How much stuff can a person carry - inventory

[kingius]

I was reviewing the character sheets in my pen and paper roleplaying game that my group use this morning when I realised that each hero was carrying an arsenal of weapons.

None of us like tracking weights for items, its just too fiddly to mess about like this, so I was thinking of making an alternate house ruled system. My idea is to make an 'inventory sheet' with a outline of a man and a number of boxes pointing to locations. Items would be split into general grid sizes (1x1 for a dagger, 1x2 for a sword, 1x3 for a two handed sword, 2x2 for a shield) and the boxes would reflect what could be put where.

For example, a belt would have a number of slots that might be 2x4 (two shields, or 8 daggers, could be slung into a belt in this example).

So far so good, but I run into the issue of baldrics and backpacks. It's possible to sling two very large weapons on your back using baldrics and making an X shape with the blades... but can you wear a backpack at the same time as this, I wonder?

 

[Aus_Snow]

This is where Dragon Warriors has a neat, middle-ground solution, IMO: anyone can carry a certain number of things - but only items that aren't tiny or trivial count here - modified by extraordinarily high or low Strength. And that's it - simple, no hassle, but still puts a limit on that kind of thing. A whole bunch of coins counts (it does give a number; I can't remember right now) as one item, and so on.

Of course, the GM can always say, 'Hey, you're wanting to carry way too many weapons on your belt there! Nuh uh!' or whatever. Common sense is recommended, as always.

But certainly, the method you're proposing sounds like it could work just fine too.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Just wing it, no need for a system. If you think somebody is carrying too much, ask the player how he/she carries it. If the explanation isn't plausible make little hints of how awkward this is for the character.

 

[kingius]

A formal system for things like this is always useful, as with it, the players can begin policing themselves. We had an informal system before and its basically been abused. We've been playing for over a year though, so there's a lot of accumulated stuff been found over this time.

Dragon Ages system sounds quite interesting and easy, I'll give that some thought too. I like mapping items to locations though, because if someone wants to get a mental picture of their character (with heavy flail hanging from a belt, a shield in one hand and a javelin in the other and a bulging backpack with scale mail armour in) its very easy to do this.

 

[Meridius]

I do keep track of the 'weight'. I just don't do it continuously, nor demand it from my players. If they end up not having penalties for being 'overweight', that's their luck. On a check, they usually end up cleaning out there inventory (which usually equates to throwing junk on a wagon, cart or one of many pack horses, my players might look a bit like a transport company ^_^).

Another thing I used for my own character was a separate inventory sheet. Just a list of items with room for more, and room to note new weights. If you keep it up continuously, it's actually quite an easy system. Even for a metric-guy like myself

I do have a rule to mark swords as 'equipped' and 'packed'. Only equipped swords are drawable. No more than about 3 swords (preferrably two) are 'equipped' unless the player has a damned good explanation for it.

Oh, and strapping swords to your back, unless they're short-swords means they're 'packed'. The human arm is too short to draw anything longer than that in a single movement. This leads to characters actually choosing swords before battle (at least the fighter, she has a small armory worth of weapons =_=)

 

[delericho]

This was discussed a couple of months ago, and has led to the development of my new work-in-progress equipment system.

Items are categorised into three groups: major items (a sword, a suit of armour, etc), minor items (a coin, a ring, etc), and conditional items. The last category are usually clothing items - if equipped they are considered minor items, but if carried separately they count as major items.

A character may carry a number of major items equal to his Strength without penalty. Once above that limit, he becomes Encumbered, and may carry a further 3 + Str mod (minimum 1) major items. Above that limit, he becomes Heavily Encumbered, and may carry a further 3 + Str mode (minimum 1) major items before reaching his maximum load (above which he simply cannot move). There is no encumberance limit on minor items; in theory, the character can carry as many as he wishes.

However, the character must also have some means of carrying all this loot. To this end, a character also has a number of slots: helmet, head, eyes, neck, cloak, back, clothing, armour, bracers, 2 hands, 2 rings, belt, legs, feet. (I may have missed some.) A character also has four "weapon" slots, two "concealed" slots, and two "belt pouch" slots.

Each slot can contain an item (major or minor) of an appropriate type. The types should mostly be obvious - you can't wear a helmet on your feet, or armour on your eyes, for example.

Any of the items in these slots are considered 'equipped', and a character may therefore access them either immediately or as a move action (at most - change this to a minor action in 4e).

A backpack is considered a conditional item. If equipped in the 'back' slot, the character gains 8 "pack" slots, that can be used for any item. A sack is likewise considered a conditional item. If equipped in one of the "hand" slots, the character gains 4 "sack" slots. Accessing an item in a backpack or sack requires a full-round action.

A bolt case, quiver, or bandoleer (for shuriken/throwing knives) is considered a conditional item. If equipped in a 'weapon' slot, if gives three slots of the appropriate type, that may be used for ammunition (and may be accessed as a "no action"). Each such slot can contain up to 10 bolts/arrows/shuriken. (These are kept segregated for ease of access, so if you have 9 arrows and 1 arrow +1, this would take up two of those ammo slots.)

The "belt pouch" slots can be used for money pouches (any 50 coins), spell component pouches, or similar. I have also added a "mini-chest" item, which is considered a major item that can carry any amount of sorted coinage the PC wishes to carry.

The "concealed" slots can be used for tiny weapons (a dagger), or thieves' picks. Such items require a full round action to access, but they are not automatically detected on a Search (oppose with Sleight of Hand).

