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I made some pregen characters and one was a Dex based TWFing Elven ranger, bulk was hard. Even without an adventurers pack I was still over my light encumbrance. I had to boost strength just for the minimum equipment needed to play a character with both melee and ranged options.
After 10 years of only worrying about encumbrance with 8 strength sorcerers (and even then only for the first few levels), bulk has made encumbrance easy to track and relevant.
That’s a good system IMO.
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Hulk is good because he ignores encumbrance.
It's easy to do with a str in the triple digits.
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Bulk is just as easy to ignore as encumbrance.
And if you are an alchemist it is mandatory that you ignore it.
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After 10 years of only worrying about encumbrance with 8 strength sorcerers (and even then only for the first few levels), bulk has made encumbrance easy to track and relevant.
It's the opposite for me: I always kept track of my weights even in games that didn't normally track them on the off chance it would ever come up... Now I'm going out of my way to find a game that ignores bulk as it's just... wonky IMO. The default bulk of carrying a halfling wearing full plate, a tower shield and a longspear is 3 bulk... But the halfling has to carry 10 bulk... so I can carry more stuff by packing down a small creature until it can't move, then pick it up and only have to count 3 bulk... Somehow simplification has made it more complicated for me.
And it feels a lot easier for me to adjudicate the bulk of an object on the fly
Not for me: with the internet a thing it's super easy to find an item close to what you need. Then add to that the ability of others to comprehend how much that unit means is far lower with bulk as it can be high bulk for weight, unwieldiness or some combo of the two. If you ever need to know how much 20 pounds it, you can go to a store and pick up a 20 pound bag of pet food.
SO that my issue with the concept of bulk as well as the glaring issues with the implementation as they are WAY off with premade characters starting off encumbered, alchemists pretty much encumbered by picking up basic equipment, medium mounts realistically unable to carry riders unless you accept that the bulk for carrying a person doesn't change no mater what they wear/carry... It's a mess IMO.
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With my Strength of 10 I also like being unencumbered by my backpack full of 40 pup tents as I wear my Bandolier that gives me quick access to the 8 Cold Weather outfits I keep in it.
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With my Strength of 10 I also like being unencumbered by my backpack full of 40 pup tents as I wear my Bandolier that gives me quick access to the 8 Cold Weather outfits I keep in it.
Don't forget your beltpouch with 4 javelins in it... or just for fun, you can put a 'vast amount' of Shurikens in that belt pouch FOUR TIMES!!! Good to know a few hundred of those suckers fit nicely in a belt pouch... and with the Bandolier, I'm more impressed that it can carry 400' of rope. :P
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I'm less enthused. With how STR and armor works, any bonuses to carrying capacity from your STR are often cancelled out by your armor. It can be difficult to just carry the bare minimum to fight without being encumbered: usually you've got 5 or fewer Bulk after armor, 1 or 2 for your primary weapon, 1 for your backup ranged/melee weapon, leaving 3-ish bulk with which to carry everything else your character will likely need. As was pointed out, Alchemists can't carry their basic gear.
If I were to hand out Hefty Hauler to everyone as a free feat, it would seem to work a bit better. It lets characters carry a reasonable amount of combat-relevant gear without being encumbered (extra melee weapon, caltrops, spellbooks or other gear needed from multiclassing) without letting people carry the entire kitchen sink.
It cuts so close though that there's really no room to carry anything else without being at least encumbered. Kinda wish quick-release backpacks were explicitly written as core, just so GM's and players alike can just assume people are carrying around a reasonable amount of gear and can pick up treasure and then just quickly and safely drop it once combat starts.
I'll give the free Hefty Hauler thing a shot and see if that makes it not quite so stingy. Or maybe tweak how much capacity you get from STR so that strong characters have something left over even if they're wearing plate. Or honestly just reduce the armor bulk to something sane when worn because how in the silly f$@$ is any armor THAT bulky when you're literally wearing it and the weight's evenly distributed? I honestly thought those bulk numbers were for when you were just carrying them folded up or disassembled or something, it's ridiculous.
Maybe their is an assumption that some people will have to fight encumbered? Or maybe you have to have a pack mule. IDK. Haven't actually got to play yet I've just read the book.
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Kinda wish quick-release backpacks were explicitly written as core, just so GM's and players alike can just assume people are carrying around a reasonable amount of gear and can pick up treasure and then just quickly and safely drop it once combat starts.
