Help me make Encumbrance a thing!

[Man_Over_Game]

So I've been scratching my brain on coming up with an encumbrance system that is fluid enough that doesn't interfere with play, but impactful enough that there is value in picking the Goliath or the 2nd Bear Totem for the sake of dealing with it. Right now, those abilities sound cool in nature, but they're completely meaningless and never become relevant in a campaign. I'm hoping that, with your knowledge and experience, I can make something that's fun but meaningful.


If you have an idea, post it with an Admission Number (A001). If we have a suggestion for that admission, or a problem with it, we simply refer to that Admission Number. If we do any major edits on our submission, don't erase the old version but rather put it into a spoiler so that the version history is visible for all. I'm going to go through my admissions and apply this. I'm really looking forward to any of your suggestions.

So far, I see three major concerns that need to be addressed with any kind of weight system:

Problem 1: Making sure it doesn't create too much micromanagement.
Problem 2: Making sure that it doesn't slow down adventuring due to realism.
Problem 3: Making sure that the system does force players to think about weight and consider how to manage it (like via carts, animals, or removable packs)


Plate armor weighs 65 pounds and requires 15 strength, and I think that's a good point to refer to when it comes to determining some encumbrance rules. Something to ponder is how much should a 15 Str hero be able to carry and fight if he's already carrying 65 pounds.

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Here's my suggestion A001



You have a maximum weight capacity equal to 10x your Strength attribute.
You have a comfortable weight capacity equal to half of your maximum. If you carry more than this, you're encumbered.
An item's weight value is based on the whole pound it is, rounded down (minimum 0). If it weighs less than a pound it has no impact on your weight amount, even when carrying multiples.

While Encumbered,

Your speed is halved
If you take the Attack Action or the Cast A Spell Action, it requires you to also spend your Bonus Action
You have disadvantage to save on Dexterity or Strength saving throws

The main issue I see with this is that someone with a Strength 15 could only comfortably carry 75 pounds. After Plate Armor, that means they can carry up to 10 pounds more, barely enough for a decent weapon. Is that a problem? Does that seem reasonable? For a normal person, this seems about right; try hiking with 50 pounds on you and tell me if you want to go start a fight with someone.

Of course, feel free to offer your own example that addresses these concerns, too. I'm not looking necessarily for feedback on my own idea, but rather to find an idea that works the best for most people.

---------------------------------

If your worries are about encumbrance being too complicated, please mention why, and maybe add in a suggestion on how to fix it. If something appears too restrictive, please do the same thing.

Even if it's the most barebones encumbrance rules possible, that's still infinitely better than ignoring racial and class abilities like they don't even exist; I feel doing so would be the absolute worst case scenario.

What are your thoughts, guys?

[No brains]

I really don't know if there's a way to make encumbrance fun. Even in your OP, you put a lot of emphasis on what it shouldn't do as opposed to what it should do.

The goal of encumbrance rules are to emulate reality and maybe also to balance the flow/ profit of adventuring. If you can heavily abstract those ideas, maybe it could help you with en-fun-brance.

Perhaps you could go with some form of 'backpack slot' system? Maybe streamlining categories of weight-to-value of treasures? How about just giving the players mules and not attacking the mules as a cruel joke?

If you want to make encumbrance matter for more than just hauling crap, define the weights of traps and monsters. How much does that dropping portcullis weigh? How strong does a barbarian need to be to throw an elephant? If you can think about those, players may value powerful build more.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I find that most players loath the idea of counting pounds (personal poll, I found exactly zero players who were willing to do it and threatened to have me do it if I tried to enforce it). You're also not considering spatial concerns which are equally as silly, really. How are you going to fit a suit of armor, two swords, and a halberd in your hip pouch, exactly?

For my games, I replaced this with a slot system. Worked wonders. It's the only form of encumbrance my players were willing to do.

[Man_Over_Game]

I find that most players loath the idea of counting pounds (personal poll, I found exactly zero players who were willing to do it and threatened to have me do it if I tried to enforce it). You're also not considering spatial concerns which are equally as silly, really. How are you going to fit a suit of armor, two swords, and a halberd in your hip pouch, exactly?

For my games, I replaced this with a slot system. Worked wonders. It's the only form of encumbrance my players were willing to do.

I was thinking about implementing something like that. How would you suggest implementing Strength, or features that increase load limits?

[Idkwhatmyscreen]

Let's remove all arithmetic from the table play.

You have a normal carrying capacity equal to your STR score (1/2 for small and double for large)

Each item is worth W/15 rounded up = Most items equal 1 or 2 with a player being allowed to carry 10-16 items

0 - 0.9 pounds = 0 points (don't count coins for example until there are 50)
1-15 pounds = 1 point

16-30 pounds = 2 points

31-45 pounds = 3 points

46-60 pounds = 4 points

Every point above your legal capacity reduces your speed by 5 ft.

So a gnome wizard with a str of 8 has 4 points, 1 for the spell book, 1 for the focus, 2 for the backpack and 0 for the 10 starting coins

[Waterdeep Merch]

I was thinking about implementing something like that. How would you suggest implementing Strength, or features that increase load limits?

I condensed all of the rules into a printable sheet that also tracks all of those items, but I need to be at home to access it. I'll post it here later tonight.

Strength directly determined how many slots you could carry, while features that improved carrying capacity did exactly what they said on the tin. Thanks to the stricter numbers, being able to carry double what a normal person could carry was both amazing and not all that busted. Mostly because they still had to obey container limitations.

I also replaced all of the magic items that essentially eliminate capacity issues with items that only lessen the burden. So bags of holding had grades, and each grade could carry one more slot than usual but otherwise still weigh the same. I reserved versions that actually eliminate some of their weight for 'very rare' rewards.

