The bottom line is that D&D is a game, not a physic simulator. The mechanics are designed to create a balanced play experience.
The things you are attempting to justify would create scenarios that are antithetical to the creator's design principles. It is obviously not intended to function that way, even if it were a legitimate reading of RAW.
The important thing is that the surface the Portable Hole is used on is "effectively flat", according to common usage. A wall, a floor, a ceiling, etc. That surface can be uneven, but a casual observer would still call it "flat". Where that specific line is between perfectly smooth and "difficult terrain" comes down to DM Discretion.
Previous editions were much more liberal with their rules and synergies, but 5e is much more conservative in that respect.
As a DM, do whatever you would like. As a Player, if you regularly attempt to do things like making armor out of a portable hole, and expect it to work, you may find fewer invitations to play.
And this is TTRPG, where everything is possible. I'm not even speaking about homebrew, I'm speaking by RAW.
According with this FANDOM in the oldest versions, "Some Dungeon Masters allowed portable holes to be used as weapons, saying that if the hole was affixed to a living being it would cause whatever innards it covered to spill out."
The only edition that had a more "literal" meaning (requiring a flat surface), was the 4th, but it was the version they abandoned faster than any other because WotC saw they where killing the essence of the game. In all the other versions (see below), the description doesn't even required a solid surface by RAW, so you might be able to trap a boat in it.
D&D 1st Ed. Portable Hole: A portable hole is a circle of magical cloth spun from the webs of a phase spider interwoven with strands of ether and beams of Astral Plane luminaries. When opened fully, a portable hole is 6’ in diameter, but it can be folded as small as a pocket handkerchief. When spread upon any surface, it causes an extra-dimensional hole 10’ deep to come into being. This hole can be “picked up” from inside or out by simply taking hold of the edges of the magical cloth and folding it up. Either way, the entrance disappears, but anything inside the “hole” remains. The only oxygen in the “hole” is that allowed by creation of the space, so creatures requiring the gas cannot remain inside for more than a turn or so without opening the space again by means of the magical cloth. The cloth does not accumulate weight even if its hole is filled with gold, for example. Each portable hole opens on its own particular nondimensional space. If a bag of holding is placed within a portable hole, a rift to the Astral Plane is torn in the space, and the bag and the cloth are sucked into the void and forever lost. If a portable hole is placed within a bag of holding, it opens a gate to another plane, and the hole, the bag and any creatures within a 10’ radius are drawn to the plane, the portable hole and bag of holding being destroyed in the process.
AD&D (2nd Ed.) D&D 1st Ed., AD&D (2nd Ed.), Portable Hole: A portable hole is a circle of magical cloth spun from the webs of a phase spider interwoven with strands of ether and beams of Astral Plane luminaries. When opened fully, a portable hole is 6 feet in diameter, but it can be folded as small as a pocket handkerchief. When spread upon any surface, it causes an extra-dimensional hole 10 feets deep to come into being. This hole can be “picked up” from inside or out by simply taking hold of the edges of the magical cloth and folding it up. Either way, the entrance disappears, but anything inside the hole remains. The only oxygen in the hole is that allowed by creation of the space, so creatures requiring the gas cannot remain inside for more than a turn or so without opening the space again by means of the magical cloth. The cloth does not accumulate weight even if its hole is filled (with gold, for example). Each portable hole opens on its own particular nondimensional space. If a bag of holding is placed within a portable hole, a rift to the Astral Plane is torn in the space, and the bag and the cloth are sucked into the void and forever lost. If a portable hole is placed within a bag of holding, it opens a gate to another plane, and the hole, the bag and any creatures within a 10'(foot) radius are drawn to the plane, the portable hole and bag of holding being destroyed in the process.
