So I'm a relatively new DM, 5th session is this Saturday, and since the group I'm DMing is a party of 5, I'm planning ahead quite a bit. My players have just reached level 2 (Milestone).
So my question is: What level would be best for them to get a Bag of Holding?
At the moment I've devised a way for them to get one by helping a Beast Master masquerading as a Wizard. By the time they reach this NPC, I'm expecting them to be level 3 or 4 (depending on how much they f*** around beforehand obviously).
Is that too early in the campaign to give them an uncommon magical item, or should it be fine considering the amount of players?
Any tips or advice is greatly appreciated. All the DMs I know in person are part of this game so I can't ask them. 😅
I hand out a bag of holding pretty early in the campaign. It isn't a particularly powerful item and it sure takes a lot of the hassle out of encumbrance (within limits). It might have been the first magic item I gave to my party. At level 3 or 4, I think a bag of holding is fine. Heck, since it's a magic item, use it as a reward for solving an intermediary quest or killing a mid-level monster. Aside from that, consumable magic items are your friend. Potions and scrolls are wonderful because they give the players taste of power, but everyone knows it's a "one and done" thing.
Beyond that, I've used this website for coming up with interesting weak magic items. Most of the time, I'll click through until something piques my interest and then I'll change it up to suit my needs.
when I use a bag of holding, or give it to a player, I don't necessarily award it as a magic item. I honestly kinda give it around 2nd or 3rd level when they need it.
Depends. I give it to them as a quest reward around the time they would have the money to buy one. Should it be available. So around lvl 5-6 I give them one.
if you check the tables in the DMG, you could theoretically randomly roll one as a treasure at lvl 1, result of 63-67 on magic item table B so they're intended to be given out early.
I have one awaiting my 3rd level party in an ogres sack in a flavour encounter for the area that they are currently travelling to. you can give them heaps of copper pieces as loot then too
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All plans turn into, run into the room waving a sword and see what happens from there, once the first die gets rolled
I am the type of DM who would let the players have one as a group share to even start with or something. I also let them purchase one for 500 gold whenever they get that coin. If I start at higher level they get a free uncommon item of their choice and they can choose a bag of holding if they want. It is not overpowered or imbalanced at all for a group of Level 1 characters to have one.
For those who like the encumberance rules: give them one but make it rarer to find another after that. Sure it's handy but it's not that big. Everyone likes to make our it's like some warehouse or something that store loads: it's actually not. The interior space is 64 cubic feet - which has the same volume as a 4 ft cube. Which, is actually not that big. So, they can still struggle at carrying lots of collected armour, weapons, ammo, items, potions and money.
For those, like me, who hate encumberance play it very loosely and don't keep specific track of that internal space - I even homerule that they cannot be pierced from the inside so they can shove their bolts, arrows and swords in there with reckless abandon. I just keep a modicum of awareness: they cannot have one bag for 10,000 books, or several suits of armours or enough building materials for a house, or anything. If I can look at the list of contents and not "holy crap that's lot of big items" then it's fine. And since I utterly loathe ammo tracking, if they want to store a bajillion arrows in a bag, fine by me BUT, I do insist that retrieving things takes an action, so they'll need a limited amount of arrows on their person or may need to spend their turn to get a particular potion or something out of the bag (I do let people chug health potions as bonus, so they can still take a turn to get something from the bag and heal up - potion heals can be fairly naff, so its no big deal and the NPC enemies can do this as well).
In my experience Bags of Holding in the character's hands is very DM-friendly. It helps a DM just as much as a player because having to adjust encounters and story settings for the environments they're making to account for encumberance is a nightmare. So early game BoH and being free and loose with the space in it is a wonderful in-game-world way of making it easier for everyone to focus on the more fun aspects of gameplay. There's a reason why so many RPG videogames give players infinite inventories.
For arrows or bolts just give them the quiver that lets them store, almost endlessly, those items on their own person instead of using the party bag of holding. Tracking regular ammo I don't care about either. Just spend 1 or 2 gold when entering town to replenish that basic ammo type and your rations automatically. However special ammo types I do want them to keep track of for obvious reasons.
I'm glad my players don't bother stripping every opponent of all their armor constantly. That would get tedious and repetitive quick. Glad they acknowledged that those items aren't bringing in that much money. So no excess clutter anywhere. Thinking about adding some encumbrance rules. Simple ones as in you can equip your gear and then items equal to your strength number. Don't want to keep track of individual weights and carry capacity. That would just slow things down. But having a simple encumbrance rule will make it so the players have to make choices about what to do and bring. That kind of preparation will effect their dungeoneering, traveling and they have to get creative on how to bring that load of loot back to town before someone else steals it away.
There is also a reason why a lot of people stop playing video games in favor of table top ;) Streamlining elements can also go too far to the point everything is too easy, instant gratification and meaningless.
So I'm a relatively new DM, 5th session is this Saturday, and since the group I'm DMing is a party of 5, I'm planning ahead quite a bit. My players have just reached level 2 (Milestone).
