Keeping Track of Minutia (or its the little things)


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A lot of times we overlook or "hand wave' the minutia, It's the Little Things. Ammo, food rations, encumbrance, lantern oil. Occasionally though it is not only necessary to keep tack of these things but important to the story. How often do you keep tack of the little things? In what instances is this important to your game?


My group gets so little time to play any more that we generally handwave those things.

Ammo being the one exception. I don't think I've had my players keep track of encumbrance in decades. my players do not abuse this so it works out fine.


Apupunchau wrote:
A lot of times we overlook or "hand wave' the minutia, It's the Little Things. Ammo, food rations, encumbrance, lantern oil. Occasionally though it is not only necessary to keep tack of these things but important to the story. How often do you keep tack of the little things? In what instances is this important to your game?

It really depends on what kind of game you want to play. If it's gritty survival, then you have to be absolutely anal in tracking things.. if you're going for fast and loose heroics, ask yourself this... how much gear did Hercules and Xena. or even their sidekicks, carry around on the Action Pack shows?

This is one of the many questions in this venue without a single "right" answer.


There is definitely no single "right answer". But I do enjoy the differing view points on things and exchange of ideas. Like in two other places Im talking about this, two different peopl have brought up the idea that some people think of keeping track of spell slots as minutia. It never dawned on me that people wouldn't keep track of spell slots. So I learned something new.


Apupunchau wrote:
There is definitely no single "right answer". But I do enjoy the differing view points on things and exchange of ideas. Like in two other places Im talking about this, two different peopl have brought up the idea that some people think of keeping track of spell slots as minutia. It never dawned on me that people wouldn't keep track of spell slots. So I learned something new.

If it's possible for someone to have done something or failed to do something in this game, chances are that it's happened.

A lot of lapses are simply from the increasing headache of managing characters as they become more complicated. Since I've started running my characters in Herolab, I've become a lot more conscientious in keeping track of things.


Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Apupunchau wrote:
There is definitely no single "right answer". But I do enjoy the differing view points on things and exchange of ideas. Like in two other places Im talking about this, two different peopl have brought up the idea that some people think of keeping track of spell slots as minutia. It never dawned on me that people wouldn't keep track of spell slots. So I learned something new.

If it's possible for someone to have done something or failed to do something in this game, chances are that it's happened.

A lot of lapses are simply from the increasing headache of managing characters as they become more complicated. Since I've started running my characters in Herolab, I've become a lot more conscientious in keeping track of things.

As a GM I hand wave a lot. As a player I keep meticulous account of my inventory. I never use character management software though everything is done on the character sheet and maybe an excel file.


Calculating encumbrance with a spreadsheet is pretty easy and something I do for all of my PCs. I've found that this can actually influence character design quite a bit. It can be surprising to find out how little a PC with low Str can carry.

We usually try to do a good job of tracking the charges on our many healing wands, but I've rarely run across a DM who asks players to track arrows and bolts at least past 1st or 2nd level. Many PCs have also wandered around with the same set of rations for their entire career though I was also in a game where the DM pointed out that if we didn't find food or money to buy it we'd starve. My PC at the time ended up trying to chase down and kill a sheep we saw near a cliff and kill it with his falchion (which of course went wrong in comedic fashion)


As a player I tend to have extensive inventory sheets, in part because I enjoy being able to solve puzzles or overcome challenges with odd items - my last character had a handy haversack stuffed to bursting with just about everything from the gear section in Ultimate Equipment, which was fondly referred to as his "bag of tricks" by the rest of the party. He made good use of a waffle iron on more than one occasion.

As a GM I recognize that most players don't share my enthusiasm for extensive inventory sheets. Since we have a limited amount of time for gaming each week, I'd prefer to spend as much as possible of that time focusing on the game aspects that everyone enjoys. As a result I'm happy to hand-wave arrows, torches, rations etc. unless keeping track of it is important to the campaign - if the party's been shipwrecked, for example.


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As a player, I always got some sort of sick pleasure figuring out how best to organize my character's handy haversacks for some reason.

