Post/Author/DateTime	Post
stefan_mi 04-29-06, 08:19 PM	Recently our characters discovered a hoard with a huge amount of copper coins, many silver coins and some gold coins. The DM asked us how much we intended to take, and we responded that we would like to carry away as much as possible. We could figure out the carrying capacity of our party members based on strength, but no where in the DMG or the PHB could we find a designation of "how much," in terms of weight or volume, that a typical backpack or sack could hold. All we had to carry the coins in were some backpacks (one per party member) and some sacks. How many coins can you fit into a sack before it is full? Assuming you don't put anything in it, how many coins can you fit in a backpack? Where would we go for this info? My DM even dug out his 1st edition books and we looked in those but couldn't find anything.
Chrono Nexus 04-29-06, 09:44 PM	A roll of 50 coins weighs about one pound. Each five pounds of coins takes up one cubic foot of space.
dengarbountyhunter 04-29-06, 10:26 PM	my camping backpack can hold 80 liters, but it is a bit bulky, so as an adventurer's one is more compact, it would hold let's say 60 to 70 liters. now, 1 cubic meter is 100 liters... 1 cubic meter is approximatedly 40 cubic feet... so, a bag of 65 liters can hold 0,65 cubic meter, which is around 27 cubic feet... 27 times 5 gives 135 pounds of coins (!), which is approximatedly 6750 coins... but please take note that: 1. going from metric to imperial is unacurrate so this might be wrong 2. it's 10:30 for me and I don't remember well this kind of school stuff 3. bags for Small sized characters have only 1/4th of that capacity 4. Small sized characters (if there is one in the party) will probably not carry such weight anyway and that's it for the backpack, but don't ask me for the leather bag... just consider it to be 1/2 or 1/3 as big
jaelis 04-29-06, 11:58 PM	Each five pounds of coins takes up one cubic foot of space. Where is that from? Whether it's in the rules or not, it doesn't make much sense. Even the lightest of the metals, copper, has a density of 560 pounds per cubic foot. A bag of coins isn't solid metal, but surely at least half the volume or so would be used by the coins... that leaves 280 pound per cubic foot. At 50 coins a pound, thats 14000 coins per cubic foot. I'd say a backpack or sack can hold essentially unlimited weight. For a backpack, 80 liters is about 3 cubic feet, which sounds about right. (dengarbountyhunter did the conversion wrong, it's 1000 liters per cubic meter.) I'd put a sack at 1 cubic foot or so.
Rolof 04-30-06, 04:52 AM	Ah, I just knew I had this info lying around somewhere...it did take a small bit of looking though. Blue cover "Expert Rulebook", page 19/Red cover "Players Manual" page 61: capacities: backpack 400 coins small sack 200 coins large sack 600 coins saddlebag 800 coins (red book says 1,000, not 800) Ah, the joys of when all equipment came with a 'cn' (coins) rating for it's level of encumbrance (Example: sword 60 cn) and characters used speed charts based on the number of "coins" they were carrying instead of pounds, lol. Now, in 2nd ed AD&D you had weight capacity and volume: Page 78, Player's Handbook, Table 50: Backpack 50 lbs. 3' x 2' x 1' Sack, large 30 lbs 2' x 1' x 1' sack, small 15 lbs 1' x 1' x 8" At 50 to a pound, your 2nd ed backpack held 2500 coins. Quite an upgrade from the original 400. I searched and searched in my 3.5 Player's, but I'm not as familiar with it as the old stuff...all I could find about coins was on page 112, where it says they are 50 to a pound; no change from the old days. Couldn't find a single mention of carrying capacity of containers, apparently these days you are only limited by your strength and encumbrance.
stefan_mi 04-30-06, 10:21 AM	Yeah -- I understand that the coins all weigh 50 coins = 1 lb (which is quite an improvement over the old days where 50 coins = 5 lbs --- the first edition coins must have been huge)... I was just looking for a rules citation of how much stuff (coins, etc.) can fit into a backpack or sack. I didn't think to look in the 2 ed books --- thanks. I have also subsequently found a list of "stowage capacities" of various containers in the Hackmaster books --- which looks the same as you 2 ed amounts. thanks
Moribund 04-30-06, 11:50 AM	3.0 Player's Handbook had carrying capacities for containers. Not quite sure why that didn't make the 3.5 conversion. Sacks and backpacks hold 1 cubic foot. The Draconimicon says (in it's nice little "How Big is the Pile" sidebar) that 1 cubic foot is approximately 12,000 loosely stacked coins.
jaelis 04-30-06, 12:26 PM	3.0 Player's Handbook had carrying capacities for containers. Not quite sure why that didn't make the 3.5 conversion. Sacks and backpacks hold 1 cubic foot. The Draconimicon says (in it's nice little "How Big is the Pile" sidebar) that 1 cubic foot is approximately 12,000 loosely stacked coins. That sounds much more reasonable. I might round to 10000 per cubic foot for scattered coins and 15000 per cubic foot for neatly stacked ones. Coins in 1st and 2nd ed were 10 to the pound so they were certainly bigger than in 3rd ed. Though even then, this idea of a few hundred coins taking up a cubic foot is nonsense.
stefan_mi 04-30-06, 12:53 PM	Thanks for finding the official citation --- it might be in the 3,5 rules --- I just didn't find it. A cubic foot seems about right for a backpack in my estimation, but if I'm doing my math right, at ~50 coins to the pound, 12,000 coins are going to weigh ~240 pounds. While a heroic character might be able to carry that, will the backpack just rip open due to the strain of trying to hold in all that weight? Imagine carrying a heavy watermelon in a paper sack --- unless you carry it from the bottom, it might just rip through the sack and 'splat' on the ground. I can't see myself stopping the game to figure out whether or not a player's backpack rips open under the strain of trying to carry all that weight, however. Hopefully the players will find a "bag of holding" and stash their loot in there so I don't need to worry about this issue.
