Part 4: The Adventure
Encumbrance and inventory
Tracking encumbrance sucks, but hammerspace sucks, too. So… we’re going to use a riff on the anti-hammerspace inventory system.
Each character can carry up to five (logical) “bags” (define as you wish), each of which can hold up to three items. The number of slots an item takes up depends on weight, size and unwieldiness.
Armor takes up some number of the logical bag; light armor is one bag, medium armor is two bags and heavy armor is three bags.
Shields take up one slot per point of shield bonus.
As for weapons, light weapons take up one slot, medium weapons take up two slots and heavy weapons take up three slots (an entire bag). Polearms take up an entire bag regardless of weight.
Other gear takes up an arbitrary number of slots based on the item, but the rule of thumb is one stone (1000 coins, or ten pounds) of weight is one slot. Miscellaneous tiny items can be listed and will take up one slot on its own (for each stone of weight).
Strength bonus
The number of bags a character may carry is adjusted by their strength bonus; for each plus, you may carry one additional bag.
For example, your character has a 16 strength, which confers a +2 strength bonus. You can carry six standard plus two more bonus bags, for a total of eight bags.
Movement rate and encumbrance
For every full or partial bag your movement rate is reduced by 5’, to a minimum of 10’/round.
Label your bags!
Each bag should be labeled what and where it is. This means that if you lose items for whatever reason (thievery, effect from a trap or spell, need to shed weight during an encounter) we know what isn’t in your possession anymore until you recover them.
Also, the more items you put in a given bag makes it harder to find things under duress. If you have four bags and label them all “backpack” (or don’t label anything and we assume that it’s all in a really unwieldy backpack) then if you are searching for a healing potion during combat you might have to rifle your bag to uncover it rather than it just being available to use immediately.
Sheets
Usage die
Philosophy
The usage die is an abstraction that is used in lieu of strict recordkeeping of every last ration, drop of water and ammunition. You can use this system to see if you are meaningfully using up your resources by only tracking the resource as a whole. It also gives a little “swing” to the numbers to play into tension, in that resources may be used up more quickly and than expected (by say, spoilage or breakage), or might even last a little longer (good quality, recovery of resources after use), but on average this is how long one could expect them to last.
How it works
An item represented by a usage die is marked with a die type when you acquire it. This gives a notion of the number of uses that you may expect on average to get out of the resource based on the probability distribution of the roll (see below).
Every time you use the resource you roll the die type listed. If you roll a 1 or 2 that resource is partially consumed and is now represented by the next lower die (d30 ⇒ d20 ⇒ d12 ⇒ d10 ⇒ d8 ⇒ d6 ⇒ d4). If the resource die is d4 and you roll a 1 or 2 the resource is used up completely.
Ammunition
Bundles, cases or quivers of ammunition are also represented by a usage die. You roll the usage die after combat to see if your ammunition is partially depleted.
The exception is if you roll a natural 1 or 2 to-hit during combat while using ammunition. If you do, you must immediately roll the usage die for that ammunition to check for depletion as normal. This helps give tension during combat as you can potentially begin using up your ammunition or even run out during combat.
All magical ammunition is strictly tracked and not reflected by a usage die.
Usage die math
| Usage Die | Expected Uses |
|---|---|
| d4 | 2 |
| d6 | 5 |
| d8 | 9 |
| d10 | 14 |
| d12 | 20 |
| d20 | 30 |
| d30 | 45 |
Skill checks
Skill or ability checks can be checked for success by rolling a relevant ability score or under on a Xd6 scale. You can combine two ability scores if it calls for it and roll Xd12. The difficulty of the check is solely at the discretion of the DM, adjusted by your "good at" skills.
Single Ability Score Check
| Difficulty | Success is ability score or under |
|---|---|
| Easy | 2d6 |
| Standard | 3d6 |
| Difficult | 4d6 |
| Very difficult | 5d6 |
| Arduous | 6d6 |
| Impossible | 7d6 |
Dual Ability Score Check
| Difficulty | Success is combined ability score or under |
|---|---|
| Easy | 2d12 |
| Standard | 3d12 |
| Difficult | 4d12 |
| Very difficult | 5d12 |
| Arduous | 6d12 |
| Impossible | 7d12 |
Thief or Other Percentage Skills
Any percentage-type abilities can be calculated in the way above. For each 5% in an ability (rounded down) counts as a +1 point bonus to the ability score rolled against.
So, for example, a thief attempting to pick pockets with a 40% chance and a 15 Dexterity would need to roll a 15 + (40 ÷ 5) = 23 or below with xd6 (x being the number of dice rolled based on difficulty).
Carousing
Players who start a session in Trade Town and played the last session may decide to party it up with their newly-gotten treasure for experience. They may spend up to d8 x 100 SP for XP.
If the die roll is equal to or less than the character’s level the result is a good time and no harm done. Rolling above the character’s level indicates things got out of hand one way or another and the poor sucker must save versus poison or roll d30 against the carousing chart.
If the player rolls more money than they actually have to spend, they borrowed money from someone (DM‘s choice) and they are indebted… which could end up being a problem.
