Pet stats and carry weight

Kregor · Post by **Kregor** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:17 pm

http://www.gallwey.com/fk/board/viewtop ... 8545#48545

Now that Marty has changed the code for mounts and pets to take weight in consideration, we have an issue that many mounts and such bought in areas cannot carry the weight they should be able to.

Example would be the mule in Mithril Hall, whose stats are:
Str: 13 Int: 3 Wis: 11 Dex: 12 Con: 16 Cha: 6 Lck: 12
D20 stats would put a mule at:
Str 16, Dex 13, Con 17, Int 2, Wis 11, Cha 6

The griffons in Waterdeep, and the ones in the Keep are statted:
Str: 13 Int: 13 Wis: 13 Dex: 18 Con: 13 Cha: 18 Lck: 13
when D20 would make them:
Str 18, Dex 15, Con 16, Int 5, Wis 13, Cha 8

As they are statted, the mounts now are able to carry far less, some won't even carry their master alone. The fact that stats were brought to D20 standards during the spell system overhaul just exacerbates the issue, because a 3E stat isn't as high a bonus as a pre-3E stat.

I would propose us going through the high spots, the most popular areas and mounts, and re-statting them to be consistent with D20. I will be glad to help with this, it might be easier if we can do it OLC, but, I'm open to hear your thoughts.

Alternately, we could propose for the weight limit to be taken away again on a mount, because, honesly, was it a real issue that your mount could actually carry your stuff?

Duranamir · Post by **Duranamir** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:28 pm

Having been bitten by this particular bug. I would be quite happy to help fix it. In principle i agree that the limit should be there, just at a reasonable level. My riding lizard from Menzo ened up being only able to carry one sack !.

Duranamir

Balek · Post by **Balek** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 9:41 pm

I would be fine with dropping weight limits for mounts. I don't think it's really better in any way to have the weight limits. It seems like having them just creates more hassle.

Raona · Post by **Raona** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:01 am

Mounts don't currently take rider weight into account against carry weight, or the problem would be severe. However, mounts do seem to carry less than reasonable (generally they seem able to carry less than their human companions).

The mount carry weight fix actually came out of a bug report I posted about mounts not being able to follow when they had too many objects in their inventory, something that had puzzled myself and other newbies. While fixing it, Marty found an error in the carry weight calculation, that effectively made them operate as Balek suggests. Perhaps the "error" was intentional? In any case, we could certainly go back to "as was" if that's deemed desireable; it would save a lot of mount area-recoding, I think.

Dalvyn · Post by **Dalvyn** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:51 am

Mounts and other non-humanoid pets shouldn't use the same "carry weight" table as humanoids per the PHB rules.

I'd guess that using the correct tables for non-humanoid carry weights and dragging weights (for carts) would help a lot.

If I remember well, those rules go a bit like these:

base weight = normal, humanoid carry weight
- x 2 if quadruped
- x 2 if large (x 3 if very large, ...); horses are large
- x 2 if the weight is dragged
- x 2 if the weight is dragged and a sleigh/chariot/cart/wheeled instrument is used

If I am right in guessing that pets were made to use the same table as characters, using the correct rules would mean that the carry weight on mounts would be multiplied by 4, and the dragging weight (from carts) would be multiplied by 16!

Japcil · Post by **Japcil** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 4:19 am

Perhaps we can bundle the change with the resistances since we will be making modifications to the race files. The only missed mounts would be those with unique flags I believe. Which could be quite a few.

Dalvyn · Post by **Dalvyn** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 3:41 pm

I don't think that is necessary. Race files already indicate size and body types (i.e., humanoid, or quadruped, ...), so all the required information is already there.

Raona · Post by **Raona** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 11:56 am

Sounds like the best fix for the move limits issue would be to make sure the code employs the rules modifying carry and drag limits caused by quadrupedidness (whee, I made up a word!) and creature size. I'll add that to Bugzilla:

If it is not already the case, perhaps the code could be made to apply the following adjustments to carry limits:

base weight = normal, humanoid carry weight
x 2 if quadruped
x 2 if creature is large (x 3 if very large, ...); horses are large
x 2 if the weight is dragged and a sleigh/chariot/cart/wheeled instrument is used [effectively, if something is HITCHed to anyone/anything]

These have become important since the mount weight calculation was corrected. Mounts currently carry less than would seem reasonable; increasing their strengths to remedy the problem might make them unrealistically dangerous in combat.

With these rules in place, most mounts could carry 4x what they currently do, which seems about right. With a cart, they could haul 8x. That also seems about right. I don't know how the code works, but this may make it so centaurs carry more, and make it easier for PCs to pull carts. Both fine as far as I can see.

I believe DRAG already takes into account modified limits - I can drag things I can not lift.

I think Marty is still gaining culture stat points in Paris, oui? In any case, I'm sure he'll have lots of fires to put out on his return, but this will be there waiting for his return, too.

Mask · Post by **Mask** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 11:01 am

Yo, these changes have been made - so quadrupeds and size affect carry weight. I also added a 'load' stat which is visible in 'score' - this currently only affects your max dex bonus, but will affect speed in the future.

Duranamir · Post by **Duranamir** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 11:42 am

Thankyou very much for this change, is there any way that we can actually see how heavily loaded a minion is ?, either through use of exam or pherhaps as an additonal field on the group list.

Duranamir

Balek · Post by **Balek** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 3:23 am

If we're moving to a system where Dex bonus and speed are affected by carry weight and armor type, would it be possible to address the weight, armor type and encumbrance of mithril? Since mithril weighs half as much as steel and has max dex bonus increased by 2, armor check penalty reduced by 3 and a 10% lower spell failure rate, this could be significant for many characters.

Raona · Post by **Raona** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 11:26 am

Thanks Marty, the change is much appreciated!

Load sounds like a fine idea - I assume it'll apply to minions as well. Perhaps that could be a good way to address Duranamir's good suggestion - make it so that the minion's load status can somehow be seen. (Though I've nothing against an exact weight tally, either.)

Cret · Post by **Cret** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 11:59 pm

Is there something we can do about mechanical units? My golem went from moving a ways to.. not moving at all.

Dalvyn · Post by **Dalvyn** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 1:57 am

What do you mean? It tires too quickly?

Which golem is it?

Is it dragging something?

Kregor · Post by **Kregor** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 5:16 am

Technically, if we wanted to be proper d20 about it, a golem/undead/etc shouldn't even HAVE move points, or use them in order to function, since they wouldn't have a constitution score.

That, however, is a hard code issue, and not something we can do much about on the builder side, short of trying to overcompensate by turning their constitution WAY up.