I was just thinking about how it’s a pain to carry around some of the tools you need, when I thought of a potentially good idea.
What if, with some tailoring ability, you could craft specialist holsters or containers for specific items?
I’m thinking bigger items that you still need to carry around, such as a crossbow or a sword, or even things like a wood axe or a knife sheath. Things you always want with you if you’re going to use that item, but which it’s impractical at the moment to carry around because of the amount of space they take up.
I was thinking a general system for it could be, you have a generic ‘craft (leg/belt/back) holster’ option in the menu, when you use it it lets you select an item in your inventory (perhaps limit it to tools and weapons as a basic common-sense kind of rule). Once you select the item, it looks at the volume the item takes up and divides it by two, you then need that many leather or cloth to make the holster. Once crafted, the holster takes the name " holster" (so, leather wood axe holster, for example) and can be worn like a piece of clothing.
While wearing the holster (you could use the leather pouch system to limit how many you can wear per body part. (perhaps six total, one per leg, one on either hip, two across the back) you are able to carry one of the specific class of item with you, without incurring any volume penalty. Much like holding something in your hands a the moment, only it gives you an extra pair of hands, so to speak.
However, the encumbrance level of your holsters would depend on the item inside them, +1 encumbrance for every… 10 units of volume carried on that body part in holsters, let’s say. So if you tried to carry two big axes on your back, it would give you about +2 (or maybe +3? can’t remember the exact volume of axes) torso encumbrance because that’s quite hard to do. But, the volume you save means you could do without wearing a trenchcoat, for example, which would knock off some encumbrance from your torso and arms. And you could always use them to carry, say, a pistol and a knife, which would save you a little bit of volume without any extra penalty.
I think it’d be neat if you could pick a few items that are essential for your character and be able to carry them around without a massive amount of encumbrance penalty. You could also possibly allow players to draw items from holsters much faster than from their inventory, maybe even add improved versions such as ones that let you carry more volume before penalties, or which let you draw even faster.
You could also expand the idea to create bundled holsters, for holding entire toolkits relating to a specific profession, for example a replacement belt rig which lets you carry a wrench, a hacksaw, a screwdriver, a hammer, and a few bits of scrap without any volume taken up, as a mechanics toolbelt kind of thing. Or an electricians version, which lets you carry some duct tape, some wire, a soldering iron, a screwdriver, some batteries, and some misc electrical parts.
Just a thought, I think it’d be good for making some builds more viable and for general character customisation coolness. As well as just a way of allowing people to carry more without just giving them more volume, making it a bit more balanced. You can carry more, but only specific things you’ve decided you need to be able to carry. It’d also be neat to be able to quickly pull out a knife or something if you’re surprised in combat, assuming you prepared for it, or maybe quickdraw a revolver if you’re attacked by bandits or something once NPCs get put in.
just a thought.