Carrying Capacity vs. Shenanigans

I think my solution for carrying capacity is a common one. I like to tell my players, "Don't worry about carrying capacity. I won't enforce it unless it gets silly." However, I recently got curious and looked at my 7 Str gnome's character sheet. He's staggering around with over 200 lbs worth of gear. His maximum load is listed as 70 lbs.

Question: When is it "silly?" What's a good litmus test for carrying capacity abuse in a rules-lax game like mine?

Relevant comic.

Fauchard1520 said:

I think my solution for carrying capacity is a common one. I like to tell my players, "Don't worry about carrying capacity. I won't enforce it unless it gets silly." However, I recently got curious and looked at my 7 Str gnome's character sheet. He's staggering around with over 200 lbs worth of gear. His maximum load is listed as 70 lbs.

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If you don't enforce it a little, you get that sort of thing.

It's far worse than you think. Your gnome is a small sized creature, so your MAX LOAD is 52 lbs. But as a practical matter anything over about one half of your max load as a routine load is probably absurd. You certainly should be aware if you have anything but a light load.

If I found out a strength 7 gnome was carrying 200lbs of stuff around in my game, I'd have a fit. To me, this would be equivalent to a player failing to record damage on his character sheet when he was attacked, or arbitrarily doubling his hit points. Your gnome should be dead, and you have no real excuse because you ought to have known when you created the character that by having strength as a dump stat that you needed to pay special attention to how much you were carrying and consciously stayed aware of your weakness and inability to manage loads. If this was a strength 16 character and he discovered he'd hit 200lb of gear, I'd be like, "That was silly. Next time, pay some attention to your gear."

In the case of a strength 7 gnome with 200lb of gear, it would be beyond "silly" or "ridiculous" or we have a chuckle about how players always forget encumbrance, I'd be like, "Your character has had a heart attack from over exertion and is now dead and cannot be resurrected."

Whatever the litmus test is, you are so far beyond it that it's hardly reasonable to have this as a starting point regarding a good litmus test.

For me, it would be that you examine your gear regularly enough that you do not hit a heavy load very often and when you do, you try to do something about it when you do notice, and you at least pay some attention to the fact you are adding a heavy item to your inventory.

As with the comic you link to, I'm a little more forgiving with "The NPC is carrying the gear." because typically their ability to contribute to combat is already limited, but I would find it silly if the NPC had gone beyond max load.

Over 200 pounds? Ask the player to carry 100 pounds while playing. He might change his tune.

Solution: the gnome gets a free pack mule to carry all but 20 pounds of gear. But the mule keeps wandering off...

Litmus test: the school-backpack rule. If you're carrying more than a shield, weapon, and what a school-backpack could hold, you're carrying too much.

DMMike said:

Solution: the gnome gets a free pack mule to carry all but 20 pounds of gear. But the mule keeps wandering off...

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Very old school and I think appropriate.

Litmus test: the school-backpack rule. If you're carrying more than a shield, weapon, and what a school-backpack could hold, you're carrying too much.

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Depends on the character. That's probably true of the 10 Str wizard, but the 18 Str fighter can probably at least get around carrying a full military load of 80-100lbs. I will expect however any character that chooses to carry a military load (armor, shield, weapon, 60lb backpack) to know that he's operating encumbered. I also expect characters to have some idea of what their 'spare capacity' is and to balk at picking up 20lbs if they know that when they created the character they were 10lbs away from a heavy load (even if they may have already hit the heavy load because they forgot to figuring in the weight of the 20 1-2lb things that they've picked up in the mean time).

Encumbrance annoyances are why I gave my current party a Portable Hole.

Plus it works as a body bag when dead party members need returning to town to be brought back to life...

I handle encumbrance a little differently to keep it simple, but avoid this. First, anything worn doesn’t count toward encumbrance. That’s one suit of armor, one set of clothes, cloak, etc. A backpack doesn’t count for encumbrance, and the contents of a backpack count as half. A primary weapon, dagger or two, and a ranged weapon. Rope and a bedroll.

Stuff in the backpack is addressed for bulk and weight if I feel it’s necessary. But the assumption is, anything beyond your normal gear is going to have an impact. In particular, coins.

I have a fatigue system, and medium and heavy armor impose disadvantage. Also, a backpack is the same as medium armor with disadvantage on Stealth and Acrobatics, for example.

We’ll get more detailed if we need to, but I think wearing something is quite different than carrying it, and a backpack helps distribute the load as well. But they pretty much assume that anything they pick up in the dungeon is going to make the encumbered, and they’ll make sure they can drop it quickly if needed.


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Well, I don’t speak for anyone but myself, but…
It may seem odd, but encumbrance is one of those little rules that actually helps immersion and roleplay for me – along with the previously discussed food and water. It can be overdone, I agree, and some other stuff should not be cared about, but through these small rules, I can actually “feel” the character as a living being instead of only numbers in a paper sheet.
I may be the only gamer in the continent who thinks that, but I’m talking anyway: besides good old table-top RPGs, I also play electronic RPGs and such, especially Final Fantasy. I’ve always been puzzled by the amount of gear my characters can carry without a single penalty: they have an unlimited vault in their pockets or something like this! 5 full suits of armor, 28 swords, 99 potions…
As I would expect, some recent games are reversing this, which is good, but every time I face this unlimited arsenal, I still wonder about this. Of course, this doesn’t stop me from enjoying any video-games: there it’s just a minor thing. However, when I’m playing pen-and-paper RPG, I like to feel a little more “real” for the guy I just created.
Plus, there are magical items and spells. Bag of Holding, Portable Hole, Pouch of Accessibility, Decanter of Endless water, Goodberry, etc. I don’t know if the names are correct, but I think I’ve made myself clear. This sort of thing gets really useful once you care about this sort of thing, and the world feels more alive, you know.
I’m not saying I’m beyond contradictions: there are many things I heavily abstract and some things I like are clearly non-realistic, but realism is a weird beast.

To me, it seems like you've said to your players, "Don't worry about encumbrance. I won't enforce it." But that you do want them to worry about it, and you do want to enforce it. The problem seems to be that you are maybe not sure what you want, and that you've not appropriately communicated what you want to your players.

Figure out whether or not (and how) you want to handle encumbrance, and then communicate that to your players. Then make sure that everyone gets on that page.

Ilbranteloth said:

I handle encumbrance a little differently to keep it simple, but avoid this. First, anything worn doesn’t count toward encumbrance. That’s one suit of armor, one set of clothes, cloak, etc. A backpack doesn’t count for encumbrance, and the contents of a backpack count as half. A primary weapon, dagger or two, and a ranged weapon. Rope and a bedroll.

Stuff in the backpack is addressed for bulk and weight if I feel it’s necessary. But the assumption is, anything beyond your normal gear is going to have an impact. In particular, coins.

I have a fatigue system, and medium and heavy armor impose disadvantage. Also, a backpack is the same as medium armor with disadvantage on Stealth and Acrobatics, for example.

We’ll get more detailed if we need to, but I think wearing something is quite different than carrying it, and a backpack helps distribute the load as well. But they pretty much assume that anything they pick up in the dungeon is going to make the encumbered, and they’ll make sure they can drop it quickly if needed.


Sent from my iPhone using EN World

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I like it...