Handy Haversack inside Pathfinder's Pouch > negate aura?


Rules Questions


Can I do this?


Where is the Pathfinder's Pouch from? I can't seem to find it anywhere?

Grand Lodge

I believe it is from Seekers of Secrets.

Pathfinder Pouch

I think this is subject to the standard rules on putting a non-dimensional space into another such space, where the one inside doesn't work. That is assuming you are putting the haversack into the hidden holding area...

Extradimensional Spaces


You cannot put a Haversack into a Pathfinder Pouch, the haversack is the size of a backpack and a backpack holds 2cubic feet (thus, it must be larger than 2 cubic feet).


Oh, that is sad!
What a shame, well, at least I got my undetectable bag to hide things


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You can make a pretty good case for being able to squeeze a minor bag of holding in there, since it is just a 3 pound sack(which should be able to be shoved into the opening in the belt pouch, since cloth sacks are pretty flexible).

Shove a Haversack into the minor bag, and shove the bag into the Pathfinder Pouch?


Bag of Holding wont fit either. It's size is listed as 2feet by 4feet.

Depending on which measurement is the diameter that gives us either 12.57 cubic feet or 25.14 cubic feet.


kinevon wrote:

I believe it is from Seekers of Secrets.

Pathfinder Pouch

I think this is subject to the standard rules on putting a non-dimensional space into another such space, where the one inside doesn't work. That is assuming you are putting the haversack into the hidden holding area...

Extradimensional Spaces

Thanks. I was using the possessive form from the thread title and I guess it confused the search engine.

Sovereign Court

Put the pouch in the haversack! :)


Purple Dragon Knight, that would defeat the OP's purpose of 'no magical aura'.

Sovereign Court

there'll be an aura on the haversack, but not on the pouch!


Which...defeats the OP's purpose of 'no magic aura'. :P

Sovereign Court

but everyone's got a dirty magic haversack! :)

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder suicide bomber of Rovagug
Commoner 1
Stats: unnecessary
Gear: loin cloth, pathfinder pouch, folded portable hole inside pathfinder pouch [extradimensional space closed].

"With a command word, the wearer can close or open the extradimensional space within the pouch"

--> "Black hole sun, won't you come!!! wash away the raaaaaaaaaaain!" activates the pathfinder pouch and opens the extradimensional space within the pouch, at which time the folded portable hole falls into the extradimensional space.


Purple Dragon Knight wrote:

Pathfinder suicide bomber of Rovagug

Commoner 1
Stats: unnecessary
Gear: loin cloth, pathfinder pouch, folded portable hole inside pathfinder pouch [extradimensional space closed].

"With a command word, the wearer can close or open the extradimensional space within the pouch"

--> "Black hole sun, won't you come!!! wash away the raaaaaaaaaaain!" activates the pathfinder pouch and opens the extradimensional space within the pouch, at which time the folded portable hole falls into the extradimensional space.

Three nits with this:

1) WBL. What commoner 1 is going to be able to afford this?
2) PP =/= BoH.
3) Line of effect. You cannot activate the item in the PP.

The pouch is not a bag of holding, and like a handy haversack, cannot trigger the *boom* you want.

/cevah


Actually Cevah, the pouch IS a bag of holding. It states it is.


OK. Checked the link above. The SRD does not say so.

Then I checked the Archives Of Nethys and it states "the pouch acts as a very small bag of holding".

The key words here are "acts like", and not "is". I can see this go either way, so.... expect table variation. :-)

/cevah


Yes you can do this.

A haversack is made of cloth and leather and can be compressed down to fit in a smaller container. While it wouldn't fit into the fist sized area it can fit into the non-dimensional area of the pouch. Note that while it rests inside the non-dimensional area it will not function and items stored inside the haversack will be inaccessible. You would need to squeeze the haversack out of the pouch before you could get at the items within.


Aranna wrote:

Yes you can do this.

A haversack is made of cloth and leather and can be compressed down to fit in a smaller container. While it wouldn't fit into the fist sized area it can fit into the non-dimensional area of the pouch. Note that while it rests inside the non-dimensional area it will not function and items stored inside the haversack will be inaccessible. You would need to squeeze the haversack out of the pouch before you could get at the items within.

Yeah, that's a good point.

A haversack (or a cloth sack bag of holding, for that matter) isn't a rigid body. You should be able to scrunch up or fold it enough to fit it through the opening.


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Aranna, Snowblind, it may not be a rigid body but it has a specific external volume that is larger than the internal volume you are trying to put it in. It is not about fitting it through the opening.

To put it another way, you can fit an empty burlap potato sack through the opening in your pants pocket but there is no way you are putting the entire thing in there.


