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Basically, it sounds like the barbarian wants the fact that he didn't dump his strength to be validated. I can't see anything wrong with that, personally. I too get a little tired of people dumping stats thinking they can safely compartmentalize their low stat away.
So, yes, being an 8 strength bard can suck if you try to carry a lot of stuff. There are, however, ways around it. The handy haversack, the efficient quiver, masterwork backpacks, and bags of holding all work to counteract low strength and needing to carry lots of stuff. So does a pack mule (although it is vulnerable to predators) or a henchman porter or two (or even a base camp with most of the gear). The 8 strength bard might also consider the cantrip summon instrument so he doesn't have to carry his instrument everywhere - he can summon it.
As far as perception disease goes, let them examine anything they want, just try to keep them organized. Once you've set the scene, go around the group asking them what they're doing. And if they're all looking about, then have them all roll their perception checks and feed them whatever additional information you deem appropriate based on their results. In many cases, it won't be anything significant because they either didn't roll high enough or there wasn't anything significant to be found. But it is kind of fun to try to refine your descriptions based on their results so that they think the check has had some value, if only a more evocative description. And don't forget the senses of touch, temperature, and smell in your descriptions.
The Barbarian probably has the highest STR score in the group, and with that either wants to be able to carry more then everyone else or due to lower then average STR scores, wishes to be the parties pack-mule. As long as your using common sense and they aren't carrying the Empire State Building around on their collective backs, I'd say keep up the Hand waving, as LONG as that is the consensus of the Majority.
Your so called "Perception Disease" can be flipped and used against them quite easily. It sounds like they our all New Players and there fore wanting to make the best of it, and are afraid to miss the littlest thing. But with their noses to the ground they may fail to see whats above them. Eventually they will grow past this.
Good Luck and Welcome to the Game.
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Welcome to the game.
Now the following is just my opinion, but I'm guessing opinion is what you are here for.
You are better off not handwaving encumbrance, ever. You are better off enforcing it to the letter. The bard in question has 8 strength. That is 2 less than the average of a person who does not do alot of manual labor. It is approaching a level where it becomes a medical muscular handicap. She is not supposed to be able to carry what you describe without penalty, much less travelling gear on top of it. When I play a low strength adventurer, I keep only the absolute essentials on me, pseudo-essentials in a backpack that I can drop as a move-action, and everything else on a beast of burden. At my table I enforce encumbrance, and, as well as I am able, containers. Managing all that info as a single GM is too much paperwork, so instead I keep my players personally responsible for keeping track of their items, where they put them and how it affects them. To get them into this mindset, I took it upon myself to ask them, every time they picked up items "Where do you put the 300 gold pieces/longsword/magical necklace?". That way, my players would start keeping an eye on their encumbrance and their containers. It also paints a clearer image of what the characters are doing. "We take the 10.000 gold pieces" gives me a ridiculous mental image of the characters depositing the cash into a video-game inventory screen. "I walk out to the wagon, empty the last few helpings of beer into tankards and toast to our succes. Then I scrape the 10.000 gold into the empty barrel, and fit it for the ride to town" rings much better in my ears, and I think my players prefer it that way.
So IMO enforce encumbrance and enforce containers as best you can. Low STR is a punishing thing to have, it should not just be considered an acceptable dumpstat because you are not melee-based.
On the topic of the Perception Disease:
In my opinion this is not a disease, this is the trait of an adventuring party who is going to live longer than the average party. Thoroughly checking out your surroundings is clever, and I applaud it. Even if they don't find a solution to the problem, keeping an eye out is always a good idea. Its the first step to not getting your leg torn off by traps for instance.
I suggest you introduce your players to the Take 20 action. If they want to be really thorough when looking around let them take 20. Their characters spend 2 minutes looking everything over (or more if there's alot of ground to cover and distance makes a difference on whether the check succeeds or not). The characters spend a few minutes being cautious and the table resolves it in 10 seconds.
Hope it helps. Don't hesitate to ask follow-ups.
