Swim Penalty according to Weight of Equipment

[Zerberus]

In D&D 3.5 there was a penalty on swim checks according to the weight of your equipment. If I remember correctly it was -1 per 5 pounds
Is this gone in Pathfinder?

[Benjamin Trefz]

Actually, the penalty for Swim was simply double your Armor Check Penalty, and yes, as far as I can tell this extra penalty was removed from the Pathfinder RPG.

Your penalty to all Strength- and Dexterity-based skills is now simply your Armor Check Penalty.

Note that a character carrying a large amount of items may incur an Armor Check Penalty higher than that of their Armor.

[Eric Clingenpeel]

Zerberus wrote:

In D&D 3.5 there was a penalty on swim checks according to the weight of your equipment. If I remember correctly it was -1 per 5 pounds

Is this gone in Pathfinder?

That was the penalty in 3.0 As Benjamin pointed out, in 3.5, they made it double your ACP.

[Zerberus]

Ah, I played D&D 3.5 for all the years and never noticed that change :)
Thanks for the info!

[James Jacobs]

Yup; Swim's armor check penalty now works the same as every other armor check penalty. This was a place where complications in the pursuit of realism didn't go far enough, and by ramping back the complications for a simpler approach game play improves.

[Wraithcannon]

With no extra consideration of the load the character may be carrying? I understand the need for simplicity, but being able to swim with your maximum load the same as butt naked just flys in the face of any attempt at realism.

Can we please have a penalty associated with medium and heavy loads?

[master arminas]

I never stopped using the -1 per 5 lbs. of carried or worn equipment rule. Makes players a little less keen on fighting in full plate armor on small boats, let me tell you. And NO ONE fails to take at least a few ranks in Swim.

Master Arminas

[Mergy]

There is a penalty associated with medium and heavy loads: -3 and -6 respectively.

[Wraithcannon]

Mergy wrote:

There is a penalty associated with medium and heavy loads: -3 and -6 respectively.

Source?

[Laithoron]

Wraithcannon wrote:

Source?

Check the table entitled "Encumbrance Effects" just below the one on Carrying Capacity:

Table 7-4: Carrying Capacity

[Wraithcannon]

Thanks, I see it doesn't stack with armor penalties though, you just take the worse of the two.

[Mergy]

That's correct, and the reason why it seldom comes up.

[spalding]

Remember that buoyant items will actually make it easier to swim on the surface. Also there was an show done where they tried to have people in armor (heavy armor) walk along the bottom of a body of water with air bladders to breath from. To a man each failed since they ended up floating.