Over at the House Rules? post. There is much talk about the encumbrance rules. I am just wondering if anyone else has any ideas or clarification on the rules. There seems to be much disparity between RAW and function. I understand this is a narrative system where such things aren't generally important, however if the designers felt it important enough to include in the book. The rules should be clearly defined and the system should make sense.

I am looking at core book page 152. My primary confusion is the example under encumbrance values where it says "...10 loosely carried incidental items have an encumbrance value of 1. If they are stored in an effective manner..., then 20 incidental items have an encumbrance value of 1."

Where is the definition of an incidental item? Are incidentals 0 encumbrance or - encumbrance? I assume that incidentals are encumbrance 0. Encumbrance - items seem to be items that have proper weight distribution across the body so much so that you wouldn't know it was there and it wouldn't effect your encumbrance threshold.

My question on this is, as an abstract concept: do loosely packed items or stored in an effective manner items progress in a linear fashion from the incidental level, or do they compound in a logical manner?

If they progress in linear fashion from the incidentals, taking that incidentals are 0 encumbrance, that means 10 loose or 20 stored light blaster pistols, with an encumbrance of 1, would have a total encumbrance of 2. Padded armor with an encumbrance of 2, 10 loose or 20 stored would have a a total encumbrance of 3.

Or is the system meant to progress in a logical fashion where 10 loosely carried light blaster pistols are 10 encumbrance, and 20 stored light blaster pistols are 20 encumbrance. 10 loosely carried padded armor is 20 encumbrance, and 20 stored padded armors are 40 encumbrance?

The system also doesn't make a disparity between character encumbrance and vehicle encumbrance. It also says that beings have encumbrance values of 5+Brawn. Silhouette also seems to have nothing to do with encumbrance, so a jawa with two brawn and a human with two brawn would have the same encumbrance value. Except in the Corellian Mining Corporation Digger Crawler it specifically mentions that more jawas can fit on the digger than a regular crew. "Crew: 50 miners and engineers (or 100 jawas)." and "Passenger Capacity: 30 (or 60 jawas)." Which implies that jawas weigh half of what normal beings weigh.

A tie fighter has an encumbrance threshold of 4. So any being (except maybe jawas) automatically over encumber it by 2. This could just be a fun way to show why Tie fighters are so unwieldy. Swoop bikes are similar. Some of these vehicles I don't understand. Does Ship's compliment not count towards encumbrance? That would make more sense. If you look at the Firespray System Patrol Craft its Ship's Compliment is one pilot and two guards, it has an Encumbrance Capacity of 40 and Passenger Capacity of 6 prisoners. So at full compliment and full passengers, if they are common beings with one brawn each they have a total encumbrance of 90. Twice the encumbrance value of the ship, since on page 152 says "Add 1 to the difficulty for every point over, up to the maximum additional encumbrance of 4..." However there seems to be no penalty for a ship to be over its encumbrance threshold, since a ship doesn't make any sort of Brawn or Agility checks. Unless you count piloting as an agility check, except that is a character, who may not be over their encumbrance threshold, making the roll, not the ship itself. Then the Firespray could almost never be filled to its prisoner capacity (rule exception: unless jawa?) because of its encumbrance threshold. I understand if this is an example of forward progression all I ask for is clarification.

Personally in my game, I am just going to assume that encumbrance threshold for vehicles only counts as equipment and has nothing to do with ship's compliment, and passenger capacity. This does seem to be the case on page 266 under Capital Ship Capacity "Capital ships and large freighters are extremely sizable, and thus have a great deal of capability for carrying cargo. Due to this, the encumbrance capacities listed are simply the minimum capability the ship has for transporting supplies and resources. Most of these ships could carry far more if the need arose." Though I am not sure if this just counts for capital ships and freighters, or for all ships. And I still haven't been able to find a penalty for ships being over encumbrance threshold, except for trying to conceal gear.

Anyways that's just my confusion on the encumbrance values. Again to reiterate I know it is a narrative game, and encumbrance values "aren't important" except they are important. Page 152 "In general, players and the Game Master won't need to track a character's encumbrance...(next sentence) Occasionally however it may play an important part in the story, and a player needs to know if the weight, mass, and collective bulk of the items his hero is wearing inhibits his action." Contradictory much? So encumbrance is and isn't important.

What does everyone else think about this crazy thing called encumbrance?

Outside of figuring out what PCs can personally carry without penalty,the rules are pretty craptastic.

