Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

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Damon Griffin
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Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Damon Griffin »

What I see in the description of the various pre-made packs is too consistent to be typos, but I don't understand the EV ratings; they seem to contradict the rule that the EV's of a containers contents do not count toward the EV of a worn container, it only serves to mark the capacity of that container. What matters to the wearer is the EV of the container itself.

Take the Ranger Backpack on p.64 of Adventurer's Backpack. At the top of the description is the statement "Internal capacity is 18, when worn the EV is 4 plus content." As I understand containers, the EV should only be 4; if it were EV plus everything it held, there would be no benefit to using a balanced, weight-distributing device like a backpack. Since these packs list both interior and exterior items, I believe the more correct description here would be "Internal capacity is 18, when worn the EV is 4 plus the EV of its exterior items."

At the bottom of the description for the Ranger Backpack, a table lists in part these values:
Total interior items EV 15.81
Total exterior items EV 11.25
Pack itself EV 0.00
Totals EV 27.06

It does not seem right that my STR 18/ER 21 Ranger should fall into the Emcumbered category from a backpack alone, before any armor or weapons are added. If my reasoning above is correct, when worn, the fully equipped pack should burden him to the tune of 4.00 (the pack itself, including interior items) + 11.25 for the exterior items -- a total of 15.25 rather than the 27.06 listed.

The same math results in the Mountain Pack on p.55 a total EV of 4 + 18 = 22, instead of 35.19.

So, have the rules on EV and containers changed? Have I grossly misinterpreted the rules as given in the 7th Ed Player's Handbook? Am I completely misunderstanding what the Adventurer's Backpack is saying here?

Help!!!

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by T1Hound »

I did not get that far yet in the book.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Damon Griffin »

Are you proofreading the whole book? I confess I made no such effort, I jumped ahead to the description of the packs themselves.

(For that matter, I'm not sure where we are on being ready to go to print, is proofreading still ongoing with the possibility of changed to the text?)

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by dachda »

There are a bunch of errors in the spells too. Things like SV: yes, rather than SV wisdom negates, Or The first E spell is placed as the last D spell, and it should be the second E spell at that.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Damon Griffin »

As I said, I have no idea where the book is in the proofreading process, or how near it is to print. Typos can almost never be fully eliminated, only minimized.

My concern with the EV ratings for the packs was that what looks wrong to me is presented consistently across all the pre-made packs and therefore less likely to be chalked up to typos or grammar. It's still possible, though. If you worded something in a way open to misinterpretation, and then replicated that wording over and over, changing only the numbers, obviously you would get a result that was bad in a consistent way.

My long-winded way of saying I was not reporting typos, but seeking a rule confirmation/clarification. Because what I read in that section of the book is way different from what I'd understood from the 7th Ed PHB.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Spade Marlowe »

Damon, I had the same thoughts. To me there are two possibilities. The first is that the rules for EV and containers have changed. The second is that they haven't changed, but just weren't explained clearly enough in the PHB (I can't remember if an example is given in the PHB). I do know that EV rules have evolved over the printings of the PHB. I've been meaning to crack open the EV section in the PHB while reviewing a few of the backpacks.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Damon Griffin »

Spade, glad to hear it's not just me that has the concern, and I welcome your analysis of the EV section comparing PHB 7 with the new book.

I am brand new to C&C this year; our CK has made us aware that many of the rules have evolved from edition to edition and that...shall we say proofreading may not be Troll Lords' most consistent virtue?

In any case, I claim no authority of C&C rules knowledge, but this seemed a glaring discrepancy that I really need to understand. Encumbrance is a problem in any FRPG; I had thought C&C provided a somewhat elegant treatment by using containers to offset some of that burden. But now...?

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Rigon »

I don't have the AB yet, so take this with a grain of salt. The encumberance rules was one of the things that changed from printing to printing, up until about the 4th printing (I think). The AB has been a work in progress since around the 2nd printing and has gotten pushed to the side several times for other projects. It could be that the Encumberance section in the AB was written several years ago (with a different set of rules) and no one thought to check it against the newer rules.

I'd recommend sending an email to Tim Burns with the concerns/information. He usually gets back to you faster than Steve.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Damon Griffin »

I will take that suggestion. I do not find a direct email for anyone at the TLG website. But all my automated notifications of new posts to this forum come from [email protected] -- would that be an account Tim reads, and not just a bot?

