PDA

View Full Version : Bag of holding question



talltwin36
2007-02-09, 11:03 AM
Ok one member of the party wants to try and sneak another party member into some place. The second party member is a halfling.

The first party member has a bag of holding that can technically hold the halfling. I know the normal rules would allow the halfling to survive for 10 minutes. They need longer.

The bag owner has suggested filling the bag with water and then casting water breathing on the halfling.

I know my response, but want other opinions.

msquared

Yuki Akuma
2007-02-09, 11:11 AM
Technically the rules make no mention of how much oxygen you can get from water, so he shouldn't suffocate, as per the RAW.

However, if you want to be at all realistic (*sound of catgirl genocide*), it might be better just to give him the same 10 minutes.

Now, if he had a Decanter of Endless Water and used it similarly to an 'air bladder'...

Wizzardman
2007-02-09, 11:18 AM
Technically the rules make no mention of how much oxygen you can get from water, so he shouldn't suffocate, as per the RAW.

However, if you want to be at all realistic (*sound of catgirl genocide*), it might be better just to give him the same 10 minutes.

Now, if he had a Decanter of Endless Water and used it similarly to an 'air bladder'...

Or he could just use a Bottle of Air.

Can he open the bag up every seven or eight minutes or so, so that the air in the bag has a chance to renew?

Telonius
2007-02-09, 11:24 AM
Ok one member of the party wants to try and sneak another party member into some place. The second party member is a halfling.

The first party member has a bag of holding that can technically hold the halfling. I know the normal rules would allow the halfling to survive for 10 minutes. They need longer.

The bag owner has suggested filling the bag with water and then casting water breathing on the halfling.

I know my response, but want other opinions.

msquared

Let the catgirl massacre begin.

Well ... water is denser than air. I'd suspect that water breathing somehow works by getting it to separate the oxygen out of the water, delivering it to the spell target in breathable form. So theoretically, you could get slightly more time out of breathing water, than breathing air. (Granted, you'd still have to exhale, and the oxygen in the water - and thus the water - would be used up eventually). Air density is usually 1.2 kg/m^3, and water density is 1000 kg/m^3. So you could get 833.333... times more oxygen out of an equal volume of water. Given a constant rate of breathing, that would mean you could get 8,333.333... minutes of breathing from the space inside of a Bag of Holding. The exhaled gas would be pure hydrogen, which would form near the top of the bag; it would be extremely volatile. EDIT: Oh, I didnt' even figure in the fact that only around 20% of air is oxygen. The total time would likely be even more.

Of course anything else you put in there would be pretty wet. I'd rule it would ruin any kind of paper item or potion (due to the pressure shattering the glass, water seeping in, etc) that's in there with the halfling. And if his spell runs out before they fish him out, he's out of luck. Also, they'll have to empty out the bag if they ever want to use it for any kind of storage again; and that would be ... well, kind of messy, indoors or in any kind of dungeon. (Beware of them keeping the bag and trying to use it against a fire elemental, or something like that).

kamikasei
2007-02-09, 11:29 AM
Well ... water is denser than air. I'd suspect that water breathing somehow works by getting it to separate the oxygen out of the water, delivering it to the spell target in breathable form.

Is there any very good reason to think that? Actual 'water-breathing' creatures extract dissolved molecular oxygen from water, not the O right out of H2O. It would seem to make far more sense for the spell to either do the same (in which case you're looking at a calculation like yours, but with different and probably much smaller numbers) or 'magic' the whole issue of oxygen away, in which case you're looking at a more or less arbitrary duration of 'breathable' water as vs. air.

Darrin
2007-02-09, 11:30 AM
The bag owner has suggested filling the bag with water and then casting water breathing on the halfling.


That sounds exceedingly clever. I'd let that work without thinking too much about the physics.

That being said... let's kill a few catgirls, shall we?

Assuming the bag has a fixed volume, filling it with water doesn't change how much oxygen an organism needs to maintain aerobic respiration. Assuming the water contains the amount of oxygen you'd expect it to contain, a human equipped with gills or some other device would quickly consume this oxygen, obviously at a faster rate than if you were dealing with the same volume of air. The water would turn anoxic and you've got yourself a dead halfling.

