I’ll never forget my first character gen. It took over an hour (a whole hour!) to page through books, calculate bonuses, and figure out the name of my trusty halfling rogue. There was even backstory stuff that I had to make up! But at the end of all that, I had a fully fleshed out hero ready to go on his first adventure! Or rather… almost ready.
“OK,” said my DM. “Now all you have to do is equipment.”
I was a little taken aback because I that I was all done. Then homeslice then passed me a dictionary. There were entries for friggin’ everything! Page after page stretched on with caltrops and bells on strings and lanterns vs. hooded lanterns that I had to decide on. All of them had their own weird rules and minor bonuses, and all of it felt absolutely critical to my success.
“What’s better?” I asked. “The alchemist’s fire or the vial of acid?”
“It really depends,” said the distracted high school DM as he busily helped another nerd calculate level adjustment for a minotaur barbarian. “Both are good. Just try to keep your encumbrance in mind. You only have Strength 8 after all.”
“Encumber what now?”
Then I had to do it all over again, but this time without the tent or the portable ram or any of the stuff that seemed 100% necessary to my mission as a murder hobo.
So this one goes out to all those freshly-minted PCs trying to figure out their luggage. As you struggle to fill your knapsack with masterwork tea sets and loaded dice and smokesticks, just remember what’s important. Namely that you’re never going to need any of that crap anyway and you’ll lose your character sheet before any of it becomes important.
So for today’s discussion, what do you say we talk about inventory management? Have you seen any systems in particular that do it well (looking at you, Blades in the Dark). Is there a particular item that you always make sure to include for every character? And how exactly do you fight while wearing a backpack loaded down with all that crap anyway? Give us all your finest useless starting items down in the comments!
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Sure, there are the Bags of Holding and Handy Haversacks, but don’t underestimate the logistical powerhouse that is a mule pulling a cart. Cheap enough as to be free, and if keeping it fed and not fed to local predators itself you can raise it as a skeleton. (Zombies tend to smell and are too slow.)
Are you calling Barbarian a mule? 😛
Following half the party becoming wiped out by a single poison gas grenade in Coporation, I always make sure to carry a gas mask in any game with the tech level to include them. Crowbars and multitools/swiss army knifes are also always good to have for sheet utility (and backup weapons)
I appreciate the gas mask include. Beats the pants of the ol’ “can’t I just hold my breath?” as a substitute.
Generally, I’m a fan of the style of game that just assumes that you’ve got any equipment that your character could reasonably expect to have, without bothering to track it as inventory — and that if you want to have something that’s a bit marginal, you can spend metacurrency to say that you’ve planned ahead and brought it. That’s all very subjective, of course, but my group has always been fine with that.
And really, we play most systems that way… party resources are tracked (e.g. we have 3 healing potions), but personal resources less so. It’s not that we ignore encumbrance — but unless there’s a reason to do otherwise, we just assume that anything heavy is being carried by whichever party member makes a good pack-mule. Similarly, we don’t worry about who actually has those healing potions — we assume they’re distributed among the people most likely to be using them in a combat.
Anecdotally, a common scenario for encumbrance has been moving an incapacitated (that is, passed-out-drunk) party member. And I’m a featherweight bard… I’m not going to even attempt to solve that problem with Strength. I’m going to use Charisma and perhaps a little coin, and find someone else to do the heavy lifting. So “encumbrance” certainly influences the story, but without engaging the mechanics.
On that note, Barbarian really shouldn’t be asking Sorcerer who’s going to be carrying all that stuff. That sounds like a job for the party pack-mule… 😉
I wonder if Druid is hiring out her services?
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/beast-of-burden
We do have one of those in our current campaign, but our druid doesn’t like being used as a *literal* pack-mule. So that tends to be more of an emergency measure… which is to say, we’ve come into possession of so much treasure that we can’t carry it all… effectively putting a price tag on the druid’s dignity.
