Making encumbrance challenging and fun?

[harpy]

Over the years has anyone devised a system to handle encumbrance in such a way that it balances the reality of encumbrance, versus the bookkeeping?

That is, has anyone made encumbrance a challenging and fun aspect of the game without being burdensome?

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I've no idea how encumbrance could be challenging, but I did hear of a game that abstracted weight a bit to make encumbrance simpler. Instead of a pound weight, all common items were weighed in stones; for example any one handed weapon of similar size to a long sword weighs 1 stone. Instead of the weird quadratic encumbrance-by-Strength chart, you can carry a number of stones equal to your Str score as a light load, double as a medium load, etc.

Of course this wasn't D&D and I've never played it, but it sounds like a great balance between reality and abstraction.

 

[Morrus]

Use equipment cards. Completely arbitrate weight to a number of slots - any equipment item weighs one slot. Sure, it's not realistic, but it's easy to remember you can have 20 equipment cards (or whatever) and can actually hand excess to other players to carry. While it may seem clumsy to say that a potion weighs the same as a suit of plate armour, in effect you're averaging it all out.

Plus handles inventory in the sense of "the person with the card is the person whi has the item".

 

[Shades of Green]

Use equipment cards. Completely arbitrate weight to a number of slots - any equipment item weighs one slot. Sure, it's not realistic, but it's easy to remember you can have 20 equipment cards (or whatever) and can actually hand excess to other players to carry. While it may seem clumsy to say that a potion weighs the same as a suit of plate armour, in effect you're averaging it all out.

Plus handles inventory in the sense of "the person with the card is the person whi has the item".

I really like this system - it would also eliminate hoarding, over-equipping and too much accounting during the game. You might want, though, to make certain items Light (and thus not counted towards the slot limit), for example rings, small pieces of chalk, fishing hooks, tinderwigs and so on.

Also, you might want to set a number of coins a person can carry (100 per point of Strength?) or simply ignore encumbrance from coinage for the sake of convenience.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Use equipment cards. Completely arbitrate weight to a number of slots - any equipment item weighs one slot.

This works nicely, ime. I've done a variant: each player has a sheet of paper with X rectangles drawn on it: that's how many carrying slots he has (frex, number of rectangle slots = STR). Then write item name & info on a sticky note, and stick it on a rectangle on the sheet; if the item is lost, used, traded, etc, the sticky note comes off easily enough. Also, it's easy enough to drop/add rectangles (and therefore stuff) if STR changes.

This can be as simple or as detailed as desired, while being highly visual and easy to understand at a glance. It also keeps everything in one place; is easy to store; and is easy to modify in-game. (There's a reason why CRPGs very often use carrying systems like this!)

If your group prefers more detail, add as much detail as desired. It's still easier to manipulate than erasing or adding up lbs:
- Use a sticky note labeled "AMMO" with the standard tick boxes (or just use paperclips) for arrows, and put it in a rectangle on the equipment sheet.
- Use a sticky labeled "EXPENDABLES" with 10 blanks for potions/wands/rations/etc; if you want to to hold more potions, you can sacrifice a rectangle for another sticky note to hold them.
- If carrying something especially heavy, like a solid gold baby grand piano, DM might hand over two or three stickies stapled together, that take up two or three rectangles on the equipment sheet. (You can model "bulkiness" this way, too, for things that are merely big, rather than heavy)
- A Bag of Holding, etc, could equate to another equipment sheet with Y rectangles of its own, and take up a rectangle on the original sheet.
- Draw more rectangles in a different color at the bottom and call those "encumbered movement"; if you have anything in those boxes, you're movement is reduced.
- You could even have stickies for "25 LB. OF LOOT" for gold, gems, etc, if you wanted.
- Etc.

 

[Thunderfoot]

This is why I always buy a mule and some saddle bags or a pack saddle.

 

[MarkB]

This works nicely, ime. I've done a variant: each player has a sheet of paper with X rectangles drawn on it: that's how many carrying slots he has (frex, number of rectangle slots = STR). Then write item name & info on a sticky note, and stick it on a rectangle on the sheet; if the item is lost, used, traded, etc, the sticky note comes off easily enough. Also, it's easy enough to drop/add rectangles (and therefore stuff) if STR changes.

