Swim penalty: -1 / 5 lbs. Ok, but where?

[Blackstorm]

So, reading some char sheets and around, I see that it's said that you get a -1 penalty for every 5 lbs carried. Now, I didn't remember that, so I went to check... and found nothing in the swim skill rules or encumbrance rules. So, can anyone enligthen me? Is this penalty totally come out from the hat, or it's effectively a rule? If the latter, where the hell can I find that rule?

[Sissyl]

It is the 3.X rule.

[Fake Healer]

It didn't transfer over from 3.5.

[LazarX]

This is the relevant rules.

Encumbrance by Weight: If you want to determine whether your character's gear is heavy enough to slow him down more than his armor already does, total the weight of all the character's items, including armor, weapons, and gear. Compare this total to the character's Strength on Table: Carrying Capacity. Depending on the character's carrying capacity, he or she may be carrying a light, medium, or heavy load. Like armor, a character's load affects his maximum Dexterity bonus to AC, carries a check penalty (which works like an armor check penalty), reduces the character's speed, and affects how fast the character can run, as shown on Table: Encumbrance Effects. A medium or heavy load counts as medium or heavy armor for the purpose of abilities or skills that are restricted by armor. Carrying a light load does not encumber a character.

Find out your penalties by armor. Calculate your penalties from encumbrance as listed above. Use which ever is the higher penalty. they are essentially overlapping penalties.

[SiliconDon]

The relevant penalties are -3 for medium load and -6 for heavy load.

[ryric]

That's actually a 3.0 rule. In 3.5 it was changed to twice armor check penalty, and in Pathfinder it's just your normal armor check penalty. Double check those character sheets if you intend to use them for PF as they may have an incorrect skill list as well.

[Blackstorm]

Ok. I was finding the in the comprehensive character sheet from dyslexic studios (http://charactersheets.minotaur.cc/) and I wondered if it was an error. Thanks, guys.

[David knott 242]

I think they got rid of that -1 per 5 pounds rule when they realized that a storm giant could be made to drown by stuff that would easily fit into his pockets.

[ryric]

My favorite was that clinging to a piece of driftwood could drag you down into a watery grave.

[Ross Byers]

David knott 242 wrote:

I think they got rid of that -1 per 5 pounds rule when they realized that a storm giant could be made to drown by stuff that would easily fit into his pockets.

It's not just that: It's an extra level of bookkeeping, trying to model something that the Armor Check Penalty is already modelling.

"Bob fell in the water, time to audit his character sheet for weight."

[Lincoln Hills]

Yeah, I don't know what was worse: stopping for half an hour for the PC who didn't happen to have his total encumbrance written down, or stopping for three minutes four times a session for the whole campaign for the player who constantly insisted on tracking his encumbrance!

(Don't get me wrong, I realize encumbrance is all that keeps some PCs from carrying around enough junk to make them qualify as a planetary body, but I don't have to like it!)

This way is less realistic, but no less realistic than, say, running across a river of lava without being reduced to nothing but a faint odor of burnt pork.

[Damon Griffin]

David knott 242 wrote:

I think they got rid of that -1 per 5 pounds rule when they realized that a storm giant could be made to drown by stuff that would easily fit into his pockets.

Now if they'd only dropped the dual restrictions on extradimensional containers; a bag of holding is limited both by weight and volume, but the only items that have a listed volume are other containers.

Since no one wants the level of bookkeeping required to estimate and then track the total volume of multiple small items in a bag or haversack, I imagine 99.99999% of all players and GMs simply ignore the volume restriction (except possibly as a limitation for the largest single item you could put into the container, and only then so you don't have to calculate the weight of such an item based on its material and volume.) I don't know why Paizo didn't just officially lift the volume capacity restriction.

[Ross Byers]

Lincoln Hills wrote:

Yeah, I don't know what was worse: stopping for half an hour for the PC who didn't happen to have his total encumbrance written down, or stopping for three minutes four times a session for the whole campaign for the player who constantly insisted on tracking his encumbrance!

Even encumbrance can be largely sped up, or checked periodically. For instance, I have a Str 8 sorcerer, and I carefully tailored his starting gear to be a light load. Pretty quickly, he picked up more things and became a medium load. But after that, I don't have to think about it for awhile: he has to double the amount he's carrying before he hits a heavy load. That means he can pick up knick-knacks to whatever without a lot of trouble. Adding up a total weight maybe once a session is more than enough. (If he was on paper, it would be a 'check every time I copy to a clean character sheet' thing.)

Similarly, if the fighter is in heavy armor and has a huge strength score, then encumbrance doesn't matter until he hits his carrying limit, which is crazy high. Worry about it when you're claiming he hauls off the whole treasure chest, or as a reason he can't drag the whole dragon carcass out of the dungeon, but not something to check every time he drops a weapon or picks up a shield.

But if the Swim penalty is based on 5 pound increments, suddenly you have to care if you're carrying 45 pounds or 50 pounds of gear, even if those are both a light load.