Hacking 2e: Encumbrance and Weight – Part 2

Last time, I reworked the 2e weights and weight allowances into a slot-based system. The final step is to determine encumbrance penalties.

This is the entire reason we’re here. These penalties are the stick used to enforce the agonizing decisions inherent in encumbrance rules. Without them, there’s no reason to track anything at all, and that way lies 5e and players who occasionally look through their inventory to discover oddities from old adventures, like they’re rifling through their parents’ attic.

AD&D used ranges, or weight bands, to determine when penalties applied. Let’s start there.

 

1. Encumbrance Bands

To determine when you’re in one of those bands, 2e provides a bloated table.

We’re not touching the modified movement rates; they’re a simulationist answer to a problem that doesn’t exist. Pretend you didn’t see it. Shut your eyes, Marion!

Even with just the standard table, this is too much. Let’s start hacking this thing down to size by determining what our numbers actually are, since I’m using the Dark Sun Strength table. That’s fairly easy, as after Strength 18, they increase in a predictable manner.

Strength	Light	Moderate	Heavy	Severe	Max
2	2	3	4	5	6
3	6	7	8	10	10
4	11	14	17	21	25
5	11	14	17	21	25
6	21	30	39	48	55
7	21	30	39	48	55
8	36	51	66	82	90
9	36	51	66	82	90
10	41	59	77	98	110
11	41	59	77	98	110
12	46	70	94	119	140
13	46	70	94	119	140
14	56	86	116	147	170
15	56	86	116	147	170
16	71	101	131	162	195
17	86	122	158	195	220
18	111	150	189	229	255
19	136	175	214	254	280
20	171	210	249	289	315
21	256	295	334	374	400
22	361	400	439	479	505
23	446	485	524	564	590
24	516	555	594	634	660
25	636	675	714	754	780

Note that 2e doesn’t provide bands for a Strength of 1.

I spent too long staring at Excel – longer than I care to admit – attempting to find a formula or simple rule that could emulate this exact progression. There’s not one, or at least not one that I can find which doesn’t involve extensive additional math and new, confounding rules. The main issue is the extremes outside the 8 to 15 range; using addition to increase the values always blows out one side or the other, while using multiplication balloons the carry capacity at the higher end.

Well, the goal here is simplicity and easy-to-parse rules, not total fidelity. As a result, I’m going with multiplication to determine each band of encumbrance.

While I’m here, it’s also time to do away with some encumbrance weight bands. We don’t need this much specificity when it comes to encumbrance: either the character is carrying too much, or they’re carrying way too much. With those restrictions, and a max capacity, I’ve devised the following encumbrance rules:

Character can carry items up to their allowed slots without issue. Carrying above this number causes the character to become Encumbered. If they are carrying enough to reach twice their allowed slots, they become Overburdened. A character cannot carry more than three times their allowed slots.

Were I to put this in a table, which we shouldn’t need with such a simple formula (and will not have in any final product), it’d look like this:

Strength	Encumbered	Overburdened	Max
1	–	2	3
2	3	4 – 5	6
3	4 – 5	6 – 8	9
4	5 – 7	8 – 11	12
5	6 – 9	10 – 14	15
6	7 – 11	12 – 17	18
7	8 – 13	14 – 20	21
8	9 – 15	16 – 23	24
9	10 – 17	18 – 26	27
10	11 – 19	20 – 29	30
11	12 – 21	22 – 32	33
12	13 – 23	24 – 35	36
13	14 – 25	26 – 38	39
14	15 – 27	28 – 41	42
15	16 – 29	30 – 44	45
16	21 – 39	40 – 59	60
17	26 – 49	50 – 74	75
18	31 – 59	60 – 89	90
19	36 – 69	70 – 104	105
20	46 – 89	90 – 134	135
21	66 – 129	130 – 194	195
22	91 – 179	180 – 269	270
23	111 – 219	220 – 329	330
24	131 – 259	260 – 389	390
25	161 – 319	320 – 479	480

 

And if we translate this back to pounds:

Strength	Encumbered	Overburdened	Max
1	–	8 – 11	12
2	12 – 15	16 – 23	24
3	16 – 23	24 – 35	36
4	20 – 31	32 – 47	48
5	24 – 39	40 – 59	60
6	28 – 47	48 – 71	72
7	32 – 55	56 – 83	84
8	36 – 63	64 – 95	96
9	40 – 71	72 – 107	108
10	44 – 79	80 – 119	120
11	48 – 87	88 – 131	132
12	52 – 95	96 – 143	144
13	56 – 103	104 – 155	156
14	60 – 111	112 – 167	168
15	64 – 119	120 – 179	180
16	84 – 159	160 – 239	240
17	104 – 199	200 – 299	300
18	124 – 239	240 – 359	360
19	144 – 279	280 – 419	420
20	184 – 359	360 – 539	540
21	264 – 519	520 – 779	780
22	364 – 719	720 – 1079	1080
23	444 – 879	880 – 1319	1320
24	524 – 1039	1040 – 1559	1560
25	644 – 1279	1280 – 1919	1920

 

We’ve absolutely inflated the back end here, but I’m fine with that. The strongest characters being even stronger works thematically. With the new range of encumbrance, I’ve created one band which sits between the old light and moderate bands, and another between heavy and severe. It’s not perfect, and there are a few outliers, but it’s close enough for government work.