Carrying a backpack in your hand rather than slinging it on your back only adds a light to your load, so you've got that as an option for most characters if you just want to drop it as a free action in the first combat round. The people who are using a 2H weapon or have a shield that wont let them carry something in the same hand or whatever probably have the strength required to just keep wearing it anyway.
Maybe their is an assumption that some people will have to fight encumbered? Or maybe you have to have a pack mule. IDK. Haven't actually got to play yet I've just read the book.
Unlikely: encumbered condition "you’re clumsy 1 and take a 10-foot penalty to all your Speeds."
clumsy: "You take a status penalty equal to the condition value to Dexterity-based checks and DCs, including AC, Reflex saves, ranged attack rolls, and skill checks using Acrobatics, Stealth, and Thievery."So -10 speed, and -1 to dex attacks, DC's, ref saves, AC, and dex skill checks...
Packmule's also don't solve anything as you have to wear/use the items you have most times: a Chirugeon alchemist has to have 2 tool kits [3 bulk], armor, weapons, extra alchemy items... It's pretty much the same with the 'just drop the backpack' idea as you'd have to drop something you need to be unencumbered.
I think the speed and AC penalty hurts the most. The other ones I could possibly live with. So lets ignore the alchemist because we know its is an unusual case. (Plus my alchemist stone Idea totally fixes that so we just get paizo to publish that item and they are set.) What other characters have encumbrance issues?
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I think people who are complaining about bulk being difficult to manage due to how heavy things are under the system are missing the point. With the exception of alchemists tools being perhaps too high (based on fumbus not being correctly encumbered) I think the system is working as intended.
If you dont like having bulk being a meaningful problem that has to be overcome you can of course simply ignore it. But I personally like PCs having to think hard about what choices to make and the bulk system achieves that without the minutiae required by encumberance.
Graystone: colour me unsurprised to hear you dont like bulk and vastly preferred the bookkeeping for PF1e. Like I said, only 1 PC ever had to worry about encumbrance in our games and it became a nonissue for them after level 4. The fact you tracked it for 12+ levels would be an outlier in my experience. But more power to you if you actually had fun doing that.
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I like that everybody has an incentive for strength now that's not "hitting people with things."
It's conceivable the alchemist needs help here though.
I like that everybody has an incentive for strength now that's not "hitting people with things."
It's conceivable the alchemist needs help here though.
Yeah my idea was (you know if not just to lighten up some of their items) to allow them to craft an alchemist stone that would allow them to use some of their alchemists skills without the tool kit. So a whole bunch lighter.
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I would say: "clarify that the chirugeon does not need a healing kit for anything- they can do it all with an alchemist's kit", and "reduce the bulk of the alchemists kit to 1" would solve the problem.
Alternatively, keep the kit at 2 and make the formula book part of the kit.
I think the speed and AC penalty hurts the most. The other ones I could possibly live with. So lets ignore the alchemist because we know its is an unusual case. (Plus my alchemist stone Idea totally fixes that so we just get paizo to publish that item and they are set.) What other characters have encumbrance issues?
Multiclass character and bard jump out. Making a rogue/wizard: base gear is 5 bulk and the spellbook makes it 6. Bards are over 5 bulk with base gear. The druid is over 5 bulk as is the monk.
Sadly, the only classes with real bulk to spare are strangely the possible str based classes [fighter, ranger, barbarian, monk] and the sorcerer and wizard.
I think it's been speculated that the alchemist book is L and alchemists kit is 1 bulk. I personally dont think I'd be too upset over that. But my opinion was on the overall system not specific cases.
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Graystone: colour me unsurprised to hear you dont like bulk and vastly preferred the bookkeeping for PF1e. Like I said, only 1 PC ever had to worry about encumbrance in our games and it became a nonissue for them after level 4. The fact you tracked it for 12+ levels would be an outlier in my experience. But more power to you if you actually had fun doing that.
It wasn't what I'd call fun but it was simple and easy enough that there wasn't a reason NOT to do it on the off chance it would ever be required. It was just simple math and addition: bulk we're estimating and using unknown modifiers to get an unquantifiable [by normal measurements] number that's largely meaningless and hard to conceive what the numbers actually mean in real world terms. I know how much 20 pounds weighs and feels but have no frame of reference how much unwieldiness + weight a 2 bulk item is.
I think it's been speculated that the alchemist book is L and alchemists kit is 1 bulk. I personally don't think I'd be too upset over that. But my opinion was on the overall system not specific cases.
