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This thread got me to thinking...
I personally have them track based on Weight not the actual space the Object takes up. After all the Backpacks space might only hold 30 Cubic Feet but the outside could hold anything, but the Material can only withstand a certain amount force before breaking.
So if it can carry 60 Pounds then the overall weight that can be carried using that container is 60 Pounds.
Do you guys enforce Containers and Weight Carried? Do you have them track Coins & Coin Weight?
Just have the players use this character sheet: Abellius' Form Fill character sheet
This sheet will auto-track weight for coins and, as long as the weights are accurately entered elsewhere, will auto-calc load, as well. There are a few things that are odd with the load calcs (it does it based on an equation rather than raw data, so some things are 1-3 lbs off), but you can fix that manually by entering in the correct raw value from the chart below the calc'd loads.
So you have your players use that sheet?
But I can say that I do like that sheet.
I play PFS, so I have to track that stuff. Thus, I use that sheet. I don't typically GM.
What I will say is that you can state that you will be using the full encumbrance rules from the CRB and you, therefore, expect your players to accurately track their encumbrance. With that expectation set, you can suggest said character sheet as it does it automatically.
I am simply looking to see how many groups actually use the Encumbrance Rules.
I use the rules and go based on the Weight. But I do know some groups handwave it away.
I am just curious how many people actually use them.
I can say that in my home games, I don't worry about it a lot, unless it's a situation where it matters.
For example: in a given party, there's usually a very strong character, often in armor. This person can stand to carry a ton of equipment, because it won't slow them down that much, if at all (see: Dwarf). I generally only worry about weight on weak characters, like your typical spellcasters or Small-sized rogues. Weight, not a big deal.
Likewise, I don't usually worry a lot about the size it'll take up. The backpack is mentioned as holding 3 cubic feet, but how exactly is that set up? Is it 3 feet by 1 foot by 1 foot? Or 2 feet by 1.5 feet by 1 foot? Or cubic root of 3 in every dimension? It gets to a crazy point of realism that I don't want or need in my games.
Coin weight and size, generally, are only worried about in extremes. If you're carrying 50 gold pieces, meh, I'm not gonna jump down your throat over a pound. If you have the whole 1000 gp hoard, though, you need to account for it. Likewise, I won't say outright that you have nowhere to put your greatsword because it's too big, but regardless of strength, carrying a life-size statue of a person is clunky.
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I typically give my player's a 3.5 Item called the Bottomless Wallet. It can hold infinite coins but nothing else.
But I also tend to have Cards for any item that my players could find.
So if they are fighting 3 Hobgoblin Fighters wielding Shortswords, Heavy Shields, Chainmail and a Fighter's Kit then I have 3 Shortsword, 3 Heavy Shield, 3 Chainmail, and 3 Fighter's Kit Cards.
Though we have now gotten to where e always have a computer handy so I tend to put them into a Word Document or an Excel Spreadsheet.
I also tend to have a Calculator handy either on the Laptop, a phone, or an actual Calculator.
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Almost all of my players in my Kingmaker group have Hero Lab, and so I expect them to keep track of weight and loads. I do not have them track coin weight though, as that can get out of hand very quickly.
I wish I could remember where, but there is a sidebar or article somewhere that tells you how many coins the different containers hold. It goes into Bags of Holding as well, which I found the most interesting.
Classic Treasures Revisited.
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We track weight in a casual fashion. On occasion something will come up that requires a revisit of character capacity, such as finding a bunch of coins or someone wanting to haul a tapestry back to town or something.
Otherwise we trust each other to monitor our carrying capacity within reasonable limits.
AD, I feel that would be a nice way to handle it as well.
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We had one situation with a very conscientious player who needed to carry a gnome companion out of battle. He quickly figured that doing so would put him a few pounds into "encumbered" territory.
I ruled that his adrenaline kicked in and for the few rounds he was carrying the gnome, the few pounds didn't even register.
@AD: That is very fitting.
I personally allow them to do the same thing without being encumbered regardless. But they need to make "Endurance" Checks similar to Force Marched and such.
@Aranthos: It has been stated that is a typo. It is supposed to be around 5 Pounds IIRC.
I usually don't track it too seriously, unless it becomes important.
The wizard who dumped Str to 7? Yes, you gonna account for every single piece of equipment in weight, if you want to avoid dropping into medium or heavy encumberance and get slowed down.
The Orc Fighter in full plate with 22 strength? Bah, go ahead and carry whatever you want, unless it's obviously too big.
