Question on carrying capacity

[Delnatha]

Ok, so my human sorcadin is about 250 pounds with all of his armor and gear and rides a pegasus using find greater steed. According to my calculations the pegasus can easily carry him. 18str score x 15 x2 for being large size = 540 pounds carrying capacity. If my sorcadin casts a spell which only targets himself, it can also target the steed per the find greater steed spell. So casting enlarge on myself would make me large and make the pegasus huge which doubles its carrying capacity to 1080 pounds. The problem here is that it says enlarge increases your weight by a factor of 8 so my PC is now 2000 pounds and plummets from the sky since the pegasus can't carry him anymore.

Did I do my math wrong? Or can a huge flying creature only carry a large creature if it is a very lightweight large creature? I feel like I am missing something.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Square cube law (heh)? But really, the encumbrance rules and weights are bad and best ignored except to say "uhhh, way?" when PCs try to walk off with the entire contents of the castle, including the furniture, in their pockets.

[Zhorn]

This is one of those areas where I think the rules on carrying capacity increases in relation to size should have been more generous that a x2 multiplier per size category

Such as have Powerful Build and such features stick with x2, but have capacity based on size increased to a x4 per category.

[Greywander]

So here's the thing: if you double your size, you should be about four times as strong, but weigh eight times as much. So yes, weight will scale up faster than carrying capacity does. Count yourself lucky that your own weight isn't counted against your encumbrance.

Here's the other thing: the only time your size doubles in a single step is when going from medium to large. In all other cases, you have to increase your size by two steps in order to double your size. That math even works for small, if you assume that small's true size is 3.5 feet, but is rounded up to 5 feet since 3.5 feet is too big to fit more than one in a 5 foot square.

Unfortunately, this doesn't really help your situation. By going from medium to large, you do indeed double your size, and you should therefore get 4x the carrying capacity, but also 8x the weight. Your pegasus, on the other hand, is only increasing in size by √2, and thus is only 2x as strong and roughly 3x as heavy. TBH, if increasing a size step only doubles your carrying capacity, then it should only increase your weight by just shy of 3x (by √8, specifically).

I've heard it said that size categories are actually pretty arbitrary, which I can believe, but it's so close to following a rule of √2 increase with each step, or doubling every two steps. I wish they'd followed that rule, and had a size between medium and large (and used it for PC races like goliaths and centaurs), but even if they considered it they probably axed it because it wasn't meaningfully different from large, since it would need to round up to using a 10 foot space.

(Instead of rounding small and this missing size between medium and large, you can also accurately represent them geometrically by using diamonds instead of squares. The small creature still takes up a 5 foot space, but doesn't fill it completely, allowing a 2x2 area to fit a fifth small creature in the center. Technically, if the √2 rule is followed, you could fit exactly two small creatures in a 5 foot square, but there's no way to actually arrange two small creatures so that they both fit completely inside the 5 foot square. You could also represent a huge creature as a 20 foot diamond, but a 15 foot square is close enough to the true size.)

[Reach Weapon]

Square cube law (heh)? But really, the encumbrance rules and weights are bad and best ignored except to say "uhhh, way?" when PCs try to walk off with the entire contents of the castle, including the furniture, in their pockets.

It isn't fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it's got in it's nassty little pocketsess?

[Delnatha]

This is one of those areas where I think the rules on carrying capacity increases in relation to size should have been more generous that a x2 multiplier per size category

Such as have Powerful Build and such features stick with x2, but have capacity based on size increased to a x4 per category.

I've decided I'm just going to ignore the rules because they don't make much sense.

Examples: A D&D elephant can carry 1320 pounds while a quick google search turns up an actual real elephant can carry up to 14000 pounds.

Also, a small race character with armor and gear can easily weigh 100 pounds or more which would put it at nearly 1000 pounds when casting enlarge on it to get it to medium size.

[Psyren]

IIRC in older editions quadrupeds got an additional factor to their carrying capacity for each leg beyond the first two - I recommend porting something like that in. Or just handwave it because magic.

[Telok]

Also, a small race character with armor and gear can easily weigh 100 pounds or more which would put it at nearly 1000 pounds when casting enlarge on it to get it to medium size.

Ok. I have got to find a way to weaponize that. Just to see the DM's brain shifting without a clutch.

If I wire a suit of medium chain armor into a bag and actually account for 30k gold... or do I need to convert some to silver...

[Anonymouswizard]

Square cube law (heh)? But really, the encumbrance rules and weights are bad and best ignored except to say "uhhh, way?" when PCs try to walk off with the entire contents of the castle, including the furniture, in their pockets.

If you're not eyeballing it I generally find it's better to count items instead of weights, with particularly awkward items counting double, and some items being free as long as you have a container to put it in*. It works well, and most PCs will be able to pick up a few significant items of treasure per adventure (along with all the coins).

* Basically it's a patch for things like maps and arrows.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If you're not eyeballing it I generally find it's better to count items instead of weights, with particularly awkward items counting double, and some items being free as long as you have a container to put it in*. It works well, and most PCs will be able to pick up a few significant items of treasure per adventure (along with all the coins).

* Basically it's a patch for things like maps and arrows.

I just stop caring. As long as it's not absurd, I don't really care. Because the other way lies way too much work for me, especially since all (ok, most) of the weights in the PHB are just plain wrong.