Encumbrance
Encumbrance describes the burden that characters and working animals can carry or draw, that in turn impedes how far they can progress with regards to movement and daily travel. How much can be carried determines the character's action points (AP), which are calculated by the character's strength, weight and exceptional capacity. The more that a character and mount attempts to carry, or attempts to pull in the form of a cart or wagon, or even a barge moving along a canal, the fewer AP are made available.
The determination is accomplished by using a simple excel calculator, which can be located HERE (and then opened with google sheets). Separate tabs for enable calculations for "humanoid" and "cartage," the latter expressing how much an animal or team of animals can pull or carry. Below shows the cell formulas for the humanoid excel sheet. It is quite simple to recreate.
For example, a halfling weighing 60 lbs., with a strength of 13, inserts those numbers into the boxes for "insert weight" and "insert strength." The result yields the following figures:
Penalty per range of weight carried in lbs. | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
None | -1 AP | -2 AP | -3 AP | -4 AP |
up to 10 | 11-21 | 22-32 | 33-43 | 44-54 |
As a humanoid, the character naturally possesses 5 AP. The results show that as long as the halfling only carries up to 10 lbs., no penalty to its movement is felt. However, the next column over, "11-21" (count any fraction above ten as "11") indicates that carrying up to 21 lbs. would reduce the halfling's -1 AP, or "4." The table also shows that the maximum weight the halfling can carry is 54 lbs.
See Also,
Player Characters
Submersion in Water
The Adventure