So we have to take a closer look at what the spell does... and unfortunately the SRD is exceedingly brief and not entirely helpful:



The transmuted creatures can breathe water freely. Divide the duration evenly among all the creatures you touch. The spell does not make creatures unable to breathe air.


It's a transmutation, not a conjuration spell, so it's not just creating a bubble of air or filling the creature's lungs with air. It's transforming something, but it's not clear what. The last sentence is confusing, I think it's meant to clarify that you can't cast this on a creature outside of water and have them suffocate. Unfortunately it doesn't say that the target is immune to suffocation or what happens if he tries to hold his breath. Otherwise, I'd say skip the water, just cast the spell and tell the halfling "Don't inhale".

So, it all depends on what is being transformed. I see a handful of possibilities:

1) Water (H20) in the lungs is being transmuted into oxygen (O2).
2) Carbon dioxide (CO2) in the lungs and/or blood is being transmuted into oxygen (O2).
3) The creature's lungs and/or other organs are being transformed into gills or some other physiology that allows the creature to extract oxygen from the water.

I'm going to guess 3) is out because the size of the organ you'd need to extract enough oxygen to keep a human-sized creature alive would be huge, and the spell doesn't mention any physiological changes such as gill-slits.

That leaves 1) and 2) which all boil down to one question, really: do you need to be submerged in water in order for the spell to work? And I think that's a "No". Therefore, the medium the target is submerged in -- such as beer, thousand island dressing, or a bag of holding full of anoxic gasses -- doesn't matter.

So, to conclude, skip the water, cast the spell, and the halfling should be fine.

PinkysBrain
2007-02-09, 11:34 AM
I wouldn't let waterbreathing work.

A necklace of adaption would for sure though. The Sepia Snake Sigil spell would work too ... and if the caster is arcane he can cast that one too, it would just cost him 500 gp.

The_Losar
2007-02-09, 11:50 AM
Here's something to take into account: how much does water weigh? Are you taking it into account when attempting to fill the bag of holding?

I'm just guessing, but, assuming it's a Type I bag of holding, I think 30 cubic feet of water weighs more than 250 lbs. Throw in a halfling and the bag ruptures.

If you take out enough water to allow for the weight of a halfling, will that be a significant enough amount of water to make water-breathing worth it?

I'd say that the only things capable of sustaining a person in a bag of holding would be a Bottle of Air or an Iridescent Ioun Stone. Otherwise, I don't know... pop your head out of the bag every few minutes or so.

Telonius
2007-02-09, 12:11 PM
D'oh! Yep, you're right. I'd forgotten about the weight constraint. So, 250 pounds is about 113 kg. If anybody wants to figure out how much oxygen that makes, go for it; I suspect it isn't going to be much more than ten minutes' worth.

pestilenceawaits
2007-02-09, 12:15 PM
I am with the side that says the water would provide he same amount of breathable oxygen as air just for ease of game play but I would let them get away with opening the bag every few minutes to refresh it. and the bottle of air is the best idea.

the_tick_rules
2007-02-09, 12:19 PM
water is a lot heavier than people think. each cubic foot weighs 64 pounds i believe, or is that meter, that sounds a bit heavy. but the air bottle idea is the best so far yeah.

headwarpage
2007-02-09, 12:23 PM
250 pounds of water is just over 30 gallons. And you have to allow a few pounds for the halfling and his gear, along with whatever else is in the bag. I'd say you're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 gallons of water at best. Your halfling is now standing knee-deep in a puddle at the bottom of the bag. Luckily, 25 gallons of water takes up so little space that there's still 10 minutes worth of air in the bag.

Of course, if your players don't think of the weight limit, let them overfill it and rupture the bag.

EDIT: Just looked it up - 30 gallons of water takes up all of 4 cubic feet. He's trying to breathe underwater in a bathtub.

kamikasei
2007-02-09, 12:24 PM
D'oh! Yep, you're right. I'd forgotten about the weight constraint. So, 250 pounds is about 113 kg. If anybody wants to figure out how much oxygen that makes, go for it; I suspect it isn't going to be much more than ten minutes' worth.

Well,

If the bag can hold 30 cubic feet of air at 1.2 kg/m^3, that comes out to approximately 1.02 kg of air.

