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So a chest of preserving has the feature that, "Food and other perishable items do not age or decay while inside a Chest of Preserving."

If I have a bag of holding or a portable hole, place items in it, then place my bag/hole inside the chest, are items within the bag/hole protected from decay?

Topologically the items inside these extradimensional items are within the chest, but those items are also not on the same plane, so aren't exactly contained within the chest.

mdrichey
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Keid
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1 Answers1

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No, they are not kept from rotting

The items in the bag of holding are not inside the bag. They are in an extradimensional space -- that is, in another dimension. The bag of holding itself does not call out that it creates an extradimensional space, but Heward's Handy Haversack does:

Placing the haversack inside an extradimensional space created by a bag of holding, ...

So the bag of holding is more like a portal to another place that you can conveniently carry around. Nothing that you put into the bag is really inside the bag.

If you put the bag into the chest of preserving, the bag is inside the chest, but the extradimensional space is still an extradimensional space. It is not inside that bag, and therefore also not inside the chest.

P.S. You instead could put the chest into the bag. "The chest is 2½ feet long, 1½ feet wide, and 1 foot tall with a half-barrel lid." while he bag is "roughly 2 feet in diameter at the mouth", so it would fit in lengthwise. It however would not enable you to preserve the larger amount of food that you could put into the 500 lbs, 64 cubic feet bag.

Nobody the Hobgoblin
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    You might cite Is the interior of a Bag of Holding actually an extradimensional space? – Kirt Dec 12 '23 at 15:57
  • @Kirt Done, thanks for the link. – Nobody the Hobgoblin Dec 12 '23 at 16:04
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    As the title and body of the question ask different things, it would be good to specify that "no, the items are not kept from decaying". – FerventHippo Dec 12 '23 at 19:05
  • Presumably, if you fit the chest of preserving into the bag of holding, the items inside the chest (being inside the chest) would not rot and be in the extra-dimensional space, right? – user121330 Dec 13 '23 at 07:25
  • @user121330 Yes, if the dimensions of the chest fit through the opening. "The chest is 2½ feet long, 1½ feet wide, and 1 foot tall with a half-barrel lid." The bag is "roughly 2 feet in diameter at the mouth", so you could put the chest in lengthwise. That would work. – Nobody the Hobgoblin Dec 13 '23 at 08:01
  • Assuming a chest of preserving works by providing freezing temperatures, I can make this work. Load bags of water (what? you never heard of a camelback) into chest of preserving, wait for them freeze, put them in bag of holding while bag of holding is in chest. Now put food in chest. After food is frozen solid, put into bag while it's still in the chest. The extra-dimensional space has nowhere to exchange heat with and will remain frozen, and so will your food. (The initial ice load is to set the temperature inside the bag; otherwise your food might melt.) – Joshua Dec 13 '23 at 22:43