A cerberus spawn is a large, three-headed dog. They usually have sleek, grey-brown fur, although some are jet black. One can often seen their veins, which glow like red-hot lava through their skin. Their eyes, too, glow red above their slavering maws.

Spawn of Hades. Cerberus spawn are said to be the get of Cerberus itself, the great hound who stands guard upon the gates of Hades. Like their forefather, cerberus spawn are used throughout Hades to keeps souls from escaping their gaols and masters.

Guard Dogs of the Lower Planes. From Hades, the cerberus spawn have spread throughout the Lower Planes, where many demons and devils employ them as guardians. Even wild packs are sometimes seen, roaming the Abyss, feasting upon the damned souls of Avernus, or  adding their howls to the lamentations of Cocytus.

Ghost Hounds. The gifts of cerberus spawn are also renowned on the Material Plane, where their affinity for souls makes them expert trackers of ghosts and other incorporeal undead.

Packs of cerberus spawn are also often brought to the Material Plane by more powerful fiends. They are sometimes abandoned by these masters, or left feral after mortal heroes dispose of their keepers. Such hounds often seek a way home, although some find the easy prey of the mortal world to their liking and settle down.

Cerberus spawn breed true, but rarely (only going into heat once every thirteen years), so fortunately these packs rarely become endemic. Druids often seek to eliminate them, however, because they tend to violently displace native predators. (It’s not unusual, for example, to find dead wolves marking the limits of a cerberus spawn’s territory.)

CERBERUS SPAWN

Large fiend, neutral evil

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Armor Class 15 (natural armor)

Hit Points 85 (10d10+30)

Speed 50 ft.

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STR 22 (+6), DEX 9 (-1), CON 17 (+3), INT 8 (-1), WIS 12 (+1), CHA 5 (-3)

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Skills Perception +5

Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive perception 15

Languages Infernal

Challenge 5 (1,800 XP)

Proficiency Bonus +3

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Three Heads: A spawn has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks and on saving throws against being blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, stunned, and knocked unconscious.

Soul Scenter: A cerberus spawn gains advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks related to ghosts and similar undead.

Magic Resistance. A spawn has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

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ACTIONS

Multiattack. The spawn makes three bite attacks.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack. +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d10+6) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 17 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.

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Go to Part 1 – Click for PDF

Where the encumbrance by stone system really comes alive is the equipment sheet, which 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 value 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 is calculated as shown. (To quench the “I have one coin and it apparently weighs a ton” complaints, you can allow PCs carrying 20 or fewer coins 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: This column is 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 carrying. Bam.

Add Misc. Equipment + Heavy Items + Coins/Gems + Armor/Shield/Weapons to determine your Total Encumbrance. In practice, this is all single digit arithmetic and adjusting your encumbrance on-the-fly during an adventure is practically automatic.

Moving 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 & 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: The specific value of gems 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 several years, nobody has suggested anything. (Let me know if you think of something.)

DESIGN NOTES

The goal of the encumbrance by stone system is to simplify the encumbrance rules to the point where:

1. It is virtually effortless to track encumbrance and, therefore,
2. The rules can be used to meaningful effect on-the-fly during actual gameplay.

All the way back in 1974, this type of gameplay was discussed. In Volume 3: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, for example, we can read:

If the adventurers choose to flee, the monster will continue to pursue in a straight line as long as there is not more than 90 feet between the two. (…) Distance will open or close dependent upon the relative speeds of the two parties, men according to their encumbrance and monsters according to the speed given on the Monster Table in Volume II. In order to move faster characters may elect to discard items such as treasure, weapons, shields, etc. in order to lighten encumbrance.

But in actual practice the encumbrance rules were such a pain in the ass — and have remained such a pain in the ass — that either (a) they’re not used at all or (b) the amount of calculation required to adjust your encumbrance is sufficiently onerous that no one is going to try to do it in the middle of a chase scene.

When I started using the encumbrance by stone system, however, I almost immediately saw explicit encumbrance-based play crop up in actual play. And although “encumbrance-based play” may not sound all that exciting at first glance, being forced to throw away your favorite shield or abandon several weeks worth of rations on the pack horse actually creates really cool moments! (Going back for your shield, for example, can be a unique motivator. Running out of food because you had to leave the rations behind can throw your plans completely out of whack and force you to start improvising.)

My experience has been that, once you have a fully functional encumbrance system, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. Encumbrance certainly isn’t essential to every adventure, but it is particularly vital for expedition-based play: It is a budget you are spending to prepare for the expedition and it is also frequently the limit on the rewards you can bring back. The desire to manage and expand your encumbrance limits for an expedition (by using mounts, pack animals, and/or hirelings) will frequently unlock unique gameplay and storytelling opportunities.

