On the other hand, it doesn't have to weigh much at all. Have two hinged halfcircles with a sheet strapped across - unfold your shield of portable hole and go to town.
Fair, but it would still be unwieldy, no matter how light it is something that big would be hard to control
Is it solid between your legs, or between your arm and body when you lift an arem. Is it a solid 6ft surface to cover or are there gaps? the hole must touch solid at all times so gaps as you walk or lift your arms do not equal a solid service
Fair, but it would still be unwieldy, no matter how light it is something that big would be hard to control
Don't get me wrong - I'm not defending the concept. I'm just saying that's one way of doing it. And lots of unwieldy things are made and used, even in combat. If such shields became commonplace, someone would counter by tossing cheap bags of holding at them (I mean, as cheap as those ever get).
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Almost all definitions of 'solid' include the phrasing "Not hollow or containing spaces or gaps." which would disqualify armor as it is hollow and definitely has spaces and gaps.
However, the DM may disagree as that is his perogative. Just my $0.02 anyways.
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Aut Inveniam Viam Aut Faciam (Find a way or make one) - Hannibal Allegedly
Lessons learned in blood are not soon forgotten. - Clyde Shelton
The truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is and you must bow to it's power or live a lie. -Miyamoto Musashi
Within the game mechanics and the structure of how things work in D&D 5e, armor is a solid surface.
There's a big logical gap between "armor is made from a solid material" to "armour itself is a solid surface", especially in terms of the way that the rules normally consider surfaces to be something you can place an object onto, or walk upon etc.
And it's all mental gymnastics in aid of creating an exploit that clearly isn't intended, and definitely shouldn't be allowed.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
The wording for portable hole doesn't state the hole as to fully cover the surface it's placed upon/against.
The wording for portable hole doesn't state you can only partially unfold it; it tells you you can unfold it, and it tells you that unfolded it is a 6 foot diameter circle. It also specifically states that the (unfolded) hole is a cylinder 10 feet deep (so the hole must be a perfect circle).
This means that unless the surface you're placing it upon can accommodate at least a 6 foot diameter circle, then you cannot have an "open" portable hole, because anything other than 100% fully unfolded would not be a cylinder of the only width you have been given.
In RAW items and spells only do what they say they do; everything else is DM fiat and cannot be taken for granted. Also worth keeping in mind that when a question becomes something like "what is a solid surface" the question a DM should be asking is "why does that matter" or "what is the player trying to do" because idiomatic rules are not exhaustive, when they use a word like "surface" they mean "what you would normally describe to be a surface within the context of unfolding something fully onto it".
Because again, we're not talking about clearly intended uses of a portable hole here, we're talking about people fishing for it to become a blatantly game-breakingly exploitative invulnerability to all harm, something the item was very obviously never intended to do. It's already an extremely versatile item when used as intended, and while player ingenuity should be encouraged, that shouldn't be to the point of the game itself becoming redundant – because why even run combat if you're going to let the player do stuff like this?
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
There is a difference between shaping armor into hollow shapes and the armor itself actually being hollow.
For an example think of the chocolate bunny rabbits you get on Easter morning, some are solid and some are hollow. A piece of armor, like a breast plate is solid and so is every other piece of armor. Can you shape a suit of armor to be hollow and encapsulate the individual wearing it... yes. Is the armor or any piece of it hollow... no.
Armour absolutely is hollow, otherwise you couldn't be inside it. 😝
And I fail to see the relevance, it has nothing to do with whether you would describe a suit of armour as a solid surface; armour might be comprised of solid pieces with what could be described as solid surfaces, but it is absolutely not a solid surface as a whole as it's not a single piece, and even in plate armour it's not all solid, some of it is flexible.
It is not what you would reasonably describe as a surface suitable for unfolding a six foot circle onto.
Only the "six foot shield" proposal is in any way reasonable, but a DM is under no obligation to allow it, and fully within their rights to impose drawbacks; a shield that big, even if it's relatively light, is still going to be cumbersome and difficult to use, and you wouldn't be able to see around it, which would severely limit your ability to position it to prevent attacks. So it would most likely need to be treated like a "mobile cover" shield more like a pavise, where you set it up and fight around it.
