Building a bag of holding?

[Sailboat]

How would one build a "bag of holding" in 6e?  I don't know how much of the power should be special effect and how much points-based, as I am mostly seeking a way for a magical character to explain carrying a lot of stuff effortlessly.

 

Basically an extra dimensional space through a focus to carry weight and bulk.  Not really sure how to go about it.

[Duke Bushido]

There you go:

 

Extra dimensional,movement with a focus.  You can apply limitations that only things that fit through the opening can be put there.

 

I say "can" because despite what you will eventually hear from someone in the fandom is "must" or "have to."  That will never be one-hundred-percent correct.  The cases of must and have to are very specific (not rare, but specific), and in 6e, they are painstakingly laid out after the description of each and every power, in the lengthy section detailing how each of the most common modifiers affects each particular power.  For instance, under Desolidification you find that if you want to remain noncoporeal and still affect the "normal" world, then you _must_ buy the Advantage "Affects Solid."

 

If you want to give a power to someone else, _and it is not a focus_ (because you can hand a non-personal focus to anyone that you wish to use it), then you _must_ buy Usable by Others.

 

If you want to be able to store an Oldsmobile in your pocket dimension, you can, even if it is a coinpurse of holding.  You are not limited to what you push through the opening of the bag unless you say you are.  If you say you are, you are still mandated to buy limitations that reinforce it.

 

It is encouraged because at that point, you might as well take the cost reduction that such a Limitation brings, but remember: you are _never_ obligated to do it.

 

All that being said, I think there is an official write_up for a Bag of Ludicolrous Capacity (wouldnt want to step on any trademarks.   or some such tjing in one of thw APGs, but I cannot recall which one.

 

Just remember that the guy who wrote that once accompliahed the wxact same thing with a multipower or a VPP is some such that teleported him the weapon he wanted at that instant, so.....

 

First, I am _not_ saying either way is right or wrong.  I am saying "think about the specific wnd results you want," because there will likely,be many ways to achieve it, and there is a good chance that one of them will feel "more correct" for this instance than do any of the others.

 

 

[steriaca]

There is a power in the Advance Player's Guide books which can also do this. It is called Extradimensinal Spaces and, well, proves the old adage of Hero Games: there is more than one way to do something. 

 

If you don't want to get either APG books, you don't have to do so. Like Duke said Extradimensinal Movement can do the job quite well. If you actually want to force something with a will of it's own into it, your going to need Usable By Others (at the Usable Against Others level), but it is usable against things which can't resist going into it without such advantages.

 

To retrieve the item, you can go into and out of the space yourself.  But it might be more useful for Calirsentince to see into this place, and transdimentinal Telekinetic to manipulate objects to the entrance without actually going inside it. Both nonessential supplement powers...which are kinda built into Extradimensinal Spaces power itself. 

 

Another way to do it is to Transform the object into a "super compact size" version of that object and place it into your "coin purse of extremely otherdimential space". The space itself is not actually infinite, but reducing objects to the molecule level makes it seem to be so.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah, the easiest and cleanest way to do it is Extradimensional Space, because it works cleanly and easily without a super complicated build (extra dim works, but it requires a lot of fiddling to get things back out of the bag, etc).

[steriaca]

Object Creation and a VVP works also. Or a big Multipower with all slots Variable Special Effects on all the slots.

 

But we are simply overwhelming you with choices. The simplistic is Extradimensinal Spaces. It does require a new book (full of optional rules which are not necessarily for everyone), but it does what it does cleanly. 

 

It is in the Advance Player's Guide 2 pages 27-28. I highly recommend both books for people who want to do more complex stuff with the Hero System.  Or another way of doing things which might suit you and your campaign better. Much like like I also recommend Hero System Martial Arts (and would recommend adding a stripped down version of the rules of building your own martial arts for Hero System 7th edition). But that is just me.

[Scott Ruggels]

Didn't the Harbinger of Justice do this to store his gun collection? Look at his write up?

[steriaca]

22 minutes ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Didn't the Harbinger of Justice do this to store his gun collection? Look at his write up?

