Is Heward's Handy Haversack underpriced?

[Crake]

This particular example is better than the haversack (albeit at a lower capacity) but costs 5.5 times as much! The only difference is the familiar ability, which frankly helps only a small percentage of characters.

What I got from all this is that storage items are wildly inconsistent in pricing. It does feel like 5k is a better price point for the haversack considering the significance of not having to search through the item and being able to avoid attacks of opportunity.

If you go by the item guidelines, an item that was nothing but a familiar pocket would cost 2*3*2000gp, or 12,000gp on it's own, so it's hard to really reverse engineer how much the belt would cost on it's own without that functionality.

[icefractal]

While I like the idea of the faster access time, in practice it's pretty rare to ever be retrieving something in combat. Even when I played an alchemist-type, and had a whole selection of alchemical stuff to throw, it became very niche after the first few levels, and usually even if I was using it I'd take it out in advance so my Unseen Servant could hand it to me as needed.

The low weight is nice though, and sometimes it's logistically difficult to use a Portable Hole (no flat surface to spread it out, for example, or trying to retrieve something while moving), so I find a HHH+PH (or Enveloping Pit) combo to be a good mix once it's affordable.

[Elkad]

As someone who has trained for backpacking and backpacked for weeks, I can tell you that 120 pounds is a very heavy pack!

As someone who carried a pack in the Airborne Infantry, that's about the average load for an approach march.

A 2017 Government Accountability Office report identified Marine loads of 90 to 159 pounds, with an average of 117 pounds, and Army loads of 96 to 140 pounds, with an average of 119 pounds.

I was an assistant machine gunner for a few months, then a machine gunner the rest of my 4 years, which put me on the upper end of that. And at 5'11" and 142lbs, it was literally my own body weight. With maybe a 13str.
On the way to the plane with 50lbs of parachute and reserve on top of that, I was in the 'stagger at 5'/rnd' category on flat asphalt, and be physically incapable of walking up the ramp into the back of the plane unassisted.

the idea you would actually try and fight with a 120lb pack on your back is a glaring inaccuracy if you are even going for any sort of realism. even trying to fight with 40lb in a pack on your back is going to dramatically reduce your capability. but in the end it is a game so there is always some handwaving with things.

You drop your pack when you roll initiative - for the movement speed if nothing else. And yes, that occasionally leads to shenanigans where someone tries to make off with it, or you need something in it and you left it 180' thataway.

IRL, Army packs have quick releases on the shoulder straps. And you never use the kidney belt, just let the pad ride on your web belt as a substitute. Pull 2 tabs and your pack is gone.

See here for more.
https://www.cnas.org/publications/re...s-heavy-load-1

[Darg]

After reading this thread I have to ask, does any one know what a bag of holding looks like and how it is held?

Bag of Holding: This appears to be a common cloth sack about 2 feet by 4 feet in size.

A cloth sack. 2 feet wide by 4 feet deep. It would have a simple draw string, not straps to wear. At all times you would be holding it with a hand, probably swung over the shoulder like Santa's bag of holding. I don't know about anyone else, but I would rather not have to drop the bag every time I have to fight. Haversack is the superior item for combat access hands down.

The smart thing is to combine them like you can in 3.5, at least as far as I am aware. Carry the haversack, put a bag of holding in the large space so you can leave the smaller spaces for quick access things like potions or some such and pull out the BoH for when you need a mule.

[Elkad]

After reading this thread I have to ask, does any one know what a bag of holding looks like and how it is held?

image search a US Military laundry bag - that's what I picture.

Or a 100lb sack of beans, minus the beans. You don't get a drawstring that way, you just twist up the top.

[Crake]

After reading this thread I have to ask, does any one know what a bag of holding looks like and how it is held?



A cloth sack. 2 feet wide by 4 feet deep. It would have a simple draw string, not straps to wear. At all times you would be holding it with a hand, probably swung over the shoulder like Santa's bag of holding. I don't know about anyone else, but I would rather not have to drop the bag every time I have to fight. Haversack is the superior item for combat access hands down.

The smart thing is to combine them like you can in 3.5, at least as far as I am aware. Carry the haversack, put a bag of holding in the large space so you can leave the smaller spaces for quick access things like potions or some such and pull out the BoH for when you need a mule.

I usually put my bag of holding inside a mundane backpack.

[Telonius]

Personally I issue one haversack to each adventurer at level 1, for free, not counting against WBL. Encumbrance for every fiddly little thing is annoying to track, and it slows down the game. ("Okay, who has room to carry anything? Fighter's already carrying 300 pounds of gear... wait, which of that stuff is yours?") Not tracking it at all wrecks suspension of disbelief. Giving everybody a semi-plausible magical hammerspace (at least for basic stuff) is the best compromise I can think of.