-Nearyn
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Always keep the threat of a character "audit" in mind. If you ask them what their encumbrance is and they don't know, then enforce a penalty of being encumbered until they figure it out. Same should go with food and water.
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Always keep the threat of a character "audit" in mind. If you ask them what their encumbrance is and they don't know, then enforce a penalty of being encumbered until they figure it out. Same should go with food and water. ** spoiler omitted **
Mother Nature is a CR40 encounter that lasts from birth to death.
-Nearyn
1. If you've ignored encumbrance thus far, just keep ignoring it. If he chooses to limit his character unnecessarily, that's his business. Unless a PC is bringing his lucky cinderblock collection along, I don't think it's worth the effort.
2. If rolling perception won't do anything, don't let them roll. Just flatly say 'you don't find anything other than what I told you is there'.
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For encumbrance, I don't enjoy tracking it, and my players don't either. So we don't.
If the barbarian's player wants to start tracking it, the first question should be "will this make the game more fun for a majority of the group (not just the barbarian)? Will it make the game less enjoyable for some of the players?
If the answers to those questions are no and yes, respectively, then do not track encumbrance. It doesn't matter what the rules say: if they don't make the game better for your group, don't use them.
I agree with the spirit of what you say: "Let's have fun, everybody"
BUT!
I don't think I entirely agree that you should just do away with it. That'd be like saying "Will it make the game more fun for a majority of people if I stop tracking dex bonus to AC?" It's a game-mechanic derived from a stat that has an impact on a character's physical performance.
I'd personally not let encumbrance 'slide'(thereby removing one of the benefits of a high str), any more than I'd let skillpoints 'slide (thereby removing one of the benefits of high int)
To each their own.
-Nearyn
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If you let the bard get away without tracking encumbrance you have effectively removed the only important penalty to dumping strength. It means other characters who had to choose between increasing one stat more by dumping or leave it are being penalized.
Would you let a player ignore their intelligence dump for how it affects skills? I hope not. And for the same reasons you shouldn't let them ignore encumbrance either.
Encumbrance should be enforced it makes the game alot more credible and the retelling of it more interest.
"Tell us again GreyBeard,of how you smuggled a dragons horde thru the treachery of the Underdark!" the little beardlings pleaded.:)
Also a weakling with 8 strength is going to have trouble moving in a lot of gear,it's like loading someones waifish 5'2" girlfriend with a full military backpack,a sword,and a banjo.
And tell her "Go out there and be somebody!"lol
Perception just tells a player what's there..not what it does or means.
It will tell the PC's they are in a hall lined with torches,it may allow them to see a very fine crack in the wall in the shape of a door.
What it won't do is tell them how to open it.
So, I'm running my first Pathfinder campaign with a group brand-new to RPG's in general...One of my players...wants to play with encumbrance, which we ignored until now. ...they are 2nd level now...do you think it would be better to just keep handwaving it?
I would start using encumbrance, unless doing so becomes a seriously contentious issue for the players. The players are new to the game, and these characters are still new. Now is the time to un-wave your hand on this topic, if you're going to.
I see merit in all the arguments that have been presented so far, even the ones that give reasons to let it slide. I'm in the "character design should have consequences" camp. The solutions offered to help you ease them into using encumbrance are good ones.
If I were you, id approach is thusly: Get the group together and make your case for doing it one way or the other. Point out the consequences and your concerns. Let everybody else voice their own opinions. Put it to a vote, and don't forget to count yourself, you're a player too.
If it encumbrance is voted down, accept it and make it clear that if you, as DM find the situation problematic, then you will simply make a ruling on it when the group is starting a new campaign or creating all new characters.
On Perception:
I suggest you introduce your players to the Take 20 action. If they want to be really thorough when looking around let them take 20. Their characters spend 2 minutes looking everything over (or more if there's alot of ground to cover and distance makes a difference on whether the check succeeds or not). The characters spend a few minutes being cautious and the table resolves it in 10 seconds.
