For the cubic feet? Eh. We handwaive it to be honest.
Then you can hand wave bulk too.
The thing is, bulk os easy enough to be used, so the incentive to handwave it is smaller than with real weight and volume, which is so complicated that needs referencing google to check. And I still can't Google how many cubic feet/meters does a folded rope has. So we end not using volume at all in our PF games, as you, and most people, do as well. Because it is intrinsically so obscure that there is no point using it at all, and in the end you fit 250 pounds of straw in the same bag of holding you fit 250 pounds of iron
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Well thats good demonstration of what I meant when I said I have no clue how much lbs is :p
Anyway, as I said, I have never seen player roleplay about weight or put much interest in exact weights of items outside of carrying something absurd or other characters. So yeah still not seeing issue there.
"How much can my character lift?" is a really common question that comes up in my games. Likewise with carrying other characters. Running from a fight with an unconscious ally or captured enemy happens pretty frequently. It's because of this that parties in my games tend to have at least one really strong PC who can transport a downed character or two when necessary.
It's the inability to handle these things in a satisfying manner (I've mentioned in other threads how the strongest low level soldier can't even attempt to carry a realistically weighted human comrade) that turned me off of bulk in Starfinder. I'm cautiously optimistic that PF2's bulk system is going to be more robust, but I'd still rather just use PF1's weight tables.
I'll also reiterate the concerns that bulk feels like a needless abstraction. Unwieldiness is so nebulous a statistic that having a static measurement of it seems silly. What if two people are working together to carry a very long object? Is its bulk lower now? Is a piece of heavy canvas a different bulk when draped over you than when it's nicely folded? I think it's far better to just list the constant weight of the item, and let the GM determine when PCs are approaching the absurd.
The one thing I do like about bulk is that it makes tracking your carrying capacity a little easier (and encourages people to do it). Since my objection to bulk mainly stems from things outside of ones "inventory", I'm beginning to really like the idea of having both systems run parallel. Bulk for easy tracking of worn/wielded items, but also listed weights for the more "external" dragging, lifting, and carrying, since it's those applications where I find bulk is least sufficient.
Then you can hand wave bulk too.
The thing is, bulk os easy enough to be used, so the incentive to handwave it is smaller than with real weight and volume, which is so complicated
Sure. We could handwaive it (we don't currently handwaive weight. We only handwaive cubic feet limitations. I believe this doesn't actually come up outside of a handful of magic items, unlike weight which is integral to every item). Or we could houserule in some bulk to pounds conversion (if it's not in the book). Or the book could have a real measurement and those who can't be bothered handling it just handwaive that away.
I prefer bulk, it's got less cognitive load than encumbrance, is more likely to be used at the table. You know what your bulk is because it's your Strength score. There is no additional table to look at.
I tried to explain this in the Alchemy thread, but you put it much better than I could.
To elaborate a little: In PF1, to create a character I have to look up every item in a table with its weight and gp cost. If I have a Small character, I have to remember to divide the weight by 2 for certain items (but not all). Then I need to add the two columns and check against both my starting gold and my weight limits (in another table).
Then, every time I find some item or other, I have to go back to the table to check its weight and see if I should apply encumbrance penalties. Unsurprisingly, no one likes to do that in the middle of play, so weight tends to be ignored, at least until a character's gear becomes really egregious with dozens of weapons and stuff picked up through the adventure. Conveniently, things like Handy Haversack become available fairly early on, allowing me to ignore 90% of the problem.
Now if you change the unit to bulk, it's a simpler unit. Once I have built a couple of characters, I'll probably remember which items fall in the Light category, while I could never remember what is 1 lb and what is 1/2 lb in PF1. Hopefully the devs will make all light weapons 1 bulk, medium weapons 2 bulk, of something along those lines. So, I should be able to quickly estimate what my encumbrance is just by counting the light items, and adding just the very few items that are more bulky, like weapons and armor. Then, I don't need a Carrying Capacity table: I just compare my total bulk to my Str score. Way easier. After that, when I grab the orc chieftain's shield or something, in most cases its bulk should be the same as my own shield and I can add it to my load without having to look up anything.
For those strongly advocating for abstractions over imperial measurements: What about squares vs feet? Humans can have a speed of 5 squares, elves can have a speed of 6 squares and dwarves can have a speed of 4 squares. After all, feet means absolutely nothing. So if we want abstraction in one segment of the game, why not abstract everything else?
This is actually a good idea, but only for things that have to do with movement. For any other matters, a measurement that is closer to the real world makes more sense: A person 5ft tall looks really different than one who is 6ft tall.
