We had an annoying problem the other night, our gnome magic had gotten dominated by a mindflayer (Age of Worms Chapter 4).
I am playing a monk so I went back to nullify our mage from FRYING us anymore. I grappled her, she tried to Dim Door and failed, then I pinned her, she tried to break free.
On the third round I had a few options none of that great. One to sit on the mage taking myself out of the fight to keep the mage from baking us. My guy is our front line so the party is getting beat on in the mean time.
If I tie her up she could use spells to break free.
So I told the DM the following, "I know she is wearing a handy haversack no her back right? Well I pull it up over her head and stuff her in her bag. Then I tie the bag shut and put it on my back. Can I get a dice roll to do this DM?"
The table went silence. Everybody was starting at me and I could see our DM thinking about it trying to think if there is a rule about it. I said, "I can move her up to half my movement on a successful grapple check, I only fail a grapple on a 1 vs her, so I move her into her bag."
Then the DM started laughing and said ok, make a grapple check, I rolled a 15 on the dice. So he was ok with me stuffing her in her own bag.
The person playing the gnome mage readied an ice storm to blast anything that opens the bag.
Do you think it was legal to stuff a gnome into the bag? How would you have handled it?
The two side pouches each hold 20lbs. The central portion holds up to 80lbs "The large central portion of the pack can contain up to 8 cubic feet or 80 pounds of material. "
Actually, the side pockets hold 2 cubic feet. The central pocket holds 8 cubic feet and/or 80 pounds. There is no sizing for magical items, either.
What you've done is essentially Grapple -> Pin -> Tie Up. I would have made you have three successive grapple checks, and the final check (to stuff the gnome in the sack) would have been a full-round action, since you needed to fetch the item (move) and perform the action (standard).
It's a clever idea and I'd make sure to find some way to justify it in the rules because of that.
Yeah, the haversack is sufficiently spacious to hold a gnome.
The only problem I can see in the process of stuffing her into the sack is that your character didn't yet have control of her sack; it still being secured to your opponent's back. It'd simply require an extra combat manoeuvre check to grab the sack and then, assuming you'd succeeded in maintaining the pin, another check to move her into it.
It's actually a pretty good tactic actually. Being trapped inside an extra-dimensional space (effectively a separate plane) means she couldn't simply dimension door or even teleport out of the sack; she'd need a plane shift or similar magic to escape. She also can't try and cut her way out of the sack or she'd end up rupturing it and being lost forever. Suffocation is also a concern if she's kept inside long enough.
All in all though, it sounds like a fun and feasible resolution to your character's dilemma.
The two side pouches each hold 20lbs. The central portion holds up to 80lbs "The large central portion of the pack can contain up to 8 cubic feet or 80 pounds of material. "
Sorry. I tried to delete the post, but no joy.
A gnome-sized pack could hold a gnome.
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The other problem I would think of in this situation is I'm pretty sure its been determined that a dimensional pocket in a haversack or bag of holding doesn't have any air. Could be ok for just the length of the fight(and might be safer to open if she is passed out first!) but they are less useful for long term storage of (living)gnomes.
A handy haversack is just a specialized bag of holding. The bag of holding says that "If living creatures are placed within the bag, they can survive for up to 10 minutes, after which time they suffocate."
You can have your gnome in the bag for 100 rounds before she has to start making Con checks to hold her breath.
Once combat is over, the mind flayer will probably be dead, so the "dominate" effect will have gone away, or another caster might be able to dispel the enchantment.
Great idea in the heat of battle that does not harm your companion!! I agree with the others, the GM acted properly.
I don’t think it should be impossible or anything, but one roll and the gnome is forcibly closed up in a bag that she was carrying on her back within six seconds – without a spell involved? It seems a bit much.
You’d need to open the bag, stuff her in the bag and close the bag all while grappling her. That’s going to take 3 rounds and 2 grapple checks for you (with -4 for using one hand). She’d get at least 2 rounds of action and maybe a free attempt to break the grapple (with a +4 bonus) since the sack is arguably a ‘hazardous location’. – Though being in the sack is not going to kill her anytime soon, it eventually could and being imprisoned in a conveniently mobile cage is a danger in itself.
In the end, it probably would have played out the same way, but it shouldn’t have been quite so easy for you IMO. With all that said, if everyone’s cool with it, no harm no foul.