Our adventuring group recently acquired a portable hole so we were having a general discussion of its uses. A question arose:
Could an adventuring group use a portable hole to go through a 10' thick wall? The thought was the group could open the portable hole on the wall, climb inside the hole, close the hole from the inside, then reopen it on the opposite side of the wall, climb out of the hole, and pick up the hole thereby passing through the wall leaving no trace of their passage.
Thoughts?
No. if you close a portable hole from the inside. You can only open it from the same surface it was closed from.
The portable hole is essentially a portable Create Pit spell. Like the spell it does not penetrate surfaces just bends space around them.
The thread is a discussion of possibilities so I am not trying to argue, but I will point out that the description does not ever mention the "same surface" must be used for unfolding the hole.
I personally like creative uses of items that don't directly contradict the rules so I would probably allow this if I was DM and a player character thought it up, but that is just a personal opinion.
For sake of my next question, let's assume you're right and it can only be opened on the "same surface" what happens to the group inside if the "same surface" has been destroyed or buried when they try to open the hole?
If you could use it to walk through walls, imagine what else you could use it for!
Enemies on the rope bridge? Throw the hole down and break the bridge in two.
Lumberjacking? Who needs an axe? Just wrap the hole around the middle.
Heck. Forget trees, throw it over your enemies to dismember them!
The portable hole could act as a tunnel in AD&D days, but starting in 3.0 it became "merely" a very large storage container. Although nothing in the item description says you have to open the hole at the same point you closed it, it's safe to say that if it were allowed to act as a short-cut through 10' thick walls, there would be some mention of that unusual ability in the item description, just as there was in the AD&D version.
I sometimes miss the days when it was more of an ACME Product, meant to confound coyotes, but the new version causes fewer balance problems. "Passwall as often as you want, through any substance" (note that the bag of holding could bypass prismatic wall, wall of force and numerous other barrier-spells this way) has issues.
Ok thanks for the historical info and the insight - I see your point on making the hole into a super passwall spell.
If you could use it to walk through walls, imagine what else you could use it for!
Enemies on the rope bridge? Throw the hole down and break the bridge in two.
Lumberjacking? Who needs an axe? Just wrap the hole around the middle.
Heck. Forget trees, throw it over your enemies to dismember them!
IMO the destructive uses you include above are totally different than the discussion of whether a character can open a portable hole from the inside on a different surface within the area of the hole than it was closed upon.
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The idea of opening the portable hole on the other side of the wall sounds to me a bit like jumping out of something you aren't in.
ARTHUR: What happens now?
BEDEVERE: Well, now, uh, Lancelot, Galahad, and I, uh, wait until nightfall, and then leap out of the rabbit, taking the French, uh, by surprise. Not only by surprise, but totally unarmed!
ARTHUR: Who leaps out?
BEDEVERE: U-- u-- uh, Lancelot, Galahad, and I, uh, leap out of the rabbit, uh, and uh...
ARTHUR: Ohh.
BEDEVERE: Oh. Um, l-- look, i-- i-- if we built this large wooden badger--
I think this is from 3.5 but,
The hole is this circular piece of w/e it is. You put it down, and it opens you a big hole. You close it, and you are left with the circle. You cant go through the wall, because the entrance never moves. Kinda like the magic mansion spell.
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The portable hole could act as a tunnel in AD&D days, but starting in 3.0 it became "merely" a very large storage container. Although nothing in the item description says you have to open the hole at the same point you closed it, it's safe to say that if it were allowed to act as a short-cut through 10' thick walls, there would be some mention of that unusual ability in the item description, just as there was in the AD&D version.
I sometimes miss the days when it was more of an ACME Product, meant to confound coyotes, but the new version causes fewer balance problems. "Passwall as often as you want, through any substance" (note that the bag of holding could bypass prismatic wall, wall of force and numerous other barrier-spells this way) has issues.
I don't know recall the name of the item you are thinking about but the portable hole has always been a extradimensional storage item. never a portable tunnel.
The portable hole open on a extradimensinal space. It don't affect in any way the surface on which it rest.
A portable hole is a circle of cloth spun from the webs of a phase spider interwoven with strands of ether and beams of starlight, resulting in a portable extradimensional space. When opened fully, a portable hole is 6 feet in diameter, but it can be folded up to be as small as a pocket handkerchief. When spread upon any surface, it causes an extradimensional space 10 feet deep to come into being. This hole can be picked up from inside or out by simply taking hold of the edges of the cloth and folding it up. Either way, the entrance disappears, but anything inside the hole remains, traveling with the item.
The portable hole opens exacly at the location of the cloth spun. If someone moves the cloth spun,an eagle famillar for example. It could be used to bypass walls. Or if someone pushes the cloth spun through a very tiny hole.
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There was a portable tunnel (I don't recall its name) and you had Nolzur's pigments that worked as the Lonely tunes pigments, but the portable hole never was a tunnel.
It is possible you are misremembering a different trick: putting someone in the hole and then slipping it under a door or through some small opening and then having the guy in the hole leaving it and opening the door from the other side. As the hole has the thickness of a piece of cloth in this plane it is easy to pass it through a very small opening.
That trick should work even today.