My party has acquired a horse, and of course immediately started piling on all their goodies so that they don’t have to worry about encumberment. Now, while they don’t seem to recognize how easily this might allow me to Use Up Their Resources (“sorry guys, but you come out of the dungeon and the horse is gone!”) but the more pressing concern is that I have no idea what the horse’s capacity should be, lest it become a horse of holding …
Any thoughts?
The average horse can carry up to approximately 30% of its body weight.[18] Thus, a 1,000 pounds (450 kg) horse cannot carry more than 250 to 300 pounds (110 to 140 kg). A load carried by a packhorse also has to be balanced, with weight even on both sides to the greatest degree possible.
Feels like around 5-6 x what a fairly strong person can carry. I might focus more on the balanced pcking aspect…
en.m.wikipedia.org – Packhorse – Wikipedia
Thanks Chris Shorb — that was helpful.
The horse being unbalanced could be something that comes up on a miss for sure …
So it sounds like I may need to bump up the current listed capacities? Mule has cap 8, packhorse has cap 10, warhorse has cap 12, cart has cap 16. Let’s see… the average fighter has cap 10… ha! I do indeed need to up those numbers.
I’d say Mule/donkey cap 15, horse cap 20, cart 30.
Jason Lutes i prefer your numbers since it keeps things scarce and makes players have to consider what they really need or otherwise pay the money for a better pack animal.
Jason Abdin Though it does shrink pack animals down to only being able to carry what a person can carry. You’d be better off bringing porters under the circumstances.
Jason Abdin, I hear you, but in the end I favor a slightly more simulationist approach. The tradeoff that a pack animal requires care and feeding, and is actually quite vulnerable (especially when fully-laden) make it an interesting choice to me. Like Jeb E says, it’s an asset that must be carefully protected; another resource that might get used up.
Jason Lutes are the capacities listed in the rules? I noticed that (in my version at least) there’s an open parenthesis next to horse but no further information, like “horse ( “
That was in the random items table, just realized maybe I was looking in the wrong place!
Ha, yup, found the listings in the marketplace section. That’s what I get for looking in the wrong place! I think I will up their carrying capacity though, to make it more “realistic” and add that extra element of needing to carefully protect the horse, particularly if it’s carrying a whole bunch of the party’s stuff
Jeb E, let me know what numbers you end up with and how it goes in practice. I will definitely be increasing capacity for pack animals thanks to this, and will post an update soon.
Brett Slocum’s numbers, while feeling fairly realistic based on the numbers Chris Shorb provided, do feel a bit too high, so I’m going to split the difference, I think. Mule 10, Packhorse 15, Warhorse 18, cart … idk, 22? or something? I’ll pack that cart when we come to it.
Jason Lutes I’ll try to let you know how it goes in play.
Jason Lutes the numbers I ended up going with are listed in the marketplace handout I just uploaded. We’ve only dealt with the packhorse so far, but these numbers seem to work pretty well. Pretty sure most of the party would die for that horse, regardless of whether it’s carrying all their junk.