D&D: 5 Incredibly Useful Items To Keep In Your Bag of Holding
You’re perusing the local items shop before a long journey and aren’t sure what will be the most functional multitasker to add to your bag. Wonder no more!
Let’s collectively turn out all of our adventuring knapsacks and bags of holding, see where we’re putting form over function, and make a magical shopping list of new items every traveler could use. These are my favorite practical, fun, and just plain nifty items to keep on my character sheet and in my bag for everyday dungeon crawling and world saving alike.
Daern’s Instant Fortress
“You can use an action to place this 1-inch metal cube on the ground and speak its Command Word. The cube rapidly grows into a fortress that remains until you use an action to speak the Command Word that dismisses it, which works only if the fortress is empty.
The fortress is a square tower, 20 feet on a side and 30 feet high, with arrow slits on all sides and a battlement atop it. Its interior is divided into two floors, with a Ladder running along one wall to connect them. The Ladder ends at a trapdoor leading to the roof. When activated, the tower has a small door on the side facing you. The door opens only at your Command, which you can speak as a Bonus Action. It is immune to the knock spell and similar magic, such as that of a Chime of Opening.Each creature in the area where the fortress appears must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 10d10 bludgeoning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. In either case, the creature is pushed to an unoccupied space outside but next to the fortress. Objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried take this damage and are pushed automatically.
The tower is made of adamantine, and its magic prevents it from being tipped over. The roof, the door, and the walls each have 100 Hit Points, immunity to damage from nonmagical Weapons excluding Siege Weapons, and Resistance to all other damage. Only a wish spell can repair the fortress (this use of the spell counts as replicating a spell of 8th level or lower). Each casting of wish causes the roof, the door, or one wall to regain 50 Hit Points.”
Immovable Rod
“This flat iron rod has a button on one end. You can use an action to press the button, which causes the rod to become magically fixed in place. Until you or another creature uses an action to push the button again, the rod doesn’t move, even if it is defying gravity. The rod can hold up to 8,000 pounds of weight. More weight causes the rod to deactivate and fall. A creature can use an action to make a DC 30 Strength check, moving the fixed rod up to 10 feet on a success.”
An unmovable gravity defying rod can be used to prop open a falling cave or building ceiling, stop a monster’s mouth from closing, or hold bags or supplies far off of the ground. If a doorway or window is small enough (or the creature big enough) it can be used to stop somebody from entering or leaving a room, if it’s being held by a falling adventurer it can cause them to stop falling and hang in the air until the have a better plan, or you can tie a rope to it and leave it in place while you lower into a cave to do some spelunking. The only limit to uses for an immovable rod is your own creativity.
Sending Stones
“You send a short Message of twenty-five words or less to a creature with you are familiar. The creature hears the Message in its mind, recognizes you as the sender if it knows you, and can answer in a like manner immediately. The spell enables creatures with Intelligence scores of at least 1 to understand the meaning of your Message .
AdvertisementYou can send the Message across any distance and even to other Planes of Existence, but if the target is on a different plane than you, there is a 5 percent chance that the Message doesn’t arrive.”
Have you done the unthinkable again and split the party? Do you have dire information you need the other half to hear or a riddle you need somebody’s help solving? That sounds like a job for some sending stones. If you have a message about the length of an early 2000’s text message that needs to travel across the kingdom or between planes or you refuse to stop wandering away from your party members, sending stones will be a godsend to your campaign.
Bag of Beans
“Inside this heavy cloth bag are 3d4 dry beans. The bag weighs 1/2 pound plus 1/4 pound for each bean it contains.
AdvertisementIf you dump the bag’s contents out on the ground, they explode in a 10-foot radius, extending from the beans. Each creature in the area, including you, must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 5d4 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. The fire ignites flammable Objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried.
If you remove a bean from the bag, plant it in dirt or sand, and then water it, the bean produces an effect 1 minute later from the ground where it was planted. The DM can choose an effect from the following table, determine it randomly, or create an effect.”
I can think of a plethora of uses for a handful of exploding beans ranging from “a kind of dangerous distraction” to “absolute and wanton destruction.” Or planting one in the ground can result in a geyser, an animate statue in your likeness, fruit trees, monsters, or a handful or other random things which could be useful or terrible but definitely never boring. I’m not sure if I’d roll the literal dice on whatever the beans begin to grow that day, but I do know I love having throwable explosives on my character sheet to help save some magic points.
Robe of Useful Items
“This robe has cloth patches of various shapes and colors covering it. While wearing the robe. you can use an action to detach one of the patches, causing it to become the object or creature it represents. Once the last patch is removed, the robe becomes an ordinary garment.
The robe has two of each of the following patches:
• Dagger
• Bullseye lantern (filled and lit)
• Steel mirror
• 10-foot pole
• Hempen rope (50 feet, coiled)
• SackAdvertisementIn addition, the robe has 4d4 other patches. The DM chooses the patches or determines them randomly.”
Robes are great. They keep you warm, they conceal your weapons or identity, and sometimes they’re covered in patches identifying all of the places you’ve been and all of tools you didn’t want to carry. Not listed above are the possibilities to have horses or mastiffs, windows you can place on any vertical surface, or 10 foot cube you can put on the ground. In D&D fashion choices are also often practical, but how often are they “I didn’t think I needed a horse when we were in town but now I do; let me pluck one off of my cloak,” practical?
What are your go-to D&D items? What’s your favorite item in your bag of holding right now? Which item were you not impressed by when you received it but turns out you can’t adventure without it? Let us know in the comments!
Happy Adventuring!