However, I think the devs rejected the idea of transforming 5-ft squares into just squares. This is probably because they don't want to make using a grid map and minis a mandatory aspect of the game.
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If pounds is too difficult to worry about, here'a a suggested houserule: Every item has a bulk equal to it's weight in pounds divided by 10 (round down). Anything that has a weight under 10 pounds is treated as having a bulk equal to 1/10.
Your abstraction in a nice easy sidebar that interfaces with real measurements for those who prefer real measurements.
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If pounds is too difficult to worry about, here'a a suggested houserule: Every item has a bulk equal to it's weight in pounds divided by 10 (round down). Anything that has a weight under 10 pounds is treated as having a bulk equal to 1/10.
Your abstraction in a nice easy sidebar that interfaces with real measurements for those who prefer real measurements.
That is not an abstraction, it is just rounding up, and it defeats the purpose of bulk, or at least what I like about bulk.
The point of bulk is that carrying a lance that weights 10 pounds and wearing a padded armor that weight 10 pounds is not the same. So the Lance gas an abstract value of bulk 3 and the padded armor is L
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My basic issue with bulk is that it doesn't mean anything. What's 10 bulk, 50 bulk, it practically jibberish. It's another leaky abstraction in a game that naturally fills up with them, making it increasingly difficult to tell a coherent story. Ideally rules and sub systems give you more understanding and grounding in the world, not less.
I think this is one of those YMMV things - as a GM, I find abstractions actually help me with the storytelling because they, you know, are abstractions - they allow me to handwave some of the complications involved and just get on with the story.
Example: the players have just killed the monsters and are stealing their stuff. It's a minor encounter before the big-boss scene. Let's say they picked up some coins (bulk L), a handful of gems (bulk L), 2 silver daggers (bulk L), 1 masterwork longsword (bulk 1), 1 chain shirt (bulk 1) and 2 masterwork breastplates (bulk 2).
In less than 2 or 3 minutes of real-time, the players can divide up the loot, update their character sheets and move on to the next fight.
Finding the encumbrance in pounds for each of those items would take longer.
If pounds is too difficult to worry about, here'a a suggested houserule: Every item has a bulk equal to it's weight in pounds divided by 10 (round down). Anything that has a weight under 10 pounds is treated as having a bulk equal to 1/10.
Your abstraction in a nice easy sidebar that interfaces with real measurements for those who prefer real measurements.
As a houserule for PF1, this is perfectly fine. If I were beginning with PF1 today, I'd probably do it. But my group has a long history of 90% hand-waving weight by now.
For PF2, I expect, from everything the devs have said, that the game is designed for ease of use from the ground up.
The point of bulk is that carrying a lance that weights 10 pounds and wearing a padded armor that weight 10 pounds is not the same. So the Lance gas an abstract value of bulk 3 and the padded armor is L
This, as well.
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How much does 1 coin take up in bulk? How about 50 coins? 5000 coins?
Does it matter if it is loose coins or in a bag? I can easily carry 5 pounds of coins (or 2 kilos) in a bag. It would be impossible to carry them loose in my hands.
Let's say 50 coins in a pouch is (L) bulk. What about 75 coins? Do I round up or down? What about 95 coins? 55 coins? 49 coins?
If 49 coins in a pouch is negligible weight, what about 2 pouches? 10 pouches? 100 pouches?
What if each pouch only had 3 coins in them?
The advantage of weight over bulk is that you simply add up the pounds (or kilos). With abstractions, you open up the possibility of people gaming the system. And if you don't think people will try to game the system, you haven't played with some of the people I've gamed with.
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A coin pouch should be L bulk empty or full and be capable of holding x number of coins. Keeping your coins as lose change in your backpack should result in losing coins every time you pull something out of your bag. Keeping track of the weight of each coin is exactly why bulk is a better idea than individual weight.
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One of the things that I do in Herolab when making a new character is check the box to ignore Coin Weight. In PFS, the character is assumed to be mitigating the coin weight with letters of credit or carrying equivalent semiprecious gems to lighten the load.
Putting all your gold into a Bag of Holding eliminates the problem at about 3rd level.
Bulk in Starfinder, in my mind, is incomplete. There is no smaller unit than L and a lot of items have - as Bulk. If each sling bullet is L, that is going to be detrimental to getting a sling, but a Bulk of - for any ammo is going to be the same as before for Arrows and Bolts.
I wonder if there is a third teir of Bulk instead of - in PF2, and a hundred would equal 1 Bulk. Arrows would be one of those, or perhaps 3, and Sling Bullets would be 5 or 7. I believe there would be very few things that are 1 of the lesser Bulk Value, but then this would get into the math problem that Bulk seems to be trying to avoid.
