How to handle polymorph/bag of devouring combo?

[suplee215]

So a few encounters ago I gave my players a bag of devouring because they rolled low on trying to find a bag of holding. So one of the wizards in the group decided to take the polymorph spell to abuse with it to transform the creature into a little one and then devour it. THey used this to make short work of 3 hydras. ANd while it is not a big enough issue where I am going to take away the bag, I am thinking of how it can backfire on them and stuff. Ultimately I think making the person who opens it has to roll the str check but that person is a fighter so not that big (he already escaped once) and so is fine with the risk.

[krugaan]

hmmmmm


This bag superficially resembles a bag of holding but is a feeding orifice for a gigantic extradimensional creature. Turning the bag inside out closes the orifice.

The extradimensional creature attached to the bag can sense whatever is placed inside the bag. Animal or vegetable matter placed wholly in the bag is devoured and lost forever. When part of a living creature is placed in the bag, as happens when someone reaches inside it, there is a 50 percent chance that the creature is pulled inside the bag. A creature inside the bag can use its action to try to escape with a successful DC 15 Strength check. Another creature can use its action to reach into the bag to pull a creature out, doing so with a successful DC 20 Strength check (provided it isn't pulled inside the bag first). Any creature that starts its turn inside the bag is devoured, its body destroyed.

Inanimate objects can be stored in the bag, which can hold a cubic foot of such material. However, once each day, the bag swallows any objects inside it and spits them out into another plane of existence. The GM determines the time and plane.
If the bag is pierced or torn, it is destroyed, and anything contained within it is transported to a random location on the Astral Plane.

So, essentially, any creature put inside the bag by force never gets the chance to escape.

However, polymorphed creatures generally revert to their original forms when they drop to 0 hp ... you might just say that the devouring does the same thing, returns them to hydra form, and gives them the chance to escape with the normal DC 15 strength check (doable for a hydra, probably).

[suplee215]

hmmmmm



So, essentially, any creature put inside the bag by force never gets the chance to escape.

However, polymorphed creatures generally revert to their original forms when they drop to 0 hp ... you might just say that the devouring does the same thing, returns them to hydra form, and gives them the chance to escape with the normal DC 15 strength check (doable for a hydra, probably).

maybe although that'll be a retcon to how i been ruling it. I'll keep that in mind though. i also think an entire hydraw unpolymorphing in the bag will probably break it.

[krugaan]

maybe although that'll be a retcon to how i been ruling it. I'll keep that in mind though. i also think an entire hydraw unpolymorphing in the bag will probably break it.

Well, I mean ... how do they know that a creature has been devoured?

You can't really look inside the bag can you?

Also, it's an extradimensional space and it's a magical item. It would be more amusing to have the hydra claw its way out in the middle of a fight with an extradimensional barfing sound

[J-H]

Well, I mean ... how do they know that a creature has been devoured?

You can't really look inside the bag can you?

Also, it's an extradimensional space and it's a magical item. It would be more amusing to have the hydra claw its way out in the middle of a fight with an extradimensional barfing sound

Don't forget, the hydra has had several heads destroyed, and grown back...so it's got more heads now than when they stuffed it in.

But there are not one, but three of them!

This is going to be awesome.

[Yunru]

Part of the "problem" is that you gave them a very rare item for failing a check to acquire an uncommon item.

As for how to handle it: Don't. Or rather, don't treat it any differently from how you'd handle Polymorph.

[Keravath]

Actually, I don't completely understand how the bag is supposed to work.

"The extradimensional creature attached to the bag can sense whatever is placed inside the bag. Animal or vegetable matter placed wholly in the bag is devoured and lost forever. When part of a living creature is placed in the bag, as happens when someone reaches inside it, there is a 50 percent chance that the creature is pulled inside the bag. A creature inside the bag can use its action to try to escape with a successful DC 15 Strength check. Another creature can use its action to reach into the bag to pull a creature out, doing so with a successful DC 20 Strength check (provided it isn't pulled inside the bag first). Any creature that starts its turn inside the bag is devoured, its body destroyed."

"A creature inside the bag can use its action to try to escape "
"Any creature that starts its turn inside the bag is devoured, its body destroyed."

If a creature starts its turn inside the bag .. it is devoured. However, if the creature is devoured at the start of its turn then it doesn't get an action to escape. I don't see any errata on this.

I would probably play this as reading "if any creature ends its turn completely in the bag then it is devoured."

However, the polymorphed creature then has only ONE action to try to escape. In addition, the bag doesn't indicate that they take any damage until the end of the turn so they could try to escape but it would probably be in the form of the polymorphed creature and they only have one attempt.