The internal volume is NOT set. It can hold up to 2 cubic feet. And since it's non-dimensional space it has no effect on the exterior of the sack, a full or empty bag of holding is the same size and weight. And yes you can scrunch up a bag to fill a much much smaller space than it takes all ballooned out.


The internal volume of the extradimensional (not mundane) space of the Pathfinder's Pouch is set at 2cubic feet, how can you say it is not set when you then quoted how much it can hold?

You are correct, a full or empty bag of holding is the same size. Specifically, 2feet by 4feet.
What is not stated is which measurement is the diameter. So it will either an exterior volume of ~12.5cubic feet or ~25cubic feet.

Since empty or full has no bearing on that exterior volume and the rules define the exterior volume and there is no rule stating that you can do so then you cannot scrunch it up to fit a smaller space.

You are trying to apply real world physics to a game rule. The rule is that a bag of holding is 2feet by 4feet in size. There is no rule that allows you to reduce this size.


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Gauss wrote:


...You are correct, a full or empty bag of holding is the same size. Specifically, 2feet by 4feet.
What is not stated is which measurement is the diameter. So it will either an exterior volume of ~12.5cubic feet or ~25cubic feet.

Since empty or full has no bearing on that exterior volume and the rules define the exterior volume and there is no rule stating that you can do so then you cannot scrunch it up to fit a smaller space.

There is a distinct difference between size and volume. The rules only partially define the exterior size and do not define mundane volume for the bag of holding at all. The mundane size is defined as 2'×4', but the third dimension required to determine volume is not given. The bag is described as "a comon cloth sack." I happen to have cloth sacks of various materials and I laid them out to determine a third dimension for volume. It's important tuo note that every one of them, including one sewn to have a circular bottom, lays relatively flat. The sacks measured between .125" and .5". Only my sack made from a towel was .5", and the rest were under .33" with an average of ~.25". If the bag of holding is a square sack then the volume ranges from 0.083 cubic foot (2'×4'×.0104') to 0.042 cubic feet (2'×4'×.0417') with an average of 0.168 cubic feet (2'×4'×.021'). If you assume one number is diameter then the radius would be used when the bag is laid out with volumes ranging from 0.042 cubic feet to 0.332 cubic feet. I folded up a 2'×4'×.25" cotton sack to be ~3"×3"×4" with a volume of 0.021 cubic feet.

The interior of the Bag of Holding is extradimentional so the bag would appear as an empty cloth sack. Through math and the wording used in the item descriptions, one can conclude that a Bag of Holding can easily fit inside a Pathfinder' pouch.

Gauss wrote:


You are trying to apply real world physics to a game rule. The rule is that a bag of holding is 2feet by 4feet in size. There is no rule that allows you to reduce this size

I don't understand why physics shouldn't apply to this situation. I have yet to learn of a rule that prohibits common cloth from bending.

In reguards to the original post, a Handy Haversack is described as a backpack with two quart sized pouches on the outside. I don't have a backpack that fits the description to test, but it would be a tight fit at best.


Airgiodach,

First, nice necro.

Second, you are forgetting that bags are generally cylindrical in shape. You do not need a 'third dimension'. You only need the diameter and the height which are provided.

Third, rules in Pathfinder are generally permissive, not restrictive. If something is not enabled, then you cannot do it without GM fiat (houserule).

Please show the rule that allows you to fold up a bag of holding from it's 2' by 4' dimensions into a smaller area. (Hint: there isn't one.)

This is the rules forum, there is a separate forum for houserules.


Gauss your house rules don't really apply here.
You don't need a special ruling to do common actions like scrunching up a cloth bag. It simply works. How much space it fills scrunched up can be determined with math like Airgiodach did.

Good work Airgiodach.


Aranna,

You are absolutely correct, house rules do not apply here. Please show the rule that states you may compress an object into a smaller space.

As for Airgiodach's math, it is wrong. He is making assumptions not presented in the game.

All we are presented with is two dimensions.
We then have a choice, either we
1) assume that those two dimensions are incomplete and missing the third dimension, in which case you are in house rule territory since you have to house rule a third dimension as he did
OR
2) you assume that those two dimensions are spelling out the dimensions of a cylinder in which case you know the volume without using any houserules (you only need two dimensions for a cylinder).

As for scrunching up a cloth bag...how well do you scrunch up a full bag? Is it a full bag? Do you even know?

Again, you are in houserule territory by trying to do something that is not spelled out in the rules.

We are given two dimensions which probably spell out the dimensions of a cylinder and the weight. We are not told if it is compressible, you are making assumptions based on a non-magical, empty, cloth bag.