Or would a lesser tier be tied to the next highest, and 10 would equal an L? Speculation at this point, but Starfinder seems to have L or B on Ammo, which would seriously hamper the bow users and the Slingers.
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I would imagine we would give a bulk of L to "a quiver of arrows", which is a standardized number of arrows, rather than giving a bulk rating to each individual arrow. So a bag of 20 (or w/e) sling bullets has light bulk, but we don't care about individual bullets.
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I would imagine we would give a bulk of L to "a quiver of arrows", which is a standardized number of arrows, rather than giving a bulk rating to each individual arrow. So a bag of 20 (or w/e) sling bullets has light bulk, but we don't care about individual bullets.
I hadn't thought about it before, but this kind of mechanic is perfect for a bulk system. Scroll cases, quivers, coin pouches, basically anything small should be measured by its container, and whether the container is full or not, it should either take up L bulk or 1 depending upon its size. Then when you are out adventuring, you know you are fine finding treasure, adding scrolls, coins, arrows to your quiver, because your encumbrance is determined by what you started off carrying and it is only going to significantly change if you start picking up additional containers of gear.
I think it is interesting that the specific weight of items and such is something that gamers feel like is important for verisimilitude, but character height and weight have never been attached to the mechanics of attributes even though they would play a dominant role in physical attributes.
Characters should probably just be considered to weigh as much as the bulk they can carry and your average human sized (or 5x5ft object) should have a bulk of 10 x a material modifier, rounded down. You can then easily still have a carry/lift/drag table easily cued off of a x2/x3/x4 or some other appropriate, tested numbers, and you have a very easy way of estimating things.
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I would imagine we would give a bulk of L to "a quiver of arrows", which is a standardized number of arrows, rather than giving a bulk rating to each individual arrow. So a bag of 20 (or w/e) sling bullets has light bulk, but we don't care about individual bullets.
I agree with this. By the same logic, I think a single coin is probably negligible weight, but the pouch that carries them has a certain bulk either empty or full.
For example, a coin pouch/wallet/purse/whatever might hold up to 100 coins and have a bulk of L, empty or full. If you want to carry 1000 coins then you would need 10 of them, which is 1 bulk, which sounds reasonable - you're carrying a lot of cash at that point.
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I like Bulk.
It combines both Weight and Weight Distribution which the former Encumbrance System was unable to account for into a simple system.
For those who are "too smart" for the system and leveraging the complaint that it "dumbs down" gameplay, consider that instead it shifts creative thinking to other aspects of the game - whether that be the "chess" of combat and/or the "problem-solving" of exploration/strategy and/or the "improvisational chops" or role-play.
Claro!
My basic issue with bulk is that it doesn't mean anything. What's 10 bulk, 50 bulk, it practically jibberish. It's another leaky abstraction in a game that naturally fills up with them, making it increasingly difficult to tell a coherent story. Ideally rules and sub systems give you more understanding and grounding in the world, not less.I think this is one of those YMMV things - as a GM, I find abstractions actually help me with the storytelling because they, you know, are abstractions - they allow me to handwave some of the complications involved and just get on with the story.
Example: the players have just killed the monsters and are stealing their stuff. It's a minor encounter before the big-boss scene. Let's say they picked up some coins (bulk L), a handful of gems (bulk L), 2 silver daggers (bulk L), 1 masterwork longsword (bulk 1), 1 chain shirt (bulk 1) and 2 masterwork breastplates (bulk 2).
In less than 2 or 3 minutes of real-time, the players can divide up the loot, update their character sheets and move on to the next fight.
Finding the encumbrance in pounds for each of those items would take longer.
Obviously if the treasure comes with bulk listed it's easier to manage.
If it came with weight listed, it'd be just as easy."Are breastplates 2 or 3 bulk?" And so forth.
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. With abstractions, you open up the possibility of people gaming the system. And if you don't think people will try to game the system, you haven't played with some of the people I've gamed with.
You can game the system with weight too. Like carrying multiple polearms because they fit in the weight, regardless of if it fits in your body, or inserting lot of stuff in a bag of holding, without looking in the cubic feet (only weight).
Game rules can always be destroyed by those who try if the GM does not apply common sense. Just because you have enough Ride skill to mount or dismoubt as a free action does not mean you can travel 30 miles in a round by placing enough horses split every 50 feet, and just because saying a word is a free action it does not mean you can say, word by word, the complete work of William Shakespeare and stall a combat in your initiative moment forever. Bulk rules, like free action rules, explicitly say that the GM can intervene if someone tries this kind of BS
About your concerns, coins will be added up. 10 pouches of 49 pounds weight as much bulk as a pouch of 490 coins.