But in general, our group handwaves most of this.

We did have one truly excellent exception, in which I ran a survival-based game in 3.5, where the party were the only survivors of a brutal military battle, deep in hostile enemy territory, hundreds of miles from help, and lost in treacherous wilderness.

We all agreed that no one could have any healing abilities until level 4 at the earliest, so the party was reliant on natural healing until the Ranger hit level 4 and could use cure light 1/day.

Every piece of mundane gear was a treasure, every sunder attempt against one of their weapons was a nail-biter. The party relied on Stealth and Perception (even worse, since it was Hide, Move Silently, Spot, and Listen) in addition to Survival and Heal. Knowledge (nature) and Knowledge (geography) became some of the best skills in the game.

To add to the tension, there was deep party mistrust. One of the survivors - a barbarian - was a prisoner who had gone berserk and murdered several allied soldiers and was being taken to his execution. One was a psionicist, and literally part of the oppressive empire's Thought Police. Another was a loyal soldier. The ranger was conscripted and hated the empire, but the nation that the barbarian was from was the nation that ended up finally successfully invading his homeland and bringing them to heel. The last was an aristocratic wizard - a cowardly academic who had never fought in a battle and only survived because he hid under some corpses without casting a single spell to aid in the fight.

Everyone had a blast. We never finished, unfortunately; two of the group moved hours away, and this was years before anything as nice as RollD20 came out.

I've always wanted to give it another go. It's one of those games that the players involved still talk about extremely fondly, even though it's been a decade. Anyone from our group that was not involved just stares at us like we're lunatics whenever we bring it up.


I've run the gamut. during my first years a GM I was learning the ropes, and to a degree so was the group I ran (1E back in college) we didn't bother with weight (but inventory was still important). But by the 3rd year, we'd mastered enough of the rules to add encumbrance and equipment packing lists as equally important. Even then though it was more about -where- an item was stored, vs how much encumbrance you had - with in reason.

I'm using that same philosophy now to a lessor degree with my kids in PF. Based on my personal experience carrying a heavy military load, you can carry -a lot- of weight when you're just moving. Then you dump ruck on contact if its an ambush, or stow them in objective rally point if you're the ambusher or raiding. So IMO tracking encumbrance too closely is pointless, since you can carry a lot, but the "fighting" load is going to be belt pouches, potion/wand bandoleers, and weapons. But - that's why its more important for me to enforce location (I have each pouch numbered on the character sheet, and if its in back-pack, once you start battle and move, its assumed "out of reach".

That's all light-fighter based mentality though. If you're "Mech"....well, you take everything you have and pick up odds and ends at every town.

Spell components I'm hand-waving at this point until they get higher level and the expensive stuff kicks in.


We keep track of charges on wands really well, and ammo reasonably so. We just assume you stock up on it again before the next adventure, though we rarely deduct the money for it. That's something I need to keep better track of in my group.


Its usually hand waved. Though if you push it early you likely won't have issues. On occasion it comes up. If its being exploited or abused . . "no you can't carry 2 greatswords and a halberd on your back and fit through the door."

You wanted a small wizard with an 8 star . . . yes 35 pounds is the max.


Excellent thanks everyone. The most common rule seems to be ignore rations, torches and all but special ammo. This is across all media i'm having this conversation. Just about everyone keeps track of charges on magic items. Oddly there were two people who groups thought spell slots was a bother and thus minutia. I do love hearing stories though so keep 'em coming.

@devilkiller I also use excel spreadsheets for inventory. But i;m the only one tat thinks spreadsheets are fun.

@Kudaku I think every game has the batman character with a bag, pouch, belt full of goodies. its usually me.

@Gulthor I would lov to try my hand as a player in that kind of survival game. Sounds like a blast.


Yeah, I prefer not to sweat the small stuff. Heck I barely care about clw wand charges, out of combat healing is easy enough in pf that I would almost prefer free out-of combat healing.