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Rigon »

I think that's right, but you can also contact him throught the forums here: timburns.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Damon Griffin »

Okay, done. I emailed [email protected] on Thursday, now to sit back and give Mr. Burns time to look into it.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Damon Griffin »

No word from Tim yet. But I checked and it's only been a couple of weeks so far, it just felt longer.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Talyn »

Haven't been on the forum in a few months, but... I was contracted two weeks ago to proofread and copyedit Adventurers Backpack. I'm intentionally saving that Equipment chapter for last, because all those tables and numbers are easy to screw up on. As I said on their FB post on the topic, I have not been NDA'd yet, so anything they have an in-house algorithm for (XP tables specifically) I am leaving as-is, as I have not been made privy to that proprietary information. Sounds like this EV stuff won't apply to that, so that will certainly slow me down finishing that chapter (which will likely begin tomorrow; I'm finished except for one final, small sub-chapter) so I will see what Tim and Steve say on the matter and if they have a different working version than the most recent I was provided with.

The Magic chapter was the second one I did, at the behest of one of the FB posters, so all the spells and their descriptive blocks should be fixed and PHB-compliant now.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Omote »

Thanks for your efforts Talyn! We really appreciate your efforts in making C&C and its books even better. *bows*

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Talyn »

I completed my end of things Wednesday night, so Steve has been busy going through it all. For the topic of this thread, however, I felt it was best if I didn't just start making up numbers on my own, so I took off the copyeditor hat altogether and just wore the proofreader hat. Steve and Tim will be doing a hard review of the EV for all the backpacks before publication.

I'm pleased with the final manuscript, and hope everyone enjoys this product! :)

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Talyn »

Mmmkay, Plan F (or whatever letter we're up to now LOL) I was just asked to fix the backpack EVs after all. This is not my forte, but I just read the section on PHB p. 67 and I agree with the assessments in the original post, so that will be the basis I work from.

I will have to get clarifications from Steve and/or Tim in the process.

Taking the very first Dungeon Basic Backpack, it lists a total EV of 31.19, but if the Backpack is EV 4, and external items are EV 7, that gives me a total EV 11, which seems much more manageable with the PHB encumbrance rules. However, backing that up a bit, the backpack has an 18 EV capacity. So... 4 (backpack) + 7 (external items) + 18 (internal items) = 29, not 31.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Omote »

+1 Fate Point for Talyn. You've earned it.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Damon Griffin »

Talyn wrote:Mmmkay, Plan F (or whatever letter we're up to now LOL) I was just asked to fix the backpack EVs after all. This is not my forte, but I just read the section on PHB p. 67 and I agree with the assessments in the original post, so that will be the basis I work from.

I will have to get clarifications from Steve and/or Tim in the process.

Taking the very first Dungeon Basic Backpack, it lists a total EV of 31.19, but if the Backpack is EV 4, and external items are EV 7, that gives me a total EV 11, which seems much more manageable with the PHB encumbrance rules.
Sounds encouraging up to this point.
Talyn wrote:However, backing that up a bit, the backpack has an 18 EV capacity. So... 4 (backpack) + 7 (external items) + 18 (internal items) = 29, not 31.
This part, not so much. If the backpack does nothing to offset the encumbrance of its internal contents, it's of no value at all.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Traveller »

For the record, here is the PHB rule on capacity objects.
Items that are designed to carry and redistribute the weight and bulk of other items are called Capacity Items. Capacity Items can carry a number of items equal to their Capacity. Furthermore, a Capacity Item cannot carry any item whose EV is equal to or greater than it’s Capacity rating. So a Backpack, with a Capacity of 8, can carry up to 8 items whose EVs are 7 or less.

Items that are carried in a Capacity item do not have their EV included in the character’s Encumbrance Total. Instead, the character only notes the EV of the Capacity item. So the character wearing an EV 2 Backpack that has a Bedroll (EV 3), hammer (EV 2), 50 nails (EV 1), and one torch (EV 1) has five items in the Backpack (and thus has space for three more items). The character’s Encumbrance Rating is only increased by 2 when they carry the Backpack, ignoring the EVs of the items inside of it.
The EV values in Adventurers Backpack don't take the current rule into account. They used a more complex calculation that was simplified for the fifth printing of the PHB. The figures given in the chart are almost completely useless. The only one that is really usable is the combined EV of the exterior items, and that even needs to be rounded up to the nearest whole number.