Kinda, but it was just a special effect for his Multipower. 

[Steve]

2 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Didn't the Harbinger of Justice do this to store his gun collection? Look at his write up?

Yeah, the 4th Edition one had a VPP.

[Hotspur]

It has been debated a lot but the build I like best is Extra Limbs with added STR, 0 END (only with limbs) - limited item size (must fit through the opening of the bag).  The bag is just special effects really.

[Duke Bushido]

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Just remember that the guy who wrote that once accompliahed the wxact same thing with a multipower or a VPP is some such that teleported him the weapon he wanted at that instant, so.....

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Didn't the Harbinger of Justice do this to store his gun collection? Look at his write up?

 

 

 

Yep. 

 

 

 

 

[DShomshak]

On 4/24/2022 at 11:27 AM, Hotspur said:

It has been debated a lot but the build I like best is Extra Limbs with added STR, 0 END (only with limbs) - limited item size (must fit through the opening of the bag).  The bag is just special effects really.

Beat me to it!

 

Yeah, that's pretty much how I'd do it too, except I wouldn't bother with the Extra Limb. You still have to strap on the bag, or carry the handle, or whatever.

 

Reviewing the Bag of Holding description in the 5e DMG, what does it do? It lets you carry around 500 pounds of stuff, without the exertion and encumbrance of carrying around 500 pounds of stuff. 500 pounds works out to 16 STR, separate from the STR of whoever carries the bag, and 0 END. It's an Inobvious Focus, to represent that people don't see that you're carrying around up to 500 pounds of stuff with no apparent effort. The other restrictions -- everything has to fit through the mouth of the bag, nothing can be more than 4 feet in any dimension, maximum total volume of 64 cubic feet, ripping the bag results in the contents being lost in the Astral Plane -- add up to another Limitation, probably not more than -1/2.

 

(Okay, you might want to remove the "Losing stuff on the Astral Plane" aspect. In a Champions campaign, I can see PCs deciding they're willing to lose their Bag of Holding in order to quickly and easily dispose of the bad guy's suitcase nuke, or the like. If the PCs can make or obtain more Bags of Holding, that would actually be a useful Power for which they'd need to pay points.)

 

The "Extra-Dimensional Space" Power may represent the whole thing most precisely. (And I'd probably insist upon it for a Portable Hole.) But if you don't have the APG books, the essence of a Bag of Holding is just that it makes it easier to carry a lot of stuff. As Hotspur says, the rest is mostly just special effects.

 

Dean Shomshak

[assault]

One thing: if it is just a pretext for the character having access to their powers, it's a special effect. If the character is going to be regularly carrying around stuff that they haven't paid points for, use one of the suggested builds.

[Steve]

Using Extra Limbs for this doesn’t really cut it for me because there is also the size issue to consider, so I’m going to respectfully disagree with Mr. Shomshak and others. Several hundred pounds of stuff is bulky. Stuffing a man-sized statue into a bag that is much bigger on the inside effectively compresses the bulk and greatly lessens carrying issues due to item size. I can carry said statue much more easily up a flight of stairs or through a doorway if it’s in a bag of holding than if it’s strapped to my back.
 

Extra-Dimensional Space just works better for this. Otherwise you get into a weird combination of Extra Limbs and Shrinking to get the same effect.

[Christopher R Taylor]

You can use transform too, but in the end, XD Space just fills a small gap in the system to make it easier and smoother a build.

 

Or, as assault says, its a special effect to a power.

[Duke Bushido]

For the original questor:

 

For what purpose is the bag being built?  Is it specifically to store things that adventurers find along their travels, or is it something they use to retrieve wondrous artifacts that do X, or something else?

 

Depending on the answer, you may not need a bag at all.  

 

Don't think that we won't still help you build one, though.   

 

 

[steriaca]

6 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

For the original questor:

 

For what purpose is the bag being built?  Is it specifically to store things that adventurers find along their travels, or is it something they use to retrieve wondrous artifcats that do X, or something else?