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My basic issue with bulk is that it doesn't mean anything. What's 10 bulk, 50 bulk, it practically jibberish. It's another leaky abstraction in a game that naturally fills up with them, making it increasingly difficult to tell a coherent story. Ideally rules and sub systems give you more understanding and grounding in the world, not less.I think this is one of those YMMV things - as a GM, I find abstractions actually help me with the storytelling because they, you know, are abstractions - they allow me to handwave some of the complications involved and just get on with the story.
Example: the players have just killed the monsters and are stealing their stuff. It's a minor encounter before the big-boss scene. Let's say they picked up some coins (bulk L), a handful of gems (bulk L), 2 silver daggers (bulk L), 1 masterwork longsword (bulk 1), 1 chain shirt (bulk 1) and 2 masterwork breastplates (bulk 2).
In less than 2 or 3 minutes of real-time, the players can divide up the loot, update their character sheets and move on to the next fight.
Finding the encumbrance in pounds for each of those items would take longer.
Obviously if the treasure comes with bulk listed it's easier to manage.
If it came with weight listed, it'd be just as easy.
"Are breastplates 2 or 3 bulk?" And so forth.
But that's the point - if you have an abstracting system like bulk, you don't need to list the weights. You just have to know that (say) all light melee weapons are L, all 1-handed melee weapons are 1 bulk and all 2-handed melee weapons are 2 bulk (you could make a category 3 bulk for really unwieldy things: polearms, lances). Same for armour: all light armour could be 1 bulk, all medium armour 2 bulk and all heavy armour 3 bulk.
Effectively, a mace is a longsword is a shortspear; a longspear is a greatsword is a greataxe; and chain mail is a breastplate is scale mail.
That's quicker to memorise than it was for me to type out. There's no way I could memorise the weights for all the different light melee weapons or light armour PF1e currently has.
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One thing I do like about bulk is that it conveys how a tapestry is easier to carry than a door, even if they are the same weight. A tapestry can be rolled up and tied on to someone's pack while a door is going to be inconvenient for one person to carry no matter how strong they are.
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One thing I do like about bulk is that it conveys how a tapestry is easier to carry than a door, even if they are the same weight. A tapestry can be rolled up and tied on to someone's pack while a door is going to be inconvenient for one person to carry no matter how strong they are.
And then we can add folding doors to the equipment list which are just like regular doors but less bulky.
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And then we can add folding doors to the equipment list which are just like regular doors but less bulky.
I was thinking of the situation in which the PCs come across a gold and jewel encrusted door in the dungeon and decide to carry it out with them, but I'm going to design a ritual that requires a self-standing door now (probably some kind of teleportation effect.)
I was thinking of the situation in which the PCs come across a gold and jewel encrusted door in the dungeon and decide to carry it out with them, but I'm going to design a ritual that requires a self-standing door now (probably some kind of teleportation effect.)
Ooohoohoh, the dimensional door!
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Ooohoohoh, the dimensional door!
I was thinking of the situation in which the PCs come across a gold and jewel encrusted door in the dungeon and decide to carry it out with them, but I'm going to design a ritual that requires a self-standing door now (probably some kind of teleportation effect.)
At last, we found a use for the Hold Portal spell!
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I've always taken it as a given that encumbrance & rations were important.
In fact, rations can have a large impact on encumbrance for non-martials at low levels. And I'm in the camp that every party needs a strong person. My Mummy's Mask AP lacks such a person, so thankfully we have an animal companion or would have to leave loot behind. (Pack animals aren't faring so well...) The loss of loot would be on us for ignoring/dumping strength in a game where we're adventurers traveling in the wilds and pillaging hoards.
As for Bulk, I don't see the appeal. The first issue is how granular will it be? Sure, it's cool that a lot of minor items can be 'L' or 'nil' (and calling those a wash is something I can support!), but when does that stash of food shift from Bulk 2 to Bulk 1? If we get 1 Bulk & 7 L of food, we may as well just use weight. Coins will likely be clusters of L's also. And will a dagger be 1 L while a short sword is a full Bulk? Then longsword would need to be pushed to 2, right? But isn't that in armor territory?
And what about all those items between L & 1? If they're notably larger than L objects, then it seems we'd be obliged to call them 1 Bulk, which might end up crippling our carrying capacities!
Second, as a GM what'll I do to determine Bulk of random items if there isn't a similar item listed? It's so much easier to use weight in that case, especially if the item lies between two similar items of different Bulk.
Third, Bulk is supposed to factor in unwieldiness, which makes for grand verisimilitude and is something I could support tied to the weight system (mostly as a GM's call within suggested parameters). The trouble with unwieldiness is it's a vague term that's highly contextual.