I think there are scenarios where keeping track of that is fun, but there are already so many things to keep track of I would rather spend my time on other things.

I agree with your assessment of the community in general. There are probably a majority of people who will be fairly loose about tracking things; but the line can vary great. Some will only apply rules to punish tanking (which I think is silly, but that's a different discussion for a different thread), some love it and think it's really great and need for the simulationist aspect of it.

Managing and budgeting scrupulously is a part of real life; I prefer to only do it when it comes to imaginary magical powers I am using to escape that aspect of real life. Also I think there are better chassis for strict simulationist games.


One thing which strikes me as odd from time to time is the question of where PCs store their reach weapons while they're not wielded, especially when we're in tighter spaces like dungeons. Once in a while I've seen a DM or two challenge this, but they generally back off. On the other hand, DMs frequently insist that mounts won't fit into dungeons which have ceilings high enough to accommodate them.

@GM 1990 - If you want to carry heavy stuff around but then drop it when your first turn comes up in combat that's something you could probably also do within the rules rather than by hand waving them. The difference could be significant when traveling with a heavy load, when you run across traps, or when you're surprised. I also think that enforcing encumbrance rules can enhance the value of mounts, pack animals, and vehicles (maybe like the Mech you mentioned). I happen to think that's fun, but I'd guess I'm in the minority on that.


A lot of this depends on what the GM and players find fun, and the style of the game. A gritty survival game requires you to track all resources. A high fantasy romp is less concerned with this. Since our group does the latter more often, we don't sweat the small stuff.

I keep track of everything for the first few levels, after that I only keep track of magical and exotic stuff. Pretty much if you've got a handy haversack, I assume you have standard adventuring gear. If it seems reasonable, I'll give you a roll on odd stuff too. Of course, if you specifically write something down you have it.


Devilkiller wrote:
One thing which strikes me as odd from time to time is the question of where PCs store their reach weapons while they're not wielded, especially when we're in tighter spaces like dungeons. Once in a while I've seen a DM or two challenge this, but they generally back off. On the other hand, DMs frequently insist that mounts won't fit into dungeons which have ceilings high enough to accommodate them.

That's why I dislike the "everyone carries a 10-ft-pole" thing.

On the other hand, I don't have a problem with my eidolon/paladin mount/etc. carrying around half a dozen magical glaives and twenty magical crossbows, because if the GM wouldn't want me to carry them around, he should just handed out gold instead of loot he knows no one in the party will ever use. Basically, loot and quest items get handwaved, everything else you have to actually carry.

We used to keep track of rations, but after running around gutting pretty much every non-humanoid creature we encountered so we had enough food, we kinda stopped keeping track of rations for our current campaign.

Not keeping track of spells? That would seriously imbalance the game (well, imbalance it way more). What was that thing in the Potion Glutton thread about 8 extracts a round and the 6 second adventure day?


Apupunchau wrote:
A lot of times we overlook or "hand wave' the minutia, It's the Little Things. Ammo, food rations, encumbrance, lantern oil. Occasionally though it is not only necessary to keep tack of these things but important to the story. How often do you keep tack of the little things? In what instances is this important to your game?

As a player I track ammo. As a GM I just tell the player to pay 10gp per month and he doesn't have to track normal arrows, just the special ones.

I also hate tracking encumberance. Redoing math because I used 22 arrows, and used one food ration is annoying. I don't make my players track rations or water. I just assume they have enough. As for lantern oil someone normal has the light spell or an everburning torch. It has never come up in a real game.

I also don't worry about paper, pen or ink. I do buy it, but no GM has ever asked me exactly many sheets of paper I have left.


We keep track of charges and ammo in my two groups. Encumbrance matters when people start to get ridiculous with it: "You're carrying how many chain shirts?!" When I am running a game, I tend to hand wave stuff like rations or other things with limited use unless it would contribute to the game. For example:

"After hours of searching these catacombs, you finally enter the crypt. The passageway ends in a wide open room containing dozens of sarcophagi. The sound of stone grinding on stone alerts you as the one closest to you opens, then another, and another. Suddenly, the lantern that has been illuminating your investigations begins to sputter and dim, and you hear the rogue swear as he begins to fumble through his pack, crying, 'Where's the oil! Where's the damned oil!!'"


