I feel the love, man!
I would take your honest criticism much easier as that, if you hadn't been on the same warpath with other designers. I'm not going to link to them, or even spend my time searching as I'm sure others can find those posts much faster than I care to.
I would appreciate if you would. Because I cannot seem to recall doing that.
And dismissing concerns over how these kits have been built and their weight is not appropriate for what they contain isn't something you (or any designer) should just shrug off with a pithy response of 'it doesn't matter'. The reason we have rules is to establish a base-line around which the game is played.There is no part of this that is not childish and condescending to a person who does this for a living.
What are rules if not the base-line of the game? Now, we have all sorts of things that are exceptions to the rules in Pathfinder (and D&D); spells that let you do things not normally possible. And frankly, sir, it was a 'pithy' response. That is not a bad word, or even a derogatory word. It means 'short'.
Again, in your own argument, "Honest criticism and expression of thought, sir, is not something that should be quashed". I am disagreeing with you, and giving an alternative in forming your own company.
By the way, I do happen to like encumbrance rules and I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, I am merely disagreeing with your tactics on offering said criticism.
Your first post on this subject very much suggested that I need to just shut up because I am ruining your fun. Sounds like quashing to me. But if I was mistaken, than I was mistaken.
MA
And since certain spells depend very much on how much a character or creature weighs, you have to track encumbrance.
Levitate
Target: you or one willing creature or object (total weight up to 100 lbs./level)
Telekinesis:
Violent Thrust: . . . You can hurl up to a total weight 25 points per caster level (maximum 375 pounds at 15th level).
There might well be more. But you see my point. You have to know how much your character (and his gear) weighs, at least if you expect to use these spells. If you hand-wave encumbrance, what happens when people in your group cast these spells? Does the game slow to crawl as you figure out if your target is within the weight limit allowed by the spell?
MA
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I can't speak for others, but I do enjoy tracking the "minutiae" of encumbrance, Sean. It gets me more immersed in the world, and gives me more exact control over my character. I like knowing how much my character can lift, how fast they can run, how high they can jump. I don't like vague approximations.
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More power to you, then.
That doesn't change the fact that PFRPG encumbrance is an abstract thee-category representation, simplified to make playing the game easier.
If you can accept the fact that the game doesn't change your encumbrance for the first 33 lbs. of gear you carry, but that 34th lb. is enough to immediately reduce your speed by 33% and your ACP skill checks by 15%, I think you can accept that a pre-packaged kit of starter gear for a Small or Medium character doesn't have the exact same weight as its component pieces weighed individually for Small and Medium characters.
That's all I'm saying.
There isn't necessarily a correlation between age and character level, kind of making the whole debate moot.The point is an 80 year old shouldnt survive a fall that will kill a 16 year old - no matter how good they are at their respective professions.
In PF (and in D&Dish games in general) your ability to survive a fall is mostly derived from how good you are at your profession - which is silly, but a fact of life. Similarly kits "should" weigh the same as their constituent parts. But they dont (weight isnt really weight, obviously).
Why?
I know an ottuagenarian that has fallen for a few meters without breaking a bone and a 16 year old girl that got a broken wrist for stumbling on a missing tile, less than a cm, depression.
There are plenty of differences in falls.
Your problem is with the HP system, not with how it depict falls in particular.
Yes.
A bit late to the party here, but regards the octogenarian librarian and falling. Assuming he or she is human at 80+ years of age they'll definitely be in the Venerable age bracket which would give them a -6 to Con. So unless they where a very health individual earlier in life I'd suspect they've only got one or two hit points per level by this point... My money is on the blacksmith :) (Or both dying)
More power to you, then.
...
That's all I'm saying.
Could you please at least give us a behind-the-scenes-peak of how you guys determined the reduced values for kits? Surely no harm could come of that. It may even go a long ways towards ending the discussion and allowing everyone involved to get on with other, more important discussions.
Perhaps make the "official" rule something like "Use the weight of the kit or the items included, whichever is lower".
Simple and fixes the actual issue.
That would work for me, but doesn't really fix the "sold one component, how much is the rest worth" aspect of the problem.
However much you want it to be, Ravingdork. If it's really giving you such issues that one specific kit in one specific book is off by a little bit, just buy the items separately and use the normal weights. Problem solved.
However much you want it to be, Ravingdork. If it's really giving you such issues that one specific kit in one specific book is off by a little bit, just buy the items separately and use the normal weights. Problem solved.
Then what's the point of the kits I ask?
How is this not a problem for ANYONE who tracks encumbrance and tender?