Even with some fixes, the numbers will be off as they 'cheated' the numbers with the water skin. Every kit lists it's empty weight but who is going to use an empty one? So every character kit is really 9 L heavier than what it's listed as.
But even if we're talking about the system itself vs specific numbers I dislike it both for the concept itself and the implementation. I dislike a make up measurement with no realworld equivalent to help imagine what the number means: the imprecise nature of it also makes the numbers given seem wildly off as there are only 3 types of bulk [-, L and full bulk] and items have to fit into those even is those items are quite different in size, shape and weight. Somehow a limp halfling packed into a backpack and a 10' ladder are as equally hard/easy to carry through a crowded courtyard. :P
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Graystone: Fair enough. I've never played with a GM who made it come up after level 4 so I never tracked it.
What I like about bulk is the GM doesnt have to make it come up. The number are sufficiently low that a PC can manage their own bulk and have a reasonable chance of it coming up. Is it realistic? Dunno. But I dont play games for realism, I play them for challenges that are then overcome with enough lip service to realism that the story is plausible. And reworking encumbrance so its easier (handwaiving a bunch of items as not having a weight and simplifying the weights items do have) is a good bonus for me and an encouragement to actually use an encumbrance system.
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It's the opposite for me: I always kept track of my weights even in games that didn't normally track them on the off chance it would ever come up... Now I'm going out of my way to find a game that ignores bulk as it's just... wonky IMO. The default bulk of carrying a halfling wearing full plate, a tower shield and a longspear is 3 bulk... But the halfling has to carry 10 bulk... so I can carry more stuff by packing down a small creature until it can't move, then pick it up and only have to count 3 bulk... Somehow simplification has made it more complicated for me.
Why do you think you ignore the halflings objects when you're carrying them? I didn't see that anywhere.
A halfling carrying 10 bulk would be 13 bulk for you to carry it seems like to me.
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Why do you think you ignore the halflings objects when you're carrying them?
Because every ambiguity has to be interpreted in the most nonsensical way.
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For pounds I have to first find and use a calculator
It's close enough to 2 pounds = 1 kilogram that for rough estimates a calculator is completely unnecessary.
I have to ask... am I the only one that laughs because of the examples of how non-functional bulk is that boil down to "if you do this thing that basically no character ever had, or will have, a reason to do it is clear that it's ridiculous."?
Like, good job pointing out that a rule meant to simplify tracking of your limit of carried stuff doesn't happen to perfectly handle load-outs of gear that players have no incentive for their characters to carry... but you are doing to encumbrance what treating every loss of hit points as actual injury to physical body (or "meat points" as it sometimes gets called) does to hit points.
The example I gave is meant to illustrate the following point:
If the system that is meant to track me carrying a reasonable amount of equipment allows me, with baseline strength, to carry 200+ lbs of items in a backpack and a ridiculous amount of stuff hanging off my chest, what on earth makes you think that when a player says "sure, I'm under my bulk" that the numbers represent anything approaching what you'd think is a reasonable amount of gear for them to be carrying?
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I think he's trying to say that You have an intuitive sense of what something weighs in the system you were raised but not in one your not as familiar with. It's why I always have so much trouble figuring out a kilometer but I can roughly guess a mile.
(miscalled :P)
I know how much 20 pounds weighs and feels but have no frame of reference how much unwieldiness + weight a 2 bulk item is.
It's roughly 10 to 20 pounds unless its shape is weird. If you want a better-defined measure of "unwieldliness" I think it's only fair that you provide one for the real world first, as I don't know of one here. I suggest starting by contemplating moments of inertia, but in any case just make sure it's intuitive to most people!
As a general rule, an item that weighs 5 to 10 pounds is 1 Bulk, an item weighing less than a few ounces is negligible, and anything in between is light. Particularly awkward or unwieldy items might have higher Bulk values. For example, a 10-foot pole isn’t heavy, but its length makes it difficult for you to move while you have one on your person, so its Bulk is 1. Items made for larger or smaller creatures have greater or lesser Bulk, as described on page 295.
I don’t need to estimate that. You are misunderstanding me. Yes I can convert pounds to grams fine - though as I’ve previously ignored this system (because it is too fiddly and the reason I talk about in the next paragraph) I’ve never had to.But if you asked me to estimate how heavy say the chair I front of me was, I would have no clue about it’s gram weight. I’d probably say it is fairly light for a chair... maybe 1 bulk? (Ok that last part is partly in jest - but only partly) Hence the second part of my paragraph about finding something labelled with that weight to try and lift.
