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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
 Posted - 11 Apr 2018 : 23:34:53
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Poll Question:
From what I can tell, a pocket plane is an entirely different thing from an extradimensional space. One folds space on the Prime Material Plane, so that something can be 'bigger on the inside', whereas the other creates another plane, albeit a small one, and transports the user there.
It therefore seems logical to me that the dramatic interaction between Bag of Holding and Portable Hole would be inappropriate even if an extradimensional space be brought into a pocket plane. At most, it might cause a localised disruption which would affect the character holding the extradimensional space, and it wouldn't be implausible simply to rule that extradimensional spaces could not be opened within a pocket plane or even that they work normally.
After all, some pocket planes are more like small worlds than little extradimensional items and some planar regions probably started as pocket planes. At some point, obviously, an artificially created plane becomes real enough for extradimensional objects to work there.
What is your preference for the result of casting Rope Trick or taking a Bag of Holding, Portable Hole, Girdle of Many Pockets, Heward's Handy Haversack or an Efficient Quiver into the pocket plane brought into being with a Rod of Security?
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Edited by - Icelander on 12 Apr 2018 00:06:58
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
Posted - 12 Apr 2018 : 03:17:38
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It is my opinion that a pocket plane is simply extradimensional space, it's just a larger amount of it. Or perhaps it would be better to say that all extradimensional spaces are pocket planes.
My preferred way for the items to interact is that as long as one stays inactive, it's fine. Take your portable hole into your rope trick hangout and nothing happens, so long as you don't try to open that portable hole. If you open it, though, then you get the "well, that was a bad idea" effect described in the rulebooks.
Though honestly, my spin is just a way to kinda stick with the rules without screwing the PCs over. Because seriously, if one PC has a bag of holding and the party decides to hole up in a rope trick, they should have an option other than leave it outside or take everyone to explore a new plane.
My totally ignore the rules preference would be to say that there is nothing that happens from opening one extradimensional space inside of another. Both spaces are entirely elsewhere, separated from everything else, so why would opening a door to elsewhere from within another elsewhere be an issue? |
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Edited by - Wooly Rupert on 12 Apr 2018 03:25:54 |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11829 Posts |
Posted - 12 Apr 2018 : 12:56:26
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| What Wooly just described is actually my take as well to a degree, but I guess I'm actually leaning more towards the 4th option after thinking on it more, but with a caveat. As long as you don't try to have one interact while within the other, you'd be ok. I'd furthermore add that my preference in MOST magic item creation instances, is that they would likely build in failsafes against this. In essence, you bring a quiver of Ehlonna into your rope trick. Somehow some creature you had entrapped in a gem gets free while in the rope trick. You wake up and want to pull some arrows out of your quiver... uh oh, you can't access the extradimensional space. Only a few specific items might not be "protected" against this type of thing, and in their specific item descriptions there might be a writeup stating about "opening a portable hole while in an extradimensional space is bad".... and this might be tied to the fact that portable holes aren't part of an "object".... its not a bag, its not a quiver, its not a backpack, etc.... so portable holes tend to be this oddity when compared to other similar items, so they may have special rules as a result. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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TBeholder
Great Reader
2428 Posts |
Posted - 12 Apr 2018 : 20:05:41
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An old good bag of holding also gives access to a persistent mini-demiplane. In you want a more literal interpretation of the rod, it should work much the same way.
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Though honestly, my spin is just a way to kinda stick with the rules without screwing the PCs over. Because seriously, if one PC has a bag of holding and the party decides to hole up in a rope trick, they should have an option other than leave it outside or take everyone to explore a new plane.
An "extradimensional interface" itself doesn't go bad if merely deactivated: if a bag of holding is carried through Astral, or hold of holding travels in the Flow, they becomes inert, but will works again in a proper Prime sphere.
I'd therefore apply RAW, but since there's obvious demand, and it's a relatively common type of items, assume the solution exists as a spell and/or item temporarily disabling a given EDI to render it safe. Maybe not even a special spell, just have it affected by Gate Seal (Abj 3) from Planescape, once the caster researched how to set it right for this sort of targets.
