Carrying Capacity

Pocket dimension wormhole to an entire realm of light.

>>52500783
When I DM I just give the party a bag of holding relatively early on.

I'm strict as fuck about ammo, though. I expect my players to keep track of each and every arrow, bolt, bullet, and power pack they have.

>>52500783
I use the "If it seems reasonable that your character could carry it, it can. But if it starts getting ridiculous, you've got some explainin' to do." rule of thumb.

A Fighting-man carrying 50 lbs of supplies in a backpack and various pouches while wearing heavy armor, a shield, and a weapon? Cool.

A magic-user doing the same? Nope.

Trying to carry a chest full of supplies? Better have a buddy with ya or you're going to be moving quite a bit slower than usual.

I am the party's designated pack dwarf.

>>52500783
I'm running an Expanse/Firefly-ish type deal.

Weight capacity is a factor in strength/endurance. You generally only suffer penalties if you go above the total by 50% or are carrying something improperly.

For ammo: You can run covertly stocked, regularly stocked, or heavily stocked.

Covert tracks ammo and carries enough special equipment for one engagement and is easy to hide. Regular carries unlimited normal ammo and enough special equipment for two engagements. Heavy carries enough for 4 and is basically unconcealable.

For armor: Covert armor is easily concealed but degrades quickly. Standard armor degrades regularly every X absorbed damage. Heavy armor only degrades on crits/max damage rolls.

>>52501159
So would you prefer that a system just handwave carrying capacity? Should things like armor even have listed weight? And what about spells or other magical aid for carrying stuff, how would you define their effects, or would they just not exist?

>>52500783
Dark Souls style. Your inventory is abstract and mechanically weighs nothing. What you are actually wearing, on the other hand, has a weight cost that limits your mobility, which has various mechanical effects.

>>52501214
I should say I made it like that because I wanted covert missions and heavy missions to have a totally different feel to them. If the covert runs are your Leons and Vincents, your normal runs are your Martin Blanks and John Wicks, then your heavy runs are Chev Chelios.

Convert everything roughly to stone.
1-5 lb = 1/3 st
6-20 lb = 1 st
21-35 lb = 2st
36-50 lb = 3st
51-65 lb = 4st
And so on. Carrying capacity is equal to your Strength score. Someone with 12 strength can carry and equip 12 stone worth of weight.

>>52501505
I could see this working. So you'd still need to handle encumbrance for heavy armor/weapons, and players could still benefit from being stronger or magical enhancements, without having to constantly update math every time you loot some random items. You'd probably need some in-world explanation in a TTRPG, though, like a diegetic hammer-space or somesuch.

I'm not super familiar with Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but I remember they handle encumbrance as point values instead of actual weights which was neat. So a heavy box would be a 2 instead of X amount of pounds.

Speaking of neat ammo mechanics, the newest Gamma World had one where instead of tracking ammo you have a binary condition of has ammo/doesn't have ammo. Shooting one shot is fine, but if you fire a second one at the end of the combat you lose having the ammo condition. If someone hands you their ammo, they lose the ammo condition and you gain it. I don't think it works for every game, but for something like Gamma World or a fantasy game I like it.

>>52501610
I was considering a point-based system for weights, and I think that might be a decent solution, a happy middle. In D&D/PF, items have listed sizes, like creatures do, so you could just say that "tiny sized items have a weight of 3" etc. instead of checking the weight of literally every item. All accessories would weigh the same, all medium weapons, etc. I like that.

I've been playing with the idea of the whole has/does-not-have ammo mechanic, which on one hand removes the annoying need to update your current ammo after every attack, but on the other side feels less immersive.

>>52501342
It really depends on the game I'm running.

If what I'm running is just a glorified dungeon crasher, then something more abstract is in use.

If what I'm running is more hexcrawly, then I definitely would want something more detailed.

>And what about spells or other magical aid for carrying stuff, how would you define their effects, or would they just not exist?
No one in my group uses those, aside from bags of holding (which is just an in-universe explanation for hammer space), so they might as well not exsist.

>>52501886
I ask about magic enhancement, because I've seen it frequently used in other games, like the long-running PF game I'm currently playing in. Pretty much all party members have muleback cords, and several also have heavyload belts, as they're dirt cheap at our level and allow you to bench ridiculous loads when combined.

>>52500783
I find that if carrying capacity is not strictly enforce carrying capacity, there will be a least one person who abuses the hell out of the laxness. Has happened in every group I've played in.

File: gear.jpg (277KB, 800x1047px) Image search: [Google]

277KB, 800x1047px

>>52500783
Newbie 5e DM here. I've been disregarding encumbrance altogether (within reason, I also enforce ammo bookkeeping), but here is an idea I'm toying with. I might flesh it out into a house rule and use it in a different campaign.

Note that this applies to shit you keep in your backpack all day without getting exhausted, not what you can lift and carry over a short distance.

Basically, you get limited slots equal to (STR times 2) + CON mod -
(5 times exhaustion level). 1 slot = 1kg. This seems realistic enough, soldier in the army carry about 20-30kg in their backpacks and I think 12 STR is a perfectly acceptable stat for an ordinary infantryman.

Item weights are rounded down. An iron bastard sword is 2 slots (2.5kg), a broadsword is 3 (3.5kg), most one-handed iron weapons are 1 slot. Other items can be stacked: for one slot you can have 2 daggers (500g) per slot, or about 50 arrows (20g per arrow assuming hazelwood) which is two quivers' worth. Any more and you need a second slot. And of course the item needs to fit in your backpack.

Of course, if you're carrying 1 potion, 1 arrow, 1 stick, 1 bone, etc. and fill your inventory with useless shit, I'll call you stupid but allow you to collapse them into a single "junk" slot.

You can carry stuff beyond your slot limit, but if you spend the better part of the day doing this, you'll need to roll a CON check with a DC equivalent to the extra slots, or suffer a level of exhaustion. (The + CON mod exists to prevent carrying [CON mod] extra items for free)

>>52501204
this

it pays to have a 1000lb gorilla in your murderhobo squad