I make it no secret that I'm not a fan of encumbrance systems, but I do realize it's important to a lot of fellow gamers. I prefer to hand-wave it. If your character, per my judgement, appears to be overloaded for their size and strength, then I impose appropriate penalties. I'm just not fond of the accounting involved, and I think it is the antithesis of fun. That being said, one of the more interesting systems I saw about 12 or 13 years ago was done by one of the Castles & Crusades guys. What it did was take the weight of an item and reapportion it if it was stored in a backpack. So, that 2-lb. silk rope? It's effective weight is reduced when placed in a backpack, because that weight is distributed about the shoulders and core. It's still way too granular for my tastes, personally, but I thought it was interesting. I'll check out the doc, Dave!  

Ghul wrote:

I'm just not fond of the accounting involved, and I think it is the antithesis of fun.

Boardgames do a better job of resource management-style gaming than RPGs.  If I want to worry about that kind of crap, uh, nevermind, I don't. 

My biggest concern in not encumbering my stomach with too many pretzels, thereby limiting my beer intake.

Ghul wrote:

I That being said, one of the more interesting systems I saw about 12 or 13 years ago was done by one of the Castles & Crusades guys. What it did was take the weight of an item and reapportion it if it was stored in a backpack. So, that 2-lb. silk rope? It's effective weight is reduced when placed in a backpack, because that weight is distributed about the shoulders and core. It's still way too granular for my tastes, personally, but I thought it was interesting. I'll check out the doc, Dave!  

I too like the C&C approach. In general, I think slot based encumbrance systems is a good middle ground. They provide resource management without the needed of a spreadsheet. Not the most accurate, but a step up from just hand waving.

I use the following house rule for encumbrance. Armor is not included as it's effect on movement is already covered by Table 46: Armour.

Encumbrance is measured as the number of items a player has on their possession not including clothing and armor. A characters maximum encumbrance is equal to twice their strength attribute. If a character exceeds this limit, they are encumbered. If a character exceeds more than twice this limit they are heavily encumbered. Penalties for encumbered characters are define in Table 79: Calculated Encumbrance.

Items stored inside a container that has a maximum capacity only counts as 1 item. For example, a quiver that has a maximum capacity of 12 arrows only counts as 2 items when it contains arrows (i.e., 1 for the quiver + 1 for the arrows). The capacity for such containers cannot be exceeded.

Small items such as coins, gems, rings, etc. count as 1/100 of an item if they are stored in a container such as a backpack, pouch, or sack.


 

Ghul wrote:

That's an interesting approach, quade. How have your players responded? Oh, and welcome to the forums!

Thanks for the welcome.

In practice my players, are never keen on accounting of any kind. No surprise. However, I think this approach is simple enough to allow a referee to make a quick and consistent judgement on a player's encumbrance.