But personally this is not something I'm sure I would allow as it's just begging to be abused; if the party wants a pavise type shield they can set up as cover, sure, it lets them get some cover if someone is willing to carry it and set it up. But I usually wouldn't allow those to be treated like total cover, since you need to pop out from behind it to attack (so there are moments where you're not fully covered, so I would rule three quarters cover at most). So the only difference with a portable hole pavise would be durability since it can't easily be hit and destroyed. But that's only if that's the only way it's used, there's just too much scope for it to be abused in other ways.
But one other issue with the six foot shield proposal is that the portable hole does not say it attaches to a surface, only that you can unfold it "onto" or "against" a surface. This makes it debatable whether it would actually stick in a way that it wouldn't be at risk of falling off a shield, after all, how do you secure a hole to something? From the description I picture it like more of a rubbery material that might be enough for it to adhere temporarily, but I'm less inclined to assume it would stay affixed if the surface its on is being moved around. I'd probably allow it on a wall of a vehicle, but again, the first question I would be asking is why the players want that; if it's just to retrieve things they put in there earlier, that's fine, but the moment it becomes "invincible armour" I become a lot less generous.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
You're not inside the armor... you're inside the suit of armor, solid armor.
This is getting silly; you wear armour, ergo armour must be hollow or you couldn't be inside it. And it still doesn't change the fact that armour is not a single continuous surface suitable for unfolding a six foot circle onto.
By arguing about parts of armour vs. suits of armour (which are the same thing as far as 5th edition is concerned) you are explicitly accepting that armour is comprised of pieces, so cannot be one continuous surface, but the magic item specifically says you can unfold it "onto" or "against" "a solid surface" – singular, one surface.
There is a rule for magical items that can be worn that says they 'magically' adjust to the size of the wearer.
A portable hole is a not a wearable magic item; it is not armour or clothing. It is also specifically, explicitly, unambiguously a six foot circle. The magic item description tells you this. It does not say "up to six feet" it says "six feet".
If it doesn't 'attach' to one surface, what makes it 'attach' to any surface (ie. wall). Wouldn't it just fall off of anything and everything and never be able to be used?
The magic item only says you can unfold it "against" a surface, suggesting it's more like how you might lean a piece of wood against a wall. Nothing in the description gives us a reason to believe it should adhere with such strength that were that wall to be swung around that the hole would definitely remain unfolded against it.
It comes under DM fiat, but again, this is why DM's need to ask the question of what exactly players are trying to do with a portable unfolded portable hole. Because it is an item with pretty clear intended uses; you can slap it down anywhere and put stuff into it, or retrieve items, and it can make a handy trap or hiding place in a pinch. If that's all the players are doing then it doesn't matter so much if it moves with a surface now and then, but if they're trying to do something more powerful it needs to be reined in.
Because it also very clearly not intended to be worn as indestructible armour because it wouldn't say "upon" or "against" "a surface" in the description if that were the sort of thing they wanted to be a possibility. Even the armor of invulnerability, a legendary magic item that is explicitly a suit of full plate armour, is only capable of being immune to non-magical damage for up to 10 minutes per day. The moment you start fishing for an effect that is more powerful than a magical item with a greater rarity that is specifically for doing that thing, your DM should be shooting you down immediately.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
A suit of armor is made up of solid pieces... NOT HOLLOW!
If you can wear it, then of course it's hollow. You know what a "solid" suit of armour is? A metal statue. Good luck wearing one of those. Literally everything that is concave or empty inside is hollow, that is what the word hollow means. Even if all of your armour pieces are perfectly flat, when connected into a suit of armour they are not, as the suit of armour would be hollow because otherwise you could not wear it.
Considering you're the one that keeps insisting on this argument it should not be necessary to explain to you what the word you keep using means, or what clothing is, how clothing works, or what wearing something means. These are all super basic, super unambiguous concepts.