The Ranger Backpack mentioned in the initial post has an EV of 4 and a capacity of 18. Per the PHB, that means the backpack may hold no more than 18 items. Each of those items may not have an EV of more than 17. The EV of the individual items within the backpack is ignored when figuring the EV of the pack, thus while the 18 items combined might have a total EV that would burden a character, because they are in the backpack, the EV of the backpack is 4.

Items that are external to the backpack do not benefit from the EV reduction since they are not inside the backpack, so any items hanging on the outside of the backpack all have their full EV. Using the figures given in the opening post for the Ranger Backpack, the correct EV would be 4 for the backpack, plus an additional 12 for the items on the outside of it, for a total EV of 16.

The ranger with STR 18 would be unburdened at EV 16. At EV 21 he becomes burdened with all the penalties that involves. At EV 63 the character would basically be unable to move.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Damon Griffin »

Traveller wrote:The Ranger Backpack mentioned in the initial post has an EV of 4 and a capacity of 18. Per the PHB, that means the backpack may hold no more than 18 items. Each of those items may not have an EV of more than 17. The EV of the individual items within the backpack is ignored when figuring the EV of the pack, thus while the 18 items combined might have a total EV that would burden a character, because they are in the backpack, the EV of the backpack is 4.

Items that are external to the backpack do not benefit from the EV reduction since they are not inside the backpack, so any items hanging on the outside of the backpack all have their full EV. Using the figures given in the opening post for the Ranger Backpack, the correct EV would be 4 for the backpack, plus an additional 12 for the items on the outside of it, for a total EV of 16.

The ranger with STR 18 would be unburdened at EV 16. At EV 21 he becomes burdened with all the penalties that involves. At EV 63 the character would basically be unable to move.
Yep, that was my understanding (except where I failed to round up, as with 15.25 rounding up to 16 with the Ranger backpack.)

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Traveller »

The reason you have to round up is that the Encumbrance system only deals with whole numbers.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Talyn »

Part of the initial confusion on my part was the table layout, which Steve has already corrected on his end, and I've adjusted my spreadsheet to properly do the math for the EV, ignoring all the internal contents and only using the pack EV + total EV of external contents. I've been leaving plenty of editing commentary! :)

The two examples (well, specifically the first example) for the Fighter pack need to be adjusted because they don't follow the PHB rules nor does the math add up the way the examples were intended. I suggested a few solutions. We'll see. I'm expecting to finish the backpacks today, though.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Spade Marlowe »

Talyn - Great job and thanks for all the work.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Talyn »

Thank you! :) Tim finished building the new PDF a couple days ago and posted it on DriveThruRPG for the KS backers. I haven't gone through it with a fine-toothed comb or anything but at a super-quick glance I'd guesstimate that 98% or more (not quite 100%) of my proofs were accepted and 97% or more of my edits. I'm quite pleased with it, and I think everyone will like the new backpack chapter; it's been significantly reorganized and streamlined, and the EV is not only correct (thank you spreadsheet =SUM function!) but immediately usable! No more having to do math before you can add the pack to your character.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Persimmon »

I haven't been super excited about this given what I've read about the new character classes, but it seems like there may be other content in it that make it useful anyhow. The one year delay since it was originally supposed to be out hasn't helped my perception of it either. But now I'm cautiously optimistic.
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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Go0gleplex »

Persimmon wrote:I haven't been super excited about this given what I've read about the new character classes, but it seems like there may be other content in it that make it useful anyhow. The one year delay since it was originally supposed to be out hasn't helped my perception of it either. But now I'm cautiously optimistic.
I hear you about the classes Pers, but you are right in assuming that there is other content that more than makes up for that lack...which is pretty much everything after the new classes. :)
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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by serleran »

I have no idea what's in the book. I don't really need new classes since I tend to make my own anyway, generally more powerful than "standard" since I like a little oomph. But, if this finally helps solve the disparate encumbrance systems... then I say good show. Well, not that exactly, but you get the gist.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Talyn »

The book contains obviously, new classes -- including the Rune Mark and their runic spells from the recently discontinued Rune Lore book. New gear which leads directly into the eponymous feature: backpacks, which are collections of equipment to more quickly equip your characters without having to "shop" as much. New spells, new magic items. New "streamlined" unarmed combat rules (more of an accompaniment to the PHB rules rather than a replacement). Battle mount rules.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by serleran »

OK.

So nothing I really need.

Though new spells and magic items are usually interesting.

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Re: Adventurer's Backpacks - EV ratings

Post by Go0gleplex »

A bit on the other planes as well. Spell options for Bard, Ranger, and Pally too.
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