If it can hold 250 pounds of water, that's 113 kg.

If we're using the extracting-the-O-from-H2O idea, that's about a third of the 113 kg as oxygen, vs. a fifth of the 1.02 kg of air.

Which comes to... 37.666 kg of oxygen from the water and 0.204 kg from the air.

If 0.204 kg is ten minutes' worth, the water provides over thirty hours'.

This is of course not counting the mass/volume of the halfling in the bag, which would greatly affect both figures.

Swordguy
2007-02-09, 12:25 PM
Have the halfling carry waterskins in the bag, and cast waterbreathing on him. Boom! Portable air bladders!

This also saves the trouble of a soaked halfling emerging from the bag.

pestilenceawaits
2007-02-09, 12:28 PM
Well,

If the bag can hold 30 cubic feet of air at 1.2 kg/m^3, that comes out to approximately 1.02 kg of air.

If it can hold 250 pounds of water, that's 113 kg.

If we're using the extracting-the-O-from-H2O idea, that's about a third of the 113 kg as oxygen, vs. a fifth of the 1.02 kg of air.

Which comes to... 37.666 kg of oxygen from the water and 0.204 kg from the air.

If 0.204 kg is ten minutes' worth, the water provides over thirty hours'.

This is of course not counting the mass/volume of the halfling in the bag, which would greatly affect both figures.

not to mention the hydrogen gas that would take up much more room than the water it came from and the explosion that would occur when the bag was opened in the presence of a candle, torch, cooking fire etc. instantly killing the halfling (or at least sending him spiraling to another plane of existence) and severely burning anyone in a 10 foot radius. :smallamused:

goat
2007-02-09, 01:11 PM
Give him a little tube to poke out of the top and breathe through.

kamikasei
2007-02-09, 01:28 PM
not to mention the hydrogen gas that would take up much more room than the water it came from and the explosion that would occur when the bag was opened in the presence of a candle, torch, cooking fire etc. instantly killing the halfling (or at least sending him spiraling to another plane of existence) and severely burning anyone in a 10 foot radius. :smallamused:

Strokes chin... But wait, these are gases we're talking about, and the mass of hydrogen produced is necessarily less than the water used to generate it... can a bag of holding pressurize its contents, so that the hydrogen given off would reach the volume limit and then remain at that volume until reaching the mass limit?

If not, consider that any amount of a gas put into a bag of holding should logically expand to fill the available volume, even if that makes it much less dense than sea-level air...

I guess the sensible thing is to say that the sides of the bag's insides exert right around one atmosphere of pressure on the contents.

HealthKit
2007-02-09, 01:30 PM
Must we drag real physics into a magical/fantasy setting? :smallsigh:

I'm going with goat's tube solution. Cheap and effective.
And I was also going to say "Buy a Bottle of Air!" but then I saw that it costs 7,250 GP... I thought it was cheaper for some reason. But maybe the characters can afford it. Who knows, maybe you can find a use for it later.

kamikasei
2007-02-09, 01:42 PM
Must we drag real physics into a magical/fantasy setting?

Yes, because it's amusing.

Seriously, though, I would just go with "you get as much breathing time out of water as air". The "water breathing + Decanter of Endless Water" idea is good, though. The air-tube is straightforward and should work fine.

Elliot Kane
2007-02-09, 01:54 PM
I wouldn't let waterbreathing work.

A necklace of adaption would for sure though. The Sepia Snake Sigil spell would work too ... and if the caster is arcane he can cast that one too, it would just cost him 500 gp.

Completely agree.

***

The bag would hold at most the same amount of water as it would air. There'd also be less breathable air in water - even with water breathing - than there would be in air.

I'd probably knock a minute or two off the survival time :)

Gamebird
2007-02-09, 01:58 PM
But I wonder, if the Decanter is pouring out extra water for the halfling to breathe, where's that water going? What happens when he's poured out enough to rupture the bag? How does the halfling gauge the weight he's poured out?