Carrying my buddy in my arms is really hard, but a fireman's carry eases the load. And dragging him is much easier on marble using a rug than on marble alone than on cobblestones than on a dirt road or grass or up basic stairs (none of which are difficult terrain).
That first polearm isn't an issue if I'm using it as a walking stick or even balancing pole, but those next few on my back are going to take a heavier toll with all the shifting weight.
And armor worn is so much easier to carry than armor in a backpack.
And of course some backpacks distribute weight to the hips & legs for much easier carrying of every item within, while others are strapped higher and strain the lifter much more, especially over time.
Water, tightly contained, is less unwieldy than water sloshing around.
Do we really want to go into this territory with formal rules?
It almost seems like there'd need to be different columns for Bulk when something is carried in hand vs. packed.
So we have a conundrum.
The Bulk system is supposed to simplify encumbrance by abstracting it, but then complicates it by adding in unwieldiness, a highly contextual aspect. It almost seems like we're getting into such convolutions that GMs should take the burden of these burdens upon themselves and make the call with some suggested parameters...but that would lead to even more calculating & recalculating, wouldn't it? (with opinions too!)
Jeesh.
I'm not sure any of the efforts needed to make a new Bulk subsystem will have the payoffs worth the headaches.
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One thing I do like about bulk is that it conveys how a tapestry is easier to carry than a door, even if they are the same weight. A tapestry can be rolled up and tied on to someone's pack while a door is going to be inconvenient for one person to carry no matter how strong they are.
Funnily enough, I thought you were going to say the tapestry was much harder to carry!
A door might be large, but it's steady and doesn't shift around.If the item is heavy enough to need two people to wield it, then the door would be much easier to manage between the two than the limp tapestry!
(Another factor re: unwieldiness as a difficult metric.)
Brings to mind how a couch, which can be really bulky for one strong person, can be so much less bulky for two people with half the strength.
Will the game need to address such issues?
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I've always taken it as a given that encumbrance & rations were important.
I have no proof of this, but I suspect that puts you in a small minority of gamers. And that's great! If you enjoy that aspect of the game then that's all that matters - we play this to have fun.
But for me (and again I suspect for most gamers) it's just a pointless complication. As a GM, I basically only enforce encumbrance when I think a player is blatantly misusing it to gain an advantage. And I happily hand-wave rations unless the party is in a wilderness with no reliable source of food and water. There aren't many AP's that applies to - you mentioned Mummy's Mask. I can think of the first part of both Serpent's Skull and Ironfang Invasion.
And will a dagger be 1 L while a short sword is a full Bulk? Then longsword would need to be pushed to 2, right? But isn't that in armor territory?
Short swords are light weapons, so I'd say they're L (they're larger than a dagger, which is why daggers have the additional rule that they're easier to conceal, but that is nothing to do with encumbrance). Longswords are 1-handed melee, so I'd guess they're bulk 1.
But without concrete rules, we're just guessing here. And like I said, encumbrance isn't a big deal to me. But moving to the bulk system is basically the only way that the groups I game with would adopt it.
Dueling swords are L in Starfinder, so zu guess short swords will be on pf2
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A coin pouch should be L bulk empty or full and be capable of holding x number of coins. Keeping your coins as lose change in your backpack should result in losing coins every time you pull something out of your bag. Keeping track of the weight of each coin is exactly why bulk is a better idea than individual weight.
Empty coin bag is easier to carry than full. I can see it being any level of Bulk with how much depending on how evil the DM is.
And that's probably the biggest issue. I can see the arguments of "How much Bulk" playing out again and again.
I don't like bulk but I don't hate it either. I just see it has shifting the problems elsewhere. Actually that seems to be my stance on 2E in general.
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I would figure an empty sack has a bulk of "-" so if players really want to play inventory tetris by making sure every sack, bag, pack, quiver, etc is filled to maximum capacity I'm not going to stop them.
I absolutely love bulk.
PF1 encumbrance is probably at the top of my list of things I don't use. I'll play with Leadership chains and 80-billion-appendage eidolons before I willingly touch encumbrance. Nobody I know likes it.
Starfinder Bulk has actually led to gear-sorting exercises in which everyone in the group has had fun with it. People have actually eagerly anticipated going to high-gravity planets because it means they get to play with which gear to bring and which gear to leave on the ship. I've gotten requests to engineer more circumstances in which they get to play with bulk.
My players have enjoyed it, and I have too. And I'm an encumbrance-hater in PF1.
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Does "unwieldiness" really need to have exact science way of calculating it though? You aren't going to carry a whole statue by yourself, you need vehicle for that anyway.