Running expedition-based play without encumbrance is like running combat without keeping track of hit points. The encumbrance by stone just makes it easy to do what you need to do.

THINKING ABOUT STONES

Roughly speaking, for the purposes of estimating the stone weight of larger items, you can assume that a stone is equal to 15 lbs. in 5^th Edition.

Thinking about the “value” of a stone in such concrete terms, however, is to largely miss the point of the system: The stone is deliberately chosen as an obscure unit of measurement whose definition is intentionally vague. The stone is not defined as a specific weight; it exists in a nebulous range, but probably somewhere between 10 and 20 pounds most of the time.

This is based on historical fact: Although eventually set by British law at 14 pounds, the stone historically varied depending on the commodity being traded and the location in which it was being traded. (For example, the 1772 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica states that a stone of beef was eight pounds in London, twelve pounds in Hertfordshire, and sixteen pounds in Scotland.) This makes it fairly ideal to provide a system which uses crude approximation in an effort to vastly simplify the bookkeeping involved with tracking encumbrance. And the slightly archaic nature of the terminology is also immersive for a fantasy world. (“I’m carrying about eight stone.”)

“But I’m British!”

The British still commonly use stones to measure body weight. And I’ve heard from some, but not all, that this makes it too difficult to slip into the medieval/Renaissance mindset where weights are relative and often imprecise.

If you find that to be the case for yourself, I recommend just swapping out the term “stone” for something else. You can go for something generic like “slots,” although you lose the immersive quality of the system (where both you and your character think of their load in similar terms). Another option would be a purely fictional term. For example, you might reframe the system using dwarven daliks.

SPECIAL THANKS

The design of this system was originally inspired by Delta’s D&D Hotspot and Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

This simplified method for handling encumbrance using an imprecise, medieval-mindset way of thinking about weight was originally designed in 2011 for OD&D and 3^rd Edition. This version of the rules is fully adapted for 5^th Edition.

Encumbrance, measured in stones carried, determines the load a character is currently carrying. A character’s encumbrance can be normal, encumbered, or heavily encumbered. A character has a carrying capacity equal to their Strength in stones (which is the maximum weight they can carry), they are heavily encumbered if they are carrying more than two-thirds of this number (round down), and encumbered if they are carrying more than one-third this number (round down).

Each character has an encumbrance rule to keep track of these thresholds, which are precalculated on the table below. For example, a character with Strength 10 has an encumbrance rule of 10-6-3 (meaning they are encumbered when carrying 3 or more stones, heavily encumbered when carrying 6 or more stones, and cannot carry more than 10 stones).

Encumbered: An encumbered character’s speed drops by 10 feet.

Heavily Encumbered: A heavily encumbered character’s speed drops by 20 feet and they have disadvantage on ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws that use Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution.

Push, Drag, or Lift: A character can push, drag, or lift up (without carrying) twice their carrying capacity. While pushing or dragging weight in excess of their carrying capacity, a character’s speed drops to 5 feet.

Adjusting for Size: The encumbrance rule for a creature is doubled for each size category above Medium. The encumbrance rule is halved for Tiny creatures. (It is easiest to consider a Tiny creature as having half its Strength score for the purposes of calculating encumbrance, a Large creature to have double its Strength, and so forth.)

Variant – Quadrupeds: Quadrupeds can carry heavier loads and have an encumbrance rule equal to twice an equivalent biped.

WEIGHT BY STONE

To determine the number of stones carried by a character, simply consult the table below.

Miscellaneous Equipment: Up to twenty items of the same type (scrolls, arrows, potions, rope) can be bundled together for the purposes of encumbrance, with five bundles being equal to 1 stone. Items of different types aren’t bundled when determining encumbrance.

Stowed Weapons: Stowed weapons have been compactly stored in a way which makes them more difficult to draw (but easier to carry). Stowed weapons must be retrieved before they can be used, but they only count as 1 stone per 5 weapons.

Heavy Items: Anything weighing more than roughly 10 pounds can’t be effectively bundled. Estimate a weight in stones (about 10-20 pounds to the stone). When in doubt, call it a stone.

Clothing / Worn Items: Worn items don’t count for encumbrance, unless the individual items would qualify as heavy items.

CONTAINERS

Weapons are assumed to be in sheaths, armor is worn, and you might have a wineskin or two strapped to your belt. But since there’s a limit to how much you can hold in your hands, everything else you’re carrying needs a place to live. As a rule of thumb, containers can carry:

Empty containers count as miscellaneous equipment. Containers being used to carry items don’t count towards encumbrance.