(for the record, I would also go with the "water doesn't grant anymore breathing time than air" and advise a bottle of air, necklace of adaptation, whatever that ioun stone is, Sepia Snake Sigil, some other hold-your-breath spell, or occasional opening of the bag to refresh the air. Though since it's across a dimensional boundary, I wouldn't allow the tube trick.)

kamikasei
2007-02-09, 02:10 PM
But I wonder, if the Decanter is pouring out extra water for the halfling to breathe, where's that water going? What happens when he's poured out enough to rupture the bag? How does the halfling gauge the weight he's poured out?

Could he strap the Decanter around his face and breathe out into it, as though it were an oxygen mask?

...Hmm, it's not obvious that he could. And in any case, it'd be more expense than a Bottle of Air for a non-obvious improvement.

talltwin36
2007-02-09, 02:31 PM
Sepia Snake Sigil is out. The it can not be dismissed. There are other reasons why it might not work as well, due to the situation.

I have a problem with something as simple as the tube. Plastic does not exist and a small wooden tube actually restricts the air flow a whole lot. You could not really survive for that long.

I have rules that since the water breathing is cast on the person, the spell effects the person, not the water, so the persons lungs act like gills and pull suspended oxygen out of the water. It does not break the water down.

msquared

PinkysBrain
2007-02-09, 02:49 PM
Sepia Snake Sigil is out. The it can not be dismissed.
The caster of the Sigil can remove the effect with a command.

Arceliar
2007-02-09, 02:51 PM
From the BoH description:

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

I see no mention of Air anywhere in that. It doesn't say they run out of air, just that they suffocate. So I myself would argue that no, water breathing doesn't work, as a creature which breathes water naturally can suffocate in said water.

Bottle of Air looks to be the way to go if you ask me. That or cast Reduce Person and put the halfling in a normal bag...

*Edit: Make that cast reduce person every several minutes, when the duration starts getting low. Durations overlap anyway...

goat
2007-02-09, 06:33 PM
Turn him into a seal. Some of those can hold their breath for 25 minutes. If anyone stops you and asks why you're carrying a seal, tell them you're in the circus.

OR kill him. Ressurrect him when you're inside.

SpiderBrigade
2007-02-09, 06:59 PM
From the BoH description:

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

I see no mention of Air anywhere in that. It doesn't say they run out of air, just that they suffocate. So I myself would argue that no, water breathing doesn't work, as a creature which breathes water naturally can suffocate in said water.This wins.

In fact, since it's not spelled out that it's the lack of air in the bag that is causing this, even a Bottle of Air wouldn't help. After 10 minutes in the bag of holding, you suffocate. Magically.

Quietus
2007-02-09, 07:19 PM
That would be kind of annoying, but funny. "So, you've filled the bag with water, packed yourself a Bottle of Air, taken that feat so you don't have to breath, then turned yourself into an undead outsider? Right. Well, it's been ten minutes - you can feel your long-rotten lungs scream out as you desperately need to take a gasp of the air you don't breathe. Your friends fail to hear your gasping cries from inside the bag, and when your friends next open the bag, they'll find your once-more-dead-corpse."

Neo
2007-02-09, 07:40 PM
I think its that there is no air in a bag of holding, rather than you just suffocate for no apparent reason.

SpiderBrigade
2007-02-09, 09:08 PM
Oh, no doubt. Any DM who actually did that to you would be a meanie-face. But technically, that's what it says :tongue:

Gamebird
2007-02-09, 09:42 PM
And don't forget, we're talking about a freakin' extradimensional space here. There's no need for it to conform to the laws of physics or reality as we know it.

And yeah, I love that answer too. You just magically suffocate, no matter what! Ha. That fixes a few things for me, like the tactic of stuffing an incorporeal undead into the bag to guard your stuff, when you're an evil dude.

Neek
2007-02-09, 09:44 PM
I'd let it slide on sheer novelty. I mean, he's going to have to dump the contents at some point. It's so hair brained, it might just work.

I'd shrink the halfling to half his normal size. So he'll need half the oxygen. So that'll give him 20 minutes. I know the rules don't explicitly say that size has an effect, but I'd rule that it would.

Roderick_BR
2007-02-09, 10:16 PM
Get a giant straw poking outside the bag.

PinkysBrain
2007-02-09, 11:08 PM
Not needing to breathe equals immunity to suffocation IMO.

