ClaytonCross
Kinder reader Inflection wanted
This is true. I was playing around with character creation on D&D beyond and decided to turn on variant encumbrance for my Strength 8 wizard. After giving him his gear using the starting gear in the PHB, I removed the hemp robe, the torches, and reduced rations from 10 to 5 days. He was still overweight (42lbs, needed 40 or less to be unaffected be weight) and had his speed reduced to 20 feet. If people used the variant encumbrance rules, you would definitely see higher strength scores.. or more pack mules. Problem is, recording and calculating weight is a major pain. Without DNDbeyond or other sheet to autocalculate, I don't think I'd want to bother with it.
Right and I hear that a lot, but then your ignoring the effects of not being strong. The effect is their is no such thing as weakness. … Every suddenly not only becomes strong but VERY strong. Strong to the point where the strength stat becomes trivial.. but not by the rules, but because a meta game reason of not wanting write stuff down on a piece of paper or use auto calculating sheet like MPMB or some formulas in excel which provides the required information to use strength. I am also guessing you, never run across heavy doors with strength requirement? you don't roll for swim, jump, climb check very often if ever, am I right? What about shove and grapple, rules? Those rule are in the book. If GMs are ignoring them for the meta game reason of not wanting deal with the "major pain of calculating weight" that's fine, but it comes with the side effect of devaluing the stat that it exists to reinforce. If a GM never uses perception, insight, or survival but uses investigation and knowledge skill or puzzles expect players to increase intellect because they don't see the point in wisdom. Making intellect less functional intellect will not suddenly make wisdom better because its being nerfed to uselessness unless its your spell caster ability.