I've talked about Encumbrance before. Basically I prefer a slot-based system which is fairly common among the OSR. What I'm thinking about now is how treasure is designated in an adventure. Typically a module (at least the ones I've run recently) will list off the how many coins of what type, like this bit from Lost Mines of Phandelvin.
My problem with this is the module gives boxed text all over the place. Why not here? It's not like the players are going to count out the cp and sp, at least not until a short or long rest, they won't know what the potions are, and it doesn't list how much it weighs in a system that counts every lbs. This is a place for boxed text.
For my example 1 ENC = 1 Slot.
In addition to the stolen provisions, Klarg has a wood chest with metal binding (5 ENC capacity, 1 ENC when empty, takes two hands to carry) with two potions (.5 ENC) and a jade statute of a frog (.5 ENC) small enough to fit into a pocket or pouch. The chest is also full of copper and silver coins (3.5 ENC).
Potions are both potions of healing. Jade statuette is worth 40gp. 600 cp (2 ENC), 110 sp (1.5 ENC).
The numbers are made up for the example, a GM should determine how much coins weight in bunches of ten or a hundred. When the players take a break and have time to roughly count the treasure, they can learn the amounts of the coins (they may just decide to leave the copper behind, or separate out coins so that they can dump the copper in a pinch while knowing the gold or gems are safe). Also notice that the chest takes two hands, so now it's a useful tool but all that ENC is gonna bog someone down.
Anyway, I'm still organizing my thoughts but it seems like it should work.
No comments:
Post a Comment