I mean, its not like encumbrance was exact science, it never took it account how hard it is to carry certain shape of items as far as I know <_<
Carrying 20 weapons on yourself, no bag or backpack...
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I would figure an empty sack has a bulk of "-" so if players really want to play inventory tetris by making sure every sack, bag, pack, quiver, etc is filled to maximum capacity I'm not going to stop them.
Problem is when to actually stop them.
DM; Okay so 50 coins is X bulk.
Player: Hey my bag can hold that.
DM: Okay. Now...
Player 2: Wait mine holds Y bulk. Why is that?
Player 3: Better question. Since a bag is easier to carry, does a bag of coins actually have less Bulk than 50 coins?
Player 4: Hey do different metals of coins have different Bulk? If so what about metal gear?
DM faceplams as the game grinds to halt over Bulk, Weight and Physics
I absolutely love bulk.
PF1 encumbrance is probably at the top of my list of things I don't use. I'll play with Leadership chains and 80-billion-appendage eidolons before I willingly touch encumbrance. Nobody I know likes it.
Starfinder Bulk has actually led to gear-sorting exercises in which everyone in the group has had fun with it. People have actually eagerly anticipated going to high-gravity planets because it means they get to play with which gear to bring and which gear to leave on the ship. I've gotten requests to engineer more circumstances in which they get to play with bulk.
My players have enjoyed it, and I have too. And I'm an encumbrance-hater in PF1.
I don't see how changing the numbers and opening the door to spatial arguments is fun. I also don't know one group that actually likes sorting and cataloging gear/treasure. Usually it's take the useful stuff and hawk the rest, DM give us cash.
I don't see how changing the numbers and opening the door to spatial arguments is fun. I also don't know one group that actually likes sorting and cataloging gear/treasure. Usually it's take the useful stuff and hawk the rest, DM give us cash.I absolutely love bulk.
PF1 encumbrance is probably at the top of my list of things I don't use. I'll play with Leadership chains and 80-billion-appendage eidolons before I willingly touch encumbrance. Nobody I know likes it.
Starfinder Bulk has actually led to gear-sorting exercises in which everyone in the group has had fun with it. People have actually eagerly anticipated going to high-gravity planets because it means they get to play with which gear to bring and which gear to leave on the ship. I've gotten requests to engineer more circumstances in which they get to play with bulk.
My players have enjoyed it, and I have too. And I'm an encumbrance-hater in PF1.
See, the thing is that sentiment isn't universal. There clearly exists a segment of players which do enjoy inventory management. Those who don't enjoy it are going to ignore it whether it's there or not. That's not a reason to have it not exist in a nuanced, codified form for the people that like and want it. I think it's better to have a workable system and a line saying effectively "not all groups enjoy tracking encumbrance. If your group prefers to ignore these rules, then feel free to do so" than to have nothing to say on the subject at all.
Me, personally, I want encumbrance to matter, but doing so in PF1 is such a chore that I just don't. I haven't played Starfinder much, but it sounds to me like the bulk system is more approachable than what we have now.
I don't see how changing the numbers and opening the door to spatial arguments is fun. I also don't know one group that actually likes sorting and cataloging gear/treasure. Usually it's take the useful stuff and hawk the rest, DM give us cash.I absolutely love bulk.
PF1 encumbrance is probably at the top of my list of things I don't use. I'll play with Leadership chains and 80-billion-appendage eidolons before I willingly touch encumbrance. Nobody I know likes it.
Starfinder Bulk has actually led to gear-sorting exercises in which everyone in the group has had fun with it. People have actually eagerly anticipated going to high-gravity planets because it means they get to play with which gear to bring and which gear to leave on the ship. I've gotten requests to engineer more circumstances in which they get to play with bulk.
My players have enjoyed it, and I have too. And I'm an encumbrance-hater in PF1.
See, the thing is that sentiment isn't universal. There clearly exists a segment of players which do enjoy inventory management. Those who don't enjoy it are going to ignore it whether it's there or not. That's not a reason to have it not exist in a nuanced, codified form for the people that like and want it. I think it's better to have a workable system and a line saying effectively "not all groups enjoy tracking encumbrance. If your group prefers to ignore these rules, then feel free to do so" than to have nothing to say on the subject at all.
Me, personally, I want encumbrance to matter, but doing so in PF1 is such a chore that I just don't. I haven't played Starfinder much, but it sounds to me like the bulk system is more approachable than what we have now.
