Stupid Idea #2: Making Carry Weight Matter

[FreakyCheeseMan]

I'm working on designing a game system from the ground up; putting my less intuitive ideas up here for review, to check if I've gone completely insane. Today's topic is: Making Carry Weight Actually Significant

The Proposal
First, some context. For assorted reasons (mostly to avoid the 10-minute adventuring day thing,) I'm making it so none of the classes in this system run on "Daily" batteries; spells, etc, recharge with a few minutes of focus, rather than hours of meditation. However, I do like the idea of players having to conserve resources over the course of a day, or getting caught in a difficult position when they're stuck still fighting after running low on resources, or if they prepared for the wrong sort of fighting.

I've already decided that magic items are not going to work the same way they do in 3.5 - honestly, I don't know of *anyone* who likes the way items work in 3.5. Suffice to say, none of the items in this game are going to simply increase numbers - no +5 weapons, not stat increases, etc. - at least, no permanent ones. More often, magic items will be single-use things like Tanglefoot Bags, or items that actually expand the options available to a character - spiderclimb boots, bows that allow fire through cover, glasses that grant darkvision, etc.

Anyway, the proposal itself: Set it up so that, most of the time, PCs can afford more than they can carry - the idea being that they'll have a camp/ship/waggon/whatever where they keep most of their stuff, and pick their specific load out before heading into combat, with carrying capacity as the real arbiter of how much stuff they get. (Mind, a character will still be able to function with nothing beyond their basic armour/weapons/etc - these items just give them an extra range of options and versatility.

As part of this, I may eliminate the concept of "Armour Proficiency" and just make it a factor of carrying capacity.

Justification: Realism
Gear has always been an important factor in warfare, and weight has always been an important factor in gear. From side arms, throwing axes and improvised shiruken in the ancient era to grenades, night-vision goggles and removable armour plates today, what equipment was worth carrying has always been an important choice for warriors to make.

Part of my inspiration for this actually came from the Battle of Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down), where US soldiers chose to forgo armour plates or night vision goggles in favour of extra ammo, as they were expecting to meet only minimal resistance on a broad daylight mission.

Justification: Gameplay
One of the many things I'm attempting to do with this system is eliminate the concept of Dump Stats - I may have another thread up soon debating the wisdom of such, but anyway, I'm trying to have something useful on every stat, for every character. Oddly enough, Strength and Intelligence have been two of the harder ones so far - while they're supremely important to the builds that use them, they don't hold a lot for anyone else. I feel like making Carry Weight a real thing - a thing that, for instance, allows Mages to carry more potions of Mana, or wear a little bit of armour under their robes, or carry focal devices for a wider variety of spells.

Additionally, I feel that this will give an extra edge of strategy and preparation to those that desire it. Less obsessive players can pick a basic, generally-useful load out and stick with it - say, heavier armour, a side arm, a ranged weapon and a cloak that grants regeneration or teleportation or somesuch. Other, more obsessive characters could prepare their gear the way a wizard prepares their spells, based on what they expect to be up against - night-vision goggles if they're attempting a stealth mission in a cave system, spiderclimb boots if they're working their way up a heavily-defended tower, etc.

Most characters would also want at least some selection of "Expendable" items - potions, ammunition, etc. I'm hoping that this will allow for those interesting situations of "We've been at this too long, we're low on supplies, etc," without mandating that everyone has to pack up their bags and stop halfway through a dungeon, because one character ran out of spells.


So. What are thoughts?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I hate hate hate hate HATE tracking carry weight. I hate it in video games, where the math is done automatically, and I hate it more in a pen-and-pencil game, where I have to stop, look up the weight, and do the math every time I pick up a pencil. It's irritating and constantly gets in the way of...well, everything I want to spend my time doing.

If you insist on caring-- and there are valid reasons for it-- I'd recommend something like this (http://rottenpulp.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/matt-rundles-anti-hammerspace-item.html). A semi-nebulous slot-based system like that seems like it'd be easier to deal with, as well as more conductive to the gritty feel you're going for.

[bobthe6th]

I just got done dealing with fallout 1's encumbrance system(and the magical infinite hammer space an NPC provides)... I have to agree it is one of things video games can do that P&P shouldn't.

I do agree it should be relevant, but keeping clutter down is important. Giving finite storage space(like the volume of a back pack, or something like the rogue: clandestine operations slot system) would do better then encumbrance. Something fast, without the insane sliding scale of str based carry weight.

[LordErebus12]

Oddly enough, Strength and Intelligence have been two of the harder ones so far - while they're supremely important to the builds that use them, they don't hold a lot for anyone else.

totally off topic, but something has been bothering me...