I say only really worry about tracking it if it becomes a potential issue (i.e. someone with 1 brawn is trying to wield a heavy repeater with heavy armor)

I say only really worry about tracking it if it becomes a potential issue (i.e. someone with 1 brawn is trying to wield a heavy repeater with heavy armor)

Page 168 Under Armor Characteristics: Encumbrance "Each armor set has a listed encumbrance. This is the encumbrance value of the item when carried. However, armor is designed to be worn, and when worn, its encumbrance value decreases. Reduce the encumbrance value of all armor by 3 when worn."

So I could see the heavy repeater being a problem with an encumbrance of 9, but armor is actually pretty unencumbering. I see where you are coming from though.

Yeah, the only armors that actually matter are Laminate (only 1 enc) but HBA still adds 3. For your average character, that's almost half of what they can comfortably carry without belts or backpacks.

Over at the House Rules? post. There is much talk about the encumbrance rules. I am just wondering if anyone else has any ideas or clarification on the rules. There seems to be much disparity between RAW and function. I understand this is a narrative system where such things aren't generally important, however if the designers felt it important enough to include in the book. The rules should be clearly defined and the system should make sense.

I am looking at core book page 152. My primary confusion is the example under encumbrance values where it says "...10 loosely carried incidental items have an encumbrance value of 1. If they are stored in an effective manner..., then 20 incidental items have an encumbrance value of 1."

Where is the definition of an incidental item? Are incidentals 0 encumbrance or - encumbrance? I assume that incidentals are encumbrance 0. Encumbrance - items seem to be items that have proper weight distribution across the body so much so that you wouldn't know it was there and it wouldn't effect your encumbrance threshold.

My question on this is, as an abstract concept: do loosely packed items or stored in an effective manner items progress in a linear fashion from the incidental level, or do they compound in a logical manner?

If they progress in linear fashion from the incidentals, taking that incidentals are 0 encumbrance, that means 10 loose or 20 stored light blaster pistols, with an encumbrance of 1, would have a total encumbrance of 2. Padded armor with an encumbrance of 2, 10 loose or 20 stored would have a a total encumbrance of 3.

Or is the system meant to progress in a logical fashion where 10 loosely carried light blaster pistols are 10 encumbrance, and 20 stored light blaster pistols are 20 encumbrance. 10 loosely carried padded armor is 20 encumbrance, and 20 stored padded armors are 40 encumbrance?

The system also doesn't make a disparity between character encumbrance and vehicle encumbrance. It also says that beings have encumbrance values of 5+Brawn. Silhouette also seems to have nothing to do with encumbrance, so a jawa with two brawn and a human with two brawn would have the same encumbrance value. Except in the Corellian Mining Corporation Digger Crawler it specifically mentions that more jawas can fit on the digger than a regular crew. "Crew: 50 miners and engineers (or 100 jawas)." and "Passenger Capacity: 30 (or 60 jawas)." Which implies that jawas weigh half of what normal beings weigh.

A tie fighter has an encumbrance threshold of 4. So any being (except maybe jawas) automatically over encumber it by 2. This could just be a fun way to show why Tie fighters are so unwieldy. Swoop bikes are similar. Some of these vehicles I don't understand. Does Ship's compliment not count towards encumbrance? That would make more sense. If you look at the Firespray System Patrol Craft its Ship's Compliment is one pilot and two guards, it has an Encumbrance Capacity of 40 and Passenger Capacity of 6 prisoners. So at full compliment and full passengers, if they are common beings with one brawn each they have a total encumbrance of 90. Twice the encumbrance value of the ship, since on page 152 says "Add 1 to the difficulty for every point over, up to the maximum additional encumbrance of 4..." However there seems to be no penalty for a ship to be over its encumbrance threshold, since a ship doesn't make any sort of Brawn or Agility checks. Unless you count piloting as an agility check, except that is a character, who may not be over their encumbrance threshold, making the roll, not the ship itself. Then the Firespray could almost never be filled to its prisoner capacity (rule exception: unless jawa?) because of its encumbrance threshold. I understand if this is an example of forward progression all I ask for is clarification.

Personally in my game, I am just going to assume that encumbrance threshold for vehicles only counts as equipment and has nothing to do with ship's compliment, and passenger capacity. This does seem to be the case on page 266 under Capital Ship Capacity "Capital ships and large freighters are extremely sizable, and thus have a great deal of capability for carrying cargo. Due to this, the encumbrance capacities listed are simply the minimum capability the ship has for transporting supplies and resources. Most of these ships could carry far more if the need arose." Though I am not sure if this just counts for capital ships and freighters, or for all ships. And I still haven't been able to find a penalty for ships being over encumbrance threshold, except for trying to conceal gear.