Mewtarthio
2007-02-10, 12:38 PM
Get a giant straw poking outside the bag.

You'd probably suffocate. Attempting to breathe through any sufficiently long straw (that is, any straw which is long enough to reach you and the outside world) will cause you to inhale the carbon dioxide you just exhaled, which is still inside the straw.


Not needing to breathe equals immunity to suffocation IMO.

Bear in mind, this is the same RAW that gets us tricks like inhaling water to heal from grievous wounds (per RAW, you go to -1 HP when you start drowning, so if you're any lower than that, say a Frenzied Berserker on a Deathless Frenzy, you should immediately be healed).

EDIT: Why not just open the bag every five minutes or so?

HealthKit
2007-02-10, 12:38 PM
I think its that there is no air in a bag of holding, rather than you just suffocate for no apparent reason.
Well, that would work... if it weren't for the fact that the very definition of suffocation is "to deprive of oxygen"

PinkysBrain
2007-02-10, 01:56 PM
Bear in mind, this is the same RAW that gets us tricks like inhaling water to heal from grievous wounds (per RAW, you go to -1 HP when you start drowning, so if you're any lower than that, say a Frenzied Berserker on a Deathless Frenzy, you should immediately be healed).
The RAW doesn't mention that the process of drowning can be interrupted though. You can stop holding your breath, but by the RAW once you start drowning you are death in 3 rounds no matter that.

Fizban
2007-02-10, 01:56 PM
If living creatures are placed within the bag, they can survive for up to 10 minutes, after which time they suffocate.
So undead and constructs are fine at least, but elementals and outsiders are screwed.

goat
2007-02-10, 06:57 PM
I still think the solution somehow comes through killing the halfling.

Or throwing him over the walls with a makeshift trebuchet and casting feather-fall.

DaMullet
2007-02-10, 08:35 PM
I still think the solution somehow comes through killing the halfling.

Or throwing him over the walls with a makeshift trebuchet and casting feather-fall.
While convincing arguments could be made for both of those, I think the best solution would be to get him half in the bag, half out, and have him wear a trenchcoat long enough that you could put the BoH on your head and walk in undetected. Of course, this only works if they're expecting a very tall halfing-esque gentleman wearing inexplicably secretive clothing.

Mewtarthio
2007-02-10, 08:46 PM
Damage him down to 1 Con point (I'll leave this part up to you). Then throw him into the bag with a magic trap that shoots Con poison needles at random. Program the trap so that the Halfling has a fifty percent chance of surviving. Now, so long as he is not observed, he is in a quantum superposition of both states, simultaneously alive and dead. As such, he cannot suffocate, being already dead. Once you open the bag, the waveform collapses, and there is a fifty percent chance that he will be perfectly healthy, albeit in desperate need of a Wand of Lesser Restoration. Of course, there's also a fifty percent chance that he'll be dead, but that's the risk.

DaMullet
2007-02-10, 08:48 PM
Damage him down to 1 Con point (I'll leave this part up to you). Then throw him into the bag with a magic trap that shoots Con poison needles at random. Program the trap so that the Halfling has a fifty percent chance of surviving. Now, so long as he is not observed, he is in a quantum superposition of both states, simultaneously alive and dead. As such, he cannot suffocate, being already dead. Once you open the bag, the waveform collapses, and there is a fifty percent chance that he will be perfectly healthy, albeit in desperate need of a Wand of Lesser Restoration. Of course, there's also a fifty percent chance that he'll be dead, but that's the risk.
I can't decide whether or not this has killed a catgirl. I think it's just vague enough that all she got was feline leukemia, but what you say next determines if it's treatable with radiation.

NecroPaladin
2007-02-10, 08:49 PM
I can't decide whether or not this has killed a catgirl. I think it's just vague enough that all she got was feline leukemia, but what you say next determines if it's treatable with radiation.

Don't worry; there's always euthanasia if it looks like she's going to live.

daggaz
2007-02-11, 02:05 PM
Oh for the sake of the gods!´

This thread got so incredibly complicated (and the perversions of basic physics going on are enough to send your highschool science teacher to his grave, let alone any catgirls existing anywhere on the same plane.) Lets just use the priniciple of KISS, if we are gonna try to throw any science at this mess.

