Armor, Equipment, and Encumbrance: How do You Play?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

1 to 50 of 231 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | next > last >>

In the thread over on Ultimate Equipment, it is kind of getting derailed a bit by the discussion on encumbrance. So I figured that I would start one for just this topic.

The background for this starts on page 6 and goes on, but the basic question I am posing here to you, the players of this game and the DMs who run this game is this: do you track equipment and gear weight? Do you use the encumbrance rules in the Core Rulebook?

I know, for myself, that I do. Perhaps it is because of how I came to the game, but I cannot really picture just hand-waving all the stuff that adventurers routinely carry on their backs. In my first games, if you didn't have a piece of equipment on your sheet, you were out of luck. And if you HAD a piece of equipment on your sheet, it had best have a weight alongside it!

Now, we used mules many times to haul our gear, especially when looting huge piles of treasure (and later on as we continued, bags of holding and portable holes).

What about you?

How do you play?

Do you figure encumbrance for everything your players carry, and or do you see it as something outside the story?

Tell us.

MA


There are some things in D&D/PF that should be abstracted, like combat skill, individual item weights, weather, the spread of fire, etc.

Encumbrance is not one of those things. If you want to move something, you damn well better have invested in the means to do so. Weakling Wizards don't get to haul golden statues out of dungeons on their backs.


Aratrok wrote:

There are some things in D&D/PF that should be abstracted, like combat skill, individual item weights, weather, the spread of fire, etc.

Encumbrance is not one of those things. If you want to move something, you damn well better have invested in the means to do so. Weakling Wizards don't get to haul golden statues out of dungeons on their backs.

Well not til high levels anyways (spells... changing reality since forever.)

We just keep track the old fashion way: just like it is. Although for me, Hero Lab helps immensely.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I track it down to the ounce for every item that has a listed weight and is not carried in a Handy Haversack or similar item. The only weight I don't write down on the character sheets is tender. Tender changes hands so often in our games there is little point. It's far easier to write in "x pounds, excluding tender" on the sheet and remember that 50 coins = 1 pound for when it might matter.


Depending on the game I am playing I do both ends of the spectrum. No encumbrance at all or full encumbrance.

What started the argument over in the other thread is should kit weights be errata to be equal to their constituent components or not. Then people got defensive, touchy, started attacking each other and nothing of value was communicated.

The way I figure it, the way encumbrance was abstracted (from all the way back to the beginning of D&D) was based on mass. Changing that now to a hybrid where "weight" is partially based on packaging with no explanation to how or why the specific number was chosen is just more work for those that care about encumbrance while not providing one lick of usefulness to those that don't care, well because they don't use it anyway. I just don't see any good reasons to change that but the developers disagree. Considering the fallout it caused on the forum, this smells like one of those compromises that isn't going leave anyone happy.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

DM fiat, basically and a half-baked sense of 'what seems right'.

We dont generally loot bodies for weapons, armor, equipment and so forth. If we decided to, we'd ask the DM how much we can take and he'll make something up. When we slay the dragon we come up with some way to logistically transport the horde or we just take a few bits and pieces.

If we want to take a finely crafted statuette, we'll just add it to our 'party treasure list' (we dont even bother working out who's carrying such things as a general rule). If we try and take the obsidian altar, the DM will tell us it's too heavy (without knowing how much it weighs).

We only get to play three or four hours a week and nobody other than me has much spare time between sessions. For us, there's nothing added to the game by knowing exactly when we pass a threshold into heavily encumbered - if it seems to be relevant to the story, the DM will tell us the loot we're carrying is slowing us down. Most of the time, we dont know how fast we're moving down the corridor but it doesnt matter.

We're probably granting ourselves higher physical skill bonuses than we should have - but the DM sets the challenges and associated DCs primarily according to how good we are, so that's a wash.


master arminas wrote:

In the thread over on Ultimate Equipment, it is kind of getting derailed a bit by the discussion on encumbrance. So I figured that I would start one for just this topic.

The background for this starts on page 6 and goes on, but the basic question I am posing here to you, the players of this game and the DMs who run this game is this: do you track equipment and gear weight? Do you use the encumbrance rules in the Core Rulebook?

