D&D 5E Encumbrance rule, do you use it?

[Koloth]

One problem with ignoring things like encumbrance is it can result in power shifts between the classes and/or races. One racial advantage a dwarf has is it moves speed 20 regardless of encumbrance. If you ignore encumbrance and let the human powered shambling mound of crap to keep moving at 30, then the Dwarf has lost one of its racial advantages. Letting folks sleep in armor shifts power toward fighters and clerics and away from classes like monks and magic users. A monk in most systems is a lightly encumbered character that doesn't need to keep track of expended weapons since 'unarmed' attacks rarely run out of ammo. Letting everyone ignore expendable usage takes away a monk advantage to some degree.

It isn't necessary to track every single expendable item. If a bow using ranger sets out on a two month trip across a barren wilderness with only 40 arrows, it wouldn't be out of line if after six or seven run and gun encounters that the DM informs said ranger that she only has 4 arrows left. This could result in a mini-adventure to acquire arrow making supplies. Things like food can be ran the same way. Don't track every meal but if the party in this example only brought 10 days worth since that is all they could carry, somewhere around day 5 into the trip, the DM might point out that someone might want to start finding some food or the next 55 days are going to be a bit sparse food wise. Advantage ranger assuming she has forage skills.

 

[Demonspell]

For me encumbrance is really only critical with regard to what the players are wearing. On occassion I have had my group get weighted down in gold and I make it matter then, but I always give them a way out. O

Once my group was dragging three chests of coins behind them as they exited a keep. As they reached a main road they just happened to encounter a farmer with three mules and a cart. For 10,000 gold he sold them the cart and 2 mules. The farmer was quite happy with the deal, and he didn't even have to haggle, that was their first offer.

Usually on a dungeon crawl, my players learn there is no need to immediate loot. Ninety percent of the time they have to exit the way they came in so they can clear it out and pick up loot as they exit. I have on a few occassions, usually on a multi-day or week crawl arranged for someone new to move in, but that doesn't happen often. Additionally, the group doesn't generally care much for mundane items. If it isn't magical or at least look important they leave it behind, unless they need it or some reason. Coins are slightly different, but with a group of 5 there is usually enough people to carry that without anyone getting encumbered...even on a linear trek through the Underdark.

 

[KarinsDad]

For me encumbrance is really only critical with regard to what the players are wearing. On occassion I have had my group get weighted down in gold and I make it matter then, but I always give them a way out. O

Once my group was dragging three chests of coins behind them as they exited a keep. As they reached a main road they just happened to encounter a farmer with three mules and a cart. For 10,000 gold he sold them the cart and 2 mules. The farmer was quite happy with the deal, and he didn't even have to haggle, that was their first offer.

Your players are not real familiar with economics, are they? In most D&D versions, 10,000 GP is the equivalent of about $1 million (and weighs about 200 pounds, hard for a farmer to lug around without his cart). A cart and 3 mules is probably worth about 40 GP in most versions of D&D.

Usually on a dungeon crawl, my players learn there is no need to immediate loot. Ninety percent of the time they have to exit the way they came in so they can clear it out and pick up loot as they exit. I have on a few occassions, usually on a multi-day or week crawl arranged for someone new to move in, but that doesn't happen often. Additionally, the group doesn't generally care much for mundane items. If it isn't magical or at least look important they leave it behind, unless they need it or some reason. Coins are slightly different, but with a group of 5 there is usually enough people to carry that without anyone getting encumbered...even on a linear trek through the Underdark.

My group is in UnderMountain and just defeated a Dragon. They had about 12,000 coins (copper, silver, and gold) or about 240 pounds of it. They emptied a significant portion of the nearly full bag of holding, just to stuff it all in (most PCs are already near their weigh limit). They haven't thrown away food yet, but it's just a matter of time before they do and those precious third level Cleric spells start being used for food. I like the encumbrance rules because it forces the players to make hard decisions once in a while.

 

[Sadras]

I have just introduced the variant encumbrance rules, except the players do not keep track of it, I as DM do on an excel spreadsheet. It is not as difficult as everything thinks it is and it does not slow anything down.
I also keep track of their gold and treasure finds which I email to the players along with their current encumbrance at the end of every session.

Introducing Encumbrance makes a huge change as it:

1) Places more value on strength for non-casters (trying to limit the stat-dump). Following on from that - I introduced a penalty/bonus proficiency/language slots for low/high Intelligence and adopted the Magical Attunement and Loyal Henchmen (2e) for Charisma. The players so far love it.

2) Ensures treasure found & kept on person do not become unlimited. The choice of what to keep plays a part.

3) May introduce the use of pack animals.

4) Ensures the value of gold remains. There are a number of threads/posts here by enworlders who cannot see the value of gold. To those I say try using encumbrance rules once in a while, let them purchases meals, accommodation, healing kits, pack animals, feeding for steeds, general maintenance

5) Ensures everyone is not the Flash in combat - no more I chase him down with my 40 feet speed (mobility), or outrun every zombie and shambling mound and drop them with arrow or pew-pew magic.

6) Supports time constraint play as characters heavily encumbered move slower over long distances. More decision making on the part of PCs.

Do you assume the PCs just drop their packs when combat starts? What if they have to flee? Or move somewhere and leave their pack behind?

Yes if they can. It also means that if the run away, they need to pick up their packs or lose everything - which costs gold to replace.

Do monsters grab their dropped pack and run away?

Sure why not. PCs always steal from others, why not have monsters steal from them once in a while.

Without encumbrance PCs get away with much, just do the math and see for yourself. Most PCs who wear armour, carry a weapon, healers kit, food and waterskin and have a few items from a pack would have their base speed reduced to 20 feet using the variant. Add to that treasure obtained and the entire pack and you will see them dropping to 10 feet per round. By leaving them at 30 feet you're optimising them - a lot, an losing an aspect of the game which is really easy and fast to implement.