Those in between? Light armor fighter are usually the only ones in danger here, but they often got enough strength to support their normal gear, and then a "Well the orc carries the rest" helps :)
Also, I second the mule idea, with low str characters I usually get one of those, until I can train the orc to take over for it :)
My groups tend to get a "Supply Cart" with a Heavy Horse or Two. Then end up with some form of protection for it. Or even being able to take it into the Dungeons we typically go into.
It serves as a way of speeding up our group by having the Dwarves and Slower PCs Ride in it. And it carries pretty well any non-combat gear we need. Heck, One time my Human Monk Pulled the cart when we realized we couldn't afford a Horse.
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I usually just handwave it unless it gets ridiculous ("I'm carrying 12 gallons of ale and a small farm!").
Yeah I do (but I was in the other thread so you knew that). I wanted to point out I'm not a nazi about it though.
I too tend to slack off on the high strength guys but focus on the STR dumpers.
I usually require a weight/ encumbrance balance between sessions but only get serious in game where large loot ends up in someone's hands.
I also try to balance loot between high value, light items (jewelry, art, rare books, magic etc.) and heavy trade goods (bolts of cloth, raw ore, booze, manufactured goods). I keep coins to a much more manageable level. I also use some higher value coins that ive liked since Forgotten Realms, analogs of the Harbor Moon.
In this, when loot is found, the characters can take the quick portable stuff and move on if they want, or they can work out the logistics of transporting the big score. Both choices have upsides and downsides.
As an aside, my players are pretty resourceful in having spare mounts and pack animals when needed. In our Kingmaker campaign, the Alchemist went straight to the Rich Parents trait to completely outfit for a long term expedition including 2 covered wagons. They came in very useful as that campaign progressed.
@zagnabbit: I never really read the whole thread...
But you seem to handle it similar to how I handle it.
Though I still get a kick out of one of my players having multiple Sheets for each encumbrance level. She uses Sadie's Sheets so she only needs multiple versions of the first 2 or 3 sheets.
my players in other adventure we play, they were noble knights, and develop the coin system...
a single coin with diferent values (10) (100) (1000) (5000)
so, after that we use that system, as i said in the other post.
the coins are made of iron, or bronze, not from copper, silver, platinum or gold (this metal can only be found in ingots or crude mineral at all, efiggies, art or something but not coins).
Yar!
When I run a home game, I only really worry about it if it could become an issue. For example, low strength characters, ability damage (poisons or supernatural), or gigantic hoards (25000 coins weighs 500 lbs. That could be copper, valued at only 250 gp! 500 lbs is a LOT of weight. You'd need a 30 strength to lift that and not have it affect your movement, and only just).
For my characters, I always keep exact track of my gear and their weights, and the capacity of the containers I use to carry it all. In real life games and online pbp's. I average the weight of each individual coin to be 0.02 lbs (so 50 coins to the pound). It may seem insignificant, but it does add up.
Yes, I do moderate my self with my characters. If my character holds onto 5 extra coins that put him into the next carrying capacity category, I bring that fact to light and suffer the appropriate penalties. That's just the way I roll. That's also a good reason to invest in gems, jewelry and items as currency instead of coinage. You can get more value for weight that way.
(I also take the time to figure out the hardness and HP of all my items, just in case they get targeted or take AoE damage. It saves on time looking things up in game.)
Maybe I'm a freak for willingly going into such minute details... but I really like details. They make the whole experience more engaging for me. Hurray for immersion!
~P
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@Aranthos: It has been stated that is a typo. It is supposed to be around 5 Pounds IIRC.
That's good to know - I thought it was a little ridiculous for the alchemist to have a required skill kit that will put many alchemists directly into medium encumbrance even if they are otherwise naked (need Str 13+ to carry as a light load).
My group mostly handles it like AD's does, trusting everyone to keep a general eye on what they're carrying under most circumstances and not sweating the exact numbers too much. It normally only comes up when we've got something unusually heavy to move, though low-strength characters have to keep a closer eye on what they're carrying until we pick up Handy Haversacks and Bags of Holding. At low levels, an animal companion or bonded mount is more durable than a standard mule and can also be a great help in carrying extra loot; you only have to keep track of gear you want to personally carry.
However, we also played one strict-encumbrance game - it wasn't too complicated because it was also low-wealth and there weren't many items to keep track of, but I learned that Create Water has the added bonus of preventing you from having to carry around 16 pounds of water.
Use the APG value for weight.
If you are a player who has a DM that is concerned about weight, try this item on for size.