I like this idea a lot. It's a nice, simple and yet flexible tracking method.

- You could even have stickies for "25 LB. OF LOOT" for gold, gems, etc, if you wanted.
- Etc.

That could make the basis of a fairly neat treasure-allocation system. Instead of tracking every single set of leather armour and pouch of coppers the players manage to strip off a corpse, simply say that, for example, a 2nd-level encounter will yield whatever items the party want to equip and use, plus A Bundle of Poor Loot - which represents all the vendor trash the party can usefully take from that encounter, takes up one inventory tab, and has a fixed monetary value redeemable when they next visit a store in town. A 7th-level encounter might yield A Bundle of Nice Loot with a higher value, all the way up to A Bundle of Priceless Loot at near-epic levels, and larger encounters could yield more bundles.

 

[Jack7]

The real problem with being heavily encumbered is that you tire of it after awhile.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I've no idea how encumbrance could be challenging, but I did hear of a game that abstracted weight a bit to make encumbrance simpler. Instead of a pound weight, all common items were weighed in stones; for example any one handed weapon of similar size to a long sword weighs 1 stone.

Of course this wasn't D&D and I've never played it, but it sounds like a great balance between reality and abstraction.

One of the posters here, who I remember as SuperDan due to his home page, had this stone encumberance rules for DnD, which I adopted for 4e. One of my campaigns us a 'search the world', and more engaged in some of the more mundane challenges of adventuring. So far the game has goine very well and the ruling has caused some seriously hard choices.

Here are the rules as they are currently being used:
[sblock]Encumbrance is an approximation of how much stuff your character can carry before it gets to be difficult. Rather than pure weight, encumbrance takes into account bulk, weight, and manageability. Encumbrance is counted in Stone, 1 of which is roughly equivalent to 15 pound.

Your character can carry a number of Stone equal to your Strength score plus your strength modifier without any problems. This is your Encumbrance Cap (EC). One quarter of that, rounded normally, is your encumbrance value (EV).


If you carry more than your EC in Stone, your incur a -1 penalty to your Speed, AC, Ref defense, and skills that are related to Strength or Dex.
This penalty increases exponentially for every additional Stone weight equal to your EV.

Example, Joe fighter with a strength of 14 has an EC of 18 and an EV of 4.
Joe suffers a -1 penalty if he carried more than 18 Stone but less than 23.
He suffers a -3 penalty for carrying more than 22 and less than 27. Etc...

So, now that you know all that.. how do you weight equipment? It's very simple.

Weapons weigh 1/2 stone for daggers, 1 stone for one handed weapons like a long sword, and 2 stone for two handed weapons.
Add 1 stone for a weapon with the reach property.

Worn Armor and shield weigh their mundane AC bonus in stone. For instance leather weighs 3 stone and chain weighs 5.
Halve the value if the armor or shield is carried.

Coin, of any denomination, weigh 1 stone per 50 coin. Divide as appropriate.
Rope weighs 1 stone per 50 foot.
Kits, like Thieves kits or ritual component kits, weigh 1 stone.
A set of clothing, a torch, or a bedroll weigh 1 stone.
A waterskin that carries enough for 1 person for one day weighs 1 stone.
Trail Rations for two days weighs 1 stone.
Tinderbox and the like weight 1/8 stone.

From this list, you should be able to swag weights on all other items

Bags halve the weight of items carried inside, but have a limit to what can be put in them. It takes a move action to retrieve an item from a bag.
Small bag can carry 1 stone, large bags can carry 2 stone.
A small backpack can carry 4 stones and a large backpack can carry 8 stones.

But wait, there is more!
Size matters, as do extra legs. Each of these factors modified the creatures EC by 4. Why does this matter? Pack horses! They have a strength score of 10, but are Large size and have 4 legs. This means their EC is 18..
and can carry 270 pounds without a problem!

Of course, size also goes the other way. If Joe Fighter was a Halfling, his EC would be 14.

