Sat down with my players and made characters last night and when we came to shopping equipment it seemed that the characters can't carry much of anything.

Especially our Wood Elf Hunter seemed dissapointed that he with an average strength of 2 couldn't have a longbow (with some arrows) a spear and a dagger without being encumbered since these things seem to be pretty standard for a hunter (and then we haven't even taken into account carrying anything like a blanket, utensils or food) - and that even a guy with average strength should be able to walk around with these items and possibly a leather jerkin.

Even the strength 4 dwarf quickly used up quite a bit of his encumbrance by carrying a hand weapon, armor, shield and blunderbuss.

I don't mind there being limits to how much you can carry, but I don't want it to hinder the game flow either, so how have you handled encumbrance? Have you made any changes like saying it's strength*5 + 5 or 10 or maybe made it Strength*6 or 7 or do you think it works fine as is?

Personally I'm tempted to either add 5 to the baseline and not bother counting encumbrance for most items that fit easily in a backpack or to add 10 and then keep track of most items.

42! said:

I think your hunter should consider increasing strenght, with 2 in str he is a wimp, and i dont see many hunters that wouyd have 2 in str. <
Maybe a scribe that sits indoors all day but not a hunter.

With 3 str which is an average person he can walk around with hand weapon, shield and armor all day, which seems pretty realistic for me. Al the other gear they can have on a party mule for example. Of course if you are a GM and want them to carry more why not just increase it, but it would make it unrealistic.

With Str 3, Unencumbered Limit is 15, if I am reading it right.

Weight for a longbow is 4, 12 arrows is 2, spear is 4 and dagger is 2. This adds up to 12, so with Strength 3, you can either carry some other stuff (blanket, traps, possibly more arrows) or wear leather armor - seems like Strength oughta be a key Attribute for hunters, rather than Toughness. And even then, you'd wanna go for Strength 4, in order to avoid Encumbrance penalties.

I think the encumberance rules are a little harsh, yes. I did not want to relax them too much though for our group (you should have a penalty if you fight carrying a load of gear) but I did relax them a bit - basically, anything that fits easily into a backpack you can carry for free - this means that stuff like lockpicks, a book or two, cutlery, first aid stuff, etc... does not have an encumberance. Gives a little bit of leeway without letting them carry tons of weapons and armour.

In all honesty, I can't imagine anyone being too comfy fighting in melee with a backpack full of gear. Maybe the characters could spend a maneouvre to their backpack at the beginning of combat?

First of all, an average Characteristic is 3, not 2. A 2 is below average and besides the encumbrance issue will result in the Elf getting fatigued quite easily.

The Empire is not the same as many other Fantasy settings. Many adventures take place in towns and villages. When in town they will be staying in Inns. When PCs travel, if they are smart, they will do so via the roads or rivers. Coaching Inns are spaced along the Empire's roads a day apart from one another. River barges provide basically Inns that float as well as transportation. In short, unless the PCs are planning an extended trek into the Beastmen infested forests or goblin infested mountains, they don't need to carry around camping gear, cooking gear, climbing gear, and a weeks worth of rations.

Secondly, there should be no need for the Elf to carry both a Spear and a Dagger. Realistically, when would he choose to use the Dagger instead of the Spear? The Spear is just better. What is the Dagger? A backup weapon? Unless you are using house rules that make it easier for the PCs to become disarmed or have the Spear break, he'll never use the Dagger. PCs don't need to carry an arsenal.

I backpack the rockies every summer....I laugh when I look at the D&D encumbrance rules..even for stocky dwarves...

I'm glad that WFRP came back down to earth.

PC's need to hire people and bring mules (now, if I could just find out how much a mule costs...)

jh

Dramatic Exit said:

While 3 is considered 'average' for a characteristic, most characteristics start at a default of 2. Non humans start with two characteristics at 3, and a character's chosen career adds 1 to two characteristics.

Regarding encumbrance, I agree that it is challenging to manage, but as others have mentioned, carrying gear around is difficult, unless you have been trained to do so (e.g., having military training). Add in trying to fight while humping gear, and yes, the encumbrance rules are fairly representative.

Thinking about Wood Elf Hunters, I could see giving a bonus for encumbrance to reflect that they are probably accustomed to carrying gear and hunting. I think either adding their Agility to the encumbrance limit or dropping 1 point from the encumbrance values of gear the hunter might typically carry such as a long bow or bedroll.

mac40k said:

It's a tool that can be used as a weapon, much like an axe - a hunter would likely carry both a big knife (the dagger) with a breaking point for breaking the animal and a smaller, very sharp knife (which might be used as an improvised weapon) for skinnining and pairing.

