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During a difficult fight, the wizard of the party decided to launch an antimagic field. It proved to be quite useful and let the warriors almost take out the opposing wizard. Nevertheless, multiple questions arose during the fight concerning what was happening in the field. One of them is about the heroes that have a bag of holding.

What would happen to these? Should they burst because of what's inside? Should they return to normal, and the stuff in them be lost into oblivion? Nothing? Do you see any other problems that would happen with magical objects going into the field? (I'm afraid to miss something.)

user17995
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Binochio
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  • Related http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/146050/unnatural-behavior-of-hermiones-enchanted-purse-during-gringotts-heist – LarsW Dec 27 '16 at 11:13

3 Answers3

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You wouldn't be able to retrieve any item from the bag of holding while it is inside the antimagic field area of effect. After it leaves the field it will resume to function normally and none of its contents will be lost.

How does Antimagic field affect magic items?

Likewise, it prevents the functioning of any magic items or spells within its confines.

What does it mean?

An antimagic field suppresses any spell or magical effect used within, brought into, or cast into the area

Is there any other source that tells us what happens to a bag of holding when its magic is suppressed? Yes, it is Dispel magic spell description.

If you succeed, all the item's magical properties are suppressed for 1d4 rounds, after which the item recovers its magical properties. A suppressed item becomes nonmagical for the duration of the effect. An interdimensional opening (such as a bag of holding) is temporarily closed.

In-game explanation for it is that bag of holding does not contain the objects in itself. It opens a portal to an extradimensional space where its "contents" is actually stored. In an antimagic field the portal stops functioning, just like portable hole or a teleportation circle would. But the antimagic field has no effect on the extradimensional space itself. Thus, objects stored in it remain intact and are accessible as soon as the portal is restored.

Other magical effects are suppressed too. It means they have no effect, but

Time spent within an antimagic field counts against the suppressed spell's duration.

Kirt
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Ols
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Ah, those implausible but useful magic utility items and their weird interactions. Think too hard about their physics, and you quickly end up with ridiculously overpowered effects. Usually it is best for the game if you avoid oversimulation and try to stick to the spirit of these toys.

An antimagic field

suppresses any spell or magical effect used within, brought into, or cast into the area, but does not dispel it.

The rules further elaborate about certain special situations where it emphasizes that the effect is meant to be temporary and non-destructive.

If you want the AMF to affect bags of holding, a reasonable ruling would also make them temporarily unusable: The items stored in them can not be accessed while in the AMF (the bag just looks and behaves like an ordinary empty bag) but can be accessed again when the bag is no longer in it.

If you want a lore-friendly explanation for this behavior: When you put items into a bag of holding, they are not actually in the bag. They are in an extradimensional pocket dimension. The bag of holding is just the gateway to that pocket dimension.

Philipp
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I would choose to make it so that anything that was in the bag over a size of the bag physically would be thrown out and until they exited the field they would have a normal bag.

Wolf
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    Welcome to rpg.se! Please take a look at the [tour], it's a useful introduction to the site. Stack Exchange is a Q&A site, not a traditional discussion forum, so good answers will back up their solution: How does this relate to the existing rules? Have you done this in a game? How did it effect the game? If you haven't tried it, what other kind of support do you have for suggesting it? – BESW Dec 27 '16 at 01:16