A hard look at Carrying Capacity and ammunition

[Mark Hoover 330]

How many non-martial PCs, either arcane casters or divine healer types, have you played with a 10 Str? There are GMs out there that track equipment weight and under those rules, a Str 10 PC only has up to 33 lbs before they are at Medium Load. You ever actually look at clothes?

An Explorer's Outfit for example. Say your 10 Str wizard 1 doesn't know what the weather will bring and knows that their GM likes using wilderness rules. An Explorer's Outfit weighs 8 lbs. Tack on your wizard's spellbook, there's another 3 lbs. A spell component pouch is 2 lbs. At this point we're at 13 lbs and the wizard has no scrolls, carrying devices, spare weapons, alchemical items or doses of alchemical power components and so on.

In this thread, a GM aptly points out that ammunition matters. While I don't necessarily disagree, I don't track the weight and quantity as closely as I could as a GM. The reality to me is that, before Rapid Shot or iterative attacks become a thing, a dedicated archer fires one arrow per round.

Per the Weapons section, 20 arrows weighs 3 lbs. In the description however, it clearly shows that these arrows come in a leather quiver with no additional weight suggested for said carrying device. Your interpretation may vary, but this suggests to me that its the arrows AND the quiver that combined weigh 3 lbs. A bundle of 20 arrows then weighs less than 3 lbs.

I bring this up b/c if you have a martial dedicated to archery, chances are that at L1 the PC's Dex is higher than their Str. If your Legolas clone is closely watching both their carrying capacity and their ammo, they might have an extra 20 arrows on their person somewhere.

40 arrows, fired at 1 per combat round from L1, should be enough for this PC to level up to L2 without needing to purchase more arrows unless you are using Slow advancement. I say that b/c the "average" fight at APL1 is CR 1, and it requires 20 or less fights for this PC to advance at Medium or Fast advancement.

40 arrows with quivers weighs 6 lbs. A common longbow weighs 3 lbs. An explorer's outfit weighs 8 lbs. If this PC wants "adventuring gear," a Pathfinder's Kit has nearly everything you might need for wilderness travel except rope, but that weighs another 22 lbs. Now, without rope or armor, a backup melee weapon, or any other gear for fighting swarms/overcoming low level DRs, you're already at 39 lbs. If this archer wants to move their full movement rate they better have a 14 Str or better; leather armor alone weighs 15 lbs.

Do you track weight and ammo count in your games? If you do, what creative solutions have PCs come up with? Here are some I've developed over the years:

1. Be Small size: your carrying capacity limits are only 2/3 the standard limits, but all your gear is 1/2 weight because its sized for a Small PC
2. Get a mount, a hireling, or establish a base camp: one of my favorite scenes in the movie Platoon is Elias saying to his troops "you don't need THIS, you don't need THIS..." while stripping non-essential gear off their packs. Bottom line, if you're lower Str get someone else to carry your stuff or just leave what you don't need behind
3. Know what to expect: sure, its a magical world and freak atmospheric events can happen, but predicting the mundane weather for the next 24 hours is a DC 15 check; 1 rank in the skill as a Class skill with a Wis of 12 means you can auto-succeed if you can take 10. Knowing the sun'll come out tomorrow might let you lose some layers and save a couple lbs encumbrance
4. Masterwork backpack: If you have a Str 10 but 50 spare GP and access to a Settlement, you can carry gear like you have a Str 11 picking up an extra 5 lbs in Light Load carrying capacity
5. Figure out where you can take 10: If you have an Int bonus of +2 and the right common artisan tools on hand, you can craft any ammo requiring a DC 12 check. 20 arrows and the quiver cost a combined 1 GP; the tools are a 5 GP investment. Taking 10 and getting a 12, times a DC of 12, means that you can craft 14.4 GP worth of arrows in a week, so crafting 1 GP worth of arrows would be less than 1/14th that. The crafting cost for 1 GP worth of arrows is 3.3 repeating SP, so if your GM lets you get away with it you could say you just spent 4 SP before leaving town to craft while adventuring through the wilderness
6. Use magic: One player in a game a while back started a tradition. His PC was a wizard and the ranger in the group was Dex based, focused on archery as well as weapon finesse. The wizard made a point of putting Arcane Mark on all of the ranger's arrows before their first adventure, then kept selecting Detect Magic among his cantrips every day. Any time the ranger missed a shot, the wizard would cast Detect Magic to find any "lost" arrows quickly. Alongside this there's the spell Abundant Ammunition so that for non-magical ammo you're not losing any you pull; Unseen Servant to hold a bunch of quivers for a PC; Ant Haul so that, for a couple hours at least, somebody's carrying capacity triples. I'm sure there's plenty of others I'm forgetting

All of this is obviously for low level play. By L3 the party may be able to purchase a Handy Haversack. This device, even when filled, will always weigh 5 lbs. By volume however the bag has 2 side pouches that can contain 2 Cu Feet or 20 lbs each, then a central portion that can hold 8 Cu feet or 80 lbs. There's also the Efficient Quiver or simply a Bag of Holding as well.

Of course, purchasing or crafting any of these sets the expectation that the PCs have access to any kind of settlement or Downtime. It may be that the party will never stop running from/fighting evil, constantly on the frontlines with barely moments to rest between battles, all of which take place in wilderness or dungeon settings. If this is the case, remember: unless its a VERY lopsided campaign, not every NPC you encounter will be evil.

Diplomacy requires 1 minute of interaction to influence the attitude of a creature with a 3 or greater Int that can understand you. If, during your crazed and breathless crusade you happen upon intelligent humanoids, especially those that might have some kind of crafting abilities and a base of operations, getting them to Indifferent in attitude means you can request things of them. From here, you might be able to pay them to craft items such as masterwork backpacks or magic items and such.

This would only take a minute to initiate, but it might save you time down the road. Finally, work with your GM. Survival DC 10 means that by moving at half speed in the wilderness you can "get along" in the wilderness. Many real world cultures are able to craft small amounts of bark twine using their bare hands or stone tools in a single day; if your PC has the Survival skill and the GM is willing, perhaps they can craft rope from vines, twine from plant fibers, simple water containers from woven twigs and so on.

[DeathlessOne]

Quote:

Do you track weight and ammo count in your games?

Absolutely, yes. Carry capacity is ONE of the many great equalizers of low level gameplay and can even be a factor into the mid-levels because a magic bag does not solve your carry issues (mostly because players get lax about it and assume it all gets handled).

It is more bookwork? Sure. Do I care? No. Other people can play the kind of games they want to play where carry weight isn't an issue. If you are playing in one of my games, you had better not get the idea that you get to have 'dump' stats, especially where strength is concerned. You will sacrifice that foolish notion that you must get your main ability score as high as possible, or your character is going to STRUGGLE.

I am serious. Archers have it rough if they are not smart, clever, and find ways to get around even a brisk wind. Wind wall is one of the SIMPLEST means to shut them down.

[OmniMage]

Yeah. Wizards and other heavy spell casters are likely to start their adventures encumbered. A likely outcome considering they favor SAD builds.

Getting other party members to lighten your load could work. A str 14 character can carry twice what a str 10 wizard could. Also if they wear medium armor, then they suffer no penalty for carrying a medium load, which doubles their carry capacity. Your other party members might not be eager to help, so you might need to do them the odd favor.

