Post/Author/DateTime	Post
loaba 06-07-06, 10:35 PM	Scattershooting while wondering; should every adventurer have a mithril shirt and a bag of holding? Why, or why not. Please show your work. I was discussing this with a friend who says that, essentially, bags of holding are just a game mechanic, they mean nothing. It makes no difference if one person has one or if everyone has one. My problem is (per usual) that I can see both sides of the situation. I get the idea that magic items are in the game to be used and that if something is useful then you should get it if you can afford it. But I also get the idea that you're kind of trivializing magic items when every adventurer has the same standard kit consisting of a +1 Ring of Protection, a Hewer's Handy Haversack, and a +1 Mithril shirt. Now obviously that list is an exageration of sorts, but I think everyone can agree that that list represents and excellent use of 6000gp that most any class can find useful (a 10% ASF just is not bad). So again, I ask, is it okay when you see your party members taking many of the same magic items?
Gnome_Dragon_Disciple 06-07-06, 11:06 PM	It all depends on what you make available to your players. As more or less a seat-of-the-pants DM, I don't mess around too much with the limitations of what can and cannot be found in a city from the DMG... I rule that in any city, no magic item can be found if it needs a CL higher than 10 to make, but they can get items commisionned if they want them. Also, any magic item "on the shelf" other than potions get a 10% markup in price. This is because high-level casters who have settled down to an item creation profession might make ONE really powerful item as sort of a magical resume, but will likely not make very high-level items on a regular basis because of the small market for extremely expensive items. The markup on price is that even in their industry, it will be rare that someone will buy something OTHER than a potion (what, you think only adventurers buy low-level magic items?). This tends to encourage players to come up with items of their own, and severely cuts down on Generic Adventurer Shopping List Syndrome, or GASLS.
Lokathor 06-07-06, 11:25 PM	Well why not? In the modern world everyone has a selection of effectively magical items that they all buy first as soon as they get some cash (cars, phones, computers, etc). Why can't adventurers have a similar list of "Things to get ASAP"? It would be move of a suspension of disbelief to say that no one is willing to craft such items despite the fact that people are willing to pay good money for them unless the process of crafting an item somehow has a chance to instantly kill them in an accident or some such. High level wizards with the skills to make high level items can get the EXP required to craft powerful items very easily unless you modify the XP system fairly heavily. One can normally get XP for things up to 10 levels below them. I haven't seen the 11th level wizard yet who can't just squelch a few CR5 baddies out of existance when he needs more coin and XP to continue his shop work.
William1976 06-07-06, 11:56 PM	In the basic D&D 3.5 game, as written in the DMG, all players dont have a mithril shirt and a bag of holding? They have a mithral shirt, Hewards handy haversack and boots of speed, because these items are incorrectly priced. Boots of speed, costs 12,000 gp, activates as a free action, and lasts 10 rounds that dont have to be all at once! If you used the basic item creation rules, you would know that 3x5x1800 would cost 27,000 gp for the same item, but uses a command for do activate and lasts 5 real rounds. Why would you ever get a weapon with the speed ability that is a +3 modifer (for a total of a +4 weapon 32,000 gp) to get the same bonus plus increased speed and attack and AC bonus. Hewards costs less than a bag of holding and does more. And Mithral is the only metal that players use on armor and it costs less than Adamantine that give a poor DR. The answer to your question, yes and no. There always will be items in any game that is usually pretty cheap and very usefull, which means all players will get them, then there are Items that are rare and expensive, those items are reserved for one of the players so by 15th level, each player has one or two unique items. As a DM decide what those are. In my game the Hewards haversack is pretty fairly priced, so many get it, but some get the bag of holding to, its more of a preference than a no-brainer decision. Mithral and a haste items, they are modifed and can be cheap or expensive depending on what you want. Hope this helps William
Board_Rider 06-08-06, 12:24 AM	Guilty. It is a common knowledge that I, as a player, always go for the H.H.H when score my first 2k. I do it because I do not like to deal with encumbrance and weight. I am kind of a stickler for that personally. Usually, because I am a stickler, my players buy Bags of Holding or H.H.H just so that they do not have to deal with it either. It may not be the most believable but it saves some headaches.