What does this mean to you?
Well, most characters will have plenty of room to carry their main equipment and a pack.. but that's about it. Pack horses, wagons, etc will be of great use. Especially if you plan on looting any dead bodies along the way.

So, mark down your EC and EV. Mark next to your equipment how much it weighs in stone and do some simple math.
Oh.. and just incase, divide your characters weight in pounds by 15 and write that down too.. who knows if you will need to be carried!

[/sblock]

 

[delericho]

Use equipment cards. Completely arbitrate weight to a number of slots - any equipment item weighs one slot. Sure, it's not realistic, but it's easy to remember you can have 20 equipment cards (or whatever) and can actually hand excess to other players to carry. While it may seem clumsy to say that a potion weighs the same as a suit of plate armour, in effect you're averaging it all out.

This is awesome. Is there a particular "item card" product you use?

I'm aware of the Paizo Equipment Cards, but am rather wary of them for one key reason: over the course of a campaign I am going to need a lot of different items of all sorts, and so I really need to have both a lot of cards, and also the right cards, available on hand.

Ideally, what I need is an editable template for cards, such that I can fill in the details of an item as I prepare the game, hit "print", and get all the cards I need. Plus, then I can print out some 'blank' cards in case I need to improvise.

Even better would be three or four templates. Perhaps one with a red border for weapons, with spaces for a name, picture and description, plus fillable slots for attack bonus, damage, critical, and so on. Perhaps one with a blue border for defensive items, with spaces for a name, picture and description, plus fillable slots for AC bonus (and type), Max Dex, Spell Fail %, and so on. Perhaps one with a black border for "miscellaneous items", with room for a name, picture, description, and notes. And finally, one with a green border for "minor items", with room for a name, picture, description, and notes.

Or something like that. Anyway, is there such a product? (As the above may imply, I'm mostly interested for my 3.5e games.)

If your group prefers more detail, add as much detail as desired. It's still easier to manipulate than erasing or adding up lbs:
- Use a sticky note labeled "AMMO" with the standard tick boxes (or just use paperclips) for arrows, and put it in a rectangle on the equipment sheet.
- Use a sticky labeled "EXPENDABLES" with 10 blanks for potions/wands/rations/etc; if you want to to hold more potions, you can sacrifice a rectangle for another sticky note to hold them.
- If carrying something especially heavy, like a solid gold baby grand piano, DM might hand over two or three stickies stapled together, that take up two or three rectangles on the equipment sheet. (You can model "bulkiness" this way, too, for things that are merely big, rather than heavy)
- A Bag of Holding, etc, could equate to another equipment sheet with Y rectangles of its own, and take up a rectangle on the original sheet.
- Draw more rectangles in a different color at the bottom and call those "encumbered movement"; if you have anything in those boxes, you're movement is reduced.
- You could even have stickies for "25 LB. OF LOOT" for gold, gems, etc, if you wanted.
- Etc.

I really like many of these suggestions as well. I might expand on the "bag of holding" notion as well: any character can carry only 6 (ish) items as standard, but adds additional slots by adding a backpack, sacks, or what-have-you - up to the limit provided by their Strength.

I'm thinking of allowing one slot per point of Strength before becoming encumbered, then a further 3 (+ Str mod) before becoming heavily encumbered, and then a further 3 (+ Str mod) before max load is reached.

That could make the basis of a fairly neat treasure-allocation system. Instead of tracking every single set of leather armour and pouch of coppers the players manage to strip off a corpse, simply say that, for example, a 2nd-level encounter will yield whatever items the party want to equip and use, plus A Bundle of Poor Loot - which represents all the vendor trash the party can usefully take from that encounter, takes up one inventory tab, and has a fixed monetary value redeemable when they next visit a store in town. A 7th-level encounter might yield A Bundle of Nice Loot with a higher value, all the way up to A Bundle of Priceless Loot at near-epic levels, and larger encounters could yield more bundles.

Excellent idea. I would also be inclined to abstract big piles of coins in much the same way: have a "pile of poor coins" representing a heap of mostly copper, with some silver, up to a "pile of good coins" representing a heap of mostly gold and some platinum, each with an abstracted value for when the PCs turn them into 'real' gold back in town.