D&D (2024) Size, Carrying Capacity, Strength, Athletics, Mobility

[tetrasodium]

In D&D I've found players really don't want to deal with encumbrance bookkeeping.

I never found players too averse to tracking it to some degree in past editions even if their efforts were often imperfect. The magic item churn and frequency of consumables of 3.x tended to be a good pressure valve where replacing or adding a bunch of stuff often made it easier to just recalculate to make sure they were still under light or medium load depending on their build.

Yet, it can be important to determine how they interact with traps and hazards and I want some limit to the silliness of D&D characters carry a cart's worth of gear on their backs. In every D&D campaign I've run since 5e came out, the characters got access to bags of holding rather quick in their careers.

Agreed 100%, but I find that players who started with 5e and never played an edition where encumbrance/carry capacity was not one that was designed to remove itself from relevance become even more likely to stop even pretended that there is a limit to their personal capacity or the bag itself once the party gets even a single bag of holding.

Ultimately I quit giving out bags of holding because I got sick of the obvious way consumables would get duplicated and respawned when players lacking anywhere on their sheet to track them would start reminding each other and remembering the existence of potions scrolls and trinkets they had used previously in the campaign. "Do you have it, no I think I had it... Maybe we put it in the bag... Wait no I think I had it" suddenly there are three people certain that they had it

 

[Scott Christian]

Strength = agility and mobility

This thread explores the relationship between Carrying Capacity, Size, Strength bonus, agility, and mobility, to understand mre clearly how the mechanics of Strength works and should work in 2024 onward.

D&D, since 3e, has always been the vague standard of strength. In real life, size does equal strength. There is zebra that is stronger than an elephant. There is no chimp stronger than a gorilla. And even within context, there is no bobcat stronger than a lion. Size equals strength. In real life, agility is a product of strength. It is not a separate ability.

But D&D is different. Because players want 30-pound halflings to be the same strength as 450-pound hill giants, they need to ignore real life, and move towards a vague characteristic.

For carrying capacity, it really should be the same thing - unrealistic. Let the 30-pound halfling carry twenty thirty pounds of equipment and still be able to jump and leap and dodge and duck and climb and swing without a second thought. It is literally the only way to make the system work without penalizing certain PCs. And it is clear they do not get new players and buyers by promoting a form of penalization.

 

[Yaarel]

D&D, since 3e, has always been the vague standard of strength. In real life, size does equal strength. There is zebra that is stronger than an elephant. There is no chimp stronger than a gorilla. And even within context, there is no bobcat stronger than a lion. Size equals strength. In real life, agility is a product of strength. It is not a separate ability.

5e is focusing on the Carrying Capacity mechanic to represent "brute strength". Example the Powerful Build trait of certain species, as well as the rule that each size larger doubles the Carrying Capacity. The focus on Carrying in relation to Size feels verisimilitudinous too.

This focus on Carrying is excellent for Small species like Halfling. Carrying more treasure is a nice perk, but is nonessential for combat. 5e downplays encumbrance anyway. Because things like armor scale to Small Size, they also weigh less and encumber less, so there is no real difference except the perk.

I feel the 2014 made a mistake, when allowing Small species to have full Medium Carrying, but then punish them for using "Heavy" weapons. 2024 should do the opposite. It feels more verisimilitudinous for a Halfling to Carry less. But because they are athletic, they can wield weapons athletically. The Heavy weapon property should instead be a Strength requirement. In my games, I want weapons and armor for Small characters to be specially made for Size, such as a "yumi" style longbow, and a longsword with an appropriate grip. But the characters can wield these fine.

Even the heaviest melee weapons are about 10 pounds − and even these are rarely intended for actual use. Heavy weapons arent actually "heavy". They require athletics and training to wield the momentum. A Halfling who can use a spear proficiently can also use a greatsword proficiently.

But D&D is different. Because players want 30-pound halflings to be the same strength as 450-pound hill giants, they need to ignore real life, and move towards a vague characteristic.

For carrying capacity, it really should be the same thing - unrealistic. Let the 30-pound halfling carry twenty thirty pounds of equipment and still be able to jump and leap and dodge and duck and climb and swing without a second thought. It is literally the only way to make the system work without penalizing certain PCs. And it is clear they do not get new players and buyers by promoting a form of penalization.

Superman can lift an oil tanker above his head because he is using defacto magic. In D&D terms, Superman is an innate spellcaster.