Though I'm not too sure how important it is for heavy spell casters to be mobile at level 1. Considering they don't have many spells (even sorcerers) at that level, they should make themselves look as non threatening as possible. Maybe make themselves look like hired help with a crossbow.

I think adventuring groups should consider purchasing some animals to carry gear once they get some money. The party shouldn't need bedrolls or tents if they are exploring a small dungeon. Leave them with the animals. Leave the animals with some hired help some distance away from the dungeon entrance. You don't enemy reinforcements to see the animals; its a sure sign that someone is visiting. Also prevents them from killing the animals for food if they're hungry

At mid and later levels, efficient quivers can carry staves in the bow slots (6 slots), though the handy haversack or bag of holding can do much the same thing. 5 lbs for each staff vs 1 2 lbs for the efficient quiver.

I have some questions:

Can you combine masterwork backpacks with handy haversacks, or somehow use both on the same character?

Can you use your efficient quiver to carry crossbows and crossbow bolts? What can you fill the in the javelin slot besides javelins?

[Derklord]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Do you track weight and ammo count in your games?

Absolutely. We use Excel spreadsheets as character sheets, so bookkeeping is easy. I don't track arrows and provisions used, though, so my Zen Archer still has 100 regular and 60 blunt arrows five levels into the campaign...

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

If you do, what creative solutions have PCs come up with?

Not really creative, but when using Automatic Bonus progression (which everyone should do as it makes the game so much better), Muleback Chords are a cheap and easy solution.

[Melkiador]

It's a team game. In general, you'll have a party member who can carry your extra supplies for you. If the party is unfriendly and ok with moving at your encumbered speed, then just carry your bonus stuff in a bag that you can drop as a free action when combat starts.

[Mark Hoover 330]

It IS a team game but again, this will vary by campaign. If, from level 1/adventure 1 the PCs are never allowed to rest in a settlement, nor are they allowed any Downtime beyond 9 hours for sleep and spell recovery, this probably won't apply to you. That being said...

Did your Int-based caster dump Str for an 18 or 20 starting Int? Cool... Craft is an Int-based skill which can be used untrained. Using this skill with no or inappropriate tools, by RAW, is a -2 Penalty. That means that this Int-based PC can craft DC 12 or 13 items with their bare hands by taking 10.

An 18 Int PC with no tools, taking 10, can succeed against a DC 12 Craft check and generate 144 SP worth of work in a week. That's 14.4 GP/week. Is your campaign a 7 day week? If so, this PC is crafting 2 GP per day of dedicated work. Is it a 5 day week? If so it's almost 3 GP/day. Either way, they can generate 1 GP worth of stuff in less than 1 days worth of dedicated work.

Archer needs arrows? Buy the big brain wizard 4 hours. All you need to do is make sure you make a point to buy the raw materials ahead of time and account for those materials in the encumbrance of group. Again, supposedly there are some campaigns out there that literally NEVER have even 4 hours of Downtime and the PCs are in a time crunch every single second of the game, but often the party can manage half a day to work on things.

Derklord, I forgot Muleback Cords. They're cheap; only 1000 GP. If everyone in the party at APL2 chipped in 250 GP ea, that 18 Str martial could push their carrying capacity from 100 Lbs Light Load limit to 306. Add in a masterwork backpack to push that to 346 Lbs. Suddenly the 10 Str witch doesn't need to worry so much about her Cauldron hex.

But Hoover, I hear you saying, not everything the 18 Str martial wants to carry goes INTO the backpack! Per Muleback Cords, their Str is calculated as 8 higher for ANY carrying capacity, so maybe buy the 18 Str martial a pair of bandoliers, a couple of sacks and a half-dozen belt pouches as well. Point is, they can carry a LOT!

Through this and another thread I've really begun wondering, how many campaigns at low levels have strict time crunches on them? Like, can PCs not use skills like Survival, Craft, Profession & such often? For that matter, if PCs know they're about to head off on an adventure and they also know the campaign accounts for stuff like rations, carrying capacity, storage volume and such, do they not plan ahead?

Like, a decade ago was the last time I really accounted for all this stuff but I still have a guy at my tables from back then who buys a mule and a cart for all his L1 arcane casters. He follows that up by either taking Unseen Servant or Floating Disk as part of his L1 spells if he can. I guess I'm just surprised is all.

[TxSam88]

nah, we ignore encumbrance. We don't want to play a game of accounting. and the only time it matters is during combat. outside of combat, just assume that it all gets transported, via slow movement, packs, horses etc, and after 3 or 4 levels, magical means are in place and it's a non-issue.

once a DM start's getting nit picky about coinage, encumbrance, food etc, is when the power gamers come out and start doing the things which break the game.

if you get critical about weight, don't be surprised when your players start skinning every monster alive to sell their hides to buy a bag of caltrop and then set up shop selling endless caltrops to then buy a wagon train and a whole crew of followers to carry all the items they pick up in a dungeon.

a DM being nitpicky about weight and get and accounting, leads to players coming up with hyper creative ways to break the system, way better to just handwave it all and not worry about it too bad.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Nowadays I handwave, but not to curb player behavior but for my own peace of mind. I actually encourage my players to take Trophies, use them as crafting materials, and even pick up furnishings from dungeons, abandoned sites and such.

I like worldbuilding, that's the kind of GM I am. I like creating secret societies, intricate histories, hidden lore and so on. The only way I can sort of nudge my players to be interested in this info is to either make it lucrative or game-impacting.

I try to work some of that worldbuilding into items carried by foes, things found in treasure hoards, or even just furnishings and debris left in adventure sites. If the players pick up on this and start collecting these things to learn from or sell at premium prices, all I ask is that really big, bulky items be accounted for.

Want to swipe that masterwork cold-iron light mace b/c the designs on the mace head tie back to the fey knotwork you have been studying? Cool, I don't care that your 10 Str wizard is carrying an extra 4lbs. Want to walk out of the dungeon with the half-ton carcass of a dragon? You need something bigger than a backpack.

The only time I get strict about encumbrance is with Armor. You'd be surprised how many non-dwarf martial PCs in my games try to tell me they're charging 60' in a round while wearing Medium armor. "Umm, how? Are you wearing boots that increase your base speed? If not, you're charging 40' instead."

No, the only game impact I had back when I was tracking this stuff is that players still tried to put stuff past me all the time, same as they still do with armor, but the accounting work slowed down play and I just got stressed out more often.

[Melkiador]

I don’t think I’ve ever had a GM ask me about my encumbrance, but I usually try to keep it legal anyway. It’s a bit of a low level mini-game.

[Taja the Barbarian]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

1. Be Small size: your carrying capacity limits are only 2/3 the standard limits, but all your gear is 1/2 weight because its sized for a Small PC

There is a major catch here, as not all equipment is half the normal weight (the Alchemy Crafting Kit was particularly brutal on my Ratfolk Investigators).

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

2. Get a mount, a hireling, or establish a base camp: one of my favorite scenes in the movie Platoon is Elias saying to his troops "you don't need THIS, you don't need THIS..." while stripping non-essential gear off their packs. Bottom line, if you're lower Str get someone else to carry your stuff or just leave what you don't need behind

For my Ratfolk, it was the Riding Rat to the rescue! Medium size with climb and swim speeds, it can go basically anywhere the rest of your party can...

