Min-maxing your weight limit

[thalmin]

I would most definitely side with the player on this, especially since you said that YOU don't pay much attention to the weight they carry around.

 

[Shallown]

Its all a matter of simplicity. If you start nit-picking and get into "realism" It completely destroys the rules. Nothing is realsitic in D&D or most other game systems. They just appear Realistic/reasonable/believeable. This is more a decision, in my mind, of how much do you want to penalize someone with a low stat. I have played many a low strength character and wrestled with the equipment/encumberance issue. I figure if the player isn't abusing or ignoring encumberance then why worry. It is an utterly unrealistic system if you follow the rules. The rules are to help simulate a reality not actually be one.

Just my thoughts.

Later

 

[Mulkhoran]

Argh, thalmin beat me to my point....

Yeah, what's up with that, you say you don't care much about encumberance, but they do. Then one of them ends up in an argument over 2 lbs of boots. I don't get how this is possible, since it sounds like he could just "ho hum, doo dee doo, new boots, no problems here", and you wouldn't mark the difference.

Sorry, just seems funny. Like, "Hey, um, Menexenus, I just looked at my sheet here and found out I'm cheeting"

"Okay, don't cheat"

"WHAT?? But....[argument]"


Anywho, Crothian kind of nailed it.......if he's sweating 2lbs, he's got much bigger problems Still, if you *really* don't care that much about weight, why make a deal out of it? Not like he's trying to craft mithril breastplate at 1st level with 1 rank in Craft, or somesuch...............


Oh, and everybody knows the effect of Heavy Boots. After all, they kept the astronauts from floating away on the moon mission..........*








* - Please, God, somebody get this one.

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

I agree with the player and with the points made here previously. If it is worn it should add no encumbrance. If it's carried separately it should add encumbrance.

And to the point of "if he's worrying over 2 pounds he has bigger problems" that isn't necessarily true. If you are playing a Rogue with 8 strength (still a very viable character with weapon finesse and a high dex) then you have to be very careful about what you carry. Wearing a chain shirt, carrying a shortbow, ammo, and two short swords doesn't leave you with much more encumbrance at all (if any is even left by that point).

 

[ARandomGod]

I'm casting my vote with the magical clothes don't wiegh more than normal clothes, and if anything would likely weigh less (Less than nothing can be a tricky one here).

But additionally, you did say you don't care that much about encumberance...

You know, he could easily buy a trained dog and a little wagon or sled to carry stuff around with. Alternatively you should give him the magic item "luggage" (Re: Terry Pratchett's books, particularly 'The Light Fantastic' and 'The Colour of Magic'). Then he could carry "stuff" without really worrying about it, but still might feel leery about using it as a portable hole or bag of holding.

 

[diaglo]

i carry infinite slings. and put a couple ranks in underwater basketweaving. so i make everything out of my weightless slings.

if you are gonna min/max do it right.

slings weigh nothing. so infinite times 0 = 0 weight still...

 

[Quasqueton]

Be prepared for disgruntled players running around naked to avoid encumbrance

http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript?SK=25

Quasqueton

 

[Menexenus]

I would most definitely side with the player on this, especially since you said that YOU don't pay much attention to the weight they carry around.

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.

 

[rrealm]

I'm siding with the player. If he gets rid of the other boots and cloak, the new ones shouldn't weigh anything more than what the old ones did. If he kept the old boots though, I'd rule that his ecumberance just went up by two pounds.

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

Not to enforce reality into somebody's fantasy....

I know what the rules say about sturdy boots wieghing nothing, but try going walking wearing a pair of high quality work boots instead of sneakers for a day. You'll agree, heavy boots do affect encumbrence over a long period of time (such as hiking for an entire day).

Not sure about this, I agree that they make a difference for the first day or two while you are getting used to an entirely new type of footware. I wear heavy steel toed hiking boots a lot and they have never impacted my encumberance except in snow or water. On normal hiking I find they help stabalize me and that I can actually carry *more* with them on than I can with them off.

I'm going to have to go with the player here with one caviet (spelling?):

If the boots are made of special material that makes them truly heavy then I would side witht he DM. The way it is I would sya they count as 1 pound when *carried* but not when worn. The reason I say this is if you say they weigh perido then you are going to have to start enforcing that with all clothes or it isn't fair. The wizard who is wearing robes (heavy as sin) and has a low str is going to need to be really limited in what he can carry extra as well as anyone who tends to wear lots of silk. Silk by itself is light but layered (as was usually done in the past) it gets heavy quick. Also things like being dunked in water need to coutn towards encumb. It just gets messy. I would rule the botts are considered clothing and don't count. Now, having said that I never saw that clothing didn't count towards that, lol, and have *always* counted the weight of my clothing.