Spell - Place of Holding

[jjordan]

Intended to be an alternative to the Bag of Holding and Portable Hole.

Place of Holding
2nd Level Conjuration
Casting Time: 1 Minute
Range: 1 foot
Components: V, S, M(3ft of gold chain worth 50gp)
Duration: Concentration, up to 5 minutes.
Classes: Any spellcasting
Reciting the correct arcane syllables and tossing your gold chain into the air it forms a vertical, floating circle in front of you. Inside of the floating circle is a silvery, faintly glowing portal visible only to you, creatures with truesight, and the detect magic spell. The opening has a maximum diameter of 1ft. Within the portal is an extradimensional space with dimensions of 10ft by 10ft by 10ft. Time does not exist within the space so objects will remain unchanged. Any living creature put entirely into the space will die instantly. Any object/creature which will not fit into the space will be ejected from the space when the spell ends. The portal will not accept unwilling, living creatures, closing instantly if someone attempts to put such into it.
Anytime someone attempts to retrieve an object from the space roll 1d20. On a 1 the object cannot be found and the caster will have to wait 24 hours until trying to retrieve it again. If the chain is lost or destroyed everything stored within the place of holding is lost, each chain leads to a unique space. If the chain is altered or damaged the caster must make a DC15 Arcana check the first time they reopen the portal to see if they are able to connect to the same space. If they fail the check they are unable to connect to the same space and any items which were stored in the space are lost.

[sandmote]

As a minor point, what happens of the chain is destroyed?

As a major point, I fail to see where this would be preferable to a conversion of the Shrink Item (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shrinkItem.htm) spell. The objects Place of Holding can be used with are far more limited (have to get them into a 1' wide hole) and not everyone can retrieve the item from Place of Holding.

[jjordan]

As a minor point, what happens of the chain is destroyed?
Fixed that, thank you.


As a major point, I fail to see where this would be preferable to a conversion of the Shrink Item (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shrinkItem.htm) spell. The objects Place of Holding can be used with are far more limited (have to get them into a 1' wide hole) and not everyone can retrieve the item from Place of Holding.
Lots to unpack here. In general this isn't intended to compete with other spells. My design philosophy when making homebrew is that underpowered is a feature. I want the standard spells/features/etc to be better choices. So I'm not bothered by this spell not being the preferable choice.
Enlarge/Reduce isn't a better choice in this case because the effect is limited to one minute and it can only be cast on one item at a time. If I made modifications to that spell to allow the effect to last longer and to make it so people other than the caster can end the spell then that would be a significant upgrade. I feel I'd need to make the spell a higher level and impose other restrictions in order to get anywhere close to balance.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I grapple an enemy and place him in the space.

[jjordan]

I grapple an enemy and place him in the space.Go for it. A 3rd level caster with sufficient grappling skill and the ability to shove a resisting creature completely into a 1 foot wide hole in space? You've earned it. :)

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Go for it. A 3rd level caster with sufficient grappling skill and the ability to shove a resisting creature completely into a 1 foot wide hole in space? You've earned it. :)

What - do it myself? What self-respecting 3rd level caster has no meat head party member who's good at grappling? :smallwink:

Anyway, I was just highlighting that having an instant kill built into a low level spell is open to abuse. I'd add that unwilling creatures can make a Dex save each round to escape, and have the place inflict negative energy damage each round - same end result (you can't use the place to hide allies), but without an instant kill cheese. Someone is going to abuse that cheese, so it's best not to put it on the table.

[jjordan]

What - do it myself? What self-respecting 3rd level caster has no meat head party member who's good at grappling? :smallwink:

Anyway, I was just highlighting that having an instant kill built into a low level spell is open to abuse. I'd add that unwilling creatures can make a Dex save each round to escape, and have the place inflict negative energy damage each round - same end result (you can't use the place to hide allies), but without an instant kill cheese. Someone is going to abuse that cheese, so it's best not to put it on the table. Someone will always find a way to abuse the cheese and it will be the responsibility of the DM to shut them down. That said, I've addressed your point. Thank you for that feedback. I don't want the portal to do damage because, again, someone will abuse that cheese, so I've just made it a prohibition.

[sandmote]

Lots to unpack here. In general this isn't intended to compete with other spells. My design philosophy when making homebrew is that underpowered is a feature. I want the standard spells/features/etc to be better choices. So I'm not bothered by this spell not being the preferable choice. I'm not concerned so much with the power as with the number of fiddly bits this spell has. However, a spell needs some niche to be worth casting. For the role of a "carry more stuff" spell I don't see how this is preferable to the other homebrew concept I noted.

I'd maybe simplify the spell to say the poral closes and the spell ends early if you attempt to insert a living creature or an item that will not fit within the remaining space. Otherwise the fact you can quickly get rid of items at minimal cost by casting this spell and then breaking the chain is a concern. You don't even lose the gold, so the new cost is just the forging and spell slot; previously it was two magic items to pull this stunt.


Enlarge/Reduce isn't a better choice in this case because the effect is limited to one minute and it can only be cast on one item at a time. If I made modifications to that spell to allow the effect to last longer and to make it so people other than the caster can end the spell then that would be a significant upgrade. I feel I'd need to make the spell a higher level and impose other restrictions in order to get anywhere close to balance. Enlarge/Reduce is for battlefield use: buff the guy who already has a bunch of attacks, squeeze through small sized cracks, and put up/tear down barriers. Shrink Item would only allow the "tear down barriers part," so I don't see why it would compete in the same niche (unless you want to give it a one minute casting time, disrupting even that).

If you want to look at item storage, the spell provided by the books is Tenser’s Floating Disk. You've added a lot of costs for sort-of indefinite duration compared to Disk, and I don't see what design goal justifies the trade off.

[brian 333]

Leomund's Secset Chest is two levels higher, creates a smaller volume, and costs a lot more for the material components.

To make this a fair spell it needs to be made shorter duration, more expensive, or higher level. I would also propose that any attempt to force a living or animated being into the space, or an object too large to fit, breaks the chain, causing the contents to be scattered across the astral plane and forever lost.

[jjordan]

Leomund's Secset Chest is two levels higher, creates a smaller volume, and costs a lot more for the material components.

To make this a fair spell it needs to be made shorter duration, more expensive, or higher level. I would also propose that any attempt to force a living or animated being into the space, or an object too large to fit, breaks the chain, causing the contents to be scattered across the astral plane and forever lost.

Well, that's a great big bucket of cold water and exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. Thank you. Seriously. I'm going to have to do some editing and it's going to take me a little bit because work and life are very busy at the moment.

[Cicciograna]

I am somewhat puzzled by the effect that this spell has on living creatures. It rejects unwilling living creatures, but accepts willing living creatures and...kills the latter instantly? No ST? What happens to undead, for example?
And then, you mention that time does not flow inside of it: why would then a living creature die? This reminds me of quintessence in its preservative qualities, and IIRC (but I might be wrong) quintessence didn't kill the creatures.