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

4. Masterwork backpack: If you have a Str 10 but 50 spare GP and access to a Settlement, you can carry gear like you have a Str 11 picking up an extra 5 lbs in Light Load carrying capacity

The Backpack (Masterwork) actually costs you 4lbs of encumbrance (2lbs more than a normal backpack) so it's typically minor improvement at best for low strength characters (due to the way carrying capacity is calculated, it's actually much better on high-strength characters).

[Mudfoot]

I keep track of encumbrance, but not to a neurotic level. The 7 Str sorceress carries essentially nothing but a crossbow, a dagger and the lantern. She has cold resistance so heavy clothing isn't required. The 9 Str halfling rogue is always close to hitting Medium encumbrance, but gets someone else to carry the heavy stuff. Otherwise, things get left on the horses whenever possible.

[Loren Pechtel]

I take an in-between approach here:

I check encumbrance, I expect to see reasonable (for what they are doing) levels of consumables but so long as they have them I don't track them unless they are cut off from civilization for an extended period. Low level parties typically don't go very long without resupply.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

Granular encumberance has never once added anything fun to the game in my experience. I don't even feel there's much value to keeping track of mundane adventuring gear. But I do know encumbrance and carrying capacity are part of the balance for Strength to prevent Dex becoming the God Stat.

So I usually use something along the lines of Bulk from Starfinder/2nd Edition where carrying capacity is important enough to track. I also allow my players to have "preparation points" that refreshes when they stop in a town with easy access to adventuring supplies. A player can invest preparation points into their gear at 1 PP = 1 Load. At any point they can take a full-round action to dig through their pack and retrieve any non-magical, mundane item that could be useful for adventuring. They can restore preparation points by spending 10 gp per preparation point whenever they shop in a town.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

We always play with encumbrance at low levels, including ammo. Pack animals are often purchased to help carry things.
Higher levels sees this sort of fade into irrelevancy when players have access to extradimensional carriers, teleport, spells to replace food and drink, etc.

[Azothath]

I have used both a document or a spreadsheet to track ALL my PC's items, quantities, charges, weights, components, costs and currency for many years. It's organized by page and color coded. It came in very handy for Org Play. One you have a wizard gear sheet you can copy it for a new wizard. I just set the font color to pale gray(e0e0e0) and set quantity to "" to delete items. Same is done for my spell sheets in plastic page keepers. I just mark with dry erase pens dots for memorized spells and strike them out as I cast them.
In any game one of the first things you should buy is a heavy war horse. This alleviates the PC from having to carry most stuff. It improves the character's speed and provides a target with more hit points and strength than most non-martial riders.
The second turning point in the game is when PCs can purchase Handy Haversacks or Efficient Quiver.

I don't believe that dump stats are a wise strategy for robust characters.

[Melkiador]

Strength isn't usually a dump stat for an archer. You take a strength penalty to your bow damage. And adaptive compound bows are already cheap after a few levels, if you can find a crafter. So, strength matters.

Maybe if it were something like a crossbowman or gunner, the strength might get dumped.

[Mudfoot]

Azothath wrote:

In any game one of the first things you should buy is a heavy war horse.

Because the game abstracts away things like animal feed and care, this works. But more realistically, you'd need a squire to look after the thing and a pack mule weighed down with oats to feed it. And you'd need some actual skill to ride the thing; it's not just Dobbin the tame pony from the kid's riding school.

If you want to carry stuff outdoors, get a pack horse, or a mule.

Mind you, a warhorse is a lot more sane than riding a tiger or allosaurus or the other nonsense people come up with. But their MMV, no badwrongfun, etc.

[VoodistMonk]

Great discussion/topic...

It matters, all of it always matters. Encumbrance is worth keeping track of simply to see the solutions people come up with. Plus, I don't want to GM a bunch a murderhobos willing to dump stats, so I try make sure the little things matter. Sometimes I go as far as straight up not allowing any starting ability score to be below an 8, even after racial modifiers are applied. And I use ability damage all willy-nilly to test my players' resolve. You might not think Strength is important, but there be Shadows

Your encumbrance affects your speed, and I want to be somewhat in control of the tempo/pace... I want my setting and terrain and enemies with different speeds to matter. Encumbrance also affects certain class features, and I don't want to give players a free pass for features that are supposed to reflect the intended style of the class.

Not being able to carry everything means people put the stuff they can't carry on horses, those horses get left outside of dungeons, and now Kobolds/Mites/Pugwampi have $#!+ to steal. Plot hook, or whatever... honestly, I just like using these enemies but they work best when the party has to come into their lair.

Ammunition matters... without it, that terrifying ZAM/Inquisitor's Flurry of Bane means nothing... that Bolt Ace's 17-20/×4 pelletbow is nothing without its pellets... no Gunslingers targeting touch AC without them bullets... honestly, if you don't keep track of ammunition, you're letting your players take advantage of you.

[Mark Hoover 330]

So then, for those that do track these things, how often is it game-impacting? For that matter, how often are the PCs on such a time crunch that being aware of these numbers adds tension?

I'm really wracking my brain trying to remember when running out of ammo actually happened in any of my games when I was tracking this stuff. I can remember a couple notable 2e D&D games, but since 3rd ed and later PF1 I don't think its ever happened.

Like, if I put my players in a wilderness scenario and count their rations, its usually b/c I want them out there surviving. Maybe if there's a time crunch this might matter, but since folks don't dump Wis all that happens is they move slower and take 10s getting themselves food and water.

The last time I tracked ammo and weight, the game impact was that the halfling wizard bought a mule and cart to haul a bunch of extra stuff and the switch-hitting ranger pre-paid for a bunch of stuff to make more arrows. They'd explore the megadungeon but, after a couple hours of adventure they'd go back out, load the cart with treasure, pitch tents off the sides of the vehicle and take watches while the ranger made more arrows. She just... never ran out.

Now that campaign only lasted 3 levels, a total of 8 sessions, but in that brief time the net/net was the ranger spent 5gp, 4sp and made 1 GP worth of arrows, and the wizard spent an extra 23 GP he hadn't planned for. The paladin wore scale mail until he bought +1 breastplate, but regardless he was moving at a 20 the whole game, period.

The ranger and fighter kept their light armor/light loads, the inquisitor did the same. Literally all it did was ensure the players were watching more numbers. Oh, and I'd brow-beat them once in a while and stress about their characters.

How has tracking this stuff influenced your games?

[Kasoh]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

How has tracking this stuff influenced your games?

One of the first things it solves is the "Who is carrying the X?" questions. If you track encumbrance, and therefore inventory, it is known who has the potion of Neutralize Poison or whatever. Suddenly, the position of people on the field matters more if someone is carrying a suddenly valuable consumable.

If the party fills their pockets and they return to town to turn vender trash into GP, that provides opportunity to develop NPCs and interact with the location.

In situations where they can't easily go back suddenly what gets picked up and left behind is important. Large sized equipment is a common thing that isn't worth the effort of hauling.

Maybe this would have happened in a game where ammo wasn't tracked, but I ran a game with an archer PC who was attending the opera. She had her bow put into a weapon tattoo in case of trouble, but neglected to bring any arrows, so when trouble occurred, they had to find a new way to assist. This aggravated the PC's paranoia and they reacted by being hyper-fixated on not being unprepared again, so when enchanting the bow later, got an ammo generating property instead of higher enhancement bonus. Not having ammo in a situation where they needed it created a character moment that influenced the PCs relationship with the other party members, the world around her, and her eventual fate.