Though as an item it would have to be made for the specific subtype of EDI items - some sort of a knot or clasp for soft bags, lock for large hold doors, etc.
As well as the rest of the line - Gate Ward, Warp Sense, etc.
Which also allows extra fun, such as spelljammers discovering (seeing how they don't intersect with planewalkers much) a Warp Sense based detection item that was supposed to detect "portals", but detects holds of holding instead, etc.  |
People never wonder How the world goes round -Helloween
And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense -R.W.Wood
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 12 Apr 2018 : 20:14:00
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quote:
Originally posted by TBeholder
I'd therefore apply RAW, but since there's obvious demand, and it's a relatively common type of items, assume the solution exists as a spell and/or item temporarily disabling a given EDI to render it safe.
The rules as written do not call the pocket plane created by the Rod of Security an extradimensional space or specify any special effect from bringing an extradimensional space into it.
I actually don't care about D&D rules, but I do care about the metaphysics involved. I know that permanent magical demiplanes created by mortal wizards are not considered extradimensional spaces and, at first glace, it would seem that the Rod of Security creates an area that has a lot more in common with such places than it does with a Bag of Holding or a Portable Hole. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 12 Apr 2018 : 20:26:55
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I would have to agree with Icelander. At first I was of a mind that 'its all the same', but I see what he means that the rules imply it isn't the same thing, and thus, should avoid any unpleasantness.
However, even if I stuck to 'its all the same type of thing', I've never used the exploding or any other cosmic badness for such things. They simply don't work. In fact, I had this come up years and years ago, and the way I worked it out is that an exrta-dimensinal space is a 'bump-out' of regular space, and so the items all only function properly within the plane (although now I would say 'dimension') they were made for. You cannot access a 'bump-out' that is in the Prime Material if you happen to be in the Outlands, for example. By the same token, a creature native to the Outlands that has it's Outlands bag-of-Holding would not be able to access it on Toril (although one could surmise 'Greater' versions of everything exist, and a god could give someone a bag that worked anywhere). The normal items simply become non-functional when on a non-native plane. For all intents and purposes, that 'space' simply does not exist where you are.
So, I guess this Rod of Security may be one of these 'greater' items I just theorized - one that creates a mini pocket-plane rather than a 'bump-out' of regular space. Somewhat different ways of accomplishing similar effects - magic is full of that. |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Gyor
Master of Realmslore
1625 Posts |
Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 17:12:53
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| What is the difference between a demiplane and an extra dimensional space? |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 17:18:14
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quote:
Originally posted by Gyor
What is the difference between a demiplane and an extra dimensional space?
Demiplanes are cordoned off spaces of other planes, usually the Ethereal Plane, but possibly others. Extradimensional spaces are unnatural folds in the space-time where they are created and are not necessarily connected to any other plane.
Think of pocket planes an 'elsewhere' which may be accessed through some item or spell, with actual dimensional travel, and extradimensional spaces as magical items which are larger on the inside than outside, through magical spatial manipulation and with no travel involved. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 18:30:38
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Right. Like I said - a 'bump-out' inside regular space, whereas the other is 'somewhere else' (hence my odd rules that those types of items only work within the dimension they were designed for; the 'bump-out' won't exist on those other planes).
The Prime material becomes a bit of an exception, sort-of. The bags, etc., will all work on just about any world/Crystal Sphere (one might argue 'closed' spheres such as the one that contains Athas would be the exceptions, because at that point those spheres have almost become like 'demiplanes' within the Prime). However, when traveling through the Phlogiston (between Crystal Sphere, that is just 'empty space' where the Prime doesn't exist, so the extra-spatial items will also not work there...
Which all comes back to how I picture the Phlogiston and Spelljamming working - you actually leave 'regular space' as you exit the atmosphere and you enter the Border Ethereal, and then when you pass out of a Crystal Sphere, you enter the Ethereal, so you are no longer connected to the Prime Material. The Material Plane(s) is a 'shattered' Plane, consisting of the Prime and the Four major Elemental Planes. The stuff in-between all that is the 'primal soup' (Elemental Maelstrom), which is why you shift into the ethereal to travel to other Spheres. The Phlogiston is just how the Chaos looks from within the Ethereal Plane.
