Encumbrance, gear, and your home base

We will be using the Variant Encumbrance rule in this campaign.

Characters in Swords & Sorcery tend to travel light. In the city, you will not see people carrying all their weapons with them. They might have a couple, but they probably won't have everything. No one would to to the tavern carrying their 2 swords, 5 daggers, longbow, quiver of 12 arrows, and backpack full of stuff.

More likely the fighter walks in with a sword, and maybe a dagger on his boot. The wizard walks into the tavern with a small pouch of spell components hidden under their cloak and a staff, but likely not a backpack with both their spell books and rations for the next 10 days. 

So look over your gear and equip what you need in a particular situation, and what you would logically have, and see that it does not exceed 5x your Strength if you wish to avoid being encumbered.

Here is the rule...

If you carry weight in excess of 5 times your Strength score (in pounds), you are encumbered, which means your speed drops by 10 feet.

If you carry weight in excess of 10 times your Strength score, up to your maximum carrying capacity, you are instead heavily encumbered, which means your speed drops by 20 feet and you have disadvantage on ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws that use Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution.

You equipment list on D&D beyond lists a weight for each item you carry. If you click "Inventory" you will see your list. Under weight carried it will say either encumbered or unencumbered. Click that -- then under encumbrance settings choose Variant Encumbrance. Also turn off "ignore coin weight". Coins are heavy.

Once you buy and item it will show up in your inventory. If you reduce the number of items to Zero, it will still show up in your inventory, but it will reduce your weight. So it retains the fact that you own it but are not carrying it.

If you have a backpack or pouch, you can use the Inventory system to put your stuff in it.











Now, you are all at this point city dwellers. It is reasonable to assume you have some domicile where it is safe to keep your stuff. It is a rough town, but it isn't just chaos. If you leave your bag of 100gp in your lodgings along with your extra stuff, it will be there when you return (provided you don't make the wrong enemies). 


3 comments:

  1. Will we need to declare or list our equipment at the start of every session?

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    1. You equipment list on D&D beyond lists a weight for each item you carry. If you click "Inventory" you will see your list. Under weight carried it will say either encumbered or unencumbered. Click that -- then under encuberance settings choose Variant Encumbrance. Also turn off "ignore coin weight". Coins are heavy.

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    2. I have updated this page with some screen shots. D&D beyond will do the work for you.

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