Carrying capacity: The ruling currency?

[Obryn]

I am still puzzled by how people can have problems with simple additions.

It's not merely that - it's also tracking the weights of every object and coin you have. I mean, people manage hit points alright, so I think it's disingenuous to imply that it's "math problems."

I guess its the same issue as for why diagonal movement was "simplified" in 4E...

That's primarily due to the greater preponderance of burst/blast/aura effects, where tracking with a less-easily-eyeballed diagonal = 1.5 would be cumbersome.

-O

 

[Li Shenron]

I am still puzzled by how people can have problems with simple additions.

Adding is not the problem. The problem is adding a lot of minor numbers, and re-calc (at least add/subtract) every time you get loot or buy/sell something, then check the total against 2 different thresholds based on your Strength score (which in some edition can change up or down easily due to spells and effects), and doing all this only to know if "yes, you can carry", "yes, but you're slowed", "no that's too much". Which then only means that players will re-arrange their backpacks so that nobody has penalties. It's just not worth for most gaming groups to even bother.

Now if you have a small program to automatically do the calc for you (which is what happens in some PC games) then I guess most gamers would actually like to have encumbrance rules enforced, because handwaving it totally is one more pebble threatening to break your suspension of disbelief.

 

[N'raac]

For me it is very very simple. I don't care where on your body you carry all your stuff. Just know that I want an accurate adding of the weight and you shouldn't plan on having access to all of it during combat unless you don't mind going last in the round because I've houseruled t hat medium loads impose a -3 to initiative and heavy loads impose a -6 to initiative. My players have adjusted to this - the most important stuff is on a bandolier or pouch and the backpack and sacks full of coins get ditched at first sign of trouble.

Don't you need to roll initiative to determine when you can take an action to dump the excess stuff?

The "stuff to drop" structure seems perfectly reasonable - I have a few characters with bundles to drop in combat for similar reasons. It's amazing how fast gear adds up (especially if your character prefers not to sleep with rocks under him, the open sky above him and hoping it doesn't get chilly at night, wants to cook, eat and wash on the road, etc.)

 

[Elf Witch]

For me it is very very simple. I don't care where on your body you carry all your stuff. Just know that I want an accurate adding of the weight and you shouldn't plan on having access to all of it during combat unless you don't mind going last in the round because I've houseruled t hat medium loads impose a -3 to initiative and heavy loads impose a -6 to initiative. My players have adjusted to this - the most important stuff is on a bandolier or pouch and the backpack and sacks full of coins get ditched at first sign of trouble.

The only difficulty I've ever had with this is my players trying to determine if a particular item would be weight-limited or volume-limited when trying to shove it in a backpack (what do you mean I can't put this magical lute and 50 sunrods in my backpack, it weighs a total of 60 lbs?)

I really like this and I am going to steal it for my games.

I do enforce encumbrance rules as well as keeping track of ammo. Run out in the middle of a dungeon then don't expect to use your bow.

 

[Argyle King]

Adding is not the problem. The problem is adding a lot of minor numbers, and re-calc (at least add/subtract) every time you get loot or buy/sell something, then check the total against 2 different thresholds based on your Strength score (which in some edition can change up or down easily due to spells and effects), and doing all this only to know if "yes, you can carry", "yes, but you're slowed", "no that's too much". Which then only means that players will re-arrange their backpacks so that nobody has penalties. It's just not worth for most gaming groups to even bother.

Now if you have a small program to automatically do the calc for you (which is what happens in some PC games) then I guess most gamers would actually like to have encumbrance rules enforced, because handwaving it totally is one more pebble threatening to break your suspension of disbelief.

Usually, what I do is write my character sheet in such a way that I know where things are.

For a quick example:

Backpack
-blanket
-bottle
--lich ashes
-rope

The dashes indicating that something is inside of something else.


When playing D&D, I find that encumbrance tends to be ignored, so I don't worry about it so much, but that's how I write things out for myself when playing games where it does matter. I also usually make a few notes for myself to make it easy to remember what weights are for common loadouts I might have. What I mean is that I would write down my weight carried and encumbrance level for when I'm carrying everything, and I'd probably write down what it is when I'm not wearing armor.

I somewhat assume most D&D players handwave encumbrance, but that's something which has also struck me as somewhat curious. While I understand handwaving for ease of play, one of the complaints I see most often about 'mundane' characters (especially in 3rd) is that they are too easily outclassed by casters. While I do agree to an extent that they are, I also suspect that things might be a little more difficult for a wizard if said wizard had to obey some of the rules that were most often overlooked. I still believe there would be some disparity between classes, but I'd be interested to see how a game would play out with those rules being given more attention.

 

[Stormonu]

I'd like to try out a system similar to this - perhaps using either a "small", "medium" and "large" description or "light", "medium" and "heavy". Base it off Medium. You can have two small/light items per medium. One large/heavy item counts as two medium. Then have, say characters can carry a number of objects equal to their Strength score. Someone with 10 then can carry 10 medium items, 20 small/light or 5 large/heavy. If you really need fine granularity for some reason (say, like the fighter wants to topple a statue on some enemies), you can have some standard - one medium item is, say, worth 10 lbs. of weight*.

* Since I'd probably rank a Longsword as a "medium" item, in many ways these ranks would incorporate bulk as well as weight.

 

[Sunseeker]

Playing a lot of MMOs, I use bags with "slots" a lot, and for organizational purposes, it's pretty great. For an IMO fair representation of how big something is or how heavy it is, not so great. Silverfall 2 used a hybrid system wherein larger items took up more slots, okay...it made sense, but a small gem still took up one slot. How many gems would take up one slot? How many gold coins?

I think it would be best, if we wanted to use lots, to assign each one a "weight value", perhaps 4lbs, that's only 48lbs maximum, which is a fair load over a short distance but incredibly bothersome over longer ones, I think that's reasonable. You'd get 40 gold per slot, a longsword in a slot or a greatsword in two. It takes away some of the abstraction by tying it to actual weight values, but retains the organizational value. We could still use strength to adjust what amount of this constitutes a "light", "medium" or "heavy" load, and of course allow players to purchase more bags for additional space, with "Holding" bags increasing the weight-per-square ratio.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Having Strength modify the number of slots an item takes is the part that is cumbersome to me. I'd much rather have strength grant a character additional slots.

Basically, I prefer an encumbrance point system. Weight isn't a complete measure of how encumbering an item is, and I don't like the idea of modifying weight to be such.

But a simple range of 0 through 3 for most items seems simple enough.

Part of me thinks it would be cool if your carrying capacity had a random component to represent the uncertainty of carrying a lot of weight for a long while. Say, for any given length of time, you could carry 10 + 1d4 encumbrance points of equipment. It's just a thought experiment though.

 

[3catcircus]

Don't you need to roll initiative to determine when you can take an action to dump the excess stuff?

Sucks to be last in initiative order, doesn't it... Carrying a heavy load and roll low on initiative? Then you'll be fumbling with the straps on your pack before you can ditch it. Let's say you normally have a +2 init and are wearing full plate (Max Dex +1) and, with the additional weight of your other gear, carrying a heavy load. During the first round of combat, you roll a 9, resulting in a 4 (9 + 1 - 6). You ditch your pack on your turn but when the next round starts, your initiative is now a 10, so you can go a bit sooner than before. If you were wearing scale mail, your initiative would be 5 (with the pack) and 11 without the pack.

 

[Jester David]

Carrying capacity is odd. So many people hate the rules and the limits, thinking of them as unheroic and needless booking, but then they ignore the rules anyway.

Options are where it's at. A per pound option for those who like flexibility and granularity. And maybe a "block" or "slot" option.