Just my way of looking at things, is all. |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 13 Apr 2018 18:30:58 |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7989 Posts |
Posted - 14 Apr 2018 : 10:36:55
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My understanding is that the "pocket plane" is technically a demiplane floating (somewhere "close") in the Ethereal - basically a tiny piece of the Prime Material which (likely) has basically all the same properties and "laws" of nature/physics/magic (except for having a finite size/boundaries).
A rod of security can only create and sustain this demiplane temporarily. Days or weeks or months are a long time, but they're far from permanent, the item expends its magic. A bag of holding seems to be more like a permanent but tiny (10x10x10') vestibule/antechamber attached to a planar gate. An estate of transference creates a little Prime-like plane from Inner Plane (Elemental) materials, anchored and sustained by a "permanent" magical item. These things are all extraplanar, not extradimensional.
I've never been big on the "plane-inside-a-plane-go-BOOM" rules, they seem to me to be like the (A)D&D version of the same spectacular but stupid stuff you'd see on TV entertainment, there's really no reason for planes-within-planes to be violently unstable when you think of the entire D&D cosmos (Great Wheel, Astral Sea, World Tree, whatever) as being an eternal, complex, and always-moving construct of planes within planes within planes (it's sometimes hard to say which planes are "inside" or "outside" of each given their countless interactions and links and special-case exceptions). So to me a bag of holding placed within another extradimensional container functionally becomes a simple bag of holding for the duration. |
[/Ayrik] |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
Posted - 14 Apr 2018 : 13:12:20
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On a related note, it's always bugged me that the extradimensional stuff in core material is always tied to a container of some sort.
I mean, I do get the connection to containers, but I'm not aware of anything in core D&D material that breaks that mold. (Note: this rod of security does appear to deviate from that rule, but I'm unfamiliar with the item and don't know if it's core material or from something else)
In the Realms, we've got some exceptions, though. There's the work of the Sword Heralds: extradimensional spaces tied to blades, and (unfortunately) only accessible from a single spot. In the Forgotten Realms comic, the character Jasmine had a key that opened an extradimensional space that she used as a basic storage locker -- and she could access that from anywhere.
I'd like to see more extradimensional stuff like that, particularly the latter...
There was a comic book miniseries from Marvel called Slapstick that introduced a character by the same name. He was basically a Looney Tunes-type cartoon character, in the Marvel universe. One of his gloves acts as an extradimensional storage space -- he grabs something, the glove sends it to storage. And he can later retrieve it, causing the item to simply appear in his hand.
Something like that glove would be insanely useful to adventurers, even if the space it was tied to was quite small.
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 14 Apr 2018 : 14:31:01
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
(Note: this rod of security does appear to deviate from that rule, but I'm unfamiliar with the item and don't know if it's core material or from something else)
It was in the 2e Dungeon Master's Guide and Encyclopedia Magica (which cited the DMG as the source and I could not find the Rod of Security in the 1e DMG, which indicates that the 2e DMG listing might have been the original source).
Since then, it has appeared in the 3e Dungeon Master's Guide, the OGL materials and in the 5e Dungeon Master's Guide. I do not have any 4e materials, so I frankly do not know if the item appears in the 4e Dungeon Master's Guide or whatever the equivalent was named in 4e. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 14 Apr 2018 : 18:14:14
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
On a related note, it's always bugged me that the extradimensional stuff in core material is always tied to a container of some sort.
I mean, I do get the connection to containers, but I'm not aware of anything in core D&D material that breaks that mold. (Note: this rod of security does appear to deviate from that rule, but I'm unfamiliar with the item and don't know if it's core material or from something else)
In the Realms, we've got some exceptions, though. There's the work of the Sword Heralds: extradimensional spaces tied to blades, and (unfortunately) only accessible from a single spot. In the Forgotten Realms comic, the character Jasmine had a key that opened an extradimensional space that she used as a basic storage locker -- and she could access that from anywhere.
