Campaign Rules

Hmmm, here is the deal for the less encumbered. While there are no Combat Fatigue rules anymore, per se, 5th edition does allow you to make a fatigue roll to gain bonuses to your attack or defense rolls. Encumbrance subtracts from that. So my take on the lightly armed guys is they have 3 or 4 Athletics, decent stamina, and use this *all* of the time when they fight; even with a -1, the characters made for this shouldn't have too much problem with the test. The guys armored like a tank, on the other hand, will seldom be inclined to make the rolls and more likely to fatigue when they do.

Until I see lots more combat, I am not inclined to change it, mostly as I can see where the rationale for the design came from. It might be the encumbrance table needs tweaking, but I am not convinced of that.

Oh yeah, I had a new thought today.

Here's another reason why I raised this issue:
I want to help ease Mike's transition between the two games.

We've been such a calm, cooperative group. I figured I needed to stir up a bit of debate, just so it's not a shock to our GM's system when he switches off between the groups.

You know, it's kind of like being in the shower. If you're running the water very hot, and then immediately switch to cold, it's a shock to your heart. Ease it down to lukewarm slowly if you want to cool off...

-DC

I don't have a specific objective or axe to grind. I just think the rule stands out as particularly poorly conceived, especially since most of the rest of the book is very tight.

The situation with the average guy suffering a penalty when holding one small weapon sizes up the whole problem. That is just silly.

I would have no problem with these other changes too:
* Calibrating the chart in steps of two only, so characters in heavy armor get more penalized
* Encumbrance penalty on combat skills (I think the current rule is too generous)
* Combat bonuses for under-encumbered characters (in essence, put encumbrance back into the combat stats)

... but these last two would add more bookkeeping, so I didn't mention them in the previous post.

-DC

Dave,

Why is encumbrance bothering you so much? It no longer affects Attack and Defense--provided the encumbrance mostly comes from combat-oriented gear. While it does affect fatigue checks and spellcasting in combat, the first is much rarer than it used to be and if your magus wants to armor himself like a turtle and wave gaudy, pointy pieces of metal like some mundane at a puppet show, then you get what's coming to you

As far as I can tell, the only combat stat affected is Initiative.

Are you driving at something, Dave? It might not be the perfect system, but it is *much* more liberal than the old system.

Dudes,

Look at the Google ads in the left column of this page.

This discussion thread has been up less than 24 hours, and Google has already zapped us four advertisements related to "armor".

That's the Magic of the Internet at work...
8O

-DC

Mike,

On a related note...

Please also remember to bring the supplement with the expanded stats for armor the next time we play.

Thanks,
-DC