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View Full Version : Extra-dimensional spaces. Mechanics question



Laesin
2007-03-22, 08:01 AM
Having just read the desc ription for rope trick a note at the bottom mentions that it is hazardous to nest extra-dimensional spaces. However the only specific examples given of this anywhere i can find are the two permutations of bag of holding/portable hole. Does anyone have an idea of how to adjudicate other situations, such as
Bag of holding/Bag of holding Bag of holding/Rope trick Portable hole/Portable hole Portable hole/Rope trick Magnificent mansion/Bag Magnificent Mansion/Hole Magnificent mansion/Rope Trick

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-03-22, 08:06 AM
Unless a "hazard" is explicitly mentioned, it's safe to bring a particular space into another. This includes sticking a bag of holding into another bag of holding.

See also: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20051101a

Laesin
2007-03-22, 08:11 AM
Yes but my point is a hazard is specifically mentioned in the first extra-dimensional space spell description it is just unquantified as to what the hazard is. Also the wording of the note implies that it is always hazardous to nest ed spaces.

Plus can you imagine the cheese possible if you can store bags of holding in bags of holding. I for one would be filling a bag of holding I with as many Bag of holding IVs as I could, to avoid encumbrance issues.

Meat Shield
2007-03-22, 08:23 AM
Follow up question: can you scry on an object in a bag oh holding or similar item?

ZekeArgo
2007-03-22, 08:25 AM
Yes but my point is a hazard is specifically mentioned in the first extra-dimensional space spell description it is just unquantified as to what the hazard is. Also the wording of the note implies that it is always hazardous to nest ed spaces.

Plus can you imagine the cheese possible if you can store bags of holding in bags of holding. I for one would be filling a bag of holding I with as many Bag of holding IVs as I could, to avoid encumbrance issues.

*shrug* Encumberance is generally not that much of an issue really. I mean who is it hurting if you can cart around 5000 lbs of stuff. The stuff has to be there to be carted around anyway, doing it an easier way just breaks up the tedium.

Otherwise "hazards" are DM Fiat

silvermesh
2007-03-22, 08:38 AM
*shrug* Encumberance is generally not that much of an issue really. I mean who is it hurting if you can cart around 5000 lbs of stuff. The stuff has to be there to be carted around anyway, doing it an easier way just breaks up the tedium.

Otherwise "hazards" are DM Fiat

You've not had the kinds of players that abuse this sort of thing...
I've had players that try to loot everything in sight, including stupid decor like broken furniture mentioned in flavor texts. This behavior is only encouraged by giving players this kind of access to high carrying capacity. I've always liked the idea of putting a massive golden statue in a dungeon that the PCs can't hope to remove in one piece by themselves. with the right thinkers involved, they just might be able to pull it off and get a pretty good reward. To me, not every challenge should be about monsters and traps.

Hunter_Rose
2007-03-22, 09:19 AM
The way this was always delt with in second edition was that once an extra-dimensional space came in contact with another extradimensional space there was an explosive result as the magics that held the item together discharged. Bag of holding into another bag of holding = big boom. Bag of holding into a portable hole is a bit different, I think that is the way you make a black ball (sphere of anihilation) which is a very nasty thing to deal with. I don't think this information has be updated to 3.5 yet.

Since the 2 edition's explanation for a bag of holding is that a demi-plane is created on the (astral?/etherial?) plane the contents of the bag are not destroyed, but the player has no way of accessing the contents unless they scour the (astral?/etherial?) plane for their stuff which could take an eternity. It's been a long time since I checked how a portable hole works, but I think it works in a similar way.

Item's of holding abuse. I have had character's that have placed entire castles in bags of holding. Characters that have held every type of weapon in the book or every type of equipment. Imagine a wizard/sorcerer one of your players is running that totes around their entire arcane library, along with their alchemical research laboratory, and multiple copies of all their spell books. Imagine a dwarf with 30 ranks in craft armor toting around their entire forge allowing them to knock out 3 suits of master-work full plate for spending money. And once even I somewhat abused an item of holding when I was running a character back in the 80's that used a portable hole to swallow up all of Lloth's treasure after my party took her out in the Demonweb Pits. Items of holding are one of the quickest ways to create a huge game imbalance, and should be given to a party only after careful consideration what their presence is going to allow the party to do.

Attilargh
2007-03-22, 09:51 AM
Out of curiousity, how do people fit all this through the mouth of the Bag? I mean, a castle is usually a lot bigger than the diameter of one's average Bag of Holding.

Saph
2007-03-22, 09:57 AM
Having just read the desc ription for rope trick a note at the bottom mentions that it is hazardous to nest extra-dimensional spaces. However the only specific examples given of this anywhere i can find are the two permutations of bag of holding/portable hole. Does anyone have an idea of how to adjudicate other situations, such as:

Basically it's the DM's call. The description says "hazardous" but it doesn't say exactly what "hazardous" means. Best thing to do is do a Knowledge (Arcana) check and ask the DM. The rules also aren't clear on whether an extradimensional space and a nondimensional space are the same thing or not.