Apart from personal inclinations and preferences, for the average campaign, if we want a balance between keeping track and not wasting time on it, the first sentence in OP's link says it all. Frodo and Sam had to keep close track of their lembas because they were in a hostile land with little to no natural sources of food. This translates into a simple: unless there are reasons for which you should keep close track of stuff (carrying a noticeably heavy load, being far from communities where you could resupply, just broke free of a prison with nothing but your pants on, etc.), just don't waste time. Spend a few gp now and then to resupply consumables, buy a donkey/horse with saddlebags, and you're good.


As a GM getting to the end of Kingmaker I was pretty keen on monitoring it at early levels. At higher levels these things (most things even) can be ignored. Every now and then I call for an 'encumberance audit' just so things aren't getting out of hand but when the extra-dimensional containers start turning up you can pretty much forget about it.

...although (anecdote alert) there was one situation on another game years ago where the party wanted to take a dragon's hoard home and the ded wyrm's head as a trophy. I thought it was worth running the numbers and the result was the party piling all the loot (and head) on to a carpet and taking a corner each to make their way back out the dungeon.

Cheers
Mark


I just hit level 8 on my archer cleric and had a rather eye opening conversation with my GM and another player playing an archer Bard.

I had asked the player for some advice on packing ammo as I had noticed that the bard never ran out of arrows or worried about weight. The response from the GM was that we did not need to track that minutia.

I was floored but said ok as it was the GMs call. I did point out to him politely that one of the major constraints on my character was the fact that at 5 arrows a round next level I could run myself dry of ammo pretty fast based on what I could carry and be under my max load. The arcanist in our party chipped in and said that she would then be able to carry all of the meta-magic rods she needed along with other gear without a handy haversack and the GM blinked and thought about it.

We now track encumbrance and ammo.

Funny, but honestly I was as I said floored about that response. I would say just be on the same page. For low strength characters encumbrance can be important and for dedicated archers it and ammo balancing can be vital.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

We usually just handwave most mundane things (rations, ordinary ammo, that kind of thing). We keep track of magic things, alchemical items, and special ammo (magical, special materials, etc.). Oh, and rope. :-) We used to track ordinary ammo, but eventually stopped after we all agreed that it was just extra record keeping.

Encumbrance we should probably track more than we do...but most of the time by the point that we get enough stuff that it would be an issue, someone has a handy haversack or bag of holding anyway.


We've never worried about encumbrance. It just seems like more bookkeeping and like Meraki said we usually have a bag of holding or some such, anyway.


Our groups usually invest in extra-dimensional containers, so I suspect that encumbrance wouldn't be a big deal at higher levels.

I feel a renewed urge to get people carefully tracking encumbrance and ammo though. I was reading another thread about a long adventure in the wilderness, and the idea of archers running out of arrows on a long journey strikes me as the sort of "fun" DMs like players to have at low levels. Ah, the joys of ability damage!


The prpblem with extra dimensional containers is they still weigh something. Handy Haversack os like 10-15lbs my investigator with Str 8 is already encumbered with just hus armor, gun and sword cane. Even with te haversack I'm still well above medium load and there are a ton of things you cant do with a medium load i mean lots. So for me encumbrance is important

And last session I took 6 points of Str damage even with Muleback chords i was screwed.

Liberty's Edge

A Handy Haversack is 5 lbs.

And what kind of armor are you wearing? A Mithral Shirt is 10 lbs. So...that plus a gun and a sword is 18 lbs. Add in a Haversack and you're at 23 lbs and only lightly encumbered even at Str 8.

If you're wearing a breastplate instead, then being at medium encumbrance is basically meaningless.


