Encumbrance Damage

[Fax Celestis]

A concept I've heard mention of but have never seen in practical use is the idea of dealing damage directly to a target's encumbrance capacity. As such, I'm currently considering it in some homebrew of mine, but I want to see what people think relative power for it is.

So, I suppose I have two questions. The first: how strong is the idea of encumbrance damage? The second: what other, alternative forms of damage can you think of (initiative damage? movement speed damage? item slot damage?)?

[blue_fenix]

Make your characters track how much they are actually carrying and then put them up against something that deals strength damage? Only problem is that with bags of holding and so on, most players aren't anywhere near their carrying limits, and even if they were.. "I drop my backpack full of heavy items on the ground." The reduction in melee ability would be the bigger concern.

On the other hand, a custom spell that requires a fort save or act as if you were under a heavy load for 1 round/Level could work as a low-level status effect spell. Don't bother with numerical adjustments to weight, just say it "makes the target feel as if they were under an extremely heavy load"

Movement speed reduction exists as the Solid Fog spell. Reducing someone's initiative is often meaningless if it doesn't actually cause them to have fewer turns. Suppressing someone's magic items can be accomplished with dispel magic.