Bag of Holding

[finnmckool]

Someone brought up in the Custom Powers what was, essentially, this idea. One of my players wanted a power something like this. I am reticent. I fear that clever players can take such an infinitely useful item like this and turn mortal kind upon it's head with it. Or at least my game. For while it may work swell in the "magic is commonplace" DnD world, I'm not so certain it doesn't have unforseen, possibly game breaking uses in this world.

So let the wild rumpus begin. Can YOU think of game breaking uses for this? Do you think it's a fine idea and I'm just being paranoid (though I can't say you can ever overestimate a player's cleverness). Please discuss!

[luminos]

I have another name for the Bag of Holding.  Its called the Nevernever.  There, problem solved.

[finnmckool]

Well, no, not really. You can't carry with you the door to the spot where you left things. The NeverNever is more like a safety deposit box whose safety is questionable, depending on where you're burrying. But the player and I did work through that option. She wasn't sold on it's safety either, also perhaps owing to her being, to paraprase a Better Than Ezra title, Desperately Wanted, by both Faerie Courts. 

[luminos]

What price are you putting on it, and what abilities are you giving it?

[finnmckool]

Well initial poster who had the idea gave it a -2 and he had some increasing variants and the like, but the upshot remains the same. Being able to carry ridiculous amounts of stuff, or ridiculously sized stuff (my player wanted to have a tiny clutch that she could pull longs swords, axes, and the like out of, which I thought was hilarious), in an "invisible" bag that doesn't count weight the same. One could put arbitrary size/mass restrictions on it I suppose...

[babel2uk]

Sounds like the bag in Mary Poppins.

There's an idea that I seem to remember from a book (not one of Jim Butchers, and I couldn't tell you the title or author), where the main character had a bag or a pocket that he kept pulling things out of that should never have fitted in there in the first place. The way this was accomplished was that they were actually reaching through a wormhole that opened into a crate in a warehouse (or something similar). It limited the amount of stuff that could be stored by virtue of the items still having to be stored in a warehouse, and limited what he could pull out by what was close to the opening of the wormhole. This is largely from a rather hazy memory of the book in question, but maybe that's a possible way of working it without overly tipping game balance. The size of the item is also limited by the size of the bag or pocket it's attached to - i.e you can put a car in the warehouse next to the 'hole', but there's no way you could pull the car through.

[Richard_Chilton]

Another good limitation is the one found in the Ethshar series by Lawrence Watt Evans.  In that series you could fit a military unit's entire supply train into one of those bags but items had to be removed in order - basically a LIFI (last in, first out) system.

For example, if you used it to hold (inserted in this order) your car keys, a water bottle, your wallet, a gun, a sword, a package of cough drops, then you couldn't get access to your wallet without removing the cough drops, sword, then gun.

Richard

[Sanctaphrax]

Not to toot my own horn, but I posted a power very similar to this to the custom powers thread. Combine it with an item of power discount and you're good to go. Assuming, of course, that I did my job correctly. I don't think it should be unbalancing, unless the player is actively trying to break the game. And if a player is actively trying to break the game, then you have worse problems than overly-exploitable powers.

[finnmckool]

Well...not actively. They're players. When up against a wall players get clever. And this will be quite the useful tool for them.

[Sanctaphrax]

I wouldn't worry too much about giving your players the chance to do something awesome and clever when they're up against a wall. It makes for good times.

Now, if you're planning to make hiding or transporting objects a major challenge in your game, don't let them have a bag of holding. But if you aren't, I don't think it will be a problem. A bag of holding won't let your players outshine each other or waltz through tough challenges.

[finnmckool]

Everything that allows your players the chance to defy logic or physics always allows for the possibility for them to make you want to punch them in the eye.

That said, I'm not against cleverness, or Gordian problem solving. I encourage it. But it's when they find an Achilles heal to something important because they used the bag of infinity to bring in something you hadn't counted on, and, spare randomly destroying it (because they never come up with this plan ahead of time, oh on, it's always, "OH WAIT! DON'T I HAVE A THERMONUCLEAR WEAPON IN MY BAG OF 'SUCK-IT, GM!'?") (wow that mix of internal/external punctuation was intense. stop and marvel at it for a moment)there will be little to be done about it when that moment occurs. And then my denouement is ruined. And then I drink until I start raving about story structure, and how badly I hate them all. And then the pointy objects come out.

Hence this little confab ahead of time. What would YOU do with a bag of holding in Dresdenverse, as a player?

[Tbora]

Use it to hold weaponry, items that fulfill common catches (iron buckshot amunition, silver daggers, blessed holy water balloons, etc)., components needed for basic thaumaturgy that can be tagged  for aspect "Ritual Components Assembled" ( chalk, ritual athame, voodoo doll, etc) ,  other taggable items ( like lock pickers set for burglary")

[finnmckool]

Damn. There it is T. That's a good one. Stuff it full of Catches.

[Tbora]

Its what I would do, but I would support it as a GM if they had an appropriate aspect like "Resouceful and Paranoid to the 11th Power"

[MijRai]

I'd run it as a portable portal to the NeverNever, synced to a certain area/object. That area/object being the inside of the bag. Probably need to make at an IoP though.