Every tech based character I’ve had in Starfinder has had a datapad on them for either hacking, communication, or Hack Wetware casting purposes. Every character *period* so far, no matter what system, has had the system’s equivalent of the usual 50ft of rope, even if they don’t have a set up starter kit like some rarer classes in PF 2e. Never know when you’re gonna need it.
As for encumbrance, people can yell at me for this but my group’s never tracked encumbrance except in Starfinder, where half the stuff is on our ship/in our hovercar 24/7 or planetary equivalent
The idea of “bulk” as a weigh abstraction makes a lot of sense to me. Certainly it seems easier to mess with than track 0.3 lbs or whatever.
Oh man, I *love* inventory management! Unironically! I love the meta-game of calculating volume and weight and deciding what needs to be brought along and what isn’t worth the encumbrance, and I love fantasizing about where specifically each piece of gear is being carried. Regardless of whether I’m the GM or a fellow player, I have a tendency to calculate encumbrance for everyone at the table (which doesn’t earn me any friends when I point out that they shouldn’t be able to comfortably carry that sack of gold they just looted from the dragon’s hoard…).
I was super disappointed when Pathfinder switched from a weight system to a more abstract “bulk.” Alas, detailed bookkeeping is a niche interest.
As for my go-to items: at *least* 10 ft. of rope, a few needles and a spool of thread, a small quantity of soap, a whistle or other noisemaker, something which can make visible markings on a variety of surfaces (typically chalk or charcoal in fantasy settings and spraypaint in modern/sci-fi), something which starts fires (flint & steel or a lighter), a small knife, and a lightweight emergency ranged weapon (sling or a compact pistol).
Why the lightweight emergency ranged weapon? For hunting in survival scenarios?
It’s a habit which began in D&D 3e when I noticed that slings are both weightless and completely free; at that point, why not carry one? Since my humble sling actually came in handy a few times (mostly for non-combat purposes, e.g. flinging small objects further than could be done by hand, but one barbarian character did get good use out of the sling as a backup weapon), it became a recurring part of my kit in other games. A pocket pistol, the approximate equivalent for a modern/sci-fi game, proves to be a more broadly effective backup weapon in most systems than the sling is in D&D/Pathfinder, but admittedly doesn’t have much utility outside of that specific purpose.
As a DM for 3.X campaigns, I typically have a little card or page with some basics pulled from the various “Fighter’s Kit” or “Dungeoneer’s Kit” or “Left-Handed Chimney Sweep” kits found in Pathfinder and elsewhere. Unless the players get unreasonable “Didn’t I tell you, my gnome never goes anywhere without his siege tower–it’s his comfort blanket” I don’t pull it out, but if they do, I say “here, THIS is what’s reasonable.” I’m also willing to allow a couple of small items under 5 gp spur-of-the-moment, as long as the party hasn’t explicitly been stripped of their equipment.
Then there’s the mantra “save your pennies until 3rd level–when everyone else gets a +1 weapon, get a Handy Haversack.”
In college, my DM once had us tumble down a hill, then asked to see our equipment lists to determine what items we had lost. When he got to me, he found a bulleted list with each item listed by weight and cost, heavier items on the bottom, softer materials packed around more fragile goods, and the total weight charted against my thief’s encumbrance. Remembering that I’m an Eagle Scout who once taught backpacking skills, he disgustedly slid my character sheet back to me and said “Fine. You lose nothing.”
Eagle Scout out here teaching the real life skills! XD
you don’t fight with a backpack loaded down with stuff. You drop that shit to the ground during the fight, and after the fight is won, you collect it all back up. Now should the fight go south and you have to run… well that is a whole other discussion to be had depending on your DMs insistence that you need to actively have mentioned you were picking things up before you ran for the hills.
As a collective group we just assume some things happen “off camera” because they are boring to deal with. Resupply of arrows, collecting your thrown weapons, taking off armor to sleep and putting it back on in the morning, eating, drinking, etc. We make sure we have the supplies, we “take the time” to pack and take care of things, but we all know that is not why we’re at the table telling our collective story, so we just sort of ignore the fact that we have to take time to poop and assume it happened when we had the time XD
Sometimes it might come up (in the previously mentioned scenario of running away), but we deal with those fairly rare (fortunately) circumstances when they happen, and our DM is usually kind enough to give us a friendly reminder that we left our stuff in our room and if we don’t collect it, we might lose it…
It can make for some fun extra drama as we grab our crap while running from overwhelming forces!