celtredleg 06-08-06, 12:44 AM	Guilty. It is a common knowledge that I, as a player, always go for the H.H.H when score my first 2k. I do it because I do not like to deal with encumbrance and weight. I am kind of a stickler for that personally. Usually, because I am a stickler, my players buy Bags of Holding or H.H.H just so that they do not have to deal with it either. It may not be the most believable but it saves some headaches. I spent 21 years in the army, many of them walking up and down hills with what felt like a VW bug in my pack. If I could have somehow gotten ahold of a HHH or a bag of holding, I would have payed whatever it cost happily. And if I could have gotten a number of them, I could have sold every single one of them. I dont see why adventurers would be that much different. Carrying heavy packs is in no way fun.
tsuyoshikentsu 06-08-06, 12:44 AM	First off, not all my characters use mithril. For instance, my tanks don't. Having said that, it is very common for my characters to get mithril, and I get my trinity of items as soon as I can -- sustaining spoon, decanter of endless water, and the 3H. This lets me ignore most of the niggling day-to-day things about my character. (Note that I never get the first two if I can cast create food and drink, for obvious reasons.) My rationale behind this as a DM is that I look at rare materials and magical items like diamonds and coffee in real life. There are enough -- in the case of rare materials, casters can make them fairly easily -- that if the entire supply were released, they'd be cheaper than dirt. However, since they've been set up to be an expensive luxury which takes time and effort to produce -- no less true, but then there are many more people producing them than you'd think -- those controlling the supply can keep the cost high. Of course,this doesn't apply to custom magic items. There's usually a fair deal of haggling and favor-trading involved there.
loaba 06-08-06, 12:45 AM	Great responses, folks. Thanks. So basically I can put this inner demon to rest; if everyone at the table has a H.H.H. or Bag of Holding, I shouldn't sweat it. Coolio.
stealth_monkey 06-08-06, 12:46 AM	My first magic item for most of my characters is a travel cloak (MoF). Waterproof, provides three meals a day and water, also doubles as a tent and endure elements (cold) when worn. This is because I tend not to like to worry about carrying rations (those things are damn heavy and not fun to run out of). Then I'll grab a haversack (benefits obvious) and some goggles of see invisibility (cheap, but an immense power boost at all levels) There's nothing really wrong with common magical items, as the entire dnd world is based on magical. I can see a small village putting in for a decanter of endless water, your average peasant using low level magic to keep pests away from his crops and a rich merchant employing tenser's disks to transport his goods. Then again, I run a fairly rich world, there is no copper piece, and peasants think in silvers, not coppers, which shifts the lower class up a notch but the upper class remains the same
Board_Rider 06-08-06, 12:58 AM	I spent 21 years in the army, many of them walking up and down hills with what felt like a VW bug in my pack. If I could have somehow gotten ahold of a HHH or a bag of holding, I would have payed whatever it cost happily. And if I could have gotten a number of them, I could have sold every single one of them. I dont see why adventurers would be that much different. Carrying heavy packs is in no way fun. I did 4 when I blew my knee out, I hear ya. The culprit? Rucking to much weight for far too long periods of time. Yeah, its "HOOAH" road marching with 125lbs. on your back for 25 miles, but damn if it doesn't kill your knees! I am trying to get back in now. Damn stupidity.
MarkB 06-08-06, 03:57 AM	After the Handy Haversack, my second utility purchase tends to be a Ring of Sustenance. Not needing to eat at all trumps being able to obtain food magically IMO, and not being caught napping is also handy.