[Tiadoppler]

I use the Variant: Encumbrance rule from the Player's Handbook (PHB 176) which works fairly well.

Up to 5x your Strength score, there's no penalty.
5x to 10x your Strength, Speed -10' (many heavily-armored PCs and enemies go into battle encumbered, carrying lots of gear at the expense of speed)
10x to 15x your Strength, Speed -20', other penalties (as described in the PHB)
You cannot carry more than 15x your Strength.

The heaviest objects a PC carries are usually combat equipment and camping equipment.

I don't bother tracking the weight of small objects (paper, ink, quills, money, matches, etc.), unless the PC specifically states they're carrying a large number of them. Usually, I just assume that the PC is carrying 10lbs of Generic Useful Non-Magical Items that could be an extra fire-starter, compass or scrap of writing paper.

Also, more often than not, my players choose to invest in pack animals and wagons, in which case I'm happy to ignore encumbrance altogether, unless there's a specific case of someone trying to carry three sets of heavy armor through an obstacle course (yes, this has happened in my campaign).

Edit: It seems we've got similar ideas! Awesome.

Let's remove all arithmetic from the table play.

You have a normal carrying capacity equal to your STR score (1/2 for small and double for large)
I personally wouldn't 1/2 carrying capacity for small PCs, but I would double it for large creatures.


Encumbrance is a limitation on the PC, so it's hard to make it "fun". If I wanted to write my own homebrew encumbrance system, I'd start with this:

Replace weight (lbs) with "bulk" because lbs as a unit are too fiddly. Adding together 65+8+12+4+(1x19)+(3x2)+15 is not a good idea for a tabletop RPG, even though it works well for a computer game. Not because the math is hard, just because it can be annoying to do repeatedly.

Weight is not always useful for modelling how easy it is to move while carrying an item. I can easily lift a 20' long board, but carrying it down a narrow, twisty hallway is nearly impossible. At the same time, it's tough to put on a 100lb backpack, but I can easily jog down that same hallway while wearing it.


Each PC can carry up to (Strength Score) bulk without penalty.
Each PC can carry up to 2x(Strength Score) bulk, but moves at 1/2 speed.
As size category increases, the creature's bulk capacity doubles.

Small weapons (like daggers, clubs, shortswords, slings, hand crossbows) have 0 bulk
Medium weapons (like longswords, rapiers, shortbows, light crossbows, quarterstaffs, and shields) have 2 bulk
Large weapons (like pikes, halberds, greatswords, mauls, lances, longbows, heavy crossbows) have 4 bulk

Clothing has 0 bulk
Light armor has 1 bulk
Medium armor has 3 bulk
Heavy armor has 5 bulk

Coin Purse (< 10,000 gp): 0 Bulk (assuming 99 Platinum, 99 Gold + change)
Large Bag of Money (10,000 - 100,000 gp): 1 Bulk
Huge Sack of Moolah: 1 Bulk per 100,000 gp

A backpack full of camping supplies, food, water and miscellaneous small items has 3 bulk.

Carrying a creature (for example, a Mount carrying a Medium creature, or a Medium creature holding a Familiar):
Tiny: 2 Bulk
Small: 5 + their equipment Bulk
Medium: 10 + their equipment Bulk
Large: 20 + their equipment Bulk
As size category increases past Large, continue doubling the base creature Bulk.

When dragging, the effective bulk of the dragged item (or creature) is 1/2 the item's bulk, rounded up.



This makes the numbers small enough that the players can easily track it mentally. Most items have no real bulk (unless the DM decides that rule is being abused, and applies a bulk value to the 200 daggers the PC has stuffed into his bandolier).

It also encourages players to think through what large items they're making their characters carry around everywhere. "Carrying a halberd, and two or three spares" is out of the question for most PCs, even if the weight isn't too high.




So, a Fighter with 15 Strength, is wearing Heavy Armor (5 bulk), carrying a Greatsword (4 bulk) and a backpack (3 bulk) with a shield (2 bulk) strapped to it, and also wears a spare Short Sword (0 bulk) on his hip. His encumbrance is 14/15.
If he found a really nice set of light armor (1 bulk), he could find a place for it in his backpack without penalty.
He'd be over-encumbered (slowed down) if he had to carry a warhammer (2 bulk) at the same time.

[Joe the Rat]

The base model is 15xStr is your carry capacity, so you're already selling your players short. But we'll tweak that.

First stab:
1) Ignore your standard load-out. You've trained to run around like that. Meet your strength minimums, have the whole load in range, you're fine.
2) Set a load and slot system. Load is how much of something (mass and volume), slots are where you put it. Strength sets your load, your gear (packs, pouches, belts) sets your slots. Generally 1 Item = 1 load/slot. Extra bulky takes more.

Then it's a matter of taste on how big they are - assuming 5ish pounds (or a "pouch") as your load unit, STR or STRx2 is your maximum (by taste), half that your encumbered point. Sacks obviously have a ton of slots, but can't be geared - you have to use a hand "slot" to manage them.

[OldTrees1]

Isn't encumbrance already a thing with 15xStr score? Both my Dex based Rogue and my 15 Str Paladin have run into decisions about "is it worth it to carry this?" and there have been times the Rogues became encumbered while trying to drag someone away from a potential TPK.

[Man_Over_Game]

Isn't encumbrance already a thing with 15xStr score? Both my Dex based Rogue and my 15 Str Paladin have run into decisions about "is it worth it to carry this?".

There are the variant rules that rely on managing exact weight to a 4-condition system that adjusts based on how much you're carrying vs how much you can carry, which isn't ideal for a lot of people.

