"carried gear" ambiguity

[Wisett]

Hello citizen of the middle earth,

I have a question about the term "carried gear" in the "clarification and amendment" document.

Beornings' Great Strength text says :
"If the total Encumbrance of your carried gear is equal to
or less than 12, when you are fighting in a close combat
stance, you receive a bonus of +3 to your Parry score."

Now, fatigue from travel is excluded. But does "carried gear" include "travelling gear" ? I assume yes, but it's more complicated to handle because it changes depending on seasons. what's the official answer ?

Have a safe travel in the middle earth.

[Stormcrow]

No, carried gear is just your weapons, armor, and treasure (and any special items the Loremaster decides). "Players only take into consideration the Encumbrance rating of their travelling gear when they are using the rules for resolving a Journey."

[Glorelendil]

Have a safe travel in the middle earth.

Not likely.

[Wisett]

thank you for the answer

[PaulButler]

Excellent.
I was just about to post this EXACT question.

[Murcushio]

Are you sure about that Stormcrow?

I'd always thought "gear" meant specifically things termed "gear." Your Traveling Gear is gear; the game specifically calls it that. Your War Gear is gear for the same reason.

Treasure points are not gear.

[Hermes Serpent]

While not necessarily important to this particular discussion I've thought that the use of Capitalisation regarding terms was important. If a term is capitalised then it's used differently or in a non-standard way from the dictionary definition of that term.

Stuff relevant to this discussion
AB p23 "Gear: The equipment carried by the character, along with its Encumbrance rating."
AB p23 "Fatigue: The weight and encumbrance of the gear carried by a character may limit his performance.
A hero is considered Weary as long as his Endurance score is found to be equal to or lower than his Fatigue
threshold."
AB p76 "A player-hero’s travelling equipment and each piece of war gear possesses an Encumbrance rating, representing the hindrance that the item causes to the carrier," and "All the Encumbrance ratings of the various items normally carried by a hero are added up to find his Fatigue score,"
AB p76 " Players only take into consideration the Encumbrance rating of their travelling gear when they are using the rules for resolving a Journey"
AB p77 "the amount of extra equipment carried is as relevant as a Loremaster and his players want it to
be: usually, Encumbrance is closely monitored only as far as war gear is concerned."

So while various rule sections state that Encumbrance includes all items with an Encumbrance Rating and is totalled to reach the Fatigue Threshold/Fatigue Score the rules specifically do not include travelling gear at any time of the year in that total. However AB p77 suggests that should the LM find it necessary then all items carried should be included.

[Stormcrow]

Aside from playability, the idea is obviously that traveling gear is stuff that you put on your pony, or in your boat, or in your pack in such a way that it doesn't significantly impact your minute-to-minute movement.

[Rich H]

AB p77 "the amount of extra equipment carried is as relevant as a Loremaster and his players want it to be: usually, Encumbrance is closely monitored only as far as war gear is concerned."

Rather than add extra (non-combat related) equipment to a character's encumbrance I house-ruled that extra gear increases the fatigue on failed travel tests. This seems to be more in line with the design of the game - ie, combat related equipment adds to encumbrance while other equipment (travel gear) adds to fatigue.

I think if you start adding encumbrance for extra items of equipment deemed as not standard to travel gear then you run the risk of making character even more susceptible to Weariness which may be something you want, which is fine, but it happens enough in my game already so from my point of view I think pushing it even more would make it tedious and annoying.

[Glorelendil]

Although I agree in spirit with Rich's house rule, the specific language of this passage is worth noting:

Players only take into consideration the Encumbrance rating of their travelling gear when they are using the rules for resolving a Journey

Note that the word order is not:

Players take into consideration the Encumbrance rating of their travelling gear only when they are using the rules for resolving a Journey

In other words, "only traveling gear applies to journey rules" not "traveling gear only applies to journey rules".