So, no, not overpriced at 2000gp.

[Vaern]

math

Can I get some numbers on the enveloping pit while you're at it, just for the sake of curiosity? Granted, it's intended to be used as a portable pitfall trap rather than as a means of storage, but it is described as functioning as a larger, cheaper portable hole and could be used for storage as such if so desired.

At all times you would be holding it with a hand

That's why it's called a Bag of Holding.
Since it's described as a sack I've always just imagined it as looking like a burlap potato sack. No reason you couldn't stash it inside of a regular backpack or something, though, aside from the fact that they get particularly heavy as you get to higher tiers of bags.

Is the Handy Haversack underpriced? No, not really.
It costs 4/5 what a Bag of Holding I does for roughly 1/3 the effect in regards to volume and at 1/3 the carry weight. It is comparatively more expensive for what it does, but the extra little benefits it carries just make it much more convenient.
It's essentially like paying $0.75 for a 12-oz can of Mtn Dew to crack open in the car on the way home from the grocery store, even though the 2-litres are on sale for $0.99 a few aisles away from the checkout. The 2-litre is an objectively better deal in terms of cost over volume, but the 12-oz is much easier to carry and handle - especially on the go.
There's still plenty of reason to get a regular bag of holding, of course. Every once in a while you encounter that odd creature who drops, say, 11,000 copper pieces. As you get up to higher levels you can also expect enemies to start dropping larger and larger amounts of art and magic items that you don't necessarily need or want. The haversack is good to have for stuff that you actually need to have on you when adventuring; the bag of holding is useful for bulk storage of stuff that you don't necessarily need, but is valuable enough that you can't reasonably leave it behind. It's essentially a portable storage unit that can be used to carry around your old junk until it's convenient to get rid of it.

[liquidformat]

Can I get some numbers on the enveloping pit while you're at it, just for the sake of curiosity? Granted, it's intended to be used as a portable pitfall trap rather than as a means of storage, but it is described as functioning as a larger, cheaper portable hole and could be used for storage as such if so desired.

Enveloping Pit: So from my reading the pit is a 10'/10'/50' pit, and those numbers are used in my calcs.

Item	Item Weight	Content Weight	Content Volume	Market Price(gp)	Storage Cost	Storage Mass	Note
EP	-	-	5,000c.ft.	3,600	-(1.389)	-	NA

All considering I think it is way underpriced, it is a portable hole but functionally much better (by a factor of ~10) for less than half the price. I don't quite understand the alignment comments. If it were something like only some one with lawful evil, lawful neutral, or neutral evil are capable of activating an enveloping pit sure it would make sense but as written I don't see a meaningful difference in its functionality if you aren't lawful evil, lawful neutral, or neutral evil...

[Vaern]

Enveloping Pit: So from my reading the pit is a 10'/10'/50' pit, and those numbers are used in my calcs.

Item	Item Weight	Content Weight	Content Volume	Market Price(gp)	Storage Cost	Storage Mass	Note
EP	-	-	5,000c.ft.	3,600	-(1.389)	-	NA

All considering I think it is way underpriced, it is a portable hole but functionally much better (by a factor of ~10) for less than half the price. I don't quite understand the alignment comments. If it were something like only some one with lawful evil, lawful neutral, or neutral evil are capable of activating an enveloping pit sure it would make sense but as written I don't see a meaningful difference in its functionality if you aren't lawful evil, lawful neutral, or neutral evil...

The price difference is a bit more ridiculous... Everything I'm seeing on the Portable Hole shows it as being 20k - DMG, SRD, and PFSRD - but your table only have it listed at half that. The enveloping pit is closer to 1/6 the portable hole's cost, rather than just being less than half the price.

It does say that it functions as a larger portable hole for someone with those particular alignments, so presumably it doesn't function at all for someone who is chaotic, good, or true neutral (unless they have UMD). They also need to worship Kurtulmak and have a divine connection to use the bonus ability to make it spring open from a distance. While there is no race restriction, the deity and alignment requirements are basically tailor-made to ensure that particularly devoted kobolds are the only ones who are going to be using the item to its full potential (though it can still be immensely useful to any lawful, evil, or lawful evil character in general without that bonus ability).
Aside from the restrictions on its abilities, I'm sure a large part of the price difference is the intent of the item even if the two are functionally similar. A portable hole is meant to be used as storage, while the enveloping pit is written to be used as a trap. It would actually be somewhat impractical to use a 50-foot pit just for storage, especially for a non-caster. You could reasonably hop into a 10-foot-deep portable hole and expect to be able to pull yourself out without too much trouble, but for a 50-foot enveloping pit you'd pretty much have to have spider climb or fly readily available at any time you wanted to retrieve something to ensure you don't injure yourself or end up trapped in the pit yourself.

