My Encumbrance House Rules

[EKB]

These are the encumbrance house rules I've worked out. The intent is to trade more before-play figuring for less effort "in the heat of play"

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To figure a character’s encumbrance, add together:
•The weight of the character’s armor or clothing
•The “encumbrance weight” of his backpack
•The weight of weapons and other items carried on his belt or elsewhere about his person.

Note that the encumbrance weight of a backpack will remain fixed, whether the pack is full, half-full, or nearly empty. Other containers likewise will have a fixed encumbrance (see below). This means that players won’t have to recalculate encumbrance for their characters every time the characters use arrows from their quivers or refill their water skins.

Weights of Objects:
When figuring encumbrance, objects weighing 1 kg or more will normally have their weights rounded to the nearest 0.5 kg. Objects weighing less than 1 kg will have weights rounded to the nearest 0.1 kg. Objects weighing less than 0.1 kg (100 grams) will have their weights given in grams and/or in “number per kg.” Standard coins, for example, weigh 5 grams or 200 per kg.

Containers will have their capacities rounded as above (e.g. to the nearest 0.5 kg for capacities above 1 kg). However, their empty and encumbrance weights will both be more finely measured: To the nearest 0.25 kg for weights of 1 kg or more, or to the nearest 0.05 kg for weights under 1 kg.

Containers:
Containers normally have an “encumbrance weight” equal to half their capacity. This applies whether the container is full, empty, or partly full. A one-liter water skin, for example, has an encumbrance weight of 0.5 kg, and a backpack with a capacity of 40 kg has an encumbrance weight of 20 kg.

As noted above, the empty and encumbrance weights of containers will be more finely measured than those of ordinary objects. This means that a container’s encumbrance weight can be taken without rounding.

A container will have an encumbrance weight equal to its full capacity, rather than to half its capacity, if the container
• is a small one (holding 0.1 kg or less)
• is a “heavy” one with an empty weight equal to one-quarter its capacity or more
• is holding a solid object that takes up half the container’s capacity or more.

A container designed to hold a single solid object (e.g. a sword sheath) will thus have an encumbrance weight equal to the weight of the object. For other containers, the GM may rule that a given large object may not fit in the container at all.

When one container is placed inside another, the inner container will normally take up an amount of space equal to its capacity. However, if the inner container is “collapsible” then use its empty weight for its encumbrance when it is empty and collapsed, treating it as an ordinary object.

Note that the contents of the container do not count against the character’s encumbrance. This keeps players from having to recalculate their characters’ encumbrance every time a character takes a drink from a water skin or uses an arrow from a quiver.

Also note that an object taken from a container and held in a character’s hands (or worn as clothing) does not count against encumbrance as long as the character continues to carry the container with space “reserved” for the object. This means that a character can draw his sword from its sheath, drop his sword, pick up his sword, and resheath his sword, all without having to recalculate his encumbrance for the sword’s weigh.

Armor and Clothing:
Ordinary clothing for one-hex figures has a weight of 2 kg. The weights of the various kinds of armor are given in the armor tables. The weights of clothing and armor include the encumbrance weight of built-in “containers” for pocket goods carried and jewelry worn. This means that players will only have to worry about the encumbrance of their rings and other jewelry if they strip down (e.g. to swim) or if they wear an unusually large amount of jewelry.

Clothing and armor for one-hex figures have a total “container” capacity of 1 kg, but with a maximum weight of 0.2 kg for any single pocket item or piece of jewelry.

The weight of clothing and armor for multi-hex figures is proportional to the character’s size in hexes. Thus ordinary clothing for a 1½-hex figure weights 3 kg and has a pocket-container capacity of 1.5 kg.

Extra clothing worn against cold weather may increase a character’s encumbrance. See the rules for exposure damage.

Fancy or ceremonial clothing will generally weigh more than normal garb. In this case, every +1 kg of increased weight includes a provision for up to 0.5 kg worth of extra jewelry. For example, a fancy ball gown for a one-hex character might have an encumbrance weight of 4 kg. Such a dress is intended to be worn with up to 2 kg of jewelry, and wearing that jewelry will not increase the wearer’s encumbrance beyond the 4 kg for the dress itself.

[NOTE: I don't have armor inflict MA penalties beyond those for its weight, only Dx penalties]

Backpacks:
A character can wear a backpack of any size, limited only by the maximum encumbrance the character can carry. Since the backpack is a container, it follows the container rules above and has an “encumbrance weight” equal to half its capacity. Thus a backpack with a capacity of 40 kg counts as weighing 20 kg for encumbrance purposes. As usual, this applies whether the backpack is empty, full, or anywhere in between.

A character may choose to carry an extra weapon or other item instead of a backpack. This extra weapon or item does not count toward the five “belt” items a character can carry before suffering a Dx penalty, and does not have the weight limitation of those items (see below). Thus a character could carry a 10 liter water skin or a super-size quiver of 150 arrows in place of his pack, but not as one of his five “belt” items.

Weapons and Other “Belt” Items:
“Belt” items are the weapons and other items a character carries on his belt, on a weapon baldric, or stashed elsewhere about his person. If a character carries more than five such items, each additional item after the fifth gives the character a -1 Dx penalty in addition to contributing to the weight that the character is carrying. Items weighing more than 3 kg per hex of character size count as two items, as do containers having a capacity of more than 3 kg.

Shields and weapons weighing more that 6 kg per hex of character size cannot be carried as a “belt” item at all. They can be carried as an item instead of a backpack, or in the character’s hands. Items carried in a character’s hands without a place to stow them “on the belt” do not count toward the five item limit, but do add to weight carried and do have to be set aside when the character wants to use his hands for other things.

As noted above under the container rules, a weapon drawn from a sheath and held in the character’s hands does not count against the character’s encumbrance. Instead, the encumbrance weight of the sheath continues to apply to the character. Likewise, only the sheath, and not the weapon, will count against the five-item limit before Dx penalties apply.

Penalties for Weight Carried:
A character can carry encumbrance of up to 5 times his physical St score, in kg. The following movement penalties apply:

up to 1× St: No penalties
up to 2× St: -1 MA, plus penalties for swimming (see the rules for swimming)
up to 3× St: -2 MA
up to 4× St: -4 MA
up to 5× St: -6 MA (Note that this always cuts MA in half – see below.)

As noted above, a character carrying more than five weapons or other “loose” items on his belt or elsewhere about his person will suffer a -1 Dx penalty for every item after the fifth one carried. Objects carried in the character’s hands do not count against this five item limit.

Finally, a character who strips down to an encumbrance of 1/20th of his St score will gain +2 MA on land and a +2 Dx bonus on swimming rolls. This requires that the character remove most or all of his normal clothing, which in turn means that any jewelry worn will now count against his encumbrance (and thus may need to be removed as well).