I was recently reminded of the clusterfuck release of the D&D Essentials line. (Designed to reduce the cost of entry to the game while reducing confusion over what books you need to buy in order to play, it has increased both cost and confusion.)

If a genie put me in charge of Wizards of the Coast, this is what I would have released instead:

Three boxed sets, each containing:

• A rulebook with all the rules necessary for a complete tier of play.
• An adventure book with a complete adventure path designed to take you through the entire tier. (Preferably using node-based or hexcrawl-inspired design. This would probably necessitate abandoning or modifying the delve format to make this work with a reasonable page count.)
• A set of dice and a solo adventure pamphlet in the Heroic Tier box.
• Whatever other goodies (character sheets, tokens, power cards, miniatures, handouts) I can get away with and still hit a price point somewhere in the $30-50 range.

I would release these boxes on a 6 month schedule. 18-24 months after the core set went on sale, I would release a new “Heroic Adventure Pack” which would contain everything in the core set but with a different adventure path. 6 months after that, a new paragon tier expansion would be released (with a new adventure path but the same rulebook).

Depending on sales performance, I might phase the old versions of the products out. But the goal would be to have:

1. A single, consistent box that says “DUNGEONS & DRAGONS” on the front cover.
2. All other products are clearly labeled “EXPANSION PACK”, making it clear which product you need to buy to start playing. (The one-and-only product that doesn’t say “Expansion” on it.)
3. To have “all the rules” you just need to pick up any combination of HEROIC-PARAGON-EPIC.

The idea is to time your product release schedule to encourage people to play through a complete 1-30 campaign and then restart a new 1-30 campaign when the next sets starts cycling through.

And, yes, the scheme is specifically designed so that people end up with multiple copies of the exact same rulebooks. I would make it a point to not even change the cover art on them. I want you to think of them as duplicates, because that increases the likelihood that you’ll loan them to your friends or even give them away.

This sequence of box sets is the core of your game line. Everything else supports them as advanced options. For example, the Heroes of the Blank Blank line could offer new character class options (possibly tied back into the current sequence of boxed sets).

Dungeon’s DDI would be used to offer an alternative track of play: Each month should contain an adventure path scenario, a heroic tier scenario, a paragon tier scenario, and an epic tier scenario. Over the course of any 18 month stretch, you’d be offering 2-3 full tracks of 1-30 play (boxed sets, Dungeon adventure path, and plug-and-play Dungeon content).

One interesting side effect of using an encumbrance system simple enough that it actually gets used is that it tends to highlight places where the underlying mechanics don’t actually work right.

These problems, generally speaking, can be mostly seen in the largest creatures. For example, rocs are supposed to serve as mounts for storm giants. But rocs can only carry up to 7,456 pounds while flying and storm giants weigh 12,000 pounds according to the Monster Manual. (And that’s assuming that the storm giant is naked.)

I often have a strong desire, once I start tinkering with a sub-system like this, to tweak things in an effort to find solutions for these sorts of problem. But this can be something of a primrose path: Fixing the underlying problem here requires changing the design of the roc, the storm giant, or both. It’s not something that can be solved at a systemic level, and while the abstraction of the encumbrance by stone system fixes some of these problems; it also introduces others.

One tweak you might want to look at, though, is allowing flying creatures to carry up to a medium load when using the encumbrance by stone system in order to give them a larger margin of error when dealing with the abstraction of the system. (On the other hand, this really only seems to be a problem with Huge or larger mounts carrying Large or larger riders due to the cubic weight gain of larger creatures. Since this is a situation which rarely applies to PCs or their mounts, it can probably be safely sweeped under the rug labeled “I Don’t Really Care” ninety-nine times out of a hundred.)

Now, if you’re really tired of reading about encumbrance rules at this point… you’re in luck! I’m all done. My next post will have absolutely nothing to do with encumbrance.

But first:

Luke Encumbered

That backpack looks pretty full, so call it 3 stones. And Yoda can probably be classed as a halfling at 2 stones. Call it 5 stones and Luke is moving at 9″.

It’s so easy!

A couple days ago I described the first foray of my PCs into the Crypt of Luan Phien, a segmented dungeon which periodically rotates and rearranges its internal layout. As part of that post, I included the maps they drew.

Since then, there have been three return expeditions to the cairn hill, each allowing them to further perfect their understanding of the complex. Because of the unusual nature of the dungeon, I thought people might be interested to see how their maps have evolved:

This is the refinement of their first expeditionary map. Basically charting out their path through the dungeon, while also trying to figure out where the breakpoints in the rotation scheme lay. Analyzing this map allowed the mapper to produce this:

This map, representing the first effort to spatially understand how the segments linked together, went through several revisions, but quickly proved accurate enough to allow them to begin moving through the complex with purpose and intent (instead of hope and abandon).

After their last expedition, the mapper felt she had achieved a deep enough understanding of how the complex was working to further refine the map, resulting in this work-in-progress:

You can see larger versions of each map by clicking on them.

For reference purposes, the letters correspond to the original map as follows: A = 1, B = 2, C = 8, D = trap north of 13, E = 7, F = 12, G = unkeyed area next to 14, H = 13, I = area south of 13, J = 6, K = 10, L = 9, M = 11, N = 4, O = 14, Q = 3, R = 5.

If you’re curious about my peculiar variances in the dungeon, you can also check out my current key for the dungeon in PDF format:

Hex P8 – Crypt of Luan Phien

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