As for encumberance I dont really do hard tracking, but if you dump strength(9 as an example) you shouldn't be carrying 70lbs of gear. So far nobody has taken advantage of me not tracking it down to the pound.


wraithstrike wrote:
As for encumberance I dont really do hard tracking, but if you dump strength(9 as an example) you shouldn't be carrying 70lbs of gear. So far nobody has taken advantage of me not tracking it down to the pound.

Exactly. I'm part of a couple groups as player/DM depending on the campaign, and none of us micromanages this. Don't do anything ridiculous and I won't make you count the weight of each arrow.


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I don't like straight up accounting for this stuff. Instead I switch to abstract systems.

For example in PF, I might say you get 20 arrows. You're assumed to get this many every time you pay living expenses (you don't get 20 more arrows, you just get refilled to 20). Once this allotment runs out, you still have arrows... but, if you ever roll a 1 with an attack using an arrow, that was your last arrow.

I do a similar thing for food. We keep track of group rations (the party might have 8). To get from Point A to Point B requires a certain number of Survival checks. Then it goes like this:

DC or higher = progress towards reaching destination
Within 5 of DC= choose one
1. You take a wrong turn, make no progress
2. You encounter a wandering monster (random roll)
3. Spend 1 ration

Miss the DC by 6 or more, I as DM get to decide from:
1. Spend 3 rations
2. All characters take 2 Con damage from exposure (or damage, depending on how I want it to affect them, numbers can change)
3. I get to pick the monster off the encounter list
4. The party gets separated

These ways, you still have those moments of... "Oh no, we're almost out of food." But you're not tracking rations and water by weight, just by the number of uses that could get spent on bad rolls.


Deadmanwalking wrote:

A Handy Haversack is 5 lbs.

And what kind of armor are you wearing? A Mithral Shirt is 10 lbs. So...that plus a gun and a sword is 18 lbs. Add in a Haversack and you're at 23 lbs and only lightly encumbered even at Str 8.

If you're wearing a breastplate instead, then being at medium encumbrance is basically meaningless.

Im wearing leather armor we're like level 3 i cant afford mithril, technically i cant afford a haversack either i just bought a small island

Liberty's Edge

Apupunchau wrote:
Im wearing leather armor we're like level 3 i cant afford mithril, technically i cant afford a haversack either i just bought a small island

Well, sure, at low levels encumbrance is very definitely a problem, but by the time you can afford a Haversack, you can afford the mithral, which was rather my point.

Encumbrance ceases to be a problem under most circumstances by 5th level or so assuming standard WBL.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
A Mithral Shirt is 10 lbs. So...that plus a gun and a sword is 18 lbs. Add in a Haversack and you're at 23 lbs and only lightly encumbered even at Str 8.

Add in a Cloak of Resistance, a Belt of Dexterity, and your bullets and you are one single magic item away from medium load. Better hope your GM ignores outfit weights.

Sure, a Handy Haversack is, well, handy, but it doesn't mean you can ignore encumbrance.


When people say that they don't track encumbrance but nobody has abused it I wonder how they know and what they'd consider abuse. If the DM assumes that every PC can carry as much equipment as he or she needs to function optimally that seems like it should cover everything except maybe hauling home really big treasures or just "being silly".

Anyhow, if people are lax on encumbrance it makes me wonder what else they might be lax on. The first thing which comes to mind is hand availability and what items are in a PC's hands. In general the groups I play with at least try to track this, but I've noticed plenty of times when DMs have let players switch between shooting bows and using melee weapons without really asking how the switch was accomplished. Folks also often seem to forget about drawing potions or sometimes even wands. Where wands and ranged weapons go after they've been used is also not always a popular subject. Sometimes I'll point such stuff out if the players and DM in question wouldn't be too offended or I just feel like making trouble. I wonder if other groups enforce hand use rules more or less than ours though.

@Apupunchau - If you have serious concerns about whether you can carry a 5lb haversack you’re probably the sort of PC who DMs interested in encumbrance might want to audit.

@Derklord - We actually had a discussion lately about whether one 1st level PC is "naked under his armor" since he was teetering on the edge of encumbered.


