Streamlined Wilderness Travel

This house rule for streamlined wilderness travel consists of one set of rolls to get from point A to point B.  The DM might consider breaking up a very large journey into several of these rolls, if different terrains will be traversed.  I'm not going to bother with variable travel speeds for these streamlined rules.  Again, the inspiration here is from Dungeon World.

When undertaking a wilderness journey, each PC in the group must take on one of the following roles.  Make one set of rolls for the entire journey, and have everyone mark off rations consumed.

Navigator Role
WIS(Survival) Check, DC determined by terrain (DMG page 112).  Failure indicates that the party becomes lost roughly half way to the destination.  Mark off rations for half the length of the trip (rounding up), plus one additional ration.  Then make another set of rolls for the remaining trip.  Consecutive failures could mean the PCs wind up somewhere other than they intended!

Scout Role
WIS(Perception) Check.  Success indicates that the party gains the drop on any encountered threat.

Forager Role
WIS(Survival) Check (DMG page 111).

Tracker Role
WIS(Survival) (DMG page 244).

Random Encounters
If any of the dice come up equal or less than the total number of days in they journey, a wilderness threat is encountered along the way.  This nicely factors in a greater chance of a random encounter for larger wilderness parties.  After all, the more people traipsing trough the forest, the easier for the owlbears to hear them, no?

Streamlined Encumbrance

This is a house rule for a streamlined encumbrance system for D&D 5e.  It borrows the encumbrance mechanics from Dungeon World.  The goal is to make encumbrance easier to calculate and manage at the table without hand-waving it completely.

Item Weight

I'll be giving out item cards at the table to PC gear.  Each item will have an abstracted Weight value, which is roughly the item's actual weight divided by 10.  But, if an item weighs at least 2#, it has a minimum Weight of 1.  For example, a Shortsword has a Weight of 1, while a suit of Plate Armor has a Weight of 6.

Carrying Capacity

Your maximum carrying capacity is your Strength score + 10.

Encumbrance

If you carry Weight in excess of your Strength score, you are encumbered (PHB page 176).  If you carry Weight in excess of your Strength score + 5, you are heavily encumbered.