Bulk and Item Conversions for Different Sizes: Rules contradictions


Rules Discussion


I'm not really looking for an answer, I just want to bring it to the developers' attention:

After taking a good look at https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=257 and https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=258 which lists conversion rules for items of different sizes I think the RAI meaning is:

"Because the way that a creature treats Bulk and the Bulk of gear sized for it scale the same way, Tiny or Large (or larger) creatures can usually wear and carry about the same amount of appropriately sized gear as a Medium creature."

So if creature size and equipment size is the same, it has the listed bulk for items in the CRB.

Looking at table 6-20 makes me conclude the following. If the creature does not change in size but you change the size of an item that it is holding:

* each time you increase the size of an item by one step, you double the bulk
* each time you decrease the size of an item by one step, you halve the bulk
* doubling L bulk makes it 1 bulk, halving 1 bulk makes it L bulk
* doubling negligible bulk makes it L bulk, halving L bulk makes it negligible bulk
* halving negligible bulk makes it negligible bulk

Looking at table 6-19 in https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=257 and reading the text makes me conclude that the rules are talking about normal sized item bulk.

"A Large creature treats 10 items of 1 Bulk as 1 Bulk, a Huge creature treats 10 items of 2 Bulk as 1 Bulk, and so on." seems to confirm the "bulk halving/doubling" rules listed above.

However the following sentence seems to contradict the above statements:

* "A Tiny creature doesn’t treat any items as having negligible Bulk."

seem to be in direct conflict with

"Because the way that a creature treats Bulk and the Bulk of gear sized for it scale the same way, Tiny or Large (or larger) creatures can usually wear and carry about the same amount of appropriately sized gear as a Medium creature."

Meaning that tiny creatures could never carry anything in their size that has negligible bulk.

PS: I know, boring topic but I need to get this in code to automate bulk calculation so I'm hit with the edge cases
PPS: If you agree with my rule interpretation, let me know :)

Liberty's Edge

Quote:

However the following sentence seems to contradict the above statements:

* "A Tiny creature doesn’t treat any items as having negligible Bulk."

I read this to mean items sized for medium creatures.


I see, so basically: bulk conversion should work as described above?

Liberty's Edge

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Described how? You gave two alternatives.

Horizon Hunters

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A tiny creature would have half the capacity of a medium creature. So with 10 Str they can carry 2 Bulk. A longsword would weigh L bulk to a Tiny creature, so they could carry 20 longswords. Meanwhile, a Tiny Dagger would be negligible, so a Medium creature could technically carry 1000 of them with no problem, however to a Tiny creature it would still count as L bulk, since they don't treat any item as having negligible bulk. They essentially treat anything that's negligible as L bulk instead.


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Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

I think it is in a way simpler than you are giving it.

If a Tiny creature has a longsword, and you are calculating how much it is carrying, that amounts to 1 bulk, as is normal for a longsword.

If the Tiny creature is carrying their Halfling companion's longsword, it is larger, so the 'small/medium' longsword, eats up 2 bulk. Meaning they are now carrying 3 bulk in items.

If the sprite falls down, and the halfling picks up the pair of swords, the s/m longsword is 1 bulk. The tiny longswords becomes/is treated as a L item. That means the halfling is carrying 1bulk+1 L or 1 bulk in weight.

They pick up the sprite (tiny creature) and according to Creature Bulk table, that means it is 1 bulk, and that pushes their bulk load up to 2 +1L or 2 bulk.

If the halfling then steals the ogre's longsword, it is a large longsword, so it goes from being treated as 1 bulk(for large), to being treated as 2 bulk for the halfling.

If the halfling falls down waking up the pixie. The pixie picks up its sword (1 bulk) for itself. It picks up the halfling's sword (2 bulk for tiny creature) and picks up the ogre's sword (4 bulk for a tiny creature) for a total of 7 bulk.

With a groan it reaches over and picks up the halfling (3 bulk for medium, or 6 bulk for tiny creature) for a total of 13 bulk (because of the 7 bulk of items already carrying) and trudges off, happy that its +4 strength allows it to carry them away albeit encumbered with a bit to spare. Hoping the recently blinded ogre won't manage to smash him with the remaining greatclub. (which would have been 8 bulk for the pixie to have tried to carry, if it had managed to wrest it from the ogres grasp)

So at least as I read it, Bulk is in practice used in reference to the carrying creatures size. Presumed to be medium/small by default, if not mentioned.