D&D 3rd Ed. Portable Hole: A portable hole is a circle of cloth spun from the webs of a phase spider interwoven with strands of ether and beams of starlight. When opened fully, a portable hole is 6 feet in diameter, but it can be folded up to be as small as a pocket handkerchief. When spread upon any surface, it causes an extradimensional space 10 feet deep to come into being. This hole can be picked up from inside or out by simply taking hold of the edges of the cloth and folding it up. Either way, the entrance disappears, but anything inside the hole remains. The only air in the hole is that which enters when the hole is opened. It contains enough air to supply one Medium-size creature or two Small creatures for 10 minutes. (See Suffocation, page 88.) The cloth does not accumulate weight even if its hole is filled (with gold, for example). Each portable hole opens on its own particular nondimensional space. If a bag of holding is placed within a portable hole, a rift to the Astral Plane is torn in that place. Both the bag and the cloth are sucked into the void and forever lost. If a portable hole is placed within a bag of holding, it opens a gate to the Astral Plane. The hole, the bag, and any creatures within a 10-foot radius are drawn there, the portable hole and bag of holding being destroyed in the process. Caster Level: 12th; Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, plane shift; Market Price: 14,000 gp; Weight: —.
D&D 3.5rd Ed. Portable Hole: A portable hole is a circle of cloth spun from the webs of a phase spider interwoven with strands of ether and beams of starlight. When opened fully, a portable hole is 6 feet in diameter, but it can be folded up to be as small as a pocket handkerchief. When spread upon any surface, it causes an extradimensional space 10 feet deep to come into being. This hole can be picked up from inside or out by simply taking hold of the edges of the cloth and folding it up. Either way, the entrance disappears, but anything inside the hole remains. The only air in the hole is that which enters when the hole is opened. It contains enough air to supply one Medium creature or two Small creatures for 10 minutes. (See Suffocation, page 304.) The cloth does not accumulate weight even if its hole is filled (with gold, for example). Each portable hole opens on its own particular nondimensional space. If a bag of holding (see page 248) is placed within a portable hole, a rift to the Astral Plane is torn in that place. Both the bag and the cloth are sucked into the void and forever lost. If a portable hole is placed within a bag of holding, it opens a gate to the Astral Plane. The hole, the bag, and any creatures within a 10-foot radius are drawn there, the portable hole and bag of holding being destroyed in the process. Moderate conjuration; CL 12th; Craft Wondrous Item, plane shift; Price 20,000 gp.
D&D 4th Ed. Portable Hole Level 19 This handkerchief-sized black circle becomes a great hole when placed on a flat surface. Wondrous Item 105,000 gp Power (At-Will): Standard Action. Place a portable hole on a wall, a floor, or a ceiling. (The surface must be flat for the item to function.) The portable hole instantly creates a 5-foot-wide, 5-foot-deep hole in that surface. With a standard action, any creature adjacent to a portable hole can pick it up, provided there are no creatures or objects inside it.
for 2. Just from a quick look at it, it is RAW... There is no way it is RAI, and it probably isn't rule of cool either. If I was the DM I would never, ever allow it and would probably take it away if one of my players does this.
Except, how would no. 2 stay on? There isn't a way to tailor it since every time you put it down on the table to work on it, it turns into a hole! If you put it on first and then you attach it, It turns into a hole before you get to it! How would you attach it before it turns into a hole! It will just fall off!
I don't know... This shouldn't be allowed
Simple! If it's not entirely in a solid surface, it's not active. This way, you can work with it as a cloth, while glue the back of the cloth to another cloth.
You may have a problem to suit it, but it's expected to have some free space of the under cloth (tiny, but free) to make a people be able to don/doff it with help.
When you need to safely work with it, just put to edges together
I know it can be of very bad use of players, but the idea is to using it in a villain. And I know that players will try to exploit this too in the future like Bag of Shitting, Arrow of Total "Destruction" and Peasant Rail-gun.
I'm just looking if there is any dumb flaw that player with see in the 1st minutes, and that I didn't see now.
If I was a player, I'd just throw my bag of holding (or what have you) at the villain wearing it and tell him to enjoy his time being naked on the astral plane.
That said, I agree with the others that in general, it can't be done.
Yeah, this is the easy solution, but how much time would you take to discover this weakness with the DMs description that:
"You see a humanoid form that looks like a glass golem with a dark stone in its chest running over the princess and when that thing reach her, she just vanishes in front of your eyes. You see the guards trying to shoot the thing and the arrows going through it. Some guards try to jump and tackle that thing but it was like they where jumping in the air. What will you do?"