I'd like to see more extradimensional stuff like that, particularly the latter...
There was a comic book miniseries from Marvel called Slapstick that introduced a character by the same name. He was basically a Looney Tunes-type cartoon character, in the Marvel universe. One of his gloves acts as an extradimensional storage space -- he grabs something, the glove sends it to storage. And he can later retrieve it, causing the item to simply appear in his hand.
Something like that glove would be insanely useful to adventurers, even if the space it was tied to was quite small.
I had a magical ring I 'created'* years and years ago, that allowed a person to switch attire/gear completely. It basically took everything you were wearing/holding and swapped it for whatever was 'in storage' (which could include backpacks full of more stuff). It was pretty damn handy. Thus, you could go to a grand ball in eventing attire, and if a fight broke out (or whatever), you could instantly switch to being fully armed and armored. I created it for a character of mine, and my extremely lenient DM let me have it, beause I was running a Gish.
Now, I'm not normally a 'power gamer', but this was back in the days of 1e, and wizards basically sucked after the 1st ten minutes ("Hey guys... I just used my one and only spell and only have 4 HP - you guys need to protect the hell out of me for the rest of the adventure!"), so back then I always got into the habit of taking a level of fighter first, no matter what I was going to become (I'm not sure how legel that was in 1e RAW, but as I said, my DM allowed lots of things, and we all multi-classed way before 3e made it an essential thing). The big problem was that once I ran out of spells, I needed to don armor so I could properly protect myself, so we made up the backstory that my 'Master' had given me that ring (that he used in his adventuring days).
Legends told of more powerful, artifact-level versions that had a lot more 'sets' you could swap between (I just added this, based on the anime Fairy Tail, which had a character Erza Scarlet who was basically an uber-fighter and could switched between highly-specialized suits of armor and weapons instantly, depending upon what she was up against).
*This was so long ago, I can't actually remember if we created that whole-cloth, or it was based on something. |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
Posted - 22 Apr 2018 : 04:45:11
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So I was randomly thinking on this topic today, and came up with the ring of quick retrieval. It's a ring that's tied to a small extradimensional space, about 48 cubic feet. Once per round, an item held in the hand where the ring is worn can be sent to that extradimensional space. Another item can be retrieved at the same time, appearing in the ring-wearer's hand. Alternatively, an apparently empty-handed person can call forth something from that extradimensional space.
The biggest benefit of this kind of magic item is being able to readily call a single item to hand, at need. The biggest downside of it is that you can only call forth or send away a single object at a time, and you've got to know it's there (or be able to guess). So you've got to keep track of what's in there. And you're not going to be stealing a pile of coins with it, unless you've either got a bag to scoop them up in, or plenty of time to make the coins go away, one at a time.
I think all manner of adventurers would find this handy, though I think rogues and assassins would particularly prize it.
As for history (and this is all still really tentative), I would say this was invented by someone who was inspired by the Sword Heralds.
I based the size of the storage space on my linen closet. My main thing was to make it big enough to hold a sword. Sizing it down a bit may be a good idea; I'm not sure. I'd have to take the time to look at other extradimensional storage, and I'm just too tired, at the moment.
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7989 Posts |
Posted - 22 Apr 2018 : 06:31:21
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The low-level item and deeppockets spells are much overlooked but very useful methods of storing/carrying/retrieving bulky things in small "tokenized" forms or compartments. Wooly's ring of quick retrieval seems functionally similar to a bracelet of charms, although more versatile since it would not be limited to just hand-held weapons/tools.
I can understand items like bags of holding being apparently made from some sort of leather or cloth, so sticking a sharp and pointy object inside could puncture or tear it. These extradimensional containers also have limits on the amount of weight they can contain - filling one with water or sand would cause it to burst before it reaches full capacity. |
[/Ayrik] |
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Rod of Security pocket plane / extradimensionality