Malruhn 04-30-06, 01:02 PM	my camping backpack can hold 80 liters, but it is a bit bulky, so as an adventurer's one is more compact, it would hold let's say 60 to 70 liters. now, 1 cubic meter is 100 liters... 1 cubic meter is approximatedly 40 cubic feet... >>>SNIP<<< but please take note that: 1. going from metric to imperial is unacurrate so this might be wrong 2. it's 10:30 for me and I don't remember well this kind of school stuff 3. bags for Small sized characters have only 1/4th of that capacity 4. Small sized characters (if there is one in the party) will probably not carry such weight anyway >>>SNIP<<< Your math is a bit off. One cubic meter is a bit bigger than a cubic yard. One cubic yard has 27 cubic feet - so with the 18x3"x1' for each extra bit, we have an extra 4.5 cubic feet. SO, a cubic meter has approximately 31.5 cubic feet... which leads us to ---- There is NO way a D&D style backpack has 27 cubic feet worth of storage room on the inside. After dealing with camping and years in the US military, I can envision HALF of that - but not all. Well, not unless you want to turn the packs into Sherpa packs that go from over the head to knee level... then we have about a full yard worth of storage. And another thing that hasn't been considered... the backpacks we have today are made of nylon and aluminum. D&D backpacks are made of leather and cotton - perhaps some wool... and that's it. They were VERY heavy. Thanks, Rolof - I was going to post that and you spanked me. Good on ya!
ravenshrike 04-30-06, 02:07 PM	Recently our characters discovered a hoard with a huge amount of copper coins, many silver coins and some gold coins. The DM asked us how much we intended to take, and we responded that we would like to carry away as much as possible. We could figure out the carrying capacity of our party members based on strength, but no where in the DMG or the PHB could we find a designation of "how much," in terms of weight or volume, that a typical backpack or sack could hold. All we had to carry the coins in were some backpacks (one per party member) and some sacks. How many coins can you fit into a sack before it is full? Assuming you don't put anything in it, how many coins can you fit in a backpack? Where would we go for this info? My DM even dug out his 1st edition books and we looked in those but couldn't find anything. If you've got the time on your hands, send 2 party members to the nearest town with enough cash for 2 donkeys and 2 dogcarts. Then take it all.
stefan_mi 04-30-06, 02:21 PM	If you've got the time on your hands, send 2 party members to the nearest town with enough cash for 2 donkeys and 2 dogcarts. Then take it all. Hah! Good idea! Four problems, however: 1) We determined we could carry all the silver and gold in our backpacks... and we buried the copper. The cost of the mules and the carts would probably be more than the copper is worth. 2) It's fairly wild terrain --- overgrown, etc. A man on foot or a mule could travel it but I doubt that a cart could. 3) We've had some trouble in the area with a hunting manticore and have only survived it's attack by taking cover and returning fire to drive it off (well, we were trying to kill it (twice) but it always got away after inflicting heavy damage on us --- an average lvl 2-3 party of 6 persons). 4) After finding the coins and burying the copper we tracked the Manticore back to it's lair. We elected not to wait because we had inflicted a lot of damage on it and didn't want it to heal up --- so we used our healing spells and took off the next day. We found the lair (my sorceror's raven familiar was able to follow the manticore from a safe distance) --- unfortunately, the Manticore had a mate and two children (yikes) which we found out about the hard way. The manticores escaped after a hard battle -- we are 90% wounded, my character is unconscious and stable at -2, another PC is in a similar state and an NPC is down too and probably dead. Now we are out of spells, about 1/2 the party is down and we have even MORE treasure to transport. The session ended there and we will find out what happens next time --- hopefully my companions will revive me!
Pandaemoni 04-30-06, 05:00 PM	Even a modern nylon backpack could not be filled to the brim with coins and expected to survive. I suspect with coins the weight would destroy the backpack well before the volume of the coins became an issue. Think of a Handy Haversack. That holds 10 cubic feet of material, but only 100 pounds...that's just 5,000 coins, maximum, in a magical backpack. Clearly the weight limit is exceeded well before the backpack runs out of space.
yonman 05-02-06, 01:38 PM	Why are you guys making this complicated, there is a FAQ on the WotC site called "Going Metric". It has all of the carrying capacities for all of the backpacks and sacks for v3.5. Just go there and figure it out due to 50 coins weighing 1 lb. I believe that a backpack holds 50lbs, but I can't remember sack carrying capacity.
geekling 05-02-06, 07:08 PM	3.0 Player's Handbook had carrying capacities for containers. Not quite sure why that didn't make the 3.5 conversion. Which is doubly silly since the little footnot that containers sized for small creatures can carry 1/4 of the normal capacity did make it through the conversion. :P