How many actions to draw from your backpack?

[Ravingdork]

Possible Examples:

1) It takes one action. You simply draw the item from the backpack like you would anywhere else.

2) It takes two actions, one to open the backpack, and one to draw the item from the open backpack.

3) It takes three actions, one to take the backpack off (of your back presumably), one more to open it, and yet another to draw the item in question (and possibly more actions to put the backpack back on or a free action drop it).

Question, if you need both hands to get something from your backpack, how can you hold whatever it is you're retrieving?

Primarily looking for RAW answers, but RAI answers with good foundation are also welcome.

[Nefreet]

Backpack wrote:

A backpack holds up to 4 Bulk of items. If you’re carrying or stowing the pack rather than wearing it on your back, its bulk is light instead of negligible.

Where are you seeing that it takes any extra actions? If it's an extra action for a backpack, it'd have to be an extra action for all containers, because their descriptions merely state the bulk that they carry.

Sack wrote:

A sack can hold up to 8 Bulk worth of items. A sack containing 2 Bulk or less can be worn on the body, usually tucked into a belt. You can carry a sack with one hand, but must use two hands to transfer items in and out.

A sack does state that you need two hands to take items in and out. So I suppose if your hands weren't free, you would need extra actions to deal with that first, but you wouldn't need extra actions on top of that.

Imagine how difficult spellcasting would be if you needed even more actions to use your material component pouch.

[thenobledrake]

Action 1: taking off your backpack as noted is required on note 3 of table 6-2: Changing equipment. The hands needed for this action doesn't appear to be explicit.

Action 2: retrieve the desired item from the backpack, which requires 2 hands.

Presumably you're not holding both the backpack and the retrieved item at that point unless you've got more than 2 hands to use... it's not explicit which is on the ground, but I figure that most cases it would make more sense for the pack to be on the ground and the retrieved item in hand.

I'm pretty confident that the intent behind the rules presented is to A) not be able to retrieve items from your pack while still wielding your weapons and/or shields, and B) to have a reason to utilize containers other than backpacks - whether that's buying sheaths for your various weapons, or putting potions and other 'combat gear' in belt pouches or bandoliers for easier access

[Nefreet]

I'll be darned:

"Retrieving an item stowed in your own backpack requires first taking off the backpack with a separate Interact action."

That's text that really should belong in the write-up for the backpack, and not on some obscure table.

And that action does indeed require two hands. My characters have a plethora of containers and sheathes, but I'll have to get into the habit of enforcing that when I GM.

[Gisher]

Nefreet wrote:

I'll be darned:

"Retrieving an item stowed in your own backpack requires first taking off the backpack with a separate Interact action."

That's text that really should belong in the write-up for the backpack, and not on some obscure table.

And that action does indeed require two hands. My characters have a plethora of containers and sheathes, but I'll have to get into the habit of enforcing that when I GM.

There's a lot of important information tucked away in the footnotes of that table. Enough that I have the page bookmarked on my pdf.

[Ravingdork]

So it's looking like a minimum two actions requiring two hands (three actions if you return the backpack to its original position rather than dropping it).

[thenobledrake]

This rule didn't seem out of place to me, though now that someone else has said it should have been elsewhere I think I might agree... I guess I'm just at a weird point of expecting to find important things mentioned in "random" places like how you have to read the description of padded armor to learn a rule that applies to all heavy armors.

[Gisher]

thenobledrake wrote:

This rule didn't seem out of place to me, though now that someone else has said it should have been elsewhere I think I might agree... I guess I'm just at a weird point of expecting to find important things mentioned in "random" places like how you have to read the description of padded armor to learn a rule that applies to all heavy armors.

I had not noticed that. Thanks!