William Wallace's sword weighs less than 7 pounds. A 55 inch (that's over 4 FEET of steel) blade weighs in around 5.5 pounds. I've heard from multiple blacksmiths that a standard longsword, short sword, etc. runs about 1 pound per foot of blade. A full suit of armor weighs around 30-50 pounds. Why are so many swords over 20 pounds in Oblivion? That's beyond silly. Hell, there's one around 40 pounds. That's just not reasonable. It no longer makes any sense. Yes, I understand that it's a game, and a fantasy one at that, but a 40 pound sword is similar to those anime type games where you weild a 10 foot sword, it's just silly.

It's tamriel

NEWSFLASH!

Encumberance does not equal pounds!

Boom.

also that was then this is now, today we know what metals are lightest for swords ergo we put them in it, but around medieval ages (kinda basing what this is from) it could have weighed a lot more, people had no idea what to use back then

That is incorrect, simply put.

:cryvaultboy:

Lets not put logic in the encumbrance system, unless you're satisfied with being able to wear one suit of armour, one sword, two potions and a Mars candy bar. And nothing more. :sadvaultboy:

What do you suggest it means? Magic gravity or what?

Edit: Why does everyone blindly think that the encumbrance is measured in pounds? That's just stupid.

how is that incorrect you can have an argument without an example or something to back it up

and yeh they did know what metals to use, but they were still a lot heavier than they are today, since they really didn't know how to "purify" the metal

See, OP, your problem is thinking that encumberance points equal pounds, when it is a well-known fact that they equal micro-newtons. That's right, that sword only weighs 40 micro-newtons.

Your encumberance is a measure of how much stuff can fit within hammerspace.

Most 1h swords during the later crusades weighed about 2 to 4 pounds. Any more and a person would die of exhaustion.

/thread

My hairy cousins back in Moria disagree, good sir.

For all we know gravity works differently in tamriel. It might effect heavier items more than light ones. It might attact metal more than cloth ect. Its a different world and a game. I wanna carry a lot of loot and still be able to fight and not carry a backpack.

Game over, OP.

We actually don't know that. It's an undefined weight unit which may or may not corospond to a real life weight unit. If it's true that it is pounds, then yes, the in-game weights for items can be rather ridiculous. While it's true that as a fantasy setting, materials in the Elder Scrolls might not have the same properties as ones in real life, if we assume that a character with average strength in the Elder Scrolls is similar to an average human in real life, in terms of strength, a sword that weighs forty pounds would seem quite impractical. But since we don't know what the weight unit used in the game is, Bethesda can really say things weigh whatever amount they like, as long as the reletive weights of items have logic. If there's any problem with the weight of items, I'd say it's in the reletive weights of different items, and I'd say Oblivion does have some problems in this regard. For one thing, glass weapons should NOT weigh more than iron weapons, because iron armor is heavy armor, and glass armor is light, this would indicate that glass is a lighter material than iron, and if armor uses this logic, it should be consistent in weapons as well. But unmodded Oblivion seemed to follow the logic that weight should increase with the quality of weapons and armor, a logic I really can't agree with. I'd hardly consider it necessary for game balance as better weapons and armor are supposed to be, you no, better than weaker ones, so there's no reason why their advantages have to come with disadvantages as well. And if you want to give an item both advantages and disadvantages compared to another one, there are ways to do this besides making it heavier, like say, making it less durable.



While it's true that things in a fantasy world might not always work the same as in real life. It is usually not unreasonable to assume that if you're not specifically told otherwise, any given thing will be the same as its real life counterpart. Unless we're told otherwise, we expect a wolf in a fantasy setting to be more or less the same as a real life wolf, for example. And yes, we generally assume that gravity will work like in real life if we're not told otherwise. Even if gravity is actually caused by earth spirits pulling people down to the ground, as far as how it impacts the story, one generally expects the like reality unless noted rule to apply.

Still, I do agree with you on the game part. In RPGs, I generally like to have room to carry my equipment as well as my loot. although if weapons and armor weighed less, that would mean you could carry more loot, if the maximum weight you could carry was not reduced as well, but the point is that Bethesda should focus first on providing the desired gameplay experience rather than making the game more realistic. Not specifying what weight unit is used in the game just allows them to justify item weights that wouldn't make much sense if the game used a real weight unit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel , enough said. They had a VERY good idea of what they were doing, by today's standards medival weapons are unrealistically above par.
For those who do not like reading
Steel making sites were found in Samanolawewa area in Sri Lanka that made high carbon steel as early as 300 BC (Juleff, 1996).

The PC can carry upwards of 200 pounds (or whatever they are), are you really complaining about weight when you can carry 10 swords at a time?

Fixed because ten swords ain't that hard with enough sheathes =p

suppose 20 feather (the usual iron sword) equals 5 pounds (not exact, but plausible) this would mean a level 1 breton (max enc. ~150 feather) could carry about 35-40 pounds of gear. the strongest orc (100 str -- 500 feathers) could carry 125 pounds. does this sound right to anyone? Modern soldiers are expected to carry as much as 70lbs of gear regularly, that's not their max, that's just kit. Its still possible for them to lift another soldier and carry them out of danger etc.

even in the bronze age, they didn't just put any junk into their weapons. lightness was highly prized. and the 5.5 pounds example from OP is believable for the time (and I'm not talking about with modern materials).

If you said 20 feather is 2.5 lbs or 10lbs. it still seems a little wonky. You can say "its Tamriel" but you could also say the devs are gods and infallible by default. but then why do we have discussion forums at all?

Oh god....Just don't make another thread questioning "how comes a human can carry 500 pounds of equipment???" or I'll silently slap myself.



Back then? Oh god :facepalm: We don't fight with the swords today, in case you didn't notice. We know how heavy the swords were JUST FROM the swords they have from medieval time. And those swords were never heavier than 2-3 pounds, even huge dual wielding weapons that were actually used in battle were hardly ever 4 ponds or more.

Would you guys want there to be an encumbrance limit as well as inventory space limit?

So you can't carry a thousand pots and pans.

Just a thought.

On the whole, a plausible encumbrance system is too much trouble. You'd have to assess weight, bulk and storage. Three elements not one. Weight is only part of it.

For example, IRL weapons are generally light, but large ones are encumbering and inconvenient to carry. You wouldn't want to carry half a dozen swords. Not because they'd weigh 240 Ibs (or whatever) but because they are bulky and take up space. (We have surviving dark age weapons, so we know swords are and were only a few pounds in weight by the way.)

On the other hand, armour in a backpack is far heavier than you might think. Put it on though, and it is less encumbering. The weight is now properly distributed. Still, even light leather weighs far more than a sword. Put it in a backpack though and you'd find it easier to carry than 2 spare swords, even though the swords would weigh less.

Nah, if we went down the realism route, you'd have to carry your bow unstrung and string it before use. You'd get killed before you managed that I suspect.