The following items are considered "Heavy" (even if they're not actually actually heavy they require a greater amounts of strength to use effectively). Characters who have less than 13 Strength suffer a penalty of -1 to hit and damage using these items.
Armour: Ring, Scale, Mail, Plate, Large Shield
Weapons: Battle Axe, Polearm, Two-Handed Sword, Longbow
Characters with Strength between 3 and 12 would thus be better to choose lighter arms and armour. This seems to fit with the Grey Mouser type characters choosing lighter weapons while the stronger Fafhrd type characters choose the heavier ones.
3 comments:
I played about with a similar rule that required STR 13-15 for "medium" armours and STR 16+ for plate. Normal encumbrance and AC, but if you didn't meet the STR requirement, no DEX bonus to AC or missile fire.
Similarly, wielding two weapons required STR 13-15 and two-handed weapons required STR 16+.
I like the concept of imposing arms and armour limitations based on STR, but because of class-based armour/weapon restrictions, the effect was pretty much limited to fighters (with clerics as a close second), and I ultimately scrapped it.
If you don't use the variable weapon damages, you may also have normal weapons inflicting 1D6 damage, and heavy weapons 1D6+1, but only for STR 13+
Good mail is pretty darned comfortable compared to scale or plate. Normal folks shouldn't be much hindered by it. Of course the cheap suits of mail from the standard equipment list might not be all that comfortable.
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