Start with a masterwork backpack (+1 str for the purposes of carrying capacity). Add "Pirateck Cords" item enchant to the Masterwork Backpack (+8 str for the purposes of carrying capacity). Then add the spell "Ant Haul" as a continuous effect (x3 strength for purposes of carrying capacity). The grand total (if you buy this item from a shop) is 3,050 gold.
A person with a 1 Strength can light load 99 lbs with this item.... 10 strength - 348 lbs light load.... 20 strength - 1398 lbs light load. Etc.
Pirate's example of 25,000 copper pieces would require a 13 Strength and this item to light load it or a 5 Strength and the item to heavy load the cash.
There are 50 pennys in a roll of pennys. I could fit 500 rolls of pennys in my hiking backpack.
Hypothetically speaking... if the average penny had a diameter of 1 cm and a height of 1/16tg of an inch. area - pi x r^2, volume = area x height.
50 pennies x 1/16 (height each) = 50/16. 0.5 ^2 = 0.625 cm.
2.54 cm = 1 inch. 0.625 / 2.54 roughly = 0.25 square inches x roughly 4 inches = roughly 1 cubic inch per roll of 50 pennies. (I personally do not care enough to know the exact volume of a roll of 50 pennies). If each roll of 50 pennies is roughly 1 cubic inch.
We all know the cube rhyme, right? 1 8 27 64 125 216 343 512. 8 cubed = 512. 500 rolls of pennies takes up roughly 8 inch by 8 inch by 8 inch box in a backpack.
Yes, 25,000 pennies could easily fit in an average size backpack.
--Why waste the time? I have had DM's make me count out the lbs for food and such. This item removes unnecessary bookkeeping that would otherwise bog down a game session.
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One of the places our table wound up at after discussing such things was the awkwardness of the coin system. Our gm hated giving out treasure because it just seemed like there was too much of it. Buying a sword? pay some gold? Room for the night? pay some gold? Leather armor? Show me some gold!
Our GM is right...
Its raining effin gold here. And I understand... Staff of wonder is like what 200000gp? at 50 coins per pound when you go to buy your staff of wonder all you need to do is march your 2 SOLID TONS OF GOLD into the market... You know... A 1953 buick made of solid gold... Just you know... Roll it into town square... No big deal....
What the hell? Yeah... Here's the thing. I totally understand why we equate a copper piece with a penny. That totally makes sense... But then a gold piece is worth a dollar? Really? My job pays me 4 pounds of gold per day? I WISH my job paid me 4 pounds of gold per day...
Instead what we do at our table is we just act like any time the books say 'gp' what they really mean is 'cp'. Its just a typo.
30 pounds of gold for full plate? I dont think so. Try 1500 copper instead (15 gold pieces now)... Now gold is starting to seem like it's worth something for a change. On the other hand you want a silver dagger? Thats 40cp for the dagger and 50 silver pieces for the pound of silver that its made out of.
When I suggested it my gm said 'well encumbrance is supposed to be a wealth limiting thing and you're taking that away... The whole point is that moving that much money around is supposed to be an inconvenience...
My response is he's the one complaining about too much wealth in the world. And thats not even necessarily the problem. Its too much 'perceived wealth'.. The gm hates the 'idea' of my character walking around with 80 pounds of platinum in his pockets and feels like thats just too much when the rest of the town is paying a gold or two here and there for a loaf of bread and a chicken... And its not just me. Every character in our party is swinging around a bag with 80 pounds of some of the most valuable metal on the planet. He's right. Thats too much. If instead that 80 pounds of platinum were 40 platinum coins, not only does that seems more appropriate to what a character might be carrying around town, but it also solves the 'perceived problem' of 1/50th a pound of gold only being worth a dollar when out here in the real world a 1/50th pound gold piece would be worth over 400 bucks.
Now if it seems like i'm getting off easy with my 80 pounds of platinum turning into a measly 13 ounces of coinage which represents all of my worldly wealth, what if some limey cutpurse just stole it. I think i'd have noticed him pickpocketing my 80 pounds of platinum... But stealing my 13 ounce coin purse? I probably wouldnt notice that a bit. Hows that for gms controlling the economy?
He's got nothing to worry about and we're really liking how the new system feels, despite not really changing the actual economy of the game at all.
It doesnt really change the ratio of prices and loot so from a player standpoint it changes practically nothing, but from a 'flavor of the world' standpoint its no longer a monsoon of gold in every purse and behind every door. Pretty stylish.
Some of the most valuable metal on OUR planet maybe.
