Towards a unified encumbrance mechanic

[BassoonHero]

D&D has several different mechanics for modeling different kinds of encumbrance:

- Carrying capacity to limit how much a character can haul around.
- Armor check penalties to penalize wearing heavy armor while engaging in athletic endeavours.
- Speed reduction for medium and heavy armor.
- Ad-hoc penalties for acting in a solid fog or other area of impediment.

These mechanics all serve the same purpose -- assessing penalties when some force is resisting a character's movement. The implementations, however, are inconsistent. Various sources of encumbrance penalize different things and in different ways. Carrying capacity is determined by a character's strength, but the other types of encumbrance are not; even a character who could bench-press an ogre is slowed significantly by the weight of chainmail.

A unified encumbrance mechanic could account for all of the above and provide a single number to determine how a character is affected by heavy equipment or other impediments. Feats or magic items could target this number to mitigate its effects, or harmful spells could worsen the penalties.

The implementation I'm thinking of is a single "encumbrance" score. Heavy equipment, armor, and some spell effects would add to the score. A character's strength would subtract from it. When the score is above some threshold, the character suffers penalties to physical actions and (perhaps) a speed penalty.

Some things I'm keeping in mind:

- Even weak characters should be able to carry a reasonable load of equipment.
- At mid levels, most random mundane equipment can be kept in bags of holding.
- It's very easy under the current system to reduce or eliminate armor speed penalties.
- Spells or situations that selectively impair movement (e.g. tied hands) are not a good fit for a general encumbrance mechanic.
- Ideally, the number would be scaled to a character's size.
- Adding up a bunch of weights is annoying.

Has anyone tried using such a mechanic? Are there other systems that do a really good job of representing encumbrance in a simple, consistent way?

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Not that I know of, but ACP at least could be safely eliminated. Historically, well-made armor didn’t actually prevent movement any more than modern military gear does. Encumbrance already has similar penalties, so if you’re in plate and trying to lug a horse around on your back you’re already probably slower

[ExLibrisMortis]

The implementations, however, are inconsistent.
Their sources do not behave the same, so why force them into the same mechanic?

(1) Carried weight: stuff is heavy and presses down on your back and feet.
(2) Armour check/speed penalty: armour is bulky and presses down all over/on the shoulders and hips/whatever is appropriate.
(3) Solid fog: uniform pressure makes it hard to move.
(4) Swimming: uniform pressure, but you float as well.
(5) Grappling: torso-thick tentacles are hard to move, and the applied force keeps changing.
(6) Walls: just in the way.

Different circumstances change the behaviour of each of these things. For example, low-gravity planes mitigate the issue of carried weight, but armour is still restrictive simply because it's bulky, and grappling is still restrictive because they're trying to suffocate you. Buoyant armour helps swimming, but doesn't help grappling. Armour training helps your speed in armour, but doesn't let you carry more bricks.

At some level, yes, you can generalize all types of impediments, but at some other level, the difference are crucial.

[Fizban]

ACP is also supposed to include some amount of rattling in the armor I think, for Move Silently purposes. If anything I'd say divorce the weight encumbrance penalties from how they mimic armor, because that's the weird part when a pack is completely different from armor (unless the distinction is it being a Well Secured pack that's strapped close to your body all over the place, in which case it should take a lot longer to access and be impossble to just drop like some people want).

Everything I've read about armor does seem to agree that there are varying amounts of stiffness and that was a factor in design- which does not disagree with the fact that you can move around and do certain things in most armors. There's definitely room to have differences, but the main way these matter mechanically is in the max dex bonus. Removing ACP and replacing it with something based on max dex (heck, maybe even just applying max dex to str/dex in the appropriate skills [str also requires freedom of movement for leverage], or as a "max ranks" limit) would make sense. Then do speed/run by weight- as long as you figure out how to compensate for that making all "heavy" armors into light armors when people assume 20+ str builds all the time.

[BassoonHero]

Their sources do not behave the same, so why force them into the same mechanic?
We can be as granular or as general as we like. Just because the rules are currently granular in the source of the encumbrance does not mean that that granularity serves a logical purpose.

For example, heavy armor decreases speed, but it doesn't give any penalty to attacks (as long as you're proficient). Re-enactors and LARPers perennially complain that 3.5 exaggerates the burden of a suit of armor, but if we take the written effects seriously, then how is it that the armor slows your legs enough to cut your speed by a third but doesn't slow your arms enough to impose a penalty on attack rolls? My point isn't to complain about the implementation of armor encumbrance, but to argue that the mechanical distinction between that and other forms of encumbrance does not reflect a realistic distinction.