[KorvinStarmast]

So a few encounters ago I gave my players a bag of devouring because they rolled low on trying to find a bag of holding. So one of the wizards in the group decided to take the polymorph spell to abuse with it to transform the creature into a little one and then devour it. THey used this to make short work of 3 hydras.
Brilliant players.

ANd while it is not a big enough issue where I am going to take away the bag, I am thinking of how it can backfire on them and stuff. Ultimately I think making the person who opens it has to roll the str check but that person is a fighter so not that big (he already escaped once) and so is fine with the risk. Do your monsters never make saving throws?

PS:

Any creature that starts its turn inside the bag is devoured, its body destroyed.
That isn't "goes to zero HP" that is "destroyed" so I don't think that hydra is coming back out. But I can see the ruling going another way ...

[krugaan]

That isn't "goes to zero HP" that is "destroyed" so I don't think that hydra is coming back out. But I can see the ruling going another way ...

It is now officially a bag of hydra heads.

As an action, you may agitate the bag. 1d6 hydra heads emerge and random targets within 10' of the bag, striking for 2d6 wtf damage (the bag holder suffers at least one of these attacks).

[suplee215]

Also just to clear it up the party only used the bag for 1 hydra (it's a big party so 3 were needed to make the fight challenging but beatable). Also at least in the 2 combats it was used both creatures (a giant crocodile and the hydra) failed the wisdom save pretty easily. I'll see if this continues to be an issue especially if this becomes their go to move which is my only concern.

[Rukelnikov]

Actually, I don't completely understand how the bag is supposed to work.

The idea is that, normally, one would be pulled into the bag when trying to reach into it to get something. Thus it would happen during your own turn. As reaching for something in a bag is use an object, you would still have your action, and your party would still get theirs before you are devoured.

It's a very powerful item though. And as noted, it doesn't bring HP to 0, it destroys creatures inside it.

[Kane0]

It is now officially a bag of hydra heads.

As an action, you may agitate the bag. 1d6 hydra heads emerge and random targets within 10' of the bag, striking for 2d6 wtf damage (the bag holder suffers at least one of these attacks).

This. Like a Tentacle Rod, but Hydra bites.

[krugaan]

This. Like a Tentacle Rod, but Hydra bites.

Bag of hydra heads doesn't suffer the same drawbacks that Tentacle Rod does.

Plus, you know ... if you like hydra meat, it's perfect food source.

... I don't know how bags of devouring reproduce, but if enough hydras get stuck into bags of devouring, maybe they'll develop a symbiotic relationship, like ... mitochondria and cells and stuff.

Hydras snag food the bag can't reach, adventurers throw the bag at edibles ... it works out for everyone.

edit: holy crap, and then adventurers start worshipping the bag of hydras!

"Administer the SACKraments!"

[Kane0]

Feed them enough and they might grow a little too big though.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/half-life/images/d/de/Tentacle_pit.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/200?cb=20090603000022&path-prefix=en

[Lord Vukodlak]

So a few encounters ago I gave my players a bag of devouring because they rolled low on trying to find a bag of holding. So one of the wizards in the group decided to take the polymorph spell to abuse with it to transform the creature into a little one and then devour it. THey used this to make short work of 3 hydras. ANd while it is not a big enough issue where I am going to take away the bag, I am thinking of how it can backfire on them and stuff. Ultimately I think making the person who opens it has to roll the str check but that person is a fighter so not that big (he already escaped once) and so is fine with the risk.

The bag decides it doesn't like the taste of transmuted creatures and starts spitting them out, maybe it won't accept an item unless you place it inside. If you risk getting devoured yourself each time you try that trick it will probably dis-wade them.

[TyGuy]

Feed them enough and they might grow a little too big though.

I love this idea! Get that cheese abuse to backfire. What monster can best represent or inspire a metamorphosed bag of devouring?

[loki_ragnarock]

Let them continue exactly as they are.

Which is to say, let them continue feeding an extradimensional predator.

Choose a number of hit dice, say 20 hit dice. Once they feed 20 hit dice worth of monsters to the bag, it gets bigger after their next long rest, leaving behind the molted skin of the previous bag as a strange ectoplasm. Now it's less a bag and more a sack. The DCs to escape or avoid being dragged in all increase by 2, and the dimensions of the things you can fit through the mouth are increased a little bit.

Do this repeatedly, letting it get larger and larger until it's like dragging around a tent.

Theme it like a horror show. Give them a reason to feel nervous about continuing the practice. Or, given that they're PCs, a sense of excitement about finding out what'll happen if they keep on feeding it.

Eventually, let it "hatch" as it turns itself inside out to open a portal large enough for the entire Lovecraftian nightmare to step through.