And remember, Encumbrance is also the size and unwieldliness of the object. A rather weak elf running around with a spear and long bow / arrows and a dagger will be encumbered by the unwieldliness of it all. A stronger character would just "push and pull" through this unwieldliness (maybe damaging the material in the process ?).

Being encumbered just gives misfortune, so it's not like you can't do it, it just hinders you. Which is... realistic !

Soldiers are always encumbered when on the move. Normal people carrying stuff are usually encumbered. That's what happens when you carry stuff.

Being unencumbered represents the mobility of someone in his bathing suit. Total freedom of movement. It is absolutely normal that this total freedom of movement be rapidly eliminated as soon as anyone carries any amount of gear, especially weapons and armour.

This said, as GM, I would apply misfortune related to encumbrance using common sense. Wearing plate armour, for example, is less likely to hinder you if you are fighting on horseback for example. In another situation, plate armour would definitely hinder you if you tried to wiggle out of a very narrow window. So use common sense to make things believable.

In the case of your elf, I would rule that the spear is very heavy in his weak arms and having a long bow strapped to his back at the same time sticks out and hinders the use of the said spear (situation is even worse the other way around). When walking through the woods, the two long objects tend to scrape against trees, and when they get caught, the weak elf has trouble everytime to pull them through... Etc. Str 2 is like a teenager !

There goes. I like harsh encumberance rules. Keeps things real.

A strength of 3 would help, but if you wanted to be a wimpy Hunter with a strength of 2 and not worry as much about fatigue... there are talents out there that do things to mitigate stress and fatigue in different ways. Our Elf Swordmaster uses one to recover 2 fatigue and one to recover 2 stress.

Jericho said:

Bad wording when one considers that someone with Strength 2 can use a Longbow as easily as someone with Strength 4.

I guess it's important to remember that the FFG system (I think they should give it a name) is fairly freeform and adjustable and even rules as written should be used with common sense - so I'll probably add a little extra to the encumbrance limit and not bother counting every little thing carried, but at the same time suggest considering whether or not the character should be using a shortbow with such low strength (even though, if you just go by the rules as written, even the weakest kitten can use a longbow) or maybe buy str 3.

in the second edition all carrying equipment & containers had a an encumbrance value of what they could hold. I have made a list for 3rd edition.

Like rucksack (or backpack) weights 2enc, can store 6 units of encumbrance, or pouches that can hold 400 coins and weights 2enc when full or near full. or slingbags weights 1enc, can store 5 units of encumbrance.

further we have houseruled that all stored items in this way, have their encumbrance halfed. I admitt at most you can save is 1enc or 2 at most. So 12 arrows stored in a quiver (1 enc) only weights 1 enc and the quiver can store maximum 24 arrows. Large Sacks on the other hand that can store 10 units of encumbrance will not have items stored halving their weights. Only practical carrying equipment that don`t needed to be held by a hand are applied for.

This system will reward players that invest in backpacks, slingbags and pouches and other practical carrying equipment, while those who just says " I store it on my person" will not be rewarded.

but how much encumbrance will a character be: I use this rule To +St +10. So an average person with 3 in both characteristics will weight 16 encumbrance.

JacobKlunder said:

True. But it seems to me that it doesn't suspend disbelief as much as a plate armoured kight carrying the whole kitchen gear of a party of 8 with tents and bedrolls included and still be able to dance around as if he was a tattooed savage orc !

JacobKlunder said:

I think you are not quite realizing what a dagger is. What you discribe above is a knife, which is not weapon but a tool, just like and "axe" a hunter might use is probably a hatchet, not really an "axe" that would work great for decapitating orcs. A dagger is a short pointed, weapon used for stabbing, often times they did not even have sharpend edges, as they are stabbing weapons, optimized for stabbing through the joints of plate armor once a knight had been knocked off his mount, that way footmen had a quick and easy way to dispatch and grounded knight without having to pry off his plates of armor.

The point being a dagger is designed as a weapon, a hunting knife is designed as a tool, so the hunter may very well cary a knife to clean his kills or general purpose utility, but that is different, so saying that a hunting knife and a dagger are the same thing, is akin to saying an M-16 and a .22 are both the same, yes both can kill a man, but one is much more proficent at it.

If you trying to maintain the "feel" of a hunter then let him carry a hunting knife at a lower encumberance, and if he has to use it as a weapon, make sure it is not as effective as an actual dagger.