Larger sacks (often referred to as “loot sacks”) are also possible, but these cannot generally be stored on the body. They must be carried in both hands.

VARIANT – CREATURE WEIGHT BY SIZE

Your own weight does not count against your encumbrance, but these figures are important for mounts. (They’ll also come in handy if you need to carry a corpse or prisoner.)

These figures are meant to serve as a useful rule of thumb, being roughly accurate for creatures similar in build and type to humans (i.e. fleshy humanoids). There will, however, be significant variance within each size category. Even typical animals of Huge size, for example, can easily range anywhere from 400 stones to 3,000 stones. Creatures of unusual material can obviously shatter these assumptions entirely (ranging from light-as-air ether cloud fairies to impossibly dense neutronium golems).

ENCUMBRANCE RULES

Part 2: The Sheet

ThinkDM recently wrote a blog post discussing the skill list in 5^th Edition called 5 Skill D&D. His two main points are,

First: The optional rules that allow you to roll any Skill + Ability combination should just be the way that the game works rather than an optional rule. I enthusiastically endorse this: Not only is it basically a no-brainer to take advantage of this flexibility and utility, but if you DON’T use stuff like Charisma (Investigation) checks then there are some glaring holes in the default skill list.

Second: Once you’re using these optional rules, it becomes clear that there are many skills that don’t need to exist. The most clear-cut examples of this, in my opinion, are Athletics and Acrobatics. One of these is Physical Stuff + Strength while the other is Physical Stuff + Dexterity. If you can just combine a “Physical Stuff” skill with the appropriate ability score, then you clearly don’t need two different skills for this.

Concluding that the game, therefore, has a whole bunch of superfluous skills, ThinkDM aggressively eliminates and combines skill to end up with a list of just five skills:

• Fitness (Athletics, Acrobatics, Endurance)
• Speechcraft (Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, Performance (oration))
• Stealth (Stealth, Deception (passing a disguise))
• Awareness (Investigation, Perception, Insight, Survival)
• Knack (Sleight of Hand, Medicine, Animal Handling, Performance (instrument))

(Note: He eliminates the Knowledge skills – Arcana, History, Religion, Nature, Medicine – entirely.)

While I agree with the general principles here, I have some quibbles with the, in my opinion, overzealous implementation. So let’s take a closer look at some of these decisions.

I’M SOLD

I’m sold on Fitness, Speechcraft, and Stealth.

Stealth is fairly self-explanatory: Most of the conflation here actually happened before 5^th Edition was even published, which – as I’ve discussed in Random GM Tips: Stealthy Thoughts, among other places – is something I’m fully in favor of.

Lumping all the social skills into Speechcraft might initially seem too reductionist, but it’s another good example of how ability score pairings can be used to distinguish different uses of the skill and differentiate characters: Charisma + Speechcraft can be used for making a good first impression, seducing someone through sheer sex appeal, or swaying a crowd’s opinion through an emotional appeal. Strength + Speechcraft can be used for physically threatening someone. Intelligence + Speechcraft can be used for witty repartee. And so forth.

I’ve also found that this kind of conflation can sidestep the conceptual difficult of trying to figure out which skill is appropriate when someone tries to, for example, persuade the local garrison to join them by lying to them about the goblins’ intentions while subtly threatening to expose the garrison captain’s dark secret. (Logically the debate about whether this is Perception, Deception, or Intimidation should just shift to which ability score is the most appropriate; I’m just saying that, in my experience, this doesn’t usually happen. Don’t really know why, but people just seem more willing to let the muddy reality of most social interactions default to any appropriately invoked option when it’s ability scores. This also frequently flows in the opposite direction, with players moving away from one-note presentations of “this is my deception” or “this is me persuading her” to more nuanced portrayals within the broad rubric of a skill like Speechcraft. Your mileage may vary.)

I particularly like the name of Speechcraft. It has a nicely fantasy-esque feel to it; evocative, but not binding.

By contrast, I don’t like Fitness as the name for a skill. Fitness is not an action, but rather a state of being, and I don’t think it clearly captures the spirit of most such tests made at the table. I’d stick with Athletics.

AWARENESS

As I discuss at length in Rulings in Practice: Perception-Type Tests, I think there’s a lot of utility in clearly distinguishing between noticing things and actively investigating things. This becomes even clearer, I think, when you start combining them with different ability scores: Charisma + Investigation is canvassing information and rumor-gathering. Perception + Wisdom/Charisma, on the other hand, is reading body language and the like.