This mess has been on my mind since starting through BG3. They have these huge, elaborate tents set up in camp, but the toons have no backpacks. It’s amusing to me that “off camera” happens even when there is a camera to worry about.
That’s why our rucksacks had a ‘quick release’ on one shoulder strap…reach up and pull it then let the other strap slide off the opposite shoulder…et voila, pack dropped to the ground in less than a second…and you can still pick it up and run with it in your hand if you have to, or use it for a rifle rest in prone..
there are very few video games that show packs either and some are at least making a minor effort to show where you store stuff, even if it is silly how much you can store (but hey, bags of holding are a thing for a reason, right?)!
one game in particular has my love despite the rest of the game not being my cup of tea/coffee and that is Outward (they are making a sequel too!)
in Outward they devote and entire mechanic to packs and the rapid removal and reacquiring of bags for combat. You can keep the pack on, but it highly affects your combat ability, so you want to drop your pack before combat begins. And should you need to run, you can swiftly pick your pack back up… if you can get to it!
I wish more games included this as well as showing ALL THE BAGS!
despite a mostly “off screen” approach to inventory management in our D&D game, I always draw my character with pack on the back, bags on the side, and pouches at the belt, because where else am I storing all the crap we RP’rs carry for our adventuring?!
and the smaller the character, the bigger the bags. Always been a fan of the gobbo from FF11 that carries a bag three times bigger than themselves.
See this is why I like systems that give you starting gear instead of having you pick it out. 5e might be questionable in a lot of ways, but this is something it does right. Of course, it also tracks things with pounds and not slots, so pathfinder 2e wins there.
“Starting kit” is a nice ease of life thing for me. I always felt like the 5e “random trinket” was a nice way to scratch the customization itch if you really want it.
For starting characters I have a “beginners” pack made up for 25gp. It has all the standard stuff like rope, spikes, tent, food, water, etc. Beginning characters starting gold depends on things like what social class they rolled, parents jobs and how well their parents and mentor liked them. So a hated gutter rat might start the game with the clothes on their back and a few copper. Where the only, beloved child of the ruling class can head out well equipped with a retainer. Our homebrew gives the players a solid skeleton to build their character on, which is why we don’t do backstories. You get your basic backstory when you roll up your character and flesh it out as the game progresses. This also gives me a fair amount of character specific hooks to build small story arcs around each character, even if it’s just the fighter’s grandma grabbing him by the ear every time they return to town and scolding him for not visiting. 🙂
Does the gutter rat character get any kind of advantage to make up for the lack of gear?
Yep, they get a chance to know non-general information about their home city/town. In other words, everyone knows where the Salty Dog tavern is, but few know they have a trap door down into the caverns below the town. They also have a chance to have “acquired” a special item while scrounging for food and stuff to sell. Could range from a low level magic item to a gem they can sell for cash to get equipment. Really depends on where the group starts.
I disagree about Blades in the Dark having a ‘generally good’ equipment/encumbrance system. It’s good for //Blades in the Dark//, but then Blades does almost everything in ways I dislike, being a very old skool rpger.
I prefer systems that allow for a mix of “traditional” tracking and “narratively it’s there if you need it” tracking, which with the right knobs turned on, GURPS does.
Other systems that ‘systemically prefer’ traditional tracking could do “narrative tracking”, but unlike GURPS, those systems may require some fiddling about creating the option. It’s usually a lot harder to go int he other direction, taking a narrative system and implementing traditional tracking, because most narrative systems eschew the very things that make traditional tracking ‘simple’ (“Strength Stats/Scores” that directly bind to ‘weight allowances’, etc).