I'd echo this advice. Perception is for noticing things of mechanical and plot importance. Get them used to taking 20. The flip side of the time saved with his method is that you the DM need to give them all the important information available when they succeed, which means you need to know what's important ahead of time. You will occasionally forget something. Don't sweat it. When you realize you forgot it, then you inform them retroactively.
If you forget to mention something *really* important that would have radically changed the way your players would have their characters behave, then figure out how to work it into the game as quickly as possible without revising history.
Happy DM'ing, and Welcome to the game.
Do you also ignore the skill point penalty for characters that dump intelligence? Do you ignore the penalties for having other dump stats? If not you should track encumbrance. Why should the bard get a free ride for dumping strength if the barbarian is not going to get the same thing for dump stat?
Dump stats should have negative effects on the character who takes them. If you don’t enforce the negative aspects of dumping a stat it only encourages people to dump harder. If the bard has an 8 STR because he wanted more charisma or dexterity then he should pay the price for what he got.
If you don’t want to do the book keeping then you should limit all characters to their light encumbrance load. Tell them they cannot carry any more period.
Rolling creates a bigger power disparity than point buy ever will. but yeah, even if you ignore the encumbrance rules, the bard isn't doing much, and well, for an Int/Cha bard, i had to homebrew an intelligent blademaster style feat that only worked with light blades so they wouldn't suck so bad in melee combat.
It is not about having you badwrongfun any way.
This is a forum, and what we do is telling our opinions about the encoumberance issue and criticising the opinions of others, for better or worse.
I also agree that encoumberance should be tracked, because the general principle that character choices should have negative effects is fundamental to the dnd mechanics.
Sure you can play as you wish and yes there are other drawbacks to dumping sta, but these are irrelevant to the fact that by starting to break rules you end up playing a different game than pathfinder which creates radical changes to the game balance.
generally
the following things, i don't count towards a character's encumbrance when i track it
a Worn Outfit
a Worn Suit of Armor, though armor can still slow you or inflict check penalties if it is either of the appropriate weight class or has an existing effective ACP
ammunition
a dagger or two
and up to 3 other weapons of the player's choice. one of which, must be their primary designated weapon they have in immediate access and usually default to.
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So, I'm running my first Pathfinder campaign with a group brand-new to RPG's in general. We've run into two problems, one of the rule sort and one of the more general sort.
NEVER let your players get away with a dump stat. Enforce encumbrance. Another popular dump stat is charisma, and I never let my players get away with it. Sure, your party Paladin/Bard/Sorcerer can act as the party face, but that 5 charisma min-maxed dwarf barbarian is going to make everyone look bad when he scratches his butt and smells his finger while the group is in the throne room talking to the king.
Here's how you fix your perception problem. Lots of DMs (especially newer ones) have trouble with handling perception, mostly because they haven't taken the time to really dig into all the other skills and what they cover.
It's the same problem that can make combat turn into boring bouts of trading hits and misses. Rookie players aren't familiar enough with combat maneuvers and monster special abilities to really make the most of them.
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Try simplified encumbrance. It's less work than tracking every pound, but still makes sure that players have to make meaningful decisions about gear and that you can't dump Str with impunity.
Note that as described armour counts for a much smaller fraction of encumbrance than currently. This might be been as a feature since as Atarlost pointed out armour is designed to be minimally encumbering when worn, but if you like to restrict Str-dumpers to lighter armour you can just boost the encumbrance value of armours from the recommended values.
Your bard should not have 8 Str in the first place, every class that intends to wear light armor and hold a weapon should have 10 Str at least.
Strength is a perfectly legitimate dump stat for a bard. He/she just needs to be prepared to deal with encumbrance, probably spending a little extra gold on mithral/darkwood gear, extraplanar storage, or load-boosting items like a masterwork backpack.
For encumbrance, handy haversacks are awesome. Next, have a bag of stuff that you can drop as a free action. (Why are you carrying all of your camping gear through the tomb you're looting?).
