"Where Do You Keep All That Stuff?" - Storing Things on Your Person

How much can you hold?  I'm not talking about carrying capacity - there are already rules for that and I encourage you to use them.  I'm talking about potions - where do you keep them?  How many can you easily store?  I'm talking about arrows.  Do you remember buying a quiver at the start of the game?  Where exactly do you fit your 40 arrows?  I'm talking about weapons.  You can't just scroll through your entire inventory of weapons like Gordon Freeman, you've got to put them somewhere.

Most of the time, this is just sort of abstracted.  The character has a backpack they probably store things in, but everything they need in battle at the moment is always right there on their belt, even that cold iron morningstar they found in the crypt a month ago and the potion of invisibility they've been carrying around since their first adventure.

This makes the average adventurer seem like a bad 90s comic book hero.

Rob Liefeld, via progressiveboink

"I don't need to worry about encumbrance because I have the belt of many pockets, 

the pants of crotch-asterisk, and a magnetic back."

The following items in gold are available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars and d20 Despot.

Potions
In one of the many 3.5 Edition supplemental books, there was a potion belt that held 6 potions, and a masterwork potion belt held 10.  Drawing a potion from the masterwork potion belt was a free action instead of a move.  In Pathfinder, the bandolier lets you carry up to eight potions or small items like daggers.  Personally, I would combine these ideas and then spread them out over a number of items.

Potion Belt
Price 5 sp; Weight --
This belt has six small pouches that can each hold one potion or alchemical item like a flask of alchemist’s fire or a thunderstone.  It can be worn around the waist or across the chest.  No more than two potion belts, bandoliers, or any other kind of storage belt can be worn across the chest at any time, or they interfere with each other and restrict movement.
   Drawing an item from the belt is a move action.  

Potion Belt, Masterwork
Price 500 gp; Weight --
This potion belt has eight adjustable, tight-fitting loops that hold potions securely in place but allow the wearer easier access to them.  Drawing a potion from a masterwork potion belt is a move action, but a character with the Quick Draw feat can do so as a free action.  This allows a character with Quick Draw to make his full number of attacks with stored alchemical items such as flasks of alchemist’s fire.  

If you don't have a potion belt, I assume you have your potions stuffed in a belt pouch (also a move action to take out) or in your pack (a standard action to take out).  You could also tie your potions to your belt with string, but they'll be easier to break or lose.

Arrows and bolts
In the Core Rulebook, arrows are described as being sold in quivers of 20, and crossbow bolts are sold in quivers or cases of 10.  So are quivers the equivalent of plastic packaging?  Do archers constantly have to throw away all the spare quivers they get?  Do leatherworkers just give quivers away to arrow salesmen, or are fletchers’ profit margins so great that they can afford to buy a leather quiver for every 20 arrows that they make?

Let’s assume, instead, that arrows and bolts are sold in groups of 20 and 10 respectively, but they don't come with free quivers.

Quiver
Price 1 gp; Weight 1 lb.
This container, made from leather or a similar material, can hold up to 20 arrows or 10 crossbow bolts.  They can be worn on the hip or strapped across the back, or they can be strapped to a saddle for mounted archery.  Drawing an arrow or crossbow bolt from a quiver is a free action.

Quiver, Masterwork
Price 50 gp; Weight 1/2 lb.
This masterfully made quiver holds up to 30 arrows or 15 crossbow bolts.  The interior is subdivided into four compartments that help the archer keep different types of ammunition separate.  The rear of the quiver (the side closest to the body, when worn) has a built-in holster for holding a bow.  
   It has a stiff leather flap that can be closed across the top of the opening, preventing its contents from spilling out when the wearer is upside-down, swimming, or the like.  Closing or opening this flap is a move action.  When the quiver is closed in this way, drawing an arrow or bolt from it requires a swift action.

And yes, quivers are the ideal containers for storing lots of wands, but if there are more than a couple different ones in there, I would roll randomly to see which one the character draws unless they take a move action to be sure it’s the one they wanted.

Thrown Weapons
I slightly modified the original Pathfinder bandolier into the throwing bandolier, which does not work with potions, but is otherwise pretty much the same as the original.  I also renamed it the 'throwing bandolier' because I want the regular 'bandolier' name for the kind that holds bullets.

Bandolier, Throwing
Price 1 gp; Weight --
This belt straps across the chest and can hold up to eight small weapons such as daggers, throwing knives, darts, or shuriken.  Bulkier weapons like javelins or throwing axes are too large to fit properly.  No more than two bandoliers or any other kind of storage belt can be worn across the chest at any time, or they interfere with each other and restrict movement.  
   Drawing a weapon from a throwing bandolier is a move action (or a free action with the Quick Draw feat).  

What about javelins?  They certainly don't fit in a quiver (unless it's an efficient quiver).  At most, you could probably strap two javelins to your back without special equipment, otherwise drawing them would give the straps enough slack to let the other ones fall out.  So how about a javelin quiver?

Quiver, Javelin
Price 1 gp; Weight 1 lb.
This long quiver, worn across the back, can hold up to six javelins or similarly sized weapons such as shortspears.  Drawing a weapon from a javelin quiver is a move action (or a free action with the Quick Draw feat).  

Bullets
Gunslingers and the players in my Guns of the Western Kings campaign setting might want to know about bullet storage.  Bandoliers or bullets are as iconic a piece of western adventuring gear as a poncho or a stetson hat.

via Wikimedia

Pancho Villa wears two masterwork bandoliers

To figure out how many bullets a bandolier should hold, I looked at existing magic items.  There are two, the Endless Bandolier and the Beneficial Bandolier.  The Endless Bandolier from Ultimate Equipment says it looks like it holds 20 cartridges but actually holds 60 with magic, so a regular bandolier could probably hold 20.  But the Beneficial Bandolier holds 200, and you can teleport a single round of ammunition to your firearm as a swift action, and it only costs 1,000gp to the Endless Bandolier’s 1,500gp.  That is one seriously overpowered item.  How did they not catch that one of these items completely negates the need for the other?  They're in the same damn book!  As a GM, I would not allow the Beneficial Bandolier to exist.

Anyways, a normal bandolier can hold 20 bullets.

Bandolier
Price 1 gp; Weight --
This belt can strap across the chest or waist.  It has small leather loops that hold up to 20 rounds of ammunition.  Drawing a round of ammunition from a bandolier is a free action.  

Bandolier, Masterwork
Price 50 gp; Weight --
This finely-crafted bandolier has space to hold up to 30 rounds of ammunition.

Weapons in general

As for all the other weapons and various things you might want to strap to your body, just be reasonable.  I can't make rules to govern every possibility, but I've included a ‘location’ section on the weapons on my character sheet to encourage people to think about where they are actually storing their weapons.  

Right there.

As a general rule, I would say that you can carry at most a light or one-handed weapon on each hip, two two-handed (or smaller) weapons strapped across your back, and various other light weapons wherever you have space (two throwing axes crossed in the back of your belt, a dagger strapped to your arm, a throwing knife in the boot, etc.).  This isn't a concrete rule - if you can convince me that the way you've stored your weapon is practical, I'll go with it.  

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Why am I doing all this?  I just think that there is a lot of potential for abuse as things are right now.  Giving people a concrete basis for how and where they are storing their weapons means they will think more about their inventory and what their character really does and doesn't need.  Adding a dash of realism here helps to remove the abstraction from the game and makes it more real for the players as well.  

I'm really just trying to make sure your character doesn't end up looking like a Rob Liefeld drawing.

Rob Liefeld via comiclists

Rob Liefeld's characters have 40 belt slots.

-your many-pocketed d20 despot.