2024 should not continue the 2014 trend of building an encumbrance subsystem for people who just want to say "and we are ignoring it with a half baked secondary variant that is still pointless". Above all else I want encumbrance to impact gameplay choices. 5e has an encumbrance system designed to nullify any reason for it to exist along with an optional variant that will make players chaffe over the nerf while simply choosing options like powerful build to nullify the changes to gameplay that the GM was attempting to enact.So far that I can see OneDnD playtest has not touched the encumbrance system.
How would you like to see D&D 2024 handle encumbrance? What would you like to see?
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The problems with the current system are:
- it is hard to track (having to count every ounce of weight)
- your carrying capacity is so high that it doesn't matter until you carry lots of stiff (it even says so in the PHB!) - and than it doesn't even say, what happens when you carry to much (only the Variant Rules go into a little detail)
- ans the only effects are negative
- the rules don't explain how encumbrance interacts with stuff like Food and Water and other ressources, which means especially beginners only read that the rules actually don't have a lot effect.
So the existing rules are enforcing a lot of book keeping for little to no effect, and all the existing effects are negative.
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What I would like in my encumbrance rules?
- Easy to keep track of.
- more encumbrance states - in which the lightest one also gives a benefit. So positive and negative effects.
- easy to enforce without player complaints so they keep track of food, water and other cunsumenables.
- giving the Illusion of somewhat Realism (like not one size/slot for all items)
- Benefits if you have no encumbrance
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Rules Variant I came across:
- just use D&D beyond or Roll20 to count Pounds - that works when you use those and only use Items that are already in the VTT, if you give out lots of homebrew items or mundane items that are not in the system, it breaks down quickly.
- the rule of cool - if you can explain how your character is carrying all the stuff without the other players starting to laugh it is fine.
- slot based systems - most of which I find a little to simplifying (like strength score = number of items you can varry)
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So what kind of encumbrance systems would you prefer OneDND to adopt?
There are a lot of ttrpgs that deal with encumbrance in a (better) way that furthers various goals that are core to those systems, but I think older editions of d&d provide good examples of mechanics with visceral (and positive) impacts on play. Back in 3.x your base speed was set by the armor that you wore and various abilities would raise or lower that as appropriate, that was good for simplicity and it mattered for the way it meant that mounted combat could viscerally change how a character moved in combat. Also positive to 3.x was the split of light medium and heavy load that each had important meaning for different builds and that made being able to carry a lot matter because certain PCs wanted very much to carry very very little so choices mattered for everyone. That's not to say those were perfect or the best method, PF1&2 made some changes to those mechanics and the critical detail is that they still influence gameplay in ways that matter during normal play.