D&D 5E Simple Encumbrance system (to make Strength matter)?

[Nebulous]

I was just looking at the rules for a 5e/OSR game called Five Torches Deep and it has a neat but simple Load and Supply system. Where delving into a dungeon and dwindling gear and management of damaged weapons and armor is part of the tactical game.

 

[Undrave]

In the action economy, that one interaction with an item can still be meaningful. Like... can't take off the pack and draw a weapon without using an action.

Here’s the article in question:

Encumbrance, Rations, and Other Crap You Hate Tracking

Tracking ammo sucks. Tracking encumbrance sucks. Tracking food and water sucks. But maybe, just maybe, there’s a good reason to do it anyway. As long as the game system doesn’t undermin…

theangrygm.com

 

[tetrasodium]

The slot style of abstraction like this are systems that I hate the most. Heavy armour and weapons are given weight values that far outpace the bonus that a high strength score gives to the point where you are now penalized for playing a high strength character. In the example the small kobold wizard with a strength penalty carries more extra stuff than the cleric with a strength bonus.

I dunno, a size small creature has 15+strength mod slots vrs a medium with 18+strength mod with worn light/medium/heavy armor subtracting 3/6/9 slots before you factor in the 0 slot use 5 food ration/5 water ration/100 coin free allotment. You could easily tweak it to say small sized armor uses fewer slots... but to be fair, that's a 3.5ism that never made it into the base 5e system either.

If you had a medium size 15 strength cleric in heavy armor he'd have the zero slot base allotments plus 11 free slots while your 8-2 6 strength kobold wizard would have 10 or 13 depending on if wearing light or no armor. Figure a 1-3 slot focus, a 1 slot spellbook, 1-2 slot toolkit, 1-3 slot instrument, 1 slot potion, etc & it's a much closer amount of wiggle room that leaves both enough to function but a tight enough budget that there are tradeoffs to consider.

There's another page with armors (3/6/9 slots), weapons (1-3 slots), & the various packs (9-22 slots) few of those are meant to be carried but basically everyone does & ignores the weight of the individual items they'd need to manually add up IME.

 

[Adamant]

I've never played in a game where encumbrance was strictly tracked, but I do want to point out that if you are using point buy or standard array that the 8 usually has to go somewhere. Unless you are playing a mostly SAD character, you just don't have enough points to put 10-12 in all your off stats. Take the standard high elf wizard as an example. You want 16 int, 14-16 dex, decent con, and as much wis as you can spare. Assuming a 14 dex, 13 con to prepare for resilient, and a 12 wis, you can have two 10s in cha and str but can't get to a 12 in either without an 8 in the other. If you want to start with 16 dex for a higher armor class the problem gets even worse. I do try to play to my weaknesses, but strict encumbrance tracking designed to make people value strength would make me much more reluctant to play a caster or any MAD non strength character simply because I can't put a decent strength score without rolled stats or dumping something equally important. I'm not saying an encumbrance system is bad, just that it's hard to avoid having a low strength if your class doesn't focus on it.

Edit: By playing to my weaknesses in this case I mean not carrying much more than my gear if i'm weak.

 

[Charlaquin]

Do you have any example of that in the game, or ideas of what could be added as houserules?

I guess the trick is to make whatever comes with high strength not too critical, otherwise those without it will feel penalized, and we're back to square one.

I do have something I’m planning to try out for my next campaign, but it hasn’t been tested yet. The short version is, give light and medium armor users options with a strength requirement. +1 or +2 AC if you invest up to 13 or 15 Strength seems like a solid, worthwhile bonus that I don’t think will be so strong that players will feel punished if they miss out on. The long version is I’m pretty much overhauling the weapon and armor lists so that Dex can’t get you as much offensive value as Strength, and Strength has defensive value even for more Dex-focused fighters.

 

[Laurefindel]

I do have something I’m planning to try out for my next campaign, but it hasn’t been tested yet. The short version is, give light and medium armor users options with a strength requirement. +1 or +2 AC if you invest up to 13 or 15 Strength seems like a solid, worthwhile bonus that I don’t think will be so strong that players will feel punished if they miss out on. The long version is I’m pretty much overhauling the weapon and armor lists so that Dex can’t get you as much offensive value as Strength, and Strength has defensive value even for more Dex-focused fighters.

Intriguing.

Let us know when you have a product finished enough to be presented.

