Simplified Encumbrance

If the standard encumbrance rules aren’t worth the trouble, here’s an easier way to do it. Most of the weight a character carries is in armor and weapons. To streamline things, only use the character’s armor, shield, and largest weapon when figuring the total weight carried. This slightly favors PCs, but it’s much faster than tracking every addition of weight.

In Chapter Seven, armor is rated with a base encumbrance. This is the typical encumbrance level of a human wearing that armor. For example, plate mail is rated as moderate encumbrance, with a movement of 6 for a typical human. These default values make it easy to eyeball NPC movement rates.

If you use the simplified encumbrance rule, make sure that it is not abused. If the DM feels that a PC is taking advantage of this rule (for example, carrying dozens of weapons or vast amounts of adventuring gear), he can insist on using the more detailed accounting of the normal encumbrance rules.

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