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Because they don't make it one? They say 'it doesn't matter what the individual items weight is. I'll just count it as the full weight no matter what is taken out'. Or 'I will just deduct the regular weight of the item removed until it gets replaced'. And they just don't worry about not being exact to the last ounce, regardless of if it gives them an advantage or disadvantage.
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I would take your honest criticism much easier as that, if you hadn't been on the same warpath with other designers. I'm not going to link to them, or even spend my time searching as I'm sure others can find those posts much faster than I care to.I would appreciate if you would. Because I cannot seem to recall doing that.
And dismissing concerns over how these kits have been built and their weight is not appropriate for what they contain isn't something you (or any designer) should just shrug off with a pithy response of 'it doesn't matter'. The reason we have rules is to establish a base-line around which the game is played.There is no part of this that is not childish and condescending to a person who does this for a living.What are rules if not the base-line of the game? Now, we have all sorts of things that are exceptions to the rules in Pathfinder (and D&D); spells that let you do things not normally possible. And frankly, sir, it was a 'pithy' response. That is not a bad word, or even a derogatory word. It means 'short'.
Again, in your own argument, "Honest criticism and expression of thought, sir, is not something that should be quashed". I am disagreeing with you, and giving an alternative in forming your own company.
By the way, I do happen to like encumbrance rules and I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, I am merely disagreeing with your tactics on offering said criticism.
Your first post on this subject very much suggested that I need to just shut up because I am ruining your fun. Sounds like quashing to me. But if I was mistaken, than I was mistaken.
MA
Why do you come off as hostile and annoying to some? It is the amount of posts on a given topic, the fact that you don't let go and the hyperbolic rhetoric you, from time to time, use.
It's like the monk issue all over again. Me and a lot of others did support the need to clarify/fix the rules regarding the monk, but I and others quickly got tired and annoyed by your persistence and your tone. Stuff like " We are not going to let this go quietly away" and the air off mistrust vs the Devs got really tiresome. And the fact the the Devs explicitly said that they are aware or the problem and working on a fix that won't be a stealth fix. And also because Jason B. explicitly asked people to cool down.
Or as Orthos put it:
You're obsessive over this issue and your constant pushing of it has begun irritating the nerves of readers and staff alike if observations of topics like this are any indication.
If you (and others) insist on flogging this dead horse, could you - and the other boys - at least take the encumbrance issue elsewhere?
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Lets take a step back.
For me (and I think most of the poster concerned with the weight argument) the kits are a really minor problem. We can always recalculate the weight by hand and if we want to give out a benefit from using the kit we see the rapport between the components actual weight and the kit weight and multiply the leftover part of the kit by that number.
In the personal section of Herolab you can input an adjustment to the encumbrance (weight carried) so even Herolab users should be happy.
My problem is that Sean seem to have moved from "the kit weight is a meaningless problem", a perfectly reasonable statement, to "ballpark what people can transport, the game will work better".
The problem is that people have very different opinions on what is a reasonable ballpark. Under the current rules there are reasons not to drop your strength too much. With a ballpark system? Not really.
Being capable to transport a lot of equipment is one of the advantages of the strong guy, while the wizard that has reduced his strength to the minimum can have problems transporting his speelbooks (I fondly remember a 1st ed. wizard that was the proud owner of a girdle of goblin strength that gave him strength 10 instead of his native 6; it was a major find for him).
Sure, bypassing a weight bracket by one lbs because you have taken a wand found on someone corpse shouldn't immediately drop your speed and maximum agility, but that shouldn't be a free ticket to "I can add a unlimited number of low weight items as none of them, taken alone, increase my carried weight by a significant margin".
That seem how I was building decks in my Magic days: "4 of this, and 4 of this and absolutely 4 of this and ...", they where composed by a few thousand cards, but every single kind of card was a small addition.
Maybe I am misreading Sean position but when the Rule Guy say that encumbrance is only a nuisance that detract from the game I get alarmed as I think that it play an important ancillary role in the game.
I don't want to see the character portraited as a frail heroine with 10 strength running around in full plate because "I have the skill to use it and encumbrance is meaningless".
Encumbrance shouldn't be centre stage but it shouldn't be thrown out of the door.
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How is this not a problem for ANYONE who tracks encumbrance and tender?
Because for some people, like me, tracking encumbrance means making sure people don't run around with 5 sets of plate armour and 1 roof of a cathedral strapped on their backs, and not obsessing over whether the PC is wearing 33.8 or 34.1 lb's of encumbrance. Since I am not of the people who can sleep at night only when all the pencils in their drawer are lying in sequence from shortest to longest counting from left to right, I really couldn't care less.