Another game, different PC. Their strength is low so they use mithral armor to get by on their encumbrance. But we don't have the time to get that armor enchanted, and they are only willing to upgrade to another piece of mithral armor. This combined with settlement availability rules limits their purchase options and keeping their AC low as our levels go up, pushing them further to the back line of combat.

Sometimes, you get great moments out of little things. And little things can add up into big things.

[SheepishEidolon]

I don't think encumbrance is a good way to counter Str dumping. Players will be affected mostly at lowest level, when their Str dumped wizards are (relatively) weak anyway. They know that after a few levels things will get better, so they might accept the issue for now and dump Str anyway. And since their GM didn't pull punches when it came to encumbrance, why should they when they have medium and high level spells at their fingertips?

Personally I'd rather modify point-buy: A 7 nets only 3 points, meaning only 1 point more than an 8. Suddenly the decision between both scores becomes more interesting. And having some score below 10 makes a character more interesting IMO.

[VoodistMonk]

It matters when the party has to pick and choose which loot they keep... that affects party wealth. It absolutely matters as to whom is carrying what. It matters how much stuff they leave unsecured outside the dungeon every time they go inside. It matters how many trips they take to and from places. It matters how often they interact with NPC's.

Most of all, it matters in a sense that players get used to checking their character sheets and making the proper checks at the proper times. To ignore encumbrance is akin to ignoring Perception... everyone has a +1,000,000 Perception anyways, why not just ignore it completely? Why not just ignore AC completely? Let's just tell a story and ignore the game...

By ignoring these details, you are making the game easier... and when we are constantly adjusting encounters to try provide appropriate challenges, making the game easier for the players is just making it harder for the GM to keep the game interestingly challenging. So yeah, you will count your arrows, and you will track carrying capacity, and you will consume rations in environments where Taking 10 on a Survival check isn't an option. These are the details that matter to having a complete world... not just a series of encounters.

[Mark Hoover 330]

VoodistMonk wrote:

Ammunition matters... without it, that terrifying ZAM/Inquisitor's Flurry of Bane means nothing... that Bolt Ace's 17-20/×4 pelletbow is nothing without its pellets... no Gunslingers targeting touch AC without them bullets... honestly, if you don't keep track of ammunition, you're letting your players take advantage of you.

I don't use gunslingers in my homebrew, but I take your meaning. So, ammo matters and we don't want murderhobos. I'd agree with the 2nd part, but the first part...

So, the bolt ace, L1, starts out with Gunslinger, except for crossbows. Well, presumably the PC knows you're counting weight and they can only have Light armor anyway without spending a feat, so they pick up a 10 Str, studded leather armor and get a free Mwk light crossbow. They don't want to run out of bolts, so 20 bolts. PC also begins with an artisan's outfit.

So, they're coming in at 30 lbs already and they can manage 33 as their Light load, so they also pick up a flask of acid and a cold-iron light hammer just in case. They're right at Light load, and as they adventure this PC intends to just hand off all treasure to the fighter of the party to carry.

Now, that gives this PC 20 shots they can take before they run out of bolts. They picked up a Dex 18 to start the game and the player has been around the block a few times; they know how to avoid getting cornered so they can always 5' step out of melee in order to use their crossbow unless the entire map is Difficult Terrain (corner case).

This PC is L1, so let's gauge them against CR1 foes. BAB +1, Dex +4; they've got +6 to hit w/their mwk x-bow. Vs CR 1 foes (avg AC 12), they're hitting with 75% of their shots. This PC's avg damage against these foes is 4.5, meaning in a single hit they're delivering what they need to in order to end a combat. You GOTTA figure this PC's taking Point Blank Shot, so they're even better up close.

Will every foe be CR 1? No, I'm sure they won't, but hopefully enough will be CR 1/4, 1/3 and 1/2 to offset the CR 2's and 3's of those first few encounters. This PC then can attack 20 times, hitting 15 of those times, and dealing enough damage to positively contribute to the end of the combat.

The only way that counting ammo impacts this PC is if they're constantly missing. Statistically this isn't likely, but maybe every single encounter out of their first 20 to level to L2 is against CR 2-4 foes.

Also this PC gets Craft as a Class skill. With a 12 Int, 1 rank in Craft: Weapons and some tools they can Take 10 for a 15. The avg starting GP of a Gunslinger is 175 GP and so far they've spent 39; they've got money to burn. A mule and cart runs them another 23 GP and they buy a 5 GP set of common artisan's tools to keep in the cart alongside 10 GP worth of raw materials... enough to make 300 x-bow bolts.

If the cart and goods aren't stolen by kobolds, this means that taking 10 on a Craft Weapons check this PC crafts 22.5 GP worth of x-bow bolts in a week. Put another way, in 1/10th of a week (4 hours if its a 40 hour work week) this PC can craft 20 bolts.

So, keeping their load Light and focusing mainly on attacking with their x-bow, this PC needs just 4 hours Downtime to replace every single bolt they're carrying... and he can do that 15 times over. Are we saying that this PC will 1. constantly run afoul of combat encounters for which his x-bow will be useless, 2. will never have 4 hours worth of downtime beyond what they need to survive, 3. will never encounter civilization, 4. will never meet a Medium sized foe that wields a crossbow or has crossbow bolts in their location, 5. consistently run through encounters where they are statistically expected to fire 20 times with their signature weapon before being able to remake more x-bow bolts?

Finally, w/a 12 Int this PC has 5 skill ranks/level. They can easily also be a contributing member of the party outside of combat by spending those skills as Craft: Weapons (1 rank), Handle Animal (1 rank), Intimidate (1 rank), Knowledge: Local (1 rank), Perception (1 rank). This PC at L1 is capable of functioning as an average guard, keeping the mule in line through the wilderness, making weapons (especially x-bow bolts), and ID'ing humanoids, local groups, etc. They can also Intimidate to Demoralize or to force NPCs to cooperate for information.

W/a 12 Wis on this PC as well, they have a poor Will save and that's probably where the character will fall apart. However, if traveling 1/2 speed through the wilderness this PC can keep themselves fed and alive taking 10's, though they likely have to have a bit of feed in the cart for the mule until L2. They know 1 extra language beyond their starting one(s). They have a decent Fort save and a good Ref save. Their AC is a 17; considering the avg High Attack from CR 1 foes is a +2 and, let's face it, a LOT of CR 1 foes are melee based, this means this PC is not likely to get hit as often as they hit foes in battle.

All in all this is a solid character that I don't anticipate is going to end up over a 33 Light load or run out of x-bow bolts. Will there be corner cases? Sure, but they'll burn that bridge when they come to it. Finally, as they level, they can buy items that cut down that weight, enhance their Str, or increase their carrying capacity.

[TxSam88]

VoodistMonk wrote:

It matters when the party has to pick and choose which loot they keep... that affects party wealth. It absolutely matters as to whom is carrying what. It matters how much stuff they leave unsecured outside the dungeon every time they go inside. It matters how many trips they take to and from places. It matters how often they interact with NPC's.

Most of all, it matters in a sense that players get used to checking their character sheets and making the proper checks at the proper times. To ignore encumbrance is akin to ignoring Perception... everyone has a +1,000,000 Perception anyways, why not just ignore it completely? Why not just ignore AC completely? Let's just tell a story and ignore the game...