My example changes it to be 3 conditions (normal, encumbered, overweight) while ignoring the weight of anything small. But that's definitely not a perfect solution.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The only decent encumbrance system I've ever seen is this one: http://rottenpulp.blogspot.com/2012/06/matt-rundles-anti-hammerspace-item.html?m=1

[ATHATH]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y2weNM4JtME

And yeah, you did explain why (to make abilities that interact with encumberance more meaningful, as far as I can tell, which I feel isn't exactly the best reason to add more fiddly bits to the system), but I like using that clip and I don't really think that your reason is a very good one.

[Vogie]

I was fiddling around with this slot-style encumbrance variant.

The base was along the lines of you get your starting kit/pack, any attuned items, and whatever armor you're wearing for free (as long as you were prof with the armor) then have 5+Strength slots of stuff on your person.

Most things will stack in the slots if they are the same, so you can hold a nice quantity of your normal stuff. The tiny things will fit into your kit/pack, as a sort of "component pouch" effect, and then anything larger goes into those slots. If you are carrying any more than that, then you start getting a speed reduction, and have to start making checks when you're trying to grab anything in combat. An over-encumbered person would have a growing DC based on the number of additional "slots" they had over their limit, and would start making the player:

drop things
grab the wrong thing
Misfire-type effects (accidently rip the scroll, load the arrow backwards)
lose bonus actions or reactions
lose concentration
if that Encumbrance DC got too high

I hadn't fleshed that out, and wasn't able to implement it before our group imploded due to a nasty breakup... I'll keep tinkering with it, though.

[PandaPhobia]

Of course, feel free to offer your own example that addresses these concerns, too. I'm not looking necessarily for feedback on my own idea, but rather to find an idea that works the best for most people.

[/B]

I came up with a formula for a ¨weight pool¨ that payer can subtract the things they carry from. (strength score + constitution modifier + proficiency bonus) x 5 = weight points.

I gave my players the option to split the points up into 5lb chunks to make keeping track of inventory simpler.

I have´nt tested it yet, but i have talked to a lot of people about it, and it should work ok!

[Tanarii]

I find that most players loath the idea of counting pounds (personal poll, I found exactly zero players who were willing to do it and threatened to have me do it if I tried to enforce it).
I have over thirty regular players that are willing to do the bare minimum, and tally up their standard kit exactly once, and then subtract that from their (variant) encumbrance limit to find how much extra treasure they can carry.

It probably helps that I have the standard pack weights available for easy adding.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I have over thirty regular players that are willing to do the bare minimum, and tally up their standard kit exactly once, and then subtract that from their (variant) encumbrance limit to find how much extra treasure they can carry.

It probably helps that I have the standard pack weights available for easy adding.

I envy your lot. The only counting my players ever seem excited to do involves HP and damage.

They can't even be bothered to tally all their own gold these days. They nominated a treasurer.

[Tanarii]

I envy your lot. The only counting my players ever seem excited to do involves HP and damage.

They can't even be bothered to tally all their own gold these days. They nominated a treasurer.I've run and played with players like that.

Heck, I've been a player like that. Sometime you just wanna lop off some Orc heads and throw dice. :smallamused:

[Theodoxus]

[snip - bulk discussion]

This is what PF2 did. I don't know if you modified their rules or came up with this on your own, but I like the idea in general. I haven't tried it out in practice, however.

I just converted my entire campaign to using copper pieces as the basic unit of currency (rather than gold like 5E or silver, like PF2) so I'm wary of going back through and re-orging the gear table with bulk, but someday I probably will. It just makes more intuitive sense - although I'd probably make it a value based on strength and constitution - afterall, it's easy enough to carry an extra 50 pounds of gear... it's less easy to do so for 12 hours of a forced march, if my hazy memory of hiking the mountains of California as a boy scout are accurate...

ETA:
The only decent encumbrance system I've ever seen is this one: http://rottenpulp.blogspot.com/2012/06/matt-rundles-anti-hammerspace-item.html?m=1

The only real issue I have with this is it isn't encumbrance, but it would be a great add-on to the encumbrance problem. You could easily have a "bulk and container" system, where you're limited by both. Bulk might be Strength mod and container might be Constitution mod (possibly adding PB to both, if you want to see marked improvements at each tier.

This would certainly require some initial fiddling with numbers provided above to get a good feel - though armor and weapons naturally fall into categories pretty easy. I'd rule armor is 1 point of bulk per category (light, medium and heavy) with an additional point of bulk if it forces disadvantage on stealth checks (though I wouldn't necessarily remove the bulk if you took the MAM feat - but I'm open to discussion on that point). As for container space, I'd probably just state armor takes one whole slot, regardless of type - just to make it easier.

Weapons would fall under a similar build. Simple are 2 bulk, Martial are 3; -1 for light, +1 for heavy and/or two-handed. Container space would probably just be 1 for light, 2 for "normal" and 3 for heavy and/or two-handed.

Alternately, you could add in the slot system as well; container space limited by slots... torso, hips/waist, leg/feet, back. Thus you couldn't overload your waist with a skirt of swords while technically being within your 'bulk' and 'container' limit.

Again, setting this all up is a big task, but once finalized, it would make encumbrance and loot hauling a snap.

[LudicSavant]

The number one thing you could change to make an encumbrance system play faster is for it to not be concerned with knowing the exact weight of items in pounds (or otherwise needing to look up a specific encumbrance stat for any given item)

[Tiadoppler]

This is what PF2 did. I don't know if you modified their rules or came up with this on your own, but I like the idea in general. I haven't tried it out in practice, however.[/FONT]

Oh, really? I'm suddenly interested in PF2! I started tabletop D&D with 4e, and never looked into Pathfinder at all.