Also, tracking encumbrance means I have to worry about yet another silly Imperial measurement that's totally counter-intuitive to me, but I understand that I'm a vocal minority here.
I'm willing to bet that if, those of you who don't track encumbrance (or only eyeball it, like Gorbacz seems to), picked three of your old characters at random and did the math, two of those three would come out more encumbered than you thought they would be (excepting maybe barbarians and monks).
I find this is common amongst such roleplayers. They almost always think they are doing better than they are.
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Not I, but I always buy a donkey and a cart or saddlebags. I even name my donkey Xote :D
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I'm willing to bet that if, those of you who don't track encumbrance (or only eyeball it, like Gorbacz seems to), picked three of your old characters at random and did the math, two of those three would come out more encumbered than you thought they would be (excepting maybe barbarians and monks).
I find this is common amongst such roleplayers. They almost always think they are doing better than they are.
Ah, the "I'm better than you because I do math" argument. Allow me to retort by the "I'm better than you because I do common sense" :)
BTW - I don't have any "old characters". I'm the DM.
Ah, the "I'm better than you because I do math" argument.
You know I didn't say that.
How is this not a problem for ANYONE who tracks encumbrance and tender?
They rationalise it as per my previous post (end of last page).
Besides, if encumbrance bothers you that much, your PC just invests in a handy haversack as early as they can and it all goes away.
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I'm willing to bet that if, those of you who don't track encumbrance (or only eyeball it, like Gorbacz seems to), picked three of your old characters at random and did the math, two of those three would come out more encumbered than you thought they would be (excepting maybe barbarians and monks).
I'm up for the task when I get the chance. I've checked my current character, a dwarven cleric/fighter, but that point is rather moot since he's never affected by encumbrance anyway. (His gear came out to medium encumbrance, but he wears full plate. *shrug*)
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Let's see.
Epic level VoP monk, 24 Str, carrying nothing but a few weapons and clothes.
7th level scout, 18 Str, carrying composite longbow, thieves tools, rapier, cloak of elvenkind, and studded leather.
1st level cleric, 8 Str, carrying longbow, 2 sunrods, healer's kit, wooden holy symbol, and leather armor.
Can anyone do quick math on those two? I have to get to work.
Since the monk is a given, I'll throw in a 1st level halfling swordsage, 10 Str, carrying scimitar, light pick, 5 daggers, grappling hook, silk rope, smokestick, sunrod, mirror, leather armor and monk's outfit.
I'm willing to bet that if, those of you who don't track encumbrance (or only eyeball it, like Gorbacz seems to), picked three of your old characters at random and did the math, two of those three would come out more encumbered than you thought they would be (excepting maybe barbarians and monks).
I find this is common amongst such roleplayers. They almost always think they are doing better than they are.
To me, this seems like only a real issue before the PC can buy a bag of holding or some other dimensional space.
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Let's see.
Epic level VoP monk, 24 Str, carrying nothing but a few weapons and clothes.
7th level scout, 18 Str, carrying composite longbow, thieves tools, rapier, cloak of elvenkind, and studded leather.
1st level cleric, 8 Str, carrying longbow, 2 sunrods, healer's kit, wooden holy symbol, and leather armor.
Can anyone do quick math on those two? I have to get to work.
Since the monk is a given, I'll throw in a 1st level halfling swordsage, 10 Str, carrying scimitar, light pick, 5 daggers, grappling hook, silk rope, smokestick, sunrod, mirror, leather armor and monk's outfit.
"1st level cleric, 8 Str, carrying longbow, 2 sunrods, healer's kit, wooden holy symbol, and leather armor."
Cleric: 21 lbs of 26 for a light load.
If we add a Artisan outfit it go to 25 (in Pathfinder your worn outfit has a weight, differently from 3.x [herloLab is follow the 3.x rules here]), an adventurer outfit will push him in the medium load (29 lbs).
And he is lacking a close combat weapon.
You can buy a dagger and throw away the leftover money (after all you don't have a pouch and pockets probably don't exist in Golarion) and you will be exactly at the limit of your light load.
Small problem: where are your arrows?
20 arrows, another 3 lbs.
"Since the monk is a given, I'll throw in a 1st level halfling swordsage, 10 Str, carrying scimitar, light pick, 5 daggers, grappling hook, silk rope, smokestick, sunrod, mirror, leather armor and monk's outfit."