I know, for myself, that I do. Perhaps it is because of how I came to the game, but I cannot really picture just hand-waving all the stuff that adventurers routinely carry on their backs. In my first games, if you didn't have a piece of equipment on your sheet, you were out of luck. And if you HAD a piece of equipment on your sheet, it had best have a weight alongside it!

Now, we used mules many times to haul our gear, especially when looting huge piles of treasure (and later on as we continued, bags of holding and portable holes).

What about you?

How do you play?

Do you figure encumbrance for everything your players carry, and or do you see it as something outside the story?

Tell us.

MA

First, real classy of you to move it to a new thread. :)

Me, I keep track of every item to the pound at lower levels.
I also keep track of items to the pound when I create a character with a str score of 13 or lower that doesn't use heavy armor, if the basic stuff such as armor, waterskin, weapons, etc is starting to get me in trouble. Usually encumbrance isn't at problem once you get a Handy haversack (and a bag of holding). I don't however keep track of how much my cash weights, nor does anyone in our gaming group. (The exception is if we found lot of bags with copper, silver and Gold. We have been known to leave all bags of copper and most bags of silver. DM's call. )

This is just me however. Our gaming group works pretty much like Steve Geddes's gaming group. It not so much if character A can pick one more swortsword or not, but more a matter of, does it seem plausible that this group can transport all this stuff. Usually the answer is yes, but sometimes only some stuff can be looted. Funny enough the weight is usually not the problem, but the mass. A figyter with Str 22 can easily carry 8 fullplates +1 and 8 longspears +1 worth of weight, but he can't Carry 8 fullplates +1 and 8 longspears +1.

We use mules and horses so sometimes we clears out the dungeon then loot. Bring stuff to horse, go back to dungeon, bring more stuff to horse, etc. Lot of stuff is assumed to be packed on the horses. Let's say we are out for a 10 day adventure. Our characters sure isn't carrying arrows, food and water for 10. Probably 9 days of supplies on the horse and supply for 1 day carried by the character.

Strong characters help the weak. Just as Steve Geddes's we'll just add stuff to our 'party treasure list' (we don't even bother working out who's carrying such things as a general rule). Although magic stuff that grant you a bonus (such as rings), potions, scrolls and wands are distributed so we don't get into an argument of "who has that ring of feather fall, when one of the characters actually do fall.

And just as Steve Geddes: If the party try and take the obsidian altar, the GM will tell them it's too heavy (without knowing how much it weighs). Most of the times the GM will try to help the players to find a way. We once found a throne of gold. If I'm not mistaken we ended up shopping it up so we could bring along all the gold.

To sum it up. We keep an eye on encumbrance so we are not totally off base. Party members help each other, we use horses and sometimes a mule. Mass (as in bulk) is usually a bigger issue than weight. Spells and magical bags helps.

GM makes calls regardless of if the party can or can't carry stuff. GM is usually friendly :)


We tend to not track it to the oz, but we do track most of it. We also have various things to help give us more weight carry ability like mules, pack dogs, bags of holding etc.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

What Steve Geddes wrote.


What Steve says :)

Nobody has the time to track gear. Just grosso modo and/or what feels right.

An Orc carrying ten axes? Sure.
A Wizard carrying ten axes? Hell no :)

Liberty's Edge

We track encumbrance in two different ways:
- an accurate tracking of what someone is wearing and keep at hand or in containers that can't be shed in a hurry (like a backpack if you are using a shield);
- a more approximative tracking of the weight of what is in containers that can be shed rapidly, in extraplanar containers or is carried by pack animals.

The basic check is done at the start of a section of an adventure or at the start of a voyage and when something significant is added or removed from the equipment. Generally no one is adding a "just found but not precisely identified" magic weapon to his ready to use weapons, it is put in a backpack for later, careful, examination.

The basic idea is that, when the need arise, you will shed the sack or bag with the stuff that you don't need immediately to benefit from your full mobility. Generally in that sack there are things like most of your food (lacking food can kill you later, lacking mobility can kill you now), climbing gear and similar items.
Naturally that mean that some of your gear can be on the floor in an unattended container and is more easily lost of destroyed but that is an acceptable risk.