Disregarding nifty places like the Elemental Plane of Things That Sparkle and Are Expensive, how do you know how rare gold/platinum is on Golarion?
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You have to realize that when the game was first written, and the prices established, gold was around $100 an ounce, if not less.
I'll interject something 1) Yes PCGen tracks weight and encumbrance 2) You can also stick things in different packs / pouches / mules what have you so if you lose a pouch or your mules falls off a ledge (or is killed by a falling rock) then you know what you just lost.
You can also setup different equipment lists of the things you own so if you are going into the wilderness or a dungeon the DM knows what you would normally carry.
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Back in my early playing days we played that every single item on the character sheet had to be stowed somewhere or carried. That meant every coin, every gem, every arrow, every single item was in a pouch, pocket, backpack, quiver or some other container or else was carried by a pony, hireling or cohort/minion.
I remember having special armor made (for a premium cost) with over a dozen dagger sheaths for my dagger throwing rogue specialist. The cold iron dagger was in the left boot, the silver dagger in the right boot, the masterwork in the left hip, the +1 in the right, etc...
I can't really decide if I'm glad those days are gone or if I miss them terribly.
As a player, I'd quite diligent about tracking encumbrance.
As a GM, I ask my players to keep track, but only check if something seems very out of place, like a character with a strength penalty carrying around the party's loot.
I've always felt that the gold-piece based economy was rather unrealistic. The gold piece is huge, larger than a quarter, comparable to the US $20 gold coin. It's silly that a set of medieval cold weather clothing should cost 8 gold, or that a tent costs 20 gold, or a wooden flute any gold at all. So, I weigh coins a little differently when I GM.
"1 gold" is an abstract value, and could represent a very small or debased platinum coin, a small but pure gold coin, a larger but foreign or debased gold coin, or a large pure silver coin. I communicate all treasure finds to my players in units of "gold" with the understanding that it's really mixed coinage of various types - sometimes with interesting descriptions, sometimes not.
It certainly isnt my intent to set up some sort of parity between our world and golarion. Our gm simply has a hard time convincing himself that gold is so common that players normally have their weight in it just sitting around somewhere. It wouldnt be an issue if it werent for the fact that it bugs him to the degree that he never wants to give out any treasure at all.
Our table found that this method solves both the weight problem of being as rich as you need to be to be on par with wbl, while at the same time making the world feel less like one giant inexplicable gold factory.
We accomplished it without changing the players-side economy practically one iota, but it noticably changed the 'feel' of the world back to one where an impossibly old dragon sitting on a pile of gold 'feels' like he's sitting on gold instead of sitting on a big old pile of susan b anthony dollars that are moved around the worlds economy in the same way you'd treat quarters in a vending machine.
Now a gold piece 'feels' like 100 bucks and a platinum piece 'feels' like a thousand dollar bill instead of a gold piece feeling like a dolla dolla bill yo. And if the only price we have to pay is that something as common as a copper piece is worth a buck instead of a penny?
Its just how we do it. As usual YMMV.
As Billy Joel said, It's Only a Matter of Trust.
Let the players keep an eye on it unless something major happens, like poison/ability drain. Sure sometimes a player will skirt the line, particularly in world wide campaigns like PFS but then they're just cheating themselves and the player is usually going to get caught out in other ways, such as having every skill at an exceptional level.
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One of the first items all of my players get in every campaign is a Bag of Holding (infinite capacity because I don't wanna deal with that crap). It is my favorite item as GM.
Player: "I have a Bay of Holding (infinite capacity because I don't wanna deal with that crap), can I shove that Chelaxian warship in the two-foot wide mouth?"
GM: "I don't wanna deal with that crap, so yes. It squeezes in. Now, onto heroics and daring do, and no more accounting questions."
Lol
That made me smile.
We always track weight but allow an extra around or two just for ease of player
I some times keep track of capacities but mainly at lower lvls but will my characters carry a few sacks on them just in case
If it's not too much hassle.
One of my players, STR6 halfling, is very conscientious about his carrying capacity. He **loves** the roleplaying hooks, like the one that he couldn't carry the shield the half-orc asked him to bring over :D
In my games I police general rules on weight limit and encumbrance, but don't go so far as to ensure that backpacks don't exceed their capacity etc. I don't take coinage into account, unless PCs supposedly have thousands of coins in their money belt. For RP purposes we assume PCs have enough money on them for whatever in game purchases they wish to make, and the rest of their wealth is somewhere 'off-screen' (in the bank or hidden under a rock in the forest). Furthermore, my player's often convert gold wealth into gems which are more easily carried.