HeroLab say 26.02 lbs out of 19 for a light load, so you are in medium encumbrance. 1.52 lbs are money, but the outfit isn't included.
You are about at 1/3 of the road to heavy load so I wouldn't consider you over-encumbered by a small margin and wave it away (I could do that for the cleric, as the arrows will be consumed when used and he is approximately at 1/8 of the road for a heavy load).
The scout can carry 100 lbs as light load, so he will not have problem with the depicted gear, the problem is what he is missing.
Arrows? Close combat weapon? Survival gear? Unless he is a urban scout he will have some problem surviving in the wilderness.
My friends with extended experience in trekking say that some water is mandatory even when trekking on a beaten path, apparently your scout don't care about that.
You see what is the problem? You are ballparking your weight, but as you have decided to go for approximations you aren't even considering some of the item that you are transporting as their weight is meaningless in your eyes. But they pile up, like my magic cards.
1 arrow? no problem. Enough arrow to fire for 10 rounds while hasted? 50 arrows are 7.5 lbs.
To me, this seems like only a real issue before the PC can buy a bag of holding or some other dimensional space.
A bag of holding has a non negligible weight, the smallest weight 15 lbs and there is plenty of equipment that you don't want to store in it. I, at least, want to be capable to unsheathe my weapons without having to recover it from the bag and my armor on my body.
For the above halfling a bag of holding or a handy haversack wouldn't be a solution if the goal is to stay in the light load.|
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Scout uses Survival to get by, and ammunition was not tracked in that game. Cleric used an elvencraft longbow as melee weapon. Food and water were generally not tracked either. I think I also forgot the scout's dagger.
You see what is the problem?
No, I don't. For those characters, I don't think I ever considered the weight of their equipment. It does tell me I need to pay attention to my PFS characters since they are subject to those rules regardless of GM enforcement. Especially my halfling rogue.
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So the Scout can fire 5 arrow/round forever without any problem?
Survival isn't "I need to find a source of water every time I need to drink", it is "I know how much water I need to bring with me to be sure to survive long enough to find a water source if I need it".
You have waved away half of the problems for a low level party trekking in the wilderness. Maybe the game feel more heroic that way, but it become more simplistic too.
Where is the heroism of braving the jungle to reach the pyramid of Tetzilcoathl if the jungle is no different from the street of the city where your character is born?
Even a middle/high level party would have to devote some resource to overcome that environment, memorizing crate food or finding other solutions.
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Because you example was a 7th level scout using a bow.
if you prefer:
"So a 7th level character specialized in bow use and hasted can fire 5 arrows/round forever without any problem?"
I have seen a few bow using build in action and the speed at which they consume their arrows is amazing.
The content of a efficient quiver don't last long when they are involved.
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Wow, this has gone rather from a particular issue in this book to a broad discussion of differing gaming philosophies. The latter I doubt we're going to resolve anytime soon, if ever. :) (And in the time it took me to write this apparently now we're calculating encumbrances of class builds now, so I'm totally lost.)
I want to go back to/summarize the original problem, at least as perceived by some Paizo customers (bearing in mind I personally actually don't care all that much about it or about encumbrance):
The Original Issue:
* The class and ability package kits' weights are less than the sum of their components' weights.
* Encumbrance is described in detail in the core rules; regardless of whether vocal individuals on Paizo's design team consider them valuable, useful, or entertaining rules, encumbrance is presented as a rule that is not described as optional (excepting "rule zero," where all rules are technically optional). Thus, even if it is seen as an ideal option, players cannot assume or rely upon the idea that encumbrance will be ignored.
* Ergo, there are circumstances where this weight discrepancy may cause some (in fairness, minor) dilemmas in determining one's encumbrance if a kit is broken apart or parts of it are used up.
The rules in Ultimate Equipment do not include a means of resolving this issue (nor even an explanation of the discrepancy). And notably, the posts on this thread by Sean Reynolds and James Jacobs implies that the design team is not at this time interested in providing such clarifications or new rulings in an errata related to this issue.
Because of that, we have to assume that, whether we like it or not calls for errata will fall upon deaf ears, as the decision has been made. This fact will not silence complaining of course because we gamers do so love to complain, but very likely the complaining at this time will not change the situation. :)
Assuming my assumption is correct (and apologies for all the assumptions) that there will be no new rules that address the Original Issue noted above...
... solutions are currently left in the hands of GMs. Like it or not, that's where we stand right now.
