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Here's a thought –
1. Remove all ACP from items, increase their Bulk accordingly instead. Also, remove movement speed penalties from medium/heavy armor.
2. For every 1 Bulk you carry above 5 Bulk, you get a -1 penalty to STR/DEX/CON checks.
3. For every 5 Bulk you have above 5, you reduce your movement speed by 5 feet.
4. You subtract your Strength modifier from your total Bulk to determine penalties.
Obviously the numbers here can be tweaked and arbitrarily chosen, but this system would achieve:
- Making Strength relevant to every character who wants to make STR/DEX/CON checks and may go over their Bulk limit. For example, a Rogue with 6 Bulk could boost their DEX skills by getting a +1 modifier on STR to handle Encumbrance better.
- Preventing movement speed penalties from medium/heavy armor from applying on players who have high Strength, which doesn't make much sense. It was always a bit of a let-down that a 24 STR Battle Cleric couldn't move effortlessly with heavy armor just because they didn't have that one class feature.
- Removes ACP from the game and merges it into a more meaningful, coalesced subsystem.
You get the same thing in fewer steps if it's just every point you are encumbered by gives you a -1 penalty to STR/DEX skills and at -5 ACP you have a 5ft speed penalty. It's basically what encumbered does already though, actually less punishing if its instead of.
I think it is interesting. I generally like the idea of removing substystems if they are redundant and there is a lot of cross over between ACP and encumbrance. They aren't quite the same thing but if further adjustment is needed there could be armor qualities that affect this.
If they think it is too strong they could add a bulky tag that gives a -2 ACP that cannot be removed or something similar to how I assume the noisy tag will give a penalty to stealth.
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I like this. I'm a big fan of any encumbrance system that isn't the same terrible one in PF1/5e/3.5/2e/AD&D etc etc ad nauseam, and getting bulk to do the work of the straight ACP modifiers is certainly more elegant. Also, as mentioned in the other thread, STR shouldn't be a dump stat for DEX fighters. So this is good.
Maximum DEX adjustments to AC would still apply to heavy armor, right?
Maximum DEX adjustments to AC would still apply to heavy armor, right?
I think they would need to otherwise the math breaks.
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I like this. I've said for the longest time that ACP makes no sense on its own, since movement penalties are sufficient and we already have encumbrance penalties. I think we've all seen those videos of people in full plate doing calisthenics.
If we merge it all into encumbrance and offset it by strength, it will seriously help strength characters in the skills department. If regular joe nobody can put on full plate and goof off on a ladder in the real world, 20+ strength guys in pathfinder shouldn't even notice their armor.
And don't bother talking about restriction reducing range of movement. Cloth armor would be worse in that regard if we wanted to go there.
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Instead of Strength Modifier, why not just make it: You can carry an amount of bulk equal to your Strength score. If your Bulk exceeds your Strength, you gain the Encumbered condition. If it exceeds Strength+5, you get Encumbered 2, etc., with increasing penalties. It even rewards having an odd Strength score.
Instead of Strength Modifier, why not just make it: You can carry an amount of bulk equal to your Strength score. If your Bulk exceeds your Strength, you gain the Encumbered condition. If it exceeds Strength+5, you get Encumbered 2, etc., with increasing penalties. It even rewards having an odd Strength score.
I like an idea like this but I think having THRESHOLDS might be too gamey, making some STR boosts much less potent than other.
Bulk - STR Score is the cleanest calc, but it requires bulk to be like 2 or 3 on normal items and 7 or 8 on armor to have an effect.
Let's run some numbers!
Currently carrying 5 B 5 L, suffering -4 ACP, having her speed reduced by 5 feet. Big penalties for her would start a 9 B (5 + 4 from STR).
So, in a system based on STR Score, we could look at something like this:
Chainmail (9 B) + heavy steel shield (3 B) + longsword (3 B) + shortbow (1 B) + sundries (2 B)
Subtotal – 18 B
Reduced by STR Score – 4 B
So she'd get a -4 penalty to STR/DEX/CON checks, which is 1 short from giving her a movement reduction (which I think is neat).