We don't generally re-check encumbrance if the character add or delete some small item from his equipment during an adventure (use up charges of the healing kit, drunk potions, pick up a wand), only if he add or subtract weighty items (where weighty is a relative term, what is weighty for a 6 str wizard can be negligible for the str 20 paladin).
For some stuff, like the arrows of the str 12 archer, we consider that it is automatically replenished from the reserves on the mule as soon as possible, so the weight he is carrying don't change.

So a character will not be over a load bracket at the start of an adventure and he shouldn't be over it by more than a few percentage points by the end of it.
We find that managing our encumbrance that way make it manageable and don't benefit people that is stat dumping strength.

The weight of the stuff in extradimentional containers is generally ballparked (a common joke is rating the carrying capacity of the bag of holdings in "corpses"), paying more attention to the content of the smaller containers like a handy haversack than that of a large bag of holding, but we never forget that nor pack animals nor extradimensional containers have infinite capacity.

We feel that knowing what we bring along and what it weight is important. Surely, it can be done a different way, using feats like the one presented in one of the Pathfinder Society manuals, where the character with it can "find" in his equipment the right tool, up to a specific value, a few times during an adventure. but it seem too convenient for character with low carrying capacity, especially for low strength/high dexterity builds.


I ussually don't track encumbrance, except for the heavy stuff (a basick backpack, armor, weapons, and arrows).

I make an exception with characters that dump STR. Then, I track everything (including 1/50th of pound per gold coin, the weight of the pouch were you have the coins -one pouch per 100g-, the weight of the scrolls, weight of every magic item, such as "hats of disguise" or "googles of minute seeing", and the weight of rations, spellpouches, clothes, and stuff like that. Everything, up to the last pound.


gustavo iglesias wrote:

I ussually don't track encumbrance, except for the heavy stuff (a basick backpack, armor, weapons, and arrows).

I make an exception with characters that dump STR. Then, I track everything (including 1/50th of pound per gold coin, the weight of the pouch were you have the coins -one pouch per 100g-, the weight of the scrolls, weight of every magic item, such as "hats of disguise" or "googles of minute seeing", and the weight of rations, spellpouches, clothes, and stuff like that. Everything, up to the last pound.

Ironically, when we got HeroLab and entered my group's RL PCs into it, it was the high Str character that was above encumbrance. Because everyone just assumes, "He has a 20 Str, he can carry this extra armor/weapon/chest of coins/whatever." And, sure, that one item, whatever it was at the time, was fine; it was the accumulation of them that doomed him.

I've found that when people "eyeball" encumbrance, they tend to overestimate what both low- and high-Str characters can carry. I have a gnome rogue/cleric that doesn't even have the extra 5 pounds for a handy haversack, mostly since mundane backpacks weigh 1/4 as much for Small characters but magic sacks/bags weight just as much as for a Medium PC. :P


I start off being pretty conscientious about encumbrance at level 1, and I get more and more lazy about it as time goes on.


I have my player's track the weight and encumbrance as Ravingdork says. We don't waste oodles of time on it but it will come into play for those times when characters get Str damage or penalties.

Liberty's Edge

In the past, I admit that my group was pretty lax on tracking encumbrance. We didn't load up unrealistically (no one carried 50 different swords or anything like that). We used the TLAR (That Looks About Right) method: we didn't track everything to the ounce, but carried relatively realistic loads and if we came across large hauls, we knew we would have to find some help to carry it.

Most of us are running hero lab now, so it is easier to be more precise.

EDIT: last sentence.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Gorbacz wrote:
What Steve Geddes wrote.

+1

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.

As a DM, I usually don't pay attention to encumbrance. It's usually not worth the pain to track it. Most players will only carry the things they actually need.

However:

If they are swimming, I make them look at what they are wearing and carrying... sorry, swimming in plate armor? You're going to pay for it... If they are climbing a rock face, I make them do the same. Climbing a sheer surface in plate, yes, you can fall and get hurt. To that character carrying 200 arrows, 100 torches, 5 50' segments of rope, 4 bows, 4 swords, etc and not have it stowed in Bags of Holding (or equivalent)... yes, that's a bit much. I had one character carrying 100 days of feed for his horse... in his "backpack"... nah, don't think so.