By ignoring these details, you are making the game easier... and when we are constantly adjusting encounters to try provide appropriate challenges, making the game easier for the players is just making it harder for the GM to keep the game interestingly challenging. So yeah, you will count your arrows, and you will track carrying capacity, and you will consume rations in environments where Taking 10 on a Survival check isn't an option. These are the details that matter to having a complete world... not just a series of encounters.

Too much realism makes for a boring game. as already mentioned. it's pretty easy to never run out of food or arrows, and it's pretty easy for party to be able to have a crap load of wagons etc.

After a few levels, suddenly nested bags of holding come into play, and (can't remember its name) but the spell that turns treasure piles into cloth come into play. I'll agree that where these things are should be tracked so you can't just grab a stored item during combat, but aside from that, it's play time spent doing mundane chores that don't add anything to the game.

We used to track every single day of travel, play out every single encampment, the hunting, the foraging, the crafting etc. and quite frankly it got boring. And more importantly, it didn't make any difference to anything. So we handwave all that, assume the party is doing all that mundane stuff without having to play it out, and get to the exciting stuff. We play every Saturday for about 3-4 hours. Adventure paths take 14-20 months for us to play at that pace. If we added in all the book keeping etc that encumbrance requires, not to mention crafting/hunting checks etc. it would really extend the length of those Adventure Paths. we would rather spend that time doing the Adventure, not the record keeping.

[Mark Hoover 330]

I ignore encumbrance; I've never once ignored Perception. In fact, I just had a session where 18 minutes of it was me reminding my players that their rogue only moves up 30' to 40' ahead of the party when she scouts in a dungeon; when the breastplate-wearing paladin with 2 different shields and an Efficient Quiver full of weapons for every occasion tromps up to 40' away from the next chamber and stops, the monsters with their +15 Perception checks DEFINITELY heard him even if the rogue gets a surprise round.

The opera example though, that kind of proves my point; the archer wasn't out of ammo b/c they ran out or b/c they were over-encumbered, but b/c of extenuating circumstances. Those will ALWAYS be the bane of an adventurer's existence. When circumstances conspire against the party to reduce their resources or whatever, they have to adapt.

As for handing stuff off in combat... I've said it before and I'll say it again: I must be bad at running combat. I never have dynamic, free-running combats where in the middle of a fight a PC has to hand another PC a potion of Neutralize Poison.

Folks in my games know what melee is. The one u-monk that always runs ahead and gets killed just hasn't learned his lesson, but mostly the PCs stay about 10' to 30' from each other except for the arcane blaster casters. If the battle is so desperate that mid-combat healing or revitalization is needed, the PCs are generally able to deliver it to one another through Class Abilities, wands and UMD, or spells.

[VoodistMonk]

Holy crap, my characters carry a lot of $#!+... having never been willing to dump Strength, I always carry all my own gear. Even the thought of needing an alchemical item that I know I have, but someone else is carrying gives me real life anxiety. I have literally never been in a position where my character has had to ask someone else to carry my crap.

In the military, we called "those people" Blue Falcons... the B and the F stands for Buddy-F'er... you screw your pals by not carrying your own weight.

[Taja the Barbarian]

I personally don't find encumbrance (or the tracking of it at least) to be a big deal: I equip my character with his/her encumbrance in mind, and the key number to remember is how much weight I could add before I become encumbered. During the actual adventure, this is all I really need to remember...

After a few levels, a couple of magic items should make encumbrance largely irrelevant...

[Tim Emrick]

When I started playing PFS and saw that the iconic rogue has a 14 Str, I was a little surprised it was that high, but then I got curious and totaled up the weight of her gear. Merisiel needs every point to keep her gear to a light load! Having a large collection of throwing knives as her ranged attack contributes to her load, but OTOH, she does get to add her Str to damage without the added expense of a stronger bow.

Most of my GMs have relied on the honor system for players to track their own encumbrance. I do track it for my PCs--including their extradimensional spaces--but Hero Lab makes it pretty easy to know what the "default" level is (based on the gear I had when I last updated my character sheet), and how much capacity I have left before the next threshold kicks in.

Among other things, updating encumbrance between sessions means I know when one of my characters is close enough to a limit to get bumped up an encumbrance level when suffering from fatigue or some similar effect. My rogues, and rogue-adjacent characters, tend to run pretty close to their light load limits, so fatigue can be a huge blow to their effectiveness!

I have had one below-average Strength PC who accepted the encumbrance penalties for low Str for multiple levels. My undine witch (Str 8) has a king crab familiar, so bought an aquarium ball at 1st level. She trudged around with medium encumbrance until she acquired muleback cords, which she only traded in for a cloak once she was high enough level to have merge with familiar running for most of the adventuring day (and a handy haversack to keep the aquarium ball in for the duration).

[Heather 540]

Using Myth-Weavers for my sheets help with weight capacity. So I rarely go over. And I've always bumped the strength of my small race characters back up to 10 so she can carry her things.

I've never really tracked ammo though, other than keeping track of when my gun-user needs to reload or uses special bullets.

[Senko]

This is why I always try to put aside some gold to buy a mule. Daisy carried 90% of my arcanist's supplies with her only carrying the really important stuff she'll want to have on hand if the mule dies/bolts. Still usually bumps into medium but you can drop a backpack in a round or two.

[Chell Raighn]

I have a bad habit of making 10 or even 8 str characters… so I frequently have to figure out how to manage my carry weight to maintain a light load in most circumstances… the simplest solution is to just play a dwarf… encumbrance wont matter as a dwarf, but then your already down at 20ft base speed anyways…

i love playing small sized characters, but small characters can sometimes actually be worse off than medium characters when it comes to carry weight… to say they have 2/3 carry capacity with 1/2 items is a bit misleading… while yes, a lot of small sized items are 1/2 weight, there are some that are 3/4 weight, some get down to 1/4 weight and then there are also items that have no weight change… most kits for example weigh 3/4 on a small character because some items contained in most of them have no weight change. 50ft of rope weighs the same on a small character as it does on a medium or even large character… in-fact, most common adventuring items don’t have different weights for small characters. More often than not, I find myself having to sacrifice more items on a small character than I would have if I had made a medium character instead with the exact same stats.

[Matthew Morris]

I track encumbrance. It's a must. But I also track food and ammo

[HighLordNiteshade]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

So then, for those that do track these things, how often is it game-impacting? For that matter, how often are the PCs on such a time crunch that being aware of these numbers adds tension?

I'm really wracking my brain trying to remember when running out of ammo actually happened in any of my games when I was tracking this stuff. I can remember a couple notable 2e D&D games, but since 3rd ed and later PF1 I don't think its ever happened.

My 8th level halfling ranger has the manyshot and rapid shot feats, which means during a full round action I can fire 4 arrows, or 5 if hasted. 5 arrows per round means I go through 20 arrows in just 4 rounds.

In WotR, we just fought a battle with multiple demons and multiple summoned demons, which took us 4 game sessions (3 hours each) to resolve. At the end, I had remaining 3 cold iron arrows (started with 60), 10 bludgeoning arrows (started with 20), and 3 normal arrows (started with 30). If combat had lasted 3 rounds longer, I would have been out.

I actually would have been out during that combat, but a demon used telekinesis to (just barely) succeed in wrenching my bow out of my hand a few times, so I had to spend time retrieving it, so not all of my rounds were a full-round attack.

