Topic: Encumberance beyond just weight

[alloowishus]

So let's say you have a character with a battle axe and a light crossbow on their back. The actual weight of these items does not cause encumberance penalties, but I would imagine moving with these large items would cause some issues. Does RM address this at all? Or is just a matter of making the maneuvers more difficult?

[jdale]

There's no measurement of bulk, only weight. It would make sense if, as the GM, you increased the difficulty of maneuvers in cramped spaces. Maneuver difficulties are very open-ended to cover whatever you think is relevant.

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

One may want to use the RAC modifiers ("Arms Companion", p28) and apply them to maneuvers.

[alloowishus]

I feel like encumberance should be based on "slots", depending on the size of the character. Encumberance should be based on how many slots are filled, either weight fills a slot or the size of the item fills the slot. Sort of like (*gasp*) Diablo or other PC RPGs. I really don't want to have to remember every time what people are carrying, I think it should be figured out ahead of time.

[jdale]

Depends what you are doing. I'd rather go hiking with an enormous backpack filled with inflated balloons than with one single anvil.

[alloowishus]

Yes, weight is a consideration, but so is bulk. Assuming you want to be able to draw your weapons fairly quickly, you're not going to store them in a backpack, so where does a battle axe and a light crossbow? I assume on your back, that's would be quite encumbering, but the weight does not indicate it as such.

[Cory Magel]

In the past we've had ridiculous amounts of gear on characters and just didn't worry about it.  Same concept some groups will have for tracking ranged weapon ammo and food.  I think that's fine if you don't want to have a (micro?) manage character inventory, which there is a good argument for in my opinion.  For some it just gets in the way of the fun.

However there is just a good an argument to making your characters be far more reasonable in gear distribution.  I think it would make the party really think about how they are equipped, causing them to work more closely together in what they plan to carry.  It's almost like making sure you have a certain profession distribution among the characters.

I'd say you should be able to carry something along the lines of...

Lower Leg: Small, thin weapon (normal to larger dagger?)
Upper Leg (Hip): Medium thin weapon (broadsword) - Bulky small weapon (hand x-bow?)
Lower Arm: Tiny weapons (small dagger or darts?)
Upper Arm:  Small, thin weapons (normal dagger?)
Back: Large weapon (2H-Weapon, Bow, Staff.  Med X-bow with a pack, large one without a pack)
Waist: Maybe 1 larger back, two mid-sized ones, multiple small ones.
Chest: Multiple small weapons (throwing daggers, darts, etc) to a couple daggers?

You need to think about how the body moves and when things would get in your way.  Technically I could have a broadsword on each hip, darts on forearms, dagger on each upper arm and lower leg, x-bow on my back, etc. but those things will get in the way in combat (I might draw the two broadswords, but I still have a x-bow on my back).

If building a character where this was kept track of I'd probably set it up so I could easily drop my pack and/or non-weapon gear belt on a moments notice so those wouldn't interfere with combat movement.  Maybe have a belt with the larger pouches that could easily/quickly be removed and separate one for weapons and some of the smaller pouches (so you're not dropping your money pouch on the ground).

[Hurin]

As I understand it (and I've only played it briefly), Pathfinder 2 measures these things by 'bulk', which is a mix of 'size, weight, and general awkwardness'. I'm not sure how well it works, but it is an interesting idea.

[rdanhenry]

As I understand it (and I've only played it briefly), Pathfinder 2 measures these things by 'bulk', which is a mix of 'size, weight, and general awkwardness'. I'm not sure how well it works, but it is an interesting idea.

And exactly the same one as "encumbrance" in AD&D (not personally familiar enough with the old plain D&D editions to say if it predates AD&D). Though expressed in weight-like terms, it was explicitly an abstraction of those three elements.

[Hurin]

I did not know that. If it was meant to be abstract, though, it seems odd that they expressed encumbrance in pounds of weight.

[alloowishus]

In the past we've had ridiculous amounts of gear on characters and just didn't worry about it.  Same concept some groups will have for tracking ranged weapon ammo and food.  I think that's fine if you don't want to have a (micro?) manage character inventory, which there is a good argument for in my opinion.  For some it just gets in the way of the fun.

Rolemaster is ALL about micro management. If you want mindless fun just play 5e D&D, imho.

I was thinking that each character should have a certain number of "slots" and that each item should have a weight and a "slot" number. So a battle axe would be 4 pounds and 2 slots, a dagger 1 pound 1/2 a slot etc. So encumberance would be *either* by weight or my number of "slots" over you are. It's a kind of thing that needs to be baked into the rules, to do it manually would be rather tedious.

[netbat]

Anyone use the encumbrance rules from riddle of steel? If I remember right it had pictures of adventurers from unencumbered to overburdened and mods for each. You compared how much stuff(or how fat) you were to the picture and used that. I would love to use something like that for role master but haven't had the time to come up with something. The RM encumbrance rules are just too much bookkeeping to really be fun.

[jdale]

I have a character spreadsheet that calculates encumbrance and applies the appropriate modifiers to all the skills, then import the data into combat software that also applies it to maneuvers and initiative. But it doesn't solve the problem of players just not filling in what they've got. It's more of a penalty for the ones who are being good.

I'm thinking I will update the sheet so by default characters are assumed to have a backpack and 20lbs of gear, plus whatever armor they pick (that part is at least automatic and nobody forgets to tell the GM they have armor).

But getting the players to add everything up two ways? I don't see that happening. It would have to be simpler than what we have now.

[alloowishus]

Well I use software for the character sheets, so bookkeeping is not really an issue. I think it would be pretty simple just to add an extra column of "Number of Slots" to all items. Each person should get a number of slots based on their size.