Lumping Survival in here doesn’t make any sense to me at all. The skill is a lot more than just following tracks and, in my opinion, should be important enough to most D&D campaigns to merit its own silo.

KNACK

Knack is all too clearly “here’s a bunch of skills I need to arbitrarily glom together so that I can hit an arbitrary clickbait title.” There’s little reason that the pick-pocket should also be the party’s best healer. Conversely, not everyone who is good at riding a horse should automatically be great at picking pockets.

So split those back out.

KNOWLEDGE

My personal proclivity is that not only should there be at least enough knowledge skills that everyone in the group can have a distinct expertise (which often means more knowledge skills than party members), but that there should be enough knowledge skills that it becomes quite likely that any given group will, in fact, have holes in their knowledge.

(Why? Because that forces them to either work around the gap in their knowledge, do research, seek out an expert, and/or set a personal goal to become the expert they need. And those are all interesting outcomes.)

As I mentioned above, ThinkDM eliminates all knowledge-type skills. He offers a contradictory hodgepodge of reasons for this (for example, “no one knows everything” but also “the GM should always just assume the PCs know everything”) which I could discuss at more length, but honestly I’m tired of explaining why failure is narratively interesting and delayed gratification is satisfying.

What I really want is for a knowledge skill list to completely cover the fields of knowledge in a setting. This doesn’t mean getting super granular in the distinctions (quantum mechanics vs. electromagnetics vs. optics). Often the opposite, in fact. When a question of knowledge arises in the setting, what I want is for there to be a clear skill check that can answer the question.

This is why I really dislike the incomplete fields of knowledge in 5^th Edition’s current skill list and much prefer 3^rd Edition’s comprehensive list. (3^rd Edition was also designed to let people custom-design knowledge categories, although a surprising number of people never understood that.)

If we want to slice down the knowledge-type skills, I’d say start by saying that Backgrounds should grant proficiency in any related Knowledge checks.

And then my list of knowledge-type skills would be:

• Arcana
• Religion
• Lore
• Knowledge: (Specific Location)

With Lore here covering the entirety of mundane knowledge.

Thus we broadly distinguish between mystic shit, god-stuff, and everything else. This gives the opportunity to spread Knowledge around the table (instead of just one guy who’s a smarty-pants) and gives players the ability to flavor their character.

We’ve also given people a chance to say, “I know this city or forest or whatever really, really well.” It’s a skill type I often reach for as a GM (regardless of system) and I think it can be very flavorful for players looking to define their characters or give them a unique niche.

THE BIG LIST

• Animal Handling
• Arcana
• Athletics
• Investigation
• Knowledge: (Specific Location)
• Lore
• Medicine
• Perception
• Religion
• Sleight of Hand
• Speechcraft
• Stealth
• Survival

If you want an even tighter list, you can:

• Merge Investigation with Perception
• Fold Medicine into Lore
• Drop Sleight of Hand into Stealth

To give you a nice, notable number with 10 Skills.

TOOL PROFICIENCIES

In 5^th Edition, of course, skills are only half the story. You’ve also got tool proficiencies.

You don’t have to muck about with these, but I think there’s definitely some conflation here that would be valuable, although it’s a lot more fidgety. (This is somewhat inherent in the decision to use tool proficiencies in the first place.) 5^th Edition already sets precedent for this, however, with things like Vehicle (Land) and Vehicle (Water) proficiencies which cover a multitude of specific tools/vehicles.

The question I have is why other obvious candidates likes Musical Instruments and Gaming Sets weren’t similarly grouped together into a single proficiency.

At a certain point in staring at this, though, you realize it probably makes more sense to just create a list of skills that require tools to use:

• Alchemy
• Art
• Craft
• Gaming
• Music
• Thievery
• Vehicle (Air/Land/Water)

With the following notes:

• Navigator’s and Cartography Tools would be conflated into Survival.
• Forgery Kit would be conflated into Stealth or Thievery.
• Disguise Kit would be conflated into Stealth.
• Herbalism Kit is conflated into Alchemy.
• Poisoner’s Kit is conflated into Thievery (although you could make a case for a separate skill).

To make this actually work, of course, you’ll have to do additional work on how characters gain skills. May not be worth the headache, so keeping this short list in a separate silo (which can be trained) may still make the most sense.

Sometimes you want to use your weapon or your martial arts skill to do something more than just lethally incapacitate a target. For example, maybe you want to knock the White Witch’s wand out of her hands. Or shoot a fleeing nobleman in the leg to slow them down.

