So, I am gearing up to start a new game, and finally put pen to paper so to speak on an alternate encumbrance system that's been kicking around in my head for awhile. I created a sheet for it, as well as a version of the sheet that can be used without the alternate rules. The rules are as follows:
You may carry a number of items equal to your strength score with no penalty, up to double your strength score is a medium load, and above that is a heavy load. You cannot carry more than triple your strength score. Your pack and worn jewelry, clothing, or armor do not count towards encumbrance so long as you are proficient with it. Armor you are not proficient in counts as one item for every 5 pounds it weighs (rounded down) when worn. A belt and its contents count as one item, as do bandoliers and their content. You may wear 1 belt, and 2 bandoliers. A belt may have up to 4 pouches, an item attached on either hip, and one attached to the back. Belt pouches can hold one small item approximately the size of a paperback novel, or a stack of up to 10 identical smaller ones. Bandoliers can hold up to 8 small items, but no stacks. Quivers and other ammunition containers count as one each and can hold up to 50 of the associated ammo. The wands & ammo section is provided for convenient tracking, this equipment must still be accounted for encumbrance.
Links to the sheets:
Pizza Lord, the links appear to be working now. Imgur was being screwy earlier. This is intended to do away with weight entirely. I'll probably wind up either changing or more likely entirely dropping the non-proficiency thing with armor since I've never had anybody try to wear armor they aren't proficient in. And, yes, it is very video-gamey. I've been playing video games for 20 years longer than I've been playing TTRPGs. As far as stacking goes, I'm going to try and just apply some common sense to it. I don't foresee anyone that I play with abusing it, but my long standing rule with any mechanic we've not played with before is that it is subject to change. I think that by the time we are getting to where this system could be truly abused, bags of holding will be in play anyways, at which point encumbrance mostly stops mattering. Its probably going to be a few weeks before this hits the table.
My goal with this system was to both make it a bit less of a headache to track, and to increase carrying capacity a bit without just saying don't worry about it. Every game I've either been in or GMed we've wound up throwing out carrying capacity altogether. Either we didn't use it at all, or it went out the window early on, because we didn't want to keep looking up how much something weighed, especially when 90% of it was just going to be sold. The week after we got rid of it in my first campaign, one of our players bought 1000 arrows just because he didn't have to worry about it anymore, and he knew that buying so many he wouldn't have to track them anymore. With this, no more looking things up. It's just a slot. People will still be able to have a bunch of cool toys, but they might have to make some decisions about them. At least for a few levels.
we quit using encumbrance long ago. unless the characters are in a dire situation, after a few levels, magic and magic items make carrying anything you want pretty much a non issue. and it makes sense that character could quick drop their packs when combat starts. The only thing we still use is a simply limit on what they can have "handy", which is generally limited to a couple of weapons and a few magic items.