Items and Your Inventory

In Beast World, having the right gear at the right time can make all the difference between life and death. Great emphasis is placed on your inventory—what you carry and where you carry are important things to keep track of.

Slots & Bulk. An active inventory manages items using inventory slots (storage capacity) and object bulk (carrying effort).

Inventory Slots. Inventory slots describe storage capacity—how much can a thing carry without being overwhelmed? One slot holds one small object—a potion bottle, a dagger, a loaf of bread, etc. Anything that can hold, carry, or contain objects can make use of inventory slots—for example:

• Creatures use slots to describe how much they can carry before they're encumbered. 

• Containers use slots to describe how much they can store before they're full. 

• Buildings use slots to describe how much free space they have in their rooms. 

• Vehicles use slots to describe how much they can transport before they can't move. 

Bulk. Objects use bulk to describe how many inventory slots they fill—the bulkier the object, the more slots occupied. Bulk represents the effort needed by a medium-sized creature to carry an object based on its size, weight, and shape—the more awkward or uncomfortable it is to hold an object, the higher its bulk.

Your Inventory

Your inventory capacity depends on your creature size and strength modifier—the bigger and stronger you are, the more inventory slots you have.

As your size increases, so too does your bulk—a larger creature takes more effort to carry. Your bulk equals the larger of either a) your minimum bulk or b) the total bulk of everything in your inventory.

Creature Inventory
Size - Slots - Minimum Bulk
Tiny - 6 + StrMod - 5
Small - 14 + StrMod - 5
Medium - 18 + StrMod - 5
Large - 22 + (StrModx2) - 5
Huge - 30 + (StrModx4) - 5
Gargantuan - 46 + (StrModx8) - 5

Basic Supplies

In addition to inventory slots, you can freely carry a limited number of basic supplies—one ration box, one waterskin, and one purse.

• Ration box: Stores up to five basic food rations.

• Waterskin: Holds enough liquid for five drink rations.

• Purse: Holds up to 100 assorted coins.

These three basic supply containers don't occupy any inventory slots, but they can still be affected by NPCs and monsters in some fashion—stolen, damaged, destroyed, etc—so keep an eye on them.

Additional Supplies: You can carry additional supplies (more rations, waterskins, purses, etc) by adding them into your inventory space as normal.

Carrying Objects

When you hold or carry an object, you add it to your inventory. Fill a number of inventory slots according to the object's bulk—the bulkier the object, the more inventory slots you must fill.

Estimating Bulk

To choose a bulk rating for an object, consider its general size, weight, and shape—the more uncomfortable an item is to hold, the higher the bulk rating. Check the Bulk table below for some example guidelines.

Extremely Small Objects: Some items are especially small and easy to pack together—pins, coins, paperclips, etc. It takes 100 of these items to fill one inventory slot.

Extremely Large Objects: If you need to assign a bulk rating to an extremely large object, use a multiple of 18 for your bulk rating—18/36/54/72, etc.

Creature Inventory
Size - Slots - Description
Tiny - 0.2 - Vary small (smaller than a hand); Can hold many in one hand with negligible or trivial weight.
Small - 1 - Short length (up to a handspan / 9 inches); Held comfortably with one hand; Up to 2 lbs. The weight of a loaf of bread or a bag of sugar.
Medium - 2 - Medium length (up to an arms-length / 2 ft); Held with one hand; Up to 5 lbs. About as heavy as a few big bags of sugar.
Large - 3 - Long length (longer than an arm); Requires one or two hands to hold; Up to 10 lbs. About as heavy as a cat or a sack of potatoes.
X-Large - 6 - Longer than the height of an average person. Requires two hands to hold; Up to 35 lbs. About a quarter of the weight of an average person.
XX-Large - 9 - Longer than the height of two people. Requires two hands to hold; Up to 70 lbs. About half as heavy as an average person.

Bulk Ratings. Bulk ratings assume the perspective of a medium-sized creature by default. Use larger bulk ratings to reflect larger- than-normal items (giant-forged swords, ogre armor, etc), and smaller ratings for smaller-than-normal equipment (gnome rock-hammers, pixie armor, etc).Bulk ratings assume the perspective of a medium-sized creature by default. Use larger bulk ratings to reflect larger- than-normal items (giant-forged swords, ogre armor, etc), and smaller ratings for smaller-than-normal equipment (gnome rock-hammers, pixie armor, etc).

Encumberance

If you find yourself carrying more than your inventory capacity allows, you are encumbered. While you are encumbered, you gain the following condition:

Encumbered

• Your speed is halved.

• You have disadvantage on ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws that use Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution.

 Maximum Capacity

You can't exceed your inventory capacity by more than half your maximum inventory slots (rounded down).

Dragging Objects

When you drag or pull an object, that object can still affect your inventory. Halve the bulk value of any object that you are dragging or pulling (rounding down).

Heaped Objects: If you're pulling a pile of objects, halve the total amount of bulk—not the individual items.

Rolling Transport: If you're pulling an object that is designed to travel easily (a cart, a wagon, a sled), you may quarter that object's bulk value.