[Mark Hoover 330]

VoodistMonk wrote:

Holy crap, my characters carry a lot of $#!+... having never been willing to dump Strength, I always carry all my own gear. Even the thought of needing an alchemical item that I know I have, but someone else is carrying gives me real life anxiety. I have literally never been in a position where my character has had to ask someone else to carry my crap.

In the military, we called "those people" Blue Falcons... the B and the F stands for Buddy-F'er... you screw your pals by not carrying your own weight.

How do you handle healing in your game? Do you have PCs capable of using spells to heal HP running around, mid fight, keeping you on your feet instead of fighting the monsters? On these boards and at my own tables, more often than not I see that healing occurs for a round or more between encounters, oftentimes involving a PC channeling, casting spells, using a wand or several scrolls (at least from L1-L3).

What is everyone else doing besides making Perception checks? If your encounter area seems to suggest there'd be a lot of swarms, could they be taking 1-2 Acid Flasks from the bandolier the barbarian is wearing, to resupply the 1-2 flasks they just spent? How about topping off your quiver of arrows from the "community backpack?" Point is, if one strong PC is carrying a lot, between fights is a perfect time to prep for the next one.

How many climbing kits does an entire party need? Do you find an excessive amount of combat or non-combat encounters require artisan tools, mess kits or 1 week's rations? How often, between L1-L3, or before magical carrying devices come online, do you find your entire party trapped so deep underground that you need to excavate your way out?

Remember: if you're in a dungeon that also contains Animals, Humanoids, Monstrous Humanoids, or Vermin at least, chances are these creatures have some kind of food and water source they're surviving on. If you're GENUINELY getting trapped in Dungeon environments so often that literal days are going by with your PCs not having access to rations and water they may have left behind, you can either try to raid the resources of the creatures IN the dungeon, or attempt Survival checks to keep yourselves alive.

VM, you're the king of the kunai since it is the "multitool" weapon of PF1. There's a mod you can get on it so it carries some fishing stuff or something, it can be a a digging tool or machete, and you can do the sawblade mod so it can be a saw as well. How many times has that ACTUALLY been necessary for your PCs in game?

This is why I keep bringing up the RAW on certain skills. Making many Simple weapons, simple gear and so on can be achieved with raw materials and a DC 10-12. Heck, Craft: Armor/DC 12 makes you leather armor and most shields. If a PC in the party has an 18 Int, given enough time, they can take 10 and hit any DC 12 untrained Craft check with NO tools.

Climbing is based on the surface you're climbing. If your GM is so into realism, natural fibers found in MANY environments can be used to make a crude rope. Crafting rope is between the complexity of a wooden spoon (DC 5) and an iron pot (DC 10), so by RAW nearly everyone in the party should be able to hit the DC.

50' of rope costs 1 GP; by that logic every 5' of hemp rope might cost, say, 1 SP? If you set the DC on making rope as high as 10, a PC that can take 10 and hit that DC without using any tools could craft 100 SP/week. In a 5 day work week, that means 20 SP/day, or in an 8 hour day that's just over 2 SP/hour.

4 PCs, taking 1 hour to craft a bunch of plant fiber "rope" from natural materials found around them, could collectively make, say, 40' of rope by RAW? Again, that would be dependent on your GM, the environment, and it might only be usable a few times before it broke or something, but in an emergency survival situation that's what may be possible.

My point to all of this is just to question how often these things ARE actually game impacting. How often do PCs go to an opera or other social events where weapon and armor restrictions come up? How often do your PCs get trapped underground or in the middle of the ocean or in the desert with no resources? How many times have your PCs ACTUALLY run out of ammo while adventuring, and how likely is that statistically?

Lastly, this game ISN'T real life. At best its an abstraction of real life. If your build necessitates a 10 Str for some reason AND your GM is tracking encumbrance, you're likely aware of this before you finish Session 0 and there's plenty of ways to plan for this. In reality, if every person on your adventure is expected to carry 25Lbs of gear and one guy has to hand off their pack to another, that'll slow the whole party down.

In PF1, if your group includes a Str based martial PC, it is likely that they have a 100 Lb Light load. If that's the case and they're carrying 50 lbs of gear between armor, weapons, and misc. stuff, handing them another 10 has NO game impact; they don't fatigue any faster, they don't move any slower, and they don't attack any worse.

So... if your bolt ace dumps their Str (I agree, they shouldn't, but whatevs) and can only carry 10 crossbow bolts, but the party ALSO contains a PC with an 18 Str, that PC may be stowing 30 more bolts for the Ace who re-ups after every fight as the party heals.

[Mark Hoover 330]

HighLordNiteshade wrote:

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

So then, for those that do track these things, how often is it game-impacting? For that matter, how often are the PCs on such a time crunch that being aware of these numbers adds tension?

I'm really wracking my brain trying to remember when running out of ammo actually happened in any of my games when I was tracking this stuff. I can remember a couple notable 2e D&D games, but since 3rd ed and later PF1 I don't think its ever happened.

My 8th level halfling ranger has the manyshot and rapid shot feats, which means during a full round action I can fire 4 arrows, or 5 if hasted. 5 arrows per round means I go through 20 arrows in just 4 rounds.

In WotR, we just fought a battle with multiple demons and multiple summoned demons, which took us 4 game sessions (3 hours each) to resolve. At the end, I had remaining 3 cold iron arrows (started with 60), 10 bludgeoning arrows (started with 20), and 3 normal arrows (started with 30). If combat had lasted 3 rounds longer, I would have been out.

I actually would have been out during that combat, but a demon used telekinesis to (just barely) succeed in wrenching my bow out of my hand a few times, so I had to spend time retrieving it, so not all of my rounds were a full-round attack.

Does WotR allow Downtime? If so, are there any PCs in your party that can craft Scrolls, Wands or Potions? Abundant Ammunition is a Ranger 1 spell so you could provide it while another PC provides the Item creation feat.

A single casting of this spell at CL 1 provides 1 minute where the blunt arrows and non cold-iron arrows wouldn't deplete. You likely needed Cold Iron to overcome DR, so your PC may have been less effective so this isn't a perfect solution, but its ONE solution to the issue.

If this PC made 1 scroll of this spell and cast it either 1 round before engaging the demons or during a Surprise round, your PC could've also been carrying only 10 blunt arrows and another 10 cold iron arrows instead for the same weight values.

If you went this route, a wand would cost 375 GP to craft, would take 1 day of dedicated work, and give you 50 charges. If you were pressed for time but someone can make scrolls or potions, a single potion or scroll of this spell is cheap enough that it could be crafted in 2 hours of the day while also having a full 8 hour day doing other things.

I might also suggest the Conserving weapon quality for your bow. I assume you already have an efficient quiver, but at only 1800 GP is it possible to obtain a second? I don't know the AP so I don't know how much opportunity there is to purchase loot or craft, but if it is common for your PC to be firing 5 arrows/round (likely more as you advance) and battles with multiple demons are also common in this campaign, if you're tracking arrows this will continue to be an issue.

[Kasoh]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

My point to all of this is just to question how often these things ARE actually game impacting. How often do PCs go to an opera or other social events where weapon and armor restrictions come up? How often do your PCs get trapped underground or in the middle of the ocean or in the desert with no resources?

Every two or three sessions? This a highly campaign dependent question. In War for the Crown, managing our wardrobe is very important. We've been to a gala, a ball, and like six festivals. We have tea more often than we roll initiative, that's for sure.

