Encumbrance

All right, this is for managing how Encumbrance, character loads, and general inventory management is going to work. I advocate keeping it extremely simple, so here's my proposal: The total weight you can carry is equal to your strength score times 5 in pounds, just like the games. However, if you're carrying goods at or exceeding half of your total carrying capacity, you are encumbered, which halves movement speed and provides a -10 penalty to Agility and Speed based checks. I'm rather fond of this system, obviously, but it could probably use refining.

That is rather simple. Another idea is if you are encumbered, it acts like you are one point of fatigued. So you just take a 10 hit to all your rolls. Enough to make anyone want to be more careful and perhaps invest in feather spells.

Just throwing more ideas around, yours is probably better.

Keeping with their tiers theme (which may only exist in my head) - why not have increasing penalties for increasing imcumbrance, where the highest one is can't move, the next is like failing a fatigue check, the nest lowest is penalties on some checks (climb, jump, swim) and like that?

LessRudeScrib wrote:Keeping with their tiers theme (which may only exist in my head) - why not have increasing penalties for increasing imcumbrance, where the highest one is can't move, the next is like failing a fatigue check, the nest lowest is penalties on some checks (climb, jump, swim) and like that?

I like this.

Sounds good to me, makes it less of an extreme. They should start taking effect at 50% or 60% of your max encumbered, I'd say. Then every 10% more you are after that, the effects grow. By the time you reach 90%, you're taking hits to all your rolls and have even had the number of actions you can take halved, with movement speed halved as well. We should work to quantify the effects of each level of encumberance for certaint though.

Armor causing less encumbrance when worn? It was brought up in the weapons thread, and I'm cautiously throwing my support after this.

Slotha Sil wrote:Armor causing less encumbrance when worn? It was brought up in the weapons thread, and I'm cautiously throwing my support after this.

Seconded

It sounds good, but part of the bonus of light armor is the fact that it is LIGHT. In game it wasn't better than equal level heavy armors, it was just much, much lighter. Full glass was lighter than even one piece of daedric armor.

The idea sounds good, I agree, but it would have to be handled carefully as to maintain the balance.

Perhaps we should put a limit on how many weapons you can have readily available vs. tucked away in a bag and wrapped in cloth. Sure, you can carry an arsenal on your back, but only the sword on your belt or the knife in your boot is really going to do you much good when you get jumped by a cliff racer.

Outlander wrote:Perhaps we should put a limit on how many weapons you can have readily available vs. tucked away in a bag and wrapped in cloth. Sure, you can carry an arsenal on your back, but only the sword on your belt or the knife in your boot is really going to do you much good when you get jumped by a cliff racer.

That's actually a good point. Although someone could just summon up some bound weapons. NEVERMIND THAT. Perhaps one first weapon, and one secondary weapon? We could also make weapon switched take a turn in order to make sure people think more carefully about it. We could have it take a turn to switch weapons anyway, for balance reasons.

Alternately, we could perhaps find a way to apply the hotkeys that the game had. So you can set up 8 different items or spells that won't take a turn to prepare and use them. This could range from a spare weapon, a healing potion, a scroll or a spell, anything really. We could also make THESE take a turn during combat to switch between and simply make everything else completely off limits.

A bonus about hand to hand: No matter how you go, it's always free to switch to instantly. Just drop your weapon and raise your fists!

I like the second version. You have 8 "Hotkeys" that take a turn to switch between, and everything else is off limits. Maybe not so much the spells, and perhaps we should break it up a bit. Say, 3 weapons and 5 items?

I don't know, I sort of like the idea of mages having to plan ahead of time as well. Perhaps not have them take a turn to switch between, but only have up to 8 spells that can be cast quickly and easily. That way you'd have more reason to have more mages, since one can't just do everything. When you have some 100 different spells you know, it can get a little silly not to restrict that at all.

Also, I don't know about the taking a turn to switch between "hotkeys". It would be a pain to spend a turn to take out a potion, then spend another turn to drink it, then spend another turn to switch back to weapon or something insane like that. Especially important with important events, such as using a scroll of intervention.

I see no reason to include a "hotkey" system. Just make sure players have places to keep any weapons they want readied, and if they try to go into battle strapped down with weapons, make them suffer encumbrance penalties. You can only have maybe 3 weapons on your person (at 1/2 encumbrance like your armor) - one across the back, one on the belt, and one on the other side of the belt or in a boot or whatever - plus a shield. Anything else must be stowed on a saddle, in a cart, etc.