I have zero problem with Small and Tiny creatures having extreme Strength, when applying to Athletics, because many reallife smaller animals are extremely athletic.

But when Small creatures use Strength for "brute force" "Weightlifting", it gives me pause.

Dont get me wrong. The Norwegian version of a Gnome is a tomte (or tuft). This is a nature being whose manifestation is supernaturally strong, because it wields mental strength, rather than anatomical strength. Bending metal bars is a typical trope for the "hidden" beings. In other words, magic.

If the Halfling is a magical character, then one can have unrealistic Weightlifting, the same way Superman does, magically.

But if the Halfling is a naturalistic concept. Then I would rather the concept avoid the Carrying Capacity and the Weightlifting skill.

On the other hand, all it takes is magic. If the Halfling has a single Dwarf ancestor, that is enough to wield rocklike elemental force, magically.

 

[Scott Christian]

5e is focusing on the Carrying Capacity mechanic to represent "brute strength". Example the Powerful Build trait of certain species, as well as the rule that each size larger doubles the Carrying Capacity. The focus on Carrying in relation to Size feels verisimilitudinous too.

I agree. But size is weight, and weight is size. Most animals house a close approximation on a cellular level to muscle mass/fat/blubber tissue. I think their carrying capacity represents this well without being too bogged down in the minutia.

This focus on Carrying is excellent for Small species like Halfling. Carrying more treasure is a nice perk, but is nonessential for combat. 5e downplays encumbrance anyway. Because things like armor scale to Small Size, they also weigh less and encumber less, so there is no real difference except the perk.

I agree.

I feel the 2014 made a mistake, when allowing Small species to have full Medium Carrying, but then punish them for using "Heavy" weapons. 2024 should do the opposite. It feels more verisimilitudinous for a Halfling to Carry less. But because they are athletic, they can wield weapons athletically. The Heavy weapon property should instead be a Strength requirement. In my games, I want weapons and armor for Small characters to be specially made for Size, such as a "yumi" style longbow, and a longsword with an appropriate grip. But the characters can wield these fine.

Even the heaviest melee weapons are about 10 pounds − and even these are rarely intended for actual use. Heavy weapons arent actually "heavy". They require athletics and training to wield the momentum. A Halfling who can use a spear proficiently can also use a greatsword proficiently.

I think that is one path they could go down. They seem to be breaking from grittier realism. I wouldn't mind it. I do have one caveat though: I think there should be a large section in the DM's Guide that specifically tailors rules like encumbrance and strength to a sword and sorcery style gameplay. In other words, a specific section that ditches the halfling wielding the two-handed sword and carrying double their body weight and gives them a max strength of (fill in the blank). I don't think I would ever use these rules, but I know many that would. And I feel it is only fair to include those players as well.

Superman can lift an oil tanker above his head because he is using defacto magic. In D&D terms, Superman is an innate spellcaster.

And it is explained ad nauseum why Superman can do this. In fact, he is one of the few that can. And it puts a worldwide spotlight on him because he can. In fact, it is so rare, that less than .0001% can accomplish a fraction of his abilities. But this goes to my original point in my last point. D&D is purposefully vague. It is good they are vague. Otherwise, it would break immersion too easily.

I have zero problem with Small and Tiny creatures having extreme Strength, when applying to Athletics, because many reallife smaller animals are extremely athletic.

Those small and tiny creatures do not have extreme strength. They have an athletic ability. If we used the old stop the frost giant from breaking through the door scenario, no matter your athletics, no 30-pound creature would stand a chance against a 400-to-500-hundred-pound creature. But in D&D - they can. And that is okay.

What I am saying is, D&D is unrealistic, and in the modern version, it is unrealistic to the extreme. And that is okay. But, there should also be a space for those that want a more realistic D&D.

But when Small creatures use Strength for "brute force" "Weightlifting", it gives me pause.

Dont get me wrong. The Norwegian version of a Gnome is a tomte (or tuft). This is a nature being whose manifestation is supernaturally strong, because it wields mental strength, rather than anatomical strength. Bending metal bars is a typical trope for the "hidden" beings. In other words, magic.

If the Halfling is a magical character, then one can have unrealistic Weightlifting, the same way Superman does, magically.

But if the Halfling is a naturalistic concept. Then I would rather the concept avoid the Carrying Capacity and the Weightlifting skill.