Usually I'm like Steve. I'm being a bit touchier about it in my Kingmaker game though, since the low-gear survivalist aspect is a big part of the story. But when I move on to my next game, which will likely be a bit less wilderness exploration, I'll probably go back to being "meh whatever" about it and eyeballing everything.

RE: Swimming - only character I had to ever deal with this was an Air Genasi Cleric. Air Genasi don't breathe. (Dunno if that got carried over to Sylphs in PF or not.) She just tromped along the bottom of the lakebed in her plate. Fun times.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

For swimming and climbing, Armor Check Penalty is usually enough for me.

Silver Crusade

TriOmegaZero wrote:
For swimming and climbing, Armor Check Penalty is usually enough for me.

This is especially true as I see the Swim skill very rarely taken, so even a low Armor Check Penalty is pretty drastic.

I ran a swashbuckling campaign once, and the players wore their medium and heavy armor on the deck all the time... until one player fell overboard in a storm and drowned. None of the players had the Swim skill...

They were like 5th level at the time, and the water a few hundred feet deep... This was back in 3/3.5 edition when Swashbuckling Adventures came out.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

I learned very quickly to put some points in swim, even with my dwarf having a backup chain shirt for ship travel. Scale mail is not acceptable diving attire.


No one in my RL group ever wears more than light armor or accepts an ACP. Climbing and Stealthing and speed are too important to them. Even the "tank" is in magic mithril chain.


I guess if you manage to find a combat tactic that doesn't require a heavily-armored fighter-type standing at the front to defend the party I could see you getting away with it, but every group I've been in has had at least someone up front in plate to take the heavy hits, save the most recent group where no one's proficient in it. And even then they've still got a medium-armored samurai (though prior to his arrival they did only have the leather-clad barbarian).


Celendria deBois wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:
For swimming and climbing, Armor Check Penalty is usually enough for me.

This is especially true as I see the Swim skill very rarely taken, so even a low Armor Check Penalty is pretty drastic.

In pathfinder, not so much. A standard lvl 8 or so fighter, with a single rank in swim, can swim perfectly fine while in full plate. Full plate is -6 ACP, but with Masterwork (or magic), and Armor training 2, that's strongly reduced. With a single rank, a fighter can have 1+3(class)+6(str, including lvel pumps and str belt)-3(ACP) or +7 in swimming. Nore than enough to swim decently. It's better than most people in real life can swim naked. It's the equivalent of str 13, swim as class skill, skill focus in swim, and one rank at level 1.

Pathfinder character are badass, indeed :)

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

That's also an 8th level Fighter. I don't see it as a flaw.

How would an 8th level Rogue do? 8th level cleric? (Yes I know the cleric would just spellify things to win, bear with me.)

I think if you take someone who isn't specialized in wearing full plate, you'll see that ACP is just fine.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
What Steve Geddes wrote.
+1

+2

:)


For swimming, I do this. You either get your ACP OR a -1 penalty for every 10 lbs you are carrying . . . whichever is HIGHER. Fighter Armor Training and Mithril might reduce the ACP, but there is the still the weight to consider. People don't easily swim in full plate, with a tower shield strapped to their arm, while carrying a half-dozen weapons, and 5,000 gold coins in a sack.

MA


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

As a HOUSE RULE, I use the old v3.5 rule that ACP is doubled for swim checks, but I have to be sure to announce that before character creation.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Ugh. Have fun with that, guys. :(

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

When I make a character, I mark their light/medium/heavy load thresholds on the sheet. Then I figure out how much their heaviest stuff (armor/weapons, mainly, but other heavy things if applicable to the PC) weighs. If that gives them a nice, beefy margin before the next threshold (i.e., solidly in the category that their armor would put them in anyway, nowhere close to the next category), then I stop right there. If I'm ~60 lbs from my stats changing, I don't really need to know whether that margin is 59 or 54 lbs. It's enough.

