The playtest had the same encumbrance rules as 4e, where you took your Strength score and multiples it by 10. Which was simple but allowed character to carry pretty disgusting amounts of weight.
For Basic, the designers decided to make Carrying Capicity even more disgusting, making it Strength x 15!
A wizard with 8 Stength can carry 120 lbs without being slowed down. And a Strength capped fighter can haul around 300 lbs?!
A character with 16 Strength can lift more than the current Olympic weightlifting record.
How does this compare to past editions?
An 8 Str in 5e can carry as much as a 19 in 3e, a 15 can carry as much as 3e's 24, and a 20 can carry the same as a 26.
I get the intent; the rules are pretty clear that they want to make encumbrance forgettable and easy to manage. There are really two kinds of players: those who use Encumbrance and those who don't. It doesn't matter to the latter if the rules are easy to manage or forgettable, they'll just ignore them outright. People who want to use Encumbrance don't want it to be forgettable, they want the rules to come up.
They have a variant system in the Basic rules that start encumbrance at STR X 5.
I am not fan of the default Encumbrance rules and prefer the Variant: Encumbrance rules for that. I think STR x5 makes more sense.
Yes, I definitely prefer the variant.
5th edition characters:
Maybe default is STR x 5, and bumped to STR x 10 for people with STR save proficiency?
Never really used encumberance, just another sub system that slowed down play. Just used common sense. You can carry all you want but when you start saying you want to carry multiple sets of plate armor or thousands upon thousands of coins we put a cap on it.
I don't care which is default,, because I'm going to use the Encumbered @ x5 and Heavily Encumbered @ x10. I feel that should work quite well, and the other one is good for people who hand wave encumberance anyway.
The_Jester wrote:
Never mind the fact that pretty much every item on the equpment list weighs about twice as much as it would in real life.
On the other hand... the armor table shows armor as excessively heavy.
A full plate armor is listed as 65 lb when it should be around 50 lb if similar to a real one, maybe less if custom made. [Chain] mail is listed as 55 lb (!!!) when it should be more like 25 lb...
So maybe gravity is just stronger in the Forgotten Realms... 
souldoubt wrote:
How do the weights in the book as compared to real life interfere with your adventurer's ability to do adventuring things in pursuit of gold, XP, and inspiration points?
Rastapopoulos wrote:
iserith wrote:
I think i will just trow those rules under the bus and use common sense instead. You can carry armor,weapon or two and backpack. This reminds me of funny story from one of old campaigns. My friend decided he will carry portable alchemists lab with him. Sure,by the rules he could with his strenght. Along with longsword,greatsword,crossbow and 4 daggers. But how do hell do you put all that on you and walk? So by default,carry weight,encumberance and that kind of rules are house ruled by the rule of common sense at my table.
The_Jester wrote:
Str x 15?
Lol. I thought it was ridiculous at Str x 10.
Shiroiken wrote:
I'd just like to point out that the Str × 15 thing is the character's maximum carrying capacity.and is fairly comparable to the maximum carrying capacities in 2e and 3e. It's also worth noting that the effects of encumbrance were also optional in 2e and the Moldvay D&D Basic Set.
Azzy1974 wrote:
akaddk wrote:
Rastapopoulos wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
Luckily I plan on ignoring encumbrance all together.
Azzy1974 wrote:
akaddk wrote:
Honestly, I really wish D&D took a page from WFRPG 3e on this one. It had the BEST system for encumbrance I have ever seen. Items are not given weights but encumbrance points. In fact, I might just steal the WFRPG 3e system and apply it as a module for my D&D 5th games.
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Azzy1974 wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
Prom wrote:
The variant encumbrance rules look fine to me. With Strength 20 a PC can carry 100lbs of gear with no effect. In plate and and a shield, that leaves 29lbs of weapons and equipment or roughly a week's worth of clothes. Next time you go on holiday, you try running with a bag full of clothes and see how fast you can run. Bulk is a factor. All this means is that you either need to dump your backpack and all that gold you're carrying before you run into a fight or employ henchmen to carry your gear. Even Frodo employed henchmen to carry his gear ;p
Where it starts to bite is when you have a strength 10 cleric with high mental stats. Suddenly medium armour becomes more of an issue for those that have criticised it for being useless.
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Azzy1974 wrote:
I also don't know what the complaint is here. There is a very nice variant to handle encumbrance. And by presenting it, they make it very easy for DMs to adjust it to taste.
For example, say you think the x5/x10/x15 values are still too high. Adjust it to x3/x6/x9. You get to pick the values that make sense to you.
So all you need to do is answer the following questions:
1) How much should an average character (Str 10) be able to carry without any issues?
2) How much should an average character be able to carry with encumbrance (speed reduced by 10 feet)?
3) How much should an average character be able to carry with heavy encumbrance (speed reduced by 20 feet, etc)?
4) What is the most an average character could possibly lift?
5) What is the most an average character could possibly drag/push?
Use the answers to come up with your own multipliers for determining carrying capacity/encumbrance rules.
It's a good one size fits all approach. Personally, I favor the low-value -> large-value progression of older editions. I like Strength to serve some role, however small, to someone other than the classes that require it. Probably won't be a sticking point for a lot of tables. Tracking weights isn't terribly important to everyone. But this is Basic. I expect a more thorough approach to the mechanic in future releases.