Gauss wrote:

Aranna,

You are absolutely correct, house rules do not apply here. Please show the rule that states you may compress an object into a smaller space.

As for Airgiodach's math, it is wrong. He is making assumptions not presented in the game.

All we are presented with is two dimensions.
We then have a choice, either we
1) assume that those two dimensions are incomplete and missing the third dimension, in which case you are in house rule territory since you have to house rule a third dimension as he did
OR
2) you assume that those two dimensions are spelling out the dimensions of a cylinder in which case you know the volume without using any houserules (you only need two dimensions for a cylinder).

As for scrunching up a cloth bag...how well do you scrunch up a full bag? Is it a full bag? Do you even know?

Again, you are in houserule territory by trying to do something that is not spelled out in the rules.

We are given two dimensions which probably spell out the dimensions of a cylinder and the weight. We are not told if it is compressible, you are making assumptions based on a non-magical, empty, cloth bag.

^this


First, assume a perfectly spherical haversack...


Gauss wrote:

Aranna,

You are absolutely correct, house rules do not apply here. Please show the rule that states you may compress an object into a smaller space.

As for Airgiodach's math, it is wrong. He is making assumptions not presented in the game.

All we are presented with is two dimensions.
We then have a choice, either we
1) assume that those two dimensions are incomplete and missing the third dimension, in which case you are in house rule territory since you have to house rule a third dimension as he did
OR
2) you assume that those two dimensions are spelling out the dimensions of a cylinder in which case you know the volume without using any houserules (you only need two dimensions for a cylinder).

As for scrunching up a cloth bag...how well do you scrunch up a full bag? Is it a full bag? Do you even know?

Again, you are in houserule territory by trying to do something that is not spelled out in the rules.

We are given two dimensions which probably spell out the dimensions of a cylinder and the weight. We are not told if it is compressible, you are making assumptions based on a non-magical, empty, cloth bag.

Scrunching up an empty cloth bag into the opening of a belt pouch does NOT require special rules. This is a type of action the game doesn't bother to describe because it's basic stuff everyone can do... like walking up stairs, picking your nose, using the latrine, or any number of the millions of little things which make us human. I shudder to think of the state of your game if you require special house rules for each of these different actions.

Yes he was using an educated guess about the missing dimensions. This is a good thing and also NOT a house rule. Sure the developers never envisioned the situation described. But this filling in of missing numbers is simple GM arbitration. A house rule is when you change an existing rule to something different. You could rule differently about the missing dimensions and be just as right but you will look pretty silly if you pick absurd numbers. His were based on existing bags so probably pretty accurate.

And yes while house rules (rules you change) are not helpful here, GM arbitration of missing data CAN be helpful to someone facing a similar situation.


The description of the bag of holding simply states it “appears to be a common cloth sack about 2 feet by 4 feet in size”. It also states that “Regardless of what is put into the bag, it weighs a fixed amount”. What it does not say is if the bag appears empty, full or something in between. Obviously if the bag of holding appears as an empty bag rolling it up is not a problem. If on the other hand it appears as even partially full then compressing it to fit into a pouch is not going to work

Considering an empty sack is listed as weighing ½ pound, and the smallest bag of holding weighs 15 pounds that would indicate that a bag of holding may not appear as an empty bag. Personally I think that the bags appear at least partially full. If they appeared empty it would be a dead giveaway about the nature of the bag. I would even go so far as to say the higher capacity the bag the fuller it looks. To me this allows the bag to be used to hopefully smuggle things. This is how I would rule if one of my players asked.


Mysterious Stranger wrote:

The description of the bag of holding simply states it “appears to be a common cloth sack about 2 feet by 4 feet in size”. It also states that “Regardless of what is put into the bag, it weighs a fixed amount”. What it does not say is if the bag appears empty, full or something in between. Obviously if the bag of holding appears as an empty bag rolling it up is not a problem. If on the other hand it appears as even partially full then compressing it to fit into a pouch is not going to work

Considering an empty sack is listed as weighing ½ pound, and the smallest bag of holding weighs 15 pounds that would indicate that a bag of holding may not appear as an empty bag. Personally I think that the bags appear at least partially full. If they appeared empty it would be a dead giveaway about the nature of the bag. I would even go so far as to say the higher capacity the bag the fuller it looks. To me this allows the bag to be used to hopefully smuggle things. This is how I would rule if one of my players asked.

I totally get this, and this is a fair adjudication. But it is equally fair to adjudicate that since there is literally never anything in the bag that it always looks empty. (Objects inside go instead into a nondimensional space).


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Aranna, there is no missing dimension. We have both dimensions for a cylinder.

Yes, you are in house rule territory because you are adding rules here.

