Encumbrance (Optional Rule)
A natural desire is to have your character own one of
everything. Thus equipped, your character could just reach
into his pack and pull out any item he wants whenever he
needs it. Sadly, there are limits to how much your character,
his horse, his mule, his elephant, or his whatever can carry.
These limits are determined by encumbrance.
Encumbrance is measured in pounds. To calculate
encumbrance, simply total the pounds of gear carried by
the creature or character. Add five pounds for clothing, if
any is worn. This total is then compared to the carrying
capacity of the creature to determine the effects. In general,
the more weight carried, the slower the movement and the
worse the character is at fighting.
Basic Encumbrance (Tournament Rule)
Encumbrance is divided into five categories: Unencum-
bered, Light, Moderate, Heavy, and Severe Encumbrance.
To calculate your character’s encumbrance category, first
figure out the total weight he is carrying (including five pounds
for clothing). Then look across the row corresponding to your
character’s Strength on Table 47 until you come to the column
that includes your character’s carried weight. The heading at
the top of that column shows his level of encumbrance.
Use Table 49 to figure out the encumbrance category of
your character’s mount or beast of burden.
The Max. Carried Wgt. column lists the most weight (in
pounds) your character can carry and still move. But move-
ment is limited to 10 feet per round, as your character stag-
gers under the heavy load.
Specific Encumbrance (Optional Rule)
The maximum total weight your character can carry is
determined by his Strength, as listed on Table 47.
The basic encumbrance rule gives general categories of
encumbrance but does not allow for fine distinctions.
Some players and DMs may take exception to the idea that
adding one more pound to a character suddenly shifts that
character to the next (and drastically worse) encumbrance
category. They may want to use the following optional
table; Table 48 reduces a character’s movement rating 1
factor at a time.
To determine your character’s movement rate (see
“Movement” in Chapter 14: Time and Movement) for a
given load, find the row on Table 48 with his Strength
score. Read across it until you find the first column in
which the number of pounds listed is greater than your
character’s current load. At the top of that column are two
rows for base movement rates. Characters with a base
movement rate of 12 use the top row; those with a base
movement rate of 6 use the bottom row. The number in
the appropriate upper row is your character’s modified
movement rate.
Tarus (a human with a base movement of 12) has a
Strength of 17 and is carrying a 140-pound load. Looking
across on the 17 row shows that 140 falls between 133
and 145 on the table. Looking at the top of the 145 col-
umn shows that Tarus has a modified movement rate of 7.
He can carry five more pounds of gear (total 145 pounds)
and maintain his speed, or drop seven pounds of equip-
ment (to 133 pounds) and increase his speed to 8.
Magical Armor and Encumbrance
One of the special properties of magical armor is its
effect on encumbrance. Although magical armor appears to
weigh as much as normal armor, the weight of magical
armor applies only toward the weight limit of the character.
It does not apply when determining the effects of encum-
brance on movement and combat. In essence, the armor
appears to weigh as much as normal armor (especially if the
wearer is in water over his head), but does not restrict or
hamper the character.
Cwell the bard finds a suit of chain mail +1. Lifting it up,
he finds it weighs 60 pounds. Cwell is already carrying 50
pounds of gear. Donning the chain mail, he is now carry-
ing 110 lbs. of gear. Cwell’s Strength is 12, which means
that he can carry only 30 more pounds of equipment.
However, when calculating the effect of all this weight on
his movement, Cwell is considered to only be carrying 50
pounds of gear—the magical armor doesn’t count. Fur-
thermore, he does not suffer any combat penalties for the
chain mail’s weight.
Effects of Encumbrance
Encumbrance has two basic effects. First, it reduces your
character’s movement rate. If encumbrance categories are
used, Unencumbered has no effect on movement,
Light
reduces the movement rate by one-third (round fractions
down), Moderate reduces it by one-half,
Heavy reduces it by
two-thirds, and
Severe lowers the movement rate to 1. If the
optional system is used, the character’s movement rate is
reduced to the amount found by using Table 48. The move-
ment rate determines how far your character can move in a
round, turn, hour, and day. As his movement rate gets lower,
your character moves slower and slower. See “Movement” in
Chapter 14: Time and Movement for more details.
Encumbrance also reduces your character’s combat abili-
ties. If encumbrance reduces your character to half of his
normal movement rate, he suffers a –1 penalty to his attack
roll. If he is reduced to one-third or less of his normal move-
ment rate, the attack penalty is –2 and there is an additional
AC penalty of +1. If your character’s movement is reduced to
1, the attack roll penalty is –4 and the AC penalty is +3.
Clearly, the wise thing for a heavily encumbered character to
do is to quickly drop most of his gear before entering battle.