So, what's the point of a Portable Hole?

[Bioboygamer]

So, I looked at the Portable Hole, and for the life of me I can't figure out what it's supposed to be used for. It costs about as much as 8 Type-1 Bags of Holding, and the average GM will just allow players to stuff as much stuff into a Bag of Holding as they want, without regard for the specifications.

So, are Portable Holes just useful for when it'd be easier to just shovel coins into a hole in the ground than to put them in a Bag of Holding? Is it just for instant pit traps? Is it just an item that evil GMs use to screw over players due to the interaction between a Portable Hole and a Bag of Holding? Does it have some other use? What happens if the surface it's placed on is less than 10 feet? does it just open a temporary hole to the other side?

It just seems odd that such a useless item is so expensive relative to the Bag of Holding that serves a similar purpose.

[Ciaran Barnes]

A portable hole has a much larger opening than a bag of holding. For example, you could put a raft into a portable hole, but not into a bag of holding.

[Selgard]

If the average DM is going to ignore the restrictions on the bag of holding then the portable hole probably isn't very useful.

If they are going to actually use the rules presented then the PH can be superior for holding non-combat items because there is no weight limit, just a volume limit.

You have a 6 foot wide 10 foot deep cylinder that you can literally put anything into within those dimensions. You can wall it up, put shelves in it, or whatever organizational tool you prefer (as long as you are sure to come up for air occasionally).

It is a mass storage device, nothing more. Probably fairly useless if your DM is ignoring the restrictions on the bags of holding but otherwise a very nice item for carrying home very nearly anything you find in the dungeon.

-S

[ZanThrax]

Bioboygamer wrote:

average GM will just allow players to stuff as much stuff into a Bag of Holding as they want

I'm not at all sure I accept your premise.

[Eltacolibre]

Portable hole has many ridiculous uses...stuffs like put a golem in the portable hole, have it grapple an enemy, keep him in the hole and close the hole. The enemy will die inside the portable hole without air while your golem is fine.

Basically portable hole is mostly useful for shenanigans, storing stuffs in it is fine but far from being the only use for it.

[BigDTBone]

It's for when your DM doesn't handwave what fits in a bag of holding. They hold about 280 cubic ft of stuff without a weight limit. They also have a bigger mouth than a BOH so larger objects can fit in them *at all*

I had a character who had the inside of a portable hole tricked out into a sweet bedroom/office that he popped a tent on top of when he was out adventuring.

[137ben]

Because if you want to prevent someone from being resurrected, and they can't fit inside a bag of holding, you can put them in a portable hole and then put a bag in. Bam, no body left.

[Bioboygamer]

ZanThrax wrote:

Bioboygamer wrote:

average GM will just allow players to stuff as much stuff into a Bag of Holding as they want

I'm not at all sure I accept your premise.

Most GMs I know don't even pay attention to item weight or carrying capacity, so ignoring the limitations on a Bag of Holding isn't really that big of a deal in comparison. As long as you can justify carrying stuff with "It's in my Bag of Holding", most GMs seem to just handwave away carrying capacity...

I suspect that it has something to do with them not wanting to mess up WBL, since if the players can't actually bring the treasure hoard with them, it doesn't actually do them any good, and the GM can't design the treasure so that they can only carry as much as their WBL, since a player might leave something behind in order to carry more loot.

Long story short, most GMs I've seen just ignore carrying capacity altogether as long as you have some kind of Bag of Holding.

[UnArcaneElection]

Bioboygamer wrote:

{. . .} Is it just an item that evil GMs use to screw over players due to the interaction between a Portable Hole and a Bag of Holding? {. . .}

Actually, this could be put to systematic use by sufficiently devious players (or NPCs . . . muahuahuahuahuahaaaa . . .). Although the very small blast radius sort of hoses this except in corner cases.

Also, as far as I can tell, unlike a Bag of Holding, a Portable Hole has no risk of rupture if sharp objects are placed inside it (or even dropped into it).

BigDTBone wrote:

{. . .}

I had a character who had the inside of a portable hole tricked out into a sweet bedroom/office that he popped a tent on top of when he was out adventuring.

Sounds like a rather cramped bedroom/office even for a Small character. Also, be careful to take off your Handy Haversack or any Bags of Holding before you climb down in . . . .

