D&D 5E (2014) Dwarves & Encumbrance?

[TheCosmicKid]

It's of little benefit, true, but not none - not every dwarf will meet those Str reqs.

This. Clerics, especially, benefit.

 

[Lehrbuch]

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.

Yes, this is the critical point.

"[Dwarves'] speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor." (Basic PHB, p 13).

So if you are using the variant Encumbrance rules to calculate the speed penalty, then don't count heavy armour for dwarves, when deciding if the dwarf is encumbered for speed purposes. The armour will still count towards the total amount carried (for carrying capacity), and will count towards whether or not the dwarf is heavily encumbered for the purposes of gaining disadvantage on saves etc., but won't count for determining the speed modifier.

 

[Connorsrpg]

That last point makes absolutely no sense at all. So a dwarf could be encumbered and move slow for wearing medium armor and a bit of gear, but not heavy?

 

[jonathonhawke]

I would change it to: Dwarves do not include the weight of any armor worn when calculating movement penalties. (Carried armor is another story)

 

[Lehrbuch]

That last point makes absolutely no sense at all. So a dwarf could be encumbered and move slow for wearing medium armor and a bit of gear, but not heavy?

Only because of the way that the RAW are written. If you are aren't using the Variant Encumbrance rule, only heavy armour causes speed penalties.

Personally, I would rule that if using the Variant Encumbrance rule, "dwarves lose no speed for wearing any armour". On the other hand, I would never (as DM, anyway) use the Variant Encumbrance rule in the first place, so the question is moot.

 

[BoldItalic]

What it means is this:

Some types of heavy armour have a Str requirement. If you don't meet the requirement, your speed drops by 10. But as an exception, dwarves are entitled to ignore this Str requirement. They don't suffer that speed penalty even if they don't meet the Str requirement. This is special exception, just for dwarves. Even low-Str dwarves can wear heavy armour and not be slowed down.

If you use the variant encumbrance rules, though, you ignore the Str requirement for heavy armour anyway. So you can also ignore the exception that exempts dwarves from it because everyone is now exempt. You work out the encumbrance for everyone the same way, dwarves and non-dwarves alike, based on all-up weight of equipment vs Str.

Using the variant encumbrance rules makes it tougher for all the PCs, which is presumably what you want, to make the game more challenging. It makes it especially tougher for low-Str dwarves wanting to wear heavy armour because now they have to abide by the same rules as non-dwarves even though their base speed is lower (but no worse than a halfling).

 

[CapnZapp]

What it means is this:

Some types of heavy armour have a Str requirement. If you don't meet the requirement, your speed drops by 10. But as an exception, dwarves are entitled to ignore this Str requirement. They don't suffer that speed penalty even if they don't meet the Str requirement. This is special exception, just for dwarves. Even low-Str dwarves can wear heavy armour and not be slowed down.

This is really it.

I don't see any reason to change the rules as written. It enables dex dwarves and cleric dwarves to use heavy armor (which Speed 15 would otherwise make highly impractical).

If you use variant encumbrance rules, that's your choice. If you make that choice, you can also make the choice to run the variant as written. This effectively negates the Dwarf ability.

But it doesn't have to be that way. As discussed it's easy to houserule something that gives a little extra to dwarves even when using the variant.

But the variant expressly does away with the Strength limit on heavy armors. So it expressly isn't compatible with the racial ability. And you know this when you choose to use the variant unmodified.

All in all, I see no case for saying "the rules doesn't work, they should be changed". If anything, I see a case for saying "don't use the variant if you like weak dwarves using heavy armor".

That notwithstanding, I do see a case for houseruling so that the game works the way you want it. I just don't see the dwarven racial ability being broken as written.

The game is simple for a reason. Let's keep it this way. This special circumstance isn't serious enough to warrant a general errata.

 

[BoldItalic]

@CapnZapp has said it more clearly than I did

The Strength Requirement rule, along with its exception for dwarves, is a nod towards an encumbrance scheme but without the bookkeeping. The encumbrance variant is an alternative to that; you aren't expected to use both at the same time, because they are not designed to work together and the rules get into all kinds of knots if you try. That's why, in the first para of the Variant Encumbrance rule, it explicitly says "When you use this variant, ignore the Strength column of the Armor Table"

If you house-rule it to say you are applying both, you are potentially penalizing heavily-armoured PCs twice for the same thing. If, as a consequence, you get a PC who can barely move, it's not the game that's broken, it's your house rule.

 

[designbot]

I struggled with this issue when designing my simplified encumbrance sheet.

The dwarf feature has its roots in previous editions:

Speed: Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor.

Speed: 25 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor with which you have proficiency or for carrying a heavy load.

Encumbered Speed: You move at your normal speed even when it would normally be reduced by armor or a heavy load. Other effects that limit speed (such as difficult terrain or magical effects) affect you normally.

Dwarf base land speed is 20 feet. However, dwarves can move at this speed even when wearing medium or heavy armor or when carrying a medium or heavy load (unlike other creatures, whose speed is reduced in such situations).

I decided that the spirit of the feature would be best implemented by house-ruling that dwarves can ignore any penalties to speed caused by being encumbered or heavily encumbered. I think the designers probably just overlooked this interaction when they made encumbrance a variant rule.

 

[ExploderWizard]

That last point makes absolutely no sense at all. So a dwarf could be encumbered and move slow for wearing medium armor and a bit of gear, but not heavy?

Its all about the culture. Dwarven babies are tucked into bed in chainmail jammies.