Meanwhile something comprised of multiple pieces still isn't a single solid surface onto which you can unfold a 6 foot circle, because whether or not it is hollow (which it absolutely is, see literally everything that can be worn on the body) remains every bit as completely 100% fully irrelevant as the first time you started trying to argue this.
The OP is obviously talking about using something in a way that it wasn't intended for and whether it would be possible or not.
Most DMs would probably allow this for fun and not some world shattering, campaign breaking hack.
It's literally asking for armour that would render you immune to all harm – of course it's a campaign breaking hack.
It would render you completely immune to all attacks, all effects that require line of sight, effects that require touch, and all areas of effect (as these are all blocked by total cover).
So once again, you're asking for total immunity to any and all harm, the idea that this is any way not game breaking is completely ludicrous.
The only real drawback is that you would be unable to see, but this is easily counteracted with the blind fighting fighting style which is extremely easy to pick up. So congratulations, you've rendered all combat in your campaign superfluous unless your DM starts equipping all enemy groups with extraplanar containers they can throw into your armour, or antimagic fields to counteract the effects, either way the only way your campaign could ever feature combat ever again would be if your DM specifically sets out to counteract something they should never have allowed in the first place.
I would hope that most DMs are sensible enough to not allow this without enormous constraints – they certainly should not, because what such a player is asking for is not "fun", but total immunity to all harm, they are seeking to break the game in order to do something that nobody should ever be allowed to do in normal play, because it renders all combat meaningless. This is the kind of BS that I as DM would never allow, and if a player kept arguing for this as you have, I would ask them to leave, because at this point your arguments are not based in RAW in the slightest, and what you are asking for is not even remotely reasonable.
4. The bag of holding and handy haversack have wording something to the effect of 'If the item is overloaded, pierced, or torn, it ruptures and is destroyed, and its contents are scattered in the Astral Plane.' Since the description of the hole says it is cloth it is easy to believe something similar would happen to the hole even though by RAW it doesn't say this anywhere in the description of the hole.
Except there is no text to that effect for the portable hole so it doesn't do this; you can't argue something is fine in RAW on the one hand, and then argue its fine because of some homebrew rule you're inventing on the other. There are is also no AC or hit-points for objects by default, only values a DM asigns, and by default most damaging effects do not apply to anything that is worn or carried.
Plus it's only a piece of cloth until it is unfolded because once unfolded it is a hole. Even if some part of it is still cloth that part would be on the same side that you are; the outer side is a hole meaning it is nothing – you cannot cut through nothing, you cannot target nothing. And even if you rule there is a fabric side you cannot target that, because you cannot draw line of sight to it, and it has total cover against you.
But I'm getting real sick of going in circles on this; what you are suggesting is an exploit, it is not even remotely supported by rules as written, and allowing it anyway is always going to be a mistake that you will then have to find a way to counteract. I've no interest in continuing here so I'm unsubscribing; an obvious game-breaking exploit is not something anyone should be asking for, and even more so should not be granted.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
According to your interpretation, the PC would have to wander about covered in a "sheet". Which means they can't see, and can't manipulate anything. That doesn't sound like fun.
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"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?"
All this talk about how solid an object is or isn't, seems to miss the key word on how the hole operates.
It must be unfolded.
Unfolding a thing by definition opens/removes folds in that thing. Draping or wrapping anything made of fabric onto a person shaped object will re-introduce folds into that fabric, thus preventing it from being successfully unfolded, and thus by my understanding of the RAW and how I'd run it as a DM, prevent the magic that allows entry into its extradimensional space. So while it's not explicitly stated that the solid surface must be flat, the fabric must be unfolded to work. And fabric draped over a suit of armor has plenty of folds in it. The only exception to that would be very large suits of armor. Large enough to allow a 6 foot diameter circle of fabric to be completely unfolded (and remain unfolded). So maybe on a Huge or larger creature, or a Large and rather boxy creature, but then that hole also wouldn't completely conceal or protect a creature of that size.