 

2. Encumbrance Penalties

The last piece of the puzzle: what do these bands do? What happens to a character when they’re Encumbered or Overburdened?

In 2e, those penalties are thus:

This is from the 2e Primer, since 2nd Edition provided this information with two paragraphs of text instead of a table. Man, why did everyone ignore encumbrance rules?

I don’t find this significant enough. If these penalties are going to be the stick by which we keep players from carrying their entire life on their backs, then they should hurt right out of the gate. It needs bite, so that encumbrance provides a hard stop for normal loadouts. It needs to be notable so that when picking up that extra treasure and choosing to enter into these encumbrance bands, the player should think “Is this really worth it?”

Therefore, I propose the following:

Effect	Encumbered	Overburdened
Movement	Reduced by half	Reduced to 2
Attack	–1	–4
AC	+1	+4
Dex-based AC Bonus	Retained	Lost

 

This is harsher, by far. Though with all the extra capacity provided to characters through the new encumbrance values, light/small/coin grants, and encumbrance bands, I think it’s warranted. The penalty for being Encumbered is not so devastating that it makes characters unplayable, though it definitely stings. The penalty for being Overburdened is brutal, but it gives the player that agonizing decision: do I want to get this stuff out of the dungeon and become a walking brick? Maybe they come back for this stuff later. Maybe they need help.

Besides, they can always drop it when the kobolds show up.

 

3. Comparison

Let’s close out by looking at two example adventurers (Rogue and Fighter) and what they can carry.

Rogue has a Strength of 11. She’s wearing leather armor, and carries a short bow and three daggers. She’s also brought a grappling hook, a hooded lantern, 50 feet of silk rope, 25 arrows, thieves’ picks, a quiver, and some lamp oil. She’s carrying a backpack and 90 copper.

In 2e, Rogue can carry 40 pounds before hitting the light encumbrance band. With her loadout, she’s carrying 48.3 pounds. She’s lightly encumbered and at 1/3 speed.

In the new system, Rogue can carry 11 slots of items. With her loadout, she’s using 10 slots (4 for armor, 1 each for the bow, grappling hook, and lantern, 2 for the rope, and 1 for the combination of three daggers, picks, and quiver. The backpack, arrows, and copper are free). She’s got a bit of room before hitting Encumbered – two slots worth.

Fighter has a Strength of 17. He’s wearing Chain mail, and wields a long sword and a medium shield, and has a light crossbow on his hip for emergencies. He’s brought 50 feet of hemp rope, a bullseye lantern with some oil, a bolt case, and 20 light quarrels. He’s carrying a backpack and 100 copper, 75 silver, and 50 gold.

In 2e, Fighter can carry 85 pounds before light encumbrance. With his loadout, he’s carrying exactly 99.5 pounds. He’s lightly encumbered and at 1/3 speed.

In the new system, Fighter can carry 25 slots of items. With his loadout, he’s using 23 slots (10 for the armor, 1 for the long sword, 3 for the shield, 2 for the crossbow, 5 for the rope, 1 for the lantern, and 1 for his 225 coins. The backpack, oil, and bolt case are free, as are the quarrels). He’s got 3 slots before he hits Encumbered.

This is forgiving to the PCs. Our characters are able to hold a bit more than their 2e versions, but not massively so. In both cases, their loadouts put them well into light encumbrance in 2e, but keep them just shy of Encumbered in the new system.

 

4. Conclusion

I’ve simplified both the bands and the penalties. There are now two encumbrance ranges: Encumbered when beyond available slots and Overburdened when twice over available slots, with a hard stop at three times a PC’s item slots. The penalties are also now just two: either being slowed to half movement with a penalty of 1 to Attack and AC or being slowed to a movement speed of 2 with a penalty of 4 to Attack and AC, respectively.

Obviously, I haven’t emulated the 2e encumbrance system as closely as I could, but the tradeoff is a logical progression of bands and penalties that players and DMs might actually be able to keep in their heads. At worst, having to look up any of these values can be done on a single page in the book with minimal fuss. Anything to avoid having that endless expanse of weight ranges staring back at you. Even so, it’s still fairly close.

What is retained, and I think focused and enforced, is the strict decision points implicit in encumbrance rules. The boundaries for ‘what is too much’ are highlighted here, and the harsher penalties ensure that a clearer and more significant decision will exist when players need to choose what goes on their backs.