# Mounts - Carrying Capacity



## ElCucuy (Oct 28, 2008)

Hello,
New EnWorld user here, so I apologize if I haven't found my way around sufficient to see if this has already been covered somewhere.

I've got a question that I can't seem to find an answer for. Our play group has a dragonborn paladin. So he's a big guy with a ton of armor and weaponry, ie, in total he weighs a lot.

From the look of it, he can't ride a horse w/o burdening the horse and forcing it to be slowed. Alright, we figure we can live with that. We wait for the AV book thinking there's other, bigger mounts he'll be able to ride. From the look of it, this character would make even an elephant groan under his enormous weight...and really, he doesn't weight that much!

So my question is, has this been fixed anywhere?  It's got to be a bug, but I can't find anything in the errata that changes this or any modification of carrying capacity that allows this character to ride anything at all...

One interesting note is that he can apparently ride a chariot. That vehicle allows one rider and x amount of gear. Pulled by one little old horse even.

As DM of our group, I'm going to have to change this in our game.  But I'm hoping for two things:

1) There's already been some sort of official errata concerning this.

2) I'd love to have other thoughs/opinions on this to guide my decision.


Thanks in advance.

El Cucuy


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## jodyjohnson (Oct 28, 2008)

Here's the only recent post on mount capacity.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/240069-anemic-horses.html

This one is more about how they change combat.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/243110-do-mounts-change-combat.html


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## ElCucuy (Oct 28, 2008)

Thanks, Jody. I hadn't found anything around here with regards to mounts.  It's good to see the problem has been noticed before, but unfortunately it remains unresolved.

Personally, I'm fine with a dragonborn being too heavy for a horse. But the fact that an elephant, trihorn behemoth, or even a rage drake (the supposed dragonborn mount) can't carry an average sized dragonborn in armor...that seems like a huge error on the part of the designers.

So I'll ask again...anyone have any house rules on this?  Just trying to gather ideas on what to institute in my own campaign world...and hoping others have used something or another and have experience enough to comment on the ramifications.

El Cucuy


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## James McMurray (Oct 28, 2008)

Our house rule: mounts can carry anything reasonable.

It saves a lot of fiddling with weights and measures.


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## Syrsuro (Nov 7, 2008)

James McMurray said:


> Our house rule: mounts can carry anything reasonable.
> 
> It saves a lot of fiddling with weights and measures.




But what is reasonable?

Is a 350 pound Dragonborn with another 100 pounds of gear reasonable?

Personally, (as indicated in the earlier thread) I will deal with it quite simply:  Dragonborn (and Gnolls) cannot ride the typical horse.  There are mounts which are specially bred for their use.  In the case of the Dragonborn, they are remarkably similar to Rage Drakes (but with an increased carry capacity).  I'm not sure what gnolls ride, if anything.  

I find it quite reasonable to deny oversized races access to horses, as long as other options are available.

Carl


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## jodyjohnson (Nov 7, 2008)

We just make Half-dwarf horses with the ability to not be slowed when encumbered or armored for a -1 move penalty like the Dwarf racial.  If dragons can be promiscuous for gamist reasons, so can dwarves.  (Bearded Half-goats, half-horses, half-elephants, half-oxen, etc.)


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## cmbarona (Nov 7, 2008)

Syrsuro said:


> But what is reasonable?
> 
> Is a 350 pound Dragonborn with another 100 pounds of gear reasonable?
> 
> ...




Quite frankly, yes, I think it is reasonable. And no, Dragonborn aren't oversized. They are medium creatures just like almost all other PHB races. Moving into the MM, even the mighty minotaur is medium.

It's perfectly reasonable to expect Dragonborn characters to play characters that take advantage of their tough character concept.

Quite frankly, I think WoTC dropped the ball here. I'm not sure why they made the carrying capacities what they did, but I think they sacrificed cinematics for realism in this instance; and this instance is out of place.


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## Syrsuro (Nov 8, 2008)

cmbarona said:


> Quite frankly, yes, I think it is reasonable. And no, Dragonborn aren't oversized. They are medium creatures just like almost all other PHB races. Moving into the MM, even the mighty minotaur is medium.
> 
> It's perfectly reasonable to expect Dragonborn characters to play characters that take advantage of their tough character concept.
> 
> Quite frankly, I think WoTC dropped the ball here. I'm not sure why they made the carrying capacities what they did, but I think they sacrificed cinematics for realism in this instance; and this instance is out of place.




They may be "medium", but they are also roughly 50% heavier than humans. I'll agree they dropped the ball, but it wasn't (imho) in the carry weights of horses. It was in not providing alternative mounts for heavier races or sturdier horses designed for those heavier races.  (And, arguably, in not providing for a reduced speed faster than 'slow=2' for overburdened mounts).