Flat surfaces with enough space work well, curved surfaces must be adjudicated by a DM. Anything that causes the fabric to be bent back over itself (a.k.a the definition of a fold) is an obvious no to me, hell even allowing a right angle is stretching it.
Fair, but it would still be unwieldy, no matter how light it is something that big would be hard to control
Is it solid between your legs, or between your arm and body when you lift an arem. Is it a solid 6ft surface to cover or are there gaps? the hole must touch solid at all times so gaps as you walk or lift your arms do not equal a solid service
Don't get me wrong - I'm not defending the concept. I'm just saying that's one way of doing it. And lots of unwieldy things are made and used, even in combat. If such shields became commonplace, someone would counter by tossing cheap bags of holding at them (I mean, as cheap as those ever get).
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
If you want to get seriously technical, look at the definition of 'Solid'.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/solid
Almost all definitions of 'solid' include the phrasing "Not hollow or containing spaces or gaps." which would disqualify armor as it is hollow and definitely has spaces and gaps.
However, the DM may disagree as that is his perogative. Just my $0.02 anyways.
Aut Inveniam Viam Aut Faciam (Find a way or make one) - Hannibal Allegedly
Lessons learned in blood are not soon forgotten. - Clyde Shelton
The truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is and you must bow to it's power or live a lie. -Miyamoto Musashi
A large human doesn't have enough surface area for the hole to be opened.
"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
There's a big logical gap between "armor is made from a solid material" to "armour itself is a solid surface", especially in terms of the way that the rules normally consider surfaces to be something you can place an object onto, or walk upon etc.
And it's all mental gymnastics in aid of creating an exploit that clearly isn't intended, and definitely shouldn't be allowed.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
The wording for portable hole doesn't state you can only partially unfold it; it tells you you can unfold it, and it tells you that unfolded it is a 6 foot diameter circle. It also specifically states that the (unfolded) hole is a cylinder 10 feet deep (so the hole must be a perfect circle).
This means that unless the surface you're placing it upon can accommodate at least a 6 foot diameter circle, then you cannot have an "open" portable hole, because anything other than 100% fully unfolded would not be a cylinder of the only width you have been given.
In RAW items and spells only do what they say they do; everything else is DM fiat and cannot be taken for granted. Also worth keeping in mind that when a question becomes something like "what is a solid surface" the question a DM should be asking is "why does that matter" or "what is the player trying to do" because idiomatic rules are not exhaustive, when they use a word like "surface" they mean "what you would normally describe to be a surface within the context of unfolding something fully onto it".
Because again, we're not talking about clearly intended uses of a portable hole here, we're talking about people fishing for it to become a blatantly game-breakingly exploitative invulnerability to all harm, something the item was very obviously never intended to do. It's already an extremely versatile item when used as intended, and while player ingenuity should be encouraged, that shouldn't be to the point of the game itself becoming redundant – because why even run combat if you're going to let the player do stuff like this?
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Like as a jockstrap?
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Even if a DM did allow this, I'd just toss a portable hole or a handy haversack into your 'armor' and call it a day.
Aut Inveniam Viam Aut Faciam (Find a way or make one) - Hannibal Allegedly
Lessons learned in blood are not soon forgotten. - Clyde Shelton
The truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is and you must bow to it's power or live a lie. -Miyamoto Musashi
"Not by any stretch of the imagination. This isn't open for debate nor interpretation."
Respectfully, I disagree.
Aut Inveniam Viam Aut Faciam (Find a way or make one) - Hannibal Allegedly
Lessons learned in blood are not soon forgotten. - Clyde Shelton
The truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is and you must bow to it's power or live a lie. -Miyamoto Musashi
Armour absolutely is hollow, otherwise you couldn't be inside it. 😝
And I fail to see the relevance, it has nothing to do with whether you would describe a suit of armour as a solid surface; armour might be comprised of solid pieces with what could be described as solid surfaces, but it is absolutely not a solid surface as a whole as it's not a single piece, and even in plate armour it's not all solid, some of it is flexible.