Because you never know when you'll get stuck somewhere and need food and water.
(Why are you carrying all of your camping gear through the tomb you're looting?).Because you never know when you'll get stuck somewhere and need food and water.
Carry a cleric. Either he can create food, or worst case he goes down and you can cook him.
I think the game is more fun when you ignore the accounting and finagling stuff like rations and encumberance. We never use it because its just a hassle to mess with.
Seconded. I add mundane ammunition to that list as well.
To the 'would you give them a pass on INT and skill points' crowd -- apples and oranges. You don't have to re-calculate your skill points every time you complete an encounter and pick up a bag of gold or use a consumable item. There's nowhere NEAR the tedious accounting involved.
Our group ignores encumbrance rules. We don't play fantasy games so we can make weight calculations and bang our head against the wall about if picking up this small statue is going result in a move and attack penalty. That isn't fun. We get around it with bags of holding and generally not strictly tracking it.
I think there are a lot of ways you can reign in dump stats. For strength you can have swimming and climbing parts of the game. Or you can deal more strictly with encumbrance if there are ability draining affects hitting the party. But in general if you're focusing too much on just being able to get around you can bore your group.
And really, we all know what would really happen if someone couldn't carry these things; They'd be unloading them all on the barbarian.
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Carry a cleric. Either he can create food, or worst case he goes down and you can cook him.
(Why are you carrying all of your camping gear through the tomb you're looting?).Because you never know when you'll get stuck somewhere and need food and water.
You also never know when you'll be separated from your cleric. You might not need to carry a tent, but carry your own lunch and waterskin.
Try simplified encumbrance. It's less work than tracking every pound, but still makes sure that players have to make meaningful decisions about gear and that you can't dump Str with impunity.
Note that as described armour counts for a much smaller fraction of encumbrance than currently. This might be been as a feature since as Atarlost pointed out armour is designed to be minimally encumbering when worn, but if you like to restrict Str-dumpers to lighter armour you can just boost the encumbrance value of armours from the recommended values.
I really like that makes things easier, but still makes encumbrance count. I think I'm going to start using it, and try to talk my dms into using it for the games I am in now.
Thank you for rolling for stats. You are correct in doing this, and not enough people do it.
Thank you. Thank you.
Anyway...Encumbrance is fun, but it's also fun to go without it. Does your group really enjoy realism, or do they more about style and looking cool?
I suggest asking before the game, either hours or days before.
Late reply, but at our table we usually wave encumbrance on characters having
- STR 10 and no armor
- STR 12 and light armor
- STR 14 and medium armor
- STR 16 and heavy armor
If these conditions are not met, you have to manually track your encumbrance.
We see it as a good compromise - want to min/max your character? Fine, but you have to face some consequences and be ready for them (my 8-STR wizard was counting each cp, and took Craft Wondrous Items to make its own bag of holding. And CHA 9 lead to some funny RP consequences...).
Otherwise, just take a STR value which makes sense and we'll assume you're able to carry your stuff without further bookkeeping
I would not want to account for everything exactly but total handwaving of encumbrance would be just unfair to players with enough strength to carry their stuff.
Same as handwaving the pentalty to will checks from dumped wis or as the penalty to skills per level from dumped int. If you handwave one penalty you should do the same with the other penalties.
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As for perception checks, I like to dole out infos in dribs and drabs based on what the team rolled.
I start lowest first, give him soemthing generic "You see footprints in the mud, all jumbled up. It looks like combat or dancing, you are unsure".
Next highest guy: "There was definitely a battle here. You can see where dried blood has spilled and discolored the mud. There are small chips in the stonework of the ruined keep, consistent with bladed weapons recently chopping into the rock"
Next guy "Casting about, you find a small hole in the bushes at the base of the tower. It appears as though a wounded creature of human size crawled away."
Next guy "following your buddies discoveries, you find the decaying corpse of an orc. The heavily muscled frame is covered in dried blood from a scalp wound."
