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TrinculoLives
2017-04-21, 07:39 PM
Hi everyone,
the aspiring Grognard in me has been thinking a good deal about Encumbrance lately. I've recently gotten more into dungeon-delving in the weekly game I run and have been enjoying the old-school feel of it.

http://www.kidport.com/reflib/usahistory/calgoldrush/Images/49erAndMule.gif

One of the PCs has just gotten a mule and cart, and in the spirit of things, I have endeavoured to set out an encumbrance variant that will hopefully accomplish the following goals:

1. Eliminating the need to add up many small individual item's weights to use the Encumbrance rules,

2. Empowering the players to pick and choose items to take with them dungeon-delving without overwhelming them with long minutes of addition,

3. Encouraging the usage of mounts and, heck, even hirelings for that matter,

4. Encouraging the players to favour Strength equally alongside Dexterity (or... at least gleefully punish their weak characters)

5. Simplifying the math of PCs carrying or dragging each-other or, in other words, answering the old question: Just how many halflings can the Goliath carry?

Here's the Homebrewery (might have to open in Google Chrome for best results): http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/r1Zz7KZF0x.

Edit! I made an equipment sheet to use with this system: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByFj-7gnfeApTlczSGZHOV9Za2s/view?usp=sharing
(This one is a little outdated now)

And another that doesn't have a section for mounts/hirelings: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByFj-7gnfeApXzJPTVNJUHJDT1k/view?usp=sharing (better version)

What do you think? If you'd like to use these rules on an actual character sheet and let me know what you end up with, that would be great. Thanks!

http://media.finedictionary.com/pictures/175/19/5039.jpg

P.S.
Some musings:
I should say that I found the Encumbrance values from the PHB Variant to be a tad stifling. My method potentially significantly increases the amount that your average adventurer can carry. For example:

Average PC, 10 Strength
PHB version: encumbered by 50 lbs. (5xStr score), heavily encumbered by 100 (10xStr score), max load: 150 (15xStr score)

My version: encumbered by 5 Stone, which is 70 lbs; heavily encumbered by 10 Stone (140 lbs), max load: 15 Stone (210 lbs.).

It's a significant increase, and rather unrealistic for the average adventuring type. The key is, I think, that Stone are not a measurement purely of weight, but rather an approximation of weight and mass. If we allow for that distinction, this system should average out across the contents of a PC's inventory. Then we shouldn't be ending up with numbers that are too far inflated above the PHB's.

The main difference will be that the majority of light-weight items can simply be ignored by the player until a great number of them start stacking up.
Of course, the rules for 20 Pocket items = 1 Stone and 5 Small items = 1 Stone are first draft. Playtesting will almost certainly alter those numbers somewhat, if not do away with that section of the rules entirely.

TrinculoLives
2017-04-23, 12:43 AM
I've revamped the system somewhat. Now you use a descriptive approach to deciding whether an item is Pocket, Medium, or Hefty. i.e. You don't have to look up the weight anymore.

Refined inventory sheet to come soon.

TrinculoLives
2017-04-23, 12:20 PM
I've revamped the system again, and modified the inventory sheet to match the new terminology. I also added space to show how much weight a character is carrying all the time, and how much that character will be carrying if they drop their backpack and any items they are carrying (in the literal sense, as one may carry, for example, a canoe).