Tell me, how much time do you think that players will take to understand that the only true weakness of that thing is attack that may stop him from the soil (like glue, oil etc), or that a simple Bag of Holdings can solve the problems (sending the wearer, the princess and anything around to another plane)?
I'm using the concept that the more damage a item (magic or electric) is, less confident to be used it is so, minor cuts in the fabric to mold it wouldn't make it less effective like Rony Weasley's wand in the Chamber of Secrets. They are at most scratches (like eyes opening in the fabric).
This is not even english.
But in any case, there is no mention of the cloth being particularly durable, so using it as protection is a sure way to get it destroyed.
1: PH Shield
What if you glue the back of a portable hole to a foldable table or another cloth like a umbrella (both are solids), you may have a shield against area attacks, specially against Meteor Swarms and Dragon's Breaths. With a Tinker's Tools you may be able to make it open with one click.
You would need a shield or un umbrella at least 6 feet in diameter, otherwise the hole will not open. after that, I don't really see how you are protected more behind it than behind a solid surface.
English is not my first language, but thank you for weak offensive argument. There is nothing in the description saying that the cloth of the PH can be damaged from inside out, different from the BoH.
About the shield: The group would be BEHIND a Solid Surface that is weightless and they might be be spared than from cone and line magics, dragon breaths, arrows etc without having to spend magical resources to do so, protecting the group for a area behind it (I would say a cone area of 6 x 6).
I'm seeing a lot of people worried that it would break a game, just because a item is being used in a unexpected way but still RAW.
Just for curiosity:
tea was used as medicine in the past, not as a flavored drink.
ties where created to be a scarf originally
the post-it idea came from a glue from a failed project of superglue
Heels were created to guaranteed a good grip on the horse stirrups, not to be a fashion thing
Life is full of example of things that today have more than one purpose, but originally people just said "it's unethical", "that was not created for this".
Anyway, thank you for the good talking guys, but I still can't see a logic or rational reason why that item can't be used in that way, specially because the "flat" description was used only in 4th edition and even WotC abandoned it for seeing that they were creating imaginative limitations and killing the essence of D&D with things like that.
I think, personally, I would not allow making clothing out of the hole and having it active while wearing it. I could see, deactivated, making it into a cloak, but it would require a skilled tailor to do so. If a player at my table wanted to do this, I'd allow them, although it wouldn't really be that useful: They would still need to use an action to unfold/fold it. It might be nice for RP: Maybe the character just wants to show off that he is so comfortable with magic items and has access to so many that he can afford to have one made into a cloak.
For the umbrella/folding table idea, that would be interesting. I think I would probably allow it, if they could find a highly skilled craftsman to make it for them. It would be expensive and take time to get it right, and would effectively act as cover. However, I would also give it hit points & AC of its own (only when open), which could only be recovered by taking it to a craftsman for repair, and it would be destroyed on zero.
The Rules As Written do not say what happens if the surface the opened Portable Hole is on moves. This isn't covered at all, so you're in the world of DM's Whimsey. I'm going to rule that once opened, the Hole itself cannot be moved. Your DM may rule otherwise.
People have been trying to make Acme PH forever.. See the Roadrunner cartoons. If you want to create an Acme PH talk to your dm. Don't try to mangle the PH treasure keeper type. For an Acme PH. Rare. This cloth floats out in to a 3 foot diameter center which sticks to any flat solid surface. It creates a 10 deep hole. Malfunction chance 1 on a d20. Summons a coyote, large juggernaut which attacks for one round. Then a magical wind just blows the hole away.
And this is TTRPG, where everything is possible. I'm not even speaking about homebrew, I'm speaking by RAW.
According with this FANDOM in the oldest versions, "Some Dungeon Masters allowed portable holes to be used as weapons, saying that if the hole was affixed to a living being it would cause whatever innards it covered to spill out."
The only edition that had a more "literal" meaning (requiring a flat surface), was the 4th, but it was the version they abandoned faster than any other because WotC saw they where killing the essence of the game. In all the other versions (see below), the description doesn't even required a solid surface by RAW, so you might be able to trap a boat in it.
D&D 1st Ed.