On the other hand, all it takes is magic. If the Halfling has a single Dwarf ancestor, that is enough to wield rocklike elemental force, magically.

But neither the halfling nor the dwarf are magical. And there is no explanation for the halfling to house an innate strength much greater than its weight. Except that D&D wants to use loose and vague terms. And again, that is okay.

 

[MNblockhead]

I never found players too averse to tracking it to some degree in past editions even if their efforts were often imperfect. The magic item churn and frequency of consumables of 3.x tended to be a good press valve where replacing or adding a bunch of stuff often made it easier to just recalculate to make sure they were still under light or medium load depending on their build.

Agreed 100%, but I find that players who started with 5e and never played an edition where encumbrance/carry capacity was not one that was designed to remove itself from relevance become even more likely to stop even pretended that there is a limit to their personal capacity or the bag itself once the party gets even a single bag of holding.

Ultimately I quit giving out bags of holding because I got sick of the obvious way consumables would get duplicated and respawned when players lacking anywhere on their sheet to track them would start reminding each other and remembering the existence of potions scrolls and trinkets they had used previously in the campaign. "Do you have it, no I think I had it... Maybe we put it in the bag... Wait no I think I had it" suddenly there are three people certain that they had it

DnD Beyond makes encumbrance tracking easy, but I don't know if it calculates bag of holding capacity well. Tells you something about how much attention I gave it, for better or worse [just went on to DDB, it does track the weight of items in the BoH. Also, for items larger than what you can fit into a BoH and to large to reasonably carry it creates a separate tab for that item - a neat feature I hadn't noticed before]. Part of the problem is I switched to running my campaign on-line due to being overseas for work and was using Foundry to run my games. Trying to get everything working properly in Foundry, which doesn't have a D&D license and syncing DDB characters to Foundry and then troubleshooting issues made me abstract all but the most important details.

For my Warhammer game I'm using the game system for Foundry that is official released and supported by the game designers (Cubicle7) which does a good job tracking encumberance. It also helps that in Warhammer encumbrance is abstracted to encumbrance points. It is a bit immersion breaking in one sense. Their is encumberance "0" for "a trifling item that's easily carried". Examples are "knives, jewelry, and coins." Basically, this is the game designers saying that players don't want to deal with that book-keeping and it is up to the DM to say, "uh, no, your character can't carry 15 throwing daggers with no effect on encumbrance." Also, metal coinage isn't encumbering? Though they do add a sanity rule for small items: "Common sense usually dictates the number of smaller items someone can carry before becoming encumbered. To provide a rough guide, money weights 1 encumbrance point per 200 coins." Average humans can carry 6 encumbrance points, so that would be 1,200 coins. If I take the smallest US metal coin, 145 copper pennies weigh one pound (for the older pure copper pennies, 185 per pound for copper-plated zinc). So 1,200 pennies would weigh only 8 pounds, so an average human could only carry 48 pounds before being encumbered. I guess. I generally tried to keep my pack to no more than 30-40 pounds when hiking in the mountains at the height of my fitness in my 20s.

I just checked the foundry character sheet. It does track encumbrance in decimals for coins, but then when I started spamming daggers onto a character sheet the encumbrance stayed at zero. I guess it would be too much work for the designers to come up with an encumbrance value for every small item in the price lists across all books. But it is easy to add a value in foundry, so if things get abused, I have a way to address it on an ad hoc manner to make it easy to track without having to go through every small item in advance.

D&D's practice of adding a weight value to all items make it much more VTT friendly for VTTs that offer good support of the system.

 

[tetrasodium]

DnD Beyond makes encumbrance tracking easy, but I don't know if it calculates bag of holding capacity well. Tells you something about how much attention I gave it, for better or worse [just went on to DDB, it does track the weight of items in the BoH. Also, for items larger than what you can fit into a BoH and to large to reasonably carry it creates a separate tab for that item - a neat feature I hadn't noticed before]. Part of the problem is I switched to running my campaign on-line due to being overseas for work and was using Foundry to run my games. Trying to get everything working properly in Foundry, which doesn't have a D&D license and syncing DDB characters to Foundry and then troubleshooting issues made me abstract all but the most important details.