lokilowkey 06-08-06, 04:11 AM	My players are all begging for the bag of holding to be available to them, and it is, in a way. 2 weeks travel to the big city and 8000 GP. They have never heard of the HHH so don't want it. The mithril shirt is also available at the big city for the standard price. So in my campaign I have nerfed the bag, but not the shirt Currently 1 player has a mithral shirt, and noone has a Bag. Bag is magical and rare, the shirt is 'only' special and available. Also, it is hard to abuse a mithral shirt, but the uses for the bag are manyfold. Another reason is that the players tend to distribute treasure and the end of a session, and always try to get away with writing down the accumulated treasures as they go along on a piece of paper. Important here is that this way, no-one is actually carrying any treasure so if a PC is captured or otherwise separated nothing is lost. I find this cheesy and discourage it by forcing them to write on the paper who is holding the loot. Having a bag of holding in the group, I know exactly what they will use it for (declare it a group item, and therefore not actually in possession of any character)
Gnome_Dragon_Disciple 06-08-06, 04:11 AM	It would be move of a suspension of disbelief to say that no one is willing to craft such items despite the fact that people are willing to pay good money for them unless the process of crafting an item somehow has a chance to instantly kill them in an accident or some such. High level wizards with the skills to make high level items can get the EXP required to craft powerful items very easily unless you modify the XP system fairly heavily. One can normally get XP for things up to 10 levels below them. I haven't seen the 11th level wizard yet who can't just squelch a few CR5 baddies out of existance when he needs more coin and XP to continue his shop work. I didn't say that they're unwilling to make them... It's just that when you're dealing with a relatively small market, it's stupid to make something you might never sell. It would be a waste of time, money, and XP to craft a magic item that is out-of-reach financially to all but someone who just raided a great red wyrm's hoard. No, a comissioned magic item is far preferred. You shouldn't have too much difficulty getting half your cash up front, so even if the adventurers aren't still interrested when you're done, you're not out the whole kit'n'caboodle. Things like the Bag of Holding and the Ring of Sustenance, while great utility items for adventurers, don't have a very large market to the game world at large... Unless, of course, you rule that level 1 NPC warriors could afford them (level 1 NPC Warrior being what the DMG says the vast majority of a game setting's militaries are made of). The H.H.H. would be bought by quite a few wealthy merchants, however, who would be able to store valuables in them and never have to worry about someone stealing them. If anything, the idea some gamers have of the "Magic Items R Us" spoils suspention of disbelief... It's a business model that would quickly result in bankruptcy... Especially taking into account that the sort of XP grinding needed to keep magic items shop running would earn more money in a given month than actually selling magic items.
dhamonra 06-08-06, 04:53 AM	My players are all begging for the bag of holding to be available to them, and it is, in a way. 2 weeks travel to the big city and 8000 GP.... ...Another reason is that the players tend to distribute treasure and the end of a session, and always try to get away with writing down the accumulated treasures as they go along on a piece of paper. Important here is that this way, no-one is actually carrying any treasure so if a PC is captured or otherwise separated nothing is lost. I find this cheesy and discourage it by forcing them to write on the paper who is holding the loot. Having a bag of holding in the group, I know exactly what they will use it for (declare it a group item, and therefore not actually in possession of any character) The easiest solution to this that I've seen was one my last party did. Our groups paladin carried treasure in his until we filled that BOH up, and listed those items as being on his person. If, heaven forbid, he fell and we lost him, those items are obviously lost as well. This is probably not a good scenario though, as only he had a BOH and I had HHH. As far as Mithral goes, not everyone wants one. Our group's rogue tended to use his Shadow shirt, and everyone else found regular magical suits of their favored armor types with +2 or higher bonuses. As a result, they didn't want mithral.
Lokathor 06-08-06, 05:28 AM	If anything, the idea some gamers have of the "Magic Items R Us" spoils suspention of disbelief... It's a business model that would quickly result in bankruptcy... Especially taking into account that the sort of XP grinding needed to keep magic items shop running would earn more money in a given month than actually selling magic items. Oh come on. Say you're a measly level 6 wizard who sells +2 swords. You spend 4,315 gp and 320xp to make the sword that you sell for 8,315gp. ~Net profit: 4,000 gp. ~XP needed to make up for the crafting: 320; that's a little over a CR1. So your level 6 wizard has to go off and somehow manage to kill any one of the following sets of creatures: 6 orcs, 8 kobolds, 2 troglodytes, 1 black bear, 1 bugbear, 1 constrictor snake, 2 drow, 4 goblins, or 3 whole human commoner zombies. All of which will earn him somewhere in the area of 300 to 600 gold from the fight itself (in addition to the EXP). Fireball? Scorching Ray? Sleep + Light Pick? Color Spray + Light Pick? Silent image over a pit and then just taunt the stupid thing into charging you? A level 6 wizard has many very simple ways to kill off 2 CR1s or a single CR2 all on his own. Summary: 4 goblins dead, and the wizard just got himself more than enough to go make a 4,000 gp profit from selling a Longsword +2. He'd almost have to be crazy to not see the money making potential.
Rolof 06-08-06, 05:34 AM	A few of the players in the game I'm in actually bought a mithril shirt just to sleep in-can't sleep in the regular armor they use without being fatigued, and got tired of waking up in the middle of the night to the camp being attacked, and them with no armor on.