Water was a clever, but rediculous idea. Its out right off the bat due to the weight constraints (among lots of other reasons.)And as mentioned before, aquatic organisms use dissolved oxygen, they dont split water molecules (which would produce the H mentioned earlier too). Water can hold FAR less dissolved oxygen than you get by splitting all the molecules. It also holds less free O^2 than normal air. But enough about water.

The spell "water breathing" is most likely transforming your lungs so they can work like gills, magically. Surface area ratios and molecular physics were most certaintly NOT on the author's mind when he came up with this idea. It simply lets you breathe water, *like a fish does*. Simple. End of story.

I doubt that you suffocate in the bag of holding due to some strange magic means. Most magical effects in the books are described explicitly. Instead, we have both the volumn constraint of the bag defined, as well as the term suffocate given. As somebody mentioned, you suffocate cuz you run out of air. And as WotC clearly writes, the bag can hold a limited amount of air. Breathe it up, and you die. To keep things simple, WotC just says any creature does this in ten minutes. Simple. (but feel free to house rule it anyway you want... it is a bit cheezy keeping constructs and the like in your bag, but hey, this game is often more than a bit silly.)

A bottle of air should work FINE for this purpose (and way simpler than the whole water route), but its expensive, and its overly complicated...

A freaking straw or small wooden tube (which you can EASILY breathe thru, and Im sorry, but breathing thru a plastic straw is NO harder or easier than breathing thru a wooden one of the same diameter) would work fine. The tube should not need to be a hundred feet long. Why cant the halfling hang on inside the bag (maybe it conforms to his shape, as well.. its not described) with his face near the opening, with the straw poking out. As long as the straw is not longer than about two feet, he should have no problem getting enough fresh air. But even this is overly complicated...

Just hold the bag so its slightly OPEN. Air will be free to diffuse, the halfling can hide down in there, no biggy. Or if you keep the bag in your pocket or whatever, the halfling is then free to keep his hand holding on to the edge of the opening, keeping it open, guaranteeing air. And he can keep a damn straw in his pocket, just in case.

HealthKit
2007-02-11, 02:12 PM
Oh for the sake of the gods!´

This thread got so incredibly complicated

Agreed.
People are just arguing for the sake of argument at this point.

Bottle of Air.
Thread over.

Catharsis
2007-02-12, 07:29 AM
Actually, the length of the straw doesn't have to be a problem, you just need two straws in order to avoid the exhaust problem. Then again, if it's long and thin enough, viscous friction bogs down the air flow and you suffocate. ;)

Oh, and if you split water into oxygen and hydrogen, the oxygen is going to be 16/18 of the total weight, not 1/3.

Gamebird
2007-02-12, 12:19 PM
Agreed.
People are just arguing for the sake of argument at this point.

Arguing? Gods no! That's comedy gold! Schroedinger's Box, trebuchets, undead halflings, disguised halflings on your head, suffocation for no obvious reason - that's awesome! Made me giggle until tears came out.

DisgruntledFrog
2007-02-13, 12:34 AM
What you need is a 5 foot cubed sealable box. Cast reduce person on the halfling to get him down to 1/8th scale and seal him in box. Put the box in the bag of holding (you'll need type III). The SRD rules for slow suffication (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#suffocation) say a medium creature can last 6 hours in a sealed 10 foot cubed chamber and that smaller creatures use less air. So since he's a 1/8th scale halfling in a 1/8th scale 10 foot cubed box he should last at least 6 hours like that, longer even. The limiting factor is really the reduce person so you might want to toss in a wand or some potions before you seal the box :)

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-02-13, 12:43 AM
The RAW doesn't mention that the process of drowning can be interrupted though. You can stop holding your breath, but by the RAW once you start drowning you are death in 3 rounds no matter that.

Oh man oh man, I am so drowning myself immediately. Become death incarnate for filling your lungs with water? Hell yes!

And there is your literal reading of a simple grammatical mistake for this evening.