[Selgard]

The DM's I'm with assume we handle it ourselves, and that if we say its in there then that means its isn't over capacity. It isn't so much an issue (in the groups i'm in) with hand waiving as it is them trusting us to handle that for ourselves. Likewise, they don't track encumbrance but expect us to do it ourselves and to apply the penalties if appropriate. Its really no different than expecting you to check your ACP or penalties for wearing armor or weapons you aren't proficient with. They don't grill us on it, they just expect us to know and use the rules as presented.

If your DM doesn't then that's their business. There is nothing bad/wrong/unfun about it. Every group modifies the game to suit their needs and interests.

But by that same token, you have to expect that when you alter or ignore some rules that some items will become useless. "Ignore Carry Capacity" isn't really a feature of the bag of holding. If your DM treats it as such, then its no wonder more expensive items created for the purpose of actually letting you ignore carry capacity are seen as worthless.

Your group has changed or ignored rules on carry capacity and now wonder what the use of an item is that lets you do so.

-S

[Imbicatus]

Even if you hand wave encumbrance, it's still the most accessible way for a pc to tear open a hole in the fabric of the universe.

[Magda Luckbender]

In the old Beatle's movie Yellow Submarine George Harrison picks up a Portable Hole. This may be where Gary Gygax got the idea for this item. It turns out to be quite useful for shenanigans with a Wall of Force.

As GM I've encountered several tricked-out portable holes. What people said above.

[BigDTBone]

UnArcaneElection wrote:

Bioboygamer wrote:

{. . .} Is it just an item that evil GMs use to screw over players due to the interaction between a Portable Hole and a Bag of Holding? {. . .}

Actually, this could be put to systematic use by sufficiently devious players (or NPCs . . . muahuahuahuahuahaaaa . . .). Although the very small blast radius sort of hoses this except in corner cases.

Also, as far as I can tell, unlike a Bag of Holding, a Portable Hole has no risk of rupture if sharp objects are placed inside it (or even dropped into it).

BigDTBone wrote:

{. . .}

I had a character who had the inside of a portable hole tricked out into a sweet bedroom/office that he popped a tent on top of when he was out adventuring.

Sounds like a rather cramped bedroom/office even for a Small character. Also, be careful to take off your Handy Haversack or any Bags of Holding before you climb down in . . . .

Definately not spacious, but it had a fold down bed and bookshelves wrapped the places where the bed isn't. When the bed was folded up there was a desk and bench underneath.

[Aelryinth]

It has also been calculated to be able to hold approximately 1,000,000 gold pieces, if you need to stuff the dragon's hoard in there.

==Aelryinth

[Durngrun Stonebreaker]

Must...resist...joke...answer...

[Darigaaz the Igniter]

Another nice feature of the portable hole is that it's nearly weightless compared to 15 lbs per tier of bags of holding.

[Scythia]

Magda Luckbender wrote:

In the old Beatle's movie Yellow Submarine George Harrison picks up a Portable Hole. This may be where Gary Gygax got the idea for this item. It turns out to be quite useful for shenanigans with a Wall of Force.

As GM I've encountered several tricked-out portable holes. What people said above.

I'm pretty sure they appeared in Warner Brothers cartoon shorts before that. At least that's where I first saw them.

[Bioboygamer]

Scythia wrote:

Magda Luckbender wrote:

In the old Beatle's movie Yellow Submarine George Harrison picks up a Portable Hole. This may be where Gary Gygax got the idea for this item. It turns out to be quite useful for shenanigans with a Wall of Force.

As GM I've encountered several tricked-out portable holes. What people said above.

I'm pretty sure they appeared in Warner Brothers cartoon shorts before that. At least that's where I first saw them.

You know, if a Portable Hole worked like in those cartoons, where you could put it on a wall and walk through to the other side, it would actually be an extremely viable item.

[Matthew Downie]

There was a portable hole in Jack Vance's "Liane the Wayfarer", published in The Dying Earth in 1950. Pretty sure Gygax would have remembered that, since that book was also the origin of D&D's 'Vancian magic' (the idea that you had to re-memorize a spell before casting it every single time).

[Trigger Loaded]

I forget the results, but it's fairly easy to make a cartoon-style portable hole with the Magic Item creation rules. Check Passwall and add perpetual duration. Not cheap, but still feasible.

[the David]

It's used in combination with a bag of holding to suck anything you want to the astral plane, no save. Well, just once anyway.