John Paul Stoddard 06-08-06, 07:58 AM	Another reason is that the players tend to distribute treasure and the end of a session, and always try to get away with writing down the accumulated treasures as they go along on a piece of paper. Important here is that this way, no-one is actually carrying any treasure so if a PC is captured or otherwise separated nothing is lost. I find this cheesy and discourage it by forcing them to write on the paper who is holding the loot. Having a bag of holding in the group, I know exactly what they will use it for (declare it a group item, and therefore not actually in possession of any character) Your Making a Fundamental DM Mistake there then. If No one is actually in Possession of an Item it is stored somewhere where the PCs are not therefore being Unavailable. DM: Where are you gonna store the idol PC1: In the Bag of Holding DM: Who Has it? PC1: It's a group item, it's somewhere :rolleyes: DM: Who Is Carrying It? PC2: Not Me :weep: PC3: Me Either :weep: Dm: You Must have left it somewhere else then, Who is Gonna Carry the Idol. PC1: It is a group item ;) Dm: So Your gonna store it here for now and retrieve it latter :D PC1: :weep: PC2: :weep: PC3: :weep: I really think that some Items where invented so that DM's And Player's would not have to worry about things like Encumberance. Lets just say for comparission that a typical D&D Coin weighs as much as a Typical modren Coin and using Copper=Penny 100 pennies do not weigth that much and even that many can be carried without much hassle....now try carrying 5000 of them at the same time.. I am a stickler for details and made an Excel spreadsheet to track the weight of my Player's HHH, Bag of Holding, and Box of Holding
Lokathor 06-08-06, 08:55 AM	Lets just say for comparission that a typical D&D Coin weighs as much as a Typical modren Coin and using Copper=Penny 100 pennies do not weigth that much and even that many can be carried without much hassle....now try carrying 5000 of them at the same time.. On Page 168 of the PHB there's a "to scale" image of a Greyhawk coin, it's about the size of a 50 cent piece, not just a penny. Also, coins in DnD are supposedly crafted such that 50 coins of any denomination always weighs 1 pound. Really, the side pockets of the HHH could be devoted to just carrying the gold a character has in Coinage and it still might fill up later on. It's ridiculous.
MarkB 06-08-06, 09:37 AM	On Page 168 of the PHB there's a "to scale" image of a Greyhawk coin, it's about the size of a 50 cent piece, not just a penny. Also, coins in DnD are supposedly crafted such that 50 coins of any denomination always weighs 1 pound. Really, the side pockets of the HHH could be devoted to just carrying the gold a character has in Coinage and it still might fill up later on. It's ridiculous. Which is why gems and art items are exchangable at face value - at high levels, they are the portable currency of D&D. If that breaks your sense of realism, there's the bank-backed letter of credit as seen in the Eberron setting.
AaronDireBear 06-08-06, 09:57 AM	Bags of holding make it easier to carry foodstuffs especially at lower level when Teleportation isn't available. What my 5th level bard wouldn't give to be able to carry a month's supply of meat and cheese on his back...in fact in character he has suggesting the party pool together their funds to buy such magic. He's been saving up and has about 8,000 gp, but theres been no opportunity to buy magic.
Pegasos989 06-08-06, 11:15 AM	Things like the Bag of Holding and the Ring of Sustenance, while great utility items for adventurers, don't have a very large market to the game world at large... Unless, of course, you rule that level 1 NPC warriors could afford them (level 1 NPC Warrior being what the DMG says the vast majority of a game setting's militaries are made of). ...yeah.. They don't really have a lot of market. Just all the caravans, markets, many shops (free storage space REALLY saves the money you spent), all mechants travelling between towns, most special units of military/town watch/etc., adventurers, thieves, wizards, sorcerers, druids (there are hundreds of each in each metropolitan, and none have big STR to carry equipment), spoiled kids, nobles and royalty... ANYONE with low str/not wanting to carry a lot of load and having some money. I would say that you see a thousand of backs of holding in each metropolitan.
