Big Sac

This is a too simple system for Encumbrance. It's not actually a system. I was going to call this “Dirt Simple Encumbrance” but it's not a real system and this name is more funny.

Big Sac

Nobody gives a shit how much stuff you carry around. You can carry around 6 torches and 14 arrows and a whole heap of iron spikes to wedge doors and three swords and 25 keys and nobody cares. Just tell players to write down all that stuff; just whatever they're willing to pay for and how much they're willing to keep track of. Your character sheet can have a hundred tools and sticks of chalk and I really don't mind this. You're not going to remember you have it and even if you do I'll reward you instead of making you play the game slower.

Then, you have the Sacks. Each “Sack” unit is one over-encumbered unit. Carrying a sack makes you vulnerable, you go last on the first round of combat (have to put it down before drawing your weapon, or autofail the “act in surprise by rolling 6+ with your class HD thing I do) and increases the chance of drawing wandering monsters from the noise (+1 on a d20 roll, probably shouldn't use if you use the 1 in 6 chance some do). If you're playing a game in real life, put an actual little burlap sack/dicebag on the table in front of the player, fill it with little rocks or beads or whatever, make it cool.

Each “Sack” is for whenver your characters are carrying around a ludicrous amount of stuff. If you're on a long term trip, then all your food is in one sack. All your camping gear is in another sack. If you brought disguises to wear to a fancy ball, that's a sack. One shovel doesn't encumber you, but if you want to take six of them to outfit a digging team, then that's another sack. Obviously all your treasures go in Sacks- all your coins can fit in a Sack as long as there isn't like a thousand of them. The big portraits and art items can go in another Sack. Magic equipment and potions go in another Sack, if you don't want to use them. Carrying them without putting them in a Sack is what exposes you to curses; even if you don't equip them. Carry an extra Sack if you want to be safe.

The exception to the sack rule is if you're wearing the heaviest possible mundane armor available in the setting- so Bronze Fullplate in a Bronze Age kind of archaic era game, full body suite of Chainmaille in a dark ages kind of game, or a sort of giant Havel the Rock/Onion Knight level of ridiculous full plate armor in a high medieval style of game. Anyone wearing all that shit counts as though they are wearing a sack. You also have to count as carrying a sack if you're carrying a large tower shield, or an oversized (d10) weapon. Each of these sacks don't stack, so if you're wearing heavy armor you might as well carry a huge weapon and big shield too since you'll be over encumbered anyway. Basically being heavily equipped = carry a sack.

Nobody cares about pounds or load. Just care about the Sacks. You Sacks can get stolen or left behind. There is a 1 in 6 chance you leave behind a sack on accident if you run in combat, or all of them if you didn't make a fighting retreat. You have to lug the sacks over a hill or through a river. If a character dies, they drop their Sacks. If you fail a save against dragon fire, one sack at random is burned apart- maybe if it hit your sac full of coins it just melted them a bit instead of destroying all your healing herbs and boiling away your sack full of healing potions you thought it would be a good idea to bring.

Your Strength score goes like this; if you have +1 Strength you can carry one sac without having the negatives. If you have +2 Strength you can carry two sacks without the negative. If you have -1 Strength then being forced to carry a Sack makes you even weaker, but you can avoid this by not carrying a Sack. If you have -2 Strength you can't carry Sacks at all.

Stow & Load - Encumbrance System

Characters keep track of the number of items they carry in load units. “Load” is an abstract unit of weight and size. Every character can carry 8 + Strength Modifier in load items per encumbrance level. Meaning that if you exceed your load, you go from not encumbered to lightly encumbered and can then carry another 8 + Strength Modifier load of items before counting as moderately encumbered. Many smell items are bundled together, or are simply ignored for encumbrance.

Encumbrance

The most Encumbered member of the party determines the speed and stealth bonus. Equipped items & armor count for encumbrance. This assumes the following procedure.

Not Encumbered: +1 stealth, -1 to Encounter range.

Lightly Encumbered: No stealth bonus. No change to Encounter range.

Moderately Encumbered: -1 stealth, +1 to Encounter range.

Greatly Encumbered: -2 stealth, +2 to Encounter range. Lose first combat round.

Stow

Stow is the number of items you have instant, easy access to on your person. The number of stow items worth of load is equal to the first 4 + Dex modifier items on your equipment list. Weapons DO count for stow, but armor or worn objects do not. Trying to use or extract any item from your inventory that is not in your stow takes 1d4-1 combat rounds.

For example; a lvl 2 Rogue archer would want to keep her bow, dagger, quiver of arrows, and a set of caltrops ready at her hand; total of 6 load. To grab her healing potion, it would have to take her 1d4-1 combat rounds to dig it out; she'd probably want the fighter between her and the enemy while digging, or go without until combat is over.

Load Examples

Weapons- Use size of damage die for load. d4 dagger or blackjack is 1 load, d6 sword or bow is 2 load, d8 polearm or claymore is 3 load, etc.

Thrown Weapons- Bundles of 3 per damage die size. For example, throwing daggers, bolas, darts, and chakrams at 1d4 are 1 load for 3 throwing weapons. Bigger sizes use larger loads for 3 items; Javelins and large acid flasks at 1d6 are 2 load for 3 items, etc.

Ammunition- Bundled in units of 20 per weapon die size for load. Sling bullets are carried in a bag of 20 bullets for 1 load. Arrows carried in quiver of 20 for 2 load. Heavy crossbow for d8 and Gunpowder flask and lead purse for a d8 musket weight 3 load for 20 shots, etc.

Tools- Approximate the tool to a weapon, or how you would use it as an improvised weapon, and use that as the load. Trowels and chisels are 1 load, shovels and prybars for 2 load, pickaxe & sledgehammer are 3 load each, etc.

Treasure- Each bag of 100 coins of any denomination is 1 load. Gemstones do not count for encumbrance, as long as they are not unnecessarily huge. Treasure chests are at least 2 load for one of those small ones, otherwise are load of 3+ and require both hands or two people to carry.

Supply Items & Misc- Rations, torches, and door wedges are all stored in bundles of 3. Halflings and similar sized beings, alive or a corpse, are load of 3 with humans and similar being 6 load.