Wearables

Wearable items—clothes, gloves, boots, hats, necklaces, etc—can be categorized into two groups: attire and armor.

• Attire: Clothing and finery (necklaces, rings, bracelets, etc) don't occupy any inventory slots while worn— unless that attire is awkward for you. 

• Armor: Armor—and other awkward wearables— continue to occupy inventory slots while worn.

Armor Expertise

Armor is big and bulky, but there's a trade-off—you become more resistant to harm. If you're wearing medium or heavy armor (and you're appropriately proficient) you gain one of the following perks. These doesn't stack with any additional armor feats or bonuses you might gain—use the highest value.

• Medium Armor: Reduce any bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage that you take from non-magical weapons by half your proficiency bonus (rounded down), to a minimum of 1.

• Heavy Armor: Reduce any bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage that you take from non-magical weapons by your proficiency bonus, to a minimum of 1.

Magical Containers

On your adventures, you may find magical containers that can change their storage capacity far beyond the normal. For example:

• Bag of Holding: This magical bag (1 bulk) can hold many more items than its size would suggest. A Bag of Holding has 6 inventory slots. 

• Portable Hole: This magical object (1 bulk) can be folded out into a container with 9 inventory slots. 

• Handy Haversack: This magical haversack (2 bulk) has 12 inventory slots.

These containers can be very valuable to adventurers with limited access to transport vehicles or animals.

Inventory Interactions

Once you have an object stowed away in your inventory, you must draw it out before you can use it. During your turn, you may use one free object interaction (PHB p190) with your inventory to:

• Add/sheathe one item (or collection of tiny items). 

• Remove/draw one item (or collection of tiny items).

To make a second change to your inventory during the same turn—or to interact with another character's inventory—you must take the Use an Object action.

Transportating Goods

Vehicles. Vehicles—carts, carriages, ships, trains, etc—store items in the same way as characters: with inventory slots. Vehicle capacity is measured in six scales of spacing— this describes the number of inventory slots available to carry creatures and cargo.

Vehicle Capacity
Spacing - Slots - Examples
Cramped - 20 - Cart (Hand), Sled (Hand)
Snug - 60 - Cart (Horse), Chariot, Rowboat
Compact - 180 - Wagon, Carriage (Horse), Keelboat
Spacious - 540 - Carriage (Train)
Capacious - 1620 - Longship, Sailing Ship
Vast - 4860 - Galley, Warship

Transport Animals. Creatures can also carry items for you—pack mules, horses, elephants, etc. The carrying capacity of these creatures depends on their size category and strength modifier—the same as any character.

Storage Containers
You may need to transport goods within storage containers—chests, crates, barrels, etc—for security or convenience. A storage container has a number of inventory slots equal to its bulk rating:

• A small chest (1 bulk) has 1 inventory slot. 

• A large crate (3 bulk) has 3 inventory slots. 

• An extra-large barrel (6 bulk) has 6 inventory slots.

Nested Containers. You can store containers within containers—but a nested container must be at least one size category smaller than its parent.

Fiction First. Use the vehicle capacities listed here as a guide, but be mindful of the fiction—a galley may have 4,860 inventory slots, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can support the weight of 30 gargantuan dragons at once. If you think a vehicle is being put under duress by cargo or passengers, apply an appropriate penalty to its inventory capacity—or put the vehicle at harm's risk.

Ammunition

Some weapons and items require ammunition of some kind—arrows, darts, stones, bolts, bullets, etc. But in the heat of battle, it's not always clear exactly how much ammo you have left in your quiver.

The Ammunition Die

Instead of tracking each individual shot, take a d12—this is your Ammunition die. Roll it whenever you take a shot: if you roll a 1 or 2, the die gets one size smaller:

d12 > d10 > d8 > d6 > d4 > 1

If you're down to one piece of ammunition and you use it, that's it—you've used the last piece, so remove the ammunition completely from your inventory. Most ammunition types will usually start with (and have a maximum size of) a d12 ammunition die—this represents a full stack of arrows/bolts/bullets/etc.

Average Uses per Die Size
Die Size - Remaining Uses (Average)
d20 - 30
d12 - 20
d10 - 14
d8 - 9
d6 - 5
d4 - 2

Ammunition Stacks
If you're carrying multiple stacks of any one type of ammunition, prioritise the smallest stack first—always roll the smallest ammunition die per ammo type.

Special Ammo
If your ammunition is rare or has limited uses—fire arrows, magic bolts, lighting bullets, etc—don't use an ammunition die. Track each shot as you use them.

Replenishing Ammunition

To increase your ammunition die you can recover ammo from the environment, buy a new stack, or pay a small percentage of the total cost to increase your die by one step based on the maximum die size for that ammo type. For example, to replenish a stack of arrows (max size d12) from d8 to d10 would cost 20 cp (20% of 1 gp).

Replenishing Ammunition
Maximum Die - Cost per Size Increase
d20 - 16%
d12 - 20%
d10 - 25%
d8 - 33%
d6 - 50%
d4 - 100%