That's not to say that a unified encumbrance mechanic could reasonably cover every sort of movement restriction. I mentioned bound hands as a counterexample; your examples of grappling and walls also don't seem to fit either. It's just as important to identify what doesn't fit in as what does.

[Silly Name]

how is it that the armor slows your legs enough to cut your speed by a third but doesn't slow your arms enough to impose a penalty on attack rolls?
Well, that has an easy answer: heavy armor doesn't slow down your legs. It's not like it produces a miniature, localised gravitational field. While 3.5 exaggerates how encumbering armor is, what it doesn't get wrong is that how much the weight you carry influences your movement speed isn't correlated to how well you can swing your weapon.

Armor is heavy, which means it takes more effort to move while wearing it than without. D&D translates this as a reduction to the movement speed of the wearer. However, the weight you need to move to walk is considerably less than the weight you need to move to swing or thrust or cut with your weapon of choice.

[ManicOppressive]

Well, that has an easy answer: heavy armor doesn't slow down your legs. It's not like it produces a miniature, localised gravitational field. While 3.5 exaggerates how encumbering armor is, what it doesn't get wrong is that how much the weight you carry influences your movement speed isn't correlated to how well you can swing your weapon.

Armor is heavy, which means it takes more effort to move while wearing it than without. D&D translates this as a reduction to the movement speed of the wearer. However, the weight you need to move to walk is considerably less than the weight you need to move to swing or thrust or cut with your weapon of choice.

I don't think this was the design intention simply because there are no accommodations made for strength in the matter. A character with 24 STR and 24 DEX still loses the same amount of movement speed from a 30 lb breastplate, even though that person is capable of picking up an entire other warrior wearing full armor, throw them over their shoulder, and proceed at their full movement speed. (Light encumbrance is around 230 lbs for 24 STR.) And incidentally, that character now also has exactly the same DEX as someone with 16 DEX wearing the exact same armor, which implies that Dexterity is not just hindered but entirely ceases to be possible wearing armor, which is decidedly not the case.

[BassoonHero]

Armor is heavy, which means it takes more effort to move while wearing it than without. D&D translates this as a reduction to the movement speed of the wearer.


I don't think this was the design intention simply because there are no accommodations made for strength in the matter.

I would tend to agree. Armor is heavy, but there is already a mechanic for being overburdened by heavy things -- carrying capacity. Strong characters can carry more heavy things without penalty. Armor is subject to this mechanic just like any other heavy object. But armor has an extra mechanic that imposes penalties to any wearer, regardless of the armor's weight or the wearer's strength. If the idea is that armor is clumsy and restrictive separately from and additionally to the mere burden of a heavy pile of metal, then it's not clear why the penalty applies to movement speed and to athletic skills, but not to attack rolls.

I hesitate to appeal to realism, both because I'm not an expert in medieval armor and because D&D is a game of abstractions that must sometimes leak. But I don't see what the additional penalty for wearing armor represents above and beyond the weight of the armor that is already accounted for. I can speculate that it may have originated in the same place as 3.0's infamous fifteen-pound greatsword -- in an ahistorical stereotype based on unwieldy decorative pieces and inauthentic reproductions. (I don't mean to dismiss this stereotype out of hand; the trope of the hulking brute encased in metal is a venerable one, and it's an important point of reference despite being largely fictional.)

I actually like the armor mechanics in principle. When you're encumbered, you move more slowly and suffer penalties to many physical actions. But I also like having a character's strength on the other side of the scale, as it is with carrying capacity. A strong fighter who's proficient in heavy armor can wear it without issue, while a weaker character might need to wear something lighter.

The biggest consequence of a unified system in regard to armor is that a very strong character wearing heavy armor would not suffer the movement and skill penalties that they currently do. I am not especially worried about this, because the movement penalties are trivially avoided anyway by well-known magic and because skill-wise, these characters need all the help they can get. On the other hand, some classes that get "free" heavy armor proficiency (*cough* clerics) may be adversely affected if they dump Str. In general, I expect that characters would choose to avoid encumbrance penalties, which would have the side benefit of reducing the number of fiddly modifiers.

[Elkad]

If you call it Encumbrance and not Weight, you can probably simplify somewhat

Armor (worn) might encumber you at 2x it's weight. It restricts your movement somewhat, but you can overcome it. Maybe masterwork is 1.75x. Mithril is 1.0.

Same with bulky objects. I can run with 70lbs in a pack, but a 70lb mattress reduces me to not much more than a stagger. Double or Triple encumbrance.

Solid Fog? I dunno. Adds your body weight to your encumbrance? Reduces your effective str by CL of the Solid Fog?

[flappeercraft]

You also missed max dexterity bonus and ASF. Yeah it's stupid, that's why I always use gnome twistcloth in my characters unless they don't care about that stuff.

