Carrying Capacity

A character's carrying capacity depends directly on the character's Strength score, as shown on Table: Carrying Capacity.

If the weight of everything a character is wearing or carrying amounts to no more than his or her light load figure, the character can move and perform any actions normally (though the character's speed might already be slowed by the armor he or she is wearing).

If the weight of the character's gear falls in his or her medium load range, the character is considered encumbered. An encumbered character's speed is reduced to the value given below, if the character is not already slowed to that speed for some other reason.

An encumbered character performs as if his or her Dexterity modifier were no higher than +3. In addition, the character takes a -3 encumbrance penalty on attack rolls and checks involving the following skills: Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Move Silently, and Tumble. This encumbrance penalty stacks with any armor penalty that may also apply.

If the weight of a character's gear falls in his or her heavy load range, the character is considered heavily encumbered. A heavily encumbered character's speed is reduced to the value given below, if the character is not already slowed to that speed for some other reason.

A heavily encumbered character performs as if his or her Dexterity modifier were no higher than +1. In addition, the character takes a -6 encumbrance penalty on attack rolls and checks involving the following skills: Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Move Silently, and Tumble. This encumbrance penalty stacks with any armor penalty that may also apply. Finally, a heavily encumbered character's maximum running speed is his or her speed x3 instead of speed x4.

The figure at the upper end of a character's heavy load range is his or her maximum load. No character can move or perform any other actions while carrying more than his or her maximum load.

Lifting and Dragging: A character can lift up to his or her maximum load over his or her head.

A character can lift up to double his or her maximum load off the ground, but he or she can only stagger around with it. While overloaded in this way, the character loses any Dexterity bonus to Defense and can only move 5 feet per round (as a full-round action).

A character can generally push or drag along the ground up to five times his or her maximum load. Favorable conditions (smooth ground, dragging a slick object) can double these numbers, and bad circumstances (broken ground, pushing an object that snags) can reduce them to one-half or less.

Bigger and Smaller Creatures: The figures on Table: Carrying Capacity are for Medium-size bipedal creatures. Larger bipedal creatures can carry more weight depending on size category: Large x2, Huge x4, Gargantuan x8, and Colossal x16. Smaller creatures can carry less weight depending on size category: Small x3/4, Tiny x1/2, Diminutive x1/4, and Fine x1/8.

Quadrupeds, such as horses, can carry heavier loads than characters can. Use these multipliers instead of the ones given above: Fine x1/4, Diminutive x1/2, Tiny x3/4, Small x1, Medium-size x1.5, Large x3, Huge x6, Gargantuan x12, and Colossal x24.

Tremendous Strength: For Strength scores not listed, find the Strength score between 20 and 29 that has the same ones digit as the creature's Strength score. Multiply the figures by 4 if the creature's Strength is in the 30s, 16 if it's in the 40s, 64 if it's in the 50s, and so on.