"If the bag is overloaded or broken, it ruptures and is ruined, causing the items inside to be lost forever."
How lost are we talking here?
I mean, it's not destroying the items, right? Things that let you destroy items regardless of their stats tend to be uncommon or rarer, much like the bag of devouring.
Is the extradimensional space still there but just not accessible through the broken bag? Could someone cast something like gate to reach the extraplanar space and retrieve the items?
Is everything in the bag just getting yeeted into the Astral Plane or some other plane where you simply aren't likely to ever see it again? Could someone else stumble upon the items there?
And what happens to creatures inside the bag when it ruptures? There's no way this level 4 common item is just letting you instantly kill anyone tricked into entering the bag.
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I think this is less of a rules question that can be answered and a place in the rules where things are left up to the GM to determine based on the needs of the plot.
No, it shouldn't be a simple way for the players to remove important NPCs. At least not without GM approval and probably a skill challenge encounter to determine their success at their scheme.
Similar with important items - whether it is important to the characters or the plot. The players shouldn't be trying to gimmick away plot items that way, and the GM shouldn't be perma-swiping the PC's equipment by way of Spacious Pouch shenanigans.
But as far as the rules go, it is fairly clear on what it does list. If the bag is ruptured, the items in it are lost and at least not easily recovered. What is not covered by the rule is if the items are able to be recovered by other means or if the Spacious Pouch can be repaired and can be reconnected to the same extradimensional space.
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They're definitely not destroyed, because you don't say "lost forever" if the items are destroyed, and it's not a cheat code to destroy artifacts.
I agree with Finoan that the rules are deliberately vague on this. PF1's bag of holding says the same thing. It's really just "the stuff is gone unless the GM wants to make a plot about getting it back."
Considering the size of the entrance of a spacious pouch, it's going to be pretty hard to trick anyone into walking into it, I'd think. Let alone anything powerful enough for that to be a necessary tactic. Handy way to dispose of a body, though.
I was really surprised that text both was default to pf2 when I first read it, and surprised that it survived the remaster's reinvention.
Imo, it's a good/needed houserule to edit that mechanic into a "contents eject to their surroundings via path of least resistance."
While that "gone in the Astral" mechanic could make for a cool moment once, it's much too powerful/disrupting imo. Bagging a hostile foe is too quick, and can be done if they fail anything that'll paralyze/stun/etc them for 2 rounds.
While it doesn't destroy artifacts outright, it legit does make them unreachable to anyone/thing without Gate, making it solve too many plot problems.
R8 Pinpoint doesn't solve it.
It has restrictions likely preventing the BBEG's use, and then only tells the caster the location. There is no teleportation spell with plane-local infinite range, making a random location impossible to reach via even Heightened Teleportation. When talking about infinity, any range limit renders it unusable, even for the galactic distanced R10 Teleport.
After checking an AoN filter list, I really only see Gate as a RaW way to get to the random spot.
The bag-abusers can prep via the Gathering Call ritual and lifeboat-bagged-ally to recover it later. Same for lifeboated ritualist ally to provide an arrival location for Planar Displacement.
It also looks like Create Demiplane to add an entrance/exit to an existing demiplane is another "any known location travel" effect. Almost missed that this still needs prior construction on the portal, so a participant needs to be there, making it inferior to Planar Displacement.
And no, it's not right for a GM to cheat the players out of such a maneuver to have the BBEG somehow retrieve the item off-screen. There's nothing worse from a story-telling perspective than the players creating a genuinely effective problem for the BBEG, and then hand-waive it as meaningless.
(But the GM should not be put into that situation in the first place! Those L4 bags should not be able to break the plot of low level adventures like that!)
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Basically, anything that can fit through the opening on a bag can now be yeeted into another plane of existence, one that is literally infinite. Random searching is non-viable.
Once you get some bigger bags, like the type 3, the entire party can evacuate into the Astral with 30 sec of lead time. Sudden sidequest to return to the material plane could be super duper cool, the first time.
But after that, the GM has to deal with the writing challenge of the party being able to "nope" out of any dangerous situation that's just a bit slower than active combat.
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Oh, well, fk me I guess. 12 gp Retrieval Prisms are local-plane unlimited. If the artifact is or can be made to size 1 bulk, then rubbing a prism on it allows you to poof it from the unreachable random spot back to your hand so long as you get yourself to the Astral.
