Creatures and spells with weight limits

[No brains]

How do you adjudicate the usage of spells with weight limits against creatures? The books don't have weights for creatures anymore, so this can get complicated, especially if you're lucky enough to play away from your computer nowadays.

IIRC, the spells we have to worry about are Levitate (500lbs) and Telekinesis (1000lbs), with other spells like Floating Disk and Bigby's Hand sometimes coming into play.

It seems like Large creatures that are herbivorous often tip beyond 500, but some Large carnivores can be under that limit. It seems weird to me that Telekinesis can't lift a cow, but here we are.

Would you find it sensible to rework the weight limits only to objects and allow Levitate to move Medium creatures? Telekinesis is still weird because many Large creatures exceed 1000 lbs and I have trouble finding a Huge creature that weighs less than 1000.

Have any of you had to deal with this issue? How did you resolve it?

[PhoenixPhyre]

How do you adjudicate the usage of spells with weight limits against creatures? The books don't have weights for creatures anymore, so this can get complicated, especially if you're lucky enough to play away from your computer nowadays.

IIRC, the spells we have to worry about are Levitate (500lbs) and Telekinesis (1000lbs), with other spells like Floating Disk and Bigby's Hand sometimes coming into play.

It seems like Large creatures that are herbivorous often tip beyond 500, but some Large carnivores can be under that limit. It seems weird to me that Telekinesis can't lift a cow, but here we are.

Would you find it sensible to rework the weight limits only to objects and allow Levitate to move Medium creatures? Telekinesis is still weird because many Large creatures exceed 1000 lbs and I have trouble finding a Huge creature that weighs less than 1000.

Have any of you had to deal with this issue? How did you resolve it?

I eyeball it. Too many variables. Even for objects--density is tricky.

Basically, I have some cutoffs.

Smaller than medium? You're good unless it's specifically marked (in my notes) as being abnormal.
Medium? Lighter creatures and objects of this size are fine, heavier ones are 500+.
Large? Basically all are >500 lbs and heavier ones are >1000 (beef cattle, for instance).
Huge+? Yeah no. Unless it's something weird like a huge bird or air elemental or a chunk of pumice or something.

The only time I allow any pedantry here is when used against players. I've had lots of very large (not Large, just heavy) characters. Mostly warforged (knockoffs, really) and goliaths that, in armor and carrying a load, are easily 500 lbs. So a player can raise it as a defense, but I'm not going to get really picky with NPCs unless they're obviously wrong. Don't use levitate on a stone statue. Or that gun safe I almost got crushed under.

[Unoriginal]

Many spells and effects have some kind of "either a creature or X weight" clause, so that helps in that regard.

Otherwise like PhoenixPhyre I play it by hear when it happens.