Devilkiller wrote:
When people say that they don't track encumbrance but nobody has abused it I wonder how they know and what they'd consider abuse.

I am not saying they haven't gone over by a pound or two. Maybe they did, but I tend to know who is carrying the party loot. It tends to be given to the strongest character.

Like I said before if you dump strength, but are trying to carry or wear fullplate then something is up. I don't need to check the book for that.

Also being lax in one area doesn't translate to other areas. Behaving as if they have 3 arms is not going over in any game I have been in.

PC: I have my staff, my wand, and a potion all at the ready.

GM: You only have 2 hands. Put something away.


Devilkiller wrote:
When people say that they don't track encumbrance but nobody has abused it I wonder how they know and what they'd consider abuse.

Basically, I don't mind a mage who carries a crossbow, a staff, some rope, and a few torches, with Strength 10. Throw in a dagger or two, a bedroll, and a waterskin and you're probably well into encumbrance being an issue. To me that's just... unheroic.

The mage who's carrying five hammers, a tent, and some sandbags... that's abuse.

Quote:
Anyhow, if people are lax on encumbrance it makes me wonder what else they might be lax on.

Pretty much the unheroic stuff. It's kind of un-fun to me to imagine telling one of my players "no, you only had 30 arrows when you left town, and I've been counting how many you use, so you don't have any for this (sixth) random encounter on the way to the BBEG's lair." As long as the players are spending a reasonable sum on simple consumables, I don't sweat it.

Yes, we track wand charges, potions drank, acid flasks and the like. But 1sp arrows? Yeah, no.

Quote:
The first thing which comes to mind is hand availability and what items are in a PC's hands.

This is tracked, but generously. Meaning that if you've got a greatsword (two-handed) equipped and you want to pull out a potion (move action) and drink it (standard action), you can do so by removing a hand from the sword. But if you're a sword & dagger user and want to do the same, you need to drop something (free action). I have a bunch of painted weapons from Reaper minis, which we drop on the battlemat to keep track of where dropped gear is.

Another thing that we're fairly generous on is simultaneity. If two players want to swap equipment, we let the two just allocate a move action each to manage the deed. We don't mess around with readied actions and the like. Same goes for swapping spaces (though we don't let you do that with 5-foot-steps), but this doesn't come up very often.

I'm not entirely positive if you're allowed to share a square with a prone & unconscious/dead creature, but we allow it. You can "stand over and defend" a fallen comrade this way. Zero mechanical benefit except sharing space; you don't provide cover or anything.

So yeah, maybe people who don't track the minutia stuff, but I don't think we're unreasonable. I at least meticulously track the important combat-relative things.


Anguish wrote:
Basically, I don't mind a mage who carries a crossbow, a staff, some rope, and a few torches, with Strength 10. Throw in a dagger or two, a bedroll, and a waterskin and you're probably well into encumbrance being an issue. To me that's just... unheroic.

Depends on the number of torches, actually.

I'd actually pay attention to this stuff at least in the beginning, otherwise wizards can freely dump strength.

Anguish wrote:
I'm not entirely positive if you're allowed to share a square with a prone & unconscious/dead creature, but we allow it.

"You can’t end your movement in the same square as another creature unless it is helpless." CRB p193

Shadow Lodge

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An archer never runs out of arrows. Unless they're magic arrows. The gods pay more attention to where those go. And wands are audited at all times. Food and water, meh, nobody poops.


Devilkiller wrote:

When people say that they don't track encumbrance but nobody has abused it I wonder how they know and what they'd consider abuse. If the DM assumes that every PC can carry as much equipment as he or she needs to function optimally that seems like it should cover everything except maybe hauling home really big treasures or just "being silly".

Anyhow, if people are lax on encumbrance it makes me wonder what else they might be lax on. The first thing which comes to mind is hand availability and what items are in a PC's hands. In general the groups I play with at least try to track this, but I've noticed plenty of times when DMs have let players switch between shooting bows and using melee weapons without really asking how the switch was accomplished. Folks also often seem to forget about drawing potions or sometimes even wands. Where wands and ranged weapons go after they've been used is also not always a popular subject. Sometimes I'll point such stuff out if the players and DM in question wouldn't be too offended or I just feel like making trouble. I wonder if other groups enforce hand use rules more or less than ours though.

