Equipment Maintenance and limits

[MadMickyG]

Edited by HispaZargon: all posts from thread "Inventory rules" have been merged on this thread since they all talk about the same topic.

Just curious how others work player inventory?

I use "Carry one item per Body point"
Potions, gold and used equipment is not counted.

This means they players can only carry certain items, so arent totally cashed up after a quest when selling gear they carried.
Weapons from anything killed, except undead, can be collected or used.

[Goblin-King]

We can carry unlimited, but we can't change equipment during the quest. That's it...

The philosophy is that each hero has his unique fighting style. They are a part of the party, not a Rambo-style one man army. You choose the crossbow for this quest, you stick with the crossbow.
Changing gear to suit any current situation feels a little cheap and not very thematic.

[knightkrawler]

I play with icons on equiment, artefact, and treasure cards for

body armor (1 allowed; does not include the wizard's cloak so he can stack leather armor and the cloak for +2 defend dice)
headgear (1 allowed; icludes helmet)
armgear (1 allowed; this does not include weapons or shields, but only gloves, gauntlets, and some such)
leggear (1 allowed; intuitively this disallows combinations of elven boots for quickness and leg armor, which doesn't work thematically)
heavy (1 allowed, movement penalty for 2, 3 diallowed; this icludes a warhammer, plate armor and some such)
wield (1 hand for each hand used on the piece) - during a complete round you can only use equipment cards that have a sum of not more than 2 hands on their cards; this means that you can't shoot a crossbow (2 hands) and then defend with a shield (1 hand), for example. Sounds more complicated than it is. Count Mohawk's icons make this thing work so beautifully and intuitively.

Heroes can have as many tonics and potions as they want to, but tonics disintegrate after the current quest.

[Anderas]

I have some symbols on the equipment that needs to be equipped.
You can use a maximum of two hands, one pair of feet, one head and one body for equipped stuff.

Apart from that I have the usual restrictions for wizards, and some of my equipment has a "heavy" symbol. That heavy stuff might not be used or worn by some of my custom heroes. Basically these guys are restricted to a maximum of three dice.

Equipment changes are possible only before movement or action have been done. That way the spontaneous changes are heavily limited.

All the rest.... don't care. Each rule that is less makes the game a little bit better in my opinion.

[MadMickyG]

As a rule, our players can change gear in a quest, but it requires using the action for the round.

Mostly, its the Barbarian switching from a two-handed grip on the Bastard sword to a one handed grip and using a shield. Usually done before any encounters. Definitely not normally done during a fight.

Carrying equipment being used is limited to two different weapons, with one being used with a shield.
Helmet, armour, boots, cloak etc are being worn and not considered as using an inventory space.

[cynthialee]

I use logic and go from there.
You can employ only one staff or spear, it is a long item and gets in the way, carrying a spare is out of the question.
A shield may be employed in the offhand, and a shield could be strapped to the back of a pack. So that is cool.
You can wear two swords on your hip and two crossed on your back. That is kind of silly and probably only the Barbarian could pull this off with the ability to maintain combat ability.
Daggers are small. You can carry upwards of 12 on your body in various places. But that would preclude other weapons as your strapped already.
Only one back pack may be carried.

[mitchiemasha]

Sacrifice 1 rolled movement d6 to change weapon or give. Carry limited via common sense, as above.

I like the idea of limiting items per body point. I might use this but word it as inventory slots. Including equipped weapons and Gold, each character a minimum of 2 plus BP.

I do like the idea of a badly wounded hero having a choice, lose your gold or that much needed shield/helmet, if keeping your sword. But, we have to be careful here, not making a weakened hero, even weaker, too weak. Your initial idea to not include them might be better. Losing a weapon or 2 and your gold, not being able to buy back, would be devastating. It would however make for earlier use of potions and other heroes could always pick them up.


This gives me another idea. Has anyone ever thought about making it possible to discard a weapon to negate a wound. You're going to lose them anyway with this mod.

[MadMickyG]

I use logic and go from there.
You can employ only one staff or spear, it is a long item and gets in the way, carrying a spare is out of the question.
A shield may be employed in the offhand, and a shield could be strapped to the back of a pack. So that is cool.
You can wear two swords on your hip and two crossed on your back. That is kind of silly and probably only the Barbarian could pull this off with the ability to maintain combat ability.
Daggers are small. You can carry upwards of 12 on your body in various places. But that would preclude other weapons as your strapped already.
Only one back pack may be carried.

I use the BP per item method to indicate character strength, hence why a Barbarian can carry more. If a player cannot carry a weapon from a monster they have killed, someone else can carry it and receive the gold. Sometimes my kids will just carry stuff for each other and share the gold between them at the end. It's nice when they really play as a team that way.

Something else I was wondering, was trading in items for gold. I originally was at 25% of original value, but upped it to 50% when I restricted the number of items players could carry. Kids enjoy working out how much gold they get for trading in weapons, then spending on upgrades, or training.
As I have previously mentioned for my Monk, and changed now using the Karmic points method, they only keep 100gp after buuying any gear after a quest, as they have no need large amounts of gold like normal players. So upgrading them can be tough.

[The Admiral]

I allow a player with a two handed weapon (I consider a crossbow as such) to attack with a one handed weapon instead at no penalty. The Battleaxe or crossbow is just held to the side with one hand while the free hand draws a sword. The sword is easily slipped back into its scabard to allow use of the two handed weapon in the future. However, a player equipped with a two handed weapon and a shield, would have to carry the shield on their back. If they wish to equip the shield, presumably along with a one handed weapon, they must take an action to do it, during which they are considered to be taking the shield off their back and puting the Battleaxe/crossbow onto their back.

As for armour suits, I only allow a player to have one set with him/her at a time. No humping round a suit of platemail on the offchance.

Other stuff they can have as much as they like. I don't think I can ever remenber it being a problem. The odd spare shield on the back, or an extra helmet or broadsword hanging off the belt is no problem. Excessive amounts of equipment would just get me saying, "you can't carry all that, it's too heavy", but that has never happened.

[cynthialee]

That stance only works if the EWP is the Game Master. If it is a competitive game then the player could be all, 'screw you' I carry all the gear I want'.