For my Warhammer game I'm using the game system for Foundry that is official released and supported by the game designers (Cubicle7) which does a good job tracking encumberance. It also helps that in Warhammer encumbrance is abstracted to encumbrance points. It is a bit immersion breaking in one sense. Their is encumberance "0" for "a trifling item that's easily carried". Examples are "knives, jewelry, and coins." Basically, this is the game designers saying that players don't want to deal with that book-keeping and it is up to the DM to say, "uh, no, your character can't carry 15 throwing daggers with no effect on encumbrance." Also, metal coinage isn't encumbering? Though they do add a sanity rule for small items: "Common sense usually dictates the number of smaller items someone can carry before becoming encumbered. To provide a rough guide, money weights 1 encumbrance point per 200 coins." Average humans can carry 6 encumbrance points, so that would be 1,200 coins. If I take the smallest US metal coin, 145 copper pennies weigh one pound (for the older pure copper pennies, 185 per pound for copper-plated zinc). So 1,200 pennies would weigh only 8 pounds, so an average human could only carry 48 pounds before being encumbered. I guess. I generally tried to keep my pack to no more than 30-40 pounds when hiking in the mountains at the height of my fitness in my 20s.

I just checked the foundry character sheet. It does track encumbrance in decimals for coins, but then when I started spamming daggers onto a character sheet the encumbrance stayed at zero. I guess it would be too much work for the designers to come up with an encumbrance value for every small item in the price lists across all books. But it is easy to add a value in foundry, so if things get abused, I have a way to address it on an ad hoc manner to make it easy to track without having to go through every small item in advance.

D&D's practice of adding a weight value to all items make it much more VTT friendly for VTTs that offer good support of the system.

And? Check back when ddb started supporting those things. I want to say it was some point after or very shortly before COVID. More importantly I was talking about the character sheet itself wotc does not include sections for tracking quite a few things.

 

[Yaarel]

I agree. But size is weight, and weight is size. Most animals house a close approximation on a cellular level to muscle mass/fat/blubber tissue. I think their carrying capacity represents this well without being too bogged down in the minutia.

I think that is one path they could go down. They seem to be breaking from grittier realism. I wouldn't mind it. I do have one caveat though: I think there should be a large section in the DM's Guide that specifically tailors rules like encumbrance and strength to a sword and sorcery style gameplay. In other words, a specific section that ditches the halfling wielding the two-handed sword and carrying double their body weight and gives them a max strength of (fill in the blank). I don't think I would ever use these rules, but I know many that would. And I feel it is only fair to include those players as well.

When 2024 rules disentangle Strength Athletics from Strength Weightlifting, it will be far easier to utilize and describe one without the other. Thus there can be a low Strength Athletics "lumbering Giant" versus a high Strength Athletics "pouncing Panther", even a high Strength Athletics Rabbit.

Meanwhile Size and Weightlifting skill quantify brute force separately.

Then a "gritty" genre variant in the DMs Guide can detail some ways to keep Small "small".

Those small and tiny creatures do not have extreme strength. They have an athletic ability. If we used the old stop the frost giant from breaking through the door scenario, no matter your athletics, no 30-pound creature would stand a chance against a 400-to-500-hundred-pound creature. But in D&D - they can. And that is okay.

I did the math.

According to D&D 5e Monster Manual, a Frost Giant is about 21 feet tall, and has humanlike proportions. Therefore:

• Frost Giant with Swimmers Build weighs around: 7,187 pounds

• Frost Giant with Bodybuilder Build weighs around: 9,261 pounds

If this Giant tries to kick thru a door, there are many tons of force. Unless the smaller creatures are using magic, there is no resisting this force. Of course, the door itself might be structurally reinforced, but then the smaller creatures wont be adding much to its resistance.


Because height is a linear length and weight is a cubic volume, when two creatures have the same body proportions, the one that is twice the size is eight-times the weight.

So, a 3-foot Halfling has about an eighth of the body mass of a 6-foot Human.

What I am saying is, D&D is unrealistic, and in the modern version, it is unrealistic to the extreme. And that is okay. But, there should also be a space for those that want a more realistic D&D.

But neither the halfling nor the dwarf are magical. And there is no explanation for the halfling to house an innate strength much greater than its weight. Except that D&D wants to use loose and vague terms. And again, that is okay.

I basically agree.

My contention is, what you characterize as "unrealistic" fantastical exaggeration, is what I characterize as by definition "magic".

But it is innate magic − not the kind of magic that is manipulated by formulaic words. In other words, the power source is psionic or primal, rather than arcane or divine.