If I'm closer to the line, then I'll tally up lighter stuff (backpack, rope, etc). If I can get far enough away from an encumbrance change that all I need to do to stay "legal" is not pick up large objects, then I make a mental note to not pick up large objects, and stop worrying about it. If it's close enough that I would need to track every little thing, I'd rather just wear heavier armor (to make it not matter anymore) or drop enough things that I have more wiggle room.

"Precise enough to be confident of legality, but no more." That's my encumbrance habit in a nutshell.


TriOmegaZero wrote:

That's also an 8th level Fighter. I don't see it as a flaw.

How would an 8th level Rogue do? 8th level cleric? (Yes I know the cleric would just spellify things to win, bear with me.)

I think if you take someone who isn't specialized in wearing full plate, you'll see that ACP is just fine.

I didn't say it's a flaw. Actually I like it. I was just saying that it's not true that people in full plate sink in Pathfinder. *Some* people in full plate *might* sink. But not most of them. The rest either have low ACP (rogue), can cast spells (clerics), have enormous strength to make up for the ACP (barbarians), have enough skill ranks to make for it (rangers) or don't wear armor at all (wizards).

Paladins are almost the only ones who frequently sink :)


As a player -- I am prepared to track weight and encumbrance if the GM says so. So far my GMs have not cared.

As a GM -- it's mindless bookkeeping which takes time away from game play. I don't enforce the encumbrance rules unless my players try something obviously ridiculous (e.g. "I loot the 40-ton marble statue!").

A couple of them track it anyway because they like doing so, and that's fine with me.


Orthos wrote:
I guess if you manage to find a combat tactic that doesn't require a heavily-armored fighter-type standing at the front to defend the party I could see you getting away with it, but every group I've been in has had at least someone up front in plate to take the heavy hits, save the most recent group where no one's proficient in it. And even then they've still got a medium-armored samurai (though prior to his arrival they did only have the leather-clad barbarian).

*shrug* The front of the battle turns into the back pretty quickly. I run a lot of fluid battles and chases and fighting in one area draws any monsters in nearby areas pretty quickly who tend to come in from behind the group. My guys are much more hampered by the fact that they don't have a full caster than they are by not having a "tank" who slows them down by only having a 20' move, especially since the fighter in mithril still has an AC in the upper 20s.

I actually had one guy buy full-plate once. The very next encounter after he could afford it at 3rd-level or so was an ambush in difficult terrain. (Not my fault; it was an AP.) He was supposed to be the "tank" but spent the whole battle trying to get to the enemy. About the time he got to a bad guy, they'd either move away or already have been taken out by another party member. I think he might have gotten one swing in at the very end. Since then, no one's been remotely tempted by the prospect of being encumbered.


master arminas wrote:

For swimming, I do this. You either get your ACP OR a -1 penalty for every 10 lbs you are carrying . . . whichever is HIGHER. Fighter Armor Training and Mithril might reduce the ACP, but there is the still the weight to consider. People don't easily swim in full plate, with a tower shield strapped to their arm, while carrying a half-dozen weapons, and 5,000 gold coins in a sack.

MA

Do you do something similar when the same fighter breaks the long jump world record while wearing the same full plate?

Or when he climbs the empire state building wearing that same full plate?

Or when he jumps from the empire state building, crash into the floor, and then stands up and go to run a marathon in the full plate?


Back to the OP, I personally track the weight for every item i'm carrying, rounded up for things like arrows to fit it onto that little sheet easier.


When I play, I track everything (but then, I use form fillable PDFs that usually keep track of the weight for me, so I just have to keep track of what I have on me). I usually buy muleback cords first, then haversacks and bags of holding eventually.

When I'm GMing, I trust my players to keep track of their encumbrance, and if things change (IE: They get new armor for example) I ask them to do a recalc on their weights/etc to make sure they're still legal.

Actually, that reminds me. TOZ and TOZ-Wife both just got MW full plate in my game, so I need to ask them to do a quick recalc and make sure they're all still legal weight wise.


I don't bother tracking my player's Encumbrance unless a character has a Strength modifier of 10 or less. (In the campaign I'm GMing, the lowest Str score is a 16. Or a 14, if we consider the substitute character that only comes into play when someone is not present).

