The effects of carrying too much are somewhat hard to quantify. I recently decided to test the effect on parry of being woefully over-encumbered. This started when I showed a so called friend the following replacement setup: 3-10-13-3-13-15-13.
He challenged me to run it with both of the 3's left as 3's. Great. So I'm going to run a 3 str/3 wit warrior. Well my past experience prepared me well! Nobody stands around with no skills better than a total parry scum. Delays, 3-16-13-3-19-15-15 TP was born. Normally, I would have poured some of those points into strength, but not so here.
Delays starts with 9 parry, 43 hit points (takes tremendous), normal endurance, and CAN ONLY CARRY A VERY LITTLE WEIGHT in armor and weapons. In fact, the minimum amount of weight. The most commonly and easy to remember formula for carry is STR + Lesser of STR/CON - 6. 3+3-6 = 0 weight according to the formula. I happen to know this formula is broken down there from other experiments. 4 strength is more than enough to carry DA ALE/LE without penalties.
Off to the races. Delays comes out with APA/F SM/SM. Strategy 1-1-1 parry
Fight 1: Zaius (1-1-0), APL SH/SH PR.
M1: Zaius makes 3 attacks and flails once. Delays DODGES 2 of them and takes a hit.
M2: Zaius flails four times.
M3: Zaius attacks twice, Delays dodges and parries (not sure what is going on with the dodges, but I'll take it. Zaius is getting tired.
M4: Zaius attacks, parry.
M5: 2 attacks, 1 flail, 2 dodges.
M6-M9: 2 attacks, 1 flail, some weary armed attacks. 1 dodge, 1 parry.
M10: Delays attacks twice, gets his first tired message and a weary armed attack. Zaius falls from exhaustion. So from an attack deficient PR, Delays defends just fine. 10 attacks, 5 dodges, 4 parries, and 1 hit. Train Will.
Fight 2: Rose of Sharon (Consortium) challenges Delays with Lilac ALE/L LO AB.
M1: Ok, now we see a real warrior fight. 6 attacks (1 of them a crit), 3 hits, 2 parries, and 1 dodge. I would have expected zero dodging from Delays, but that isn't the case.
M2: 5 attacks (1 crit), 1 hit, 4 parries, 1 broken SM
M3: 1 crit, hit and knockdown, another crit and attack for 2 more hits and the fight is over. 14 attacks (4 crits), 6 parries, 1 dodge, and 7 hits. Train Will. I expected to lose this fight, but the defenses were not terrible.
Fight 3: Rose of Sharon does the mean thing again...
M1: 8 attacks (2 crits), 4 parries and 4 hits. I am a bit discouraged, because I didn't need to run a 3 str TP to see that AB's can beat scum. Train Con.
Fight 4: Boozy Soozy (3-1-0) ALE/S LS LU (Now this is what I want to see!!!).
M1: 7 attacks, 6 parries, 1 hit.
M2: 4 attacks, 4 parries.
M3: 8 atttacks, 7 parries, 1 hit.
M4: 3 attacks, 3 parries, drops from exhaustion. 22 attacks, 20 parries, 2 hits. Sweet, except no train.
Fight 5: Julian (2-3-0) ALE/H LO/HA PR (the most bizarre fight of the bunch).
M1: 10 attacks (2 crits), 7 parries, 3 hits.
M2: 8 attacks, 2 parries, 1 dodge, and 5 hits.
M3: 6 attacks, 1 parry, 3 dodges, 2 hits.
M4: 8 attacks, 4 parries, 3 dodges, 1 hit.
M5: 6 attacks, 2 parries, 3 dodges, 1 hits.
M6: 3 attacks, 1 parry, 2 dodges. THEN... 1 attack, Delays is too tired to defend. This is the first indication of an endurance issue. Not a single tired message before this. Very strange. Delays parries the next attack.
M7-8: Delays actually attacked once, but it was all Julian. Delays loses in 8. Julian learned 5 skills, so likely a high wit PR that has a favorite weapon of LO. Nice warrior. 41 attacks, 17 parries, 12 dodges, and 12 hits. No Train.
Fight 6: Osric (4-3-1) APM/F WH BA.
M1: 9/7/0/2.
M2: 5/3/0/2.
M3: 6/6/0/0.
M4: 4/2/2/0
M5: 3(1)/2/0/1. 27 attacks, 20 parries, 2 dodges, 5 hits. No Train.
Fight 7: Isham (1-4-0) ALE/L GS BA.
M1: 8/7/0/1.
M2: 4/3/0/1.
M3: 2/2/0/0. 14 attacks, 12 parries, 2 hits Train Deftness.
Delays, for his last two fights upgrades to LG/LG. Delays sadly lacks the strength to use this weapon! Delay's strength is woefully inadequate for his off-hand weapon!
Fight 8: Bladderwrack (7-2-0) ACM/H SH/SM TP.
Delays outlasts (huh?) Bladderwrack in 16 minutes. Train Deftness.
Fight 9: Crepe Myrtle (3-1-0) N/N WH BA.
M1: 7(1)/6/0/1.
M2: 7/6/0/1.
M3: 7/5/0/2.
M4: 5(1)/3/0/2. 26 attacks, 20 parries, 6 hits. Train Con.
All total: Delays saw 162 attacks. Delays parried 103 of them and dodged 20. Not counting Lilac, Delays was 6-1. Even with Lilac, 6-3. Even scummed another total parry (making rolls is a GOOD thing -- 21 will helps you make those rolls).
My conclusion is that encumbrance has almost zero impact on parry. I've suspected this for a long time. Others have noted it as well. This case study supports that theory well. Surprisingly, Delays dodged much better than I would have expected, also. If you can't move because of your armor and weapons, you "shouldn't" be able to dodge. From past experience (and examples), I know that the most measurable impact of being overencumbered is on endurance. And sure enough, Delays had endurance troubles.
How do I explain Fight #8? 21 will helps you make the rolls to stay standing.
In practice, what this means is that if you are making a scum setup, that can't carry much, 7 strength is now a cutoff. You don't get any parry skills after 7 until 15. I'm certainly not suggesting that 7 strength is better for a scum total parry. (The 17-21-3-3-17-12-11 guy is super fun as a total parry.) But it does open up some strategies that perhaps you wouldn't have thought of before.
-- Assur