Encumbrance and 'difficult objects'

[jptheron]

I have some difficult questions regarding encumberence.

I understand the rules in the Core Rulebook and how it affects movement, but my problem is what about characters that want to carry away everything including the kitchen sink?

It is one thing walking away with 50 pounds of gold coins but what about when they want to carry the dining room set? How do other GMs deal with this problem? The same problem applies for characters wanting to carry 10 spears or swords... Where do you put them all? No-one has pants THAT big!

I have no problem with PCs bringing a few pack animals with them on a journey, as long as they don't act like pack animals themselves!

Also in the old D&D rules there were rules concerning what you could fit in a back pack, sack and so on? I cant seem to find them in PFRPG?

We used to have a house rule where the PC had to be able to describe exactly where and how he was carrying everything, expecially extra weapons.

Any ideas?

[Tom Qadim]

If I remember correctly, most containers (backpacks, sacks, etc.) have specific limits as to how much weight they can carry as well as the size of objects they can hold.

As for carrying 10 spears or swords or whatever, I'd let them do it. However, the PCs might take a serious initiative penalty (I'd say -2) if they get attacked with their arms full of loot. It's tough to whip out a sword when you don't have a free hand. Also even though dropping anything they hold in their arms is a free action, you might want to make a the PC's 5-foot square "difficult terrain" due to all the junk suddenly appearing at their feet.

Just my 2 coppers.

[Ender_rpm]

One DM Made us keep a stack of 3x5 cards, one each for every back pack, belt pouch, etc that held stuff. Then he;d randomly audit them to make sure we were staying honest. It worked, but was a lot of extra work. Then again, we didn't tend to "loot to teh flagstone" either.

[jptheron]

Yeah thanks for the ideas. They are all good. Also what I used to do in my old D&D days was to only allow a certain amount of carried weapons, equipment and so on. Almost something like in Baldurs gate.

But I didn't limit the PCs from looting an area once it was cleared of monsters and so on. Then they would use their pack animals to carry all the loot cross country.

It made for some interesting encounters where wild animals would attack the pack animals and the PCs would have to defend them and prevent them from bolting and running off into the wilderness.

[azhrei_fje]

I just use a "common sense" rule. If I personally can't carry something (like a dining room table!) then I'm going to expect that the PCs will have help as well. It may be that they created a litter to drag the table or there are two or three of them carrying it. Something particularly heavy may cause fatigue quickly, even exhaustion if they keep it up.

I'll tell them in advance, though. I might say, "I'm certain that two or three of you can move that table. Your speed will be reduced to 5-feet per move action and after 5 minutes you'll need to make Fort saves every minute to avoid fatigue. Once fatigued you will continue to roll for exhaustion the same way." Once they're out of the area of any immediate danger, I'd stop the Fort saves and just assume that they were taking more breaks.

It really depends on the object. I have a superman character in my game (Str 30 when not raging!) who thinks he can pick up 2 tons because his max load is 4500 lbs. The problem is not lifting the weight, but how to grip it. He can lift a large stone block, but where are the handholds? And 4500 lbs spread out over 20 ft-sq is still going to be bulky and it will be difficult to maneuver while carrying such an object...