Such is what you learn from the: Parable of the Sprite, the Halfling and the Ogre.

If what you learned from the parable is right, of course depends on the nature of its reality itself, but such is how this story goes.

Horizon Hunters

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No, the only reletive bulk changes due to size are that lighter items don't weigh as much to larger creatures. A tiny creature picking up a 1 bulk sword still counts as 1 bulk to the creature. The difference is that they can only carry half as much as a medium creature, while all items made for them are half the weight. Effectively they can carry just as much, but the actual bulk of the items never change unless their actual size changes.

Also, items going from 1 bulk to L bulk causes funky things to happen, so tiny creatures end up being able to carry more of certain items than medium creatures, while not being able to carry certain items at all since it actually has weight to them.

So a tiny creature with a bulk limit of 2 picking up a medium longsword is already half way to their encumbrance limit. On the other hand, they can easily carry around a plethora of tiny weapons and armor with no issues.


Thank you!


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Unfortunately, the RAW rules stack upon themselves, making Tiny characters (Sprites) almost unplayable.

A Tiny creature gets 1/2 Base Encumbrance capacity that a Medium creature would have. As listed above, the 10 STR can carry a mere 2 Bulk of Items. However, they treat nothing as Light or Negligible Bulk, per Table 6-20 (page 295). So, a light item to a Tiny Sprite is 1 Bulk, and a negligible item is considered to be light.

So, a Sprite Swashbuckler with STR 10, Leather Armor (Bulk 1, reduced to L because Tiny, but still considered to be 1 Bulk because the character wearing the Tiny armor is, indeed, Tiny), and a Rapier (Bulk 1, reduced to L because Tiny, increased back to 1 Bulk as with the armor) is just on the limit of being Encumbered. If you added, say, a Silver Religious Symbol (Bulk L), the character would now be considered Encumbered, as they are carrying Bulk 3 (3 items being treated as 1 Bulk each).

The fact that, RAW states that the Items are reduced to 1/2 Encumbrance for being Tiny BUT the Tiny creature still counts all L items as 1 bulk (and negligible items as L) would work on its own - but when that is stacked with the Tiny creature already getting their base Bulk limit halved - the Tiny character can barely carry basic gear, even gear that is resized to be appropriate size for a Tiny creature.

I've tested this on Hero Lab Online, the Wanderer's Guide, and Pathbuilder 2.0. Those tend to be even more harsh - they don't strictly follow the "9 light items count as 0 bulk" rule on page 272, they treat 1 light bulk as 0.1 bulk instead.

Horizon Hunters

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Keith Jurgens 360 wrote:

Unfortunately, the RAW rules stack upon themselves, making Tiny characters (Sprites) almost unplayable.

A Tiny creature gets 1/2 Base Encumbrance capacity that a Medium creature would have. As listed above, the 10 STR can carry a mere 2 Bulk of Items. However, they treat nothing as Light or Negligible Bulk, per Table 6-20 (page 295). So, a light item to a Tiny Sprite is 1 Bulk, and a negligible item is considered to be light.

So, a Sprite Swashbuckler with STR 10, Leather Armor (Bulk 1, reduced to L because Tiny, but still considered to be 1 Bulk because the character wearing the Tiny armor is, indeed, Tiny), and a Rapier (Bulk 1, reduced to L because Tiny, increased back to 1 Bulk as with the armor) is just on the limit of being Encumbered. If you added, say, a Silver Religious Symbol (Bulk L), the character would now be considered Encumbered, as they are carrying Bulk 3 (3 items being treated as 1 Bulk each).

The fact that, RAW states that the Items are reduced to 1/2 Encumbrance for being Tiny BUT the Tiny creature still counts all L items as 1 bulk (and negligible items as L) would work on its own - but when that is stacked with the Tiny creature already getting their base Bulk limit halved - the Tiny character can barely carry basic gear, even gear that is resized to be appropriate size for a Tiny creature.

I've tested this on Hero Lab Online, the Wanderer's Guide, and Pathbuilder 2.0. Those tend to be even more harsh - they don't strictly follow the "9 light items count as 0 bulk" rule on page 272, they treat 1 light bulk as 0.1 bulk instead.

Nothing says that tiny creatures treat L bulk as 1 bulk. The rules only state that Tiny creatures treat Negligible bulk as L bulk. So a Sprite with appropriately sized equipment would be perfectly fine. I already explained how it workes in this thread.

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