In practice, I find that most “traditional tracking” get straight up ignored for being too finicky. That’s why I appreciate the BitD style. It’s a system that’s straightforward enough to actually get implemented.
I’m suddenly reminded of an old gag from DM of the Rings, in that your sack is not a mere bag, but an “invisible leather TARDIS”, in part because I think inventory management is one of those things that has technically been in D&D from the beginning, but which most D&D players aren’t actually INTERESTED in engaging with, because it’s not a part of the game they want to deal with. Most players want to feel powerful not resourceful.
Of course, this is also me making a hypothesis from the way people talk about the game, rather than something I experience first hand.
It takes a special breed.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/material-components-2
It’s me. I am that special breed.
Too bad I’m a relative newcomer to the HoH; I would’ve loved to gush about the joys of detailed bookkeeping in the comments of that strip.
He should get one of those Heward’s Handy Mary Pobppins Bags to carry that
Yondu Udonta has entered the chat!
The one glaring advantage of the Vow of Poverty that’s so easily dismissed… no need to bother with an inventory.
No wonder those guys are all beatific and enlightened!
for me the fun with items is finding nieche case uses for them or finding ways to have them be usefull in the weirdest of situations.
my latest achievment was with the 10 foot chain and an oil flask. so in a series of unfortunate accedents i got split from the party and stuk on a fight on a pretty tall staircase(we where around 30/40 up these stairs) and on the both ends of the where these heavy iron doors blocking both exits. so when my frail ass wizard got his turn he trew his oil flask under the enemies feet to hope and have them fall down the stairs, and sadly the enemy succeeded. so to get my ass out of harms i just threw myself on the oil, failed the save and fell down the flight of stair to the bottom floor. leaving behind a very flabbergasted foe. so when my next turn rolled around i got through the doors and closed them with the 10 foot chain so the enemy was just locked up on the flight of stairs without beign able to get help as i scampered away to my party.
so yeah i like taking the weird stuff for a spin just to see if i can find a situation it can be usefull.
when I made my artificer for my friends 5e game I filled 3-4 pages in my note book with equipment I think it totaled to about 400lbs of stuff so much that I had to get a mule to help carry it all
I find most of the weights in the handbooks are off by quite a bit, usually on the heavy side most of the standard items, except for the ten foot pole (unless you count a sectional tent pole) can be found on the basic web gear of a soldier, the rest are in his pack.
A length of rope, rations, knife (plus a bayonet), water bottle, cooking pan, ammunition for ranged weapons, torch(flashlight+batteries), often a handaxe or machete, bandages, blanket, rain gear, etc. and that’s just the issued belt kit, you also tuck extra bits you find handy in yourself. Depending on the Unit, pitons(spikes) and more rope can be added as required, plus extra clothes, boots, rations and sleeping gear in and on your pack wich you might be carrying or it might be on the transport(never seen it but rumours persist).
There are some good pictorial layouts of medieval kit around the net and most of them weigh a lot less than the books suggest.
I’m a bit of an overpreparer myself, buying all kinds of miscellaneous items for my characters and hoping the encumbrance shakes out. In addition to food, water, lighting sources, and other common essentials, some things I like to get are ropes and grapnels, signal whistles, empty vials/flasks, writing implements (both chalk and pen-and-paper), soap, whetstones (even if there are no rules for them), and hand mirrors. Needless to say, Handy Haversacks and similar are a common investment.
As for inventory management systems… Unless it’s very abstract like with Blades in the Dark, I find it’s better if a computer handles it. I haven’t really enjoyed it in any tabletop games, but in the Neverwinter Nights series, it’s kind of fun shuffling items between companions and Magic Bags, distributing the weight just right to carry all those suits of enchanted plate armour back to town without slowing anyone down (the first game’s grid inventory system added to the fun since you had to consider how much space an item took up as well).
In a current Pathfinder game I’m in, I was curious mostly, so I optionally started tracking full encumbrance strictly. Our characters are pretty surpernatural, so certain mundane, heavy, and bulky items are no longer as necessary as they were. My total encumbrance is like 40lbs, unless I track coins, which then shoots it up a lot. But even WITH tracking coins, everything still fits inside of my Type 2 magic bag.