Man, why do you get only three weapons but all the spells you want readied in a flash? You big cheaters!

Anyways, how are we going to handle getting things out of the pack during combat? Wasting a turn, or flat out disallowed? Things such as getting an enchanted amulet in order to cast it's enchantment.

Uh, yeah, about carrying capacity... don't you think that five hundred pounds is really, really too much? I'd say 200 lb maximum for someone with strength of 100; you can drag around more but you can forget fighting, running or traveling without a pack animal with that kind of load.

I have personal reasons for wanting maximal encumbrance imposed by armor 100 or less, but that's another thing. Apart from a suit of armor that puts 50 kilos on your shoulders when properly dressed being borderline hilariously impractical.

If you consider it to be pounds, perhaps. But at risk of sounding like a broken record, I call daedric warhammer to the stand.
Now, Mr. Daedric warhammer here is a good weapon, a fine weapon. One of the best. But Mr. daedric warhammer here just so happens to have an encumberance of 96 all by himself. If the maximum you can carry is 200 ecumberance, you'd be able to carry him, perhaps some boots and one of the gauntlets. Thats it! That would put you at 186 Encumberance all by themselves. And you need that for potions, scrolls and other items. And halfing the weight of the weapon in this case doesn't hold water, as you're holding it, not wearing it.

Even if we halved encumberance of things worn, full daedric with a towershield an longsword would wiegh over 200.

This is why we suggest to keep the Encumberance how it is, but add penalties if you venture over half your maximum. So if you are able to carry 500, you still begin to struggle when you reach over 250, 50% of the max.

Rainbay wrote:Man, why do you get only three weapons but all the spells you want readied in a flash? You big cheaters!

Anyways, how are we going to handle getting things out of the pack during combat? Wasting a turn, or flat out disallowed? Things such as getting an enchanted amulet in order to cast it's enchantment.

Well, for one thing - do YOU plan on having more than 3 weapons queued up and ready for use? That seems a bit silly and excessive to me, since I have a tendency to pick one weapon as a main and one as a secondary and that's all... but I suppose if you want to load yourself up with stuff that's alright. Just seems like 3 is a good default for what a normal person could wear without encumbering himself.

As to why you can have so many spells ready, maybe we should institute reagents in a workable manner. Not like "every spell requires thirteen grains of sand from Elsweyr" but if you want a destruction spell, you need, say, an animal claw, whereas casting a restoration spell requires a little bit of blood or a piece of heart (inb4 Zelda).

Rainbay wrote:If you consider it to be pounds, perhaps. But at risk of sounding like a broken record, I call daedric warhammer to the stand.
Now, Mr. Daedric warhammer here is a good weapon, a fine weapon. One of the best. But Mr. daedric warhammer here just so happens to have an encumberance of 96 all by himself. If the maximum you can carry is 200 ecumberance, you'd be able to carry him, perhaps some boots and one of the gauntlets. Thats it! That would put you at 186 Encumberance all by themselves. And you need that for potions, scrolls and other items. And halfing the weight of the weapon in this case doesn't hold water, as you're holding it, not wearing it.

Even if we halved encumberance of things worn, full daedric with a towershield an longsword would wiegh over 200.

This is why we suggest to keep the Encumberance how it is, but add penalties if you venture over half your maximum. So if you are able to carry 500, you still begin to struggle when you reach over 250, 50% of the max.

Then we reduce the weight of Mr. Daedric Warhammer and other items that weigh as if they were made of super mega uranium. Do you realize that an average non-combat character (strength 30-40) wouldn't be able to lift a 96 pound item off the ground? We're not making a sandbox single-player vidya, there's no need to use insane encumbrance numbers in order to limit martial power of characters. And there's no need for people to die of squishing when dressed in full daedric armor. Someone with average strength should at least be able to stand or move in it, if nothing else.

Slotha Sil wrote:Then we reduce the weight of Mr. Daedric Warhammer and other items that weigh as if they were made of super mega uranium. Do you realize that an average non-combat character (strength 30-40) wouldn't be able to lift a 96 pound item off the ground? We're not making a sandbox single-player vidya, there's no need to use insane encumbrance numbers in order to limit martial power of characters. And there's no need for people to die of squishing when dressed in full daedric armor. Someone with average strength should at least be able to stand or move in it, if nothing else.

