Simple Encumbrance

[Red Baron]

Weight of armor or clothing worn          Number of Possessions

None or light                                           18
Medium                                                  12
Heavy                                                     6


This allows wizards to carry a range of wands, potions, herbs, and other magical trinkets or fetishes. A fully armored knight however would need to leave his possessions on the baggage train.

If the average weight of an item is 5 pounds (roughly 100 pounds/18 items) and there are 10 gold pieces in a pound, than every 50 gold pieces carried counts as a possession. if a dagger is 500grams counts as a possesion.

A days worth of food is one possession. A days worth of water is one possession.



Or you could just ignore encumbrance, but i like the idea that for overland travel players need to watch how much food they have left. I also don't want players to be walking convenience stores. Do you bring the rope, the wand, or the rations?

[inkmeister]

Just a quick post from me, but I'll say I like what you've done. It's very simple, and yet takes encumbrance into account.

I haven't been using encumbrance in any of my games - I prefer to eyeball the situation. I think my players trust and respect my judgment, and they know that I won't let them get away with anything ridiculous. But I really like the idea of having a real system for encumbrance. Yours seems fine to me.

[Red Baron]

As a player, I find my characters tend to accumulate to many things. I always think I'm being reasonable until I look at my character sheet and think "jeez I've got all these carpets and flasks and things! I never intended to have so much stuff."

I've always been of a mind to just "eyeball" things, and ignore every rule in the book, but I'm thinking about running a carcosa type game (on a purple Arakis-esque wasteland), and I want to keep players limited in what they can bring with.

I'll probably run some tests next month and see if encumbrance is just too much of a pain to do. One thing I like about it is that if the party is just a bunch of naked cavemen or the like to start out, they have to find 18 items a piece before encumbrance even really matters.

[oakesspalding]

For Seven Voyages of Zylarthen (still not quite ready) I came up with a similar system that I like. Most items are worth 1, though some are 0 and a few (armor, big weapons, sledge hammers, etc.) are worth 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 10. You can carry 40, but at each interval of 10 you get slower. At 5 and under you can climb walls and sneak. I'd like to think that it adds some interesting tension and decision making to the game if, for example, you have to drop that big shield and heavy backpack to outrun a monster.

I don't have carry capacity vary by strength. The extra fussiness doesn't seem worth it, and I like the original addition OD&D vibe of having abilities only explicitly affecting a very small number of things.

But it's all been done in my head and I haven't play-tested it.

I would imagine that if you're accurate about the initial tally, adding or subtracting items as you go along wouldn't be that difficult. But perhaps I am wrong.

This may sound totally out of left-field, but has anyone tried physical tokens? You put decals on, say, poker chips. I actually tried this a few years ago with cardboard squares. The larger items had more surface area and you had to, so to speak, fit them on to your allotted space, which varied in size according to your strength. The results were mixed but it wasn't a total flop and some players seemed to have fun with it.

[coffee]

Dec 24, 2013 1:56:28 GMT -6 oakesspalding said:

This may sound totally out of left-field, but has anyone tried physical tokens? You put decals on, say, poker chips. I actually tried this a few years ago with cardboard squares. The larger items had more surface area and you had to, so to speak, fit them on to your allotted space, which varied in size according to your strength. The results were mixed but it wasn't a total flop and some players seemed to have fun with it.

I saw a (third party) Lego RPG a while back that had a similar system. You had a base, like 8 x 16 or so, and you had to put your possessions on it with actual Lego bits (I forget the exact system, but that was the point -- you can't carry everything). So, yeah, that could totally work.

Additionally, if you hand out tokens for the magic items, you can simply number them on the back or something. So if a player has Magic Sword #26, he might think it's a simple +1, but upon identification it might turn out to be much more special and interesting.

Also, remember the rule on p. 12 of Volume 3 that a character surprised by a monster has a 25% chance of dropping an item. "Whoops, Bob, looks like you dropped your sword! Hand me the chip."

I can see all sorts of uses for this scheme to enhance the game.

[Deleted]

Dec 24, 2013 1:56:28 GMT -6 oakesspalding said:

This may sound totally out of left-field, but has anyone tried physical tokens?

I've got Faster Monkey's Tracker Tokens which works as you describe (i.e. kinda like a video game) but haven't used them yet. What I do, however, is to print stuff out on small cards (sheets of printable business cards). I use it mainly for treasure, I print out a bunch of them and make a treasure deck to distribute during play. Each card has an encumbrance value on it. I use the system from Runequest where you can carry as many things as your Strength.

[tetramorph]

I like y'all's approaches.

