D&D 5E Encumbrance Variant: compromise between slots and weight

[trinculolives]

Hi everyone,
the aspiring Grognard in me has been thinking a good deal about Encumbrance lately. I've recently gotten more into dungeon-delving in the weekly game I run and have been enjoying the old-school feel of it.

One of the PCs has just gotten a mule and cart, and in the spirit of things, I have endeavoured to set out an encumbrance variant that will hopefully accomplish the following goals:

1. Eliminating the need to add up many small individual item's weights to use the Encumbrance rules,

2. Empowering the players to pick and choose items to take with them dungeon-delving without overwhelming them with long minutes of addition,

3. Encouraging the usage of mounts and, heck, even hirelings for that matter,

4. Encouraging the players to favour Strength equally alongside Dexterity (or... at least gleefully punish their weak characters)

5. Simplifying the math of PCs carrying or dragging each-other or, in other words, answering the old question: Just how many halflings can the Goliath carry?

Here's the most recent Homebrewery: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/r1Zz7KZF0x

What do you think? If you'd like to use these rules on an actual character sheet and let me know what you end up with, that would be great. Thanks!

Edit: Here's the inventory sheet for use with this system: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByFj-7gnfeApdmNlcDlzU0tNbEE/view?usp=sharing

And an alternative that frees up space by removing the mount/hireling section:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByFj-7gnfeApXzJPTVNJUHJDT1k/view?usp=sharing


Note: I have changed some terms around, and the free weapon is now gone.

P.S.
Some musings:
I should say that I found the Encumbrance values from the PHB Variant to be a tad stifling. My method potentially significantly increases the amount that your average adventurer can carry. For example:

Average PC, 10 Strength
PHB version: encumbered by 50 lbs. (5xStr score), heavily encumbered by 100 (10xStr score), max load: 150 (15xStr score)

My version: encumbered by 5 Stone, which is 70 lbs; heavily encumbered by 10 Stone (140 lbs), max load: 15 Stone (210 lbs.).

It's a significant increase, and rather unrealistic for the average adventuring type. The key is, I think, that Stone are not a measurement purely of weight, but rather an approximation of weight and mass. If we allow for that distinction, this system should average out across the contents of a PC's inventory. Then we shouldn't be ending up with numbers that are too far inflated above the PHB's.

The main difference will be that the majority of light-weight items can simply be ignored by the player until a great number of them start stacking up.
Of course, the rules for 20 Pocket items = 1 Stone and 5 Small items = 1 Stone are first draft. Playtesting will almost certainly alter those numbers somewhat, if not do away with that section of the rules entirely.

 

[machineelf]

In our group we use the PHB variant encumbrance rules, and we use this tracking sheet to simplify it:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1232

I highly recommend it. It might meet the goals you have.

On first glance, I think your stone conversion might make things more complicated, not less.

 

[trinculolives]

Oh interesting, thanks for sharing that!

Those requirements are definitely harsher than mine. I do very much like the useful information included for tracking food and water.

 

[Antonlowe]

When stacking multiple items, I would change the math to round up instead of down.

 

[trinculolives]

When stacking multiple items, I would change the math to round up instead of down.

Wouldn't that mean that 4 Medium items, for example, would count the same as 5 do currently?

 

[machineelf]

When stacking multiple items, I would change the math to round up instead of down.

Small items are worth a fifth of a slot, so they should not count as a slot until there are 5 of them. It makes sense.

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

 

[Antonlowe]

Small items are worth a fifth of a slot, so they should not count as a slot until there are 5 of them. It makes sense.

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I was looking at tiny items as well. being able to carry 39 tiny items for one slot??? I dont like it. and 4/5ths of a slot being rounded to 0???

I am not saying one position is right or wrong, just what I would do with these rules. The rules seem overly generous to my style. I thinking round up would help keep them in line with my play style.

It just a thought.

 

[machineelf]

I was looking at tiny items as well. being able to carry 39 tiny items for one slot??? I dont like it. and 4/5ths of a slot being rounded to 0???

I am not saying one position is right or wrong, just what I would do with these rules. The rules seem overly generous to my style. I thinking round up would help keep them in line with my play style.

It just a thought.

Sure, do it how you want to. I just think your way is over harsh. This sheet is meant to be an approximation for speed and ease. The sheet still tends to be accurate enough.

It already uses the more harsh optional encumbrance rule anyway. So having a small item click over to take up 1 slot when there are 5 of them (but not until you reach multiples of five) seems to work just fine for our group. Especially since the sheet is designed to help approximate weight and keep things simple so that counting pounds doesn't slow up the game or create an undue burden.

If you start precisely rounding up small items like glass vials, you are defeating the purpose of the sheet, especially since the bigger items are approximated too.

It's not really something players can take advantage of in a big way, because if they choose to keep no more than four small items to save a slot, they must sacrifice carrying vials or torches or whatever else they come across just to keep the number at four. It's not worth it.

But again, if you don't like this sheet then by all means don't use it in your game. For us it's been great because it means we actually use weight and encumbrance rules, but they are simple and quick to keep track of.

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

 

[trinculolives]

I was looking at tiny items as well. being able to carry 39 tiny items for one slot??? I dont like it. and 4/5ths of a slot being rounded to 0???

I am not saying one position is right or wrong, just what I would do with these rules. The rules seem overly generous to my style. I thinking round up would help keep them in line with my play style.

It just a thought.

Thanks for the observation.

I changed around some terms on you, so by Tiny item you mean a "Pocket" item.


In terms of weight, 20 Pocket-size items being equal to a Stone is pretty close to the PHB standard.

A Pocket item tends to weigh from 1/4 to 1 lb. or an average of 5/8s of a lb. Therefore, on average, twenty "Pocket-sized" items will weigh 12.5 lbs, which is not far off from the 14 lbs. of a Stone.

With the PHB rule, a 10-Strength character can carry, unencumbered, up to 80 "Pocket-sized" items. In my variant, a 10-Strength character can carry up to 119 "Pocket-sized" items unencumbered.

With medium items, which generally weigh from 2 to 7 pounds (average of 4.5 lbs.), the PHB would allow a 10 Strength character to carry 11 of them, while in my variant that same character can carry up to 29 of them.

With Hefty items, which range from 8 to 20 lbs (average of 14), the PHB would allow our 10 STR fellow to carry only 3 and 1/2 of them, my variant allows them to carry 5.

So it's definitely less strict. Generally, my system allows for 1.4x as much weight to be carried as the PHB suggests. I think that's a fine thing personally.

Working out these numbers has persuaded me to change one thing though: I think I'll make 4 Medium = 1 Stone.