Weight Problems

[Herpes Cineplex]

It's just so nitpicky, although I know some kind of mechanism should be in place to keep it real.

....should there be?

No, seriously: is the game ruined if you don't refigure the weight of what you're carrying every time you eat some rations or burn a torch or pay for something? (All of which are, I will note, actions that reduce the weight you're carrying around and would only make you less encumbered...which doesn't matter to anyone unless they were right on the borderline of dropping to a lower encumberance.)

And if your character ISN'T on the borderline of dropping to light or medium encumberance, then maybe you should just eyeball it and get on with the game. Refigure the weight later on in the week when you've got nothing better to do: I like to take care of nitpicky character-sheet-management crap like that while I'm doing laundry, for example.

Or don't bother with it at all, and just figure that whatever weight you figured before is more or less accurate until something happens that you know significantly altered the weight of your equipment, like switching to a different set of armor or weapons or getting a portable hole or whatever, which might not happen for another half-dozen sessions or more.

Because really, if keeping meticulous records of equipment weight is annoying you and dragging you out of the game, it's making that game setting less real for you. Just get it as close to accurate as you can with whatever effort you feel like sparing for this little exercise in record-keeping, and get on with playing your character.


Oh, and make good use of all the items and spells out there that make weight considerations disappear: bags of holding and handy haversacks and portable holes and secret chests are your friends, they let you just write a bunch of junk down and never worry about how much they weigh ever again. It's the same effect as just adding up the weight once during a rinse cycle and not worrying about it again after that, but with an official seal of approval from the ruleset!

--
in the battle between having fun and being obsessively realistic, who do you think wins?
ryan

 

[Li Shenron]

WEIGHT

Most of the time we don't bother to keep exact track of it, and just consider armor for the purpose of movement restrictions. The only times we really kept track of the exact weight carried compared to Str score has been when we could use a PC program to calculate it on the fly (I think the DM used the old 3.0 char generator). In that case the effort is minimal and it makes sense to be more precise.

ENCUMBRANCE

Again we usually don't care about the space occupied by gear, but this bothers some of us much more often, just for the sake of its image... Sometimes it just sucks to think that the fighter can be actually going around with 2-3 medium or large melee weapons, a bow/crossbow and its quiver, and a shield, all of which strapped to his backpack...

 

[Bigwilly]

I don't tally them up during play. I do take notes, and make corrections after a session.

As DM, I gather all the character sheets at the end of a session and do the math myself. I use a word sheet that doesn't auto-calculate, but has separate lists for combat load, full load and stuff in magical containers. This allows me to keep an eye on how much stuff the PCs are carrying around, but I don't usually worry about it in actual play.

Bigwilly

 

[JustKim]

I only worry about encumbrance, as a player or a DM, when a character is unusually weak or takes Strength damage. For the most part it's a self-correcting problem, if you have a character wearing full plate and twirling greatswords chances are they have Strength high enough to easily carry it around.

I do sometimes call for a reality check when characters are trying to transport thousands or tens of thousands of coins.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Once you have access to transdimensional magic items like Heward's Handy Haversack, it's much less of an issue.

Tactically, if you're concerned about the impact of encumberanec on movement, remember to "drop rucks" prior to or at the initiation of combat. If most of your extra gear is in your backpack, putting you into the next slower movement category, dropping it will aloow you to fight with increased mobility. Just rememebr to go back and pick it up after the fight.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Way too much trouble. I use the general "please don't abuse this" rule. Carry what you want, but keep it reasonable.

'course, I also hate keeping track of every little coin as well, but the players love to know how much coinage they have.

*sigh* Wish I could think of a "Wealth" type system, one better than say d20 Modern's. Might have to work on that...

 

[Roman]

Way too much trouble. I use the general "please don't abuse this" rule. Carry what you want, but keep it reasonable.

'course, I also hate keeping track of every little coin as well, but the players love to know how much coinage they have.

*sigh* Wish I could think of a "Wealth" type system, one better than say d20 Modern's. Might have to work on that...

I hate tracking weight and minor expenses both as a player and as a DM. I too rule "please don't abuse this" on the weight issue. On the minor expense issue - all the PCs in my game come from wealthy backrounds (in fact they are children of the previous PC characters), so I rule that the stipend they get from their parents covers all their mundane expenses such as inns, food, clothing and so on, so long as they do not abuse this.

 

[shilsen]

As a DM, I just eyeball it. And after PCs have a few levels under their belts, they usually invest in HHHs (Heward's handy haversack) and bags of holding, so it rarely becomes an issue.

 

[arche]

Only at low levels do I care as a DM. Then again, at those levels, you've got the opportunity to manage it. Once you hit mid levels, your choices of spells will begin to agonize you more than your weight & encombrance, so I give players a break and just eyeball it or judge based on "reasonableness". It's not scientific, but it works until they get some bags of holding to carry the rest of their stuff. Armor is usually the culprate anyway. I hate slowing a game down because of weight/encombrance.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Use Excel to keep track of equipment. It autocalculates to as many decimals as you want. It's also a good way to keep tabs on who has what and how much.

I can't tell you how many times I've found players carrying around way more gear than they can carry with their Strength. Nitpicking is one thing, but having people "fudge" their carrying capacity so as to carry whatever they feel like is another altogether. I remember one guy was carrying around something like 6 longswords with no thought to the weight at all. We calculated one day and he was upset that he'd have to make some choices. Awwww, too bad.