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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5945366" data-attributes="member: 22424">Actually, I have next to no interest in things like acid, poison and the rest - since those have a direct and immediate impact on combat, I fully expect the designers to take the time and effort to balance them properly.Conversely, I do have an interest in the more mundane equipment, and especially as they tie into things like encumbrance, ammunition, and rations. Oh, and light sources - my (admittedly few) experiences in real-world 'dungeons' has left me with an awareness that this is a crucial issue when underground, and yet the game tends to gloss over it without a thought.(Now, that said, I entirely appreciate that mine is probably a minority interest. For the default game in the core, the best model is probably to assume characters have default equipment, make extensive use of "Adventurer Kits" and the like, and handwave much of the rest. But it would be quite nice if they did something of a "Dungeoneer's Module" with much more emphasis on such things.)Basically, my thinking is that mundane equipment is only of interest if it leads to interesting choices or interesting situations - if it becomes a question of carrying rations or torches, then that's potentially interesting. If the characters are down to their last few arrows, that's potentially interesting. But the encumbrance rules tend to be very (almost absurdly) generous, so that it's not a choice - characters carry rations and torches, and if their DM insists on the tracking of ammo then players will make sure to carry hundreds of arrows... and that's not interesting. (And counting coppers is almost never interesting - after that very first adventure, the PCs should have enough gold to buy pretty much any mundane items they want; the key question is instead about what they can carry.)So, yeah, if we're going "back to the dungeon" then let's have loads of uses for chalk, and rope, and ball bearings, and whatever else... but let's also have tight limits on what characters can carry so that parties have to make those interesting choices. Otherwise, let's just fold all that stuff under "say yes", assume they've got it, and move on.</blockquote>

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