How much a creature can lift and carry is determined by its STR and SIZE.
| Amount in Pounds | Effect Upon Hitting Threshold |
|---|---|
| 65 + (20 × STR) | lightly encumbered |
| 130 + (40 × STR) | heavily encumbered |
| 195 + (60 × STR) | Cannot carry anything more |
| Amount in Pounds | Effect Upon Hitting Threshold |
|---|---|
| 65 + (20 × (STR + (SIZE - 5)²)) | lightly encumbered |
| 130 + (40 × (STR + (SIZE - 5)²)) | heavily encumbered |
| 195 + (60 × (STR + (SIZE - 5)²)) | Cannot carry anything more |
A creature may also push, drag, or lift a weight in pounds up to twice their carrying capacity. While pushing or dragging weight in excess of their carrying capacity, the creature's movement speed drops to 5 feet.
Design Note: I have many spreadsheets of lame algebra to make sure the weight and carrying capacity scaling make physical sense (one has to scale on a power of 2 and the other on a power of 3), fit with our intuitions of strength on the human scale, and also allow creatures to be strong enough to carry their own bodies. It's actually a very limited set of values that that works for.
Design Note: Why use pounds instead of sizes? Because I hate the size abstraction, somehow still have no intuition for how many "sizes" of weight objects are, and it's also simplicity that isn't needed in the way it is for live action FanWar.