What May Be Useful To Us Now... is GMs posting what they propose to do to resolve the issue at their table, and let us know what works well for them (even if the solution is indeed to largely ignore encumbrance altogether).
Folks could also post how often this problem actually happens at their table.
This would help us individual gamers who may struggle with this issue in future, where the arguing about preferred play styles will not. :) It may also provide concrete information to the game designers so they can see how much of a problem it really is, so they can revisit their decision not to revise or errata the situation if it turns out it is needed after all. I will end this post by declaring that I am dancing in a chicken suit.
3.5 Scout (rather than the Scout archetype for PF Rogue) was a secondary class that instead of Sneak Attack got Skirmish - extra damage and AC, but they had to move at least 10 feet before they could get the bonuses, so they were limited more often than not to a single attack per round.
I vaguely recall some builds with a feat or something that let you move 10 feet instead of 5 as a 5-foot step, which allowed Scouts to get a full-attack with Skirmish damage; otherwise the only real way to do it was with Pounce (which I used to maximum effect in my Savage Tide game by giving Scout levels to Olangru the Bar-Lgura).
EDIT: Welp super ninja'd.
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I'm willing to bet that if, those of you who don't track encumbrance (or only eyeball it, like Gorbacz seems to), picked three of your old characters at random and did the math, two of those three would come out more encumbered than you thought they would be (excepting maybe barbarians and monks).
I find this is common amongst such roleplayers. They almost always think they are doing better than they are.
I track my encumbrance with Excel docs and formulas to make certain I don't go over, but I do think that obsessing this much about it only brings up visions of Looney Tunes with Bugs throwing everything in the room at Elmer, who handles it just fine...until setting a straw on the top of the pile causes him to crash into the basement.
Not that I'm opposed to Chuck Jones as a DM...
I'm willing to bet that if, those of you who don't track encumbrance (or only eyeball it, like Gorbacz seems to), picked three of your old characters at random and did the math, two of those three would come out more encumbered than you thought they would be (excepting maybe barbarians and monks).
I find this is common amongst such roleplayers. They almost always think they are doing better than they are.
Ok, I took you up on this challange. I pulled up 10 of my old characters. Took out the rule book from the edition they came from and looked at the outcome.
More encumbered then marked on sheet: 1
In the right level as marked on sheet: 7
Less encumbered then marked on sheet: 2
So yes, 10% of my characters (1) I had failed the guess on. I cheeted myself on 20% (2).
What does this mean? I failed 30% of the time to get it right either way. And I still have to ask myself, did it really matter? Not really.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I'm willing to bet that if, those of you who don't track encumbrance (or only eyeball it, like Gorbacz seems to), picked three of your old characters at random and did the math, two of those three would come out more encumbered than you thought they would be (excepting maybe barbarians and monks).
I find this is common amongst such roleplayers. They almost always think they are doing better than they are.
Challenge accepted.
My method for gauging encumbrance is described here, and is mentioned again later on that page.
1) My "main" PFS character right now is my human Eldritch Knight. He has 18 STR (light load 100lbs or less). He has a mithral breastplate, two longswords, a cestus, a spring-loaded wrist sheath, about half a dozen wands, less than a dozen scrolls, a handful of potions, a backpack, and rope (hemp, if memory serves). I run him as being within light load. Was I right?
2) My PFS cleric is a tiefling with 16 STR (light load 76lbs or less). He has a chain shirt, buckler, longsword, cestus, backpack, rope, one wand, and maybe a couple of potions/scrolls (no more than half a dozen, total). I run him as being within light load. Was I right?
3) My newest PFS character is a half-orc paladin/ranger with 14 STR (light load 58lbs or less). He has a breastplate, spiked chain, darkwood composite longbow, 40 arrows, cestus, backpack, silk rope, and one wand. I run him as being in medium load (same penalties as his armor anyway). Was I right?
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Failing to track fractions of pounds is not the same as failing to be encumbrance-legal.
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My issue w/ the kits is this:
In my home game, we play quite a bit looser w/ the encumbrance rules, and kit vs not kit isn't just not a big deal, it's not a discussion at all.
PFS play has been different for me, where it seems people really ARE nickle and diming the encumbrance. I dealt w/ it by buying a riding dog as pack animal, but it seems the kits intent (which is a GOOD intent and helpful in the home game!) conflicts w/ PFS expectations.
I use Google Docs with an uploaded Excel sheet, one page of which has a column that calculates weight. I just stick "/(maximum light enc. weight amount)" in the slot below and resolve appropriately.
Even then, it's not perfect, nor do I expect it to be.