I considered tracking the weight of armor and weapons, maybe gold too, but in the end, it's not something very important for gameplay, IMO.

Unless someone want to carry an absurd amount of weight, like a ship or something, I don't really care. Those 5000 gp are usually not 5000 gold coins, but jewels, artworks, etc...

As a player, unless GM tells me to keep track of encumbrance, I'll only do so for characters with a Str score of 12 or less... Otherwise, I'll rarely carry enough stuff for it to matter. And I usually buy Bags of Holding too.


One other thought, the need to be more critical depends on what kind of adventure is being played. If it is a super dungeon crawl for days and the character must carry everything on their back I would tend to be more critical.

If it is a city based campaign where the player has a "home base" and tends to carry a minimum of stuff at any given time, then I almost never check. I would say the same for any games where the party has access to lots of weight carry aid; pack animals, porters, base camps etc.

So how far we track it is greatly influenced by what kind of game we are playing.

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

1 person marked this as a favorite.
mdt wrote:
Actually, that reminds me. TOZ and TOZ-Wife both just got MW full plate in my game, so I need to ask them to do a quick recalc and make sure they're all still legal weight wise.

Don't you know you should never ask a woman about her weight? Especially to find out if there's so much weight it would slow her down?

;)

Dark Archive Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games

We hand wave it. The GM always has the authority to determine someone is carrying too much and/or can't carry a heavy object, but in general, encumbrance is an aspect of the game that we don't use. We would rather spend time adventuring and role-playing than trading out equipment because of our calculated weight allowance. Just an element of the game that always seemed like it was more work than it was worth.

YMMV.

Silver Crusade

mdt wrote:
Actually, that reminds me. TOZ and TOZ-Wife both just got MW full plate in my game, so I need to ask them to do a quick recalc and make sure they're all still legal weight wise.

Dwarf.

I'll still check, of course.

Edit: Hero Lab says Kurik is at 173 of 350lbs.


gustavo iglesias wrote:
master arminas wrote:

For swimming, I do this. You either get your ACP OR a -1 penalty for every 10 lbs you are carrying . . . whichever is HIGHER. Fighter Armor Training and Mithril might reduce the ACP, but there is the still the weight to consider. People don't easily swim in full plate, with a tower shield strapped to their arm, while carrying a half-dozen weapons, and 5,000 gold coins in a sack.

MA

Do you do something similar when the same fighter breaks the long jump world record while wearing the same full plate?

Or when he climbs the empire state building wearing that same full plate?

Or when he jumps from the empire state building, crash into the floor, and then stands up and go to run a marathon in the full plate?

I actually have house-rules for some of yours and other situations:

1. The 16 year old healthy blacksmith apprentice cant survive a fall which will leave the 80 year old cloistered academic merely bruised:

Falling inflicts Constitution damage, not hit-point damage. 1d4 for the first 10' and +1 per every 10' after. Hit zero Con and you are dead no matter how many hp you have. Players in my game make damn sure they are roped together and pitoned securely or someone has a feather fall prepped. That an having a good acrobatics skill to try and lessen the damage from a fall.

2. Armor should get worse the more it's used in battle:
I keep track of how much damage someones armor in my game takes. Basically, for every 10 full points of damage dealt to the character, the armor takes 1 hit point of damage, ignoring hardness. At zero hit points, it becomes broken. If it takes twice that amount of damage, it is ruined.

3. Weapons should break pretty regularly:
Natural '1' is a miss that damages the weapon's hit points, meaning you actually hit something (maybe even your target), but you hit it bad wrong. This damage is done exactly as sunder, just as if you were swinging that weapon: hope you weren't power-attacking two-handed Mr. Raging Barbarian, sir.

4. A kit of equipment should start to weigh less as it is consumed:
You bet it does. Had to leave half the rope in your climbing kit behind? The kit loses weight. You have a healing kit? Each time your use it the supplies get lower and WILL run out. Same with trail rations and waterskins.

Works for me and my group. Your own mileage may vary.