I think it might be a cool way to limit a character to a few main items at a time. Moving around with a pike or shield isn't easy. It'd be nice to have a well fleshed-out system that doesn't treat a very long and awkward pole as a simple "12 lbs"

[Man_Over_Game]

The number one thing you could change to make an encumbrance system play faster is for it to not be concerned with knowing the exact weight of items in pounds (or otherwise needing to look up a specific encumbrance stat for any given item)

Not a bad idea, I was thinking about something like that.

A009
Maybe each small container was worth 1 "bulk".
Tools and Adventuring gear is worth 2 bulk
Each Light weapon is worth 1
Each 1-handed weapon is worth 2
Each 2 handed weapon is worth 4
Each heavy weapon is worth 5
Light armor is 3
Medium is 5
Heavy Armor is 7
Your backpack is worth 3 bulk, but holds up to 10.

You can carry up to your Strength attribute comfortably, but carrying any more will make you encumbered
You can carry double your Strength attribute while encumbered.

Small containers can hold pretty much an indefinite amount, but can only hold 1 kind of thing (bolts, rations, marbles, etc.)

This doesn't seem too terribly complex.

An 8 Str Wizard could wear his light armor (worth 3), his quarterstaff (worth 2) and his backpack (worth 3). Inside of his backpack are a number of scrolls (1), some rope (2) some rations (1) and other adventuring tools (2x3).
A 15 Str Fighter could wear his heavy armor (worth 7), his heavy weapon (worth 5), and his backpack (3), and has just enough to carry a side arm on his leg (1).

There would be some obvious exceptions, like an enhanced backpack, a bag of holding, or a belt of daggers (which can hold 10 daggers but only takes 3 bulk).

[Kane0]

I second the counting pounds thing, it's in the same vein of niche appeal as tracking ammo and rations.

Rough suggestion:
- You can carry an amount of equal to your STR score, and lift/drag double that
- Most items count as 1, in stacks where appropriate for potions, scrolls, coins, etc.
- Two handed items (such as crossbows and glaives) count as 2. Light/medium/heavy armor count as 2/4/6 respectively.
- Features that increase carry capacity such as from being a Goliath increases the amount you can carry by 50% (or prof bonus?)
- Going over the amount you can carry raises you to 2 levels of exhaustion until you go below your limit and finish a short or long rest

[Waterdeep Merch]

Finally back home and done with my cooking duties for the evening. Here's the promised system-

https://66.media.tumblr.com/083d7baf7b29b2d4fd0d4f3ee071aa37/tumblr_pgttwjyAQT1xgchhuo1_1280.png

If you like it, PM me an email and I can send you a proper PDF.

[Tanarii]

Slot systems seem far more complicated for a player to keep track of than just tallying their gear weight, figuring out spare weight for carrying treasure, and then occasionally updating for major equipment changes.

I'd guess it's more fun for players that enjoy detailed inventory management with a layout like that though.

[Knaight]

The only decent encumbrance system I've ever seen is this one: http://rottenpulp.blogspot.com/2012/06/matt-rundles-anti-hammerspace-item.html?m=1

Torchbearer uses something very similar to this - then there's Mouseguard, which is in the same vein except for you have a silhouette of a mouse and you draw all their stuff on it somewhere.

[GorogIrongut]

Out of everything said here, three main points struck me mentally.
1. No one wants the hassle of tallying up weight. Very understandable.
2. Strength is nerfed because no one looks at encumbrance. Even without encumbrance Str is nerfed compared to Dex.
3. Players might be willing to tally up their weight once so they can work out how much treasure they can lug home.
This is the nugget that I really liked.

If I were to implement rules like this, I would do it very simply.
-Whatever gear you carry normally, your character has become accustomed to carrying. Within reason, encumbrance doesn't enter the picture. Any new item of significant weight added to their new setup counts against their encumbrance slot for a month unless counterbalanced by the character dropping something of equivalent weight. This could be said to represent built up passive endurance and the only thing a DM would have to do is to keep an eye on characters to make sure that their players don't take the piss with this.
-Strength is still related to encumbrance. Each +1 to their modifier allows the character to carry 10 extra pounds of loot. This could be considered an encumbrance slot. The character is able to carry this weight above and beyond their normal load for no more than 2 days without getting a level of exhaustion. Should a player exceed their alloted slots, their movement is halved. A player is unable to exceed their alloted slots by a factor of two.

By linking encumbrance to the gathering of loot, it would make it more appealing to the players to track. While still keeping the system relatively simple and thus not tedious.

[DeadMech]

I don't understand the issue. I mean the standard and the alternate rules for encumbrance are a thing already. You might simplify the math involved (at the cost of edge cases in rounding throwing things out of balance) but at the end of the day it's only fun, meaningful, and non-intrusive as you and your players make it.

I'm the kind of degenerate that likes this fiddly inventory tetris stuff. I re-add up the weight of my gear between sessions and keep as accurate as tally as I can during play each time I gain or use up items. Ask other people to carry my rations or the like when I'm getting high, buy a mule or whatever to manage.

Other people can't be bothered to even keep track of their sheets and make sure to bring them on game night. Or they can't be bothered to put in the tiniest bit of work between sessions and instead try to keep doing all their math at the table. Or they just ignore it until the DM demands an encumbrance audit and then find out they they are hauling around about three times their limit.

And I suspect changing the rules isn't going to change who falls into which side of that spectrum all that much. The number of players that lean into embracing encumbrance gained from simplification of math will probably end up equaling the number of players who lean away from it because now it's another off the book house rule to keep track of.

I would suggest though that if you do use any alternate rules that lower the amount of weight or equipment PC's generally can carry that you should make this one special allowance. Worn armor should get a discount. Carrying a suit of armor in your arms is unwieldy. Wearing its' weight evenly dispersed over the entirety of your body is not. You might think that lowering the amount of weight people can carry encourages people to play higher strength characters and play styles buy you would be wrong. Because high strength play styles require higher weight equipment.