Anyways that's just my confusion on the encumbrance values. Again to reiterate I know it is a narrative game, and encumbrance values "aren't important" except they are important. Page 152 "In general, players and the Game Master won't need to track a character's encumbrance...(next sentence) Occasionally however it may play an important part in the story, and a player needs to know if the weight, mass, and collective bulk of the items his hero is wearing inhibits his action." Contradictory much? So encumbrance is and isn't important.

What does everyone else think about this crazy thing called encumbrance?

Nothing contradictory about encumbrance not usually being important, but still being very important on occasion.

For a real life example, consider the lowly check-engine light. Most of the time, it serves no meaningful purpose. In fact, often times it remains superfluous for the entire life of a car. Occasionally, however, it becomes a very important part of the car.

I assume that vehicles don't count listed individuals as part of their encumbrance (i.e. the room for those characters has already been removed from total encumbrance).

Also, I don't think that a PCs encumbrance is how much it encumbers a vehicle, it's how much encumbrance they can personally hold. So the crew of engineers vs. jawas has nothing to do with their own personal encumbrance. The vehicle can accommodate more jawas because they're smaller and can more easily fit into the vehicle.

EDIT: Nevermind, I stand corrected on pg. 152, that gives an example of carrying a Rodian using their encumbrance value as counting against the encumbrance threshold of the wookie carrying them.

Well, first I will say that the 10:1 and 20:1 ratios only apply to "incidentals" meaning items w/ and Enc of 0.

Second: items with a listed encumberance technically never receive this benefit, so 10 frag grenades are Enc 10.

Third: the Enc listed for vehicles is what the the vehicle can hold in addition to it's other listed categories, including rations. Think of it as cargo space.

Fourth: we have no official information on races outside those presented in the corebook. If I recall correctly, all of them are assumed to be Sil 1, but I think the book lists Jawas at a lower Sil? (AFB so I'm not sure) If when they come out with smaller races then FFG will probably address this issue.

For items, it seems pretty straight forward. Even though some items are listed at zero encumbrance, you can't (realistically) carry 500 of them.

So, for items with zero encumbrance, 10 of them is 1, or if backed in, say, a utility belt or case, 20 is 1.

Anything with encumbrance greater than zero always has that encumbrance. In no universe does carrying 20 blasters have a total encumbrance of 1 or 2 make sense.

As for ships. Well, if you're tracking emcumbrance for a Capitol ship, you're going to have a really boring day. IMO, only track encumbrance on ships if it's important. like, you're trying to evacuate an entire colony of refugees, then yeah, maybe you suffer handling issues then if your ship is filling up, or you can only take a portion of the camp with you (this could lead to interesting story). Or, the mission is dependant on how much cargo you can cary to deliver.

But if you have a team of 5 people and they bring back a couple crates of blaster rifles because they plan to sell them at some point, doesn't seem all that necessary to track ship encumbrance, unless your team starts getting loot lust and somehow manages to get a hold of 10 thousand blaster rifles. Then it's up to the GM to say, "the cargo hold simply can't carry that much".

I didn't participate in the BETA, didn't even buy the book, so I'm wondering whether the wonky nature of the encumbrance rules, at least as applies to ships and vehicles, was a matter of discussion/complaint.

I didn't participate in the BETA, didn't even buy the book, so I'm wondering whether the wonky nature of the encumbrance rules, at least as applies to ships and vehicles, was a matter of discussion/complaint.

There is no difference between the way encumbrance works for ships/vehicles as it does for humanoids. Encumbrance is encumbrance.

There is no difference between the way encumbrance works for ships/vehicles as it does for humanoids. Encumbrance is encumbrance.

I get that, and that's why I don't think it makes much sense. A YT-1300 has an Encumbrance Capacity of 165. That seems absurdly low. A Blaster Rifle is encumbrance 4. That means that 41 Blaster Rifles just about fills up the Encumbrance capacity. Light freighter indeed.

There is no difference between the way encumbrance works for ships/vehicles as it does for humanoids. Encumbrance is encumbrance.

I get that, and that's why I don't think it makes much sense. A YT-1300 has an Encumbrance Capacity of 165. That seems absurdly low. A Blaster Rifle is encumbrance 4. That means that 41 Blaster Rifles just about fills up the Encumbrance capacity. Light freighter indeed.

Even worse, a TIE fighter has a Encumbrance Capacity of 4, so it can hold one Blaster Rifle.

