High Carrying Capacity and Strength Check Rules Question

[Crustypeanut]

So. I'm sure we've all come across this situation - the group's Barbarian is outfitted with a set of Muleback Cords and possibly a Heavyload belt, allowing him to pick up literally tons of gear and loot.

But throw a gate at him that requires a strength check, and suddently he can't make it budge - he then complains about it not making sense - why, if he can drag 16,000 pounds, can he not rip this shoddy iron gate off its hinges?

I'm in this situation - again - and I hate giving him the answer of "Because the rules say so."

I need help to figure out either:

1) A good explaination besides "The rules say so"

or

2) A good homebrew ruling to make it seem reasonable.

Any thoughts/ideas?

[Genth]

Muleback Cords in my mind work more like some sort of 'antigravity belt', they don't make you stronger, but they literally make the stuff you carry lighter. You could say the same for the belt. Opening the gate has nothing (much) to do with the weight of the gate, it's to do with how the gate is locked.

It's entirely possible he could use his carrying capacity to get around this, if say he got someone to knock out the stone above the gate and tried to lift it off the hinges.

[Geddy2112]

Lifting, pushing, and dragging is not the same breaking things. Being able to squat 600 pounds is not the same as ripping a door off its hinges, nor is pushing 16,000 pounds the same as breaking a hinge. The rules have favorable conditions double these numbers, and unfavorable conditions half them. That said the force that moves 8000 pounds of force will break a rusty iron door.

That said, I normally rule that abilities that increase your ability to lift but don't boost strength stack for strength DC checks as applicable. Pushing on a door gets your entire body into it, like any good sick nasty deadlift or push. Breaking masterwork manacles is a very specific muscle group

Being able to lift that much is like having around a 30ish in strength, or a +10/+11 to a relevant check. Given that, a DC23(strong door) door becomes fairly easy to break, but you still can't budge a stone wall.

Also, remember that rusted or damaged items have a break DC of -2.

[Crustypeanut]

*Sigh*

It appears one of my other players is arguing about an entirely different strategy now - he's a Telekineticist and he's arguing that his Telekinetic Haul ability should be able to rip it from the hinges.

Although he can normally only move 400 lbs with it, he can move up to 4,000 if he takes a point of Burn - and he's arguing that since he can 'throw' it (as part of his blast) that he should be able to rip it off its hinges.

I looked up the weight of an 'average' iron portcullis and i got about 1300 pounds. I'm half tempted to allow it (if he burns) just because 1) thematically flavorful and 2) I don't want to spend days on a play-by-post trying to discuss it.

*Edit* Told him he could just telekinetically open it via the mechanism. Should make him happy.

[Khosan]

Hmmm...

You could base it off Wall of Stone's rules. For Wall of Stone, the strength check necessary to break through is 20 + 2 for every inch of thickness. Alternatively, hardness 8 and 15 HP per inch of thickness.

Strength DC might work better. Just find a comparable strength score for pulling with 4000 pounds of force and make the check using that.

[Alex12]

As far as I can tell, most portcullises are held in place by their own weight, rather than being locked into place or something of the sort. So, in the context specifically of lifting a porticullis, I'd allow someone with a sufficiently large carrying capacity to just lift the thing, rather than use a Strength check.
In the context of doing other strength-based things, Muleback Cords and suchlike give such a huge bonus because it's a narrow bonus, to one particular subset of Str-based activities. If the Strength check can be turned into a question of "can I lift and/or carry this thing" then yes, using the bonus is appropriate- for example, needing to move a wagon that's mired in mud is a lifting-things check, while breaking through a door isn't. After all, the same argument can otherwise be used with stuff like attacks- "If I can lift 16,000 pounds, shouldn't this warhammer I'm swinging basically obliterate whoever I hit with it?"