Encumbrance and Movement (Skills and Powers)

Encumbrance and Movement The AD&D Master’s Options: Skills and Powers rules retain the encumbrance categories (None, Light, Moderate, Heavy, Severe) familiar to players. As always, the level of detail for encumbrance rules is a matter for DMs and players alike to choose.

The rules of this section are intended to offer streamlining options—ways that players can retain the necessary details of encumbrance without quite so much mathematical precision. And, as always, they’re designed to add a few new elements of fun.

Even the fastest sprinter won’t move so quickly when he’s carrying 140 pounds of armor, weapons, and adventuring gear. A character’s encumbrance falls into five categories: None, Light, Moderate, Heavy, and Severe. Encumbrance is described in the Player’s Handbook in Chapter Six: Money and Equipment.

To determine the character’s encumbrance category, find his Strength and read across the table. The numbers on the table are the breakpoints for each category. A character with a Strength of 14 is not encumbered until he has 56 pounds of gear, Lightly encumbered until he has 86 pounds of gear, Moderately encumbered until he carries 116 pounds of gear, and Heavily encumbered up to a load of 146 pounds.

To calculate a monster’s strength for this purpose, add 31_2 points per size category (rounded down) to the monster’s base Hit Dice (ignoring plusses).

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.

Expanded Base Movement

Characters who have a high score in either Dexterity/Balance or Strength/Stamina, or both, can increase their base movement allowance above the 6 or 12 for characters of their race.

For characters with high Strength/Stamina scores, add the character’s Attack adjustment (bonus added on rolls to hit) to the character’s base movement allowance.

If a character has a high Dexterity/Balance score, add the character’s Reaction/Attack adjustment to the base movement allowance.

A character with multiple high scores can add the bonuses from both of these categories.

Recording Bulk (Optional Rule)

In addition to weight, the items of equipment are given a bulk rating—an expansion of the earlier categories S, M, and L. The bulk ratings are separate from weight, and represent how much space each object takes up.

Small Size (S)	=	0, 1, 2 bulk points
Medium Size (M)	=	3, 4, 5 bulk points
Large Size (L)	=	6* or more bulk points

*Some large objects, particularly weapons, will actually have lower bulk points than 6. Since the weapon size is primarily a factor of length, these items can be transported with relative ease.

Players who want the added realism can keep track of how many points of bulk they are carrying. The rule is especially useful for planning a trading caravan and calculating how many goods an individual porter or beast of burden can carry. Vessels such as packs and pouches are limited in how much bulk they can carry:

Backpacks can vary in size, and they hold an amount of bulk equal to a character’s Strength score.

Belt pouches can hold up to 3 bulk points. A single character can wear no more than two belt pouches.

Saddlebags (horse or mule) can hold up to 4 bulk points, and each animal carries two saddlebags. The capacities of some other animals include (per saddlebag): dog=1; donkey/burro=3; camel=10; elephant=20.

Effects of Bulk

A human character can carry an amount of bulk equal to his Strength/Stamina score without suffering any ill effects. If he tries to carry more bulk than his score allows, he suffers one penalty in encumbrance class. For example, if Blutar, with a Strength/Stamina of 17, is loaded down with 20 bulk points of light material, his encumbrance might only be Light, but for game purposes it is treated as Moderate.

Smaller characters can carry less than their Strength/Stamina score in bulk before they suffer the encumbrance penalty, as follows:

Halflings and gnomes can carry 1/2 their Str/Stamina score in bulk.

Elves can carry their Strength/Stamina –3 in bulk points.

Dwarves can carry their Strength/Stamina –1.

A character’s weapon does not count toward his bulk rating, though a shield does. Armor is not counted as bulk, but it has the effect of lowering the total bulk the character could otherwise bear. See the equipment tables to determine the capacity penalties for each type of armor.

No character can carry more than twice his Strength/Stamina score in bulk.

Recording Encumbrance (Simplified)

Characters can simplify the recording of encumbrance for purposes of the Skills and Powers rules. For most encounters, determine the character’s encumbrance by considering only his armor, shield and largest weapon. These are generally the most significant parts of his load, and thus will provide a reasonably accurate rating.

If the character is carrying camping or exploring equipment, or trade goods, extra supplies, etc., the additional encumbrance also can be simplified. If the character is carrying a backpack, figure 10 pounds if he has miscellaneous exploring equipment (rope, lantern, oil, spikes, etc.), 20 pounds for camping equipment (bedroll, cloak or spare clothes, tinderbox and food). Add only five-pound increments for extra items—trade goods, treasure, extra oil flasks, etc.

Weight

The equipment tables at the end of this chapter contain a weight for every listed item. Players and DMs can use these weights to calculate exact character loads.

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