Yet there seems to be no penalty for a ship to be over encumbered. The core book even explains that it's okay to over fill.

Page 266 "..the encumbrance capacities listed are simply the minimum capability the ship has for transporting supplies and resources. Most of these ships could carry far more if the need arose."

So with no penalties, and no hard limit. The only thing stopping your from filling a YT-1300 with a thousand Blaster Rifles is the narrative. Even if the narrative allowed it there would be no repercussions. The more I read about the encumbrance rules the more I feel that they are hastily slapped together with the intent that they are ignored unless grossly abused.

Precisely what Istyer said. The Encumbrance rules are fine as written for characters, but once you start talking about vehicle and starship encumbrance they become meaningless. Would have been better to just go with weight as a measure of how much a given starship can hold.

Even worse, a TIE fighter has a Encumbrance Capacity of 4, so it can hold one Blaster Rifle.

That actually bothers me a little less than the Freighter issues because I can justify in my mind a TIE Fighter, which is definitely a short-range ship, so I can imagine it only having a cargo area the size of a small locker or something.

Yet there seems to be no penalty for a ship to be over encumbered. The core book even explains that it's okay to over fill.

Page 266 "..the encumbrance capacities listed are simply the minimum capability the ship has for transporting supplies and resources. Most of these ships could carry far more if the need arose."

That passage begins "Capital ships and large freighters are extremely sizable, and thus have a great deal of capability for carrying cargo. Due to this, . . ." So I'm not sure that the advice to just ignore the numbers provided is intended to apply on the smaller end of the scale.

So with no penalties, and no hard limit. The only thing stopping your from filling a YT-1300 with a thousand Blaster Rifles is the narrative. Even if the narrative allowed it there would be no repercussions. The more I read about the encumbrance rules the more I feel that they are hastily slapped together with the intent that they are ignored unless grossly abused.

I certainly hope that wasn't the intention. I'd rather think they tried to give us good rules and failed than that they just threw nonsense at us with the intention that it be ignored. I understand that no system is perfect, so I'll forgive some quantity of bad rules, but if I wanted to wing it, I would have just played "lets pretend" and saved $60.

Well, if you're tracking emcumbrance for a Capitol ship, you're going to have a really boring day. IMO, only track encumbrance on ships if it's important. like, you're trying to evacuate an entire colony of refugees, then yeah, maybe you suffer handling issues...

Why would you suffer handling issues? No where in the pilot skill, encumbrance rules, or handling rules does it state that there is a penalty for a ship being over encumbered. However if the pilot is over encumbered then his piloting suffers, the ship itself has nothing to do with that. As close as it gets pretty much is: page 116 under Piloting (Space) "(Advantage) generated during a Piloting (Space) check may be spent to reveal a vulnerability in an opponent's piloting style or vehicle..." And of course threat can be used against the player in the same manner. I could see the GM spending threat against a vehicle that is over encumbered.

Even worse, a TIE fighter has a Encumbrance Capacity of 4, so it can hold one Blaster Rifle.

That actually bothers me a little less than the Freighter issues because I can justify in my mind a TIE Fighter, which is definitely a short-range ship, so I can imagine it only having a cargo area the size of a small locker or something.

Yet there seems to be no penalty for a ship to be over encumbered. The core book even explains that it's okay to over fill.

Page 266 "..the encumbrance capacities listed are simply the minimum capability the ship has for transporting supplies and resources. Most of these ships could carry far more if the need arose."

That passage begins "Capital ships and large freighters are extremely sizable, and thus have a great deal of capability for carrying cargo. Due to this, . . ." So I'm not sure that the advice to just ignore the numbers provided is intended to apply on the smaller end of the scale.

So with no penalties, and no hard limit. The only thing stopping your from filling a YT-1300 with a thousand Blaster Rifles is the narrative. Even if the narrative allowed it there would be no repercussions. The more I read about the encumbrance rules the more I feel that they are hastily slapped together with the intent that they are ignored unless grossly abused.

I certainly hope that wasn't the intention. I'd rather think they tried to give us good rules and failed than that they just threw nonsense at us with the intention that it be ignored. I understand that no system is perfect, so I'll forgive some quantity of bad rules, but if I wanted to wing it, I would have just played "lets pretend" and saved $60.

I definitely agree with you on all points. The TIE fighter's encumbrance makes sense because it is pretty much just a fighter craft with a cockpit, maybe enough room to store a gun behind the seat.

I don't know what the intent was with pointing out the capital ships and large freighters can break the encumbrance rules. Personally it doesn't make a lot of sense. I really hope it is some sort of forward compatibility.