Now that all said, two things.
1) DnD/Pathfinder is fairly unrealistic in terms of various item weights and what you could/could not carry just in general. Even with strict tracking, I feel like total inventory should just be ignored and you should have more like a Combat Inventory of things you can quickly access. This is more realistic and makes players care about what consumables and back up weapons and the like they have.
2) I came at this experiment from the position that strict encumbrance tracking was the territory of grognards and people who think 1e, 2e, and ADnD are quality games. Five months into my experiment, it has continued to not come up as any sort of issue even while wearing full plate other than that I do a bunch of paperwork no one else bothers to do. I remain completely unconvinced of any mechanical, social, or role play reason to do this other than some sim head thought it was cool.
Well, since you already mentioned Blades you know my answer for “preferred system for handling inventory”.
As for D&D, unless a GM specifically says we’re caring about encumbrance I will basically spend more or less (sometimes literally) even single copper piece of filling my inventory with equipment.
Look at least one tent per two people is a *must* and I have *no* confidence everyone else at the table is even bothering to write down anything more than *adventurer’s pack* in their inventory. And no map cases for a map? HMPH!
You’re telling me we’re going for a four month trek through the wilderness on a mere ten day’s rations and *one* ONE(!?) waterskin per person? Not even so much as a flask for alcohol? ABSURD!
How will we keep our weapons sharp without a whetstone? You’re telling me we’re not bringing even one fishing pole? Surely you understand we need at least a grappling hook! It’s a staple! Come now, a few coppers of chalk to mark our paths isn’t going to bankrupt you! You’d be a fool, a FOOL I SAY, to snub a spyglass if you have the funds! Need I go on sir?
I know I’m a bit late to reply, but… for tracking the encumbrance, I tracked it to the half pound. I usually ended up with something like this:
1) Gear that I leave on a beast of burden and have at-camp unless I specify otherwise.
2) Gear I bring with me always, usually including a Handy Haversack (1e) with lots of general stuff, including adventuring standards that come up rarely but are essential when needed, or are alchemical grenades like Alchemist’s Fire or Bottled Lighting that can be used to break Regeneration or something.
3) Gear I have in a backpack. I leave that at dungeon entrances or something like that, but have it with me when riding on a not-for-battle horse.
It was an enlightening experience about packing things.
Extradimensional
(Please ignore the last “Extradimensional” because it survived me moving a few things around, especially around option 2.)
Pathfinders 2e’s Prescient Planner has you covered! (restrictions apply)
https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2143
It’s worth noting that you can combine Leomund’s Labile Locker with a Bag of Holding because the locker doesn’t use extradimensional/nondimensional spaces, it just shrinks
Shadowrun gives you an encumbrance limit so low you literally can’t even carry your own weight and then promptly gives not one single piece of gear a listed weight.
I’d say it did pretty well, all things considered, by saying “we clearly don’t care and neither should you”.
Ha, this is easy. In KAP (King Arthur Pendragon) it just says War Gear and Travel Gear. Only some of the weapons (especially lances and armour) are itimised. The rest is “part of your normal travel and fighting gear”. And you also usually have enough horses (and squires and such) to lug all this around, and take care of it. So no need for encumbrance, and/or detailed item lists. If it would be logical, or even plausible, to have, accordning to player and GM, then it’s there. And otherwise, it’s a quest to go and get it.
Encumbrance shoukd be used where it increases versimilitude and doesn’t interfere with the game. In most computer games I usually wind up turning it off in the console because usually all it does is add a bunch of extra loading screens traveling back and forth and half the time it’s tied to an inventory system that is unrealistic anyway (the old six stoppered test tubes takes up the same amount of space as a full suit of armor, unless they’re all the same kind of potion and then you can have arbitrarily many). And when it’s not tied to an unrealistic inventory system it’s usually in a game where loading maps and traveling back to your base of operations takes forever