Tip. Use an Unseen Servant to do this.

[joefro]

So many good uses for a portable hole. Too many people to teleport? Put a couple in the portable hole. Can put allies in it and sneak them into an area with you. It's only 10 mins of air for 1 person, but even so it's easily abusable.

[Matthew Downie]

Combined with a Life Bubble spell, they're a good way to hide the entire party for longer periods of time.

[Darigaaz the Igniter]

Or a bottle of air

[I'm Hiding In Your Closet]

Never forget that Warner Brothers cartoons are, and have always been, one of the legitimate and respected lineages to be found in D&D's pedigree.

You can't toss a bag of holding on the ground to use as an impromptu trap, now can you?

[UnArcaneElection]

Some of the uses for a Portable Hole suggest that somebody ought to invent more specialized related magic items, potentially in several sizes. Portable passage or portable pit trap, anyone?

[born_of_fire]

Our party's portable hole currently holds 5 filing cabinets full of documents relating to the day to day operation of the thieve's guild we are in the process of ransacking. There are prolly thousands of documents, all in code. No way we could have sorted through them in a timely fashion so we're taking everything with us instead. We also stole, er looted, the entire library out of Delvehaven the same way.

I'm just not confident that Bags of Holding are up to these and other similar tasks.

[Aelryinth]

Well, a combination of Item spells and that 'portrait' spell that shrinks a 10 x 10 area down to a painting can also take care of a lot of mass transit.

But, yes, the Portable Hole is simply bigger, faster, and easier to access then a bag of holding. You can literally sweep loot into it.

==Aelryinth

[rorek55]

it is used in tandem with a bag of holding or other extra dimensional space object in an arrow to be fired at a target wanted dead, it proceeds to rip a 10ft/10ft square rift in reality, removing everything and anything within that square from reality. (in other words, it makes things dead)

[boring7]

First, there's a difference between "I don't track encumbrance that closely" and "I let you put the 3 ton marble statue that the AP says is worth 10k gold into the bag of holding." The situation also applies to the macguffin pet golem you pick up and want to teleport/swim/climb with or the large containment sarcophagus that keeps Ed the Undying from rising once more.

Second, every GM I have ever known tracked encumbrance and while they didn't check every single time that we had our math right, if we didn't we were cheating and we all agreed that was the case.

But okay, let's take your premise and even go a little further, a type 1 bag has infinite storage capacity. I know that's not what you said, I'm kicking it up a notch.

A portable hole is not subject to outside force. Once you fold it up and stick it in your pocket it's basically gone. That means that whatever is inside, like your dense but fully-stocked alchemy lab with beakers and test tubes and very slow-cooking experiments do not get tossed about all helter-skelter or jumbled up. A bag of holding on the other hand is a bag, even if everything inside is null gravity and immune to outside Blunt-Force trauma it's going to rub against other objects, sharp things are going to get loose if they aren't rather carefully secured, and you can't really trust your stack of books to stay stacked.

Also, a portable hole is lighter. It's a folded piece of cloth while a bag still weighs something like 5 pounds. If that doesn't seem like much, you haven't tried running around with a 7 str lately. There are necessities that you can't keep in the bag, like your weapon, your spell component pouch, or your trousers. And since you need to keep yourself at a light load...

Finally, a portable hole is ostensibly immune to everything once deployed. Need to hold a swimming-pool worth of caltrops? Need to catch the Lava Flow that the villain just summoned? Need a "lowest point" for the cloudkill spell to go? Portable hole is your friend every time. It holds the Spiky Golem or the well-armed troop with bladed weapons without bursting and dumping them in the astral plane or forcing them all to spend a full round pulling the covers off their sharp edges.

[Secane]

Bioboygamer wrote:

So, I looked at the Portable Hole, and for the life of me I can't figure out what it's supposed to be used for.....

.....It just seems odd that such a useless item is so expensive relative to the Bag of Holding that serves a similar purpose.

A Portable Hole is clearly meant to be used in combination with a Bag of Holding as a tactical weapon.

Combined they are effectively a "BABY NUKE"

By placing a Portable Hole inside a Bag of Holding, you get the equivalent of a 10-foot radius portable nuke that can remove most creatures from play by throwing them into the Astral Plane (hopefully permanently)

Together they are greater than the sum of their parts.