Statements like: page 152 "Keeping track of the weight of every stimpack isn't fun, but knowing that a hero is loaded down with the weapons he just stole for the Rebellion is an important story element...In general, players and the Game Master won't need to track a character's encumbrance (how much he's carrying on his person.) Occasionally, however, it may play an important part in the story..."

The bold text kind of bothers me, to me as a reader, it implies "the encumbrance rules aren't important enough to care about unless the story calls for it."

The bold text kind of bothers me, to me as a reader, it implies "the encumbrance rules aren't important enough to care about unless the story calls for it."

Simple solution maybe?

What happens if ya take the encumbrance of a vehicle and multiply it by 10?

Using BRs (Enc. 4) and BPs (Enc. 1) packed in crates for shipping (or however ya want I guess) for our examples and vehicles that people should be aware of lets see what we get.

Cloud Car: Enc 8 (80) = 20 BRs (Between inside storage and cargo straps for the outside I can see it), 80 BPs (I can see it, but takes a little more stretching of my imagination) Seems ok to me.

Aratech Speeder Bike: Enc 5 (50) = 10 BRs and 10 BPs (Once again strapped on and inside some type of container I could run with it.

Swoop: Enc 4 (40) = 1 crate of 10 BRs, or one crate of 40 BPs. I'm cool with that

Y Wing: Enc 10 (100) = 2 large crates and a small one for 25 BRs (I'm good with that)

YT-1300: Enc 165 (1,650) = 412 BRs (10 crates is no problem for me). 1,650 BPs (NP at all really)

This seems to work with those items, but I haven't looked at other equipment. On the surface it appears to be a simple solution, but somebody with more time and will may find that this doesn't work well. I can see using this idea and applying it to people makes it really wonky.

YT-1300: Enc 165 (1650) Making a person 10 Enc. gets you 165 people packed like sardines. I can see it, but wouldn't want to be in there more than 10 minutes.

Being strapped to the outside of a cloud car does not sound appealing either.

Anyway, just a thought

While there is no real difference between encumbrance carried on a person and in a ship, there is a note in the book about cargo crates requiring somewhere between 6 to 8 enc or something (I'm AFB so can't tell you page number). I'd also imagine, based on the order66 episode with Sam Stewart, that if you pack stuff in crates they require less encumbrance, as its not in use. Wielding a blaster rifle is different than putting it neatly stacked in a crate with other blaster rifles. I think Sam suggested a rule of thumb was to halve encumbrance when packed in crates.

My own house-rules on this is that a cargo crate of x encumbrance can carry about three times that amount of encumbrance. So a cargo crate that consumes 5 encumbrance of cargo capacity on a ship, can carry 15 encumbrance worth of stuff, so I divide by 3 instead of halving the equipments enc for storage. Either way, it should be kept in mind that encumbrance is both mass, volume and how easy/hard/clumsy it is to carry/wield/use.

I didn't participate in the BETA, didn't even buy the book, so I'm wondering whether the wonky nature of the encumbrance rules, at least as applies to ships and vehicles, was a matter of discussion/complaint.

Oh, hells yes, it was brought up.

Simple solution maybe?

What happens if ya take the encumbrance of a vehicle and multiply it by 10?

It gets to be a problem.

Now, if it were x10 for Sil 6, less an issue.

It really is the worse chunk of the rules.

I didn't participate in the BETA, didn't even buy the book, so I'm wondering whether the wonky nature of the encumbrance rules, at least as applies to ships and vehicles, was a matter of discussion/complaint.

Oh, hells yes, it was brought up.

I didn't participate in the BETA, didn't even buy the book, so I'm wondering whether the wonky nature of the encumbrance rules, at least as applies to ships and vehicles, was a matter of discussion/complaint.

Oh, hells yes, it was brought up.

Maybe it's been addressed for AoR. If not, we have a new Beta period coming up in which to suggest that it be addressed.

I didn't participate in the BETA, didn't even buy the book, so I'm wondering whether the wonky nature of the encumbrance rules, at least as applies to ships and vehicles, was a matter of discussion/complaint.

Oh, hells yes, it was brought up.

Maybe it's been addressed for AoR. If not, we have a new Beta period coming up in which to suggest that it be addressed.

And thus it was that a 'new version' that is no longer fully compatible with the 'old version' begins...

Hopefully there is just clarification, not a power creep or rules progression.

And thus it was that a 'new version' that is no longer fully compatible with the 'old version' begins...

Well, these are separate-but-compatible games, not compatible-but-separate games.