Story Lens
What You Carry Into It
Equipment is the gap between who you are and what you can do
Davan checked his kit the way experienced soldiers do — not counting, just touching. Sword. Knife. Water. The gambeson was stiff from the cold but intact. The mail had a loose ring near the collar he hadn't fixed. That ring would matter tonight or it wouldn't.
Equipment in OpenRPG is not a shopping list. It is a set of decisions about what risks you are prepared to handle and what risks you are not. The rules exist to make those decisions feel real.
- Equipment interacts with your stats — weight affects encumbrance, armor affects damage taken, weapon choice affects which attack tables apply.
- Nothing is free: every piece of gear has weight, cost, and condition. Maintaining equipment is part of the game.
- Four categories cover everything: weapons, armor, items, and artifacts. Each has its own rules layer.
Equipment
What equipment means mechanically — the four categories and how they interact with your character.
The Four Categories
| Category | What It Covers | Key Rules Layer |
|---|---|---|
| Weapons | All offensive equipment — melee, ranged, and natural attacks | Attack type, damage dice, reach, crit/fumble tables |
| Armor | Protective layers worn on the body — from gambeson to full plate | Damage reduction by location, sunder chance, layer stacking |
| Items | Tools, supplies, trade goods, and consumables | Weight, encumbrance contribution, situational skill bonuses |
| Artifacts | Magically imbued objects — relics, talismans, and enchanted gear | Attunement, imbuement effects, activation conditions |
Load and Encumbrance
How carried weight translates into mechanical penalties through your Encumbrance stat.
Load and Encumbrance
Your Encumbrance stat is derived from your physical attributes and sets the threshold at which carried weight begins to slow you down. It is not a binary — penalties increase incrementally as you exceed it.
| Load State | Condition | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Unencumbered | Total weight ≤ Encumbrance | No penalty |
| Encumbered | Weight exceeds Encumbrance by up to 50% | physicalReflexes –10, physicalBalance –10, base movement –1 |
| Heavily Encumbered | Weight exceeds Encumbrance by 51–100% | physicalReflexes –20, physicalBalance –20, base movement –2, fatigue accumulates faster |
| Overloaded | Weight exceeds Encumbrance by more than 100% | Cannot run, physicalReflexes –30, physicalBalance –30; GM may call forced rest |
Encumbrance formula
Encumbrance = (physicalStrength + physicalBalance + physicalEndurance) / 4. A character with Strength 60, Balance 50, Endurance 55 has Encumbrance 41 — they can carry up to 41 kg without penalty.
Equipment Condition
How gear degrades through use, sunder checks, and neglect — and what it takes to restore it.
Equipment Condition
All equipment exists on a condition track. Armor degrades through sunder checks triggered by critical hits. Weapons degrade through heavy use and fumbles. Items and artifacts have their own triggers. A piece of equipment at Broken condition provides no benefit until repaired.
| Condition | Effect | Repair |
|---|---|---|
| Intact | Full stats apply | No action needed |
| Damaged | DR or effectiveness reduced by 25% | Short rest + tools, or settlement visit |
| Compromised | DR or effectiveness reduced by 50%; sunder checks more frequent | Skilled craftsperson required (Blacksmithing or relevant trade) |
| Broken | No benefit. Armor provides 0 DR; weapons cannot be used | Full workshop repair; some items cannot be restored |
Sunder checks
When a critical hit strikes a location covered by armor, or when a fumble result calls for it, the covering piece makes a sunder check against its sunder chance. On a failure the item drops one condition step. Defense profiles list sunder chance — lighter armor sunders more easily than plate.
Starting Equipment
How characters begin play with equipment and what determines their initial loadout.
Starting Equipment
Starting equipment is determined by your profession and social standing, and agreed with your GM before the first session. The character creation rules establish your budget and available options. You do not begin with everything you might eventually acquire — you begin with what your background justifiably gives you.
Equipment and character concept
Equipment choices at character creation are a statement about your character's history, not just a resource allocation. A soldier begins with military-issue gear. A merchant begins with tools of trade. A noble begins with quality equipment their station demands. If the equipment doesn't fit the concept, either the concept or the equipment needs to change.
Starting currency, if any, is covered in the social standing rules. Equipment that requires significant wealth — full plate, named artifacts, rare materials — typically requires narrative justification rather than simply having the coin.