D&D 5E Dwarves & Encumbrance?

Connorsrpg

Adventurer

• Sep 16, 2014

• #1

I think I have just stumbled upon a hangover from a previous playtest…or something.

It says dwarves are not penalised for wearing heavy armor. Heavy armor has a Str rating; if you are under that it reduces your speed by 10.

This is of little to no benefit. Most dwarves wearing hvy armor are likely to meet the STR req anyway.

But even worse, heavy armor weighs a lot and is likely to put you over the Enc limit (esp if using the Variant rules, as we are). I am cool with that, but this still affects dwarves. So, in reality, the armor DOES slow them down anyway. Given their penalty to speed to start, this would make most armored dwarves mv at 15ft speed!

This does not affect overland mvt, but still, seems odd. (I am all for heavy armor reducing mvt rate through Enc, but when a race has an ability that is meant to remove this penalty, but technically doesn't; that seems wrong).

So, for now I simply said dwarves can times their STR score by 10 (instead of 5) for Encumbrance purposes.

Another option I considered was simply, the weight or armors worn does not count? But this seems odd, when clothes do (for everyone)?

How do you like my compromise?

 

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Connorsrpg

Adventurer

• Sep 16, 2014

• #2

Furthermore - I just thought of a situation where a player did not meet the Str req. That would mean their low STR is likely to lead to being Encumbered too.

Does that stack for a -20ft of mvt for non-dwarves?

If Encumbrance only reduces Mvt, why even have a separate rule for armor reducing mvt? (I guess for those that don't use Encumbrance - but it is lethal for those that do).

Obvious fix: these do not stack.

EDIT: Missed something here pointed our by posters later one. 'You ignore the Str rule for heavy armor if using the Encumbrance variant rule.' So clearly there is no prob with these 2 together.

 

Last edited: Feb 7, 2016

ExploderWizard

Hero

• Sep 16, 2014

• #3

If you rule that dwarves are penalized for heavy armor due to the encumbrance rules like everyone else, then you are choosing to ignore the racial feature that removes the penalty.

 

S

Syntallah

First Post

• Sep 16, 2014

• #4

I use the Variant: Encumbrance rules [PHB, pg 176], but I modify the thresholds for dwarves:

Str * 7.5 for Light
Str * 12.5 for Heavy
Str * 15 max does not change

 

Connorsrpg

Adventurer

• Sep 17, 2014

• #5

[MENTION=66434]ExploderWizard[/MENTION]

No, in fact, I AM using the dwarven racial feature. It does NOT mention encumbrance at all - that is my point. It only mentions heavy armor!

Are you suggesting not counting the weight of heavy armor? I had thought that too, but that seems even wierder. Clothes, light armor etc still count, but not heavy?
[MENTION=17152]Syntallah[/MENTION]
Those figures seem more appropriate than my double I guess. An increase of 50% over other PCs.

 

Last edited: Sep 17, 2014

Vamprey

First Post

• Sep 17, 2014

• #6

Ok from my reading what you are talking about will only effect when using the variant encumbrance rules (which we are) as even with a strength of 10 the character can carry up to 150lbs under the standard encumbrance rules with no effect and so could easily handle the heavy armor, a weapon n shield as well as a bit more stuff.

It seems to me that you are just saying that dwarves simply have no "encumbered" state and just go straight to "heavily encumbered" (so a -20 feet for a total mvt of 5) if they go over 10 times their Strength, which i think is fine. I don't care if your a dwarf, if you're to weak to carry stuff then you shouldn't.

The other option may be to say that any movement penalties due to encumbrance are halved for dwarves (or reduced by 5 or 10) when wearing heavy armour:
5 feet penalty of encumbered (0 penalty)
10 feet if heavily encumbered (-10 penalty)

Personally I'd probably go with "movement penalties are reduced by 10 for dwarves when wearing heavy armour" rather than muck around with changing what limits they can carry due to Str.

 

Connorsrpg

Adventurer

• Sep 17, 2014

• #7

[MENTION=21308]Vamprey[/MENTION]

That may be the easiest option I have heard yet.

Good idea. Dwarves ignore 10ft of mvt penalties attributed to heavy armor or encumbrance. DOne.

 

Last edited: Sep 17, 2014

Connorsrpg

Adventurer

• Jan 19, 2016

• #8

How have others applied this now that the game has been around for some time?

 

delericho

Legend

• Jan 19, 2016

• #9

Connorsrpg said:

It says dwarves are not penalised for wearing heavy armor. Heavy armor has a Str rating; if you are under that it reduces your speed by 10.

This is of little to no benefit. Most dwarves wearing hvy armor are likely to meet the STR req anyway.

Click to expand...

It's of little benefit, true, but not none - not every dwarf will meet those Str reqs. Plus, I think it's one of those little "nods to realism" that are tucked into the game - something that has little actual effect, but which exists because it makes sense that it exists.

But even worse, heavy armor weighs a lot and is likely to put you over the Enc limit (esp if using the Variant rules, as we are).

Click to expand...

That's really the issue there - the default rules assign characters a (very high) limit to what they can carry, but assign no effects below that point. The Variant encumbrance rules are exactly that - a variant - and don't necessarily interact with everything in the base rules seamlessly.

If using the variant rules, I think I would actually be inclined to simply rule that dwarves aren't affected by encumbrance at all - at anything less that the maximum they can carry they operate at full effectiveness. But I haven't tried that, largely because we completely ignore encumbrance in our campaign.

 

Connorsrpg

Adventurer

• Feb 4, 2016

• #10

Thanks [MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION].

We have an easy rule for our games. But we also have a little more added to 'Dwarven Sturdiness' in our games. It is just a shame that such an insignificant rule was used to 'try' and portray a dwarf's sturdy nature.

On our Race Pagehttp://connorscampaigns.wikidot.com/d-d-races, we have significantly increased this side of dwarves - though we also use flaws/drawbacks too.