If she moved onto heavy armor, perhaps Full Plate would have (12 B), meaning that, all things being equal, Seelah would need +4 STR to lose the movement speed penalty.
IDK, this is looking nice.
Let's see how it looks for Merisiel
She's got -1 ACP, 3 B 2 L.
We could run something like:
Studded Leather Armor (6 B) + Rapier (2 B) + Thieves' Tools (1 B) + Silk rope (1 B) + Daggers and Sundries (1 B)
Subtotal – 12 B
Reduced by STR Score – 2 B
So -2 ACP.
A small debuff, but it encourages her to get 12 STR to boost her STR/DEX/CON skills by a bunch.
Dunno, seems fun this way?
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Instead of Strength Modifier, why not just make it: You can carry an amount of bulk equal to your Strength score. If your Bulk exceeds your Strength, you gain the Encumbered condition. If it exceeds Strength+5, you get Encumbered 2, etc., with increasing penalties. It even rewards having an odd Strength score.I like an idea like this but I think having THRESHOLDS might be too gamey, making some STR boosts much less potent than other.
Wait, so having threshholds is too gamey, but Bulk-5 = ACP, (Bulk-5)/5 = Movement Penalty isn't?
Don't get me wrong, practically our two variations aren't much different. I'm just in favor of simplifying math and codifying penalties, especially given how much Pathfinder 2 seems to be leaning this direction. It's much simpler for a player to look at two numbers, notice the difference, and say "Because of X, I have Y Condition" which imparts a fixed penalty. I also don't like a system that requires addition and subtraction to find a target number, then derive a bonus/penalty based on that. THAC0 wasn't a busted system, but it wasn't very intuitive because it required rolling high to hit... a low number.
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I actually don't like it. People are weird, and, even if they would happily wear armor with a -4 ACP, will balk at going over bulk and getting a -4 penalty, and more importantly will find the entire experience actively unpleasant.
It also strongly discourages carrying any more than the absolute minimum you need to, which is strongly counter to Pathfinder's aesthetic and every previous edition of D&D and similar systems ethos of being prepared for anything.
I'm all for reducing ACP by Strength, but entirely revising the system like this seems like it'll have some unfortunate ripple effects.
Here's a thought –
1. Remove all ACP from items, increase their Bulk accordingly instead.
I'd rather give more things ACP and get rid of Bulk.
I've been playing 13th Age a lot lately, and it's very rules-light. It also doesn't have any kind of rules associated with armour. I know Pathfinder goes for a more "realistic" approach, but I haven't missed worrying about encumbrance a single bit. It always seemed like an obligatory inclusion to me. It's a rule that's simply not fun to enforce, it's just bookkeeping. Moreover, it unnecessarily penalises armour even more.
Yeah, I understand that having a higher AC should come with a drawback, but there are already several. First is the price. Second is movement rate impediment. And third, pretty much all physical skills take a huge hit. The current (PF1) Fighter gets piss-poor skill points and class skills. For some reason, they're not trained in Acrobatics. If Billy the Fighter (or Cleric, or Paladin...) wants to jump across a gap, he first takes penalties for being slowed (slower movement rate = -4 on Acrobatics), then he also takes penalties for the armour being in the way. I mean, penalising one seems appropriate, but both at the same time means Billy is never going to make it across that 10 foot gap.
Armour is supposed to be a compensation for character creation choices. Many classes don't prioritise Dexterity, because they either need to juggle several important stats (casting stats), or not totally suck in other departments (dumping Intelligence is also sub-optimal). Yeah, you won't excel at Dex-based skills, but passable is good enough (see that 10 foot gap above). Armour is there to fix that low AC. And it's a resource drain: you could've spent the money you used boosting your AC to shore up other weaknesses, or buying something else. To me, Dexterity is the perfect replaceable stat. No other stat can be replaced with simply throwing money at it (except stat-boosting items, of course). But no, now you're actively penalised for your character creation choices. And if they're not class skills and/or don't have the skill points to spend in the first place, you're never going to excel at them anyways. So many times a Stealth section went wrong because the Paladin rolled crap, or the Fighter fell down a pit, or the Cleric drowned in a small creek. Personally, I feel ACP is unnecessarily harsh and can be done away with, or replicated with another subsystem.
