Passing Thought: Boolean Encumbrance

It's not news to anyone that most encumbrance systems are too complicated to get much use. Numerous simplifications have been proposed: weight by stone, number of line items, body locations...

Frankly, they're all still a little much for me, so here's what I propose - encumbrance as a simple True/False state.

A number of simple things would make you encumbered:

• Backpack with stuff in it
• Metal Armour
• Exception: Fighters wear chain without penalty, and high Con lets you wear one level higher (i.e. fighter with high con wears plate without penalty)
• Carrying something awkward (chest, five spears, etc.)

The effects would be simple:

• Can't run (jogging only)
• Fight/cast/burgle as one level lower
• Overland movement 2/3 normal
• Double fatigue (if using Spells and Steel)

 

Idea: Armour HP

Instead of reducing damage or making you harder to hit, what if armour had its own HP?

Any non-critical hits would first be taken from the armour's HP. Crits do two dice of damage - one to armour, one to the character's HP. I've been thinking recently about having two kinds of crits - one for 20's on d20, and one for 6's on damage dice, so this would be for rolling max damage. More on this in a later post...

Just like a character, the armour would be able to be "healed" - but in the case of armour, it would require time and tools.

This would give an advantage to the lighter armours - as the armour gets heavier, so does the repair kit! At the high end, you're not going to be making much in the way of repairs to your plate without a set of hammers and an anvil - hardly typical adventuring gear!

Thinking out loud here, but let's toss some numbers together:

Armour as HP

Armour	Armour HP	Repair time (max HP without proper tools)	Tools Required	Max HP with lighter tools
Cloth	12	3 hours	Scissor, needles, thimble, strong thread	3
Leather	12	3 hours	Sharp knife, scissors, heavy needles, awl, thimble, strong thread	3
Chain	18	24 hours	As Cloth, plus: Wire, wooden core, wire cutters, pliers (Optional - mechanical wire winder, specialised pliers and snips, premade rings and rivets)	14
Plate and Chain	36	48 hours	All of the above, plus: Several hammers, heavy snips, steel plate, files, anvil (Optional: spare plates, straps, buckles, etc., planishing stakes, dishing stump)	27

Repairs

Without proper tools, you can't repair the armour.

If you have the proper tools for a lighter armour (i.e. have Cloth tools but Chain armour), you can repair the armour to the level shown in the last column.

If you have the optional tools, knock 25% off the time.

All of these times are for field repairs - expedient, but probably not pretty.

Unbalanced Weapons

Unbalanced weapons would always do 1 point to the character's HP, even on non-critical hits.

Credit

I thought of this after re-reading this post on Untimately:
http://untimately.blogspot.com/2012/06/evasion-armor.html 

Passing Thought - Skills and the Expected Outcome

What are the possible outcomes of a skill check? Most systems have a pass or fail, some have some kind of critical pass or fail, and some have an auto pass mechanic for certain checks (Take 10 or Take 20), and some notion of a difficulty rating.

The way I see it, when looking at a skill check and assigning a difficulty, I have in mind an expected outcome. I then assign the probabilities to likely produce the expected outcome. The expected outcome could be success, failure, partial success, etc.

It recently occurred to me that there's a needless step here - really, all we should be rolling for is whether we got the expected outcome, something worse, or something better.

Here's what I propose: roll 2d6. On 5-9, the expected outcome occurs. On 10-12, a better than expected outcome occurs. On 2-4, a worse than expected outcome occurs.

I think that this, combined with a page of guidelines for the GM, would be a pretty elegant resolution mechanic.

Just a passing thought, but I think I'll develop this more.