Stoutstein's 'Bulk' System

[TigerT20]

So, in the thread about carrying capacity stoutstein mentioned wanted to make a 'bulk' system where items are given a 'bulk' and you have a total amount of 'bulk' you can carry.

I've explored a similar house rule, although it had holes, so I was intrigued about the idea of fleshing this out.
So, credit to stoutstein for kicking this off, and here's what I have so far:

You can carry up to 5 * your Strength score in Bulk without penalty. Above that limit, you are lightly encumbered, and your speed becomes 20 feet. While encumbered, racial speed modifiers have no effect, and you cannot benefit from any passive bonus to speed such as Unarmored Movement, although you can still benefit from temporary effects such as spells. You also lose any swim or climb speed you may have.

If carrying more than 10 * their Strength score, you are heavily encumbered, decreasing your speed further to 10 feet, and giving you disadvantage on attack rolls, Dexterity and Strength saving throws, and all physical ability checks. You also lose any fly speed you may have.

If you are carrying more than 15 * your Strength score, you are over-encumbered, and your movement speed becomes 0.

Items with a weight of 0 or tiny items such as paper, quills, and anything that can be fit in your palm do not count towards encumbrance, nor do empty bags, worn clothing, light armour or jewellery.
Items with a weight between 1 - 3 lbs., such as daggers, torches or a pair of merchant's scales have a bulk of 1/2.
Items with a weight between 4 - 5 lbs., such as maces, grappling hooks or a herbalism kit have a bulk of 1.
Items with a weight between 6 - 10 lbs., such as halberds, bedrolls or a set of alchemist's supplies have a bulk of 2.
Anything with a weight over 10 lbs., such as pikes, have a bulk equal to their weight rounded up to the nearest 5, divided by 5.

You may push/pull, drag or lift an object with a bulk of up to 15 * your Strength score. Other rules are as normal.

Now, I've built this to completely overestimate the amounts those with smaller Strength scores can carry.
So far if you have 10 Strength you may lift: 750 pounds (the average person can lift a fifth of that)
15 Strength: 1125 pounds (just over the world record)
20 Strength: 1500 pounds (the weight of a panda)
30 Strength, Gargantuan: 18000 lbs. (a howitzer)
1 Strength, Tiny: 37.5 lbs. (five gallons of water, or a human leg)

What are some suggestions to help fix the scores a bit? Would you want to use a system like this?

[Grod_The_Giant]

It's a slight improvement over traditional, "add up the weight of everything in your backpack," but only slightly-- you're reducing the time you spend looking at individual item weights, but you're still doing all the math and looking at all the same flaws. I don't think it's really worth it.

You shouldn't just slap in an encumbrance system for the sake of it. Eyeballing and "don't be unreasonable" functions just fine for most games. You should only be looking at paying attention to carrying capacity if you want to impose a certain specific feel on the game-- and if that's the case, you should use that as your starting point and build towards it from the bottom up. So... what's the feel you want this system to convey?

[HappyDaze]

What are the benefits to this? Do people actually think encumbrance can be made into something fun and interesting? If not, I'll just stick with the simple and easily forgotten basic 5e encumbrance rules.

[stoutstien]

I tend to just say carry capacity = Strength score and 1 item= 1 bulk. Equipped armor/shield/weapons don't count against total. For small items I just say carry whatever within reason.

Still haven't found a solid way to apply this to lifting/shoving larger items. For most games I just ask myself if Lou from the hulk can do it then so could a strong adventurer without much hassle.

[TigerT20]

It's a slight improvement over traditional, "add up the weight of everything in your backpack," but only slightly-- you're reducing the time you spend looking at individual item weights, but you're still doing all the math and looking at all the same flaws. I don't think it's really worth it.

You shouldn't just slap in an encumbrance system for the sake of it. Eyeballing and "don't be unreasonable" functions just fine for most games. You should only be looking at paying attention to carrying capacity if you want to impose a certain specific feel on the game-- and if that's the case, you should use that as your starting point and build towards it from the bottom up. So... what's the feel you want this system to convey?

Largely if I'm eyeballing, I'd want something to base the eyeball off. This did start out very simple, but multiplication was the only way to make people actually able to lift things. The original was 10/20/30 + your Strength.


I tend to just say carry capacity = Strength score and 1 item= 1 bulk. Equipped armor/shield/weapons don't count against total. For small items I just say carry whatever within reason.

Still haven't found a solid way to apply this to lifting/shoving larger items. For most games I just ask myself if Lou from the hulk can do it then so could a strong adventurer without much hassle.

I agree that with hindsight, your original method is definitely a lot better than this. The slight problem is that every item is the same, so someone carrying a portable ram is less encumbered than someone with two torches.

Thanks y'all for the replies :)