Of course! We should make sure that even pansy wizards should be able to wear the best, heaviest armor in the game. So what if they haven't been investing the time to use heavy items like a hardened warrior has, they deserve to use it as well!

And on that note, I think it's unfair that wizard spells cost so much magicka! An average non-wizard character (intellect 30-40) wouldn't be able even try to cast a powerful spell that mocks the very heveans with it's power. There's no need to make it so warriors can't even attempt to cast wizard spells! Someone with average intellect should at least try to make enemies explode in a horrible ball of fire, if nothing else.

/endsarcasmhere

Seriously though, I use daedric in my examples, but that stuff is seriously end game material! Shouldn't weapons and armor of that quality require more investment on the part of the user to make use of?

Feather 200 Constant Effect.

Outlander wrote:Feather 200 Constant Effect.

Pssh, Strength enhancement is better. Stronger, and 5 points for every one strength up, instead of 1 for 1 with feather.

Rainbay wrote:

Slotha Sil wrote:Then we reduce the weight of Mr. Daedric Warhammer and other items that weigh as if they were made of super mega uranium. Do you realize that an average non-combat character (strength 30-40) wouldn't be able to lift a 96 pound item off the ground? We're not making a sandbox single-player vidya, there's no need to use insane encumbrance numbers in order to limit martial power of characters. And there's no need for people to die of squishing when dressed in full daedric armor. Someone with average strength should at least be able to stand or move in it, if nothing else.

Of course! We should make sure that even pansy wizards should be able to wear the best, heaviest armor in the game. So what if they haven't been investing the time to use heavy items like a hardened warrior has, they deserve to use it as well!

And on that note, I think it's unfair that wizard spells cost so much magicka! An average non-wizard character (intellect 30-40) wouldn't be able even try to cast a powerful spell that mocks the very heveans with it's power. There's no need to make it so warriors can't even attempt to cast wizard spells! Someone with average intellect should at least try to make enemies explode in a horrible ball of fire, if nothing else.

/endsarcasmhere

Seriously though, I use daedric in my examples, but that stuff is seriously end game material! Shouldn't weapons and armor of that quality require more investment on the part of the user to make use of?

Are you talking classes? Because we're making a classless system here. Anyone can make use of anything, as long as they are willing to put up with time and effort needed to train appropriate skills. That pansy wizard won't be able to use that warhammer or that armor to any effect apart from looking impressive, and that's the whole point. I'm still claiming that 200+ kilograms for a full suit of daderic would be absolutely unusable in combat without magical support, because anyone strong enough to move under that would risk ripping himself apart with his own muscles.

If 500 lbs carrying capacity is so dear to us, I'm willing to concede, though.

You assume that 1 encumbrance unit = 1 pound. Real life units are never really given, it's just always referred to as an encumbrance value.

GLIPP wrote:You assume that 1 encumbrance unit = 1 pound.

It isn't?

Anyway, agility-encumbrance/5 is slightly more difficult to calculate than agility-encumbrance/2, but I can work with either.

This is ridiculous. No one has posted in a long time, posts have slown down. We have to get some work done.

I say, we just keep encumberance at 500 max, at 5 times strength. If we make it lower, as was previously suggested, we'd have to make the heavier items lower too. So the weight of heavy items doesn't really change, but instead all the light items get alot heavier. So armor that was supposed to be only a small amount of weight suddenly because a much larger chunk, especially if people have less strength, as light armor users might.

There is no reason to lower encumberance. Some people said that 500 pounds doesn't make sense. Well, perhaps, but you have to remember: It's units of encumberance, not truly pounds. And more importantly, that's at a massive 100 strength. As people have said, getting to 100 is a true commitment, and it makes sense that you would be almost superhumanly strong.

As well as this, if we change max encumberance, we'd probably have to go through the game and look at each item's encumberance rating to make sure it matches up with the new encumberance ratio. As I pointed out, with 200 max encumberance, you'd barely be able to wear any heavy armor and weapons. So we'd have to adjust just about everything when it came to item encumberance.

Let's not complicate things more than they need to, encumberance as it is works rather well, let's not make this already difficult task of setting up a game tougher than it is.