/thread derail

 

[Umbran]

Here’s the article in question:

I don't know as I fully agree with him, insofar as he's focused on the exploration, where I'm focused on the combat. I have a character with low strength, who has reason to have a whole lot of stuff (artificers want their tools at hand). I can infuse two items, and one of them is tied up as a Bag of Holding, because otherwise there's no way to have that stuff at hand. And even with that, I have to be very careful, because I already move at 25' to the rest of the party's 30'. One pound more, and I'm moving at half the speed of the rest of the party...

I have a mastiff companion. I can use it as a pack animal... but then at any given moment my tools may not be at hand. I can ride him, but then I have to worry about having him be encumbered....

No meaningful choices indeed!

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't know as I fully agree with him, insofar as he's focused on the exploration, where I'm focused on the combat. I have a character with low strength, who has reason to have a whole lot of stuff (artificers want their tools at hand). I can infuse two items, and one of them is tied up as a Bag of Holding, because otherwise there's no way to have that stuff at hand. And even with that, I have to be very careful, because I already move at 25' to the rest of the party's 30'. One pound more, and I'm moving at half the speed of the rest of the party...

I have a mastiff companion. I can use it as a pack animal... but then at any given moment my tools may not be at hand. I can ride him, but then I have to worry about having him be encumbered....

No meaningful choices indeed!

That's one of the areas 5e oversimplified from prior editions. I dunno what it was in 4e, but back in 3.5 retrieving a stored item counted as a move action & triggered an AoO to manipulate an item. In 5e phb190 there are a bunch of things you can do while moving and taking your action. That list is:

• draw or sheathe a sword
• open or close a door
• withdraw a potion from your backpack
• pick up a dropped axe
• take a bauble from a table
• remove a ring from your finger
• stuff some food into your mouth
• plant a banner in the ground
• fish a few coins from your belt pouch
• drink all the ale in a flagon
• throw a lever or a switch
• pull a torch from a sconce
• take a book from a shelf you can reach
• extinguish a small flame
• don a mask
• pull the hood of your cloak up and over your head
• put your ear to a door
• kick a small stone
• turn a key in a lock
• tap the floor with a 10-foot pole
• hand an item to another character

because all containers are apparently psychic extradimensional vats that automatically know what you are wanting to draw & instantly place it into the hand you reach inside with.

The system I linked to earlier is better in that it has these modifications:

Inventory Interactions
You must draw an item from your inventory before you can use it. During your turn, you may use your one free object interaction (PHB p190) with your inventory to

.

Add/sheathe one item (or collection of tiny items)
Remove/draw one item (or collection of tiny items
To make a second change to your inventory during the same turn, or to interact with another character's inventory, you must take the Use an Object action
...
Variant Quickdraw
If you want to make inventory access a little morerestricting for your players, try using the Quickdrawvariant rule.

Characters nominate any 3 items in their inventory asquickdraw items. Quickdraw items can be draw/removed from the inventory using a free object interaction asnormal. However, any non-quickdraw item can only be accessed using a full action.

Even without that sort of thing though, that mastif is subject to all kinds of effects including just being killed or feared & you can't draw anything from its saddlebags unless it's at least beside you. That mastiff isn't going to be alerting you if someone robs you blind while your distracted like you might if a goblin goes digging in your backpack while you fight five more goblins.

The problem is not that you can use some kind of pack animal, the problem is that 5e treats any and all packs no matter how mundane like they have the sort of isekai/hammerspace thought powered instant access storage that once needed certain magical packs like Hewars handy haversack but was denied to other magical packs like bags of holding, or portable holes

 

[Undrave]

I don't know as I fully agree with him, insofar as he's focused on the exploration, where I'm focused on the combat. I have a character with low strength, who has reason to have a whole lot of stuff (artificers want their tools at hand). I can infuse two items, and one of them is tied up as a Bag of Holding, because otherwise there's no way to have that stuff at hand. And even with that, I have to be very careful, because I already move at 25' to the rest of the party's 30'. One pound more, and I'm moving at half the speed of the rest of the party...

I have a mastiff companion. I can use it as a pack animal... but then at any given moment my tools may not be at hand. I can ride him, but then I have to worry about having him be encumbered....

No meaningful choices indeed!

The Artificer is kind of a special case compared to other classes though.

 

[Charlaquin]

Intriguing.

Let us know when you have a product finished enough to be presented.

/thread derail

I’ll post my working weapon and armor tables in a bit, probably in another thread, just keep in mind they’re untested and likely to change in response to feedback from my players once they see actual play.