If you get less than eight hours of sleep in a night, you must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 20 – the number of hours you slept) or become fatigued.

If you get less than four hours of sleep in a night, you are automatically fatigued and must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 20 – the number of hours you slept) or become exhausted.

Elves only require four hours of meditation in a night. If they get less than four hours of meditation, they must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 20 – twice the number of hours they meditated) or become fatigued. If they get less than two hours of meditation, they are automatically fatigued and must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 20 – twice the number of hours they meditated) or become exhausted.

If a character’s rest is interrupted by movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task, subtract 1 hour for each period of interruption from the amount of rest that they received.

JET LAG

If a character rapidly shifts to a different time zone (or the equivalent thereof) due to teleportation, dimensional travel, flying carpet, or jumbo jet, they must make a Fortitude saving throw for sleep deprivation even if they get 8 hours of sleep. In addition, they suffer a -1 penalty to their saving throw per time zone they’ve shifted. Once a character succeeds at two consecutive sleep deprivation saves, their circadian rhythm has acclimated to the new time zone and they are no longer affected by the jet lag.

Characters using magical or pharmacological aids — like a sleep spell — to force a rest period that’s properly synched with the local time zone gain a +5 bonus to a sleep deprivation saving throw caused by jet lag.

Taking your shoes off and scrunching them into the carpet grants a +2 circumstance bonus to sleep deprivation saving throws caused by jet lag. This bonus rises to +4 if you happen to do it during a terrorist attack.

CIRCADIAN EFFECTOR
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Cleric 1, Sorcerer/Wizard 1
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Targets: 1 creature
Duration: 1 minute per caster level
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

When cast on a character suffering from jet lag, circadian effector immediately removes the effects of jet lag. (It has no effect on other forms of fatigue or exhaustion.) The spell can also be used to induce the effects of jet lag on a character not currently suffering from it.

If cast on a sleeping character, circadian effector has the immediate effect of cancelling their jet lag. If used in this fashion, the effect is instantaneous (which means that it does not wear off and cannot be dispelled, although a character can be subjected to fresh jet lag if they move to yet another time zone).

This isn’t really an “advanced” rule. But I’ve got a whole series under that title.

This material is covered by the Open Gaming License.

The basic function of a drug is similar to a poison: They have a type (contact, ingested, inhaled, injury), a Fortitude saving throw DC to resist their effect, an initial effect, and a secondary effect. However, drugs also have the following statistics:

Buzz: The length of time the buzz from the drug lasts. The initial and secondary effects of the drug end when the buzz comes to an end. (For example, a PCP might inflict a Wisdom penalty as its initial effect and grant temporary hit points as its secondary effect. After the PCP’s buzz of 2d6 hours comes to an end, both the buzz and the temporary hit points go away.)

Addiction Threshold: The number of doses that must inflict the secondary effect of the drug before the user risks addiction. Once the user reaches the addiction threshold, they must make an addiction save. If a user goes one day without using the drug, reduce the current tally of doses by 1 to a minimum of 0.

Addiction DC: The DC of the Fortitude save required to resist addiction. On a failed save, the user becomes addicted to the drug (see below).

Recovery Threshold: If a user makes a number of successful withdrawal saves equal to the drug’s recovery threshold, their addiction is broken. They no longer suffer the effects of addition, but a recovering addict suffers a -4 penalty to future addiction saves against the same drug.

Compulsion DC: If a character addicted to a drug has the opportunity to take the drug, they must make a Will save against the drug’s compulsion DC. On a failed save, they must take the drug. If a character is currently suffering withdrawal, they take a -10 penalty on this saving throw. If the character is currently buzzed on the drug, they gain a +2 circumstance bonus on this saving throw for every dose of the drug currently affecting them.

ADDICTION

If a character becomes addicted to a drug, they must stay buzzed on the drug. When the buzz comes to an end, withdrawal begins. Withdrawal acts just like a disease with an incubation time of 1 day. Once per day, the victim must make a new saving throw against the withdrawal or suffer the withdrawal damage of the drug.