Ranged attacks lack overall damage that melee does since nothing adds to damage. You have a lack of any use outside of languages and skill points. Now, under the new concept, your Intelligence bonus is added to damage rolls on ranged attacks. This implies precision damage from choosing the best shot, from analytically deciding which point of the body is exposed and most likely to deal the most damage.

what you think?


also, RedWarlock mentioned adding dex to damage in melee, instead of str, freeing it up slightly, and making it harder to make a really slow strong warrior or a really weak fast warrior. meanwhile wisdom is added to ranged attack rolls, instead of dex.

its something he's trying in his next game (which im in)

[LordErebus12]

I hate hate hate hate HATE tracking carry weight. I hate it in video games, where the math is done automatically, and I hate it more in a pen-and-pencil game, where I have to stop, look up the weight, and do the math every time I pick up a pencil. It's irritating and constantly gets in the way of...well, everything I want to spend my time doing.

If you insist on caring-- and there are valid reasons for it-- I'd recommend something like this (http://rottenpulp.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/matt-rundles-anti-hammerspace-item.html). A semi-nebulous slot-based system like that seems like it'd be easier to deal with, as well as more conductive to the gritty feel you're going for.

how about simply saying that items are stored in cities, or in wagons, that the party must put up the bill for.

[Deepbluediver]

First, I fully support the idea of making carrying weight something that actually needs to be considered. I'd eliminate all Bags of holding, portalable holes, and the like from the game if I could, or at least alter them to be along the artifact-level of rareness. I think having to pick and choose amongst items is just as interesting as having to pick and choose for things like class levels, skills, spells, etc. Economists call it "opportunity cost".

There's being prepared and playing inventively, and then there is just having one of every item in both the PHB and the DMG that you can pull out at a moment's notice. It's kind of the like the wizard problem in item form- excess versatility gets boring after a while, and puzzles are pointless when you've got a keyring with 10,000 keys.
And of course, it makes casters think twice about min-maxing if they can barely lift their own spellbook etc etc etc.


That being said, I acknowledge that tracking every item and it's weight down to the ounce can get tiring after a while, so here's and interesting variant rule-

The Rule: Items are either Significant, or Insignificant, as determined by the GM. A character may carry any number of insignificant items without penalty. Significant items may be determined on the basis of either weight, or size, and most have a base encumbrance 1. Exceptionally heavy or unwieldy items may have an encumbrance of 2 or more. A character’s carrying capacity is based off of their strength score. An encumbrance equal to a character’s strength score is considered a light load, while a medium load would be twice that, and a heavy load would be three times that. Quadrapeds, such as horses, have double the standard encumbrance capacity. Lightly encumbered characters suffer no penalty. Characters with a medium encumbrance have their speed reduced by 1/4, and take a -3 penalty on all rolls relating to physical activity. Heavily encumbered characters have their speed reduced by 1/2, and take a -6 penalty on all rolls relating to physical activity.

I did not come up with that, obviously; here is the link to the website with the full article where the author lays out their rational and explanations: http://www.paperspencils.com/2012/03/18/making-encumbrance-work/

[FreakyCheeseMan]

totally off topic, but something has been bothering me...

Ranged attacks lack overall damage that melee does since nothing adds to damage. You have a lack of any use outside of languages and skill points. Now, under the new concept, your Intelligence bonus is added to damage rolls on ranged attacks. This implies precision damage from choosing the best shot, from analytically deciding which point of the body is exposed and most likely to deal the most damage.

what you think?


also, RedWarlock mentioned adding dex to damage in melee, instead of str, freeing it up slightly, and making it harder to make a really slow strong warrior or a really weak fast warrior. meanwhile wisdom is added to ranged attack rolls, instead of dex.

its something he's trying in his next game (which im in)

I *think* that ranged attacks are already balanced in the system I'm working on, because they don't invite counter attacks (and may not be subject to the same set of active defences - but I suspect they're not, people probably can't parry arrows.)

As for the rest of it... sounds like almost everyone is against the idea, which I can respect- personally, I hate carry weight in 3.5, I just thought it might function in a system that was actually designed to work with it.

What about an abstracted carry weight system? Say, you get some small number of carry points - armour of varying sizes takes up so many points, as do weapons; additionally, there are "Pack" items (knife belts, potion cases, backpacks, whatever) that take up a certain number of points, and store a certain number of small items. Might simplify things - for one thing, there's (almost) no looking up weight; most things would either fit in intuitive categories (armour and weapons, grouped by size) or would be "Small" items, that are assumed to have the same functional weight.