So your issue is your inability to estimate the weight of an object, which while I get you think the bulk system helps with, it really doesn't, because
a) a 10 pound item is 1 bulk, which you can't work out under the current system, so best of luck with that in the new oneand
b) Unless it's really light and designed to stack, there's no way that chair you're talking about is 1 bulk. If it was a person of average strength could carry 5 of them and be unencumbered, which I really doubt.
Why do you think you ignore the halflings objects when you're carrying them?Because every ambiguity has to be interpreted in the most nonsensical way.
Kind of reads like that from the original post, but it might be some weird thing in the rules somewhere. Don't want to get caught out by some odd shenanigans in a game if it is in the rules though.
I like that everybody has an incentive for strength now that's not "hitting people with things."
It's conceivable the alchemist needs help here though.
I don't know if this is really true in practice though, since again armor you're more likely to be wearing if you're STR focused almost perfectly cancels out your bonus to bulk capacity. You only ever really get ahead if you invest in both STR and DEX and opt for lighter armor. Factor in shields amd multiple weapoms and they seem to actually lose out. It only seems pure casters and monks win out here if they invest a little extra into STR.
The more I think about it, the more I think it's armor specifically that's causing issues (besides alchemist kits that alchemists can't carry). If they were 1 Bulk lighter across the board, or maybe even 1/2 as bulky, it'd actually grant a Bulk advantage for those with higher STR scores, there'd be a slight "profit" of one or two Bulk.
It'd keep the Bulk capacity for those who don't invest in all in STR low but enable the party overall to have ready access to things like grappling hooks or battering rams. Not everything and the kitchen sink, but enough to have fun with.
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Personally I find "how hard is that couch going to be to carry up the stairs" to be a much easier thing to estimate than "how many pounds does it weigh" anyway.
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Personally I find "how hard is that couch going to be to carry up the stairs" to be a much easier thing to estimate than "how many pounds does it weigh" anyway.
On that note, it'd be nice if there was a table that cross-referenced Bulk and Athletics DC for carrying, lifting, dragging, etc.
...
I played a published adventure recently, and...
at it's conclusion, we had to quickly carry downstairs and load onto a cart a dresser-sized metal antique before a horde of undead arrived, in which two characters had to roll an Athletics check. I remember we succeeded with a 16.
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OP, is where I am at as well. I like the system.
I am also not surprised that graystone commented in this thread haha.
Graystone, we get it, you don’t like Bulk. But it is in the game and it is not going away, so no need to apply a wet blanket to every Bulk discussion. Maybe, just every other Bulk discussion
I too enjoy carrying 50 weeks of rations with my STR10 Halfling.
Alternatively I could easily overload myself while carrying 3 Longbows.
Tough decisions...
Bulk hasn't fixed the biggest problem I have with tracking gear weight, it just made it a bit easier. Looking up the right number for each piece of gear and keeping a running total, erasing and rewriting periodically as you use things, is a chore. Those numbers all being 2 or less is good but physically doing it is dull regardless.
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But even if we're talking about the system itself vs specific numbers I dislike it both for the concept itself and the implementation. I dislike a make up measurement with no realworld equivalent to help imagine what the number means: the imprecise nature of it also makes the numbers given seem wildly off...
Yet somehow Hit Points, damage, movement speed, Armor Class, Skill Modifiers, and Saving Throw values all get a free pass...?
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Personally I find "how hard is that couch going to be to carry up the stairs" to be a much easier thing to estimate than "how many pounds does it weigh" anyway.On that note, it'd be nice if there was a table that cross-referenced Bulk and Athletics DC for carrying, lifting, dragging, etc.
...
I played a published adventure recently, and...
** spoiler omitted **I don't get what the point of such a table would be...
If an item has been assigned bulk, then you just check your bulk limit and either you've got it or you don't. No check.
If an item has a DC to perform a particular goal while interacting with it, then you just make your check and either you succeed or you don't. No bulk needed.
Imagine these three scenarios:
1) How would you carry off an object the size and weight of a metal safe?
2) What about if you wanted to steal an object the size and weight of a refrigerator?
3) Or how about lifting a broken carriage to free someone whose leg was caught beneath?
We could firstly perhaps agree that these objects are small, medium, and large, respectively.
Furthermore, perhaps we could maybe agree upon their bulk value by approximating their weight and factoring in their physical composition, and perhaps we could also agree that some sort of Athletics check would be sufficient to lift, carry, or drag these objects for some amount of distance or time.
Great.
The question then is what might those DC's be?