Ut-Napishtim 06-08-06, 11:38 AM	Yeah, Triple-H isn't really that bad to make for a spellcaster either. I know a Conjurer I was playing in a game in Germany was planning on making one for eveyone in the party when he got high enough to do Leomund's Chest. Unfortunately the game never got to that point. Oddly enough I've never encountered this dilema in any of my games. Sure, at the higher levels the party will usually pool their resources to get a party bag of some kind for those massive loot hoardes and what-not. For the most part up to around 10th they've pretty much got their own toys in mind. Most Wizard PCs I've seen are more interested in things like an Amulet of Natural Armor, a Ring of Protection, or a Headband of Intellect than they are a Bag of Holding. Of course I run 28 PB/4d6 reccomended wealth/level so those items might become less sought after when the party has higher ability scores and loot to spare. :twocents:
Milandros 06-08-06, 12:13 PM	There's a list of magic items every adventurer wants, starting here, going past +5 armour and through manuals +5 to increase stats. Whether they get them or not depends on your game world. Mages are a little rarer in my game than in Eberron or FR, and not all of them have the ability to craft items. I restrict quite a few things to keep flavour right (for example, resurrection magic - the gods don't grant it often at all, only for great needs or causes, so the PCs have it but not everyone). Most mages just don't have the creative spark required to manufacture items, they're working mages rather than mage-smiths or mage-craftsmen. This means that I don't have magi-marts. Some items can be commissioned, but it's not a trivial undertaking to get it done. I don't restrict the PCs - if they take a full set of creation feats and go to town, that's up to them - but it helps me keep the flavour of game world we want rather than forcing the logical results of D&D economics onto my poor world. :)
The man they call Boxhead 06-08-06, 01:13 PM	I usually encourage PCs to get HHHs, it means I have to do equipment audits less often. There's nothing worse (IMO) than tracking weight and encumbrance, it just detracts too much from the fun. If I only get 3-4 hours to play in a session, I don't want them to spend even 15 minutes of it recalculating encumbrance. As far buying and selling items goes, I don't use magic shops, but I do assume that in a day of shopping (2 if its an unfamiliar big city), the PCs can probably find someone to sell them the items they want at the prices in the DMG. I may give it some description (the antique dealer, the weaponsmith/armoursmith, the shady back alley dealer), but once again, because I tend to have short sessions, most of the time we'd rather just get down to the next adventure.
Bruunwald 06-08-06, 01:39 PM	While I agree that magic ought not be trivialized, I think it is inevitable that many of the characters are going to find themselves with similar items, simply because the utilitarian nature of said items makes them rather indispensible. That said, I take exception to things like bags of holding because they make certain game aspects too easy. Personally, I'd prefer having to defend a wagon full of gold to tucking a bag full of it away, safe and sound. Still, I'd allow them if I had normal players. But I don't. Well, I have mostly good players, but there's always that one guy... I have a munchkin in my game who has no intuition towards or understanding of the environment his character exists in, other than to think that every last thing in the world is moveable, removable, and for him to take. Now, if his character were merely greedy, that would be livable. Unfortunately, the real reason he does it is that he is a compulsive metagamer who has many times stated that he believes I am "hiding useful things" from him, and that every last thing in the game has some purpose that he simply hasn't worked out yet, and so, he must take everything and have it ready to go for when I (the DM) ultimately try to "fool" him by suddenly making that thing necessary. I can't get rid of the guy (it's a long story), so I find myself relying on cooler heads to talk him down from his freakouts, and I have to remember to be careful of what I allow in the game. If this guy got hold of such a bag, his immediate compulsion would be to try to work out why I had made it available, what that means, and if I am preparing him for some future event. All decisions for sessions afterward, would have to be made in light of this profundity - such as cramming interesting statues into the bag just in case I want to make them come to life a year from now. (As opposed to him just being happy to have something useful around.) Okay, I'm ranting now... sorry. The point is that you have to know your players pretty well to decide what you can and cannot allow in your game. Sometimes the most innocent-seeming things can create controversy.
kliate 06-08-06, 02:13 PM	Wizards and Sorcerers are better off without the Mithral Shirt. The +4 AC just isn't justified in the face of the 10% spell failure when one considers that the spell Mage Armor can provide the same AC bonus, easily lasts every encounter for the day (barring a Dispel Magic) by the time you can afford the Mithral Shirt alternative, doesn't weigh anything, and doesn't offer spell failure. Lastly, the cost of a 1st level slot each day (or a 25gp scroll) seems superior to spending 1100gp and simply accepting the drawbacks. Bags of holding are excellent devices for mid level characters, although at higher levels the Portable Hole is preferable. In my personal experience, the Bag of Holding should generally contain the following... -Backup Spell Component Pouches -A Ladder -Torches with Flint and/or Lanterns with Oil -Spare Rations -Spare Ammunition -Additional non-magical sacks and packs, because you may hit the big haul -Large quantities of non-magical weapons (just in case you hit a sunder-happy adversary), sheathed and/or bound (see below) -Plenty of extra room for Art Items, Gold and more -Fake Spellbooks trapped with Explosive Runes However, adventurers avoid putting the following in your Bag of Holding -Your main Spellbook -The powerful artifact you need to defeat the BBEG -Old Cheese -Old Girlfriends -Unbound/sheathed arrows, bolts, daggers or other sharp objects EDIT: Also of note, not everyone in the party needs a Bag of Holding. Provided you can trust your fellow party members, one or two should be fine for the whole group.