Also relevant video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAzI1UvlQqw) on how stupid the armor encumberance is in game

[Elkad]

Max Dex bonus.

Just ditch it.
Instead the ACP becomes a dex penalty (yes, if you dumpstat your dex and wear the wrong armor, you could technically paralyze yourself - functionally, the armor is so unbalanced you can't even manage to stand up, though I might let you stagger around at 5'/rnd if I felt nice)

Change ASF to a straight dex check, DC is 10+spell level. Taking 10 is specifically allowed, and of course the armor penalty applies.

[DeTess]

Max Dex bonus.

Just ditch it.
Instead the ACP becomes a dex penalty (yes, if you dumpstat your dex and wear the wrong armor, you could technically paralyze yourself - functionally, the armor is so unbalanced you can't even manage to stand up, though I might let you stagger around at 5'/rnd if I felt nice)
.

This'd significantly hamper heavy armor classes, as they'd become MAD as they suddenly need a very decent dex bonus to stop being crippled by armor. I like the idea, but I'd just rule that the armor's max dex bonus applies to all checks involvinh dex except attack rolls.

[Ravens_cry]

Encumbrance has never been something I've seen much point in micromanaging. It doesn't really add much to the game as far as fun or even immersion goes. Unless you're going for some build that uses it, like one that involve throwing big objects to do damage, I more or less ignore it.

[BassoonHero]

If you call it Encumbrance and not Weight, you can probably simplify somewhat
That's the intent.


Armor (worn) might encumber you at 2x it's weight. It restricts your movement somewhat, but you can overcome it. Maybe masterwork is 1.75x. Mithril is 1.0.

Same with bulky objects. I can run with 70lbs in a pack, but a 70lb mattress reduces me to not much more than a stagger. Double or Triple encumbrance.

It makes sense for encumbrance to depend on how you're carrying something, but I'm hesitant to add that level of detail. Keeping track of the weight of individual items already has a high hassle/relevance ratio, and I'd prefer to make it less granular rather than more.

Spitballing, I'd rather ignore weight and simply assign points to heavy or bulky items. Perhaps full plate mail is five points, a two-handed weapon is one, and so on. Small items are effectively weightless; if a character buys ten thousand "weightless" candles, then the DM should give them a stern look, not make everyone else add up the weight of potions and trail rations. (If a party is, say, spending a month travelling though a desert, then it would make sense to figure out how much food and water they can carry, but given how easy it is to solve this problem with low-level magic I'm not sure that it would ever be worth the trouble.)

All that said, I'm not sure that it would make sense to make worn armor more cumbersome. Armor is designed to be worn, and I doubt that carrying it on your limbs is going to be significantly more awkward than carrying it on your back. An armored character who wants to take a load off can toss their armor into a pack mule's saddlebags or a bag of holding.

On the other hand, a nonprofiency penalty would make sense -- perhaps doubling the encumbrance if you're wearing armor you're not proficient in. This would represent the awkwardness of trying to function normally in armor you don't really know how to move in, or even correctly don and adjust.


Solid Fog? I dunno. Adds your body weight to your encumbrance? Reduces your effective str by CL of the Solid Fog?
I'd say just add a flat number to a character's encumbrance. A character near their encumbrance limit (i.e. barely avoiding penalties) would be severely affected, but a strong character packing light would have less trouble. In the case of Solid Fog, there would also be a separate speed penalty representing the work of pushing through a dense fluid; the encumbrance penalty would only replace the ad-hoc penalty to melee attack and damage rolls.


You also missed max dexterity bonus and ASF.
I'm not quite sure what to do with those. Max dex has weird, anti-scaling properties, whereas ASF is offensively easy to work around and mostly hits gishes. Perhaps every point of excess encumbrance might add 10% spell failure. If a wizard has the strength and proficiency to manage plate mail, then good for them, I guess. Max dex I could go without entirely.


Also relevant video on how stupid the armor encumberance is in game
I'll have to watch that later; thanks for the link.

[hr]


Instead the ACP becomes a dex penalty (yes, if you dumpstat your dex and wear the wrong armor, you could technically paralyze yourself - functionally, the armor is so unbalanced you can't even manage to stand up, though I might let you stagger around at 5'/rnd if I felt nice)
This sounds quite harsh. It would largely offset the AC bonus of the armor, and your touch AC would go down. I guess you could increase the armor bonus to compensate, but it would still be a nasty nerf for armored characters. Plus, ability penalties are annoying to deal with.

[hr]


Encumbrance has never been something I've seen much point in micromanaging. It doesn't really add much to the game as far as fun or even immersion goes. Unless you're going for some build that uses it, like one that involve throwing big objects to do damage, I more or less ignore it.
I agree that encumbrance as written is a hassle. One of my pet peeves is "fiddliness", where a mechanic requires a lot of bookkeeping for a small effect, and keeping track of item weight is definitely fiddly. I'm hoping that a unified system would be less fiddly than its parts, folding disparate mechanics into a single, simple number.

