Encumbrance: Is this really how it works?

[DarkPhoenixx]

graystone wrote:

DarkPhoenixx wrote:

Thats what you get for having 10 STR.

You can get leather armor, which thematically is more accurate for agile character, but you dont want to lose that +1 AC do you?

How are armors more or less 'thematic' looking JUST at my stats? I'm not seeing how one light armor is more appropriate than another one.

If you go down that route, wouldn't being unarmored be the best thematically? I KNOW that's what you'd do since you're saying theme is more important than little things like mechanics and survival... :P

Because one is cured leathers that is something pirate or duelist would use and other is sheet of metal links that would be issued to the low-rank troops in the army?

And why would you not use armor (unless you are crazy mysterious monk thingy who can anticipate enemy attacks and react to them if his/her movement is not hampered by armor)?

[alexd1976]

I made a Swashbuckler with a STR of 7, still wound up with an AC of 17

Dodge +1
Dex +4
Buckler +1
Haramaki +1

If you want heavier armor, boost STR.

I agree though, it sucks that encumbrance works as it does, we have houseruled that worn clothing isn't counted when calculating encumbrance.

My solution wasn't to take a trait to boost my carrying capacity, I took 'Rich Parents' and bought a 'small cat' and trained it to be a pack-kitty.

Imagine a panther with saddle bags.

[RDM42]

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Weirdo wrote:

You put 30-40 lbs in a backpack and you can bet the average person will be jogging a little less heartily.

The weight estimates for some items are a bit off and ideally the system would count worn weight as less encumbering than weight in a pack (since the former is usually better distributed) but it's about as good as it can get without being prohibitively complicated. Even as-is many hand-wave it.

Yes - that. For realism - armor/clothes should count less for encumbrance than what you're holding/hauling.

Back in college I wore a 40lb weight vest around campus - and it didn't really slow me down that much. (somewhat tiring after a full day - but that was the point) The backpack full of textbooks felt at least as heavy when I was hauling it though I knew that not to be true - because the vest was made to be relatively ergonomic. (It was also made so that it looked rather like kevlar - leading the cops to be called a couple times...)

Of course - is it worth the extra paperwork for the extra bit of realism? Probably not. I just split the difference and don't count clothing towards your weight. :P

Would you say you were a ten strength in college? Do you think the average person could wear it without it slowing them down at all? Especially if they were also carrying other things?

[Charon's Little Helper]

RDM42 wrote:

Would you say you were a ten strength in college? Do you think the average person could wear it without it slowing them down at all? Especially if they were also carrying other things?

I'm not going to try to guess what strength I was (though likely over 10) nor what the encumbrance cut-offs should be - I just meant to be commenting on the difference between wearing and carrying an equal weight.

[graystone]

DarkPhoenixx wrote:

graystone wrote:

DarkPhoenixx wrote:

Thats what you get for having 10 STR.

You can get leather armor, which thematically is more accurate for agile character, but you dont want to lose that +1 AC do you?

How are armors more or less 'thematic' looking JUST at my stats? I'm not seeing how one light armor is more appropriate than another one.

If you go down that route, wouldn't being unarmored be the best thematically? I KNOW that's what you'd do since you're saying theme is more important than little things like mechanics and survival... :P

Because one is cured leathers that is something pirate or duelist would use and other is sheet of metal links that would be issued to the low-rank troops in the army?

And why would you not use armor (unless you are crazy mysterious monk thingy who can anticipate enemy attacks and react to them if his/her movement is not hampered by armor)?

I think you're misinformed. If you'd bothered to look at parade armor, you'd see that they can be 100% made out of leather. So you really don't have a point there.

As to no armor, YOU are the one that brought up that lighter armor was more thematic. If that is true, no armor would therefor be the MOST thematic.

[Weirdo]

Bill Dunn wrote:

The term is not really a problem. Just spewing a label like "min-maxer" is the problem because it doesn't really inform anybody what's being minimized and what's being maximized. Ultimately, the same holds true for "optimized". Optimized for what?

I think I agree. I'm mostly taking issue with how it appeared to be used. Admittedly, I might be reading more into it than was actually intended. I've seen some people on the forum react with hostility to dex-based martials with low strength, and I usually see "min-maxing" used to ridicule extreme cases so it felt to me like there was some negativity on this thread about a swashbuckler daring to have only 10 Str.

10 Str is fine - if you're willing to deal with the encumbrance trade-offs.

[Joesi]

I personally like the weight restriction rules, and find the values to be satisfactory. The fact that [natural] flying works while carrying oftentimes significant weight bothers me though.

Another thing that significantly bothers me is how Paizo stats-out ability scores for certain creatures. Example: A druid's animal companion hippopotamus has only 11 strength while a freaking dog has 13. It's nonsensical. The dog even has a lot more Con than the hippo as well. Even an elephant has only 1 more strength than a dog, and still has significantly less Con.

Anyway, I like following the weight rules, but with one very important exception/condition: Things such as non-magical clothing count as zero weight. One additional thing that would count as zero weight is a single [non-magical] backpack.

This allows for characters to actually follow weight rules reasonably without having to sacrifice style.

[Matthew Downie]

Joesi wrote:

A druid's animal companion hippopotamus has only 11 strength while a freaking dog has 13.

While that is a bit silly, even for a baby hippo, I think the hippo will still have a higher weight capacity due to being a larger size class.

[Gaberlunzie]

Joesi wrote:

Another thing that significantly bothers me is how Paizo stats-out ability scores for certain creatures. Example: A druid's animal companion hippopotamus has only 11 strength while a freaking dog has 13. It's nonsensical. The dog even has a lot more Con than the hippo as well. Even an elephant has only 1 more strength than a dog, and still has significantly less Con.

Carrying capacity for:

Baby elephant: 175
Baby hippo: 115
Dog: 112.5

Dog still has the least carrying capacity.

At 7th level, when the baby hippo grows into an adult one, it has a carrying capacity of 700 lbs. Which is a fair bit more than the dog. The elephant has 1040 lbs at that point.

(All these values are the upper limit of a heavy load, but the proportions should be similar at any weight point).

[Diego Rossi]

I consider more amazing the stats of a fox.
Tiny animal with Str 9.