Likewise, I have added a "potion holder", which is a major item that will hold any 10 potions/flasks of holy water/flasks of acid/whatever. This keeps said potions safe, makes them easy to access, and means that you can carry 10 potions in a single 'slot', rather than requiring 10 slots for such items.

I have similarly abstracted loot and most treasure in my campaign, for ease of calculation.

After defeating a band of humanoid(-ish) opponents, the PCs can loot the corpses. If there is anything there that they particularly want to keep, they can equip it as normal. However, for the rest, it is assumed that they bundle it up tightly, and throw it in a sack. This gives them a "bundle of poor loot" (or a "bundle of mundane loot", a "bundle of good loot", or whatever) that is considered a single major item that has no specific use, but can be resold for a given amount of money. I haven't quite worked out the best values for these bundles, though.

Piles of coins are likewise abstratced into a "pile of poor coins" (about 3,000 mixed coins; mostly copper with some silver), a "pile of average coins" (some copper, mostly silver, some gold), and so on. Again, each pile is considered a single major item that has no specific use, but which can be converted to 'real' currency the next time the PCs are in town and have a chance to count their spoils. (Strictly speaking, I should probably also have a "pouch of minor gems" and so on, but I haven't gotten that far yet.)

 

[kingius]

That's an interesting and detailed system.

I think I shall use some of your 'slot types' such as helmet and gloves, but use a simpler gridded item system.

A backpack might have a 4x3 grid (4 wide, 3 high) which would allow 4 two handed weapons inside it (each is 1 wide and 3 high), or a suit of armour (3 wide and 3 high) and a two handed weapon, or a shield (2 wide and 2 high) and a two handed weapon and some small items for my own system.

I'm interested in locking down what can be carried all at once and I'm erring on the side of caution. Less is more, sometimes, I think.

 

[delericho]

I think I shall use some of your 'slot types' such as helmet and gloves, but use a simpler gridded item system.

Yeah. The vast majority of the slots came about because of the list of magic items a character could use, from the 3.5e DMG. I'm far from convinced that those represent the best possible set.

(Certainly, for the Cyberpunk game I'm currently half-considering writing, I'll just have a number of 'clothing' slots, instead of all the minor categories. And if I ever write up my own version of "D&D", I'll be reducing the number of slots and probably loosening them up a bit too.)

 

[Echohawk]

Once, many years ago, I had all my players bring physical items with them to a game which were roughly the same size/weight as the gear their characters had. An encyclopedia to represent a spellbook, a broom for a polearm, sleeping bags for... well... sleeping bags. These were characters who had been adventuring for some time, and who had accumulated a lot of stuff on their character sheets, so after everyone had arrived and lugged in all of their gear, it filled nearly the entire floorspace of the room.

We played that entire game using the make shift gear as props, with much glee, and at some point during the adventure, the group was resting (with all of their stuff), in an abandoned building. One of their enemies had tracked them to their hiding place, and set fire to the building while they slept. The alarm was duly raised, and the heroes had only a limited amount of time to grab what they could and flee before burning beams came plummeting down on them. The wizard grabbed his favourite spell book, the fighter his magic sword, the bard his favourite cloak and scroll case of half-finished ballads, and so forth.

Moments later, standing outside, they watched the building collapse, destroying all of their remaining possessions. Despite the significant losses their characters had suffered, the players thoroughly enjoy the situation and proceeded to role-play the situation to the hilt:

"My scrolls... all my scrolls were in the scroll case I left behind!"
"Never mind your stupid scroll case, I just lost my folding boat."
"Um, did anyone grab the satchel with all our maps and the valuable property deeds we were given a few towns back?"
"*&$%! I grabbed the wrong spellbook. The wrong spellbook. This one only has cantrips in it..."

For the rest of that campaign, those adventurers got into the habit of travelling light, and not hanging on to equipment that they didn't use. Instead they made regular donations to a museum in their home town, and as their fame grew, they took great pride in having exhibits of items associated with their adventures being displayed for all to see.

 

[Janx]

handling inventory and encubrance can get complicated.

managing slots can get as complicated as managing it by weight (a spreadsheet for inventory, so it can add up the weight does the job)

So does taking a trip to the renaisance faire. Seriously. Go watch the people in costume.

How much gear can you carry, and be useful with your hands free, yet easily draw and fight?

There are some pretty basic stuff like:
you can carry a sword in a scabbard on your belt (maybe 2)
you can carry a more daggers in more places
you can carry a few belt pouches (plus a dagger, pistol and sword on the belt)

You can sling a shield or bow on your back, and somewhat easily get it ready

You can carry a backpack (and stuff in it), but it is NOT easy to get stuff out of, and somewhat easy to quickly drop

reallly big weapons (pole-arms, big swords) are not easy to carry around. They always catch on stuff, get hung up, etc and if its on your back, its not easy to get it ready

crossbows are cumbersome, because of the stock being a perpendicular to the bow arms. bow arms do NOT fold in, except in magic/fake tech circumstances (or when they are broken)


A "normal" armed person probably has a dagger, pouch and a sword (longsword or smaller) on their belt.

They might tuck a dagger/knife in a boot/thigh, or back

One might have shorter swords/daggers carried on the back (like legolas)

a cross bow or bow would be carried over the shoulder, and care has to be given when moving to not get hung up on stuff (either sticks out)