Rant: Bags of holding are hampering my suspension of disbelief
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| Whispers of Oak Elvish pouch by Gwillieth / Aelin Laer original image |
The bag of holding is an iconic part of D&D.
It’s really important to parties, because adventurers needs to be able to move a large sum of coins, which can amount to an uncarriable weight.
Assuming a 9g (0.32 oz) for a GP like in the Forgotten Realms, the weight of gold you’d need to carry around to buy a plate mail is around 15 kg of gold (33 pounds)…
The Good bag,
The bag of holding is a very good way to tackle the “apothecary accounting”-syndrom out of the character sheet and the game. Some kind of gameplay will insist on encumbrance and weight, but the less hardcore players will want to not take care of such trivial and boring details.The players will also try to invent and use their magical objects in a non-intended way. This is part of the fun of roleplaying and adds magic to the game, so I'm delighted about such thinking.
The Bad bag,
The problem is not the bag in itself, but the players that want to push the limit always farther, and fill 62 cubic feet of water into storage in the bag, just in case. Soon they’ll build a contraption with automatic water filling the bag, bring that water 100m high, have the water power up a mill, and have another bag fill and repeat. I get it that magic can create an infinite movement that can be harnessed, but is it still a game of adventure?So it’s important to keep in mind the limitations of the bag and to be extremely strict to players abusing the bag. Retrieving stuff from the astral plane can make for exciting adventures anyway…
,And the Ugly bag
My main problem with the bag of holding, is one of coherence.D&D uses a dreamt middle-age as it’s background, with a lot of hierarchical structures borrowed from european feudal times. One aspect that is seldom taken into account (Eberron being the exception here - but Eberron is not medieval anyway), is that magic should normally have an influence on a lot of aspects of society. And it would have an enormous influence on the economy.
Town incomes in the middle ages were massively relying on taxes. Taxing wares at the town entrance was an important part of the financing of the “community” and the reason why wares from far away were so expensive was not only because of their scarcity and the danger that was inherent to move them. Taxes were a big chunk of the price of these wares.
Based on contemporary scientific studies, it’s recommended that horses should not be loaded with greater than 20% of their body weight. So a normal 545-kilogram (1200 pound) horse, then would be best off carrying no more than 109 kg (240 lbs) of tack and rider. A merchant could ride his horse and load it with 16 bags of holding and still be able to travel.
Do you see the need for a cart?
Declaring the wares would be funny too: I’d show my players how the town guards would turn the bags of holding inside out to empty them and then inventorize the content to calculate the taxes.
Smuggling would be on the rise, too. It’s much easier to smuggle wares in, if they are conveniently all fitting in a small bag or two… It does not have to be illegal wares, either. Evading taxation would already be a good deal enough to try to do it. Even bringing flour to a bakery would be interesting (one bag nearly completely full of flour would be around 900 kg / 1980 pounds of flour).
A combination of teleportation circle and bag of holding is a sure way to get rich, as a merchant (but wouldn’t it be a common merchant trick? Would that not mean a lot of transformation to society?).
Conclusion
I really love the bag of holding as a tool for adventurers, and at the same time I hate what the bag does to my suspension of disbelief.One of the reasons for this hate is the fact that the bag of holding is an uncommon magic object. To avoid that the bag has such an influence on society and economics, it needs to be MUCH less available (I actually don’t want it to be banned)
What does it mean for D.R.E.A.D.?
It means that on the continent of Perfu, only a few bags of holdings are known to exist. I would rank up the rarity of the object to very rare (but not legendary) instead of uncommon, and put a price tag around 25.000 Gold to it.The artificer class would not be allowed in this world anyway.
Your thoughts?
Do you have any comment on this rant?Do you know of a particularly good use of the bag of holding, that I missed to refer to?
Did your party use this magical object very creatively and you want to share?
Well that’s what the comment section is for 😉
It's not very grounded in experience, but my feeling is that having bags of holding will push people away from getting things like a horse or cart, just because of how much more convenient it is. But that convenience also separates them from the setting! Maybe it's easier if you don't have to feed and brush your horse and name him and develop an emotional connection, but... well yeah. I like the way you've chosen to handle it, if you're gonna have magic items available for purchase these ones should be way up there.
ReplyDeleteFor my part, I split the bag of holding into two different bags; the bag of carrying which reduces the weight but stretches to the size of whatever is inside, and the bag of containing which reduces the size but not the weight. If players manage to find both, they can even so some magic item jury-rigging for a double-lined bag of holding! I haven't tried it much in play, but to be honest I mostly think people should get horses and carts more.
Two bags is a nice idea...
DeleteOn the de-personalizing aspect of this, I completly agree, and finds it sad.
Our DM in a campaign gave disadvantage on riding checks to the players not able to say the name of their mount within seconds :-D
Cool how you're highlighting the problem of having something like the the bag of holding in the game but not thinking through the implications!
ReplyDeleteOne use my very first party made of the bag of holding (well, cloak of many pockets) was to fill it to. the. brim. with dried fruits and peanuts. SO useful for when two (N)PCs are having a hissy fit and you're just standing there watching the fireworks.
Peanut?
Oo, don't mind if I do!
Still classier than using it as a body bag :-)
DeleteHere's how I use Bags of Holding:
ReplyDelete- They're rare. You can't just walk into town and buy them. You might find 4 during your entire adventuring career, and you're actively searching dangerous places, dark places, the places other people don't search.
- I use slot based inventory, which is significantly easier to count than traditional weight systems, but also more limiting in the amount you can carry. A Bag of Holding adds 10 slots, about the same as what a normal person can hold. While this can be enough to significantly help out an adventurer, it's not quite enough to replace a cart.
I really like your slot-based inventory. Sound very diablo-like (in a good way).
DeleteIs the number of slots a character has "free" dependent on the STR of that character, in your version?
I'd love to read a blog post on that topic !
ho, apparently, you have written apost on that :-D
Deletehttps://lizardsandwizards.blogspot.com/2019/05/slot-based-inventory.html
Yes, I have! That's more or less the system I use currently. It works well.
ReplyDelete