Encumbrance is more about what you're carrying than how much. Sure, you could stuff a backpack with trinkets and junk and jaunt about with it, but our adventurers are also wearing armor, carrying weapons and torches, with bows and shields slung over them, with belts and bandoliers of scrolls and bottles and daggers. Also they're expected to be nimble and make successful saving throws, including swinging on ropes, climbing cliffs, and swimming. Rarely is pack weight taken into consideration, and when it is it's in the form of counting. Math isn't a fun game to play at the table.
Realistically a person can carry about 20% their body weight without becoming exhausted, this is about 25-30 pounds for most people. Remember that the heavier you are the more of your own body weight you're carrying around by default, so that counts for something too. A larger person isn't necessarily capable of carrying more than a small person over a span of time, even if they're capable of exerting more force in one go.
I appreciate the granularity of weight-based encumbrance, but it could use some simplification. If you don't think about stuff like this much it has a tendency to slip through the cracks. Having traveled for many years on foot I'm quite aware that carrying much of anything for extended periods of time is exhausting. If you aren't a hiker I ask that you try it for a weekend. You'll quickly realize something you've been missing from your games. I ask my players about their encumbrance every time they try to do anything that requires mobility, and any time they collect treasure. It's just innate in me because I know it matters.
You could probably hike around in a dungeon all day wearing plate mail if you carried nothing but your weapons, but at the end of the day you'd be desperate to get that stuff off. Traveling overland wearing plate mail is out of the question unless you're mounted, and even then you're going to be sweaty and achy. It takes a lifetime of conditioning to do the things knights could do in plate mail, and even they struggled.
There's this video of a guy training like Jean Le Maingre aka Boucicault, running around doing exercises to condition his body for wearing plate mail. Shit is 26kg or about 60#s. He seems to have pretty good mobility, the joints are all well articulated, but you can tell he's struggling. He has a hard time getting up on the wooden horse, and he runs at a slow trot.
I assume that any fighter or cleric that wanted to survive to second level would perform training like this. This explains why magic-users can't just throw on plate mail and cast spells and get the same benefit as fighters--it's physically and mentally exhausting, requires peak physical ability, and such constant conditioning leaves little time for the immense study regimen required to cast even the most basic spells. Fighters are medieval knights, and magic-users are medieval monks. A monk would probably struggle just knowing how to don the harness, much less how to move efficiently in it. Saying a magic-user could wear armor might be equivalent to saying that anybody with two hands can drive a car, except it's a 60# car you wear on your body.
In the video he's shown climbing an artificial rock wall. This isn't analogous to climbing an actual rock wall, as the hand-holds are large and designed for climbing. I figure the rough uneven surface of a stone tower or cliffside would be a much different experience.
I would call plate mail heavily encumbering. If you're wearing it I'd probably cut the encumbrance weight in half, say 30#, because of how the harness conforms to your body. Nobody except Shiva has enough arms to carry all that shit around though. You either wear plate mail or leave it behind.
On the other hand, a chainmail hauberk is about 20# and they're relatively comfortable to wear. The weight it definitely noticeable but it balances well across your body well and you get pretty used to it just wearing it a lot. Unless you assume 'chainmail' means the full suit, not just the hauberk,
in which case it would be as heavy and encumbering as plate mail. It's harder to explain why a magic-user can't wear chainmail and still cast spells, unless you believe that stuff about metal interfering with magical auras.
Or if you're down to say "this is a game, you guys play as 'archetypes', weapon and armor restrictions exist to help differentiate the classes, since you're supposed to work as a team."
The Rules
Okay so let's make something gameable out of all this. The following system works nicely as it fits with the Armor Class steps (10, 12, 14, 16) and movement rates (120, 90, 60, 30)
Encumbrance is about your load, how big a pack you're carrying, what you're weighted down with. Traveling on foot much of anything is encumbering, so we'll do this in batches.
Wearing nothing, you're totally unencumbered. You can do flips and jumps and polevault over pirahnas. You can remain unencumbered as long as you don't have a backpack. A grappling hook tied around you, manacles for a belt, a dagger in your shoe, some scrolls tucked into a secret pocket in your jerkin, a 6 foot staff in one hand, you're unencumbered. I'll even let you take a pouch belt or bandolier for holding little stuff like jewelry, specialists tools, a couple bombs, rations, or potions. This is where thieves and mages should be to get the most of their abilities.
If you're carrying a backpack of gear or treasure, leather armor, a couple of weapons or whatever, up to roughly 25# you're lightly encumbered. We might take your stuff into account a bit when it comes, particularly if you have to swim or climb or balance. Dropping your backpack is a free action but you lose initiative. This is where adventurer-types like bards, rogues, or spellswords should be, the guys that need a few extra things and look cool doing it. Also, it's where everybody should be if they're doing overland travel.
Alternatively you could outsource the carrying of stuff (in order of disposability) to slaves, donkeys, porters, lighterlads, or henchmen.
If you've got a bunch of gear, medium armor, and a large weapon you can't just tuck away, like a battle axe or a halberd or a shield, over 25# of stuff, you're encumbered. Subtract 1 from your dexterity bonus. Your maximum move speed is reduced one step (eg 120' to 90'). You can still do athletic things, but you're at a disadvantage.
If you've got over 50# of stuff, wearing plate mail, carrying a halberd, a shield, a sword, five daggers, and a bandolier of bombs, you're heavily encumbered. Subtract 2 from your dexterity bonus, your move speed is reduced two steps (120' to 60'). You can't cast spells, can't swim, you can't jump, you can barely climb, and you have to remove your armor (which takes like 20 minutes) to do any of that stuff and trail it behind you on a rope or small raft or donkey. Fighters and clerics do their best loaded out like this, but it shouldn't be their job to do delicate tasks or carry loot or gear.