[Edenbeast]

With all due respect, but the system is already quite simple when it comes to carrying stuff. Have enough strength to carry around five extra warhammers, fine. Where do you store them? In my backpack, together with my food, potions, and my 10 bottles of beer. I do like my sandwich of beer's endurance.

I think the variant rules for encumbrance are fine. We're not playing the game with 3-year olds who just learned to count with their fingers. The players are normally able to calculate their gc, xp, and hp. Then they should just as well be able to calculate what they're carrying, and therefore know if their character is encumbered or not. They know when they're dead, don't they? Or do we need simplified rules for that as well?

[Theodoxus]

We're not playing the game with 3-year olds who just learned to count with their fingers.

I can tell you don't play at my tables... adults use their fingers to count all the time; mental math is a lost art form...

[Tiadoppler]

I think the variant rules for encumbrance are fine. We're not playing the game with 3-year olds who just learned to count with their fingers. The players are normally able to calculate their gc, xp, and hp. Then they should just as well be able to calculate what they're carrying, and therefore know if their character is encumbered or not. They know when they're dead, don't they? Or do we need simplified rules for that as well?

I get your point, but I'd bring up two things:

1) I frequently DM for children who want to play D&D and want to know what they're carrying, but have trouble with triple-digit mental math. Even though they can add and subtract arbitrary two and three digit numbers, it can be slow, depending on their age.

2) There is a great simplified rule for XP: it's called milestone leveling and it's really, really popular. Because it's easy. I haven't played in, or DMed a game that uses Experience Points since... 2012? I don't miss them. Death Saving Throws are a simplified way of telling when someone's dead.


I too use the Variant rules for encumbrance. Those rules are usually fine, but they could be improved and streamlined. There's no particular reason Encumbrance needs to be difficult and accurate down to the 1/10 lb. Encumbrance rules being too difficult is one reason that 1) players ignore it and 2) WotC sets the encumbrance weight arbitrarily high, so even an average person can run all day while carrying 150lbs of gear. If the rule was simpler, players would use it more, and Strength would be a better stat.

[Willie the Duck]

I have over thirty regular players that are willing to do the bare minimum, and tally up their standard kit exactly once, and then subtract that from their (variant) encumbrance limit to find how much extra treasure they can carry.
It probably helps that I have the standard pack weights available for easy adding.


I envy your lot. The only counting my players ever seem excited to do involves HP and damage.
They can't even be bothered to tally all their own gold these days. They nominated a treasurer.

I think adding it up once, saying, "okay, you have X pounds to work with for treasure before [penalty or max]. Try to remember, and if you end up having to carry an unconscious ally, we will be looking at these numbers and you might have to leave expensively purchased gear behind. So don't treat my lax oversight as free rein to just load up without thought, because eventually it will bite you."


With all due respect, but the system is already quite simple when it comes to carrying stuff. Have enough strength to carry around five extra warhammers, fine. Where do you store them? In my backpack, together with my food, potions, and my 10 bottles of beer. I do like my sandwich of beer's endurance.

I think the variant rules for encumbrance are fine. We're not playing the game with 3-year olds who just learned to count with their fingers. The players are normally able to calculate their gc, xp, and hp. Then they should just as well be able to calculate what they're carrying, and therefore know if their character is encumbered or not. They know when they're dead, don't they? Or do we need simplified rules for that as well?

With all due respect, exactly so what? I'm glad you have faith in the average D&D player that they can do simple arithmetic. It's a refreshing break from the past and the type of forum-goer bitd that either wanted to declare 1) gamers an elite genius caste (of which they had membership), or 2) that they were the genius gamer that was bringing wisdom to the unwashed masses. But we're really not talking about capability. We are talking about interest and desire. Gaming is an optional activity, one you are usually doing with friends, and one where you choose the DM based on whether they are doing (and making you do) things that generally add to the level of fun. There's an inherent fun in your functional stat numbers (to-hit, etc.), hp, and whatever yardstick one measures success by (perhaps XP). There isn't usually one for encumbrance, certainly not fastidious tracking thereof.

There was one, in basic/classic D&D and AD&D 1e, when the dominant amount of XP was how many GP of gold you could cart out of a dungeon and back to town. And it was its own strange kind of fun doing that low-level (before everyone got bags of holding and draft animals and retainers and such) resource management where every bit of equipment you took into a dungeon might mean less xp you could cart out of it (or you might have to abandon equipment and buy it again, etc.). That was a vaguely fun challenge and I like adding gp=xp rules to 5e--for a certain type of gameplay that is fun once in a while. Otherwise, encumbrance is just accounting, and few people come to the table to play Papers and Paychecks. That's why the OP is looking for suggestions on how to make it easier. If it has to be a chore, we can make it a chore of low enough burden level that his players will put up with it, if it means their DM will find the game more enjoyable to DM.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think adding it up once, saying, "okay, you have X pounds to work with for treasure before [penalty or max]. Try to remember, and if you end up having to carry an unconscious ally, we will be looking at these numbers and you might have to leave expensively purchased gear behind. So don't treat my lax oversight as free rein to just load up without thought, because eventually it will bite you."



With all due respect, exactly so what? I'm glad you have faith in the average D&D player that they can do simple arithmetic. It's a refreshing break from the past and the type of forum-goer bitd that either wanted to declare 1) gamers an elite genius caste (of which they had membership), or 2) that they were the genius gamer that was bringing wisdom to the unwashed masses. But we're really not talking about capability. We are talking about interest and desire. Gaming is an optional activity, one you are usually doing with friends, and one where you choose the DM based on whether they are doing (and making you do) things that generally add to the level of fun. There's an inherent fun in your functional stat numbers (to-hit, etc.), hp, and whatever yardstick one measures success by (perhaps XP). There isn't usually one for encumbrance, certainly not fastidious tracking thereof.

