Bag of Holding + Darkness

[DiscOH]

I'm playing a dark vision race in a group full of puny humans. I'm great at doing my rogue stuff, but only when I have some sort of concealment.

Getting some sort of emanating vision obscuring effect is pretty easy to do, but my lame human allies start complaining that they can't see now.

If I have to pick, obviously I'm going to ignore these weak pasty flesh-bags' request and become one with the life ending darkness. But if it's not too far out of my way... happy humans are helpful humans.

Can I place an object at the bottom of a bag of holding to reduce its range? Alternatively, are there other ways to reduce the size of a spell?

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

DiscOH wrote:

Can I place an object at the bottom of a bag of holding to reduce its range?

Up to the GM, as RAW are silent on the issue. But the max volume of a bag of holding is only 250 cubic feet, which makes it only ~8 feet across if it's roughly spherical, so it's not going to reduce the range very much regardless.

DiscOH wrote:

Alternatively, are there other ways to reduce the size of a spell?

I can't think of any in RAW. A lenient GM might rule that the area in the spell's parameters is implicitly just a maximum and you can always choose to affect a smaller area at casting time.

Yes:

Magic wrote:

You can cast a spell at a lower caster level than normal, but the caster level you choose must be high enough for you to cast the spell in question, and all level-dependent features must be based on the same caster level.

If the min level for the spell still has too much area for you, see the struck-through text above.

EDIT: Ok, a giant bag of holding goes up to at least 800 cubic feet, which is a 11.5'-diameter sphere, so you could maybe cut 10' off the effective spell radius, but that's it.

[Saethori]

Alternatively, take advantage of the fact that as long as the darkness is in a lightproof covering, the darkness is also blocked.

Get a rock or similar small object, have Eclipsed Continual Flame cast on it, put it inside a hooded lantern. Now you have a lantern that reduces the light level within 40 feet by one step, permanently, for a very low cost, and since it's a lantern, you can put the hood on it as needed, or hang it from your backpack, or whatever you might need to make sure your human friends can see when they need to.

[Kayerloth]

Spell effects unless able to cross planar boundries will not leave a Bag of Holding or other extradimensional space. No darkness or light from a spell will extend beyond the opening of the Bag (or into the Bag for that matter).

Edit: A Glove of Storing would work much better for your purposes.

[DiscOH]

Kayerloth wrote:

Spell effects unless able to cross planar boundries will not leave a Bag of Holding or other extradimensional space. No darkness or light from a spell will extend beyond the opening of the Bag (or into the Bag for that matter).

Edit: A Glove of Storing would work much better for your purposes.

Where would I find rules text supporting this?

[Kayerloth]

DiscOH wrote:

Kayerloth wrote:

Spell effects unless able to cross planar boundries will not leave a Bag of Holding or other extradimensional space. No darkness or light from a spell will extend beyond the opening of the Bag (or into the Bag for that matter).

Edit: A Glove of Storing would work much better for your purposes.

Where would I find rules text supporting this?

Actually I think I may have had a brain @#$@% ...

You can't cast a spell across planar boundries unless the text indicates you can. That is supported by the text in the description of Ranges in the CRB but that wouldn't necessarily prevent the light from emanating out of the Bag. I think whether it does is up to the GM to determine. I was however thinking about the text in the description of a Rope Trick spell which does state

partial text of Rope Trick wrote:

Creatures in the extradimensional space are hidden, beyond the reach of spells (including divinations), unless those spells work across planes.

I would be personally wary of readily allowing spell effects to cross planes but light given off might have to be one of those exceptions (or how else do you see anything thru the window of the Rope Trick? You only see something because of the light being reflected off what you are looking at and in this instance "because magic" seems a bit of a cop out as well as inaccurate) There's a reason Ethereal and Incorporeal creatures are less/uneffected by a Fireball, for instance, without metamagic being applied.