mlund 06-08-06, 02:56 PM	The Bag of Holding was the first significant purchase for my first Living Greyhawk character. He's a bard with 12 Strength - and he only has that because anything lower would make it basically impossible to be at light load and carry decent gear. At 4th level his Magic Items consist of: Bag of Holding, Type I Mithral Chain Shirt +1 Some scrolls he scribed himself That's it. He's got a Masterwork Composite Shortbow and some Cold Iron and Alchemical Silver arrows for emergencies. The Bag of Holding went in ahead of a Ring of Protection or any sort of stat-boosting item because it becomes the "Bag of Answers" where you can always pull out the right adventuring tool for the job - light sources, tent, bedroll, waterskin, food, oil, money, ladder, paper, pens, ink, chalk, (bound) iron spikes, rope, knotted rope, etc. No self-respecting problem-solving adventurer should be without one. - Marty Lund
Sulaco 06-08-06, 03:23 PM	IMO neither Bags of Holding nor mithral armor should be so plentiful that every PC can have one. These things need to be earned, not bought by the gross at Dungeon Depot.
Kreistor1 06-08-06, 03:34 PM	In my campaign, it's Darkleaf Breastplates or Mithril Breastplates. Me? I dump on Dex and use Armor to overcome it, so I like Adamantium Full Plate instead. I seem to be unique in that respect. High Strength and Heavy Armor means H.H.H doesn't do me any good. I can load to full and not change movement modes. Anyway, I'm just different. My party (I'm DM'ing) is big on speed, so they want light armor and encumbrance, meaning they have to go for the mithril and extradimensional carrying options.
Millennium 06-08-06, 04:01 PM	I tend to give players deep discounts on Heward's Handy Haversack, personally. I explain it away flavor-wise, but I really do it for two reasons: It's a convenient way to keep the encumbrance rules out of the way most of the time, but it doesn't actually alter the rules. Characters can cart around a generous amount of gear without worrying about encumbrance, but if they get ridiculous about things it will still come back to haunt them. It dramatically lessens the temptation to get bags of holding, which take the Heward's Handy Haversack idea and take it to extremes. Even the lowest-end bag of holding is far easier to break than a Heward's Handy Haversack.
Mandarbgrim 06-08-06, 04:15 PM	I did 4 when I blew my knee out, I hear ya. The culprit? Rucking to much weight for far too long periods of time. Yeah, its "HOOAH" road marching with 125lbs. on your back for 25 miles, but damn if it doesn't kill your knees! I am trying to get back in now. Damn stupidity. lol... "Light" Infantry
DarkRhystar 06-08-06, 04:33 PM	The last three games I played had neither bags of holding or handy haversacks. They're great items, but they're not essential. People are just too used to convenience. Mithral is great, but there are other options. Races of the Wild has several new types of armor (Thistledown, Leafweave, and Wildwood). Races of Stone has several new kinds of armor (and exotic armors). I think Frostburn had a few goodies as well, but it's been a while since I looked at it. If your campaign is such that you require a bag of holding or haversack just to carry all the "lewt" and your local magic-mart sells everything from mithral armors to mithral toothpicks, then there's no reason to not have these items. Not every campaign is the same though, so what's essential for one may be useless for another.