In Hell's Rebels, running a clandestine organization in a city with hostile police forces requires a low profile--including bulky armor and weapons.

My Reign of Winter game has had us traversing winter wilderness for a week, then a four days, then another week, and that's a group that has a pack animal.

Wrath of the Righteous can run into issues when you didn't expect to get lost in a maze in the abyss for four weeks.

Carrion Crown had at least two parts where we had to chase cultists over long distances on horseback, so weight, encumbrance, and food supplies were quite relevant.

Mummy's Mask had an extended period of desert travel/exploration. Even supplementing the camels and wagons with Conjured Carriages, Create Water, Endure Elements, and a wand of Create Food managing the supplies timing, and et al, which required expenditure of party funds and devoted spell slots to keeping the party going instead of all the encounters. Honestly, keeping track of all it was a little exhausting, but that showed in the characters as they spent another week in the hostile environment regretting every choice that resulted in them in the middle of the wastelands.

If someone is at a table and updating the sheets with pencils, I can understand not wanting to tabulate encumbrance, but I find the quality of the game is increased when people pay attention to the weight they carry. Forcing the PCs to exist in the world at that level makes the world more real and gives greater consequences to the decisions they make.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Thanks Kaosh, that's exactly the kind of info I was asking about! I have only been through RoW as a player, and only through L9. My GM was brand new to running, having always been a player, so maybe she missed something. Our party moved towards Whitecrown through the winter wilderness mostly on foot w/my character having a wolf Animal Companion.

My GM never gave us an exact time crunch. Again, maybe she was doing it wrong. B/C we didn't have to make the best time, my PC with multiple ranks in Survival, Profession: Tanner and artisan tools in his saddlebags moved at half-speed and still had the opportunity to make checks to get along in the wilderness. My GM also allowed me to make crafting checks when we got to a few tiny villages along the way.

I made sacks, backpacks and even one masterwork backpack. I fashioned slings for everyone in the party (no one thought to buy themselves b/up ranged weapons!) and purchased a bunch of sling bullets as well as cold iron sling bullets. A lot of this I gave away freely to the villagers or to other PCs.

We stayed fed and watered the whole wilderness part. The party's Wizard took Fast Study and had Scribe Scroll as a bonus feat, so every night if they had an extra L1 spell slot they'd re-study Endure Elements to make a scroll. Over time we built up a storehouse of these to use on days when Survival checks plus saves weren't handling it.

Those other APs I've never played. Obviously any intrigue-centric campaign is going require specific gear as well as likely weapon and armor restrictions. Mummy's Mask, similar to RoW, likely has environmental survival as one of the initial challenges so you have to plan for that as well.

Sounds like you managed it though, through the power of bookeeping. It also sounds like that added a level of tension and enjoyment for you. What were the environmental penalties for making Survival checks in the desert? I can imagine there would be no potable water or edible food in the Abyss, so being lost in the maze must've been next to impossible. How'd you get through that one?

[Kasoh]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Sounds like you managed it though, through the power of bookeeping. It also sounds like that added a level of tension and enjoyment for you. What were the environmental penalties for making Survival checks in the desert? I can imagine there would be no potable water or edible food in the Abyss, so being lost in the maze must've been next to...

My group tends to track days and time fairly regularly as we find it helpful to be able to say, "Two weeks ago, when we ran into So & So." Once you're tracking time, tracking rations is just an extra step for each character sheet.

Though, this is also a gaming group that has a player who forgot to assign skill points for two levels, so each person gets different levels of satisfaction out of it. The accounting players really enjoy their spreadsheets, and the ones who don't are probably just indulging us. Of the ones I listed, I ran Hell's Rebels and Wrath of the Righteous. I was a player in the other ones.

Now, in the Reign of Winter example, we use xp, so I suspect that we do long travel sequences so we can get into encounters to gain the requisite xp, but also, I find that during long travel sequences, we'll have the characters try to interact with each other, tell stories about their backgrounds or other fill the air kind of stuff you'd do while hiking with people. I don't know how the GM is spacing it out, but all the players play up the geas to find the missing witch so there's always a kind of...urgency.

In Mummy's Mask, it was kind of interesting because the party had no full arcane caster. I was playing a Magus and I was fighting against the Magus spell list constantly for staple arcane utility spells. (I was surprised when Conjure Carriage was on the Magus list) But, because the magus fancied themselves a wizard, they wanted to rely heavily on magic to ease the travel. Someone else in the party fought against that because if the caster dies, they lose access to the carriages, which was a reasonable precaution. But, that is to say, I never made any of the survival checks. That was the purview of the monk, slayer, and occultist.

In Wrath, when the players are in the Abyss its very late in the campaign. Books 4 and 5 mostly. The solutions to a lot of their problems was 'Magic.' but they only had 1 full caster, an arcanist. It was the ranger who saw them through the maze of the Abyss.

To be honest, the longer Wrath of the Righteous went on, the less I really cared. Combats over in the first turn with all the enemies dead before they get to go and all that. Some GMs try to raise the challenge. I went the other way and ran it vanilla despite the player's ever increasing powers. This lead to a very saturday morning cartoon vibe for the whole thing so I didn't enforce a lot of the accounting that I'm praising here. It actually kind of broke me, in a way. I haven't really ran a long campaign since. But I learned that the little details can bring new complications, so as I've played in the years since then, I have an appreciation for the 'rules nobody bothers with'. (As an aside, the soft cover rules are a surprising limit on archer power for the majority of the game, but I rarely see those enforced.)

[Loren Pechtel]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

I'm really wracking my brain trying to remember when running out of ammo actually happened in any of my games when I was tracking this stuff. I can remember a couple notable 2e D&D games, but since 3rd ed and later PF1 I don't think its ever happened.

I've never had anybody run out, either--because I paid attention. The point is not to track every copper, but avoid people carrying far more than they actually can. Prepare properly, it's a non-issue.

[Mudfoot]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

This is why I keep bringing up the RAW on certain skills. Making many Simple weapons, simple gear and so on can be achieved with raw materials and a DC 10-12. Heck, Craft: Armor/DC 12 makes you leather armor and most shields. If a PC in the party has an 18 Int, given enough time, they can take 10 and hit any DC 12 untrained Craft check with NO tools.

This IMHO is part of where you're going wrong. Maybe it's that you have very RAW-strict players, but that sort of ruling is just silly. I could knock up a meaningful shield in an hour or two, but I have a load of timber and a whole workbench in the garage. Doing it with scavenged bits of tree and my bare hands is just nonsensical. At best you end up with a glorified bundle of sticks.

And making leather armour (nominally cuirboulli) needs a lot of hide and a cauldron of hot oil. You can't just do it with a few dead rats and a knife.

[Unbegreiflich]

ooooohhh shield of sticks and boiled ratskin armor! Now we're talking about the nitty gritty campaigns where armor costs hard earned (or found) coppers or you trap and eat your way into a hide shirt 8^)

[Azothath]

One thing the campaign glosses over is a PC's domicile. I suggest if you don't have a horse or some very heavy stuff (one character had half a bronze golem he carted about) leave it at HOME. There's no need to tote Everything about. Yes, it's very Everything is on my person centric but that doesn't always make sense. PCs often rent rooms, have a camp, or own a home/shop/building. Think of it more american wild west with a horse, wagon, and your camp.

A goblin, pugwumpi, etc don't stand much chance against a trained heavy war horse in a scuffle. The horse has better ability scores (including Wis) and HPs than most 1-2 lvl PCs.

