A weighty issue

[am181d]

Going back nearly 30 years, I've only ever used Encumbrance in a small number of campaigns. I *happen* to be using it now for a 3.5 game, but only because it's run through Fantasy Grounds and that interface makes it super easy to track.

In the spirit of inclusion, it would make sense to include encumbrance with a sidebar that says "lots of people ignore this." Or, you know, just trust that if you say nothing, people will continue to ignore it.

 

[howandwhy99]

I agree that D&Dnext is highly likely to have PCs built in terms of capabilities that are both fictional attributes/belongings of the PC and player resources to deploy in the course of playing the game.

These are likely, at a minimum, to include weapons, spells and a range of inherent talents.

But is it a given that they must include 10' poles, iron spikes and torches? And even if they do include these as a default, you yourself note that there are options other than encumbrance for ratioining these things. (The most obvious one is rationing by cost - and spending money to buy things is a one-off burden on playtime and can be done as part of game prep, whereas encumbrance tends to be an ongoing burden on playtime that has to be continually tracked as things are picked up and used/put down.)

Although dungeon play has been one perennial focus of D&D, it was not the only focus and arguably, from the time of Oriental Adventures and Dragonlance through to the end of 2nd edition (a period of around 15 years), was not the primary focus (at least of published materials - extrapolating from these to actual play is of course a tricky business).

I think that encumbrance is likely to be in the core, because it has been in every edition of D&D, but I don't think it is essential that it be there. As one of the most widely ignored of rules subsystems, it is ripe for change.

I think we are of the same position here. Encumbrance is fine as an option, but D&D is going to have some kind of character sheet for play. My posts were mainly about how D&D is built along lines of having those sheets.

My promotion of encumbrance as a good, solid rule does depend upon how it is implemented. I think it is very useful when it comes down to limiting resources carried that have an in-game weight. If the PCs aren't wearing 1000 suits of armor or waving about 10,000 swords, then this limiting is probably in effect. How finely tuned it is matters by group. IME 3.x and 4e encumbrance rules were far to finely finely granulated and intrusive in their implementation.

If and when encumbrance comes up in my games, it's normally about the players grabbing something heavy and trying to lift or carry it. However, sometimes it comes down to "How much coin [the game's metric measure] EXACTLY can we carry?" That's when I do a quick check of current coin-measured encumbrance totals behind the screen, these recalculated between sessions, ask about any in-session changes I may have missed, and subtract these from Slowed Speed or Max. Lift totals. The results are exactly how many more coins they can carry before penalty (if not stuff in their pockets).

This kind of thing simply does not come up that much for player tracking. And most of the DM tracking is easy because most players aren't trying to grab and carry huge items all session every session.

Still, it's an option and not one every game requires. I still think PC logs should come by default in 5E regardless and encumbrance be included as a quick and dirty option with relevant benefits outlined. Knowing those benefits is part of coming to like a rule.