentration of CO2 by one resting human sized individual in just 24 hours. (The CO2 level reaches about 1% in that time). Moderate activity will cut this time to 12 hours, and strenuous activity to 6 hours. Thus, 8 hard working individuals in such a space will die in about 6/8th of an hour or 45 minutes. Naturally, this would make travel in an extra dimensional space possible since many people could survive the time taken to plane shift or teleport to a new location. It is, therefore, possible to move relatively large groups of people using this technique, provided the individuals who are outside of the space, plane shifting or teleporting, don't run into any problems preventing them from releasing their passengers in a timely fashion. Remember that plane shifting on the border ethereal plane just increases your movement rate by a factor of 100, but the deep ethereal by about 10,000 - or to more safely travel, about a factor of 1,000 on some middle ground. The higher speeds may be necessary in order to get the group out of the portable hole before they die.

Say 8 people, resting, will use the air in a 10 x10 x 10 space in 3 hours. So you can only get about 720 miles in the near ethereal, but 7,200 miles to 72,000 miles while in the deep ether. Naturally, since Orlantia's circumference is only 1700 miles or so, one can get anywhere on Orlantia in that time if they go via the deep ether.

In case you are wondering, it is assumed a movement rate of 12" will result in 24 miles in 10 hours of travel. This is 2.4 miles/hour. For 3 hours, this will result in 7.2 miles on the PMP, 10 times that or 720 miles traveling via the border ethereal plane, 10 times that or 7,200 miles traveling the deep ether, but doing it carefully so as to subtract up to one encounter roll, or 10 times that or 72,000 miles without the caution, perhaps risking 3 encounter rolls for an unknown path. But if you are more interested in the mechanics of planar travel, you should follow the link below.

[Sith_Happens]

I explained to the players over a year ago that I was going to default to game logic in a "game logic vs. real-world logic" scenario... So I'm actually looking for RAW/RAI, here. :smalltongue:

In that case, I can't speak for RAI, but here's the entirety of the RAW on the subject:


If living creatures are placed within the bag, they can survive for up to 10 minutes, after which time they suffocate.

At no point in the item's description is this stated to actually be the product of a limited air supply, nor is any reference made to the environmental suffocation rules. In fact, no exception is even made for creatures that don't need to breathe (so go ahead and suffocate that Earth Elemental if you really want to). If you are a living creature and have been in the bag longer than ten minutes, you suffocate, end of story.

You're welcome.:smallbiggrin: Now if you excuse me, I have a post to make over in the Dysfunctional Rules thread.

[Segev]

Is it the DM's intent that this end the campaign? Does he plan for new PCs to join to replace the old, if not?

If he doesn't have a specific plan, wacky planar hijinks COULD be the way to go: the Wilder escapes to planes unknown and starts hunting for portals. The surviving PCs seek divinations to locate him and meet up. They all travel the planes to find the soul of the druid.

[Asheram]

Well, the only suggestions I can offer is if they pull some size shenanigans with size according to this Bag Of Holding Update (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20051101a).

"The rules say a living creature can breathe inside a bag of holding for up to 10 minutes. That's not a bad number for a type I bag of holding, which has 30 cubic feet of space inside. The larger bags ought to contain a bit more air, and I've included some suggested numbers. The numbers given are for Medium creatures. Small creatures use only half as much air and can breathe inside a bag of holding for twice the listed time. Double the breathing time for each additional size category below Small (x4 for Tiny creatures, x8 for Diminutive creatures, and x16 for Fine creatures."

[Chronos]

Possible sensible, but alternate, interpretation of the Bag of Holding suffocation rules: The bag holds plenty of air, such that a character with that much air could breathe for hours, and which is replenished every time the bag is opened. But the bag isn't quite airtight, and so it slowly leaks out into the extradimensional void. After ten minutes, enough air has leaked out that any creature inside would suffocate.

Now, I'm not saying that this interpretation is the right one, but it's at least a plausible one, and it would in some ways account for the rules better than the standard interpretation. And in this interpretation, holding your breath in shifts won't do anything to extend your demise, except in so far as the last breath will maybe let you last for a minute or two after the air is gone.