See I'm going to ignore the Weight/Bulk as per normal. My usual stance is "Can you within the realm of reason, explain how much you're carrying and how you are". So with that idea, I should like Bulk. Until I sit down and think about it. Something has X Bulk, okay I get that. But if Bulk is Weight and difficultly to carry, how does that work? Does it have less Bulk if carried this or that way? And if Bulk replaces Weight everywhere, that ripples out into other areas. Such as gameplay. Explore mode; Can I move this? What's it's Bulk? Encounter Mode: What do you mean I can't throw a halfling/Goblin/ something small? Why is its Bulk so high?
Now I don't hate Bulk unlike other things to have come up from the blogs. But I don't like it either. This is all conjecture and guess work though so I'll sit on the fence till more info comes.
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I’m not going to ask who keeps track of coin weight, because the boards are full of contrarian pedants.
Even when we did track encumbrance, we never kept track of coin weights. I prefer to be having fun.
I just went with "Coin Weight" as it was an easy thing to visualize.
More complex example? Holy Zen, how badly does Bulk help or harm Alchemist? With all the bombs, bottles, ingredients, etc; you're less person and more walking tool shop.
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Also carrying an ally doesn’t need to play into the bulk system really. Bulk is about keeping a limit on the stuff you can carry so you don’t end up with teams of inventory and bog down the game in every situation going: “I HAVE A THING FOR THAT!”
Carrying your ally should just be an action, and maybe half your speed if you’re carrying a character of the same size, or third your speed if they’re larger than your size. It shouldn’t be another math problem.
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Meta-Question to the Developers:
What audience is Bulk for?
Those who want to account for unwieldiness, but don't like bothering with small numbers enough to account for weight?
To persuade those who feel encumbrance rules are optional to use encumbrance? (If so, the SF system's flaws aren't very persuasive!)
So PFS GMs have a ruleset to reference when enforcing encumbrance?
A separate example, one common to adventurers, of raiding an armory:
The party could grab 10 Longswords, bundled together, at let's say 10 Bulk. Oddly, this is heavier than 3 suits of plate armor (if Bulk 3), so take those instead. And 10 short swords too (if Bulk L) each.
Wait, the difference in Bulk between 10 long swords and 10 short swords might be 3 suits of plate armor?! Even three chain shirts difference would be silly.
Wherever the cutoff between L & 1 Bulk lies on the weapons chart, there's going to be a significant dent in verisimilitude. So maybe unlike SF's system, PF2's is more granular, but then we're back to adding lots of varied numbers, right? Is there a balance point where simplicity and verisimilitude harmonize? I don't see one yet, nor do I understand the payoff of putting great efforts into seeking one.
Cheers.
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I’m not going to ask who keeps track of coin weight, because the boards are full of contrarian pedants.
Even when we did track encumbrance, we never kept track of coin weights. I prefer to be having fun.
I just went with "Coin Weight" as it was an easy thing to visualize.
More complex example? Holy Zen, how badly does Bulk help or harm Alchemist? With all the bombs, bottles, ingredients, etc; you're less person and more walking tool shop.
Most of their bombs, elixirs and whatnot are going to be “L” weight (so 10 add up to 1 bulk), their alchemy kit might be 1 or 2 bulk. Their ingredients, spare bottles and whatnot will probably be covered under “alchemy kit”.
Gee that didn’t seem hard at all.
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Backpacks in Starfinder don't increase your strength for purposes of carrying capacity, they just can hold a certain quantity of bulk which doesn't count against your carrying limit, right?
I think that's a pretty good system which matches my experience backpacking and wilderness canoeing. I was more concerned with "Can I fit all these pairs of socks in here" than "how heavy are the socks."
I'd be okay with switching to bulk and squares if there is written how many kg/pounds a bulk is and how many meters/foot a square is.
I feel that bulk and squares would greatly simplify the game. However :
- Weight and size are easier for a big portion of people to understand, since they use it all the time, so people want to keep it
- non-Americans don't use the imperial system, so they want to remove it
Instead of forcing everyone to use bulk and/or squares, allow them to use whatever unit of measurement they want by simply writing in the rules how much a bulk weights and how long is a square. Then, in official content, list technical informations using bulks and squares. Players will just have to multiply to have their metric/imperial values. For exemple, if you write "1 square = 5' = 1.5m", then if you say "a Giant monster is 2x2 squares", we can immediatly say "it's 10'x10'" or "it's 3mx3m" =)
PS : In my country, all measurements are translated to metrics, so I only have issues understanding pounds and foot when I read english content. I got used to using meters instead of squares when I calculate movement speed and size, and nowadays I rarely use squared battle maps and just go full abstract. I'd personnaly prefer to still be able to use meters so I don't have to use battle maps. Still, for english-written material, Paizo should use foot (for their American customers) AND meters (for their non-American customers). There are way more country using metric units than imperial units, and I'd hate to see real units disappearing from translated content just because Paizo is too lazy and/or stubborn to use both systems. Writing the metric equivalent every time they write and imperial unit will only make them loose 3 to 4 symbols (a separator, a space, the number, and the one to two symbols long unit), it won't make a big difference.