From there we go about with other skills...heal checks to determine how long it had been there, survival to determine the direction the victors went, knowledge whatever to find out what they know about orcs, spellcraft to determine if the guy had magic stuff, or detect magic spell.
Once you get past the original perception scores, its easy to decide who knows what. Also, even if you tell them something that any moron would know, at least you are letting them participate. At my tables, its easy to get distracted either by books/research on feats or whatnot, or just idle chit chat. Maybe telling the guy with +6 and who rolled a 4 that his 10 let him see the footprints is enough to cover something he missed.
Lastly, I do like to have their perception bonuses written down, and then occasionally just ask for a d20 roll. Even if I don't tell them why, or if I don't tell them anything at all it makes them wonder, maybe gives them pause. Few things are as satisfying as a missed check for the ambush and they have to play it like that...likewise, the party loves when that guy rolls the nat 20 and has +15, so he senses the trap about to be sprung and stops the gnolls from munching on his party.
Win-win.
I would not want to account for everything exactly but total handwaving of encumbrance would be just unfair to players with enough strength to carry their stuff.
Same as handwaving the pentalty to will checks from dumped wis or as the penalty to skills per level from dumped int. If you handwave one penalty you should do the same with the other penalties.
handwaving carrying capacity isn't really an issue if you can get your players to agree to something reasonable.
sure, the bard can wear the chain shirt with a sabre, buckler, dagger. hanbo, gladius and longbow as well as a stocked pack. i'd allow them to, i just wouldn't let them also carry a 10 foot pole or polearm at the same time.
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I would not want to account for everything exactly but total handwaving of encumbrance would be just unfair to players with enough strength to carry their stuff.
Same as handwaving the pentalty to will checks from dumped wis or as the penalty to skills per level from dumped int. If you handwave one penalty you should do the same with the other penalties.handwaving carrying capacity isn't really an issue if you can get your players to agree to something reasonable.
sure, the bard can wear the chain shirt with a sabre, buckler, dagger. hanbo, gladius and longbow as well as a stocked pack. i'd allow them to, i just wouldn't let them also carry a 10 foot pole or polearm at the same time.
not that i would allow the bard to wear a rack of a dozen polearms or anything
but a hanbo, gladius, dagger, sabre, buckler and longbow, isn't an unreasonable thing to ask of a weakling in a chain shirt. in addition to their pack of course.
it sure as heck beats spending 20 minutes pouring through rulebooks to recalculate your load every time you knock an arrow or drink a potion.
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I would not want to account for everything exactly but total handwaving of encumbrance would be just unfair to players with enough strength to carry their stuff.
Same as handwaving the pentalty to will checks from dumped wis or as the penalty to skills per level from dumped int. If you handwave one penalty you should do the same with the other penalties.
I don't understand the "If one, then all" mentality.
None of the other penalties slow the game down with pointless tedium that has to be attended to every time a character picks something up.
Honestly anyone who gets pissy because he feels he should be able to carry more stuff than his teammate is acting like a child.
As so many people like to say when someone brings up running a business in-game, "This isn't Spreadsheets and Collations", this is Pathfinder.
A Game where your Barbarian could be beating a fictional dragon to death with his bear hands (Beast totem is nice like that) instead of worrying about the weight of fictional objects.
I would not want to account for everything exactly but total handwaving of encumbrance would be just unfair to players with enough strength to carry their stuff.
Same as handwaving the pentalty to will checks from dumped wis or as the penalty to skills per level from dumped int. If you handwave one penalty you should do the same with the other penalties.I don't understand the "If one, then all" mentality.
None of the other penalties slow the game down with pointless tedium that has to be attended to every time a character picks something up.
Honestly anyone who gets pissy because he feels he should be able to carry more stuff than his teammate is acting like a child.
As so many people like to say when someone brings up running a business in-game, "This isn't Spreadsheets and Collations", this is Pathfinder.
