Critical Encumbrance Failure: Difference between revisions

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* In ''[[Quest for Glory]]'', the game outright warns you when you're over-encumbered, which makes your character move at a snail's pace. However, one can increase the encumbrance limit by working on the hero's Strength.

* ''[[Halo]]'' follows standard FPS procedure and limits you to two weapons, so it isn't an example, but the novel ''The Flood'' lampshades it; as the Chief is thinking choosing between a sniper rifle or a rocket launcher in addition to his assault rifle, but then reasons that “Carrying all three of them would be impractical, not to mention damned heavy.”

** Although the game attempts to subvert this, a player could theoretically have three weapons available. However, to do this, they would have to constantly move towards their next objective, while at the same time constantly throwing away the second weapon to pick up the third weapon. Doing this repeatedly makes the player throw the current weapon forwards, while picking up the new one. So if you really want that rocket launcher to shoot at the Covenant tank in the next area, you'll have to keep throwing it forward. It's not very [[Awesome but Impractical|practical]] however.

* ''[[Ragnarok Online]]'' plays it completely straight; picking up one tiny item can completely shut down all health and mana regen if it bumps you over half your maximum weight, or prevent you from attacking at all if it bumps you over 90%.

* [[Trickster Online]] has this, as well as an annoying 300 item limit on your inventory. Once you hit 90% weight capacity, you are reduced to walking. Reaching 300 items merely prevents picking up more items, unless they stack on a single slot, like [[Healing Potion|Healing Potions]]. There is also a [[Point Build System|character stat]] made specificly to increase weight capacity.

* ''[[Nethack]]'' has various levels of encumbrance, which increasingly limit your movement - burdened, strained, stressed, overtaxed (when you can't walk), and overloaded (when you can barely move your arms).

* ''Furyband'' and ''ToME'' averts the trope. If for example you attempt to lug four Ancient Dragon corpses back to town for artifact-making (a total of 73,000 pounds) you can move, but at a glacial pace.

* ''[[Armored Core]]'' is notorious of this. Being overweight either slows your mech down like heck or it is disallowed to sortie at all. The latter is common in the first series while the former is featured in games post 2 continuity.

* ''[[Mechwarrior]]'' prevents overweight mechs from deploying but a mech with a single Small Laser and one with a full permitted loadout both move at the same speed if the empty space in the former isn't used for a more powerful engine.

* Most games by Bethesda

* In ''[[Lost in Blue]]'', each character has a twenty-slot inventory. This leads to bizarre occasions where the characters can somehow [[Game FAQs|shove twenty logs down their ass]], but only be able to carry twenty leaves.

* ''[[Jagged Alliance|Jagged Alliance 2]]'' subverts this trope, by increasing the "fatigue" cost of actions proportionally to the character's total carried weight. Having 134% weight means losing 34% fatigue points more than normal. However, you don't get a bonus for carrying less than 100%...

* ''7.62mm High Caliber'' averts this by providing a set limit that mercs can easily carry and gradually slowing their movement down the more they carry. However, the game's relatively realistic inventory system will generally prevent them from carrying so much that they're unable to move (trying to make them carry three rocket-propelled grenades and a backpack full of ammunition for their M60 will most certainly turn them into a slug, though). Wearing any backpack will also automatically restrict movement by preventing prone mercs from rolling side to side.

* ''[[STALKER|S.T.A.L.K.E.R.]]'' plays this trope kind of straight -- your agility varies with weight, but the moment you're carrying a single gram over 50.0 kilograms you can't run for more than a very short time. At exactly 60.0 Kg you can't move at all without a [[Power Armor|powered exoskeleton]].

* Most games based from ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' ruleset, such as ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'', ''[[Icewind Dale]]'' and ''[[Planescape: Torment]]''. But not the pen-and-paper game itself, where an increasingly large load slows you down more and more, and even a load of up to 5 times your encumbrance limit can still be dragged.

* In the original ''[[Heavy Gear]]'' game, the customization feature included the "load" limit, where the "load" was how heavy all the stuff you were tacking on the Gear was. The "maximum load" was determined by the Gear's parts, i.e. an Assault Gear like a Kodiak or a King Cobra would have a higher maximum load than a Scout Gear like a Cheetah or a Gila. One could approach the maximum load limit as close as they can without any consequences, but as soon as that limit is breached, even by a small amount, the top speed of the gear drops exponentially. You could have a Gear that can reach 72KPH suddenly have its speed reduced to 16KPH after you bolt on that machine gun. The manual also states that if the load exceeds the maximum by a substantial amount, the Gear would also incur stress on its internal structure, which probably means more damage if the armor is penetrated.

* A purse or backpack only needs an additional 300g (10oz) to go from safe to carry to being heavy enough that it'll cause fairly severe back and shoulder pain after a short amount of time.

** Not to mention being as good as a cinder brick on a chain in a bargain brawl.