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Also carrying an ally doesn’t need to play into the bulk system really. Bulk is about keeping a limit on the stuff you can carry so you don’t end up with teams of inventory and bog down the game in every situation going: “I HAVE A THING FOR THAT!”
Carrying your ally should just be an action, and maybe half your speed if you’re carrying a character of the same size, or third your speed if they’re larger than your size. It shouldn’t be another math problem.
I don't see any system that can prevent a general sense of "I have a thing for that!" problems. So often do players(Myself included) do we stuff something away only to forget about it. Potions, some plot item you didn't know, a scroll, some weapon that you picked up to use once and an enemy with Hardness rolls back around, any number of tools; we can probably be here all day listing the bottom of the bag contents. It's less Player issue and more maybe human problem.
Okay. Character smaller than you? Character being dragged by another character(Fight over the body). Also hmmm, I can carry this person that has ALL this Bulk but I can't carry that actual Bulk? Can I handle all that Bulk if I'm simply carrying someone that is dealing with it? Quick, how many hirelings can I carry? This last bit is an extreme example yes I will admit.
But it's how 'vague' you can go with Bulk as for writing that makes me think it's going to be an issue for some tables. Worse if each table has their own understanding of how Bulk is and you keep running into "Bulk" arguing.
I jsut see Bulk as maybe removing the math problem but opening up the confusing debates. Up to each group to see if this saves them more time or not.
I would figure an empty sack has a bulk of "-" so if players really want to play inventory tetris by making sure every sack, bag, pack, quiver, etc is filled to maximum capacity I'm not going to stop them.Problem is when to actually stop them.
DM; Okay so 50 coins is X bulk.
Player: Hey my bag can hold that.
DM: Okay. Now...
Player 2: Wait mine holds Y bulk. Why is that?
Player 3: Better question. Since a bag is easier to carry, does a bag of coins actually have less Bulk than 50 coins?
Player 4: Hey do different metals of coins have different Bulk? If so what about metal gear?
DM faceplams as the game grinds to halt over Bulk, Weight and Physics
This is when you know it's time to show your players the door and find some that aren't pedants.
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This is when you know it's time to show your players the door and find some that aren't pedants.I would figure an empty sack has a bulk of "-" so if players really want to play inventory tetris by making sure every sack, bag, pack, quiver, etc is filled to maximum capacity I'm not going to stop them.Problem is when to actually stop them.
DM; Okay so 50 coins is X bulk.
Player: Hey my bag can hold that.
DM: Okay. Now...
Player 2: Wait mine holds Y bulk. Why is that?
Player 3: Better question. Since a bag is easier to carry, does a bag of coins actually have less Bulk than 50 coins?
Player 4: Hey do different metals of coins have different Bulk? If so what about metal gear?
DM faceplams as the game grinds to halt over Bulk, Weight and Physics
I believe the more layman's term is "Wiseguy". But the point I'm trying to make is that with how vague Bulk is, you can easily run into problems over how it works. A proper Blog post or play testing will show how it works.
Besides if we move to hand wave it for part of the stuff, might as well hand wave the whole thing.
Backpacks in Starfinder don't increase your strength for purposes of carrying capacity, they just can hold a certain quantity of bulk which doesn't count against your carrying limit, right?
I think that's a pretty good system which matches my experience backpacking and wilderness canoeing. I was more concerned with "Can I fit all these pairs of socks in here" than "how heavy are the socks."
They do both. Normal backpack can carry up to 2 bulks, and does not count (but is 1 bulk if empty). The "masterwork" version increases your Str by 2, so you can carry more
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Instead of forcing everyone to use bulk and/or squares, allow them to use whatever unit of measurement they want by simply writing in the rules how much a bulk weights and how long is a square. Then, in official content, list technical informations using bulks and squares.
People keep asking this, without realizing that what they ask for is basically to change the abstract bulk system for a fictional weight unit, and then use weight.
If every bulk is exactly 10 pounds, and always 10 pounds, then we could call it "decapounds" and it would be a weight unit. It is easier just keep using pounds.
The entire point of bulk, is that a 10 feet pole which weights 10 pounds tied to your backpack IS more cumbersome than the 10 pound iron ingot you have inside your backpack. If you are going to give both 1 bulk because they both weight 10 pounds, there is no point using bulk. It is easier to use pounds.