Weight Problems

[alsih2o]

I played an ascetic sorcerer with a str of 6 in a perevious game. He disavowed wealth (except for cool hats, he owned some hats now) and asked the party barbarian to carry all of his stuff except for a staff and his familiar.

He also wanted goods everytime they came to town. So even though he disdained owning money he was always "Borrowing" money form the party bard (Tarchon on here) to buy tidbits or meals or to give to beggars.

 

[IronWolf]

I sort of keep track of weight as a DM. Mainly making sure it doesn't get out of hand with the amount and weight of items characters are carrying. I generally spot check it every so often, but try not to let it bog down the game too much.

 

[EricNoah]

Almost all of my players use an electronic character sheet of some kind, whether it is an excel sheet or etools. Doesn't help *during* the game, when they add loot, but at least between sessions they realize that they are carrying too much and pick things to drop (or their sheet reflects that they are carrying more than they were last time).

 

[Voadam]

I generally go with gross amounts for calculating weight, character weight plus armor plus a little bit. Rarely comes up as an issue.

 

[Arnwyn]

Does anyone else find it tedious to keep track of how much every little thing you are carrying weighs.

Not me - but that's because I'm an accountant in real life.

There has to be some way around it.

As others have mentioned, simply carrying a "reasonable" amount should suffice. Really, the only time weights are important are:
1) you're carrying so much you're close to being encumbered
2) someone needs to carry you around... quickly.

 

[arche]

Not me - but that's because I'm an accountant in real life.

Ah, I'd hate to be in your game! Just kidding. I do financial work that requires detail to numbers. I just find that in game playing, I could care less about details. I'm there to inspire heroic tales that will allow my players to go back to work confidently able to say they killed a horde of goblins. If that means using a 'reasonableness' meathod of encombrance, then so be it .

 

[Beholder Bob]

Hey, I've noted several times folks mentioning excel sheets for equipment tracking - is their a downloadable version available? I track my encumb & would love a digital way of doing it!

BB

 

[thatdarncat]

I've also used excel spread sheets for inventory and calculating weight, but only when I was feeling nitpicky. The sheet might be laid out like this

|Item name|Cost|Weight|Character|Horse|Pack Horse|Notes|

with all appropriate columns totalling. The location columns (Character/horse/pack horse) had =sum(cell) as appropreate so that weight only needed to be adjusted in one location, then sorted first by location then name.

This was for an extreme case - a Paladin with a warhorse and a pack horse. If I really wanted to get fancy, I'd include a quantity column, as well as hidden weight and cost columns, allowing me to automatically calculate weight and cost based on quantity. If I recall correctly, this is what I did for any coinage, in a seperate table with the total weight =sum(cell)'d into the appropriate location.

I'll see if I can find the sheet when I get home and post it.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

When I have a low- ro mid-Strength character, and want or need to carry items beyond Light encumbrance, I stick enough weight in a large sack to make the difference between Medium and Light. In a combat situation, or other situation in which quick movement is important, my PC just drops the bag -- free action -- and goes immediately to Light encumbrance.

I like this idea a lot. I'm definitely going to use this the next time I play a low- to mid-strength PC.

As a player, I don't really have a problem with encumbrance. As others have said, it's only an issue if you're right on the border between two categories, and at that point I usually try to change that asap by either lightening the load, increasing my strength, or picking up a Heward's Handy Haversack or Bag of Holding. Otherwise, you rarely have to think about encumbrance at all.

As a DM, I ask my players to do an inventory of their encumbrance maybe once every five games or so. It's simple enough to do after you've calculated your "standard" encumbrance, and keeps everyone honest.

I also once threw in a magical belt, woven from the hair of a giant, that increased a character's carrying capacity by 50 lbs (while offering no other strength-related benefits.) It was a minor item, meant more for flavor than anything. I was surprised to learn that one of my players (I was new to the group) had a history of being a packrat, and his halfling thought the item was fantastic.

 

[Greylock]

Hey, I've noted several times folks mentioning excel sheets for equipment tracking - is their a downloadable version available? I track my encumb & would love a digital way of doing it!

Look around the Software forum. HeroForge should still be on the front page I think...