Adjudication is about determining what rule is correct, house rules are about filling in missing pieces. In this case you are using both, not just adjudication.

You are adjudicating adding a house rule to fill in the missing pieces.

The problem is we do not know it is an empty bag. In fact, it very much behaves as if it were not an empty bag because it is quite heavy for an 'empty bag'.

My adjudication avoids adding house rules.
My adjudication is that the bag is presented as having the dimensions of a cylinder and thus I do not have to add a dimension to the bag. I can look at a non-magical example in Ultimate Equipment if I want to see the size and shape of a sack in Pathfinder, it is a cylinder. Thus I do not have to houserule a third dimension in.
My adjudication is that the bag is heavier by an order of magnitude than a nonmagical empty cloth sack and thus does not behave like an empty sack thus avoiding the houserule of compressing a magic item into a smaller space.


I absolutely don't picture a sewn cloth bag as a cylinder. It's a rectangle, 2x4' when laid flat. Imagine a pillow case made of tougher fabric and with with a draw string to close the open end.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder LO Special Edition, PF Special Edition Subscriber
Plausible Pseudonym wrote:
I absolutely don't picture a sewn cloth bag as a cylinder. It's a rectangle, 2x4' when laid flat. Imagine a pillow case made of tougher fabric and with with a draw string to close the open end.

Exactly this. Pillow case with shoulder straps. Also any and all depictions of bags of holding and handy haversacks do not have them as perfect cylinders. they look like generic adventuring packs, rectangular in shape.

As for the fullness of the bag, nothing is listed but in general fantasy there are 2 methods that are used in multiple forms of media from books to movies / tv shows.
1. the fuller the extra dimensional space is the fuller the bag looks from the outside.
2. the bag always looks empty from the outside no matter how much is put in.

Stuffing a bag into a smaller bag is general life things so would not be defined by the rules. Have you ever been camping? I have 3 sleeping bags and a waterproof sleeping bag cover stuffed into a sack that measures less then 1 cubic foot in size when it is all inside.


Plausible Pseudonym wrote:
I absolutely don't picture a sewn cloth bag as a cylinder. It's a rectangle, 2x4' when laid flat. Imagine a pillow case made of tougher fabric and with with a draw string to close the open end.

Ultimate Equipment page 70, "Sack". It is clearly a cylinder.


Ok, so there appears to be two issues here and one hinges on the other.

1) Does the bag appear full.
The 'empty' group says, it appears empty.
The 'not empty' group says that it weighs far more than an empty sack and thus does not appear empty.

The 'empty' group has no rules support for this other than the idea that somehow 'extradimensional space' = 'empty appearance'.
The 'not empty' group has the weight as a RAI point but not a RAW point.

2) What is the external volume of the bag.
Empty: If you take an empty sack then the 2' by 4' dimensions could be a rectangle but you are missing the third dimension and thus have to houserule that in to gain the external 'empty' volume.
Not empty: If you take a full sack then the 2' by 4' dimensions are the dimensions of a cylinder (see UE page 70 for visual example) and you can thus calculate the external volume.

It all hinges on whether you think it is empty or not.

My take is that clearly, as a magic item with a significant weight beyond what an empty non-magical sack weighs, it does not appear empty.

In fact, I bet if you poll people independent of this issue most people would have a vision of this as a not empty bag.

It is really when you want to stuff it into another bag that this becomes an issue.


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Gauss wrote:

Ok, so there appears to be two issues here and one hinges on the other.

1) Does the bag appear full.
The 'empty' group says, it appears empty.
The 'not empty' group says that it weighs far more than an empty sack and thus does not appear empty.

The 'empty' group has no rules support for this other than the idea that somehow 'extradimensional space' = 'empty appearance'.
The 'not empty' group has the weight as a RAI point but not a RAW point.

2) What is the external volume of the bag.
Empty: If you take an empty sack then the 2' by 4' dimensions could be a rectangle but you are missing the third dimension and thus have to houserule that in to gain the external 'empty' volume.
Not empty: If you take a full sack then the 2' by 4' dimensions are the dimensions of a cylinder (see UE page 70 for visual example) and you can thus calculate the external volume.

It all hinges on whether you think it is empty or not.

My take is that clearly, as a magic item with a significant weight beyond what an empty non-magical sack weighs, it does not appear empty.

In fact, I bet if you poll people independent of this issue most people would have a vision of this as a not empty bag.

It is really when you want to stuff it into another bag that this becomes an issue.

Both positions are assumptions. You just phrased yours better because you support your assumption. Situations where a judgment is required due to ambiguity or space in rules aren't house rules. You can expect table variance; but just because you think your interpretation sounds better, doesn't make it the true rule.

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