SAMPLE DRUGS

ABYSS DUST: Abyss dust is alchemically distilled from snakeweed (see below), although few associate the innocuous effects of snakeweed with this powerful narcotic. Abyss dust looks like ashes, with a rich black and gray color. It is administered through inhalation or smoking. Some hardcore users like to mix their abyss dust with snakeweed, claiming the snakeweed “takes the edge off” of some of the more extreme hallucinations.

Price: 1 gp
Effects: Inhaled DC 13, buzz 3d4 hours, initial effect Hallucinations (-4 on all action checks), secondary effect -1d4 Wisdom
Addiction: Addiction DC 13, threshold 3 doses
Withdrawal: Withdrawal DC 13 (fatigued, 2 Str, 1d4 Wisdom), Compulsion DC 10

BARBARIAN’S BLOOD: A recreational drug also known as “the red burn” and “veinglory”. Users of the drug are marked by a deep reddening of the skin and a significant protrusion of the veins. They experience a psychotropic dissociation in which physical pleasure is heightened and pain is experienced as pleasure.

Price: 2 gp
Effects: Ingested DC 13, buzz 1 hour, initial effect -2 penalty to Wisdom, secondary effect 2d4 temporary hit points
Addiction: Addiction DC 8, threshold 1 dose
Withdrawal: Withdrawal DC 15 (2 Str and 2 Con), Compulsion DC 15

SHADEBANE: Shadebane comes in the form of a pale, silver-grey powder. Water is added to this powder and it is then smeared on the skin. The user experiences hallucinations which give the impression of gifting them with visions from beyond the grave. Regardless of the truth or fiction of these visions, users of shadebane are intensely unpleasant for undead to approach. Undead within 5 feet of a shadebane user must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 12) or become sickened (even if they would normally be immune to the sickened effect). Long-term users of the drug, however, become obsessive with death. They often begin collecting memento mori and are drawn to graveyards and others places of death. With prolonged use, these morbid obsessions can lead to suicidal, homicidal, or necromantic inclinations.

Price: 15 gp
Effects: Contact DC 13, buzz 1 hour, initial effect Hallucinations (-1 penalty to all action checks), secondary effect sicken undead (see text)
Addiction: Addiction DC 12, threshold 4 doses
Withdrawal: Withdrawal DC 12 (1d6 Wis, 1d6 Con), Compulsion DC 12

SNAKEWEED: The sunburst flower is found growing in many ancient ruins throughout the Serpent Islands. The trances produced by smoking the dried leaves and flowers of the plant became a popular, casual intoxication among the pirates of Freeport and spread to ports throughout the Southern Sea. When dried, the stuff is simply called snakeweed by most, and while it can be psychologically addictive it is relatively harmless by itself. When smoked, snakeweed produces a feeling of serene calm, a deadening of pain, and slight euphoria. Heavy doses produce an incapacitating euphoric stupor, and sometimes inspire dreams of shadowy, serpentine forms and vast cities beneath the waves. In Freeport, it is commonly used by the poorer citizens and sailors as an escape from the drudgeries of everyday life.

Price: 2 sp
Effects: Inhaled DC 11, buzz 1d3 hours, initial effect +1 to Will saves, secondary effect -1 Wisdom
Addiction: Addiction DC 5, threshold 12 doses,
Withdrawal: Withdrawal DC 5 (insomnia, -1 penalty to action checks), recovery threshold 5, Compulsion DC 5

This material is covered by the Open Gaming License.

ENCUMBRANCE BY STONE

Encumbrance by Stone for OD&D
OD&D Equipment Sheet

Encumbrance by Stone for 3E / Legends & Labyrinths
3rd Edition / Legends & Labyrinths Equipment Sheet

5E Encumbrance by Stone

DESIGN GOALS

Basically, the entire point of the Encumbrance by Stone system is to simplify the encumbrance rules to the point where they 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 are 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 huge that no one is going to try to do it in the middle of a chase scene.