I've been thinking out something like this:

Basic exploration and class-related equipment does not encumber. Base "carrying capacity" before encumberance = 100 lbs. I use bonuses based on abilities, lightly, so:

Strength double bonus raises that to 300, single bonus to 200, single penalty down to 80 double penalty down to 60.

AC then affects in something like the following way: 9 + 20%, 8-7 +10%, 6-5 n/a, 4-3 -10%, 2 -20%

I came up with this really because I wanted "AC" to "cost" the characters something, but I wanted an easier system for myself to figure it out.

Finally, I've also been thinking about figuring encumberance as a total-party thing. So what I might do is, ask the players to figure out their "carrying capacity," as per above. Then I would just add up the total and compare that to treasure accumulation so far. When the party becomes encumbered, I let them know. They then decide how they are going to deal with it.

I also like encumbrance the way I've read some DM's here do it: "wow, you start to feel really heavy, you are having trouble moving at all . . ."

Anyway, do any of the rest of you deal with encumbrance at a party level like that or in some other simple way?

Thanks

[Red Baron]

Jan 17, 2014 8:53:58 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

I like y'all's approaches.

I've been thinking out something like this:

Basic exploration and class-related equipment does not encumber. Base "carrying capacity" before encumberance = 100 lbs. I use bonuses based on abilities, lightly, so:

Strength double bonus raises that to 300, single bonus to 200, single penalty down to 80 double penalty down to 60.

AC then affects in something like the following way: 9 + 20%, 8-7 +10%, 6-5 n/a, 4-3 -10%, 2 -20%

I came up with this really because I wanted "AC" to "cost" the characters something, but I wanted an easier system for myself to figure it out.

Finally, I've also been thinking about figuring encumberance as a total-party thing. So what I might do is, ask the players to figure out their "carrying capacity," as per above. Then I would just add up the total and compare that to treasure accumulation so far. When the party becomes encumbered, I let them know. They then decide how they are going to deal with it.

I also like encumbrance the way I've read some DM's here do it: "wow, you start to feel really heavy, you are having trouble moving at all . . ."

Anyway, do any of the rest of you deal with encumbrance at a party level like that or in some other simple way?

Thanks

The issue with this is that it gets back to the original problem of having to add up the weight of every item you have (its a pain in the ass).

My whole point is to simplify it down so you don't need math.

[Red Baron]

Durr. I'm an idiot.

This is the perfect opportunity to use the 12" - 9" - 6" movement ratio.
All move at the same rate (12"), but can carry 12, 9, or 6 items depending on the weight of their armor.

(Revised Encumbrance Table)

Weight of armor or clothing worn       Number of Possessions



None or light                                   12
Medium                                           9
Heavy                                             6

[Red Baron]

A fighting man wears plate armor. He usually carries:

Sword, javelins(6), shield(shields will be splintered ), rope, potion, and torches(6)

If he's going vampire hunting he might wear chain instead, so that he could also carry:

mirror, mallet & wooden stakes, and crosses(6)

If he wore leather, he could really be prepared and take holy water and garlic too.

[Anathemata]

I like the idea, redbaron, especially since I hate having to track encumbrance . I've heard of similar 'slot based' encumbrance systems before, where smaller items (a gold piece, a holy symbol, a cup) don't count towards a slot in the system. How many gold coins should count as a slot? I'd say 100, but that depends on how harsh one wants to be.

[18 Spears]

Jan 19, 2014 23:11:38 GMT -6 Anathemata said:

I like the idea, redbaron, especially since I hate having to track encumbrance . I've heard of similar 'slot based' encumbrance systems before, where smaller items (a gold piece, a holy symbol, a cup) don't count towards a slot in the system. How many gold coins should count as a slot? I'd say 100, but that depends on how harsh one wants to be.

I know right? Math is hard!

Simple addition of a few easy numbers and stuff makes my head hurt.

[Red Baron]

Jan 20, 2014 0:21:03 GMT -6 18 Spears said:

Jan 19, 2014 23:11:38 GMT -6 Anathemata said:

I like the idea, redbaron, especially since I hate having to track encumbrance . I've heard of similar 'slot based' encumbrance systems before, where smaller items (a gold piece, a holy symbol, a cup) don't count towards a slot in the system. How many gold coins should count as a slot? I'd say 100, but that depends on how harsh one wants to be.

I know right? Math is hard!

Simple addition of a few easy numbers and stuff makes my head hurt.

It takes time, bogs down play, and can be inadventantly overlooked, so that you end up carry way more stuff than you meant to.

[Red Baron]

Jan 19, 2014 23:11:38 GMT -6 Anathemata said:

I like the idea, redbaron, especially since I hate having to track encumbrance . I've heard of similar 'slot based' encumbrance systems before, where smaller items (a gold piece, a holy symbol, a cup) don't count towards a slot in the system. How many gold coins should count as a slot? I'd say 100, but that depends on how harsh one wants to be.

