D&D 5E How do you account for Dwarves in heavy armor using variant encumbrance?

ECMO3

Legend
Dwarf's get the ability:

"Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor."

Using variant encumbrance:

"If you carry weight in excess of 5 times your Strength score, you are encumbered, which means your speed drops by 10 feet."

The way I read this, if your Dwarf is carrying 1lb below the encumbered threshold without any armor and the he puts on his plate he still has full movement correct? It is like the plate does not count as weight for movement purposes. Likewise, since this applies only to heavy armor, if the same Dwarf donned leather he would be slowed by 10 feet.

Am I interpreting this correctly?
 

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overgeeked

B/X Known World
Dwarf's get the ability:

"Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor."

Using variant encumbrance:

"If you carry weight in excess of 5 times your Strength score, you are encumbered, which means your speed drops by 10 feet."

The way I read this, if your Dwarf is carrying 1lb below the encumbered threshold without any armor and the he puts on his plate he still has full movement correct? It is like the plate does not count as weight for movement purposes. Likewise, since this applies only to heavy armor, if the same Dwarf donned leather he would be slowed by 10 feet.

Am I interpreting this correctly?
I use the variant encumbrance rules and that's exactly how I handle dwarfs and heavy armor.
 


Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Under the variant encumbrance rules, wearing heavy armor doesn’t reduce your speed, so that particular feature has no effect. A reasonable house rule might be that a dwarf’s speed isn’t reduced by being encumbered. In this case, I would still have dwarves be affected normally by being heavily encumbered.
 


BookTenTiger

He / Him
Under the variant encumbrance rules, wearing heavy armor doesn’t reduce your speed, so that particular feature has no effect. A reasonable house rule might be that a dwarf’s speed isn’t reduced by being encumbered. In this case, I would still have dwarves be affected normally by being heavily encumbered.
This is how we did it in our campaign with three dwarves.
 

Oofta

Legend
Supporter
Under the variant encumbrance rules, wearing heavy armor doesn’t reduce your speed, so that particular feature has no effect. A reasonable house rule might be that a dwarf’s speed isn’t reduced by being encumbered. In this case, I would still have dwarves be affected normally by being heavily encumbered.
Same here. They still have to pay attention to the max encumbrance, but heavy encumbrance doesn't affect them.
 


Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Same here. They still have to pay attention to the max encumbrance, but heavy encumbrance doesn't affect them.
Oh, I’d have heavy encumbrance (10x strength, -20 ft. speed and disadvantage on strength, dexterity, and constitution checks) affect them but not encumbrance (5x strength, -10 ft. speed). Maximum carry weight (15x strength) would also still be in place.
 


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