The way our DM rules it is that any kind of combination of a rope trick / bag of holding / handy haversack creates a rift to the Astral Plane, scattering all the items into the ether.

- Saph

Hunter_Rose
2007-03-22, 10:06 AM
You shrink the castle and then re-enlarge it. Also you can send the materials in first and then just assemble it in the bag. Hey it's magic if you have a good imagination just about anything is possible. Also there used to be a bag of holding whos mouth would open to any diameter.

This is a response to Attilargh's post.

ZekeArgo
2007-03-22, 10:43 AM
You've not had the kinds of players that abuse this sort of thing...
I've had players that try to loot everything in sight, including stupid decor like broken furniture mentioned in flavor texts. This behavior is only encouraged by giving players this kind of access to high carrying capacity. I've always liked the idea of putting a massive golden statue in a dungeon that the PCs can't hope to remove in one piece by themselves. with the right thinkers involved, they just might be able to pull it off and get a pretty good reward. To me, not every challenge should be about monsters and traps.

Meh, the broken furnature crap will eventually be ignored when you continually tell them that they can't sell/do anything with broken, splintered termite-infested wood and moldy tapestries.

Otherwise let me get this straight... you place a problem in front of your PCs and then complain when they utilize a fairly standard method while within a hugely magical world? You do know that is exactly what those items were put into the game *for* right?

Hell, Keith Baker puts stuff like that right into his books, as seen in The Last War and The Dreaming Dark trilogy, the party artificer keeps no less than 3-4 warforged scouts and a whole bunch of other crap in a Haversack.

So no, players wanting to cart a bunch of stuff around isn't a problem for me.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-03-22, 02:36 PM
Yes but my point is a hazard is specifically mentioned in the first extra-dimensional space spell description it is just unquantified as to what the hazard is. Also the wording of the note implies that it is always hazardous to nest ed spaces.
And blink states that an ethereal creature is incorporeal, which is very much not the case.

Spells should only be considered the primary source of their own effects and nothing more than their own effects. Anything in a spell description that appears to apply to a more general case should be taken with a large grain of salt. Maybe even two or three of 'em. And in most cases they should be ignored anyway.


Plus can you imagine the cheese possible if you can store bags of holding in bags of holding. I for one would be filling a bag of holding I with as many Bag of holding IVs as I could, to avoid encumbrance issues.
By weight, that's four bags of holding type IV...

But then there's also a volume limit. Unfortunately, the rules are worth crap when it comes to calculating volume...

A bag of holding is listed as being 2 ft. by 4ft. So that gives us a base area the bag covers when flattened out on the ground. I'm not particularly sure how this best translates into expanded volume, so we'll just have to take a best guess on what kind of geometric shape we're going with. For the ease of calculation, I'll approximate with a cylinder. Maybe not the best, but it's easy for our purposes. I imagine the bag is taller than it is wide, and the opening is measured along the two-foot dimension.

Now, if I've got it right, that two-foot dimension should equate to half the circumference of the cylinder. Let's translate that into diameter.
d = c / pi
d = 2 * 2 / pi
d = 4 / pi
The radius, of course is half that, or 2 / pi.

The volume of a cylinder is it's length times the area of it's circular base (which is pi * r2).
V = l * pi * 2
V = 4 * pi * (2 / pi )2
V = 16 / pi
So our bag's volume, when fully expanded, is around 16 / pi, which approximates to around 5 cubic feet. That goes into the smaller bag's 30 cubic foot capacity six times. That means the weight is a greater limiting factor, and we can hold no more than four bags of holding type IV into one bag of holding type I

So what does that cost us? 2,500 gp * 1 bag type I + 10,000 gp * 4 bags type IV == 42,500 gp. In a campaign that follows the wealth by level guidelines, you'd have to be at least 10th level to afford the bags. Even then, you won't have much worthwhile stuff with which to fill them.


You've not had the kinds of players that abuse this sort of thing...
I've had players that try to loot everything in sight, including stupid decor like broken furniture mentioned in flavor texts. This behavior is only encouraged by giving players this kind of access to high carrying capacity. I've always liked the idea of putting a massive golden statue in a dungeon that the PCs can't hope to remove in one piece by themselves. with the right thinkers involved, they just might be able to pull it off and get a pretty good reward. To me, not every challenge should be about monsters and traps.
Don't forget the bags have a volume limit as well as a weight limit
If my above calculations are accurate, the bag's opening has a diameter in the neighborhood of 1 foot 3 inches. Not a whole lot of massive stuff can really fit in there.
Massive statues and the like tend to be worth more if kept in one piece.