[Troacctid]

It would actually be somewhat impractical to use a 50-foot pit just for storage, especially for a non-caster. You could reasonably hop into a 10-foot-deep portable hole and expect to be able to pull yourself out without too much trouble, but for a 50-foot enveloping pit you'd pretty much have to have spider climb or fly readily available at any time you wanted to retrieve something to ensure you don't injure yourself or end up trapped in the pit yourself.

That's why you put it on a vertical surface. Now it's a 50-foot hallway.

[Darg]

No reason you couldn't stash it inside of a regular backpack or something, though, aside from the fact that they get particularly heavy as you get to higher tiers of bags.

2x4 ft is quite large to fit in a normal backpack. It's taller than some dwarves and almost as tall as some humans.

[Vaern]

2x4 ft is quite large to fit in a normal backpack. It's taller than some dwarves and almost as tall as some humans.

There's nothing saying that the bag has any bulk as though there was anything inside it, and since the storage space is extradimensional it would make sense for the item itself to appear and act as though it were empty. I'd guess you could fold it up like an ordinary empty sack made from weirdly heavy fabric. But I suppose that's a DM call.

That's why you put it on a vertical surface. Now it's a 50-foot hallway.

Fair enough, though it's arguable if it would work with the enveloping pit. It says that the opening stops if it hits a wall or similar obstruction, and makes mention of the opening being as small as 1 foot in diameter when folded and placed on the ground. The portable hole doesn't have anything of the sort in the description, though the enveloping pit has some context in its description to indicate that it's meant to be opened on a horizontal surface.

[vasilidor]

a great many magic items are overpriced in the game already. the handy haversack is not among them.

[liquidformat]

The price difference is a bit more ridiculous... Everything I'm seeing on the Portable Hole shows it as being 20k - DMG, SRD, and PFSRD - but your table only have it listed at half that. The enveloping pit is closer to 1/6 the portable hole's cost, rather than just being less than half the price.

right you are I must have put in the crafting cost when making my table then went from there without rechecking. In that case the the bag of hold 3&4 aren't a horrible price, granted I really hate the bags of holding simply due to their weight...

[Morcleon]

It would actually be somewhat impractical to use a 50-foot pit just for storage, especially for a non-caster. You could reasonably hop into a 10-foot-deep portable hole and expect to be able to pull yourself out without too much trouble, but for a 50-foot enveloping pit you'd pretty much have to have spider climb or fly readily available at any time you wanted to retrieve something to ensure you don't injure yourself or end up trapped in the pit yourself.

You could always install scaffolding on the inside of the pit. I usually go for long poles of wood on each corner, a few floors of wooden planks, and a ladder going all the way up and down. Once you get more money, you can always upgrade the materials.

[yarrowdeathbloo]

A universal truth of games is that inventory management is not gameplay. It's a distraction from gameplay. Just like eating, sleeping, repairing equipment, crafting and gathering, including it in a game only serves to make the game worse. Every game designer who has ever included one of those elements in their games needs to sit in a corner and think about what they've done.

Really, D&D should start in a place where you never need to bother thinking about how much your equipment weighs. The Handy Haversack gets you closer to that place faster. It is undeniably a good.

I would disagree with this view, since craftying,gathering and inventory management are my favorite parts of a lot of games I play.

[liquidformat]

You could always install scaffolding on the inside of the pit. I usually go for long poles of wood on each corner, a few floors of wooden planks, and a ladder going all the way up and down. Once you get more money, you can always upgrade the materials.

I mean by the time you have 10'/10'/50' space creating 5 floors with a 10' ladder going between each doesn't seem unreasonable... A&EG gives a price for local lumber at 1gp-10gp/50lb, Stronghold Builders gives info on making walls, snd there is always the use of spells. Creating walls with wall of stone with wood flooring and supports between would be pretty straightforward and coast effective. Heck if you can do 'horizontal walls' you can use wall of stone to create your flooring too on the cheap...

[Zanos]

I would disagree with this view, since craftying,gathering and inventory management are my favorite parts of a lot of games I play.

I agree, and there are certainly games set up with this in mind. Hell, one of the games I have hundreds of hours on it's a pretty big deal what pocket you decide to put your medical supplies in, because having to root through your backpack in the middle of combat while you're bleeding to get something to stop the bleeding might get you killed. Or grabbing a backup weapon if you get disarmed, or it's not effective against your target. So you need to carefully manage what goes in your backpack(slow), and whats in say, your coat pockets or your belt(relatively fast).

That said, I do not think D&D is one of those types of games. The rules for inventory management are heavily abstracted, and I don't think many people would enjoy having to meticulously write down which scroll they have in which pocket.