While there are more powerful (and expensive) options to remove creatures from play. A Portable Hole + Bag of Holding is one of the cheapest known permanent removal weapons available for adventurers.

[Eigengrau]

PH's are also great for necromancers. I used to keep spawn creating undead in them and toss a few helpless npc's in. I really tried hard to bring about my own undead apocalypse, by releasing them in towns the morning we were leaving.

[Gisher]

UnArcaneElection wrote:

Sounds like a rather cramped bedroom/office even for a Small character. Also, be careful to take off your Handy Haversack or any Bags of Holding before you climb down in . . . .

Bags of Holding, yes. But there is no problem with a Handy Haversack.

[UnArcaneElection]

^I thought a Handy Haversack was the functional equivalent of a small Bag of Holding with backpacking straps and a few pockets put on it (the Handy Haversack description even says it and its pockets function like a Bag of Holding). They even have the same spell requirement (Secret Chest) for creation, in contrast to a Portable Hole, which has a different spell requirement (Plane Shift).

[Deadbeat Doom]

I believe a couple people have mentioned it already, but honestly the best thing about portable holes (besides gutter jokes) is The Arrow of Total Destruction.

[Gisher]

UnArcaneElection wrote:

^I thought a Handy Haversack was the functional equivalent of a small Bag of Holding with backpacking straps and a few pockets put on it (the Handy Haversack description even says it and its pockets function like a Bag of Holding). They even have the same spell requirement (Secret Chest) for creation, in contrast to a Portable Hole, which has a different spell requirement (Plane Shift).

Your argument is reasonable, but...

Core Rulebook (wondrous items) wrote:

Extradimensional Spaces

A number of spells and magic items utilize extradimensional spaces, such as rope trick, a bag of holding, a handy haversack, and a portable hole. These spells and magic items create a tiny pocket space that does not exist in any dimension. Such items do not function, however, inside another extradimensional space. If placed inside such a space, they cease to function until removed from the extradimensional space. For example, if a bag of holding is brought into a rope trick, the contents of the bag of holding become inaccessible until the bag of holding is taken outside the rope trick. The only exception to this is when a bag of holding and a portable hole interact, forming a rift to the Astral Plane, as noted in their descriptions.

[UnArcaneElection]

^Well, it depends upon how literal you get with Rules As Written. If you get literal enough to let Handy Haversack off the hook, you could make a Bag of Holding Portable-Hole-safe by adding pockets, a frame, and straps to it. (Wait, maybe that's what somebody did . . . .)

[Zhangar]

It frequently gets used at my table for what I call "clown-carring."

(Hint: Party members inside of the Portable Hole don't count towards your limit when teleporting.)

[Ambrus]

joefro wrote:

So many good uses for a portable hole. Too many people to teleport? Put a couple in the portable hole. Can put allies in it and sneak them into an area with you. It's only 10 mins of air for 1 person, but even so it's easily abusable.

This. A caster can scoop up the party and fly, dimension door or teleport into a hard to reach area with his whole party in tow. A stealthy scout can do the same at unleash his buffed and readied party on an unsuspecting target. If you need to keep your party, rescued NPCs or prisoners in the hole for more than a few minutes, have them enter suspended animation via readied Sepia Snake Sigil notes kept inside.

born_of_fire wrote:

We also stole, er looted, the entire library out of Delvehaven the same way.

This. Adventures are chock full of grandiose room descriptions with fancy furnishing intended as mere window dressing. But with a portable hole you can lift those "rows of floor to ceiling bookshelves" every villain seems to have in their lair. Pick up armoires, four-poster beds, desks, statues and whatnot to furnish your own newly purchased house. One character I had collected the thrones of defeated BBEGs, stocking his dining room in gaudy majesty. :D

[Cap. Darling]

I like the portable hole but at a level where 22500gp is worth taking one enemy out i Think a one Way ticket to the astral plane is far from killing someone.

[UnArcaneElection]

^Depends on how you do it. If you put the Portable Hole into the Bag of Holding, you get a rift to the Astral Plane with a 10' blast radius, but if you put the Bag of Holding into the Portable Hole, both items and everything inside are lost forever. So then the trick is to get the enemy to fall into the Portable Hole first.