John Paul Stoddard 06-08-06, 05:53 PM	On Page 168 of the PHB there's a "to scale" image of a Greyhawk coin, it's about the size of a 50 cent piece, not just a penny. Also, coins in DnD are supposedly crafted such that 50 coins of any denomination always weighs 1 pound. Really, the side pockets of the HHH could be devoted to just carrying the gold a character has in Coinage and it still might fill up later on. It's ridiculous. Not if you use The Item limits as written Each side pocket has a 2 Lb limit and the Main Compartment has an 80 lbs limit so calculating a 50 Coin limit per pound 2X50+80X50+2X50=4200 Coins maximum carrying nothing but coins
Lokathor 06-08-06, 10:14 PM	The random treasure tables include entries to the effect of "1d6*1,000 silver" or "1d4*10,000 copper", as early on as 5th level. A single one of those can instantly push you over your limit for coin. kliate: You have to get a Mithril Chainshirt with the "Twilight" special ability. +1 bouns that reduces ASF of an armor suit by 10%. Buying a "Mithril Chainshirt +5, Twilight" is almost always worth it. In my game the players just got to level 4ish and I did a wealth audit only to find that they had far less money on each of them then the wealth per level guidelines. They'd just sold a major shipment of undefined loot that they'd swiped from a mage's libaray, so i simply said "Oh wait... well... you actually got... an extra 10,000 out of it to split between you all" to DeM the problem away. First purchase from them all? Mithril for the healer with 10Str, magical enchantments for the fighter (turning both armor and shield into +1), and Serrum bow for the ranger. Not a one of them wanted a magical container of any kind. Even after I'd been on their case for constantly carrying far over their light load weight limits. Frankly, I was surprised.
rikimaru75 06-08-06, 11:05 PM	I feel as if certain items mentioned in the DMG need to be found rather than just bought. For example, buying multiple bags of holding could turn out really insane in my opinion. Imagine a party carrying dozens of HHH or Bags of Holding like Neverwinter Nights games sometimes. It just feels so unrealisitic for 'adventurers' to loot every single thing.
jasper 06-09-06, 09:08 AM	my players pcs are 7th to 9th level and still don't own any of those but they are trying to find a portable hole. And yes they had to leave treasure behind. Some of it was still there when they made the second trip back. Some times thank you notes were left by Burglar B.B.
sag3 06-09-06, 09:48 AM	Bags of holding and HHH are blessing to any rogue who knows one when he sees one. All he has to do is put his hand in and think gold and jack pot. BoH and HHH both have opening sizes as a DM you should keep an eye on those to keep objects that shouldnt go in there out of there. Also it is important to remember with a single sword stroke both these items and all their innards can be gone. On the risks of these items ever wondered what happened we someone takes one of these items into one of those spell shelters the wizard makes for the party to sleep in. As for mithril not everyone wants it but to those its useful for its very useful. It is unlikely a party really needs more than one or two sets of mithril armor beyond that it is just an expensive back up item.
MarkB 06-09-06, 10:14 AM	Not if you use The Item limits as written Each side pocket has a 2 Lb limit and the Main Compartment has an 80 lbs limit so calculating a 50 Coin limit per pound 2X50+80X50+2X50=4200 Coins maximum carrying nothing but coins Actually, the side pockets carry 20 lbs each, making the maximum coinage capacity 6000 coins. And as Lokathor mentioned, the random treasure tables tend to generate coinage in large quantities of copper and silver, so you could easily fill a HHH even from a relatively low-level encounter's loot (how the monsters ever manage to carry it around is another matter. I once ran an encounter featuring seven highly mobile kobolds who sniped the party from cover and retreated, and one kobold who spent the entire encounter staggering slowly towards cover, because he was the one without a negative Strength score, who'd been made the party pack-horse, and was carrying about 4,000 copper pieces).
Ravenwillow 06-09-06, 10:48 AM	*shakes his head in sheer amazement* You all make me *SO* happy I run a game where magic stores simply don't exist. I mean jebus people.. A Magic'R'Us? As for the 3H.. Its a great item, truly it is. But I'm a big fan of makin' those PC's get wagons and animals, loadin' 'em up with their loot from the dungeon, and protectin' 'em back to where the goods can be cashed in. And then there's the road taxes, the bandits, etc, etc.. Its hard to tax a 3H, most folks won't know what they are or what they can contain. That big wagon full o' sparklies.. That 1% road tax just got REAL steep.
Sereno 06-09-06, 10:49 AM	Bags of holding and HHH are blessing to any rogue who knows one when he sees one. All he has to do is put his hand in and think gold and jack pot. Just for the record ... the DMG description mentions, "When the wearer reaches into it for a specific item, that item is always on top." only for the HHH, not the BoH. The BoH gets, "Retrieving a specific item from a bag of holding is a move action—unless the bag contains more than an ordinary backpack would hold, in which case retrieving a specific item is a full-round action."