It is not what you would reasonably describe as a surface suitable for unfolding a six foot circle onto.
Only the "six foot shield" proposal is in any way reasonable, but a DM is under no obligation to allow it, and fully within their rights to impose drawbacks; a shield that big, even if it's relatively light, is still going to be cumbersome and difficult to use, and you wouldn't be able to see around it, which would severely limit your ability to position it to prevent attacks. So it would most likely need to be treated like a "mobile cover" shield more like a pavise, where you set it up and fight around it.
But personally this is not something I'm sure I would allow as it's just begging to be abused; if the party wants a pavise type shield they can set up as cover, sure, it lets them get some cover if someone is willing to carry it and set it up. But I usually wouldn't allow those to be treated like total cover, since you need to pop out from behind it to attack (so there are moments where you're not fully covered, so I would rule three quarters cover at most). So the only difference with a portable hole pavise would be durability since it can't easily be hit and destroyed. But that's only if that's the only way it's used, there's just too much scope for it to be abused in other ways.
But one other issue with the six foot shield proposal is that the portable hole does not say it attaches to a surface, only that you can unfold it "onto" or "against" a surface. This makes it debatable whether it would actually stick in a way that it wouldn't be at risk of falling off a shield, after all, how do you secure a hole to something? From the description I picture it like more of a rubbery material that might be enough for it to adhere temporarily, but I'm less inclined to assume it would stay affixed if the surface its on is being moved around. I'd probably allow it on a wall of a vehicle, but again, the first question I would be asking is why the players want that; if it's just to retrieve things they put in there earlier, that's fine, but the moment it becomes "invincible armour" I become a lot less generous.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
This is getting silly; you wear armour, ergo armour must be hollow or you couldn't be inside it. And it still doesn't change the fact that armour is not a single continuous surface suitable for unfolding a six foot circle onto.
By arguing about parts of armour vs. suits of armour (which are the same thing as far as 5th edition is concerned) you are explicitly accepting that armour is comprised of pieces, so cannot be one continuous surface, but the magic item specifically says you can unfold it "onto" or "against" "a solid surface" – singular, one surface.
A portable hole is a not a wearable magic item; it is not armour or clothing. It is also specifically, explicitly, unambiguously a six foot circle. The magic item description tells you this. It does not say "up to six feet" it says "six feet".
The magic item only says you can unfold it "against" a surface, suggesting it's more like how you might lean a piece of wood against a wall. Nothing in the description gives us a reason to believe it should adhere with such strength that were that wall to be swung around that the hole would definitely remain unfolded against it.
It comes under DM fiat, but again, this is why DM's need to ask the question of what exactly players are trying to do with a portable unfolded portable hole. Because it is an item with pretty clear intended uses; you can slap it down anywhere and put stuff into it, or retrieve items, and it can make a handy trap or hiding place in a pinch. If that's all the players are doing then it doesn't matter so much if it moves with a surface now and then, but if they're trying to do something more powerful it needs to be reined in.
Because it also very clearly not intended to be worn as indestructible armour because it wouldn't say "upon" or "against" "a surface" in the description if that were the sort of thing they wanted to be a possibility. Even the armor of invulnerability, a legendary magic item that is explicitly a suit of full plate armour, is only capable of being immune to non-magical damage for up to 10 minutes per day. The moment you start fishing for an effect that is more powerful than a magical item with a greater rarity that is specifically for doing that thing, your DM should be shooting you down immediately.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
If you can wear it, then of course it's hollow. You know what a "solid" suit of armour is? A metal statue. Good luck wearing one of those. Literally everything that is concave or empty inside is hollow, that is what the word hollow means. Even if all of your armour pieces are perfectly flat, when connected into a suit of armour they are not, as the suit of armour would be hollow because otherwise you could not wear it.
Considering you're the one that keeps insisting on this argument it should not be necessary to explain to you what the word you keep using means, or what clothing is, how clothing works, or what wearing something means. These are all super basic, super unambiguous concepts.