SpiderBrigade
2007-02-13, 11:04 AM
What you need is a 5 foot cubed sealable box. Cast reduce person on the halfling to get him down to 1/8th scale and seal him in box. Put the box in the bag of holding (you'll need type III). The SRD rules for slow suffication (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#suffocation) say a medium creature can last 6 hours in a sealed 10 foot cubed chamber and that smaller creatures use less air. So since he's a 1/8th scale halfling in a 1/8th scale 10 foot cubed box he should last at least 6 hours like that, longer even. The limiting factor is really the reduce person so you might want to toss in a wand or some potions before you seal the box :)
And if anybody demands to see what you're carrying, you claim he's some sort of collectible figurine! Yes! Still in the original packaging, worth more than 500 GP to a collector...

Quincunx
2007-02-13, 11:04 AM
Damage him down to 1 Con point (I'll leave this part up to you). Then throw him into the bag with a magic trap that shoots Con poison needles at random. Program the trap so that the Halfling has a fifty percent chance of surviving. Now, so long as he is not observed, he is in a quantum superposition of both states, simultaneously alive and dead. As such, he cannot suffocate, being already dead. Once you open the bag, the waveform collapses, and there is a fifty percent chance that he will be perfectly healthy, albeit in desperate need of a Wand of Lesser Restoration. Of course, there's also a fifty percent chance that he'll be dead, but that's the risk.

Mewthario has just transmuted all of the physics-slain catgirls into Schroedinger's Catgirls. This disturbs me.

Leon
2007-02-14, 12:06 AM
Must we drag real physics into a magical/fantasy setting? :smallsigh:

The population of cat girls has to be kept in check somehow

mikeejimbo
2007-02-14, 12:21 AM
Isn't there an Ioun stone that gives air, somehow?

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-02-14, 12:45 AM
He could always have an enemy NPC pierce the bag on accident :D

Neek
2007-02-14, 12:57 AM
Damage him down to 1 Con point (I'll leave this part up to you). Then throw him into the bag with a magic trap that shoots Con poison needles at random. Program the trap so that the Halfling has a fifty percent chance of surviving. Now, so long as he is not observed, he is in a quantum superposition of both states, simultaneously alive and dead. As such, he cannot suffocate, being already dead. Once you open the bag, the waveform collapses, and there is a fifty percent chance that he will be perfectly healthy, albeit in desperate need of a Wand of Lesser Restoration. Of course, there's also a fifty percent chance that he'll be dead, but that's the risk.

Shroedingers Catgirl expirement ftw.

Perhaps the easiest solution is not use a magical bag? Or get him in as part of the catering crew.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-02-14, 01:00 AM
My tactic for transporting criminals (as a DM) is to throw them into a portable hole with a bottle of air open at full blast.

Catharsis
2007-02-14, 06:25 AM
Does a bottle of air somehow involve extradimensional space? If it does, putting it into a Bag of Holding is a Bad Idea(tm).

Quietus
2007-02-14, 06:27 AM
No, it just continually creates more air within the bottle. Anyone else find it odd that a Bottle of Air's required spell is Water Breathing?

Neo
2007-02-14, 06:41 AM
Isn't there an Ioun stone that gives air, somehow?

The Irridescent Ioun stone lest you survive without air, just it needs 1-3 feet of spinny space.

Jayabalard
2007-02-14, 08:54 AM
Let the catgirl massacre begin.

Well ... water is denser than air. I'd suspect that water breathing somehow works by getting it to separate the oxygen out of the water, delivering it to the spell target in breathable form. So theoretically, you could get slightly more time out of breathing water, than breathing air. (Granted, you'd still have to exhale, and the oxygen in the water - and thus the water - would be used up eventually). Air density is usually 1.2 kg/m^3, and water density is 1000 kg/m^3. So you could get 833.333... times more oxygen out of an equal volume of water. Given a constant rate of breathing, that would mean you could get 8,333.333... minutes of breathing from the space inside of a Bag of Holding. The exhaled gas would be pure hydrogen, which would form near the top of the bag; it would be extremely volatile. EDIT: Oh, I didnt' even figure in the fact that only around 20% of air is oxygen. The total time would likely be even more.Since we're killing some catgirls anyway...