For bigger artifacts, 2x Witchwyrd Beacons + lifeboat allies can eliminate all recovery problems, but only for those doing the bag-cheese.
The only way I know for a BBEG to get to a bag-banished item is for them to use R8 Pinpoint for the location, then R10 Gate. But it is waaaay easier for the PCs to recover.
(or vice versa if the PCs need to get some plot mcguffin.)
This is just dumb.
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I was really surprised that text both was default to pf2 when I first read it, and surprised that it survived the remaster's reinvention.
Imo, it's a good/needed houserule to edit that mechanic into a "contents eject to their surroundings via path of least resistance."
While that "gone in the Astral" mechanic could make for a cool moment once, it's much too powerful/disrupting imo. Bagging a hostile foe is too quick, and can be done if they fail anything that'll paralyze/stun/etc them for 2 rounds.
While it doesn't destroy artifacts outright, it legit does make them unreachable to anyone/thing without Gate, making it solve too many plot problems.
R8 Pinpoint doesn't solve it.
It has restrictions likely preventing the BBEG's use, and then only tells the caster the location. There is no teleportation spell with plane-local infinite range, making a random location impossible to reach via even Heightened Teleportation. When talking about infinity, any range limit renders it unusable, even for the galactic distanced R10 Teleport.** spoiler omitted **...
RAW retrieval prisms work on bags of holding too btw, and there’s no limit on how many retrieval prisms can be attuned to one item. Yet another way to break trade, alongside magic mailbox.
PCs could also stockpile retrieval prisms attached to cloth armor for important artifacts. This doesn’t stop them from being stolen because the thief can put them in a bag of holding, but it can stop them from being used because if you have 15 crystals attuned that that apex item and you use one a week at a random time for a while, then 1/few months, then 1/year, then the last one 50 years later…
And what happens to creatures inside the bag when it ruptures?
This is how vengeful Vecnas are made.
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I don't see any mention of the Astral Plane in the new version, so that's not really relevant anymore. Some of the cheese and issues don't really apply as a result- no infinite search space to worry about, no absurdly unfair advantage with retrieval prisms because of that, etc.
Hunh, I forgot about that.
You can Interact with the spacious pouch to stow items in it or remove them just like a mundane sack. Though the bag can hold a great amount of material, an object still needs to be able to fit through the opening of the sack to be stored inside.
If the bag is overloaded or broken, it ruptures and is ruined, causing the items inside to be lost forever. If it's turned inside out, the items inside spill out unharmed, but the bag must be put right before it can be used again.
Literally the same "lost forever" text but no mention of where it goes now.
(There is still the dimensional accident possibility via mixing w/ the Planar Tunnel, though now destination matches keyed plane)
Very bizarre that instead of making it easier to recover, the reamaster made it seemingly less possible to recover broken bag contents...
This does remove the asymmetry of the PCs being able to store/recover items, and also removes the "everyone in the bag!" emergency escape? Kinda?
Unclear, as if they are not killed, they should be able to cast Interplanar Teleport to get back to the Material...
So, it actually changes nothing to remove mention of the Astral? Idk.
"Lost forever" is kinda dumb text without the Astral destination part, it lost all informative meaning without that. Players are still going to stuff cursed objects and temp-disabled foes inside from L4 onwards, lol.
Now it's just an uneeded GM migraine, lol.
What I find interesting is, there's not a description of how big the opening of the bag is. It does mention living creatures, so at least some size of living creature is expected to fit inside.
As a GM, I'd rule that larger and larger creatures are straight up to big to fit through the opneing. And that large and medium creatures cannot easily fit through. I'd rule a cooperative medium creature can fit through with 2 rounds of effort. An uncooperative creature cannot be forced through. And a "incapacitated" creature can be fit through in 1 minute. But that's just me making it less abusable.
I personally like that it doesn't specify astral plane. Really leaves it up the GM to decide if/how players can retrieve objects.
The pf1e version also doesn't seem to clarify what happens to the items if the bag is ruptured. A rift to the Astral Plane is opened if you try any portable hole shenanigans, but that seems to be a separate effect from the items in the ruptured bag being "lost forever."
Since PF2e extradimensional effects don't function inside other extradimensional spaces, there weren't any portable hole shenanigans this time around, which is probably why the new bag doesn't mention the Astral Plane.