Our current party has had a number of low strength characters in it who have found carrying capacity rules influence a lot of their equipment choices. No-one has enough gold for a bag of holding yet so they've invested in the budget version. It's called a mule.
Not tracking coin weight is flagrant pandering to low-strength wizards and filthy halflings and should be frowned upon. :P
In my 3.5 days when we didnt quite understand the need for magic gear (we barely saw any of it and most of it was randomly rolled and utter garbage) we tended to be fairly obsessive about carrying capacity and such things.
I still tend to get pedantic about gear and the most pragmatic way to carry it, but now I am the only one at my table. And even then, when I'm building for higher levels, I tend to be focused on just kitting out with magic items than having mountains of gear.
But all this is between sessions. In game? We hand-waive it.
Yar!
When I run a home game, I only really worry about it if it could become an issue. For example, low strength characters, ability damage (poisons or supernatural), or gigantic hoards (25000 coins weighs 500 lbs. That could be copper, valued at only 250 gp! 500 lbs is a LOT of weight. You'd need a 30 strength to lift that and not have it affect your movement, and only just).
For my characters, I always keep exact track of my gear and their weights, and the capacity of the containers I use to carry it all. In real life games and online pbp's. I average the weight of each individual coin to be 0.02 lbs (so 50 coins to the pound). It may seem insignificant, but it does add up.
Yes, I do moderate my self with my characters. If my character holds onto 5 extra coins that put him into the next carrying capacity category, I bring that fact to light and suffer the appropriate penalties. That's just the way I roll. That's also a good reason to invest in gems, jewelry and items as currency instead of coinage. You can get more value for weight that way.
(I also take the time to figure out the hardness and HP of all my items, just in case they get targeted or take AoE damage. It saves on time looking things up in game.)
Maybe I'm a freak for willingly going into such minute details... but I really like details. They make the whole experience more engaging for me. Hurray for immersion!
~P
This.
I have a low strength tiefling rogue, and I make sure to stay far under my "statistical" maximum carrying weight.
As for running games, I don't nitpick everything to the weight unless they're insisting on carrying some ridiculousness amount of stuff. If you carry too much, I would rule that your bag is bursting, or the shoulder straps give.
I'm not a rules lawyer; I freely adjust rules and such as I go because I'm all about having fun and not focusing too much on the little stuff. However, I definitely show a strong focus on details of the enviroment for enjoyment for my players...so why shouldn't I direct that back to them every once in a while?
If you're carrying a small pharmacy of potions, and you have a heavy sword, and you insist on filling your backpack with the 1,700cp, iron helm, and a +1 Gnome slaying greatax you just looted off of a boss, I'm going to ask you where you plan on putting it all :P
Add "Pirateck Cords" item enchant to the Masterwork Backpack
Where do I find Pirateck Cords? What book are they in?
My group doesn't worry about gold weight(blame years of Elder Scrolls and Final Fantasy) until it starts getting into the 5 digit range. We make a regular habit of transferring large qunatities of gold to more travel-friendly gems of equal value, sort of like exchanging a huge wad of 1's to a bank for a 100 dollar bill.
On gold encumbrance, I have a fun adventure puzzle I threw at my players once. They had just defeated an evil prince, killed all the guards(skeletons, prince was a necromancer), and proceeded to raid the royal vault. There were literally more gold coin than they could physically carry.
So, we spent 2 game sessions with the players devising ways they could transport as much gold as possible; they were around 5th level, with only 1 small bag of holding... Oh, and the surrounding areas were rife with bandits and brigands, so they also needed a way to hide this gold and/or defend it, keep from being found out.
Overall I went pretty easy on the group. Attempted bandit raids were fairly low-CR, just enough to keep them on their toes. For me as DM, it was fun seeing what low level characters could do with all this gold, in a low-magic setting on the run from bad guys.
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Add "Pirateck Cords" item enchant to the Masterwork BackpackWhere do I find Pirateck Cords? What book are they in?
The correct term is Muleback Cords.
All 4 of my PFS characters ended up with mediocre to low strength, so I had to get creative until I had enough fame for a haversack. GMs agreed that pets could just stay 20 behind the party, and they'd leave them alone.
First two characters got guard dogs with gear bags on them (~50gp). Third character got a mule (8gp). Fourth character... I just found out I can have a Yak (24gp).
A yak uses the stats of a bison. It's CR4. For 24gold.
Some missions I have to stable the pets instead, but generally it works pretty well.
And most of my coinage gets banked between sessions.