The thing is, if you are wearing plate with only 5ps and maybe 5if and you have 7-8 ath, you are not properly taking advantage of your build/gear. Either take lighter armor(even the med/heavy armor is better than plate), or build a character with enough PS/if that it doesn't matter how slowly you move(24 str+)
Full plate + shield weight pretty much guarantees that this is going to be the case, unless you take truly ludicrous amounts of ath. Even then, your acceleration is going to be low enough to interfere with 1h footwork.
These things aren't necessarily true. The athletics can counter-balance your weight to an extent, and is at least worth considering.
If you are carrying 35 wt worth of stuff and have 7 athletics, you will move at the same speed as being completely naked with 2 athletics.
If you have 35 wt worth of stuff and 4 athletics, you will move at the same speed as being naked with -1 athletics.
So basically you will be choosing between 2 athletics and -1 athletics. If you want to make up for some weakness due to being slow, it can still make sense to take 7 athletics. It will not be completely useless.
How slow is -1 athletics while naked? It's the same as a lv1 peasant carrying 20wt.
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loginALL CREDIT TO WALTF4 (6 and 7 athletics added by me)