Handy Haversack vs. Bag of Holding

Question

The Bag of Holding (DMG pg.153) is an uncommon magic item and has a significantly greater volume than any of the pouches (or even all combined) of Heward's Handy Haversack (DMG pg.174), which is rare.

My confusion stems from the fact that, while the Bag of Holding is obviously superior to Heward's Handy Haversack, it's the more common item of the two. Why is that?

Some other info to consider:

In terms of fluff, the Bag is depicted as a simple satchel while the Haversack is depicted as a hiker's backpack with multiple straps and pouches. The Bag also has the disadvantage of looking similar to the Bag of Devouring. Regardless of contents, the Bag weighs 15 lbs. While the Haversack only weighs 5 (and I highly doubt 10 lbs. of difference is worth a difference of category in rarity, especially making the Haversack rarer when the bag holds approx. 8X more volume. To say nothing of weight.).

Other than that, they have the same rules regarding their extra-dimensional properties, interaction etc.

If your answer is not directly from official sources (ex: "we know this is a typo because of existing errata, found here"), please remember Good/Bad Subjective and back your answer with evidence and personal experience.

Answer 1

This is a combination of history and what appears to be a small but significant oversight. The advantage of the Haversack over the Bag has always been that the Haversack always has what you're looking for on top, as compared to the Bag which is a disordered bag of stuff that's harder to sift through the more it holds (and it can hold so much).

The designers appear to have retained this distinction in the items' described function, and then made it immaterial during development by copy-pasting the standard 5e item-interaction boilerplate into their descriptions without making any adjustments to implement the functional difference they kept in the descriptions. (Easy enough to do, since when you're doing the rules polishing on the Bag you're not thinking about the Haversack, and it all looks fine, right?)

Traditionally (I mean back in AD&D, since in 3.x this is likely the kind of thing DMs would just handwave away), digging through a Bag for an item wasn't feasible during combat, so the discovery of a Haversack was a significant upgrade in, well, handiness. The capacity difference meant neither was strictly superior, but each had different pros and cons (the marginal utility of being usable in combat making the Haversack especially desirable, but still not strictly superior in every way). But none of this was nailed down in rigid action-economy terms then — there was no such thing as strict action economy terminology, it was just how the items' descriptions said they worked. The rarity difference in the 5e items appears to reflect a design intent to limit access to the especially-desirable item usable at combat speeds; later negated by failing to implement this small but significant distinction during the development stage.

So it just seems to be an oversight. RAW, the Haversack is the clear loser. For many DMs, the question ends there (plus a bit of head-scratching at the designers). However, 5e DMs aren't bound by RAW and are encouraged to make 'fluff' matter in their games, if they so desire.

If you want to emulate the traditional utility of the Haversack, make Bags of Holding able to be interacted with using an action... but it takes multiple before the user finds what they're looking for. You can either nail this down (at which point you're into making house rules to taste to determine exact number of actions), or just say that it's only possible during non-combat time and handwave the exact time it takes. No matter how you implement it exactly, this will leave the Haversack as the true champion of handiness that's usable with a single action to get exactly what you want.

Answer 2

The DMG says (p135):

Rarity provides a rough measure of an item's power relative to other magic items.

However I have always assumed that the rarity of a magic item must be the product of this with how often it was made, otherwise why use these terms representing how often they are found rather than some term representing the measure of power directly.

A handy haversack (DMG p174) is a backpack, has a capacity of two side pouches of 20lbs/2 cubic feet and one central pouch of 80lbs/8 cubic feet, always weighs 5lbs. It takes an action to retrieve an item.

A bag of holding (DMG p153) is 2' in diameter and 4' deep on the outside, has a capacity of 500lbs/64 cubic feet and always weighs 15lbs. It takes an action to retrieve an item.

Difficulty:

The haversack is more complex but holds less. It is easier to carry (it's a backpack rather than a big old sack) and weighs less. For both, despite the idea that the sack is just a jumble of stuff, it takes 1 action to retrieve an item.

I'd say the haversack is more complex but less powerful than the bag, despite it's better utility for an individual.

So overall, in difficulty to make, I'd say they seem pretty equal.

How many are made

People with the money or resources to have a magic item created to move stuff around tend to care more about the capacity rather than the utility for an individual.

So I'd say more bags of holding would have been made from the point of view of demand.

Overall rarity

• Both as difficult to make
• Both useful enough to be made in some quantity
• More demand for bags of holding

Haversack: rare

Bag: uncommon

Answer 3

Alrighty, by RAW the haversack is inferior in every way.

but hear me out. from a realistic point of view, you cant just tote around a bag of holding. its 2 feet by 4 feet in size. its basically a big ol duffle bag.

a haversack however is a backpack, you just wear it on your back.

the bag of holding seems more or less like it was designed to be put on a pack animal or something along those lines. long term travel but not necessarily on your person all the time.

The picture they drew of it discredits that, but the picture also doesn't match the description ion the book. #oversight.

personally I would make them the same thing with the exception that a handy haversack lets you access it once per turn with a free action.

Answer 4

The rarity is because one is for use by merchants and others storing large volumes of materials, the other is for use by travelers and adventurers who need to get to the contents in a hurry.

The 'always on top' rule means you find what you are looking for instantly with a HHH. The Bag of Holding doesn't have that language. If you are just transporting bulk goods or coins, sure, no problem. If you have a different list of 50 pieces of gear the normal backpacker will carry around with themselves, you aren't going to be able to drag what you want out of a Bag anywhere near as quickly.

So, for shoving loot into for dispersal later, or hauling around coins or rolls of silk or artwork, or bundled weapons, a BoH is basically a wagon you tie to your belt. An HHH is actually immediate and useful. The rarity is a non-issue. The HHH should actually be fairly common among adventurers and ranger-types, just not outside that number.

And BTW, if you want to transport coins, Ehlonna's Quiver is a better choice then either. If you count all the 'spears' as hollow staves, and the 'javelins' as hollow rods, figure ten coins to an inch. 18 rods x 3 feet = 48 feet, x 12 inches, x 10 coins to the inch = 5,760 coins in pouch 2, 6 staves x 6 feet x 12 inches x 10 coins to the inch = 4320 coins in pouch 3, for a total of 10,080 coins, or 500 pounds of coins in a quiver weighing 2 pounds. If you make the 60 arrows out of solid gold, you could shove even more wealth in one.

Answer 5

If you want to continue using All previous versions of what a bag of holding looked like (basically a large santa like burlap bag)..REF: DMG3.5 p248, DMG AD&D2nd P159, 0D&D Rule Cyclopedia P239" As stated in all previous versions the bag appears to be a normal cloth sack. The bag of holding is merely a normal bag that is magically enhanced. Don't use drawings in any books to determine rules or magic item effects. The artist picture in the DMG of the bag of holding is just a nice drawing - and does not reflect what the item is actually is in game terms. But you could decide it is what it looks like. BUT STILL the bag of holding will be pretty useless in combat.

Apart from that, the main advantage of the haversack over the bag of holding is as per the description of the bag of holding, "you retrieve an item with an action - and not the item you are looking for. That means if you have 1000 gp and a longsword, it is different enough from the rest of the content to be easily grabbed, but if you have 1000 gp, 5 rings, and 20 different types of potions, you will have to sift through your bag first to find the item then retrieve it. The stuff in the bag is as difficult to find specific items in it as if its content was strewn out on the floor in front of you.

In my games, I actually call for an Intelligence (Investigation) check to find a specific item in the stash, with the DC depending on how hard the item is to find to first find it. a bag of holding is not to be useful in combat, just to hold stuff and carry it around.