@Apupunchau - If you have serious concerns about whether you can carry a 5lb haversack you’re probably the sort of PC who DMs interested in encumbrance might want to audit.

@Derklord - We actually had a discussion lately about whether one 1st level PC is "naked under his armor" since he was teetering on the edge of encumbered.

The players in my group (as I switch off with one GM) have never had an issue with knowing the need to spend actions to draw sheath weapons. Many will free action drop a weapon if they don't have enough time. But these sort of things have never been a problem with my current group.

As for me the other GM doesn't worry he knows I take meticulous care of my inventory. Also Muleback Chords have just been purchased which helps.

Liberty's Edge

Derklord wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
A Mithral Shirt is 10 lbs. So...that plus a gun and a sword is 18 lbs. Add in a Haversack and you're at 23 lbs and only lightly encumbered even at Str 8.

Add in a Cloak of Resistance, a Belt of Dexterity, and your bullets and you are one single magic item away from medium load. Better hope your GM ignores outfit weights.

Sure, a Handy Haversack is, well, handy, but it doesn't mean you can ignore encumbrance.

You can keep your bullets, and whatever weapon you aren't using in the Haversack. Which works fine due to how the Haversack works. The Cloak, Belt, Clothing, and so on make it a tighter fit, but not an unworkable one. You can definitely arrange something with a bit of care.


Derklord wrote:
Anguish wrote:
Basically, I don't mind a mage who carries a crossbow, a staff, some rope, and a few torches, with Strength 10. Throw in a dagger or two, a bedroll, and a waterskin and you're probably well into encumbrance being an issue. To me that's just... unheroic.

Depends on the number of torches, actually.

I'd actually pay attention to this stuff at least in the beginning, otherwise wizards can freely dump strength.

I hear you. But again, I did mention reasonable, and Str 10. To support this, we do 25-point builds, but with the express caveat that we don't want to see dumping. The generous build rules are explicitly to allow fighters with a few points in Int and/or Cha, to provide extra skill points or actually being good at social skills. Similarly we don't let players go nuts with wizards max/minning their ability scores. I don't want to see anything over an 18 after racial bonuses, and I don't want to see more than one of those. So a 10/12/13/18/14/14 (human) wizard is a common thing to see at my table. Most of our builds are basically that array. Yes, it's powerful, but more importantly - to me - it doesn't shoehorn characters.

Quote:
Anguish wrote:
I'm not entirely positive if you're allowed to share a square with a prone & unconscious/dead creature, but we allow it.
"You can’t end your movement in the same square as another creature unless it is helpless." CRB p193

Thanks. I've only been playing this non-stop since 3.0e and I'm sure we knew that at some point, but have long lost track of where it was printed.


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I play online Pathfinder only so it's effortless to make a change to my sheet. As a result it's easier to track the little things like ammo, wand charges, etc. The only thing I handwave as a player is rations since we're always fine on that front with survival and cooking the odd owlbear that we find on the route.

That said as much as I do it I hate encumbrance rules. I mean I realize dumping strength should have a penalty but it doesn't stop it from being a pain even with a haversack.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
Derklord wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
A Mithral Shirt is 10 lbs. So...that plus a gun and a sword is 18 lbs. Add in a Haversack and you're at 23 lbs and only lightly encumbered even at Str 8.

Add in a Cloak of Resistance, a Belt of Dexterity, and your bullets and you are one single magic item away from medium load. Better hope your GM ignores outfit weights.

Sure, a Handy Haversack is, well, handy, but it doesn't mean you can ignore encumbrance.

You can keep your bullets, and whatever weapon you aren't using in the Haversack. Which works fine due to how the Haversack works. The Cloak, Belt, Clothing, and so on make it a tighter fit, but not an unworkable one. You can definitely arrange something with a bit of care.

