What shape is the inside of a Handy Haversack?


Rules Questions

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. 2 people marked this as a favorite.

Just an odd thing that's come up in game. What can you actually fit in a handy haversack? Is it's internal shape always the same or does it change to fit the items it contains?

rules text wrote:


A backpack of this sort appears to be well made, well used, and quite ordinary. It has two side pouches, each of which appears large enough to hold about a quart of material. In fact, each is like a bag of holding and can actually hold material of as much as 2 cubic feet in volume or 20 pounds in weight. The large central portion of the pack can contain up to 8 cubic feet or 80 pounds of material. Even when so filled, the backpack always weighs only 5 pounds.

This came up over the discussion of whether you can fit a rod (2-3ft long) in the haversack or whether the haversack was too shallow.

The Concordance RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

We had the same discussion about portable holes in my game Saturday. I asserted that you couldn't set up an alchemical laboratory in a a portable hole, the fold up the hole, carry it with you, and then unfold the hole to find the laboratory still stable and intact -- i though the contents would rattle around.

My players disagreed.

Since it was completely off topic in game, we really didn't come to a conclusion.

That being said...

its a move action to pull anything out of a handy haversack, so one assumes that the the space inside is nebulous and its the mental command of the wearer that "pulls" the desired object to the hand reaching in for it. So its a big space that sort of floats there. At least that's my idea.

What do others thing?


i've always played it as anything that can fit through the opening can be stored inside so long as you dont violate the total volume or weight restrictions.. Think Mary Poppins' bag or the Tardis.


That's how we've always played, too. It's a common enough trope in that form -- I was going to dig up a video of Mary Poppins unpacking, but Torbyne beat me to the reference -- that I see no reason to insist on changing it.


catdragon wrote:

We had the same discussion about portable holes in my game Saturday. I asserted that you couldn't set up an alchemical laboratory in a a portable hole, the fold up the hole, carry it with you, and then unfold the hole to find the laboratory still stable and intact -- i though the contents would rattle around.

My players disagreed.

Since it was completely off topic in game, we really didn't come to a conclusion.

That being said...

its a move action to pull anything out of a handy haversack, so one assumes that the the space inside is nebulous and its the mental command of the wearer that "pulls" the desired object to the hand reaching in for it. So its a big space that sort of floats there. At least that's my idea.

What do others thing?

Agreed on the handy haversack; although it is explicitly not the case with normal bags of holding, since the action needed to retrieve something from them varies based on how full it is.

I disagree on the portable hole.

The portable hole opens onto a particular non- or extra-dimensional space. There is no indication that the space it opens onto moves in any way; I see it as merely the cloth that has the opening to it moving. YMMV.


I interpret nondescript extra-dimensional space to be infinite space with no walls or floor nor major gravity. Gravity and other forces from the outside do not affect it, as it is outside of normal space and physics. Many extra-dimensional spaces have specific qualities which change this though (such as a portable hole, Create Pit, Rope Trick)

The space something takes up is based off it's general volume around it's surface area, but not precise to details or anything (ex: an open bottle would still take up the whole volume of the bottle as if it was closed). A balloon would take up full volume if inflated, but not if deflated.

Create Pit obviously has both walls, limited space, and gravity, so it is a peculiar form of extra-dimensional space. It's almost not extra-dimensional at all, and more like "weird space" (since it's just like regular space, but can overlap with existing space).

Rope Trick is another extra-dimensional space I'd treat differently, especially because it says that it's different in it's description. It would have a gravity and nondescript floor, but I suppose still not any walls. I've even debated removing the floor and gravity from Rope Trick's space, but that would suck, and wouldn't really make it any different from my regular extra-dimensional space despite the description implying otherwise.

Portable hole would be much like Create pit. One exception: I'd personally say that when it closes, all gravity goes away though, and external accelerational forces no longer apply to its contents.

catdragon wrote:
I asserted that you couldn't set up an alchemical laboratory in a a portable hole, the fold up the hole, carry it with you, and then unfold the hole to find the laboratory still stable and intact -- i though the contents would rattle around.

Are you referring to a regular laboratory, or a portable laboratory? Also do you disallow portable laboratories to be used for scenarios that would require a laboratory? Lastly, are they using the laboratory while in the portable hole, or not? Only when it's open, perhaps?

As I indicated, I wouldn't have gravity affect a portable hole when closed, nor accelerational forces. Otherwise it sounds like all sorts of damage would occur when putting anything into something like a bag of holding (potions broken, scrolls witch scratches, holes, or outright ripped up, rare valuable painting ruined, and probably a bunch of other things).

Either way, whether it's from a lack of forces, or too much forces, I could see a lab getting a bit tossed up. I would think that could be circumvented by putting everything away safely when not in use. If you didn't destroy or damage the lab, then it would still be perfectly useable even if it did make a mess, no? If its a portable lab, it wouldn't even make sense to mess up at all since it's designed to be put away and keep intact while travelling.

Shadow Lodge

You've heard of hyper-cubes (4-dimensional cubes) and hyper-spheres (4-dimensional spheres) ?

The inside of a handy haversack is hyper-haversack shaped.


Did you ever play inventory Tetris in Diablo 2? That's kind of what I think of for the haversack. It's got a set limit of space, but it's defined in such a way that it will accommodate objects that are larger than the haversack itself. Otherwise it wouldn't be extradimensional.


Given that most items aren't rated in volume, I'd imagine the main intended limitations are 'don't put in too much' and 'don't be a jerk about it'. That said, I'd imagine the space inside would conform to the rated volume however it had to. Why? MAGIC.

Scarab Sages

Scythia wrote:
Did you ever play inventory Tetris in Diablo 2? That's kind of what I think of for the haversack. It's got a set limit of space, but it's defined in such a way that it will accommodate objects that are larger than the haversack itself. Otherwise it wouldn't be extradimensional.

"Inventory Tetris" - heh. That's a new term for me. I like that.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / What shape is the inside of a Handy Haversack? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.