Meanwhile something comprised of multiple pieces still isn't a single solid surface onto which you can unfold a 6 foot circle, because whether or not it is hollow (which it absolutely is, see literally everything that can be worn on the body) remains every bit as completely 100% fully irrelevant as the first time you started trying to argue this.
It's literally asking for armour that would render you immune to all harm – of course it's a campaign breaking hack.
It would render you completely immune to all attacks, all effects that require line of sight, effects that require touch, and all areas of effect (as these are all blocked by total cover).
So once again, you're asking for total immunity to any and all harm, the idea that this is any way not game breaking is completely ludicrous.
The only real drawback is that you would be unable to see, but this is easily counteracted with the blind fighting fighting style which is extremely easy to pick up. So congratulations, you've rendered all combat in your campaign superfluous unless your DM starts equipping all enemy groups with extraplanar containers they can throw into your armour, or antimagic fields to counteract the effects, either way the only way your campaign could ever feature combat ever again would be if your DM specifically sets out to counteract something they should never have allowed in the first place.
And once again, you are asking for a level of protection that is vastly superior to a legendary suit of full plate armour that is specifically intended for preventing all damage in a balanced way.
I would hope that most DMs are sensible enough to not allow this without enormous constraints – they certainly should not, because what such a player is asking for is not "fun", but total immunity to all harm, they are seeking to break the game in order to do something that nobody should ever be allowed to do in normal play, because it renders all combat meaningless. This is the kind of BS that I as DM would never allow, and if a player kept arguing for this as you have, I would ask them to leave, because at this point your arguments are not based in RAW in the slightest, and what you are asking for is not even remotely reasonable.
Except there is no text to that effect for the portable hole so it doesn't do this; you can't argue something is fine in RAW on the one hand, and then argue its fine because of some homebrew rule you're inventing on the other. There are is also no AC or hit-points for objects by default, only values a DM asigns, and by default most damaging effects do not apply to anything that is worn or carried.
Plus it's only a piece of cloth until it is unfolded because once unfolded it is a hole. Even if some part of it is still cloth that part would be on the same side that you are; the outer side is a hole meaning it is nothing – you cannot cut through nothing, you cannot target nothing. And even if you rule there is a fabric side you cannot target that, because you cannot draw line of sight to it, and it has total cover against you.
But I'm getting real sick of going in circles on this; what you are suggesting is an exploit, it is not even remotely supported by rules as written, and allowing it anyway is always going to be a mistake that you will then have to find a way to counteract. I've no interest in continuing here so I'm unsubscribing; an obvious game-breaking exploit is not something anyone should be asking for, and even more so should not be granted.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
You should put up a survey in the GM forum and ask.
"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
Actually I think most GMs would shut it down and not allow it at all.
"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
According to your interpretation, the PC would have to wander about covered in a "sheet". Which means they can't see, and can't manipulate anything. That doesn't sound like fun.
"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
All this talk about how solid an object is or isn't, seems to miss the key word on how the hole operates.
It must be unfolded.
Unfolding a thing by definition opens/removes folds in that thing. Draping or wrapping anything made of fabric onto a person shaped object will re-introduce folds into that fabric, thus preventing it from being successfully unfolded, and thus by my understanding of the RAW and how I'd run it as a DM, prevent the magic that allows entry into its extradimensional space. So while it's not explicitly stated that the solid surface must be flat, the fabric must be unfolded to work. And fabric draped over a suit of armor has plenty of folds in it. The only exception to that would be very large suits of armor. Large enough to allow a 6 foot diameter circle of fabric to be completely unfolded (and remain unfolded). So maybe on a Huge or larger creature, or a Large and rather boxy creature, but then that hole also wouldn't completely conceal or protect a creature of that size.
Flat surfaces with enough space work well, curved surfaces must be adjudicated by a DM. Anything that causes the fabric to be bent back over itself (a.k.a the definition of a fold) is an obvious no to me, hell even allowing a right angle is stretching it.