The D&D rules are probably overly complex, so rather than looking for more rules and options to layer on top, I quite like trying to find areas that can be stripped out and streamlined without damaging the system too much. One of the areas that is quite easy to remove is encumberance, not least because it never seems to be spplied rigorously anyway.
In 3rd Edition, encumberance is just the total weight of all equipment carried. There are three breakpoints assigned by the strength of a character. Up to the first point, the character is Lightly encumbered, and suffers no penalties. Up to the second, the character has Medium encumberance, and moves more slowly, suffers an armour check penalty, and loses some special abilities (Ranger two-weapon fighting, Barbarian fast movement, Monk unarmed combat. I may be wrong about any of these, and there may be others). Up to the third point, the character has worse penalties, and runs at x3 normal rate, not x4.
In general, the effects of encumberance mirror the effects of armour of the same level. Additionally, there is a Swim modifier based on the weight of equipment carried, unaffected by armour.
Of course, no-one ever keeps their encumberance up to date. Most groups keep a post-it note with treasure carried, but no record of where it's carried, which can lead to groups lugging two tons of gold with them. Since the rule is not properly applied, it is fit for removal.
My proposed encumberance fix is simply to ditch it. Armour check penalties will come only from armour worn. The swim modifier will just be double the normal armour check penalty. And, that's it.
This has a couple of balance effects. Firstly, no more will the Ranger/Rogue have to juggle his weight carried to be able to dual-wield. As long as he sticks to leather armour, he'll be fine. There's nothing stopping the Wizard from carrying 300 bolts for his crossbow. Basically, this change benefits low Strength characters more than high Strength ones. Especially when you consider that the high Strength ones were usually either wearing light armour, and so Lightly encumbered, or wearing heavy armour, and so still suffer the same penalties as before.
You might say, "well, we'll keep an eye on it, and if you're carrying an absurd amount of kit, we'll assign encumberance penalties". In my experience, this penalises the strong characters more than the weak ones, since what constitutes an absurd amount for a weak character is a lot less than it is for a strong one. And, it seems to be very difficult to realise just how great the disparity is.
Gosh, that was awfully long just to say, "we're ditching encumberance", wasn't it?
Archived comment by Mort:
ReplyDeleteIt's not worth the hassle of constantly fiddling with the numbers to be bothered about in D&D. It doesn't affect your combat ability, so it isn't really that important. Of course you still have to use common sense. Lugging around a 5000 pound statue of Mystra isn't likely to work, even though encumberance isn't used, and having 300 crossbow bolts is not really matter of weight, more a matter of space. Less micromanagement and more common sense is probably the way to go.