[Timdog]

We were on a crashing airship wiht one person (me) who could fly. Everyone in the portable hole (including the bodies of the bad guys who killed our ship for later looting) fly the s#~! away, voilal, loot and party saved. Can't do that in a bag of holding :)

[Aelryinth]

Zhangar wrote:

It frequently gets used at my table for what I call "clown-carring."

(Hint: Party members inside of the Portable Hole don't count towards your limit when teleporting.)

You need to move your entire household how far and where and when?

1) USe the portrait spell with a Rod of Widen to shrink 20 x 20 x 20 stacked crates down to a flat surface. Roll it up, stick in the portable hole.

2) acquire a gorgon or medusa. Petrify all travelers and their households. Arrange them on another portrait, shrink them down. Alternately, use item spells to reduce them in size first. Place in portable hole.

3) Use Mass Reduce to shrink down anyone else who didn't want to be petrified.

4) Use Mass reduce on any horses or other large creatures to save area, then petrify and turn them into a painting. Pile random goods on top.

5) Put everyone into the portable hole. Pick up portable hole.

6) Teleport to the new location.

7) Break Enchantment everyone out of petrified status (may take 2 or 3 spells). Unitemize and unreduced all parties. Convert paintings back to goods.

8) Move into new abode.

==Aelryinth

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

Aelryinth wrote:

Zhangar wrote:

It frequently gets used at my table for what I call "clown-carring."

(Hint: Party members inside of the Portable Hole don't count towards your limit when teleporting.)

You need to move your entire household how far and where and when?

1) USe the portrait spell with a Rod of Widen to shrink 20 x 20 x 20 stacked crates down to a flat surface. Roll it up, stick in the portable hole.

2) acquire a gorgon or medusa. Petrify all travelers and their households. Arrange them on another portrait, shrink them down. Alternately, use item spells to reduce them in size first. Place in portable hole.

3) Use Mass Reduce to shrink down anyone else who didn't want to be petrified.

4) Use Mass reduce on any horses or other large creatures to save area, then petrify and turn them into a painting. Pile random goods on top.

5) Put everyone into the portable hole. Pick up portable hole.

6) Teleport to the new location.

7) Break Enchantment everyone out of petrified status (may take 2 or 3 spells). Unitemize and unreduced all parties. Convert paintings back to goods.

8) Move into new abode.

==Aelryinth

By Portrait spell do you mean treasure stitching?

[BretI]

Without a portable hole, how are you supposed to carry your Ballista?

On a more serious note, they do make a very handy closet to store all sorts of items.

[Tik-Tik]

I once kept everything I owned in a portable hole for a 15th level game, including a bottle of air, a bottle of water, and food.

Then during said game I drank an extract of gaseous form, snuck into the prison, got everyone in that was wrongfully arrested into my PH and drank another gaseous form to get out.

Yay jailbreak!

[Purple Dragon Knight]

Portable hole also allows you to carry A FULL BATHTUB which apparently can render someone invulnerable to almost all attacks! :)

[Scrapper]

BigDTBone wrote:

UnArcaneElection wrote:

Bioboygamer wrote:

{. . .} Is it just an item that evil GMs use to screw over players due to the interaction between a Portable Hole and a Bag of Holding? {. . .}

Actually, this could be put to systematic use by sufficiently devious players (or NPCs . . . muahuahuahuahuahaaaa . . .). Although the very small blast radius sort of hoses this except in corner cases.

Also, as far as I can tell, unlike a Bag of Holding, a Portable Hole has no risk of rupture if sharp objects are placed inside it (or even dropped into it).

BigDTBone wrote:

{. . .}

I had a character who had the inside of a portable hole tricked out into a sweet bedroom/office that he popped a tent on top of when he was out adventuring.

Sounds like a rather cramped bedroom/office even for a Small character. Also, be careful to take off your Handy Haversack or any Bags of Holding before you climb down in . . . .

Definately not spacious, but it had a fold down bed and bookshelves wrapped the places where the bed isn't. When the bed was folded up there was a desk and bench underneath.

Great Minds think alike! I called mine the Portable Condo. DM hated me, and kinda stopped running those characters after I had fitted it all out, even had drawings!

[Purple Dragon Knight]

Hmmm... Portable Hobbit Hole? yes... I can see the Portable Hole furnished like Bilbo Baggins' house... :)

[Purple Dragon Knight]

...complete with a constantly puffing "Bottle of Air" puffing on a shelf... :)