[Grod_The_Giant]

What about an abstracted carry weight system?
Eh... "carry points" as you seem to be describing them seem to be pretty much the same thing as having actual weight. Maybe a smaller table to look up weight on, but still the same sort of issue with constant nit-picky tracking.

[Deepbluediver]

What about an abstracted carry weight system?
Carry Points is basically just weight by another name.

If you want something abstract, look at the system I already linked.


Edit: Swordsaged! D'oh!

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Eh... "carry points" as you seem to be describing them seem to be pretty much the same thing as having actual weight. Maybe a smaller table to look up weight on, but still the same sort of issue with constant nit-picky tracking.

Eh... it's very close to being the same as weight, except we're not sweating specifics. The table I'm imagining would look something like:

{table] Item | Carry Points | Example
Heavy Armour | 7 | Full Plate
Medium Armour | 5 | Breast Plate
Light Armour | 3 | Leather Armour
Ultralight Armour | 1 | Mage's Robes
Heavy Weapon | 4 | Warhammer, Great Sword
Medium Weapon | 3 | Longsword, Quarterstaff
Light Weapon | 2 | Kukri, Machete
Ultralight Weapon | 1 | Throwing Dagger, Shirhuken
Worn Item | 1 | Goggles, Belts, Boots
Item Pack (10 small items) | 2 | Holds potions, scrolls, etc.
Ammunition Pack (20 rounds) | 2 | Holds Bolts, Arrows, Stones, etc
[/table]

And that would be literally all there was to it. Players would pick their weapons and armour (which would be pretty intuitive, and wouldn't change very often), and then spend whatever they had left on either side arms or item/ammunition packs; they'd then pick some number of items of those types (small or ammunition being the only difference), without looking up any weights or anything.

At the very least, it'd be simpler than Vancian spell casting, I think.

EDIT: Another attempt at explaining why I like this idea to begin with.

Imagine players prepping up for their next mission - I like to think that they'd have a range of interesting decisions to make for this.

"We've got this whole thing planned, and we know exactly what we're up against; everyone take those things we know we'll be using the most, darkvision goggles, boots of spider climb, and lots of alchemists fire."

"Gods know what we're running into, but for better or worse, it'll be over fast; take a lot of expendable items that'll benefit you under a lot of circumstances (potions of heroism, healing potions,) and expect to be back here before we run out."

"We're heading down to the planet's surface, and we have no idea how long we'll be stuck down there; wear heavy armour and keep a backup weapon and lots of ammunition, but no other single-use items - we have to be ready to dig in for the long haul."

[Sylthia]

As a DM, I don't pay too much attention to carrying capacity. I also tend to make Bags of Holding rather easy to obtain.

I don't really call my PCs out on encumbrance unless they try something extreme ("I take the trebuchet" comes to mind) or they try to dump Str too much. I'm of the school of thought that you should be able to at least have an 8 in your non-viable stats and not cripple yourself, but if you try to get into 6 or below for some munchkin min-maxing, then I'll make you keep track of weight.

Overall, as a DM, and a player, keeping track of weight might add more realism, but when we only have 4-6 hours to play for the night, I like to use as much of that time for RP and combat as possible.

Also: I like items that give me an "always on" benefit, or a simple +1 to something. I like to keep bookkeeping to a minimum at times.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Well, yeah, I agree that in 3.5 carry weight is pretty much just annoying - but, it doesn't feel like the system was built do do anything interesting with it. My idea is that if Carry Weight is intended to be an interesting mechanic from the ground up, it might actually be a cool part of game play (as opposed to what it usually is, which is something tacked on to an existing structure for purposes of realism.)

I'm still trying to decide whether or not making a system inherently MAD - so long as it does so fairly to all character types - is a bad idea or not.

[Grod_The_Giant]

As long as character are still functional without needing high scores in everything, a little MAD is fine.

It seems that what you're after is less the nitty-gritty detail of encumbrance, and more of a video-game-y "loadout" system, yes? In that you have a hub full of stored equipment, from which you pick what you need for each individual mission. So start from there and work your way out. As far as I can tell, you want:

Players to have more equipment than they can deploy at a time
Equipment to be an important element of gameplay
Equipment to provide day-to-day versatility
A simple mechanic for keeping track of how much can be used at one time


I like the idea of organizing by space rather than weight-- like in Diablo, where you have to fit items into your inventory grid. How 'bout:

Your strength score determines how many "containers" (backpack, pockets, strapped-to-your back, what have you) you can carry
Containers have X slots
Items take up Y slots

That way you can represent loadout visually, which should make it easier to keep track of for most people, and avoids the issue of hammerspace. Also, it's instantly clear if you can pick up more stuff, or if you're weighed down.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

I think that's something fairly close to what I'm going with - but I do like the idea of it coming up with weapons and armour in particular, and characters having the option of picking heavier armour/weapons (and thus getting a slight benefit to something they do all of the time, in every situation) or specialized gear (and thus getting some nifty extra abilities that function all of the time, but maybe aren't useful in every situation) or a mass of single-use items (which are both specialized and single-use, but which can provide a very solid burst of power if used correctly.)