1. Define the effect you want to achieve with your called shot.
2. The DM determines a penalty which will be applied to your attack roll (usually -2 or -4).
3. If your attack roll is successful, you deal damage normally and the target must make an appropriate saving throw (DC 5 + the margin of success on your attack roll) or suffer the desired effect.

GUIDELINES

Here’s some guidance for DMs making rulings with these rules.

STUFF YOU SHOULD VETO: This system is not designed to bypass the normal rules for combat.

I want to shoot them in the head! The effect you’re looking to achieve here is killing the target. We have a specialized set of rules designed just for that: It’s called “making a normal attack.”

I want to gouge out their eyes and permanently blind them! Like killing the target, permanent maiming in D&D doesn’t happen until you run out of hit points (and usually not even then). You can kick sand in their face or give them a cut that causes blood to run down into their eyes and temporarily blind them, but this system isn’t about inflicting permanent damage or disfigurement.

I want to paralyze them so that they can’t take any actions! This is probably too strong. You might make an exception if the PC is taking advantage of some specific environmental factor (e.g., making them fall backwards into a vat filled with sticky ethereal goo); this shouldn’t be something that characters can just automatically do without special equipment or a special ability.

Similarly, anything that would normally be handled by the Grapple mechanics should be handled through the Grapple mechanics.

EFFECT MECHANICS: There are a number of conditions which are appropriate for a called shot effect — Blinded, Deafened, Frightened, Prone, Restrained. Other effects could include the target being disarmed, distracted, or having their speed reduced. Lots of stuff can be mechanically modeled by giving the target disadvantage or another character advantage against the target.

THE PENALTY: In determining the size of the penalty, think about whether the desired effect is mild (-2) or significant (-4). Anything that requires the target to spend an action to remove the effect should probably be considered significant.

Circumstances can also affect the penalty. For example, trying to blind a beholder is probably a lot more difficult than blinding a cyclops. Alternatively, give the target advantage on their saving throw if appropriate.

DURATION: How long should the effect last for? As mentioned above, avoid permanent effects. If in doubt, go with 1d4 rounds or until the target takes an action to resolve the problem.

DESIGN NOTES

Why let the attacker deal damage normally AND create the effect? The goal of this system is to make combat more interesting by encouraging players to think outside of the “I hit it with my sword / I hit it with my sword again” box. By allowing them to both do damage and do something interesting, you eliminate the action cost penalty where players avoid doing interesting things because their best option is always to deal as much damage as possible and end the combat as quickly as possible.

Why a penalty? Because otherwise PCs would need to make called shots on every single attack. Which, if the goal is to make combat more interesting, might seem like a great idea. In practice, however, thinking up the called shot when circumstances don’t call for one or where you’re not inspired by a cool idea becomes a mechanical chore. And chores are boring.

Why not use disadvantage on the attack instead of a penalty? Whenever a character had disadvantage from another source, they would be mechanically incentivized to make a called shot every single time… which leads us back to the same problem above, only it’s more ridiculous. (“We’re fighting in the dark? Guess I should be making exclusively called shots to the knee.”) The problems associated with hard-coded advantage/disadvantage are discussed more in Untested 5^th Edition: Situational Advantage.

What about the existing mechanics for Shoving (PHB, p. 195) or Disarm (DMG, p. 271)? You can still use those mechanics in concert with called shots. Taking the Disarm action, for example, should make it more likely that you successfully disarm your target, but the cost is that you’re focusing your whole action on that.

I also generally recommend that DMs look at the “Contests in Combat” sidebar on p. 195 of the PHB and spend more time empowering and encouraging players to come up with cool uses for contests; which is more or less the same philosophy as this called shot system but with the PC spending their full action to accomplish the desired effect. I suspect that using these called shot rules will, ironically, ALSO result in the players forgoing their attack more often to focus on a contest. (Once you get players thinking outside of the box, they tend to continue thinking outside of the box.)

What about the Battle Master? The Battle Master’s Disarming Attack ability is mechanically similar to a called shot, but completely superior (pun intended): They suffer no penalty to their attack roll AND can add their superiority die to the attack’s damage roll. The DC of the target’s saving throw is calculated differently, but should generally be higher than a generic called shot with a disarm effect.

(I actually dropped the DC for called shots from DC 8 + margin of success to DC 5 + margin of success to help make sure the Battle Master’s mechanical edge was well protected here. Playing around with that value to make sure that called shots feel worthwhile, but without becoming more likely to succeed than the Battle Master’s maneuvers is probably the key thing to watch out for from a playtest standpoint. In a pinch, get the called shot DC right and then just give the Battle Master the option of using that DC if it would be better than their flat DC.)