Heroes vs. gravity

[Pbartender]

The moment I realised I could ban wizards was the most liberating moment I've had since... well, since the last one! Which was when I realised I could ban paladins.

Nice.

 

[el-remmen]

I never keep track of encumbrance or (non-magical)ammunition.

My simulationist leanings make it so that both these things are carefully kept track of in my games and has never seemed to hinder fun (in fact, I think it is more fun when all of a sudden you realize you need to make those last three arrows count), or eat up a lot of time.

As with most things of this sort, this is the kind of thing where if they have a simplified abstract system in the PHB, they should offer a more detailed one in the DMG as a variant.

 

[Zaruthustran]

I think 4E should handle encumbrance similar to how 3/5 handles magic items: a "slot" system.

So for weapons you have right hip, left hip, right shoulder, left shoulder, right boot, left boot, belt, chest (bandoleer), and carried (left and right hand).

Certain weapons fit in certain slots. A two-handed weapon can fit only in a shoulder slot. A Reach weapon (such as a longspear or glaive) can only be carried. Only little weapons (knives and darts) can fit in the boot, belt, or chest slots.

No need to track individual weights; it doesn't matter that an axe weighs 6 pounds and a sword weighs 4. Ditch that fiddly math, and just say that you can put that sword on either hip or shoulder.

I'm just sick of hearing "Hmm, DR against piercing? Okay well I sheathe my longspear and draw my glaive instead" at the game table.

 

[howandwhy99]

No, no. See, when I say

I don't track ammunition.​

the presence of the perpendicular pronoun indicates that I am, contrary to common practice, talking about my game. This can be contrasted to, say

We don't track ammunition​

which, while it could be construed as our using the royal plural as our prerogative, would mean that we were extrapolating our experience to the world at large. However, we are not doing that.



The moment I realised I could ban wizards was the most liberating moment I've had since... well, since the last one! Which was when I realised I could ban paladins.

We are pleased Hong is back.

Where is the stick?

 

[Delta]

Am I the only one who thinks that encumbrance rules are more trouble then they are worth? I'd love to see a simplified system where only meaningful items have abstract weight (like longsword - 1 weight point), and a character can carry a number of WP equal to his Str score.

I completely agree. Hence my post the other day about counting weight in "stone" (14 pound English units), under which precisely that happens: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=205496

 

[Irda Ranger]

I can't recall if it was a core rule or a house rule now, but I remember playing in a C&C campaign that had a fairly intuitive and simple encumbrance system, but just detailed enough to satisfy a not-too-picky emulationist.

IIRC,

• You had a number of Encumbrance points (EP) equal to your strength.

• I house ruled that you got a number of bonus EP equal to your Con bonus.

• Weapons were 1 or 1/2 a point. Polearms may have been 2.

• Most armors were between 3 and 7 points. For the armors, they took 'ease of wear' into account - full plate was less encumbering than half-plate, for instance, as it was custom fit to the wearer & well distributed its weight.

• You got 1 backpack slot and 3 'belt' slots. Belt slots could hold a weapon, quiver, or pouch.

• Pouches reduced your EP by 1 (they make carrying stuff easier).

• Backpacks reduced your EP by 2 (same reason).

• There was no formal system for tracking the volumetric usage of the backpacks and pouches - CK's were encouraged to eye-ball it.

And that was it, if I recall. Pretty painless math, but realistic enough to avoid silliness.

But who am I kidding, as a player I can barely bother to keep track of gold pieces, and if I used a bow instead of javelins (I've only got three of those), I probably wouldn't track ammo either.