Actually, I'm not 100% sure on the details of your idea - could you go into a bit more?

[Grod_The_Giant]

M'kay. Let's say we have Bob the Fighter. Bob is a strong guy-- his high Strength score lets him carry 6 points of encumbrance.
He puts on platemail, which uses up 4 point of encumbrance.
He takes a longsword, which uses up 1 point of encumbrance.
He grabs a backpack, which is 1 point of encumbrance, and holds 10 inventory slots.

In those 10 inventory slots, he takes 5 potions (each taking up 1 slot), a rope-and-grappling-hook arrangement (2 slots), a stack of torches (2 slots), and he leaves the last slot empty in case he finds something neat during the mission.

Which, err... comes out to be pretty much the same as your carry point idea from earlier. Disregard this idea and go look at the system I linked earlier.

[OzymandiasX]

{table] Item | Carry Points | Example
Heavy Armour | 7 | Full Plate
Medium Armour | 5 | Breast Plate
Light Armour | 3 | Leather Armour
Ultralight Armour | 1 | Mage's Robes
Heavy Weapon | 4 | Warhammer, Great Sword
Medium Weapon | 3 | Longsword, Quarterstaff
Light Weapon | 2 | Kukri, Machete
Ultralight Weapon | 1 | Throwing Dagger, Shirhuken
Worn Item | 1 | Goggles, Belts, Boots
Item Pack (10 small items) | 2 | Holds potions, scrolls, etc.
Ammunition Pack (20 rounds) | 2 | Holds Bolts, Arrows, Stones, etc
[/table]

And that would be literally all there was to it. Players would pick their weapons and armour (which would be pretty intuitive, and wouldn't change very often), and then spend whatever they had left on either side arms or item/ammunition packs; they'd then pick some number of items of those types (small or ammunition being the only difference), without looking up any weights or anything.

I'm liking this idea so far. The simplified 'carry point' system doesn't bog things down much.

I think that the people who hate hate HATE HATE worrying about carrying capacity just aren't used to having that as a tactical decision in a game. Also they're probably used to carrying hundreds of items where it really IS a pain to track all that weight. In a realistic-carry game, you're picking maybe 10 items... and keeping those tallied is not difficult.

I like tactical decisions that require thought and make a difference in outcomes. Do I bring an extra medkit, or that pair of high-powered binoculars? Or if I really want both, maybe I can get by with one less magazine for my rifle... or one less day's worth of food... Decisions, decisions! :) As anyone who has ever gone hiking can tell you, the answer to just carry everything is never a valid option.


The only thing I might add would be to allow for a level of 'heavily encumbered' which might be above your Str up to Str x2 or something in carry points.

[Sylthia]

Would you allow the party to bring along a pack-mule or something similar?

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Would you allow the party to bring along a pack-mule or something similar?

*nodsnods* One of the assumptions of this system is that character's won't be going into battle with everything they own - they'll have ships, camps, pack mules, maybe even something along the line of squires.

I'll probably also come up with some rules for a more traditional sort of game, where they really *are* expected to carry everything they own - just not all the time. Something along the lines of a "Heavy Pack" that can store a ton of excess gear, but slows you down enough that you don't want to carry it into combat.

[Hanuman]

Thing about carry was bulk, not weight. I would be more comfortable with players carrying 40lbs of flour in a bag in a hiking backpack than 20lbs of glass flasks and a ladder.

In terms of tracking, I always saw things like thirst, food, sleep and other such things as fuzzy logic tracking.

In DnD you are writing a story, and your players write and act their parts filling in the gaps. So, in my humble perspective:

1) DM's job is to enforce needs of food, shelter and other essentials when it is of CINEMATIC CONVENIENCE, this means when the players are shivering in the rain and find a cave, make them cold wet and hungry. When being chased or being toured through a palace is rarely the time, and even more rare do you need a sheet for it, that's more for logistics and logistics come into play when factoring non-roleplayed instances which can be worked behind the curtain anyway.
2) The player's job is to enforce the emotional context of the character, that means they should be getting tired and sick and hungry and cold on their own, that's what they should be roleplaying if it happens to them. As a DM remind them when they have last ate, the passing of time, don't say "you are now hungry" or "you are now tired", just say what the character's context is and the player can choose to be the superman or not until it gets time for Con checks.