There was one, in basic/classic D&D and AD&D 1e, when the dominant amount of XP was how many GP of gold you could cart out of a dungeon and back to town. And it was its own strange kind of fun doing that low-level (before everyone got bags of holding and draft animals and retainers and such) resource management where every bit of equipment you took into a dungeon might mean less xp you could cart out of it (or you might have to abandon equipment and buy it again, etc.). That was a vaguely fun challenge and I like adding gp=xp rules to 5e--for a certain type of gameplay that is fun once in a while. Otherwise, encumbrance is just accounting, and few people come to the table to play Papers and Paychecks. That's why the OP is looking for suggestions on how to make it easier. If it has to be a chore, we can make it a chore of low enough burden level that his players will put up with it, if it means their DM will find the game more enjoyable to DM.

Thanks, well put.

There are certain spell effects, like Enhance Ability, Tenser's Floating Disk, and others, that get overlooked. Bags of Holding are NICE, but not even that special since most people don't care about inventory requirements in the first place.

Telling someone the spell they prepared or the magic item they found or the feature they got has no real meaning can be incredibly frustrating, especially if it cost them something to get there (Tenser's, for example, cost you a prepared spell, money to learn, the scroll to find).

I think we should try something in a more orderly fashion, similar to how we do Q&A on this site. Rambling will only keep spinning us in circles.

If you have an idea, post it with an Admission Number (A001). If we have a suggestion for that admission, or a problem with it, we simply refer to that Admission Number. If we do any major edits on our submission, don't erase the old version but rather put it into a spoiler so that the version history is visible for all. I'm going to go through my admissions and apply this. Looking forward to any suggestions.

[Kharneth]

Before I get into my thoughts on encumbrance, I think the best piece of advice I can actually give you is to think of encumbrance as a positive thing to acquire and not a negative thing to avoid. Provide players with an advantage to carrying a light load and they will follow, but if you simply provide a disadvantage to carrying too much people will just not bother keeping track and will need to be forced. If you had a low burden, medium burden, and heavy burden you could limit people's maximum burden by penalizing heavy burden, but incentivize players to actually strategize their equipment by providing some sort of boon to having a low burden.

I've spent some time thinking about encumbrance and I have no idea how to effectively incorporate it into a game that doesn't use a computer. There is something I want to point out, though.

There are 3 different ways your equipment can be weighed, essentially. Armor that you wear does not take the same amount of effort to carry per pound as weapons that you're wielding in your hands or items you're carrying in a backpack or in pouches.

So, Plate Armor weights 65 lbs, but wearing it would take less effort than carrying 65 lbs of weight in your traveling pack. Also, the Strength 15 represents the ability to move without being slowed down in plate armor, which suggests that it's well above the minimum requirement. We also know that any healthy adult human being is capable of running around in plate armor.

It'd be way easier getting into a fight with someone if you're wearing 65 lbs rather than carrying 65 lbs, but then I wonder how/why our character fight with their backpacks on. I just assume either they take them off or, like a video game, everything inside the backpack just disappears into no-space.

What I'm getting it is that I'd start by doing something along the lines of saying any weight worn (armor/clothing) counts as 50% its total weight. Plate armor "counts" as 32.5 lbs, and if you can run without being slowed down I'd say you're likely between 50% and 75% capacity.

If you look at the equipment burden of medieval soldiers or modern soldiers you see them carrying and fighting in 60-100+ lbs of gear, some worn and more carried. I'm not sure how much of the equipment is taken off once they've arrived on a battlefield, like with medieval soldiers carrying all of their gear across countries, but if we want to assume the average soldier would have 15-16 Strength because the average soldier is able to fight with that much of a burden (even the guys without plate were still wearing 40-60 lbs of armor).

I'd probably estimate 15 Strength's capacity for a moderate encumbrance (moderate being what a typical soldier would experience) to be around 80, no greater than 100. No idea how that scales, though. If 10 Strength is average, I think it'd realistically only require between 10 and 12 Strength to effectively wear plate armor. Unless 20 Strength is much less than I'm imagining.

I can't think of any way to include encumbrance without it resulting in forcing you to add up all of the items you are carrying. Frankly, I think the best way to do encumbrance is to role-play it and call people out when they want to carry 4 spears, 2 suits of plate armor, 10 crossbows, and a suit of chainmail. I don't think it needs to be more complicated than you can effectively fight with all of that equipment or you can't. It is nice to have a correlation of strength to weight when it comes to lifting, pushing, and pulling, though to give a sense of how a strong character can interact with heavy objects in the environment.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Side note- this thread reminded me I had custom-built that encumbrance system for a different upcoming game I've been gearing up for the last half a year for, but it happens to be ideal for Dragon Heist, which my players just convinced me to run in the coming weeks. I introduced these rules to my players as a potential replacement and they bit. So I'll have some practical experience with it soon.

For this particular test run, I'm not going to draft specialty bags designed to work with the system and simply use what's listed in the PHB. My system essentially breaks down into ~10 pound increments, so they can use that as a simple guide for everything from pouches and backpacks to bags of holding and portable holes. Right now they're describing the system as 'genius' for their starting equipment, as they like the idea of items having a defined, real presence on their character that's simple to track, but it has yet to see play. We'll see if that enthusiasm lasts.

I'll try to make an honest assessment once the game gets rolling and they have to put it into actual practice.