 

Depending on the answer, you may not need a bag at all.  

 

Don't think that we won't still help you build one, though.   

 

 

You forgotten choice number 3: all of the above. 

[unclevlad]

On 4/24/2022 at 12:27 PM, Hotspur said:

It has been debated a lot but the build I like best is Extra Limbs with added STR, 0 END (only with limbs) - limited item size (must fit through the opening of the bag).  The bag is just special effects really.

 

So those extra limbs can be used to punch with?

 

Extra limbs is bad, IMO.  IF you're going this way, then TK or Stretching is better IMO;  fewer interactions.  Stretching is straightforward enough;  just built this:

 

Stretching 1m, Transdimensional (single dimension), Reduced END (0 END).  

 

You can stop there, for all of 2 points.  What you can include or remove from the 'bag' is limited by your STR at this point.  There's no indirect impact;  you're reaching into another dimension only.  The downside is, the space is abstracted completely, and at this point, doesn't really match some of the notions of a bag of holding...max total weight of all objects, maximum object size, that sort of thing.  That's not a big deal, but...as written, nothing says I couldn't stuff a portable safe weighing 1000 pounds (if I have the STR to move it), or a commercial-sized refrigerator that's several cubic feet.  Hero System logic says that the small bag of holding should be cheaper...but that 'bag' is already dirt cheap.

 

Extradimensional Space is better, cleaner, simpler for my money.  The only potential drawbacks:  there's no "small" XD space.  1 cubic meter is the smallest, as it's defined.  Limited Power would be ok;  I'm not crazy about doing it that way, but that's a personal philosophical issue.  There's no associated weight limit;  it's something you could define.  (If you do, then I'd redefine the size factor as a two-way advantage/limitation, which impacts weight capacity too.)

[Duke Bushido]

6 hours ago, unclevlad said:

nothing says I couldn't stuff a portable safe weighing 1000 pounds

 

 

 

You, Sir, and I, Sir, have very different understandings of the word "portable."

 

 

everything else checks out, though.

 

 

 

[unclevlad]

"Portable" as opposed to bolted down, or built in.

https://www.brownsafe.com/estate-safes/model-7228.html

 

 

Besides, a 1000 pound safe isn't a big deal for a 25 STR, altho keeping a good grip might be an issue.  That safe is 29W by 26 deep, and approaching 1200 pounds;  every now and again, writers note this kind of thing as awkward.   

 

$15K.  Such a deal....  Doc Strange probably had 2.

[steriaca]

It all depends on if the original poster has access to Hero System Advance Player's Guide 2, is willing to get the APG books, or not. Yes Extra Dimensional Spaces does what he wants rather equnamicly and well, but if he doesn't have access to the book and doesn't want to have access to the book, us telling him "this is the way to do it" isn't going to help him. The APG books are optional rules after all. He can choose not to use it or decide to use it as he sees fit.

[Hotspur]

On 4/26/2022 at 4:59 AM, Steve said:

Using Extra Limbs for this doesn’t really cut it for me because there is also the size issue to consider, so I’m going to respectfully disagree with Mr. Shomshak and others. Several hundred pounds of stuff is bulky. Stuffing a man-sized statue into a bag that is much bigger on the inside effectively compresses the bulk and greatly lessens carrying issues due to item size. I can carry said statue much more easily up a flight of stairs or through a doorway if it’s in a bag of holding than if it’s strapped to my back.
 

Extra-Dimensional Space just works better for this. Otherwise you get into a weird combination of Extra Limbs and Shrinking to get the same effect.

 

You either get SFX  or you dont! 🙂

 

Seriously, slap on more limitations if you want.  Only to carry stuff, and OAF (bag).  I might not be that generous but the invisible power effects, for me, deal with bulk and other things.

 

Personally, if I said those extra limbs had the SFX of a bag of holding, I would want the player to describe to me how those extra limbs were being used, in the context of being a bag of holding, to punch someone.

 

The bag is a conceit to carry stuff conveniently.

[unclevlad]

A clean definition is always better than one cobbled together from ill-fitting parts.