Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[thwill]

Hi folks,

Here's my take on an alternative encumbrance system that I'm using for my post-apocalyptic game. It's an adaptation on that used by "Old School Hack".

A character can carry a number of “Heavy Items” determined by their Strength:

Strength ......... Heavy Item Slots*
d4 ................... 0
d6 ................... 1
d8 ................... 2
d10 ................. 3
d12 ................. 4
d12+1 ............. 5
d12+2 ............. 6

* +1 if a character has the Brawny Edge.

Each Heavy Item that a character carries over this limit imposes a -1 penalty to Agility, Strength, Running, and related skill rolls.

Heavy Items
2H Sword, 2H Axe, Halberd, 7.62mm Sniper Rifle, Light (5.56mm) MG, Bazooka, RPG, M72 Law, Combat Armour, Large Shield, Rope (60 ft.), Toolbox, Heavy Pack, 2 gallons of water / gasoline, 200 rounds of ammo, objects weighing 5+ kg (10+ lbs.)

Very Heavy Items (count as 2 Heavy Items)
Lance, Pike, Chainsaw, Sledgehammer, “STOP” sign, Barrett M82A1 Light Fifty, Medium (7.62mm) MG, Metal Armour, objects weighing 10+ kg (20+ lbs.)

Uber Heavy Items (count as 3 Heavy Items)
Minigun, Heavy (.50 cal) MG, Power Armour*, 5 gallons of water/gasoline, objects weighing 15+ kg (30+ lbs.)

- Every weapon that a character carries beyond the first counts as one weight category higher.
- Two 9mm pistol sized weapons (including hand weapons doing Str+d4 damage or less) can be ignored in this calculation.

Example 1: Hides Like Rat carries an assault rifle, knife, spear, light duty vest and medium pack. This requires one Heavy Item Slot.
+0 – knife, vest, pack
+0 – assault rifle (first weapon)
+1 – spear (additional weapon)

Example 2: Professor Morlockus carries an assault rifle, 9mm pistol, knife, light duty vest, medium pack and toolkit. This requires one Heavy Item Slot:
+0 – pistol, knife, vest, pack
+0 – assault rifle (first weapon)
+1 – toolbox

Example 3: Sir Goodyear carries an assault rifle, sword, metal armour, medium shield and medium pack. This requires three Heavy Item Slots:
+0 – shield, pack
+0 – assault rifle (first weapon)
+1 – sword (additional weapon)
+2 – metal armour

Example 4: Waylander carries an assault rifle, 2 x 9mm pistols, 2 x machetes, reinforced leather jacket and medium pack. This requires two Heavy Items Slots:
+0 – 2 x pistols, jacket, pack
+0 – assault rifle (first weapon)
+1 – 1st machete (additional weapon)
+1 – 2nd machete (additional weapon)

Example 5: John Wayne carries a sniper rifle, SMG, pistol, knife, reinforced leather jacket and medium pack. This requires two Heavy Item Slots:
+0 – knife, pistol, jacket, pack
+1 – sniper rifle (heavy weapon)
+1 – smg (additional weapon)

Example 6: Clint Eastwood carries an LMG, SMG, 200 rounds of ammo, “STOP” sign, light duty vest and medium pack. This requires six Heavy Item Slots:
+0 – light duty vest, pack
+1 – LMG (heavy weapon)
+1 – SMG (additional weapon)
+3 – “STOP” sign (very heavy additional weapon)
+1 – 200 rounds of ammo

Example 7: Kit Karson carries a shotgun, RPG, katana, leather jacket and heavy pack. This requires four Heavy Item Slots:
+0 – jacket
+0 – shotgun (first weapon)
+1 – heavy pack
+1 – katana (additional weapon)
+2 – RPG (heavy additional weapon)

Regards,

Tom

[supercOntra]

Clever. I like it
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[Edgeworth]

[Lord Karick]

Definitely fits the FFF principle. Consider it swiped!
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[The Dread Polack]

I told my players last night that they should only count their weapons, armor, and any essential combat/encounter items toward their general encumbrance. For convenience sake, I assume anything else is either on your horse or in a pack that you shrug off when the fight starts. I'd rather hand-wave this than makle people count up every pound of gear. In certain dungeon-crawl situations, I likely ask for a quick total to make sure they aren't over their max load.

Your system seems to accomplish the same basic thing, only it's probably quicker.

[Sushi]

[Sean-Khan]

I like it! Some small add-on sheet to a regular character sheet might make it work even better; one place for calculating heavy slots, two lines for small weapons and cheat area for weight categories. And separate versions for various genres too, although I don't think anyone has enough time for making such =o)
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[77IM]

This is pretty awesome!

How would you handle medieval armor, though? When playing Standard Fantasy, I find that most of the carrying capacity difficulty are various armor pieces. Especially if you start buying plate armor piecemeal. I have yet to see an abstract encumberance system that handles this adequately, although I think you are very close.

-- 77IM
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[thwill]

[ValhallaGH]

[thwill]

[greyseerco]

How would an edge like Brawny fit into this scenario, double capacity or just a fixed bonus capacity?

[thwill]

[The One]

I like it! It also allows for really simple rules for Bags of Holding, they have X heavy item slotss
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[peregry]

I like it to, if our main Savage Worlds game was more adventure oriented, I'd push for using it almost as-is. (The reason it's not useful to us is when your campaign features 100 Ton Mechs and spaceships capable of lifting dozens of them into orbit you're generally not concerned with personal encumbrance. The encumbrance that matters is how much salvage can you fit in your cargo bays... measured in tons. ;p)

I mean, this is the first time I've seen an encumbrance system that I'd want to use and implement in a game, I'm generally in the "encumbrance is to much of a pain to simulate and is more about bookkeeping than fun" kinda guy.

+1
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- Peregry
It is always giant stompy robot time!

[The One]

[Zadmar]

I like the idea, although it strikes me that you could also simplify the existing encumbrance rules to work in a similar way, rather than replacing them completely.

Your Load Limit is normally five times your Strength in pounds. That means you can carry your Strength in items that weigh five pounds, or half your Strength in items that weigh ten pounds, etc, without incurring a penalty.

If you defined a "significant item" as something that weighs roughly 5-14 pounds, you could say that your Load Limit is equal to half your Strength, and indicates how many significant items you can carry. A "heavy item" that weighed roughly 15-24 pounds would count as 2 items, etc.

Then someone with Strength d6 could carry 3 significant items without penalty, 6 items with a –1 penalty to his Strength, Agility, and related skill rolls, 9 items with a -2 penalty, and 12 items with a -3 penalty.

If you wanted to know if an item was "significant" you could just check its weight in the equipment list - divide by 10 and round to the nearest whole number.

[ENWRel]

I think this is a really cool idea and I may swipe it for my own game (which happens to be post apoc as well).

Course it's no surprise that I dig it since I'm very close friends with Kirin Robinson (designer of OSH) and I'm on the Old School Hack Advisory Board.

[J Gregory]

Just found this - hey, I'm always late.

*swipe*
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[Redtwin]

I've been kicking an idea like this around in my head for Tour of Darkness for a while now. It's especially important for a setting where character loadout changes regularly and having to keep redoing the math becomes a time sink.

Nice to see somebody put it to paper! Or forum, in this case.
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