[Tanarii]

I think adding it up once, saying, "okay, you have X pounds to work with for treasure before [penalty or max]. Try to remember, and if you end up having to carry an unconscious ally, we will be looking at these numbers and you might have to leave expensively purchased gear behind. So don't treat my lax oversight as free rein to just load up without thought, because eventually it will bite you."Personally I find this to be the simplest, and thus bare minimum, encumbrance system. Anything less than this and you're just saying "toss balance and realism out the window completely, there are no limits on carrying". Anything more, including slot systems, is additional complication for people that want more out of an encumberance system.

Not only that, they made the default encu,he range limit so high that you have to go out of your way to exceed it. T4 treasure hoards, lifting heavy gold statues, or using grappling rules to drag opponents around are about it.


Otherwise, encumbrance is just accounting, and few people come to the table to play Papers and Paychecks. That's why the OP is looking for suggestions on how to make it easier. If it has to be a chore, we can make it a chore of low enough burden level that his players will put up with it, if it means their DM will find the game more enjoyable to DM.
Right. And the 5e system of tallying up pounds is very close to the minimum burden for the chore. The only thing that was missing from the PHB was a weight next to the standard packs. So that you just have to add armor, weapons, and pack. Maybe 1 or two miscellaneous like a thieves tools or herbalism kit.

--------

Edit: I use variant encumberance. The players most heavily impacted without having to recalculate on the fly are clerics that dump Str (who find it hard to use the heavier Medium armors). The ones most heavily impacted who do have to recalculate on the fly are Thief Rogues that dump Str. Carrying enough caltrops and ballbearings to constantly use them every round with Fast Hands, while still worrying about getting treasure of og the dungeon/wilderness adventuring site, often requires some inventory juggling and having other people carry your re-rsupply.

[Toofey]

This is going to seem counter intuitive but by making it less of a thing. First off you need to just describe how heavy packs are getting etc... and make the rules clear for how encumbrance effects movement etc... But then also remind them that they can drop their packs as a free action at the start of the fight. Give them a few fights where this happens with no consequence, and watch them start stocking up on more and more stuff. Then throw an encounter at them where an enemy makes use of this to steal things the players care about, and watch them start narrowing down what they carry.

[Man_Over_Game]

So, Plate Armor weights 65 lbs, but wearing it would take less effort than carrying 65 lbs of weight in your traveling pack. Also, the Strength 15 represents the ability to move without being slowed down in plate armor, which suggests that it's well above the minimum requirement. We also know that any healthy adult human being is capable of running around in plate armor.

It'd be way easier getting into a fight with someone if you're wearing 65 lbs rather than carrying 65 lbs, but then I wonder how/why our character fight with their backpacks on. I just assume either they take them off or, like a video game, everything inside the backpack just disappears into no-space.

What I'm getting it is that I'd start by doing something along the lines of saying any weight worn (armor/clothing) counts as 50% its total weight. Plate armor "counts" as 32.5 lbs, and if you can run without being slowed down I'd say you're likely between 50% and 75% capacity.

If you look at the equipment burden of medieval soldiers or modern soldiers you see them carrying and fighting in 60-100+ lbs of gear, some worn and more carried. I'm not sure how much of the equipment is taken off once they've arrived on a battlefield, like with medieval soldiers carrying all of their gear across countries, but if we want to assume the average soldier would have 15-16 Strength because the average soldier is able to fight with that much of a burden (even the guys without plate were still wearing 40-60 lbs of armor).

I'd probably estimate 15 Strength's capacity for a moderate encumbrance (moderate being what a typical soldier would experience) to be around 80, no greater than 100. No idea how that scales, though. If 10 Strength is average, I think it'd realistically only require between 10 and 12 Strength to effectively wear plate armor. Unless 20 Strength is much less than I'm imagining.



From my understanding of how scaling is supposed to work in 5E, with bounded accuracy, the value of your attributes dramatically depends on your difference from 10.

Or, in easier terms, a 12 is uncommon, but a 14 is a straight up town hero. Despite the modifier being only +1 in difference, it dramatically puts you beyond normal human limitations. Most people have never met anyone with a 16 stat.

Plate armor is actually pretty unrealistic. There are not a lot of circumstances where it was used in real battle, and when it was used, it was with horses because it was so heavy and the stamina required for it in a sustained battle was impossible. Mostly they were ceremonial or used in fancy tournaments.

Our modern day soldiers carry about 80 pounds after including their carried weapons, and are causing long-lasting overburdening issues, including things like Arthritis before they hit their 30s. To avoid any kind of long-term issues, the goal for weight capacity is SUPPOSED to be around 50 lbs., but that's nearly impossible to maintain.

Naturally, our characters are superhuman, but that does give us a solid idea as to what is considered "normal". Very few people should be able to wear Plate armor and keep up in battle, which is why I think that the 15 Str requirement on the Plate armor is a good baseline for the "comfortable" limits for the weight capacity for that Strength-level character.

[Willie the Duck]

Personally I find this to be the simplest, and thus bare minimum, encumbrance system. Anything less than this and you're just saying "toss balance and realism out the window completely, there are no limits on carrying". Anything more, including slot systems, is additional complication for people that want more out of an encumberance system.
Not only that, they made the default encu,he range limit so high that you have to go out of your way to exceed it. T4 treasure hoards, lifting heavy gold statues, or using grappling rules to drag opponents around are about it.

Given how arbitrary a lot of the system they landed on is anyways--all coins are .02 lbs., food and water weights are differ at places within the book (at least in early printings, maybe they've fixed this), armor on your body 'encumbers' the same as something in your pack or a bulky art object you somehow carry-- plus the fact that the kind of adventuring we traditionally expect from our characters is inherently unrealistic, I'm of the mindset of 'Just keep it consistent, with well-established rules. Realism was never a serious contender.'

I am not sure which would be more minimalist of burden-counting up pounds, or a well-done slot system. Predominantly because I haven't seen a slot system which I found satisfactory.