[Yitzi]

I like it (and the variants being discussed in the thread). If you're ditching the high-powered items, it'll probably turn out fairly easily that higher-level PCs can afford a lot of low-powered stuff for versatility, so you need some way to keep things under control; having it be an encumbrance issue seems a good approach.

Only one concern, though: A lot of these magical items seem they won't weigh very much (unlike body armor and ammo in your example), so a moderate-STR character would still be able to carry a lot of them. After all, how heavy does a pair of darkvision goggles weigh? (An "item slot" system would help with that...but if they're not weight-based then there's no rationale for it to depend on STR.)

You'll also want to get rid of stuff like bags of holding if you go this route.

[OzymandiasX]

After all, how heavy does a pair of darkvision goggles weigh? (An "item slot" system would help with that...but if they're not weight-based then there's no rationale for it to depend on STR.)Night vision goggles weigh about 2 to 5 pounds, which is non-negligible when you're talking about being unencumbered in melee combat or when traveling long distances. If you've ever gone on a hiking trip (where you need to carry supplies for 1+ days) you know how much of a difference each few pounds can make.

Think about it like this, a typical US soldier's gear weighs 40-50 pounds and that is pushing being encumbered for someone who trains regularly in strength and endurance. Those goggles would be about 1/10th of what a person can realistically carry for overland travel or in combat. So giving night vision goggles a carry point value of 1 seems pretty legit.

I could see this system making light items like potions more valuable, but that doesn't necessarily break anything. I'd be interested to see feedback if this gets playtested. I think I may implement something like this in the next game I run.

[Yitzi]

Night vision goggles weigh about 2 to 5 pounds, which is non-negligible when you're talking about being unencumbered in melee combat or when traveling long distances. If you've ever gone on a hiking trip (where you need to carry supplies for 1+ days) you know how much of a difference each few pounds can make.

Think about it like this, a typical US soldier's gear weighs 40-50 pounds and that is pushing being encumbered for someone who trains regularly in strength and endurance. Those goggles would be about 1/10th of what a person can realistically carry for overland travel or in combat. So giving night vision goggles a carry point value of 1 seems pretty legit.

That's real-life night vision goggles. Magical darkvision goggles seem they'd more likely just be a pair of enchanted glasses, which would weigh next to nothing. Similarly for most magical items (which is where most of the interesting effects will be coming from); there's no reason I can see that the enchantment can't just be put on lighter items.

[OzymandiasX]

True. I'm thinking about this from a d20 Modern perspective, where magic items and potions are mostly a non-issue. I could see how it would be harder to get the desired result of these rules in a typical magic-level D&D setting...

[FreakyCheeseMan]

>_> I don't really seem a problem with it - it's my setting, after all, I can make the rules what I want. Maybe certain magical effects need to be bound to a particular type of extremely heavy metal, f'rinstance.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Some sort of non-weight investment? Like, you can only "attune" to so many magic items, or only carry so many batteries for so many tech items?

[Yitzi]

>_> I don't really seem a problem with it - it's my setting, after all, I can make the rules what I want. Maybe certain magical effects need to be bound to a particular type of extremely heavy metal, f'rinstance.

Maybe, although it does tend to make things look more contrived, and thus awkward. But it occurred to me...it's already established that "binding" a magical effect to a physical object is necessary to keep it long-lasting (hence why magic items are generally permanent but spells general aren't), so maybe you need a certain size and strength for it to work properly. i.e. if you try to make a thin cloak of dexterity +4, the magical forces involved will tear it apart (or disintegrate it), whereas a pebble of constitution +4 will involve so much density of magical energy that it will not work properly.


Some sort of non-weight investment? Like, you can only "attune" to so many magic items, or only carry so many batteries for so many tech items?

But then you lose the whole thing about making carry weight matter.

[Grod_The_Giant]

But then you lose the whole thing about making carry weight matter.
But you keep the thing about making tactical choices about how to load up.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Well, I already have special materials being needed for certain effects, in this setting - it's a major part of the general economics and conflict of the universe.

[Yitzi]

But you keep the thing about making tactical choices about how to load up.

Yes; you keep some of the benefits, but I was trying to think how to keep all of them.


Well, I already have special materials being needed for certain effects, in this setting - it's a major part of the general economics and conflict of the universe.

Ah, that makes sense. Of course, it would limit extendability to other situations.