So my question is: What level would be best for them to get a Bag of Holding?
At the moment I've devised a way for them to get one by helping a Beast Master masquerading as a Wizard. By the time they reach this NPC, I'm expecting them to be level 3 or 4 (depending on how much they f*** around beforehand obviously).
Is that too early in the campaign to give them an uncommon magical item, or should it be fine considering the amount of players?
Any tips or advice is greatly appreciated. All the DMs I know in person are part of this game so I can't ask them. 😅
Thanks in advance!
I hand out a bag of holding pretty early in the campaign. It isn't a particularly powerful item and it sure takes a lot of the hassle out of encumbrance (within limits). It might have been the first magic item I gave to my party. At level 3 or 4, I think a bag of holding is fine. Heck, since it's a magic item, use it as a reward for solving an intermediary quest or killing a mid-level monster. Aside from that, consumable magic items are your friend. Potions and scrolls are wonderful because they give the players taste of power, but everyone knows it's a "one and done" thing.
Beyond that, I've used this website for coming up with interesting weak magic items. Most of the time, I'll click through until something piques my interest and then I'll change it up to suit my needs.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Wow man, thanks for the link! That'll really come in handy.
Also thank you for the advice. Seems like my current plan should work out well.
I have a habit of giving my players a bag of holding with infinite carrying capacity as soon as they've collected enough loot to need one.
I don't like tracking encumbrance in D&D.
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when I use a bag of holding, or give it to a player, I don't necessarily award it as a magic item. I honestly kinda give it around 2nd or 3rd level when they need it.
Depends. I give it to them as a quest reward around the time they would have the money to buy one. Should it be available. So around lvl 5-6 I give them one.
if you check the tables in the DMG, you could theoretically randomly roll one as a treasure at lvl 1, result of 63-67 on magic item table B so they're intended to be given out early.
I have one awaiting my 3rd level party in an ogres sack in a flavour encounter for the area that they are currently travelling to.
you can give them heaps of copper pieces as loot then too
All plans turn into, run into the room waving a sword and see what happens from there, once the first die gets rolled
I am the type of DM who would let the players have one as a group share to even start with or something. I also let them purchase one for 500 gold whenever they get that coin. If I start at higher level they get a free uncommon item of their choice and they can choose a bag of holding if they want. It is not overpowered or imbalanced at all for a group of Level 1 characters to have one.
For those who like the encumberance rules: give them one but make it rarer to find another after that. Sure it's handy but it's not that big. Everyone likes to make our it's like some warehouse or something that store loads: it's actually not. The interior space is 64 cubic feet - which has the same volume as a 4 ft cube. Which, is actually not that big. So, they can still struggle at carrying lots of collected armour, weapons, ammo, items, potions and money.
For those, like me, who hate encumberance play it very loosely and don't keep specific track of that internal space - I even homerule that they cannot be pierced from the inside so they can shove their bolts, arrows and swords in there with reckless abandon. I just keep a modicum of awareness: they cannot have one bag for 10,000 books, or several suits of armours or enough building materials for a house, or anything. If I can look at the list of contents and not "holy crap that's lot of big items" then it's fine. And since I utterly loathe ammo tracking, if they want to store a bajillion arrows in a bag, fine by me BUT, I do insist that retrieving things takes an action, so they'll need a limited amount of arrows on their person or may need to spend their turn to get a particular potion or something out of the bag (I do let people chug health potions as bonus, so they can still take a turn to get something from the bag and heal up - potion heals can be fairly naff, so its no big deal and the NPC enemies can do this as well).
In my experience Bags of Holding in the character's hands is very DM-friendly. It helps a DM just as much as a player because having to adjust encounters and story settings for the environments they're making to account for encumberance is a nightmare. So early game BoH and being free and loose with the space in it is a wonderful in-game-world way of making it easier for everyone to focus on the more fun aspects of gameplay. There's a reason why so many RPG videogames give players infinite inventories.
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For arrows or bolts just give them the quiver that lets them store, almost endlessly, those items on their own person instead of using the party bag of holding. Tracking regular ammo I don't care about either. Just spend 1 or 2 gold when entering town to replenish that basic ammo type and your rations automatically. However special ammo types I do want them to keep track of for obvious reasons.
I'm glad my players don't bother stripping every opponent of all their armor constantly. That would get tedious and repetitive quick. Glad they acknowledged that those items aren't bringing in that much money. So no excess clutter anywhere. Thinking about adding some encumbrance rules. Simple ones as in you can equip your gear and then items equal to your strength number. Don't want to keep track of individual weights and carry capacity. That would just slow things down. But having a simple encumbrance rule will make it so the players have to make choices about what to do and bring. That kind of preparation will effect their dungeoneering, traveling and they have to get creative on how to bring that load of loot back to town before someone else steals it away.
There is also a reason why a lot of people stop playing video games in favor of table top ;)
Streamlining elements can also go too far to the point everything is too easy, instant gratification and meaningless.
I don't like keeping track of encumbrance for my players, but because it was getting ridiculous, I gave them a Heward's handy haversack