Right. And the 5e system of tallying up pounds is very close to the minimum burden for the chore. The only thing that was missing from the PHB was a weight next to the standard packs. So that you just have to add armor, weapons, and pack. Maybe 1 or two miscellaneous like a thieves tools or herbalism kit.

I'm sure there could be a lessoned system. Basic equipment (anything on the equipment list with a certain symbol like * or & or the like instead of a listed encumbrance) all count as 'part of the pack' or the like. Something which only really tracks armor, weapons, food&water (probably as a single unit), and treasure. I can see something like that existing.

Regardless, you and I don't get a vote on the matter. Lots of people don't want to add up a list of weights for fishhooks, tinderboxes, bedrolls, and pitons, and thus encumbrance appears* to be a niche ruleset.
*As usual, we don't know exactly how much non-forum-goers differ.

[Man_Over_Game]

Hmm...

A lot of people are saying that "Weight is fine not being relevant, as long as it doesn't get ridiculous". Which makes sense. But that inherently is a weight system, even a simple one that's unorganized and doesn't requiring any tallies.

"No, you cannot carry that statue, because it's 100 lbs." But carrying 200lbs of gear is just fine.

Let's try something a little different. Rather than trying to make something accurate and working our way down (to make it simple), what's the simplest form of encumbrance that people would be comfortable with? I'm talking as barebones as it gets.

From there, we can try to work our way up and find a sweet spot that's simple but still requires attention. That way we can at least address the People's most common concern: it taking too much work.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Hmm...

A lot of people are saying that "Weight is fine not being relevant, as long as it doesn't get ridiculous". Which makes sense. But that inherently is a weight system, even a simple one that's unorganized and doesn't requiring any tallies.

"No, you cannot carry that statue, because it's 100 lbs." But carrying 200lbs of gear is just fine.

Let's try something a little different. Rather than trying to make something accurate and working our way down (to make it simple), what's the simplest form of encumbrance that people would be comfortable with? I'm talking as barebones as it gets.

From there, we can try to work our way up and find a sweet spot that's simple but still requires attention. That way we can at least address the People's most common concern: it taking too much work.
In my case, the annoyance is that no one I DM for wants to do inventory management until I tell them no on something. They're a bunch of hoarders in real life, so it shouldn't be surprising. And it's always something silly, and they always want to grind the game to a halt and suddenly do all the math they refused to do the whole game long to solve it. When I try to be authoritative and tell them 'no, move on', they get angry about it. And it's partly the default system's fault, because it's way too lenient and allows ridiculous crap.

So you'd think 'then don't tell them no'. Ha. Hahaha. Even if I were to ignore the situations where a player wants to drag an adult dragon corpse for parts or a literal ton of wrought iron because they have weird ideas about forging, the other players then get on their case instead. And they get mad if I tell them not to, again. So even if I don't say a word, they will try to stop my games for the next hour to do the inventory management that they weren't doing until that exact moment.

I can, and have, tried talking to the individual players that try to do these shenanigans. Unfortunately, it's almost the entire table. And they want to do it. They never care until there's interplay, after all.

Hence my decision to go with slots. It's easy to manage, easy to suss out, easy to argue, and there's interplay built-in and assumed from the beginning.

I also recognize this is not a normal problem, probably doesn't even apply to any but a tiny fraction of all tables, and is being done primarily for the benefit of me and the few players I have that hate this kind of slowdown as much as I do.

[Knaight]

Plate armor is actually pretty unrealistic. There are not a lot of circumstances where it was used in real battle, and when it was used, it was with horses because it was so heavy and the stamina required for it in a sustained battle was impossible. Mostly they were ceremonial or used in fancy tournaments.

The weight has been exaggerated, and modern historical sources have largely repudiated this view - as does a ton of medieval artwork which depicts it as ordinary, starting in the 1400's. The ceremonial armor was a side note, a fancy luxury market for showing off that never produced anywhere near as much as the big armorers did for actual warfare.

As for the stamina requirements, once actually in combat they weren't particularly huge. People tire relatively quickly regardless, plate speeds that up a bit in exchange for a huge amount of protection, hence its dominance on the late medieval battlefield. Yes, infantry often lightened it a bit (removing protection on the back of legs in particular), but in the context of people expecting to be attacked from multiple sides? It's not that unrealistic.

[Man_Over_Game]

Hmm...

A lot of people are saying that "Weight is fine not being relevant, as long as it doesn't get ridiculous". Which makes sense. But that inherently is a weight system, even a simple one that's unorganized and doesn't requiring any tallies.

"No, you cannot carry that statue, because it's 100 lbs." But carrying 200lbs of gear is just fine.

Let's try something a little different. Rather than trying to make something accurate and working our way down (to make it simple), what's the simplest form of encumbrance that people would be comfortable with? I'm talking as barebones as it gets.

From there, we can try to work our way up and find a sweet spot that's simple but still requires attention. That way we can at least address the People's most common concern: it taking too much work.

After thinking about it, a simple one could be:

Each container or handheld item that weighs less than 10 lbs, requires 1 bulk.
Each heavy item requires 3 bulk. Heavy items are weapons with Heavy, or any item that weighs over 10 lbs, like your Backpack or Armor.
Your backpack carries up to 5 bulk.
You can carry up to your Strength attribute in bulk comfortably, or double that and be encumbered.

Incredibly simple, you only have 2 weight categories to deal with, with the possibility of being encumbered, and you can realistically carry up to 50 pounds of equipment and still have room for your armor and weapon and some other things to spare.

So a Rogue with 8 Str could have some studded armor (3 bulk), a couple of weapons (2 bulk) and a backpack full of assorted tools and items.

It might be a little too simple, but easy enough that few people can complain about it being frustrating to track.