Fatigue and Encumbrance

[Murcushio]

Okay, so. Owing to what went down in the last thread I have to confess to being thoroughly confused over how Traveling Gear interacts with Encumbrance and Fatigue, and how we're doing it in the game I play in.

In particular, these two rules seem to interact in mutually exclusive ways:

AB p76 "A player-hero’s traveling 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 traveling gear when they are using the rules for resolving a Journey"

It's like... which is it? Do I take into account the Encumbrance rating of my traveling gear for totaling up my Fatigue score all the time, or do I only total them up when we're resolving a Journey? What about when stuff goes down during a Journey? If we're traveling through Mirkwood and get jumped by spiders, does that break the journey and start a new episode?

Maybe some concrete examples and questions.

I play Alette, a Beorning. She carries a Great Spear (Encumbrance 4) and wears a Leather corslet (Encumbrance 8). We began the game in spring, meaning that her Traveling Gear has Encumbrance 2.

Is her Encumbrance 14, or is it 12? Is her starting Fatigue score 14, or is it 12?

In our most recent session, we encountered a Troll on the Old Forest Road while journeying to Dale. In the actual session we were all loaded down with treasure we were bringing to King Bard and had generated a ton of Fatigue due to traveling through the Heart of Mirkwood , so Weary was an issue, but for example purposes I'm going to ignore that; let's assume the only Fatigue I have is from Encumbrance due to my Traveling Gear and/or War Gear.

Alette fights in Forward and Open a lot, so she gets hit a lot. The Troll hits with its club a few times and I go to Endurance 13.

Am I Weary? We're not resolving a Journey, so that would seem to imply I am not; the Encumbrance of my War Gear only adds up to 12, and the rules say that Traveling Gear only counts when doing Journey stuff. That would make my Fatigue only 12, so I'm not yet Weary.

But the rules also seem to imply that Traveling Gear counts for calculating Fatigue, which seems, again, mutually exclusive with not counting their Encumbrance all the time. Counting my Traveling Gear, my Encumbrance is 14, as is my Fatigue, which means that I am in fact Weary.

This also has implications for if and when I decide to take the Great Strength Virtue.

Any help? Thoughts? The way my group has been doing it up to this point is "All your War Gear AND all your Traveling Gear, all the time, no matter what."

[Glorelendil]

Re-read my last post on page 1 in the other thread. You're misreading how "only" is used in the second quote.

But, as Rich points out, RAW may not be the way to go on this one.

[Stormcrow]

If I were adventuring in Lake-town during the autumn and had a house to stay in, I would be pretty annoyed if the Loremaster insisted I was carrying three encumbrance points of blankets, water, and food.

If I were on an autumn journey riding a pony and were ambushed by a band of orcs, I would be pretty annoyed if the Loremaster insisted that I, and not my pony, were carrying three encumbrance points of blankets, water, and food during the fight.

It simply doesn't make sense for your character to ALWAYS add his traveling-gear encumbrance to his war-gear encumbrance. And if it doesn't always make sense, then it either never happens, or it only happens when the Loremaster decides it does—a decision never mentioned in the rules.

As for the wording of "Players only take into consideration the Encumbrance rating of their travelling gear when they are using the rules for resolving a Journey," this could easily be an error caused by English not being Francesco's native language. You simply cannot look too closely at the exact syntax of phrases in these rules to deduce fine distinctions. (I still wince whenever I see "Free Folks.")

[Glorelendil]

As for the wording of "Players only take into consideration the Encumbrance rating of their travelling gear when they are using the rules for resolving a Journey," this could easily be an error caused by English not being Francesco's native language. You simply cannot look too closely at the exact syntax of phrases in these rules to deduce fine distinctions.

Except that if you take the less grammatically obvious interpretation it then conflicts with other statements.

Not saying I disagree about the scenarios you describe. Just pointing out what RAW seems to be saying.

[Murcushio]

Re-read my last post on page 1 in the other thread. You're misreading how "only" is used in the second quote.

... that just kind of makes it worse, tho! If I'm reading your interpretation right, we disregard the Encumbrance from our War Gear when resolving a Journey. And that just seems like madness. We all live in that stuff, all the time. Alette sleeps with her spear. (Yes, that's come up.)

Having it not count when we're on a trip can't possibly be the intention of the designers... can it?

If I were adventuring in Lake-town during the autumn and had a house to stay in, I would be pretty annoyed if the Loremaster insisted I was carrying three encumbrance points of blankets, water, and food.

If I were on an autumn journey riding a pony and were ambushed by a band of orcs, I would be pretty annoyed if the Loremaster insisted that I, and not my pony, were carrying three encumbrance points of blankets, water, and food during the fight.

Our group hasn't been using horses. For one, we've spent the entire game so far either on the Anduin or deep in the Heart of Mirkwood and the Haunted Hills; taking horses there seemed silly. So yes, we've been carrying everything on our backs. That's been fine with me, I took Hardy for a reason (when you're a Wanderer with 0 points in Travel, you get used to long trudges) but the others... they get tired so easily, the scamps.

For another, we've seen very little need for them. In the RAW, literally the only advantages having a horse provides are making Fatigue checks easier. That's not nothing, but it also hasn't been worth acquiring them, especially since until the last session we couldn't afford horses for the entire group.

As for the wording of "Players only take into consideration the Encumbrance rating of their travelling gear when they are using the rules for resolving a Journey," this could easily be an error caused by English not being Francesco's native language. You simply cannot look too closely at the exact syntax of phrases in these rules to deduce fine distinctions. (I still wince whenever I see "Free Folks.")

