Tracking items weight that are part of kits

Question

I am trying to figure out a solution for my equipment weight issue.

I am low level and low str, so every pound matters, and I cant afford extra dimensional carrying items or people/animals to carry it for me. There is also the added difficulty of traveling in wilderness where carts and stuff would be impractical.

My issue comes mostly to the kits. They offer a collection of items at a slightly reduced cost. The problem is that the weight is also not the same as the individual components.

The easy solution is to simply ignore what the kits weight is and use the individual items where needed, but like I said before every pound matters. I could simply list the item and track that the weight is recorded elsewhere (I already do this) but it leads to messy book keeping.

Answer 1

There is no error there, the weight is an average for small/medium sized creature, and are somewhat packed together inside a bag that is suited for them (yeah, i know...physics...). But that doesn't really reduces their weight, it simply feels that way.

Otherwise, they would need to put two weights on each kit, one for medium creatures, and another for small creatures (the two most common playable creature sizes).

At least, that was the answer given by Sean K. Reynolds on the Errata/FAQ thread for the Ultimate Equipment on Paizo's messageboards.

It is fine to remove items from a kit after you bought it. You can throw torches away, sell them back, give away to other party members, etc.

However, there is also the possibilities that they simply messed up, as pointed out by this guy. On his post, he says that torches and rations weren't calculated properly, and if you remove them, you will see that their weight was listed as a single unit instead of a pack of 5/10, which causes the discrepancies.

Answer 2

Some kits, like the pathfinder's kit, give a reduced weight if you leave certain things away. In this case the bedroll and rations. That could be a starting point.

The class kits are not always the go to option anyways because they tend to have stuff in it that isn't needed for many characters. For example most of them have torches and/or candles where nearly every party relies on light cantrips.

Then there is the masterwork backpack that is affordable at low levels and helps with encumbrance issues.