Min-maxing your weight limit

[Kaleon Moonshae]

BTW, one way to min/max encumbrance (and perfectly legal, but also perfectly silly), is to take off your heavy full plate armor and strap it to your backpack (given your strength is high enough) to ignore the armor check penalties for climbing, swimming, etc.

Bye
Thanee

Actually doesn't work with swimming because it is still the overal weight that matters. Climbing, however, I'm going to have to defend. A lot of the encumberance for armor is not in the weight but the restriction in movement. Strapping it to your packa nd freeing up your joints and hands would help your encumberance in that instance.

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

A lot of responders have been making this point. It is true that when I am creating an NPC for the campaign, I don't keep a close watch on encumbrance limits. (I think most DMs would agree that we've got better things to spend our planning time on than counting up every half pound of equipment.) And it's true that I don't hound the players, force them to turn over their character sheets, and verify that they are adding things up correctly and taking appropriate penalties. Again, I've got better things to do. But if you are going to follow a rule (as my players are apparently willing to do), then you should follow it correctly and not try to milk it for every ounce of advantage you can get.

Here's a question for all the people who have sided with my player: Suppose the character in question had found some bracers instead of a cloak. Bracers weigh 1 lb. Could my player have said that he was throwing away the cloak from the explorer's outfit (which apparently weighs a pound) to leave his weight limit unaffected? If not, why not? They are both worn. What if it were a flask of oil (which also weighs a pound)? Sure, it's not clothing, but it will be kept in his vest pocket (assuming he hasn't already thrown his vest away to trade it for some other more useful item).

I think you see where I'm going here. Trying to say that I'm being unrealistic by refusing to let my player trade cloaks and boots for free is backwards. If anything is unrealistic here, it's the rule that says your outfit weighs nothing. (And let's remember that the rule is very specific. It doesn't say that whatever you wear weighs nothing. It says, "The first outfit is free of cost and does not count against the amount of weight a character can carry." Only the starting outfit has this property, not anything you choose to wear.)

Now just because a rule is unrealistic, that doesn't mean it's a bad rule. As I said before, I think this rule makes perfect sense from a game mechanics perspective. Since the initial outfit conveys no game benefits, it should not convey a game penalty. (Otherwise, everyone would run around in a monk's outfit all the time.) Those people who try to justify this rule in terms of some version of "realism" are just plain wrong, IMHO.

Anyway, I started this thread to get some feedback, and I got it. Thanks to all of you who cared enough to respond. Special thanks to Diaglo, though, for putting the whole thing in perspective. Diaglo, I hope your character only carries a countable infinity of slings around with him. Otherwise that infinity times zero equals zero stuff may not work any more.

You have a point here but one I tend to not agree on. I think rules should be universal, not pick and choose which is what is happening here witht he starting clothing. Either the starting clothing doesn't count and any *replacements* also don't count or everything counts. Now on to your examples. Bracers are never considered clothing, they are armor and there is a very definite difference in game terms there. Even if you say they aren't armor they are still *jewelry* and would use other jewelry as a guide, not clothing. The same with alchie fire, it's an item, not clothing. As long as the player is trading out clothing for clothing of a like kind I see no problem with it. In fact, as long as that character is adding clothing that is covered by *one* of the different basic clothing packages I would say it doesn't count. Maybe you weren't wearing entertainment clothing but you pick up a magic scarf, I would not say that that effects your enc. at all. I see some justification of this in the rules because there are items that have negliable weight (signet ring). I have a feeling that weights listed are for *carrying* things and not wearing them which is why they make a very seperate and big deal about armor. Note that it says whichever value is *worse* between armor and equipment carried. They never talk about clothing in dnd as pertains to encumberance except in one place, where it specifically states that they do not count toward enc. Now, I would say that if the character picks up some clothing that is radically different it may take some time to get used to it, but eventually it too would not count.

just my two cents or is it 6 now?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Actually doesn't work with swimming because it is still the overal weight that matters.

Not in 3.5.

-Hyp.

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

Not in 3.5.

-Hyp.

they changed that? I don't have my book handy but my dm just sent a lengthy discourse on it and it was as it always was. what did they change?

Edit: and it is stuff like this that annoys me about 3.0 to 3.5. They should have just made a completely new game. The wya it is you never know what is what unless you obsess over it.We are still finding things that changed that we didn't know about, thank god my dm has just decided to run a 3.25 game instead. Everything is 3.0 except where we decide to *add* a 3.5 rule.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Be prepared for disgruntled players running around naked to avoid encumbrance

:
Already happened.

 

[Hypersmurf]

they changed that? I don't have my book handy but my dm just sent a lengthy discourse on it and it was as it always was. what did they change?

In 3E, the normal Armor Check penalty (or Encumbrance penalty for Medium or Heavy loads) applied to skills like Hide, Move Silently, Tumble, etc. Swim, on the other hand, had a special penalty: -1 per 5 lbs carried or worn. ACP did not apply to Swim.

In 3.5, the special penalty is gone. Instead, double the normal ACP (or Encumbrance penalty) applies.

-Hyp.

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

In 3E, the normal Armor Check penalty (or Encumbrance penalty for Medium or Heavy loads) applied to skills like Hide, Move Silently, Tumble, etc. Swim, on the other hand, had a special penalty: -1 per 5 lbs carried or worn. ACP did not apply to Swim.

In 3.5, the special penalty is gone. Instead, double the normal ACP (or Encumbrance penalty) applies.

-Hyp.

Thanks It makes sense in some ways, but not in others. I agree that having anything over 5 lbs should hamper swimming, but under the new rules my character, who wears no armor and can carry a light load of 100 lbs takes no penalty when swimming carrying 99lbs? is that right?

 

[Hypersmurf]

... but under the new rules my character, who wears no armor and can carry a light load of 100 lbs takes no penalty when swimming carrying 99lbs? is that right?

Looks right. Just like they take no penalty Tumbling.

-Hyp.

 

[diaglo]

Thanks It makes sense in some ways, but not in others. I agree that having anything over 5 lbs should hamper swimming, but under the new rules my character, who wears no armor and can carry a light load of 100 lbs takes no penalty when swimming carrying 99lbs? is that right?

it was changed to prevent all those giants from drowning.

 

[pawned79]

As a DM, I think you did the right thing. Very good.

Now, just as a side note (perhaps to your player), I too play a low-strength rogue. My strength is 6 (-2) and I most likely are wearing Gauntlets of Orge Power giving me a 8 (-1) and a light-load limit of 25. Part of the enjoyment for me is that the character is so weak and that a little thing like picking up a weapon off the combat floor could change his ability to fight. I have everything nickled and dimed except for 1/50 weight items (weightless). I end up with 25 potions or 25 coins, I'll make that 0.5, but until then I don't count it. I have survived quite well with some masterwork items like potion belt and bandoleer with low weight, DM made mundane items like Pasha Pants (Basicly MC Hammer pants ), and magical items like Haversack which only weighs 5. The saving grace item for me is a DM made item (to my limited knowledge) listed below. I can find the cost of the item if you think your player would be interested in it. Just email me. My two cents (2/50 of a pound)....

Circlet, Vandar’s
This magical item creates a low-powered energy field around the wielder. This energy field causes a small item (5 lb. or less) placed within 3 feet of the wielder to hover. The item travels slowly in the general area where it was positioned. A silvery blue wisp of smoke trails behind the item as it moves. When you move, the hovering object moves with you. A maximum of five objects may be held in this way, but each must be placed individually. As a rule of thumb, objects floating in a hover field have an effective Armor Class of 24, but the individual objects determine each. Hovering items can be grasped easily by you and retrieved as a free action.