Or instead, something impossibly, disarmingly cute, like a baby beholder. Or an Owlbear cub dressed as a tiny butler.


It doesn't really matter what it leads to; cute or cataclysm, let your PCs get excited as you build up their now preferred tactic into it's own story beat. The build up is the important bit, and it sounds like they've fed it enough hit die for at least the first size increase.

[krugaan]

Let them continue exactly as they are.

Which is to say, let them continue feeding an extradimensional predator.

Choose a number of hit dice, say 20 hit dice. Once they feed 20 hit dice worth of monsters to the bag, it gets bigger after their next long rest, leaving behind the molted skin of the previous bag as a strange ectoplasm. Now it's less a bag and more a sack. The DCs to escape or avoid being dragged in all increase by 2, and the dimensions of the things you can fit through the mouth are increased a little bit.

Do this repeatedly, letting it get larger and larger until it's like dragging around a tent.

Theme it like a horror show. Give them a reason to feel nervous about continuing the practice. Or, given that they're PCs, a sense of excitement about finding out what'll happen if they keep on feeding it.

Eventually, let it "hatch" as it turns itself inside out to open a portal large enough for the entire Lovecraftian nightmare to step through.


Or instead, something impossibly, disarmingly cute, like a baby beholder. Or an Owlbear cub dressed as a tiny butler.


It doesn't really matter what it leads to; cute or cataclysm, let your PCs get excited as you build up their now preferred tactic into it's own story beat. The build up is the important bit, and it sounds like they've fed it enough hit die for at least the first size increase.

1) Watch Alien.

2) design handbag.

3) Profit.

[Quietus]

If it becomes that big of an issue, then here's the solution :

PC's are wandering through town, intending to sell all the sweet loot they got from feeding dragons to their bag of devouring. As they're wandering through the market, one of them feels a slight tug at their belt, followed by the yelp of a child, and a terrible sucking sound.

Bag of Devouring just ate a very unlucky pickpocket.

Now they're in a crowded marketplace, surrounded by witnesses, a child has just been forcibly pulled into their sweet bag, and they have less than six seconds to get the kid out before the bag finishes consuming them. No matter their moral outlook, nothing good can come of this. If they pull the kid out, they still have to address the fact that they have a dangerous, cursed magic item. If they don't... well. The authorities will be very interested indeed.

Possible follow up to this : Quest to save the pickpocket. PC's have to enter the bag, and it turns out that "destroys" isn't exactly accurate. The inside of the bag is an extradimensional space, certainly, but it's more "gross cave full of things that starved to death" than anything. They are capable of entering the bag, they can even find the pickpocket, as well as their previous bag-victims, and boy are they angry.

If the PCs can solve the issue of multiple angry victims, they now have to find a way to get out of this extradimensional space. Perhaps a simple Plane Shift will do, perhaps their previous victims were working on something, or perhaps the actual creature that is the predator inside the bag has a presence here. Defeating that predator may allow the bag to revert to a regular bag of holding, allowing the PCs to escape with the pickpocket, and reverting the item back to the bag of holding they wanted in the first place.

[Skallewag]

Another way to punish this kind of cheeze is to just rely on what happens when you stuff one "holding" type item into another "holding" type item.

"Placing a bag of holding inside an extradimensional space created by a Handy Haversack, Portable Hole, or similar item instantly destroys both items and opens a gate to the Astral Plane. The gate originates where the one item was placed inside the other. Any creature within 10 feet of the gate is sucked through it to a random location on the Astral Plane. The gate then closes. The gate is one-way only and can't be reopened."

This won't work with something like a hydra obviously, but any enemy intelligent enough to own and carry around a portable hole or something similar will work.
(Also any intelligent recurring villain in a campaign who has witnessed the polymorph trick might come up with the idea of equiping unintelligent minions with some fort of collar with a built in bag of holding to boobytrap to counter this type of shenanigans.) :)

[darknite]

It just appeared to be a Bag of Devouring. It's really a portal to a powerful Hag's treasure room and she's p*ssed that someone is throwing monsters into it when she's trying to collect gold, moldy bread and Pez dispensers there by typical Hag trickery. Have her throw monsters back out of the bag at inopportune times.

[KorvinStarmast]

It is now officially a bag of hydra heads.

As an action, you may agitate the bag. 1d6 hydra heads emerge and random targets within 10' of the bag, striking for 2d6 wtf damage (the bag holder suffers at least one of these attacks). Rule of Fun for the Win! :smallsmile:

[Imbalance]

This thread is pure gold. Initially, I was going to quote things out of context for my own amusement, but it just kept getting better. And now I want a self-sustaining, extra-dimensional, tent-sized, ravenous sack of hydra devouring in my game.

