We’ve also been asked that people limit gathering right outside the door as much as possible. Short smoke breaks aren’t a problem, we just don’t want to disturb the neighbors.
Post below if you are coming - all tables are open. Players of any level of experience are welcome.
@jboimler and whoever else was wondering yesterday:
The rules for the interaction between a Bag of Holding and a Portable Hole are specific to each other, and don’t apply to any other type of planar travel. For example, there is no interaction between a Bag of Holding and a portal created by the Gate spell, or someone transported using Teleportation or Plane Shift. It’s also no problem with pocket dimensions or demiplanes explicitly like Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion, it’s also fine to bring Bag of Holdings or Portable Holes inside.
Thus, there is no reason to think that a familiar’s mode of transport would work any differently, so there should be no interaction, by RAW.
And therefore I think it’s also possible to create a one time portal to the Astral Sea with a single Portable Hole.
You get inside a Portable Hole, have your familiar pick it up, and then send your familiar into its pocket dimension. This should work, since there is no spacial limit to dismiss a familiar, but only for letting it reappear.
And then you could summon the familiar again inside the Portable Hole it is carrying with it. And this should cause the good old paradox evading portal to the Astral Sea.
Definitely trying this if it’s again necessary to get away from Bruce.
The real problem with the Bruce situation was that this is a player controlled character. The issue is meta. If we knock out his character then that player spends a lot of time at the table twiddling his thumbs and watching what happens. If we struggle on despite the difficulty, it will slow us down. If we abandon the character altogether, the DM would need to split the game session into 2 concurrent action spaces. Or the character just dies, which again, means that the player has nothing to do for the rest of the session.
@jboimler that being said, I am really curious what the session rewards will be, if any : D
And if any DM judgement will be passed, for humor or for feedback.
To me the problem starts earlier: berserkers axe(Maul) already takes away player agency. I had some choices that I didn’t do, mostly talking (and choosing not to assume to the weapon in the first place)
If I use it again I will tell the party what conditions have to be met in order to end the berserk. Then there is a known objective that the party can play towards.
"When you dismiss the familiar you conjure with the
find familiar spell to its pocket dimension, can it take
any objects it’s wearing or carrying with it? No, the intent of find familiar is that any objects are left behind
when the familiar vanishes. This intent will be reflected in
future printings of the Player’s Handbook."
Sounds reasonable. Thinking about situations where you want to steal something… this would be incredibly powerful.
I would rule that gear the familiar usually has should stay with it. Like a tiny hat, specially fitted armor, a monocle, …
Maybe those things need to be already present for the summoning ritual?
But otherwise everything else should stay behind. It’s too easy to abuse.