And it is explained ad nauseum why Superman can do this. In fact, he is one of the few that can. And it puts a worldwide spotlight on him because he can. In fact, it is so rare, that less than .0001% can accomplish a fraction of his abilities. But this goes to my original point in my last point. D&D is purposefully vague. It is good they are vague. Otherwise, it would break immersion too easily.

Re Superman as defacto magic. Even if a "sufficiently advanced" technology, it is still a D&D magic power source.

Notably, nothing about Superman feels like the arcane power source or the divine power source. Superman might be the psionic power source, like his son is. To me Superman feels like the primal power source. He is a manifestation of the four elements: fiery laser beam eyes, watery icy breath, airy flight, and earthy "man of steel". Thus, like other nature beings, he is an innate caster of the primal power source who wills his elemental manifestation into existence.

 

[Yaarel]

For my Warhammer game I'm using the game system for Foundry that is official released and supported by the game designers (Cubicle7) which does a good job tracking encumberance. It also helps that in Warhammer encumbrance is abstracted to encumbrance points.

I prefer D&D to abstract everything into "Sizes". So, Telekinetics at various levels can move targets that are Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, etcetera.

Encumbrance can treat objects as-if certain Sizes, so spear is Tiny despite its length. It is easier to visualize how a character is equipping the items, and as long as it is within the Size limit, it is fine. This approach might simplify encumbrance tracking. Having a "Zero Size" for negligible objects is a good idea too for (not) tracking.

Heh, as a DM I cant stand referring to "weights". It drives me crazy that things like the Telekinesis spell refer to weight. The weights of things can be so uncertain, and often surprising. I dont want to feel like I need to google trivia to find out how much things weigh, in order to play D&D.

This thread goes into detail about how much things weigh. But the point is to eventually refer to simplified abstractions than exhibit verisimilitude.

 

[MNblockhead]

I prefer D&D to abstract everything into "Sizes". So, Telekinetics at various levels can move targets that are Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, etcetera.

Encumbrance can treat objects as-if certain Sizes, so spear is Tiny despite its length. It is easier to visualize how a character is equipping the items, and as long as it is within the Size limit, it is fine. This approach might simplify encumbrance tracking. Having a "Zero Size" for negligible objects is a good idea too for (not) tracking.

Heh, as a DM I cant stand referring to "weights". It drives me crazy that things like the Telekinesis spell refer to weight. The weights of things can be so uncertain, and often surprising. I dont want to feel like I need to google trivia to find out how much things weigh, in order to play D&D.

This thread goes into detail about how much things weigh. But the point is to eventually refer to simplified abstractions than exhibit verisimilitude.

Between games I research the historical weights of iron-reinforced wooden chests full of coins and number of coins per a given volume. In game I pretty much abstract things. Make a best guess and move on.

My main issue with abstracting by size is that a gold bar, for example, is going to be much heavier and more encumbering than many items that are much larger. I don't want to ignore weight completely. Perhaps for magic spells like telekinesis, but not for carry capacity. Once I take weight out of the equation, then a lot of interesting traps and challenges go out the window.

Personally I would like to just abstract both. Just give an encumbrance number for things. A small but very heavy item could have the same encumbrance value as a larger, lighter, but more unwieldy item. Seems like you would have enough examples on a standard core book price list to make ad hoc estimates in game without having to think too much about the details.

 

[Yaarel]

Between games I research the historical weights of iron-reinforced wooden chests full of coins and number of coins per a given volume. In game I pretty much abstract things. Make a best guess and move on.

My main issue with abstracting by size is that a gold bar, for example, is going to be much heavier and more encumbering than many items that are much larger. I don't want to ignore weight completely. Perhaps for magic spells like telekinesis, but not for carry capacity. Once I take weight out of the equation, then a lot of interesting traps and challenges go out the window.

Personally I would like to just abstract both. Just give an encumbrance number for things. A small but very heavy item could have the same encumbrance value as a larger, lighter, but more unwieldy item. Seems like you would have enough examples on a standard core book price list to make ad hoc estimates in game without having to think too much about the details.

Yeah. In an abstracted Size system, something that is solid metal, such as a chest full of gold coins, needs to be ridiculously heavy-cumbersome.

It reminds me, in the medieval and ancient world, a box full of coins was often carried on poles (like a coffin) on the shoulders of at least four people.