Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[ogbendog]

This came up in a HOE thread:

[Zadmar]

I generally ignore encumbrance unless it becomes excessive.

Player: I'll take a longsword.
Me: Ok.
Player: And a shield. And a bow.
Me: Ok.
Player: And that chest full of gold. And those 12 battleaxes. And the huge statue. And...
Me: Figure out your encumbrance.

However I don't bother calculating it exactly, I just track "significant items". So the weapons would each weigh 1 item, the chest and statue would probably each weigh 2-3 items, and the character's Load Limit would be half their Strength.

[Takeda]

[chillburn]

One place where you really need to track encumbrance is when people start strapping on armor. Pretty much the only drawback to any armor is the weight, so you really need to start tracking it when you getting things like mages wearing full plate or doomsayers wearing full combat body suits.

[Takeda]

[Zadmar]

I give armour a Parry penalty to offset its armour bonus, rather than using encumbrance. The idea was inspired by Clint's P&P rules, and it works pretty well.

[ogbendog]

[Takeda]

[Thunderforge]

[Sushi]

I'm pretty strict about tracking encumbrance for any equipment worn/used for combat, since the ability to carry heavy armor/weapons is a balancing factor of the game. I do, however, relax the penalty be a -1 pace instead of -1 to everything if you're only a few pounds over the limit.

Anything that's not an active combat item, it's going to basically be "when dramatically important," which is almost never.

[farik]

Our group is pretty good about imposing a "how are you gonna carry that?" question before encumbrance becomes an issue. But we've also gamed long enough as players we lean towards equipping ourselves more on the minimalist side and trusting whoever the GM is to make sure we have the necessary tools (or dramatic lack of) for a good game.

We still have the occasional inspector gadget type character who has something for every situation but that is usually the primary schtick of those characters.

[MeetsInTaverns]

I'd like the encumbrance rules in SWD to just allow that "tiny bit extra" in terms of what you can carry, even if it's a higher penalty for going over your comfortable limit. This is because there's just "one more thing" that each character I create with RAW wants or needs to carry.

[Mylon]

One thing I can't quite wrap my head around is plate armor. Without the Brawny edge, even with a d12 str plate armor is a detriment. 60 lb load limit as opposed to 58 lbs for the full suit, including helmet. No room for a weapon.

I guess this is the downside to a linear load limit.

[ValhallaGH]

[Sushi]

The thing is, it's not just plate armor.

Take your average fantasy soldier. Lets say he has above-average strength (d and standard issue chain mail, long sword, medium shield, and helmet. That adds up to 49 pounds... but with d8 strength, load limit is 40.

In my mind, that kind of loadout on that character should NOT be incurring penalties... but it does. That's why I make the first 25% over the load limit only affect pace.

[Redtwin]

Another option is to only track heavy or bulky objects. I don't care how many pennies a character tracks, and I'll limit their ammo by what seems reasonable rather than worrying about the math.

I'm also considering a ultra-simplified point based system for a TOD game. Each char gets Str/2 points worth of heavy/bulky gear. The idea is to make a fast and easy system that allows characters to change their loadout often while still applying heavy encumbrance penalties to people who overload themselves. I suspect it'll work well for TOD because the variety of heavy/bulky items is fairly low and nobody will be hauling around giant piles of stuff anyway, but I doubt it would work for a more conventional game.
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[ogbendog]

Of course, if you have plate and shield, you can pretty much Wild attack every round, and trust your armor to keep you safe

[Zadmar]

Looking at it from a purely mechanical perspective...

A -1 penalty to your attack rolls is worth roughly +1½ Toughness. So generally speaking it's not necessary to cover your limbs - your opponent will need to make a called shot at -2 to hit them, so even if you've got 3 points of armour on your body, your enemies are no better off aiming for your arms and legs.

Thus given the choice between the chain hauberk and the plate corselet, I would always go for the latter (unless I was so strapped for cash that I needed the extra $100). The hauberk is only better if your opponent is using a maul - but the maul is a poor choice of weapon, and if you can trick your opponent into using one just to deal with you then the armour has more than paid for itself.

A called shot to the head inflicts an additional +4 damage, so it's worth wearing a helmet, but statistically speaking a pot helm is sufficient to negate the advantage.

So a plate corselet and a pot helm, for a total weight of 29. Add on a longsword, and your total weight comes to 37. A rapier in your off hand brings you up to 40. I'd view this as optimal for a character with Strength d8 and no Brawny edge. Any other gear can be carried in a pack slung over one shoulder, and dropped at the start of the fight.

If you've got encumbrance to spare, the large shield is amazingly good (about as good as wearing plate, and of course the bonus stacks with worn armour). A medium shield is the next best choice, but the only time you should use a small shield is when you can't afford a rapier.

For your primary hand, the katana is the best weapon, but a lot of GMs don't allow it, which is why I suggested the longsword. If you've only got Strength d6, then I'd suggest going with leather armour, a flail, and a rapier for your off hand, giving you a total encumbrance of 26. You could wear a pot helm as well (bringing your encumbrance to 30) but it's not really necessary for most situations.

[Sitting Duck]

Here's an alternate way to limit armor. IIRC the main issue with armor in the real world wasn't so much weight as is the fact that it's hot. So apply the Heat Fatigue rules to a character wearing armor instead of the Encumbrance rules, plus require a Fatigue check after a combat along with the standard checks. So that Strength doesn't get left out, assign a minimum Strength to each armor type and inflict a -1 to Fatigue checks for each step the character's Strength is below the minimum.
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[Takeda]