Carrying more than this you're basically fucked & you can't run or fight at all, you're stuck at a 30' move speed, and you roll with disadvantage on everything. This includes carrying a wounded party member on your back, hobbling around with a serious illness or injury, or something equally taxing.
Bulky items are important to remember here. Brocade tapestries, bolts of moonwool, rare paintings, large weapons, fat sacks of gold are all bulky and hard to manage. Carrying two increases your Encumbrance rating.
Also, torches have a 1 in 6 chance of going out each turn when dropped, but lanterns only check once when they fall (but they shatter and catch on fire).
A gold dinar weighed 4.25 grams. There's 453.5 grams in a pound. Thus 100 gold pieces is about a pound. I would call 'a fat sack of gold' somewhere between 10 and 15 pounds, something that's gonna get in your way and jangle around and throw you off balance. Thus ~1200 gold is encumbering. If a player asks me "I have 1120 gold, does that count as bulky?" my answer would be yes. If you're not sure, the answer is yes. Carrying around shit is exhausting. Small treasures can be valued in coin sizes. Whole 10s numbers are good, so 1, 10, 20, 50, 100, but who has time for that? If I look at your equipment list and my eyes glaze over you're encumbered.
Seriously. On my last hitchhiking adventure I carried, on my person, a guitar, a change of clothes, a gallon of water, a book, a ball of twine, a knife, 2 cans of sardines, 150' of paracord, a 10x12 tarp, a pair of vicegrips, a tiny cook stove & a canister of propane, a titanium spork, and a tiny aluminum pot. Shit was 25# not counting the guitar (my weapon and shield) and it was awful. I wanted to throw it all in the garbage and go naked. This was also my lightest pack.
Really this comes down to conversing with the players, which is really a lot of my DMing, and it works best if everybody is constantly aware of it. Time, movement speed, carry weight, and torches are those things you update each turn, or each new room. "What are you carrying? Where is your stuff at?" "You have armor & a shield, that's encumbered, you'll have a hard time doing that thing"..... OR "you've got a crazy strength bonus, I think you can manage carrying the thief and his gear, and your gear on your back and climbing up this rope while goblins shoot arrows at you.........IF YOU ROLL 2 IN 6"
Nobody likes counting stuff in the heat of the moment at the table, so it's best just to gauge it and say encumbered or not. Real life works more like this. When it doubt, you're encumbered.
This starts looking a lot like the Slot system in Knave, which I'm a fan of. Problem here is what consitutes a slot? Is a weird scroll we found a slot? Is this bronze necklace a slot?
One thing I like about it is that the best armor is like 4 slots, so nobody uses it. Everybody goes with the lightest stuff. This is good because it models reality. If you're an adventurer in a dangerous place you want to be light because running away is better than dying.
Movement speed
Since 10 minute exploration lengths assume everybody is sneaking around, testing the environment, taking breaks now and then, your encumbrance doesn't have much of an effect here. You can be all kitted out and still move at a slow pace. Once you have to hide or move quickly or climb a boulder or act at once, that's when the weight really becomes a burden. Burdened people also roll with disadvantage on initiative.
BONUS ROUND: Why does plate mail even exist?
Plate mail in the real world developed quickly in response to primitive firearms. Our world doesn't have firearms, because it has fireball throwing shadowmancers so who cares about boom-boom smoke powder, so why does it exist? The answer is monsters.
Shielding your whole body with metal plates is a great idea when ogres are trying to twist you in half and fiendish otherworldly wargs slink in the shadows of any given forest. The armor in our world developed in order to protect warriors against such things.
Because this is a fantastical world of magic we can assume our armor is of a different technological strain than the real world variety. The articulation is better, they can make it lighter, they can meld together materials that don't exist in our world. They can put spells on it that help resist certain types of damage.
But that golden age when knights sallied forth to do battle with evil is long gone. The age of Law is over and the Age of Chaos encroaches on us from every direction. Technological advancement has ended and all those ancient ways are lost and mysterious. Humanity is dwindling and growing stupid and demons are becoming more common. Modern smiths can't make armor like them of yore, they can only imitate it, and rare expensive materials are hard to come by because no major trade routes exist.
Thus the plain old expensive plate you buy at Bigtown is just iron riveted together as best they can figure. It might even be heavier and worse than the stuff they made in the real world.
The REAL good stuff, the ancient magical protection, is a true treasure. If a king or vizcount owns a suit it will be their pride and joy, kept locked behind magewalls and wyrmfire. A pretty-looking imitation will be commissioned to be worn on parades. The only time they'll really bring it out is during war.
Wearing this stuff around will get you attention, both good and bad, unless you use illusions to hide its magnificence, and even then Truly Powerful armor demands to be seen and will resent being hidden.
If you wear recognizably magical or ancient armor knights and lords will give you difference, and bribers, swindlers, cutthroats, and renegade barons will demand your hide. Patrons will flock to you, archwizards will scry you, thieves guilds will drool, and assassin cult will conspire.
The same, though, is true for wielding magic weaponry or powerful spells. Carrying this shit around in public is equivalent to carrying around grenades and sniper rifles in our world. People are terrified, the panopticon will turn its eye towards you, and trouble woe and riches follow you everywhere.
Magical armor has a great chance of being lighter than the above stated encumbrances, but it comes with other costs.
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