Portable Hole: A portable hole is a circle of magical cloth spun from the webs of a phase spider interwoven with strands of ether and beams of Astral Plane luminaries. When opened fully, a portable hole is 6’ in diameter, but it can be folded as small as a pocket handkerchief. When spread upon any surface, it causes an extra-dimensional hole 10’ deep to come into being. This hole can be “picked up” from inside or out by simply taking hold of the edges of the magical cloth and folding it up. Either way, the entrance disappears, but anything inside the “hole” remains. The only oxygen in the “hole” is that allowed by creation of the space, so creatures requiring the gas cannot remain inside for more than a turn or so without opening the space again by means of the magical cloth. The cloth does not accumulate weight even if its hole is filled with gold, for example. Each portable hole opens on its own particular nondimensional space. If a bag of holding is placed within a portable hole, a rift to the Astral Plane is torn in the space, and the bag and the cloth are sucked into the void and forever lost. If a portable hole is placed within a bag of holding, it opens a gate to another plane, and the hole, the bag and any creatures within a 10’ radius are drawn to the plane, the portable hole and bag of holding being destroyed in the process.
AD&D (2nd Ed.)
D&D 1st Ed., AD&D (2nd Ed.),
Portable Hole: A portable hole is a circle of magical cloth spun from the webs of a phase spider interwoven with strands of ether and beams of Astral Plane luminaries. When opened fully, a portable hole is 6 feet in diameter, but it can be folded as small as a pocket handkerchief. When spread upon any surface, it causes an extra-dimensional hole 10 feets deep to come into being. This hole can be “picked up” from inside or out by simply taking hold of the edges of the magical cloth and folding it up. Either way, the entrance disappears, but anything inside the hole remains.
The only oxygen in the hole is that allowed by creation of the space, so creatures requiring the gas cannot remain inside for more than a turn or so without opening the space again by means of the magical cloth. The cloth does not accumulate weight even if its hole is filled (with gold, for example). Each portable hole opens on its own particular nondimensional space. If a bag of holding is placed within a portable hole, a rift to the Astral Plane is torn in the space, and the bag and the cloth are sucked into the void and forever lost. If a portable hole is placed within a bag of holding, it opens a gate to another plane, and the hole, the bag and any creatures within a 10'(foot) radius are drawn to the plane, the portable hole and bag of holding being destroyed in the process.
D&D 3rd Ed.
Portable Hole: A portable hole is a circle of cloth spun from the webs of a phase spider interwoven with strands of ether and beams of starlight. When opened fully, a portable hole is 6 feet in diameter, but it can be folded up to be as small as a pocket handkerchief. When spread upon any surface, it causes an extradimensional space 10 feet deep to come into being. This hole can be picked up from inside or out by simply taking hold of the edges of the cloth and folding it up. Either way, the entrance disappears, but anything inside the hole remains.
The only air in the hole is that which enters when the hole is opened. It contains enough air to supply one Medium-size creature or two Small creatures for 10 minutes. (See Suffocation, page 88.) The cloth does not accumulate weight even if its hole is filled (with gold, for example). Each portable hole opens on its own particular nondimensional space. If a bag of holding is placed within a portable hole, a rift to the Astral Plane is torn in that place. Both the bag and the cloth are sucked into the void and forever lost. If a portable hole is placed within a bag of holding, it opens a gate to the Astral Plane. The hole, the bag, and any creatures within a 10-foot radius are drawn there, the portable hole and bag of holding being destroyed in the process.
Caster Level: 12th; Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, plane shift; Market Price: 14,000 gp; Weight: —.
D&D 3.5rd Ed.
Portable Hole: A portable hole is a circle of cloth spun from the webs of a phase spider interwoven with strands of ether and beams of starlight. When opened fully, a portable hole is 6 feet in diameter, but it can be folded up to be as small as a pocket handkerchief. When spread upon any surface, it causes an extradimensional space 10 feet deep to come into being. This hole can be picked up from inside or out by simply taking hold of the edges of the cloth and folding it up. Either way, the entrance disappears, but anything inside the hole remains.