Aside: I noticed recently that in the FRCG it mentions that the Dragonborn in Tymanther breed giant bats large enough to carry armored Dragonborn. I wonder what their stats look like (although I still think that drakes are preferable for flavor).

Carl


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## Angrygodofmilk (Nov 8, 2008)

I know of what you speak ElCucuy, having noticed that discrepancy myself, especially when a Huge elephant would be laboured to carry a dragonborn with equipment. It doesn't make sense. My solution is to change the encumbrance system across the board. While these suggestions add a degree of math, working out the pattern behind my calculations is not difficult.*Encumbrance*
*Tiny:* 250% weight +/- 1 lb. per point above or below Strength 10
*Small:* 100% weight +/- 2 lb. per point above or below Strength 10
*Medium:* 50% weight +/- 5 lb. per point above or below Strength 10
*Large:* 20% weight +/- 10 lb. per point above or below Strength 10
*Huge:* 10% weight +/- 25 lb. per point above or below Strength 10
*Gargantuan:* 4% weight +/- 50 lb. per point above or below Strength 10​While not trying to be perfectly realistic, these mechanics stylize the extremes between an ant and a giant. An ant can carry between 10 and 20 times their weight, while a gigantic creature must devote much of their strength to carrying around their own mass. This is reflected in the changing % of weight between different sizes.

Applying these rules to horses and elephants bares out fairly well.


The average weight of a riding horse is 1,000 pounds.
D&D riding horses have 19 Strength.
The normal/heavy load for a riding horse would be 290/580 lbs.
This is actually generous for a "real world" riding horse.

The average weight of an elephant is 10,000 pounds.
D&D elephants have 25 Strength.
The normal/heavy load for an elephant would be 1,375/2,760 lbs.
This is about right for a 5 ton elephant (known to carry 1/4 of their weight).

That said, the 300 pound dragonborn with 100 pounds of equipment is still looking for a steed that can move faster than 2 squares per move action. No problem. I started with "average" weight for a reason. Upgrade to a heftly quarter horse (1,500 lbs.) or a clydesdale (2,000 lbs.).


The normal/heavy load for a quarter horse would be 390/780 lbs.
 The normal/heavy load for an clydesdale would be 490/980 lbs.
To those of you besides ElCucuy, these rules assume that you even care about normal and heavy loads. Not everybody does. There's certainly nothing heroic about tracking encumbrance. That said, for those of you who feel so compelled, take from these rules what you will.


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## ElCucuy (Nov 23, 2008)

Angrygodofmilk said:


> I know of what you speak ElCucuy, having noticed that discrepancy myself, especially when a Huge elephant would be laboured to carry a dragonborn with equipment. It doesn't make sense. My solution is to change the encumbrance system across the board. While these suggestions add a degree of math, working out the pattern behind my calculations is not difficult.





That's some great work there, AngryGod. I tried your formulas on a few mounts that our group is using, and they work spectacularly! Thanks for doing the heavy lifting for me. I'm pretty sure I'll just compose a chart of mount carrying capacity that replace the official using these numbers here. Like I said in the above post, I actually like the fact that large races are too big for a little old riding horse. These rules fit my image of the game world perfectly.

So once again, thanks for sharing your work, AngryGod.

El Cucuy


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## Jhaelen (Oct 25, 2010)

After looking over the mount section in the Darksun Campaign Setting I figured this thread deserved being resurrected.

Now we have the Medium-sized Erdlu which is able to pull a weight of 800 pounds vs. a Gargantuan-sized Mekillot which is able to pull a weight of 1300 pounds.

This really made me wonder how a pair of mekillots is supposed to pull one of those _huge_ arcosies they're often depicted with.
And I cannot imagine that three Erdlus could almost pull the same weight.

It didn't bother me a lot before, since I figured the difference between large and huge mounts probably wouldn't be so pronounced, but the Darksun mounts illustrate just how implausible these numbers really are.


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## Nightchill (Oct 31, 2010)

Absolutely - with Dark Sun, overland travel probably shouldn't be too easy.  We're a little more wary of handwaiving encumberance when we consider that a survival day weighs 8lbs.. An interesting/related thread recently kicked off here.

I like Angrygodofmilk's ideas above. Alas, very little information on mount weight was given in the DSCS or DSCC. Ho hum.

edit: Using the 3.5e rules, with the 'normal load' listed in DSCS comes out with (I think):

Erdlu (medium biped): 160/320
Crodlu (large biped): 380/760
Crodlu, War (large biped): 400/800
Kank (large quad): 540/1080
Inix (large quad): 660/1320
Mekillot (huge quad): 1560/3120
Mekillot (gargantuan quad) = 3120/6240


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