While it may not be entirely fair to Francesco, I would note that "using exact syntax of phrases to deduce fine distinctions" is sort of de rigeur when it comes to game design. It's how people who operate off the assumptions "the designers know what they're doing and we should at least make the attempt to run the rules as laid out" resolve fine distinctions. Also, falling back on the RAW is often part of the social contract of gaming when it comes to resolving issues between player and GM.

[Stormcrow]

Except the rule books are FULL of these syntactic ambiguities. I am in no way prepared to assume that the language of the rule in question was under any more scrutiny than the rest of them.

As for social contracts, that varies greatly by group. Some people are rules-lawyers; some people find them anathema.

[Glorelendil]

Re-read my last post on page 1 in the other thread. You're misreading how "only" is used in the second quote.

... that just kind of makes it worse, tho! If I'm reading your interpretation right, we disregard the Encumbrance from our War Gear when resolving a Journey. And that just seems like madness. We all live in that stuff, all the time. Alette sleeps with her spear. (Yes, that's come up.)

No no no....it doesn't say "whenever computing fatigue during journeys" it says "when using Journey rules" (or something like that.) Meaning, specifically, that you add only 2 or 3 fatigue, depending on season, when failing a travel roll. That's to prevent players from assuming that you have to add your full encumbrance score (including war gear) to your fatigue every time you fail a travel roll.

As far as whether I'm relying inappropriately on syntactic forensics...Francesco: if you're reading this, could you chime in? Am I giving you too much credit?

[beckett]

Re-read my last post on page 1 in the other thread. You're misreading how "only" is used in the second quote.

... that just kind of makes it worse, tho! If I'm reading your interpretation right, we disregard the Encumbrance from our War Gear when resolving a Journey. And that just seems like madness. We all live in that stuff, all the time. Alette sleeps with her spear. (Yes, that's come up.)

No no no....it doesn't say "whenever computing fatigue during journeys" it says "when using Journey rules" (or something like that.) Meaning, specifically, that you add only 2 or 3 fatigue, depending on season, when failing a travel roll. That's to prevent players from assuming that you have to add your full encumbrance score (including war gear) to your fatigue every time you fail a travel roll.

As far as whether I'm relying inappropriately on syntactic forensics...Francesco: if you're reading this, could you chime in? Am I giving you too much credit?

Questions of syntax aside, Mr Elfcrusher is correct. Your Traveling Gear (2 for summer/spring, 3 for winter/autumn) is added to your Fatigue if you fail a Travel test while on a Journey.

For example, a Hobbit PC has a Leather Corslet (8 encumbrance value), a buckler (1 encumbrance value), a short sword (1 encumbrance value) and a bow (1 encumbrance value).

The Hobbit's total Fatigue Score is 11 (add up armor and weapons encumbrance values).

Should that Hobbit travel from Woodman-town to Beorn's House in the summer and fail one of his Travel tests he will add 2 (the value of his summer traveling gear) to his Fatigue Score for a total of 13. His Endurance is 22 so he is not yet weary.

It would be madness to add 13 (11+ 2) to his 11 fatigue score. The poor hero would be made weary on one failed Travel roll!

I hope that helps clear up the confusion -- assuming I understood the confusion in the first place!

[Murcushio]

Questions of syntax aside, Mr Elfcrusher is correct. Your Traveling Gear (2 for summer/spring, 3 for winter/autumn) is added to your Fatigue if you fail a Travel test while on a Journey.

That part I'm pretty clear on, as is my GM.

For example, a Hobbit PC has a Leather Corslet (8 encumbrance value), a buckler (1 encumbrance value), a short sword (1 encumbrance value) and a bow (1 encumbrance value).

The Hobbit's total Fatigue Score is 11 (add up armor and weapons encumbrance values).

I'm not sure that's right? The rules don't say you get your Fatigue score by adding up only your armor and weapons encumbrance values (plus any treasure you might have, of course). They say specifically "all the Encumbrance ratings of the various items normally carried by a hero are added up to find his Fatigue score."

I'm starting to think that the rules as written and as intended really do intend for you to count all your war gear and all your traveling gear all the time, it's just that the season-variable weight of your traveling gear impacts how much Fatigue you gain from blowing travel rolls.

Although I really hope I'm wrong about that, as it means I'll either never be able to take Great Strength or only manage it by being basically guaranteed to fail protection tests.

[beckett]

Questions of syntax aside, Mr Elfcrusher is correct. Your Traveling Gear (2 for summer/spring, 3 for winter/autumn) is added to your Fatigue if you fail a Travel test while on a Journey.

That part I'm pretty clear on, as is my GM.

For example, a Hobbit PC has a Leather Corslet (8 encumbrance value), a buckler (1 encumbrance value), a short sword (1 encumbrance value) and a bow (1 encumbrance value).

The Hobbit's total Fatigue Score is 11 (add up armor and weapons encumbrance values).

I'm not sure that's right? The rules don't say you get your Fatigue score by adding up only your armor and weapons encumbrance values (plus any treasure you might have, of course). They say specifically "all the Encumbrance ratings of the various items normally carried by a hero are added up to find his Fatigue score."

I'm starting to think that the rules as written and as intended really do intend for you to count all your war gear and all your traveling gear all the time, it's just that the season-variable weight of your traveling gear impacts how much Fatigue you gain from blowing travel rolls.

Although I really hope I'm wrong about that, as it means I'll either never be able to take Great Strength or only manage it by being basically guaranteed to fail protection tests.

This is how the original rules dealt with Traveling Gear and I'm pretty sure that stayed the same in the revised rulebook. The revised book, page 77, says this about it:

Players only take into consideration the Encumbrance rating of their travelling gear when they are using the rules for resolving a Journey (see page 158).

Any weapon, suit of armour, helm or shield carried by an adventurer must be individually recorded on the character sheet, along with its Encumbrance rating. Their total Encumbrance score is taken into account to find a hero’s Fatigue threshold.