The only air in the hole is that which enters when the hole is opened. It contains enough air to supply one Medium creature or two Small creatures for 10 minutes. (See Suffocation, page 304.) The cloth does not accumulate weight even if its hole is filled (with gold, for example). Each portable hole opens on its own particular nondimensional space. If a bag of holding (see page 248) is placed within a portable hole, a rift to the Astral Plane is torn in that place. Both the bag and the cloth are sucked into the void and forever lost. If a portable hole is placed within a bag of holding, it opens a gate to the Astral Plane. The hole, the bag, and any creatures within a 10-foot radius are drawn there, the portable hole and bag of holding being destroyed in the process.
Moderate conjuration; CL 12th; Craft Wondrous Item, plane shift; Price 20,000 gp.
D&D 4th Ed.
Portable Hole Level 19
This handkerchief-sized black circle becomes a great hole when placed on a flat surface.
Wondrous Item 105,000 gp
Power (At-Will): Standard Action. Place a portable hole on a wall, a floor, or a ceiling. (The surface must be flat for the item to function.) The portable hole instantly creates a 5-foot-wide, 5-foot-deep hole in that surface. With a standard action, any creature adjacent to a portable hole can pick it up, provided there are no creatures or objects inside it.
Yeah, this is the easy solution, but how much time would you take to discover this weakness with the DMs description that:
"You see a humanoid form that looks like a glass golem with a dark stone in its chest running over the princess and when that thing reach her, she just vanishes in front of your eyes. You see the guards trying to shoot the thing and the arrows going through it. Some guards try to jump and tackle that thing but it was like they where jumping in the air. What will you do?"
Tell me, how much time do you think that players will take to understand that the only true weakness of that thing is attack that may stop him from the soil (like glue, oil etc), or that a simple Bag of Holdings can solve the problems (sending the wearer, the princess and anything around to another plane)?
English is not my first language, but thank you for weak offensive argument. There is nothing in the description saying that the cloth of the PH can be damaged from inside out, different from the BoH.
About the shield: The group would be BEHIND a Solid Surface that is weightless and they might be be spared than from cone and line magics, dragon breaths, arrows etc without having to spend magical resources to do so, protecting the group for a area behind it (I would say a cone area of 6 x 6).
I'm seeing a lot of people worried that it would break a game, just because a item is being used in a unexpected way but still RAW.
Just for curiosity:
Life is full of example of things that today have more than one purpose, but originally people just said "it's unethical", "that was not created for this".
Anyway, thank you for the good talking guys, but I still can't see a logic or rational reason why that item can't be used in that way, specially because the "flat" description was used only in 4th edition and even WotC abandoned it for seeing that they were creating imaginative limitations and killing the essence of D&D with things like that.
See you around.
I think, personally, I would not allow making clothing out of the hole and having it active while wearing it. I could see, deactivated, making it into a cloak, but it would require a skilled tailor to do so. If a player at my table wanted to do this, I'd allow them, although it wouldn't really be that useful: They would still need to use an action to unfold/fold it. It might be nice for RP: Maybe the character just wants to show off that he is so comfortable with magic items and has access to so many that he can afford to have one made into a cloak.
For the umbrella/folding table idea, that would be interesting. I think I would probably allow it, if they could find a highly skilled craftsman to make it for them. It would be expensive and take time to get it right, and would effectively act as cover. However, I would also give it hit points & AC of its own (only when open), which could only be recovered by taking it to a craftsman for repair, and it would be destroyed on zero.
The Rules As Written do not say what happens if the surface the opened Portable Hole is on moves. This isn't covered at all, so you're in the world of DM's Whimsey. I'm going to rule that once opened, the Hole itself cannot be moved. Your DM may rule otherwise.
<Insert clever signature here>
People have been trying to make Acme PH forever.. See the Roadrunner cartoons. If you want to create an Acme PH talk to your dm. Don't try to mangle the PH treasure keeper type. For an Acme PH. Rare. This cloth floats out in to a 3 foot diameter center which sticks to any flat solid surface. It creates a 10 deep hole. Malfunction chance 1 on a d20. Summons a coyote, large juggernaut which attacks for one round. Then a magical wind just blows the hole away.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
What is Colan Armor? Google is only giving me this post.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Oh yeah, I meant to ask too. I got some Marvel comics as search results, so it isn't a real or well established thing.