This is an equipment sheet designed to be used with the Encumbrance by Stone rules for Legends & Labyrinths / 3rd Edition I posted yesterday. (It’s similar to the sheet for OD&D, but with a couple key differences.)
(click for PDF)
USING THE SHEET
Using the sheet is really where this system comes alive, because it basically makes tracking encumbrance as easy as listing what you’re carrying.
Encumbrance Rule: You can write down your character’s encumbrance rule (based on their Strength score) in the spaces provided in the lower right corner.
Armor/Shield/Weapons: The assumption is that your currently equipped armor, shield, and weapons will be listed for reference on the front of your character sheet. You can jot down the current encumbrance values for these items in the spaces provided in the lower right hand corner of the sheet.
Coins/Gems: These are listed in the upper right and their encumbrance calculated as shown. (To quench the “I have one coin and it apparently weighs a ton” complaints, you can allow PCs carrying 20 coins or less to list them as “loose change” in the miscellaneous equipment section.)
Heavy Items: This section is for listing anything that qualifies as a heavy item (i.e., weighs 1 or more stones all by itself).
Miscellaneous Items: The heart of the sheet. Simply list everything you’re carrying in bundles of 20 or less. When you’re done, you can immediately see how many stones of miscellaneous equipment you’re wearing. Bam.
Add Misc. Equipment + Heavy Items + Coins/Gems + Armor + Shield + Weapons = Total Encumbrance. In practice this is all single digit arithmetic and adjusting your encumbrance on-the-fly during an adventure is practically automatic.
Moved equipment to your horse? Picked up a bunch of treasure? Throwing away your shield in order to run away from the goblin horde at your heels? It can all be done in seconds.
TIPS AND TRICKS
Stored Items: This section of the sheet is for anything you own that isn’t currently being carried by your character.
Inventory of Gems: These are tracked separately to make calculating coin/gem encumbrance easier.
Containers: This area is used for listing containers in use (which don’t count against encumbrance). Empty containers should be listed as miscellaneous equipment. There are two easy methods for tracking which items are in which container:
(1) List miscellaneous equipment slot numbers next to the container.
(2) Put a symbol (star, circle, square, etc.) next to the container, then mark items in the container with the same symbol.
Tracking Supplies: The intention is that you list your supplies in the miscellaneous equipment section, but you can quickly check off supplies used on the trackers. At some point of convenience, you can go through your equipment list, adjust the totals, and then erase the supply checklists to start anew.
The Blank Space: After making the sheet I kept expecting something to crop up that I’d forgotten. (At which point I’d have this convenient blank space to slot it into.) After a half dozen sessions, nobody has suggested anything. (Let me know if you think of something.)
I need to try this out before being sure, but this seems brilliant.
Let me see if I’m doing it right. I’ll use my most recent D&D character, a 4th level cleric, as an example.
Strength is 10, so he uses the 10-5-3 rule.
Plate Mail and Magic Shield: 6 stones.
Virge: 1 stone.
Mace, sling: 2/5 bundle/stone(?)
17 sling stones, 4 torches, 8 vials of holy water, 12 flasks of oil, scroll of protection from evil: 1 bundle/stone.
Magic brooch, magic medallion: 0 stone.
Stowed dagger, stowed axe: 2/5 bundle/stone(?)
Questions:
1. Do you round up or down for partial bundles? I’ve got 4/5 of a bundle between my mace, sling and stowed weapons.
2. I’ve got a backpack that he carries his sling stones, torches, etc. Does that mean the backpack does not count toward encumbrance, because it’s worn?\
p.s. He’s also got 6473gp, 14sp and 8cp. In your system this would be just under a whopping 13 stone!
Up until now we’ve been hand-waving the coinage… it seems to be on the PC when he needs to make a big purchase/ransom/hush money, but “at home” when he dies miles from anywhere. I won’t deny that I’ve benefited from this, but as a frequent DM, it bugs me. Your system makes a big pile of loot both awesome and a challenge–which rules!
Basically looks right to me.
(1) 17 sling stones = 1 bundle, 4 torches = 1 bundle, 8 vials of holy water = 1 bundle, 12 flasks of oil = 1 bundle, scroll = 1 bundle. 5 bundles = 1 stone.
(2) Round up. As soon as you hit that 6th bundle, for example, you’re at 2 stones.
(3) Re: Coinage. Moneychangers are frequently visited in my campaign, wealth is often banked, and large amounts of liquid “cash” usually take the form of diamonds or other precious stones.
What about the backpack? Does it count toward encumbrance?
Containers don’t count towards encumbrance if they’re being used to carry equipment.
If you’re carrying a bunch of empty sacks to fill with treasure, they count. Once you fill them with treasure, you just count the encumbrance of the treasure.
Hi Justin,
I love these encumbrance rules — but I hope you won’t mind me saying that the sheet looked, to my designer’s eye, to be quite improvable. So I went ahead and made my own version, with (what I think is) better readability, layout, etc. Here it is — feel free to use it as you see fit:
Improved L&L equipment sheet
Very nice, Said!
I’ve updated my version of the sheet; it’s now much nicer-looking and more print-friendly (same link as before, for the L&L version), and I’ve also added an OD&D version. Enjoy, fellow blog readers 🙂
Great job, Said! If I may express a preference, having the rules right on the sheet would be great : easier to use this way. Thanks!
Gamosopher: Thanks!
Re: your suggestion: you mean, having the text of the actual encumbrance rules/mechanics on the sheet? Hmm, interesting. I’ll see if I can figure out a way to do that!
@Said Not everything, but the information in the “weight by stone” table seems pretty useful. Containers would also be nice. I’m a big fan of PC sheets that also tell the player the rules (so it helps 1) to speed up play, since looking up the book is not necessary and 2) to learn the rules, since by reading them over and over again, it eventually becomes known.)
Update: my encumbrance sheets can now be found on this page.
I use this sheet and system at my table, with a few modification. Misc. equipment ask an action just to be recover from the conteiners. So to allow people to have item ready to go, I add a belt with 5 slots and a waterskin position. This allow to have potion, scroll and simple/light weapon ready to go.