[hr]

Based on all of the feedback thus far, I'm thinking of a derived Encumbrance score:

- Your base score is 5 plus your Str modifier (i.e. half your strength score, rounded down).
- Armor check penalties would become penalties to this score (with some adjustment).
- Heavy or bulky items would also be worth a point or two.
- Some spells or circumstances might add their own penalties.
- Dwarves get a racial bonus (instead of their current feature).
- Feats, flaws, magic items, and other mechanics may apply.

If your encumbrance score is negative, you are "encumbered" and suffer penalties to:

- Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution checks.
- Most physical skills.
- Attack rolls.
- Reflex saves.
- Initiative (a dexterity check).
- Speed, according to a table.
- Casting spells with somatic components, by way of a spell failure mechanic.

How does this look?

[Blue Jay]

Based on all of the feedback thus far, I'm thinking of a derived Encumbrance score:

- Your base score is 5 plus your Str modifier (i.e. half your strength score, rounded down).
- Armor check penalties would become penalties to this score (with some adjustment).
- Heavy or bulky items would also be worth a point or two.
- Some spells or circumstances might add their own penalties.
- Dwarves get a racial bonus (instead of their current feature).
- Feats, flaws, magic items, and other mechanics may apply.

If your encumbrance score is negative, you are "encumbered" and suffer penalties to:

- Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution checks.
- Most physical skills.
- Attack rolls.
- Reflex saves.
- Initiative (a dexterity check).
- Speed, according to a table.
- Casting spells with somatic components, by way of a spell failure mechanic.

How does this look?

I watched the video flappeercraft posted. To me, the most salient observation is that the men were still able to succeed on all their skill checks (to use game lingo) while encumbered with armor/gear, but it took them a whole lot longer compared to when they weren't encumbered, and they were clearly fatigued afterwards.

So, the idea that encumbrance should impose a penalty on "pass/fail" mechanics (such as most d20 rolls) doesn't necessarily seem like it's the best fit to me. If skills and checks all had a continuous range of possible outcomes (like the Jump skill's distance measurements) instead of binary outcomes, then maybe a penalty on d20 rolls would make more sense.

But, I almost feel like encumbrance should instead impose penalties to the action economy for skill checks, or invoke some "physical exertion" rules. A certain degree of encumbrance would require a certain number of extra actions to perform a skill check, or require you to make extra Fort saves against fatigue.

For example, a Swim check lets you move half your speed as a full-round action. Maybe a guy with Medium encumbrance takes two full-round actions to complete that Swim check, and a guy with Heavy encumbrance takes three full-round actions. Or something comparable.

And then, maybe you would normally have to make a Fort save vs fatigue for every 10 minutes of continuous swimming. But a guy with Medium encumbrance needs to make the save every 5 minutes, and a guy with Heavy encumbrance needs to save every 2 minutes. This would have the added benefit of allowing a character's physical health to directly oppose the effects of encumbrance.

On the other hand, this idea doesn't really lend itself well to a uniform mechanic: you'd need special considerations for how encumbrance affects each type of skill or check, so it would end up being quite an extensive set of modifications to the game.

At the very least, encumbrance penalties should be relaxed a bit for checks with pass/fail results, because the severity of the consequences can pretty often be quite unfair for guys in heavy armor.

[BassoonHero]

But, I almost feel like encumbrance should instead impose penalties to the action economy for skill checks, or invoke some "physical exertion" rules. A certain degree of encumbrance would require a certain number of extra actions to perform a skill check, or require you to make extra Fort saves against fatigue.
I like the idea, but I'm hesitant to implement something like this in the absence of a unified fatigue mechanic. In D&D, armored and unarmored characters alike can fight a pitched battle indefinitely with only token concessions to physical fatigue. Arguably, this is a genre thing -- action heroes don't get tired. I'm not sure that taking fatigue into account only for armored characters makes sense. When a character does make a constitution check, such as to continue a forced march, then their encumbrance penalty should apply.

[Fizban]

One other thing to note about the current system-

Some things I'm keeping in mind:

- Even weak characters should be able to carry a reasonable load of equipment.
There's a difference between being able to carry a load, and being able to run around completely without penalty. A str 4 character, one point above the minimum roll or an average 70+ year old average human (who started with str 10 before the cumulative -6 from aging), can still carry up to 40 lbs. Yeah, they slow down some. Most people do when they're carrying a 20, 30, 40lb load. The 33lb light load for str 10 is perfectly reasonable.