 

[evilbob]

I'll just say again that ignoring encumbrance is a teeny tiny power gain at most, in my opinion, and easily overshadowed by any class ability, and easily rolled into "who cares" once characters reach higher levels. Dwarves having a special racial rule for encumbrance doesn't make any difference in the same way that the advantage of darkvision is often negated by the light cantrip or at the very least a higher-level spell. All of that stuff becomes so minute, especially higher in level as the party gains access to abilities that far exceed their racial traits - and gold amounts that makes things like "how many arrows do you want" meaningless. If you're into a more realism-style game, then obviously your opinion will be different - and if your players enjoy playing within those constraints, then by all means! My group finds it limits fun more than it gains it, thus our playing fast and loose with realism.

KareinsDad: I believe the point was that at that moment, the horse and cart were worth 10k gold to the party. I'm sure they knew the offer was ridiculous - that's why they made it - but that's what they needed at the time and so that's what it was worth to them. If you have 100k gold and you can't carry it, using 10k gold to allow you to get 90k is better than having none of it.

 

[KarinsDad]

KareinsDad: I believe the point was that at that moment, the horse and cart were worth 10k gold to the party. I'm sure they knew the offer was ridiculous - that's why they made it - but that's what they needed at the time and so that's what it was worth to them. If you have 100k gold and you can't carry it, using 10k gold to allow you to get 90k is better than having none of it.

In the real world, would you offer $1 million for a mid tier $4000 motorcycle that you needed at that time? Or would you first offer $10,000 or $15,000? If the owner refuses the $10,000, then you negotiate up. You don't throw away $990,000 just because. That's borderline insane. Players will go way out of their way to roleplay the motivations of their PCs to the nth degree and then turn around and have their PCs throw away a fortune on a whim.

The other aspect of it is "How does the farmer cart away 200 pounds of coins without this cart and mules?". Does he bury it and hope this vast treasure is still there when he gets back? Stuff like this is ludicrous because the players and DM are not thinking about what is actually happening.

My point is that at many tables, because players talk gold pieces and do not talk dollars, many if not most of them are totally clueless as to how much money they have, how much something is worth, and how much they should be spending for a given item or service.

As a DM, I often convert gold pieces to dollars in my head before I assign a treasure. That way, I have a fairly decent handle on how much I'm actually handing out and not being too stingy or too generous. I've been at tables where the DM has an NPC merchant say "I'll give the five of you 100 GP each to get back my cart load of stolen goods". That's $50,000. The goods had better be expensive (e.g. silks, tapestries, etc.) to be handing out this level of cash. Say that it is a cart of ale. The cart is only worth 15 GP and at 1 SP per gallon for ale (about half the price PCs would pay for it), the merchant would need 4850 gallons of ale on the cart (18 tons of liquid alone, let alone the weight of the casks) to break even. Granted, a merchant might just want revenge or some such, but again, the amount of money the NPC is willing to spend based on his motivations should be in a reasonable ballpark, and not ludicrously out of whack.

 

[neobolts]

I generally avoid tracking encumberance, food/drink, and other minor expenses. I don't think it contributes to the "fun" of the game. Of course, the exception is when the challenge is about those things. I tracked things in the Patherfinder module Serpent's Skull: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv. It was a castaways scenario, so all that seemed appropriate.

My wife, on the other hand, insists on buying all sorts of small mundane items in the hopes of finding creative uses. Her character sheet always look like a flea market. I don't even want to think about tracking all that for encumberance.

 

[KarinsDad]

I generally avoid tracking encumberance, food/drink, and other minor expenses. I don't think it contributes to the "fun" of the game. Of course, the exception is when the challenge is about those things. I tracked things in the Patherfinder module Serpent's Skull: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv. It was a castaways scenario, so all that seemed appropriate.

My wife, on the other hand, insists on buying all sorts of small mundane items in the hopes of finding creative uses. Her character sheet always look like a flea market. I don't even want to think about tracking all that for encumberance.

In our game, encumbrance is listed once on the PC's sheet and one PC has the bag of holding contents on his sheet (the player who is into carting around the flea market). Players add or remove stuff from their individual lists, but the weight total is usually only updated when I update the sheets when the PCs level up. It's not an every session thing, more like every 5 or 6 sessions. In game, I ask about weight if it is important (e.g. casting a Levitate spell which has a weight limit).

 

[delericho]

No, I won't bother with encumbrance in 5e. The numbers are too fiddly, and the penalties too small, to be worth bothering with. Even the variant rules aren't worth the effort.

Which is a shame - I actually do like encumbrance rules, at least in principle, but the RAW just offer enough value-add for me.

 

[Sadras]

Stuff like this is ludicrous because the players and DM are not thinking about what is actually happening. My point is that at many tables, because players talk gold pieces and do not talk dollars, many if not most of them are totally clueless as to how much money they have, how much something is worth, and how much they should be spending for a given item or service.

Agreed. Otherwise why even bother with gold, where is the value, what is the constraint? Just don't use it.

I'll just say again that ignoring encumbrance is a teeny tiny power gain at most, in my opinion

The quick and dirty solution would be to have everyone (except dwarves) drop their movement rate by 10 feet to budget for being encumbered (not even heavily encumbered).

To give you an indication of pack weights...
Burglar's Pack 49lb
Diplomats 36lb
Dungeoneers 61.5lb
Entertainers 38.5lb
Priests 25.5lb
Scholars 10.5lb

This is before Weapons, Armour, Healer's Kit, Treasure and in some cases Food. Granted most of this can be stored on one's steed, but in those instances where one cannot use an animal the weight plays a role. I would certainly hand wave most of this should the party obtain a bag of holding.