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I know that you can fit creatures inside the bag and that the bag has a limited amount of air, with part of the Bag of Holding's description reading

"Breathing creatures inside the bag can survive up to a number of minutes equal to 10 divided by the number of creatures (minimum 1 minute), after which time they begin to suffocate." (DMG, pg. 153-154)

However, the Air Genasi have the racial trait Unending Breath

"You can hold your breath indefinitely while you’re not incapacitated." (Player's Companion- Elemental Evil, pg. 9).

This would imply that an Air Genasi could casually sit in the bag for hours while holding their breath. If so, could a party in theory smuggle a group of Air Genasi inside a Bag of Holding?

I do want to note, however, that the Bag of Holding does not specify that a creature inside of the extradimensional space can try to force its way out, so would putting someone in there even be a good idea?

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2 Answers 2

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If you can fit it through the opening, you can put it in there.

This would effectively make your Bag of Holding a wonderful trap/container for your Genasi.

As for opening it from the inside, rules do not state you can or can not. Lots of people have asked this before, but I personally do not feel that you can open the bag from an extra planar space because you aren't technically inside a bag, you're actually on a different plane. To me, that means you can't manipulate the opening of the bag.

But that's my opinion on it.

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    \$\begingroup\$ It should be noted that the mouth of a bag of holding has a diameter of two feet. Personally, I can easily squeeze into that, especially if the opening is flexible, even while wearing my suit of plate. Yes, I've put on plate just to test if I could fit in a bag of holding. \$\endgroup\$
    – xanderh
    Commented Aug 19, 2016 at 9:02
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Specific rules beat general rules and since the bag rule is generalised and the Unending breath rule is specific to Genasi what you are saying works

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    \$\begingroup\$ I'm not sure I fully understand where you're coming from. Could you add a bit more detail to further explain what you mean? How is the bag rule generalised and not specific to the bag? \$\endgroup\$
    – Purple Monkey
    Commented Apr 4, 2018 at 10:32
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    \$\begingroup\$ ^ from that, we could also say: "the unending breath rule is generalised for Genasi and the bag rule is specific to the bag". I'm not sure specific vs general comes in here. (This highlights one of its weaknesses: it's fair to say specific beats general, but sometimes it's not very clear what's general and what's specific.) \$\endgroup\$
    – doppelgreener
    Commented Apr 4, 2018 at 11:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ Also, belatedly, welcome to RPG Stack Exchange. Check out our tour to see how we work here, and when you reach 20 rep, you're welcome to join us in Role-playing Games Chat. You can ask questions about how our site itself works or request support on using it on Role-playing Games Meta. \$\endgroup\$
    – doppelgreener
    Commented Apr 4, 2018 at 12:22

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