But in the half dozen sessions since I’ve introduced the encumbrance by stone rules, I’ve had explicit encumbrance-based play crop up twice. 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 provides a great deal of interest. (Going back to get your shield, for example, can be a unique motivator. Running out of food because you had to leave them behind can throw your plans completely out of whack.)

The real root of my desire to find a workable encumbrance system, however, lies in the open table wilderness explorations my campaign is currently moving towards: Encumbrance can make a big difference in how you supply yourself for a particular expedition and that, in turn, will lead to a lot of interesting strategic decisions down the road. Similarly, being forced to leave potentially valuable treasure behind because you can’t carry it will drive interest in revisiting locales.

THINKING ABOUT STONES

Roughly speaking, for the purposes of estimating the stone weight of larger items:

OD&D 1 Stone = 15 lbs.

D&D3 1 Stone = 10 lbs.

But in practice you can just assume anywhere from 10 to 20 pounds. 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 immersive for a fantasy world. (“I’m carrying about eight stone.”)

In terms of performance, the system will give you a result fairly homogenous with 3^rd Edition up to around Strength 25 and then it begins to fall behind the actual tables when performing a straight conversion of stone-to-pounds.

I’m generally okay with that performance for a few reasons: First, most characters won’t reach those levels of strength.

Second, the bundling system tends to be friendly towards the characters. Each bundle is supposedly around 10 pounds, but many common bundles will actually weigh more than that. (Other bundles will under-perform, of course, but I suspect the opposite will more often be true.) And if you’re carrying 40+ stone, then you have to be carrying 150+ bundles (or a lot of really bulky items).

Third, speaking of 150+ bundles, bulk does become an issue at some point. You may be super-strong, but there are only so many places for you to strap stuff to your body. The exception to that is when you’re just lifting a single, heavy object in your hands (which is why I included a separate column for lift).

Fourth, I just don’t care that much. If I did care that much, I would just use the full-fledged, count-every-single-pound method of encumbrance.

SPECIAL THANKS

The design of this system is heavily influenced by Delta’s D&D Hotspot and Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

Go to Part 1

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.)

Go to Design Notes

This simplified method for handling encumbrance will be used in Legends & Labyrinths, but it can also be easily dropped into any 3rd Edition game. (The rules for encumbrance by armor and the effects of encumbrance can be found in the core rulebooks.) The design is indebted to Delta’s D&D Hotspot and Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

Encumbrance, measured in stones carried, determines the load a character is currently carrying. Loads are either light, medium, or heavy and a character with Strength 10 follows an encumbrance rule of 10-5-3:  At 3 stones they are carrying a medium load, at 5 stones they are carrying a heavy load, and their maximum load is 10 stones.

Characters with lower to higher Strength scores adjust this rule by 2-1-½ per point of Strength. Partial stones can be rounded up. The minimum possible rule, regardless of Strength score, is 2-1-½. (For example, a character with Strength 8 would have an encumbrance rule of 6-3-2. A character with Strength 18 would have an encumbrance rule of 26-13-7.) These adjustments are summarized for convenience on the table at the end of this post.

Lifting and Pulling: The character can lift and carry the amount indicated on the table above their head. They can lift twice this amount and stagger around with it (moving only 5 feet per round as a full action and losing their Dexterity bonus to AC). They can generally drag or pull five times this amount along the ground (favorable conditions can double this; bad circumstances can reduce the amount to one-half or less at the DM’s discretion).

Tremendous Strength: For scores higher than 29, find the Strength score between 20 and 29 with the same final digit and multiply the listed lift score by 4 for every ten points the creature’s strength is above that score. (For example, a creature with Strength 38 would be able to lift 1,200 x 4 = 4,800 lbs.)

Adjusting for Size: The encumbrance rule for a creature is doubled for each size category above Medium and reduced by ½ for each size category below Medium (to a minimum of 1-½-¼). The encumbrance of armor, however, is also adjusted by the same factor (to a minimum of a half stone).

Quadrupeds: Quadrupeds can carry heavier loads, equal to 150% of a 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. 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.

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

Go to Part 2: Encumbrance Sheet

This material is covered by the Open Game License.