A Game where your Barbarian could be beating a fictional dragon to death with his bear hands (Beast totem is nice like that) instead of worrying about the weight of fictional objects.
encumbrance is a waste of time, i could have spent those 20 minutes per player and that extra half hour looking up rules, doing a bit of exploration and gathering info from NPCs
while your 5 person group wastes a little over 2 hours bickering about encumbrance and a third hour bickering about RAW, my own preferred group if i got the chance, would not care and would simply move on with the story. doesn't mean we are carrying a dozen gold collossi apiece or anything for 2 tons apiece, we get carts and teamsters for those.
but due to how long combat encounters take already with 15 or more people, plus cohorts, pets, and hirelings. we generally tend to care little about such things that can drag down a session.
2 ton Gold Collosus? the teamsters at the cart can haul it for us while a series of cohorts keeps watch.
but a hanbo, gladius, dagger, sabre, buckler and longbow, isn't an unreasonable thing to ask of a weakling in a chain shirt. in addition to their pack of course.
I know a lot of guys who would be struggling with a chainshirt and a gladius without all the rest.
And when I did travel to re-enactment events by railway I normally only took either my travelling pack (if I was there for multiple days) or my chainshirt but not both. And I think that at least in my youth I was not a str 8 weakling.And again, I'm not one of those who want to do the book keeping down to every coin. But knowing and using a rough number for weight (weapons, armor, kits) and comparing them to encumbrance should be done.
I, for one like the idea mentioned earlier about minimum strength/armor to not have to care about encumbrance.
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I think the comparison to Intelligence is fair. Also, you pay a price for dumping Dex or Con, so why not Str?
The problem is that applying the penalty for dumping those things takes all of half a minute to apply. Encumbrance takes half an hour to calculate.
I'm in favor of encumbrance. I think it makes the game more challenging, if you're trying to be both prepared to all eventualities and yet not slowed down. But the current rules are just too fussy. The only way I'd be willing to use the current rules is with digital character sheets that do the drudgework, but I don't want players distracted by lots of screens at the table.
I'm basically looking for a better system.
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I agree the encumbrance rules are large and clunky, but it's still extremely unfair to penalize the guy who dumps int by not giving him skills but to ignore the 8 strength bard penalty to carry her own gear.
I'm not saying be a super hard ass every time they pick up an object to move one place to the next, but don't let them carry six weapon, three sets of armor, and the gold statue. The easiest way to handle it is to throw a handy haversack in the loot pile and let the weak character have it. But that is part of their loot and counts against what they get compared to other characters. You can band-aid the problem, but it should cost them a little something.
Always keep the threat of a character "audit" in mind. If you ask them what their encumbrance is and they don't know, then enforce a penalty of being encumbered until they figure it out. Same should go with food and water. ** spoiler omitted **Mother Nature is a CR40 encounter that lasts from birth to death.
-Nearyn
And it wins.....alaways. Unless you're Jesus
I don't think the Intelligence comparison is fair either.
What is Intelligence's PRIMARY function? To determine number of skill points per level. It also raises bonuses for Int based skills and determines casting for Int based casters.
What is Dexterity's PRIMARY function? To add its modifier to AC. Or, arguably, to determine to-hit for Ranged weapons. It also raises bonuses for Dex based skills, adds its bonus to Reflex saves, and serves as the attack stat for Weapon Finesse and Dervish Dance characters.
See where I'm going with this?
Strength's PRIMARY function is to determine to-hit and damage for melee weapons (and damage for thrown weapons and composite bows). It also adds a bonus to Str based skills, and determines Encumbrance.
However, the encumbrance rules have a built-in level of tedium that the other secondary skill functions do not have, and are overall less important to the game's balance than the other ones.
Not tracking encumbrance is at no point going to impact your game in the slightest, especially with how easy it is to trivialize. Muleback Cords and Bags of Holding/Handy Haversacks (the latter of which EVERYONE will have by a certain point) make Encumbrance moot later on, so why waste your time tracking it early in the game?
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It's weird reading this argument, because I agree with both opposing viewpoints and think they are both correct.
My brain hurts.