At 1/10th pound gold coins, 50 or 100 gold coins is about right I think. I'm on the silver standard which would make it more like 100-200, as silver is half the weight. 

All items count. A piece of chalk or a whistle is as useful as a shovel or a sledgehammer. The idea is that a character has a limited number of tools at their disposal, be they magical, mundane, or monetary. Of course its ridiculous to count ink, paper, and quill as three items because they have a single collective function, which is mapping or leaving notes.

[Red Baron]

I had another idea of how to elegantly handle spells using this system.

This might be a bit of a stretch, but harkening back to arneson's "spells as prepared items" a wizard could prepare and bring a number of spells with him, each spell counting as one item for encumbrance. Why don't wizards wear armor? Because its so heavy that they can't carry all the tomes and potions and skulls and candles they need to cast spells. I guess this means an unarmored magic user carrying nothing could cast 12 spells at first level! wow.

It also forces the choice of: "do I want a detect magic or a rope?"

[Random]

I find it's easy enough to just limit the number of items of the same type that can be carried without adding extra encumbrance.

Money, armor, weapons, and particularly heavy/bulky oddball items count as normal.
A standard, reasonable assortment of gear counts as 80g.

That standard assortment allows a maximum number of any given item before being multiplied. For example, six torches is fine. 80g. Carrying seven? Whoops, now you're carring 160g of gear instead of 80g. Trying to tote 13 torches around? That's 240g of encumbrance for you. You can drop one to get back to 160g of gear. Of course, if you're carrying a bazillion torches, you can go ahead and pile on some extra rope, an extra flask or two of oil, just whatever, without additional penalty.

[tetramorph]

Okay, so here is my new idea. This idea allows me to 'hand wave' encumbrance issues without feeling like I am handwaving. It could just be nothing but feelings.

Standard equipment does not encumber (within reason. DM makes random checks and makes a ruling).

Pieces, gems, and scrolls = 1

Jewelry and most items = 10

Armor and weaponry (not worn / wielded) and large items = 100

AC / max unencumbered
9 / 8k gp
8-7 / 4k gp
6-5 / 2k gp
4-3 / 1k gp
2 / 0

Adjust up/down by strength bonus/penalty

Figure encumbrance by total party

Simple encumbrance = ½ move rate, which really mean = X2 monster checks
Double encumbrance = ¼ move rate, which really means = X4 monster checks
Over double = no movement until something is dropped

I think what liberates me is realizing that it is really about the monster checks on the way out and not allowing them to make off with a dragon's hoard without a little bit of thought. In the end, though, I, like my players, would like to get the logistics and the leveling up out of the way ASAP. I realize this is still too much math for some!

[dicebro]

May 3, 2014 14:43:56 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

I think what liberates me is realizing that it is really about the monster checks on the way out and not allowing them to make off with a dragon's hoard without a little bit of thought. In the end, though, I, like my players, would like to get the logistics ... out of the way ASAP. I realize this is still too much math for some!

Here is my SIMPLE ENCUMBRANCE HOUSE RULES FOR OD&D:


Encumbrance has only Two Relevant Applications for Underworld expeditions:



1. when rolling for wandering monsters as the PCs are leaving the dungeon.



If everyone in the group is 12” then no wandering monster encounters are rolled for.  The party can return to surface the way they came, unless blocked by a shifting wall, wizard lock or some other obstacle keeping them in the underworld.  They are going to be down to a few hit points, or its just time to get the heck out.


If a member is 9”, then roll 1 die

6” roll 2 die

3” roll 3 die



Each 6 rolled = a separate wandering monster encounter.



2. how much coin the party can carry out this time.



Large sack= 300 gp

Backpack=300 gp  (or 220 gp and 80gp weight for equipment)


Platemail: max carry is 300gp (1 large sack)

Chainmail: max carry is 600gp (2 large sacks)

Leather: max carry is 900 gp (2 large sacks & backpack)

No armor: max carry is 1200 gp (2 backpacks and 2 large sacks)

[Deleted]

At this point I've seen multiple times the following House Rule:

You can carry a number of itens equal to the character's AC.
A character with Plate and Shield with AC 2 is encumbered enough that he can only carry two additional items. (Maybe you can count the weapon as one of those)
A character with AC 9 can carry 9 items.

Maybe 100gp equals 1 item for this slot purpose.
Maybe there are kits (multiple items for one slot, like, a book, ink and pen count as one item).
Maybe something can occupy multiple slots (a two handed weapon may count as two items).

And so on, but the items = AC solution sounds very good to me.
I don't know who came up with this house rule but I've seem it being propagated for a while in other people minimalist house rules.