Encumbrance systems

Why Track Encumbrance?

Encumbrance tracks how much your character carries. ScryRPG totals the weight or bulk of items in carried containers and counts occupied inventory slots. Capacity bars show the current amount against the character’s limit.

ScryRPG supports multiple encumbrance styles to match your game system.

Encumbrance Styles

Weight-Based

Items contribute their weight multiplied by quantity. Carried containers contribute the weight of their contents. Characters have a maximum weight capacity, shown in pounds.

Good for: Realistic simulation, games where strength matters.

Slot-Based

Inventory slots count occupied item stacks, subject to the stack-cap setting. Characters and containers can have a maximum number of slots.

Good for: Quick play, OSR-style games, simplified tracking.

Both

Weight and Slots can be selected together. In this mode, both capacity bars are shown, and either limit can constrain what fits. This is a setting, not the default for D&D 5e.

Bulk (Pathfinder 2e)

The Bulk style uses item bulk categories. Negligible items add no Bulk, Light items accumulate at 10 Light = 1 Bulk, and numeric categories represent whole Bulk. Coins count toward Bulk, and armor outside an Equipped container can add Bulk. Item size can also change its Bulk.

Containers can have a Bulk Limit, Bulk Negation, or the Extradimensional setting. Negation reduces the Bulk counted for contents, while an extradimensional container’s contents do not count toward the character’s Bulk.

None (Narrative)

No capacity bar or encumbrance checks. You can select None even when your game system has a seeded encumbrance default.

Stack Caps (Optional)

Stack caps are optional and off by default for new parties. A Game Master or manager can open the party settings and turn on Enforce Item Stack Caps under Encumbrance rules. When enabled, each item’s stack size controls how many fit in a stack for slot counting and inventory actions. Stack sizes are set per item, not fixed rules for the examples below:

Game System Settings

Party-Level Settings

The Game Master or a manager can open party settings and choose an encumbrance style for party members: Weight, Slots, Both, Bulk, or None. Party thresholds default to Encumbered At 75% and Overencumbered At 100%. Turn on Enforce Encumbrance to show these threshold fields and enable inventory-action blocking when an action would exceed the overencumbered threshold. Enforcement is off by default.

Character Override

For a character in a party, the party’s style, thresholds, and enforcement setting take precedence over the character’s personal settings. A solo character uses their own settings. On a character form, capacity fields show according to the selected style; Advanced encumbrance opens the style and other capacity settings.

Encumbrance Thresholds

The character sheet and character cards show capacity bars and percentages. The bar changes color at the configured thresholds; the full display also labels Encumbered or Overencumbered when applicable. Bulk uses the same threshold percentages as weight and slots.

System-Specific Recommendations

Learn More

• Inventory Guide - Practical container management
• Templates & Instances - How items work under the hood