Okay… I imagine the title has caught your attention and I only have one question.
What the hell?
The average tank has a carrying capacity of roughly four hundred pounds before she becomes encumbered. That means that they can carry a ridiculous amount of weight on their shoulders and back, including in their mighty “Backpack of Random Garb.”
So rock with me, if you can, the idea of how much that truly entails. I’m not even going to list the actual weight to these items. Even a Noob understands the concept I’m flinging around here. My current character has a strength of 18. In the middle of our current “cave crawl” he was carrying three chain mail shirts, dwarf plate armor, seven long swords, various knick-knacks, and at one time a member of the party.
Then you have to add what’s on his person at the time; plate armor, large size great sword, heavy shield, belt, boots, helm… I imagine you get the point. He’s strong, he’s virile, he’s Superman! Able to carry items with different shapes and sizes as if they were truly only one type of item, proportioned to a back pack.
Now I love, as much as anyone else, carrying everything I can after looting the Great Chamber of Amazing Treasures, but am I wrong in assuming there should be a reasonable cap in what one person could carry?
Now, having said all of that, I want to specify that I don’t mean carry weight. I mean the definable size of things. Everyone knows s a strong man can still be encumbered by something awkward. A poleax in the hands of a normal size person, or even strapped to that person’s back, makes going through doors, or even hallways difficult.
I think D&D should go to a similar system that the Diablo games (and many similar games to it) use. I think the size of the person should affect the amount a person can carry, not necessarily the weight.
A Halfling is going to have trouble carrying around an awkward piece of armor, whereas a Minotaur can strap several pieces of armor to herself without being as encumbered. I think they should go to the block concept. What I mean by that, is that every item takes up a certain number of blocks. Once you’re out of space you can’t carry any more.
If I were DMing a game, would I be too controlling offering such a concept?
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November 14, 2008 at 10:55 am
blackpharaoh
while more realistic, detailed encumbrance rules are not fun.
November 14, 2008 at 11:05 am
Bonemaster
What you are taking about is how bulky is an item rather than how much it weights. While the slot concept has some appeal, I can help but think that in such a system, there were be unreasonable allowances or some type of WTF moments. Let’s take a silly example (and something easy to fix), let’s say you claim that a vial is a 0 slot item for ease of calculation. It would be possible for someone to carry 1 million of them without blinking an eye. Now this example is a bit absurd of course, but the point is games are only simulations and all simulations have limitations.
I don’t think you would be too controlling. I think you just changed the simulation a bit. Now the players will have to buy into that simulation.
In general, I think people should always take a step back and apply some “uncommon” sense to a problem. I usually don’t worry about having players add up weight unless what they claim to be carrying seems excessive. If it is under their weight limit but still seems ridiculous, then I don’t let them, unless they want to try to give a real word demo. Just ask the guy who claimed his character could carry couch on his back to do a demo of that. I’m sure he will decline.
November 14, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Target
I agree w/ blackpharaoh.
That being said, players need consistency. And they loot to get better stuff. If the DM is consistent in how loot is handled and provides adequate means for PC gear improvement it will go a long way towards stopping a PC from trying to carry a rack of polearms out of the dungeon. (I also plead guilty to trying to fit a ruby portal the size of a large area rug into my backpack, so adjust my words accordingly)
November 14, 2008 at 5:21 pm
ScottM
It sounds like work but completely reasonable. I’d only use one encumbrance system– if you’re going to the “block” system, then I’d only count blocks, not weight. [Weight of coins seems like a problem in the block system, but you could hand wave it as the strong characters carrying more of the heavy but compact coins.]
November 14, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Avast Ye Scurvy Knaves
I guess it really depends on what you’re going for. For whatever it’s worth, I agree both with Bonemaster about the critical part being getting your players to buy into all the extra bookkeeping and number-twiddling that goes into that extra level of simulation, and I vehemently agree with blackpharoah that detailed encumbrance rules are not fun.
But maybe you’re going for “not fun” with this, I don’t know. Maybe you want to take away the cartoonish, lighthearted quality of ridiculously simple encumbrance and push the game into a grittier, more “realistic” box instead. I imagine to some groups, this would be a positive boon.
…just not any group I’d care to play with.