Assume the hydra always has at least one head sticking out, so it is never fully devoured. But it has regenerated so many heads in triplicate on the other side that it can never escape, and the devourer has an endless supply of hydra heads to consume. Somebody might want to crunch the numbers to see how many eons would pass before either the hydra has the wherewithal to potentially escape or fight the Astral monster, or the Astral monster and its appetite grow to finally wolf the hydraplex in its entirety, at which point it could be a material plane all its own.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Let them continue exactly as they are.

Which is to say, let them continue feeding an extradimensional predator.
This is perfect.

[Telok]

The idea is that, normally, one would be pulled into the bag when trying to reach into it to get something. Thus it would happen during your own turn. As reaching for something in a bag is use an object, you would still have your action, and your party would still get theirs before you are devoured.

This is true if you try to use the bag before you've used your action during the round. It's possible to use your action, decide that you need something from the bag, and get sucked in at the end of your turn. In that case you're back to being destroyed without being allowed to act. Likewise there's the whole "rounds don't exist outside of combat" potential issue where, since timing is an issue so you start combat, either you begin inside the bag or you are surprised and just don't go until after you're inside.

[Rukelnikov]

This is true if you try to use the bag before you've used your action during the round. It's possible to use your action, decide that you need something from the bag, and get sucked in at the end of your turn. In that case you're back to being destroyed without being allowed to act. Likewise there's the whole "rounds don't exist outside of combat" potential issue where, since timing is an issue so you start combat, either you begin inside the bag or you are surprised and just don't go until after you're inside.

Yeah, in that case at least your party can try to do something, but yeah, used properly, its an extremely powerful item.

Rounds outside of combat need to exist to prevent a bunch of inconsistencies (and deifinitely exist RAI), but that's a discussion for another thread.

[Snowbluff]

Have the bag go on a diet.

[suplee215]

Let them continue exactly as they are.

Which is to say, let them continue feeding an extradimensional predator.

Choose a number of hit dice, say 20 hit dice. Once they feed 20 hit dice worth of monsters to the bag, it gets bigger after their next long rest, leaving behind the molted skin of the previous bag as a strange ectoplasm. Now it's less a bag and more a sack. The DCs to escape or avoid being dragged in all increase by 2, and the dimensions of the things you can fit through the mouth are increased a little bit.

Do this repeatedly, letting it get larger and larger until it's like dragging around a tent.

Theme it like a horror show. Give them a reason to feel nervous about continuing the practice. Or, given that they're PCs, a sense of excitement about finding out what'll happen if they keep on feeding it.

Eventually, let it "hatch" as it turns itself inside out to open a portal large enough for the entire Lovecraftian nightmare to step through.


Or instead, something impossibly, disarmingly cute, like a baby beholder. Or an Owlbear cub dressed as a tiny butler.


It doesn't really matter what it leads to; cute or cataclysm, let your PCs get excited as you build up their now preferred tactic into it's own story beat. The build up is the important bit, and it sounds like they've fed it enough hit die for at least the first size increase.

This is a great suggestion and is how I'm going go. Given how my players are I think I'm going have the bag give birth to a level 3 Krasis from the Ravinica book (I need an excuse to use that anyways) once it is fed over a certain amount of hit points. Also will have the creature show up as soon as it is fed, which will probably be right after a rough battle.

[krugaan]

This is a great suggestion and is how I'm going go. Given how my players are I think I'm going have the bag give birth to a level 3 Krasis from the Ravinica book (I need an excuse to use that anyways) once it is fed over a certain amount of hit points. Also will have the creature show up as soon as it is fed, which will probably be right after a rough battle.

or, the bag, when finally full, turns itself inside out, and after a few rounds, forms into a tiny Stitch like character with a ravenous appetite that may or may not attack the party.

Also, when the creature gets hit, there's a 50% chance it vomits up a different random creature it ate at some point in time, which behaves like normally (for a situation like that).

The barfed creature is terrified of Stitch and refuses to attack it, but may attack the party, or just flee for it's life.


example:

"I attack Stitch! ... 20! I crit it!"

"Stitch writhes in pain ... his eyes bulge ... and suddenly, he vomits out a black and white mass. You realize that it's a slime covered killer whale!"

"Wait wat, I thought you said Stitch was a small creature! A killer whale is *huge*!"

"While you stand there stunned, the killer whale thrashes around madly, attacking you! 6 and a 19 ... it hits!"

"What, it gets advantage?"

"You're standing there asking how a small creature could puke out a huge one instead of trying to dodge the huge one."