MA


master arminas wrote:
gustavo iglesias wrote:
master arminas wrote:

For swimming, I do this. You either get your ACP OR a -1 penalty for every 10 lbs you are carrying . . . whichever is HIGHER. Fighter Armor Training and Mithril might reduce the ACP, but there is the still the weight to consider. People don't easily swim in full plate, with a tower shield strapped to their arm, while carrying a half-dozen weapons, and 5,000 gold coins in a sack.

MA

Do you do something similar when the same fighter breaks the long jump world record while wearing the same full plate?

Or when he climbs the empire state building wearing that same full plate?

Or when he jumps from the empire state building, crash into the floor, and then stands up and go to run a marathon in the full plate?

Actually for falling damage I change it from hit points to Con. 1d3 damage +1 for every 10'. Solves the problem nicely.

MA

If it works for you, great :)

What about breaking long jump world records in full plate? Climbing in full plate? Running a marathon in full plate? Doing Acrobatics on full plate? Do you house rule those too, or only swimming? Because if you house rule all of them, then full plate goes from ACP -6 to ACP -1000 or so, with most Dex and STR based skills being simply impossible for armored characters.

Liberty's Edge

TriOmegaZero wrote:
I learned very quickly to put some points in swim, even with my dwarf having a backup chain shirt for ship travel. Scale mail is not acceptable diving attire.

Good for diving, not so good for resurfacing ;-)


gustavo iglesias wrote:
master arminas wrote:
gustavo iglesias wrote:
master arminas wrote:

For swimming, I do this. You either get your ACP OR a -1 penalty for every 10 lbs you are carrying . . . whichever is HIGHER. Fighter Armor Training and Mithril might reduce the ACP, but there is the still the weight to consider. People don't easily swim in full plate, with a tower shield strapped to their arm, while carrying a half-dozen weapons, and 5,000 gold coins in a sack.

MA

Do you do something similar when the same fighter breaks the long jump world record while wearing the same full plate?

Or when he climbs the empire state building wearing that same full plate?

Or when he jumps from the empire state building, crash into the floor, and then stands up and go to run a marathon in the full plate?

Actually for falling damage I change it from hit points to Con. 1d3 damage +1 for every 10'. Solves the problem nicely.

MA

If it works for you, great :)

What about breaking long jump world records in full plate? Climbing in full plate? Running a marathon in full plate? Doing Acrobatics on full plate? Do you house rule those too, or only swimming? Because if you house rule all of them, then full plate goes from ACP -6 to ACP -1000 or so, with most Dex and STR based skills being simply impossible for armored characters.

Not necessary. With the exception of the fighter, ACP doesn't go down. And Fighter Armor Training, in my game, doesn't reduce ACP. It only increases Max Dex. So, I seriously doubt that a fighter is going to be breaking any world record long-jumps in full-plate and shield. In my game.

MA

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Diego Rossi wrote:
Good for diving, not so good for resurfacing ;-)

That's not diving, that's sinking. :P


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Diego Rossi wrote:
Good for diving, not so good for resurfacing ;-)
That's not diving, that's sinking. :P

Potato/asparagus.

Shadow Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Kind of like 'falling with style'.


master arminas wrote:


Not necessary. With the exception of the fighter, ACP doesn't go down. And Fighter Armor Training, in my game, doesn't reduce ACP. It only increases Max Dex. So, I seriously doubt that a fighter is going to be breaking any world record long-jumps in full-plate and shield. In my game.

MA

Really?

Level 10, 10 ranks in jump, +3 class, +5 str, -5 from masterwork full plate, that's 13 ranks in jump. With a running start, it's 23' taking ten. If you roll, and get a decent roll (that's what a world record is), you can jump 33'. World record is 29 feet. And I'm not counting Skill Focus in Jump, or Acrobatic feat, or Run feat (which gives you +4 to the roll. With Skill Focus in Jump, Acrobatic, and run, you'll jump 47' in full plate, if you roll 20, or 37' in full plate, taking 10. Not counting magical stuff like boots of springing and striding or +6 belt of strength. Just mundane fighter.

And that's at level 10.

1 to 50 of 231 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / General Discussion / Armor, Equipment, and Encumbrance: How do You Play? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.