Hell, even D&D 5e has done away with it, mostly. The only trace of ACP is the fact that Stealth rolls get disadvantage, which seems fair. Acrobatics, Athletics, and Sleight of Hand are all armour-agnostic. Seems a bit weird to me to specifically call out Stealth in relation to armour, but other than that, it really smoothes gamplay. No weird corner-case rules to remember or modifiers you need to add/subtract. I really do hope Paizo will try to do something similar to that in second edition.
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It's an interesting idea, but bulk is much too abstract for anything like this to really work out. If you re-derived everything based on weight, incorporated the race's weight into their encumbrance and modified armor proficiency to act as a divisor of weight impact from worn items, then you'd have a good mesh to build this sort of mechanic on.
As is, bulk seems pretty random. As does what ACP applies to. I assume both are there to enforce a certain division of labor, but ACP should probably disappear if spell failure is also disappearing.
I like the idea (though the maths may need to go through Paizo's mystical balancing engine). ACP is a fiddly special-case system, and merging it with the simplified bulk feels like a good simplification. I do have questions around how players would actually use it, though.
A lot of groups I've played in tend to house rule away most of the weight and encumbrance rules entirely, simply because counting all the fiddly numbers is a waste of time at the table.
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"You find a box containing a hundred and fifty silver pieces."
"Wait, how heavy is this box?"
"Er, well the weight of coins is, um..."
"No, not the coins, the box. Does it weigh more than these thirty arrows I picked up in the other room?"
"Um..."
"Is it bigger than a breadbox?"
---
We all quickly get sick of such things, and collectively agree to hand-wave it.
The promise of bulk is that, being easier to count than pounds and ounces, it's maybe smooth enough for players to actually bother using it. Even in our Starfinder games, though, we don't tend to count every L exactly.
But if armour doesn't apply a skill penalty except through encumbrance, then counting every little thing suddenly matters a lot more.
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I usually carefully add up weights of my worn gear, important items and consumables, weapons and armor, then extra loot I don't worry too much about. I figure a sack full of treasure can be handwaved as being dropped before combat, or tossed over after making a jump or climb.
The only time we really add it up is when there's no time and everyone has to pick up everything and run.
That's why bags of holding are so nice, because you can toss your treasure in and not worry about the weight of your earnings.
In order to improve the likelihood of all tables using Bulk appropriately, I suggest Bags of Holding be unlimited in weight, and available at lower levels, but take ~1 minute to retrieve things from. That effectively handwaves the weight of treasure but keeps the weight of important gear in play.
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I'm guessing Bags won't be unlimited in weight but very genrous.
I can see them being something like this.
Minor Bag of Holding (Level 1)
Items placed within this bag do not count their bulk towards your encumerance limit. This bag can hold upto 4 Bulk. Investiture allows you to place or retrieve items from the back as normal. To the uninvested this bags clasps will not open.
Bag of Holding (level 5) can hold upto 6 bulk. Greater Bag of Holding (level 8) can hold upto 8 bulk.
What I never liked about the different tiers of bags of holding was that it makes you count up the weight anyway. It's like, not having to worry about adding things up is half the reason to get it!
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I like the idea of replacing ACP with bulk but only if bulk is simplyfied for that.
As was said, counting all bulk will lead to unnessecary bookkeeping.
What I could live with is only counting: Armor, Weapon, Shield. Maybe readied items (those that aren't stowed away).
So there is no bookkeeping of loot and inventory bulk nessecary but your strength determines if you can work with those heavy weapons, be full iron-clad and have 5 weapons to switch ready. So only factor in the bulk of items that have mechanical impact in your calculation and not all your carried coins and stuff.