Horses do fine on grasslands. Supplementation with oats & grains still requires roughage else the animal with get diarrhea. Supplementation is only done in stalls or environments where grazing isn't available, the animal is working hard, or you want a fat horse/cow {feedlots temper the gaminess of livestock}.

[Senko]

Unbegreiflich wrote:

ooooohhh shield of sticks and boiled ratskin armor! Now we're talking about the nitty gritty campaigns where armor costs hard earned (or found) coppers or you trap and eat your way into a hide shirt 8^)

For some reason I'm reminded of the late Terry Pratchett's diskworld and Dwarve's viewing rat on a stick with ketchup as a delicacy so they loved human cities.

[VoodistMonk]

I have used nearly every function of my Cold Iron Sawback Kunai... both types of damage available, its throwing range, the material has indeed bypassed DR, the saw, the shovel, the climbing piton... I have actually been pissed off way later in the game than it should have mattered when I left my Kunai behind stuck in a cliff as a piton. And I replaced it with another at my earliest convenience.

I have always used my stupid rope, too. You only have to casually and purposefully jump off one small ledge, just to land in a perfectly clear Gelatinous Cube one time before rope becomes the apparent smarter choice.

Point is, if the GM is using the environment to their advantage, then these things matter more. If you have never had to actually use cold-weather outfits to protect against cold weather, then it doesn't matter... the equipment and spells dealing with cold environments are meaningless, to you, in your particular game.

As the big dumb Fighter, I don't want to carry the Rogue's gear... I have already had to carry the actual Rogue because they were too weak to make Climb checks. My heavy-armor-wearing-@$$ saved the same Rogue from drowning when they couldn't make a Swim check... that I made, in heavy armor. Some people don't carry their own weight, and are willing to put that burden on their allies... I am not one of those people. I am not a Blue Falcon.

[Senko]

Blue Falcon? I'm guessing you don't mean the superhero from Scooby Doo.

[Matthew Morris]

VoodistMonk wrote:

I have used nearly every function of my Cold Iron Sawback Kunai... both types of damage available, its throwing range, the material has indeed bypassed DR, the saw, the shovel, the climbing piton... I have actually been pissed off way later in the game than it should have mattered when I left my Kunai behind stuck in a cliff as a piton. And I replaced it with another at my earliest convenience.

I put a Kunai on all my characters now, never thought of the sawback modification. Any caster with simple weapon proficiency wears a cestus for the same reason.

[Matthew Morris]

Senko wrote:

Blue Falcon? I'm guessing you don't mean the superhero from Scooby Doo.

It's another term for an Andoran :-)

[HighLordNiteshade]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Does WotR allow Downtime?

Not the way our DM is running it, but we've got 5 players and a cohort so he's amping up the encounters and generally working hard to keep things challenging. Our party has had zero time to craft anything and we're almost to the end of the second book.

[Mark Hoover 330]

So a sawback kunai can be a handy tool in many situations w/out being damaged and can overcome several DRs. It can be used to perform "crude carpentry." I don't know what the qualifier "crude" means in terms of RAW, but overall this is a pretty versatile piece of equipment.

If I ever have a GM that is running a wilderness-heavy campaign, I'll pick up one of these but you're right VM, if the GM doesn't use environmental hinderances then a kunai or cold weather gear aren't really relevant. That being said, what if they DO use the environmental rules?

Well, several terrain and weather types restrict senses and Perception checks, may cause non-lethal damage or inflict Fatigued and Exhausted on a PC. There are other individual hazards for more complications. Nowhere in any of that though is a specific penalty or restriction to using the Survival skill to "get by" in the "wilderness."

Wilderness isn't a specific terrain type but rather it is described as "outside the safety of the city walls" which could mean, well, a lot of things. Several different terrain types and environmental challenges fall under this section of the CRB. Dungeons are set aside though, so maybe you can't use Survival checks there.

But again, there's no RAW that says a PC can't find food and water in, say, the desert, using Survival. The GM can say that, but that'd be a houserule. The GM deciding this would be no different than the GM saying that one specific type of magic trap can't be disabled by a chained rogue with no casting abilities or that a monster has DR 10/Bronze. The GM is simply creating a complication outside the standard scope of the game that the players could've in no way anticipated or planned for.

Can a GM put a nearly invisible gelatinous cube in the EXACT squares the PCs were going to jump down into? Certainly, that's RAW. Is there a realistic justifcation why this type of predator would park themselves here? Is this remote locale so frequently the recipient of folks leaping into it that a monster that literally has to either slowly run folks over or have people jump into it going to gamble on getting enough meals that it lives here? Who cares; RAW says it can be here so it's here.

This game isn't a simulation of reality. Its an abstraction, and in some cases a flat out denial. It is possible, however unlikely, for an Enlarged, chained rogue 1 with a set of thieves' tools and thieves' tool extenders, to be 15' away from a Burning Hands trap and disable it. The REALITY of that scene is that a man magically changed to 8' tall is holding some lockpicks, at the end of an Erector set, and reaching 15' through a magical energy field to touch a statue meant to spit a cone of magic fire at intruders... and the man makes the magic turn off.

But finding water in the desert is the impossible thing.

Anyway, yes, I use RAW. I don't use all of it b/c frankly it used to stress me out to do so. If I get the chance to be a player again though, I'm going to start taking sawback kunais on my PCs. Having a 2lb crowbar is justification enough, but then you make it a tool for Craft: Carpentry or perhaps Profession: Woodcutter, also B and P damage, and it can be a piton as well? Good times.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Azothath wrote:

One thing the campaign glosses over is a PC's domicile. I suggest if you don't have a horse or some very heavy stuff (one character had half a bronze golem he carted about) leave it at HOME. There's no need to tote Everything about. Yes, it's very Everything is on my person centric but that doesn't always make sense. PCs often rent rooms, have a camp, or own a home/shop/building. Think of it more american wild west with a horse, wagon, and your camp.

A goblin, pugwumpi, etc don't stand much chance against a trained heavy war horse in a scuffle. The horse has better ability scores (including Wis) and HPs than most 1-2 lvl PCs.

Horses do fine on grasslands. Supplementation with oats & grains still requires roughage else the animal with get diarrhea. Supplementation is only done in stalls or environments where grazing isn't available, the animal is working hard, or you want a fat horse/cow {feedlots temper the gaminess of livestock}.

What starting GP rules do your campaigns start with? I use the following houserules for my homebrewed campaigns: 1. PCs start with 150 GP each, everyone gets a free skill rank usable only on Craft, Perform or Profession skills (just the rank, doesn't give a free Class skill), and every PC begins with a free Shack (the Room in the Downtime rules).

This gives PCs a starting base of operations (the Shack), enough GP to get mounts, carts and draft animals, or hirelings, and a skill rank they might use to create things for themselves. There shouldn't be any reason PCs in my campaigns should leave treasure in any form behind: GP, art objects, furnishings, Trophies, Goods or Magic Capital, magic items, and so on.

Do players take advantage of all of this? No. They typically forget or don't upgrade their Shacks for several levels, don't pick up mounts or hire hirelings, and never use more than a day or two of Downtime so they never make non-magical items. Instead all of the money and resources they DO have/pick up they spend on weapons, armor and magic items for slaying monsters. The exception is the guy that always gets a mule drawn cart.