It seems more likely that water breathing just lets you get oxygen from the water like an aquatic creature does; that just means that you can separate out the oxygen that is dissolved in the water (not by splitting the H2O into H2 and O)

dissolved oxygen in nature varies by temperature (because at higher temperatures fish use more of it due to their metabolic rate). See http://www.lenntech.com/why_the_oxygen_dissolved_is_important.htm

Assuming fairly warm water (since you don't want to freeze anyone) go with ~10mg/liter of water, or .01kg/m^3 ( 1 mg/liter = .001kg/m^3)

The mass of oxygen in air is 0.276 kg/m^3 (~23% * 1.2kg/m^3 http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-composition-d_212.html)

So water actually holds quite a bit less breathable oxygen for water breathing than the same volume of air does.

DaMullet
2007-02-14, 09:01 AM
What you guys are forgetting is, DnD doesn't work that way. It says,
"The transmuted creatures can breathe water freely. Divide the duration evenly among all the creatures you touch. The spell does not make creatures unable to breathe air."
Nowhere does it say "the transmuted creatures separate dissolved oxygen from the water." It says you can "breathe water freely." Thus, I assume it means it changes your lungs to be able to accept water in place of air if need be. were I DMing this little shenanigan, I'd give them more time, not less, for this clever solution.

Neo
2007-02-14, 09:05 AM
yeah, but the beauty of the D&D rules is they don't say it doesn't work that way :D

DaMullet
2007-02-14, 10:01 AM
Neo, you're the kind of guy who reads the description for "dead" and assumes that because it doesn't specifically disallow getting up and flying away, you can do it once you die.

headwarpage
2007-02-14, 10:13 AM
You can also only get ~4 cubic feet of water into a Type I bag of holding before you hit the weight limit. Leaving 26 cubic feet of air. It's not like he'd be swimming in a whole bag full of water.

Besides, D&D doesn't work that way, either. The bag of holding description give creatures in the bag 10 minutes, after which they suffocate, whether they're breathing air or water.

Jayabalard
2007-02-14, 10:54 AM
What you guys are forgetting is, DnD doesn't work that way. It says,
"The transmuted creatures can breathe water freely. Divide the duration evenly among all the creatures you touch. The spell does not make creatures unable to breathe air."
Nowhere does it say "the transmuted creatures separate dissolved oxygen from the water." It says you can "breathe water freely." Thus, I assume it means it changes your lungs to be able to accept water in place of air if need be. were I DMing this little shenanigan, I'd give them more time, not less, for this clever solution./shrug whereas I'd rule that it would make them no difference, since I don't think that it's a clever idea.

DaMullet
2007-02-14, 11:49 AM
perfectly acceptable as well, Jayabalard. I have very low expectations of my PCs, so anything this clever would astound me coming from them.

Neek
2007-02-14, 01:34 PM
Nowhere does it say "the transmuted creatures separate dissolved oxygen from the water." It says you can "breathe water freely." Thus, I assume it means it changes your lungs to be able to accept water in place of air if need be. were I DMing this little shenanigan, I'd give them more time, not less, for this clever solution.

How do creatures breath water, praytell? Last I checked, gills are used to filger dissolved oxygen out of a water-heavy atmosphere. Likewise, our lungs work in a similar property. We don't breath air, about 73% in every breath of air is useless--our lungs filter out the dissolved oxygen that's in the nitrogen-rich atmosphere. Though the mechanic isn't cited for either of these in the RAW, this does not give us grounds for dubious interpretation.

However, your intuition that, "This is a clever idea, so it will work" is a good one. Ultimately, rule lawyering and chemistry science aside (and some quantum physics, which is an awesome way to go, btw), how you make the call is how you make the call.

Jayabalard
2007-02-14, 02:24 PM
perfectly acceptable as well, Jayabalard. I have very low expectations of my PCs, so anything this clever would astound me coming from them.Ouch.

Ok, I agree, if you've got a group of PCs that need a kick in the pants to start thinking creatively, then it wouldn't be inappropriate to give them a little reward for coming up with this.

Catharsis
2007-02-14, 02:33 PM
How do creatures breath water, praytell? Last I checked, gills are used to filger dissolved oxygen out of a water-heavy atmosphere.
Since we're rule-lawyering... an atmosphere is by definition gaseous, so liquid water doesn't qualify. Fish would have a hard time breathing in steam, water-heavy though it is.