Exactly a bit of care, and I do manage now mostly, although that Str drain last game was a pain. But a bit of care means I have to be conscious of what I carry where. Beneficial Bandooleer and Muleback Chords are saving the day right now.


When I run I use most of the rules especially encumbrance and ammo. Since fighters who dump INT lose skill points it is only fair that rouges and wizards who dump STR are also penalized. This also forces clerics and other secondary combatants to devote some resources to STR to avoid being encumbered by their armor and weapons. Using ammo is a way of keeping archers in check.

For things like rations and other minor equipment I simply have the players spend a monthly upkeep fee and consider it taken care of.

I use Hero Labs and have a copy of all characters so it keeps track of the encumbrance for me. Past first level most archers simply get durable arrows to minimize breakage. This means that they only really have to worry about ammo in two cases. The first is if they have to run before being able to collect their arrows. The second is in a very long battle. Having to pay 1GP per arrow rather than 1 per 20 arrows is not that big of a deal.


TOZ wrote:
An archer never runs out of arrows. Unless they're magic arrows. The gods pay more attention to where those go. And wands are audited at all times. Food and water, meh, nobody poops.

In a truly realistic campaign we would mark every location any character does either one and color code and date stamp it.

That way when we want to know who peed on the fourth board of the west wall on the inside of the fort on December first we will know!!!


I prefer to let the in-game accounting take a back seat, provided nobody abuses the privilege.

If I notice that your character is essentially always carrying just the right mundane item, or the party try to loot everything down to and including teeth, then you better believe I'll be checking encumbrance.

If nothing stands out as particularly suspicious then I'm happy to have all of these numbers slightly fuzzy.

TOZ is right though. The Gods do care more about magic arrows, or anything magic in my games.


Before Herolab minor stuff was not generally tracked as long as it was written on your sheet and you stayed within "reasonable" limits. After Herolab virtually everything is tracked. Was playing an 8 Str cleric in RoftRL who used anthaul to let him carry all his combat gear plus the haversacks and stuff and got hit with a dispel magic. Went from no load to heavy load. Every one got a chuckle as my 15th level character pretty much fell over in combat and couldn't do much for a bit. Luckily combat was near over and I was able to recast but I'm much more aware of that kind of stuff now.


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As a player?
I ALWAYS have an accurate detail of my ammo, charges, spell componants, gear, encumberance, ratiobs, etc.
And I dutifully track them during play (oft on someone else's turn)

As the DM?
I expect the players to keep track & not cheat. Afterall, it's not hard....
And occasionally I WILL ask how much of something someone has. If they look at thier sheet & say "I don't know"? Then that resource becomes ZERO.


We play online, with the GM in final control of the actual inventory being carried, so encumbrance is tracked. Not as much of an issue for my breastplate-wearing barbarian, but the Str 11 bard and the Str 13 rogue and cleric have had some concerns.

Mundane ammo is only tracked as far as how many are on you at a time; returning to 'town' counts as restocking, because as a group we don't find it fun to haggle for five arrows. Food has rarely come up as we've rarely done an adventure that included camping out. It was noticed when it did come up. Only one of us is using ink and paper but so far the GM hasn't really cared about making me pay for it aside from the initial investment in carrying the ink, inkpen, and blank journal.

The wands in our group are of course strictly metered, as well as things like alchemist fire. And this reminds me, I need to check with my GM on how many chakrams I've got left.

Which brings up ... how often do groups keep track of non-shuriken thrown weapons?


ccs wrote:

As a player?

I ALWAYS have an accurate detail of my ammo, charges, spell componants, gear, encumberance, ratiobs, etc.
And I dutifully track them during play (oft on someone else's turn)

As the DM?
I expect the players to keep track & not cheat. Afterall, it's not hard....
And occasionally I WILL ask how much of something someone has. If they look at thier sheet & say "I don't know"? Then that resource becomes ZERO.

+1

Same here

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