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

[Sacrosanct]

So I'm guessing by the responses that the PC wearing a huge stuffed backpack and 50' of rope and all that gear will have no impact on their combat ability. That's not a bad thing, and I do pretty much the same thing. I was just curious. I think it's one of those unwritten rules of RPGs that you just sort of ignore it. I have seen a couple people over the years say that they assume the PCs drop their gear when a fight starts, and that opens the door to a lot of other things (like losing it or a monster stealing it).

 

[Shiroiken]

I like the encumbrance rule, but I gave up on it for simplicity's sake. Not everyone is as interested in doing the math on carrying capacity and storage as I am, so I accept that I'm the minority

 

[UngainlyTitan]

No, never, if some one is being silly I point out no that is silly and that is pretty much it. never really being a issue.

 

[The Human Target]

Nope.

5.0 is a bit better on the whole "pick up every piece of armor" situation since there's not really any reason to pick up old swords, armor, etc. because that stuff isn't meticulously statted out on enemies nor considered part of the treasure. So it's easier to hand-wave that it's all junk and not track meticulous stuff.

I considered it a milestone in our gaming lives when our group fought its first 5.0 battle in the latest game and completely left the scene of the battle and it was some time later they were like - oh we didn't even search the bodies! It was immersive enough that they forgot to be murder hobos, and I was proud of them.

To be fair, I also don't track ammo and I let my party convert any gems, art, etc. into gold pieces immediately if they want (which also weigh nothing). Here's my take: none of that, including endurance, is interesting or dramatic in any way. It's bookkeeping. Some people want to be accountants; that's awesome! I don't. And it makes the game go a lot faster to ignore it. The minute power gain is more than made up for in the "oh wait did I have 6 arrows left or 5, I can't remember - can we say I picked up arrows after that last battle, because I forgot to OH MY GOD just typing this out makes me hate it all over again. I'm not even going to close that quote, that's how much I don't want to get into that level of detail.

Now in general I totally agree with you.

And I haven't made people track arrows or bolts in a long time.

But lately I'm wondering if I should start next time I run a game.

Basically as a balance factor for ranged guys who stand far back and take way less damage on average than melee guys.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I considered it a milestone in our gaming lives when our group fought its first 5.0 battle in the latest game and completely left the scene of the battle and it was some time later they were like - oh we didn't even search the bodies! It was immersive enough that they forgot to be murder hobos, and I was proud of them.

You attribute that to the game being immersive?

Odd. 4e is generally held to be the least immersive D&D ever, but I'd often see the same attitude towards loot, when running it (at the time, the conventional wisdom was that it was because magic items weren't sufficiently powerful & character-redefining). I figured it was just carrying over since my fist batch of 5e players were 4e veterans, but, as soon as I ran for some old-timers, they were looting everything in sight.

I've also assumed that 5e's more powerful magic items would raise interest in looting, but, conversely, the relative lack of character-improving things to buy would tug it the other way, as well. Things to do with money in downtime seemed encouraging, too.


Anyway, to the original question: I introduced the optional encumbrance rules at the first session and got an instant player rebellion. More upset about counting encumbrance than getting killed. So, prettymuch ignoring it since.

 

[thalmin]

I've almost always played in and run games where encumbrance was important, but not nitpicky. In 5E it is one thing that keeps Strength from being a dump stat, and we use the variant rules. It works for my game, and I know my game isn't for everyone.

 

[Derren]

N
I considered it a milestone in our gaming lives when our group fought its first 5.0 battle in the latest game and completely left the scene of the battle and it was some time later they were like - oh we didn't even search the bodies! It was immersive enough that they forgot to be murder hobos, and I was proud of them.

Why is not looting the bodies of fallen enemies, something which was regularly done in real life during the better part of history and all enemies, be it bandit or elite knight being equipped with "worthless junk" despite this "junk" being very effective and as good as freshly made weapons and armor as the just finished combat showed, immersive?

Loosely. I generally do not bother with encumbrance unless a person specifically wants to carry a ton of stuff or haul a whole other person. I generally don't ask questions for anything breadbox size or smaller.

The problem with that approach is that you generally notice it when the PC wants to haul away a 6 feet marble statue, but usually you do not notice it when the breadboxes accumulate until the PC would be buried under a literal mountain of "things small enough to ignore their weight".

So yes, I use encumbrance, including encumbrance for gold. That keeps the game interesting and makes attrition a something the PCs worry about and also causes them to use sensible but mostly ignored things like additional pack animals or even a wagon.

 

[Sunseeker]

The problem with that approach is that you generally notice it when the PC wants to haul away a 6 feet marble statue, but usually you do not notice it when the breadboxes accumulate until the PC would be buried under a literal mountain of "things small enough to ignore their weight".

So yes, I use encumbrance, including encumbrance for gold. That keeps the game interesting and makes attrition a something the PCs worry about and also causes them to use sensible but mostly ignored things like additional pack animals or even a wagon.

I meant a sum of things that approximate a breadbox. Such as mundane magical components (moss, bat guano, etc..). I do keep an eye on things to make sure that they're not hauling around 20 breadboxes full of lead bricks.

Gold encumbrance is something I'm fairly iffy on. I make an issue of it when a significant amount of gold comes into play, like if they find a dragon horde and want to haul it all away after victory. However, I'm not going to make a big deal over 5-10lbs of gold over their weight limit. If a player expressly mentions they're not wearing clothing, such a playing a naked barbarian, I do point out to them that they have no way to carry things.

 

[TarionzCousin]

There are encumbrance rules in D&D???

 

[evilbob]

You attribute that to the game being immersive?

Why is not looting the bodies of fallen enemies, something which was regularly done in real life during the better part of history and all enemies, be it bandit or elite knight being equipped with "worthless junk" despite this "junk" being very effective and as good as freshly made weapons and armor as the just finished combat showed, immersive?

Ha, didn't expect that poor wording to catch so much attention! Yes, from what I wrote that doesn't make sense, but in this case the players were specifically immersed in the situation in the game - in their characters, who are all basically nobles, and in the situation, where someone had recently escaped - to even think about something as lowly as looting a corpse of a common soldier. Which was both extremely in-character and different from 3.5-era games, where each piece of equipment was specifically detailed on every enemy NPC so that you could arrive at the enemy NPC's stats, and since it was relatively valuable for quite a long while they stripped every corpse and basically carted around tons of junk weapons and armor just to sell.

I also found that 4.0 caused less looting of worthless stuff, for pretty much the same reason: equipment isn't specific to the enemy's stats, so there's less emphasis, and you sort of end up ignoring it (other than specific magical items of course). Finding an enemy knight wearing plate mail would still be a big deal in any game, but in 5.0 knights are more likely wearing splint mail or something worse than what you already have, and dragging all that stuff back to town to sell is less useful because there's not as much to buy.