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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Golroc" data-source="post: 9110659" data-attributes="member: 7042497">Weight-based encumbrance works in extremely crunch-heavy games and/or if the mechanics are handled by software (either digital tabletop tooling or a computer game). For anything less than that it's much better to have abstracted systems - Pathfinder's bulk system is an example of relatively gamey and crunch-based encumbrance system.Even when it comes to realism/verisimilitude (not that this is a core feature of D&D), weight is not enough to represent carrying capacity and the hindrance imposed by carrying things that are large, heavy, unwieldy, etc. It makes a whole of difference when considering the impact on a task (be that movement, dodging, climbing, lock-picking or performing an intricate dance with multiple partners) how the weight and volume is distributed. So a weight-based system is, in addition to being awkward and demanding, also not a very good simulation of reality. A well-designed abstract system could beat out old-school encumbrance.I see it very much as a legacy mechanic. It's there because it kept carrying over. And for some mechanics that's perfectly fine - a system can have features that are suboptimal when viewed in isolation and without regard for the historical context of the system. I would claim that almost every system has this to a lesser or greater degree - even quite modern and streamlined systems often have a little bit of nostalgic cruft somewhere. But who enjoys encumbrance? It should really have been replaced by something like bulk a long time ago. Or an even simpler system. I have a vague recollection of an earlier version of D&D having an optional simplified encumbrance system, but I might be imagining that or maybe it was something from one of the periods where the game had a bajillion optional systems spread across the many publications and articles.Either way, I would consider the act of not removing encumbrance as it is in D&D downright lazy and/or incompetent, if they refuse to replace it with something better. There's no good reason to keep it. From a commercial perspective nor from a design perspective.</blockquote>

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