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When I looked through stats I noticed that a huge earth elemental has a strength of 24 and is listed as having 48k lbs.

According to the rules a strength of 24 means that heavy load ends at 700 lbs. As a huge creature you get a x4 multiplicator so 2800 lbs. Still though that is WAY below what would be needed to lift an earth elemental. Which means in essence it can't even lift itself oO.

So my question is there thus is there any way that the earth elemental can do that? Or did I NOT overlook something and the lifting rules are a bit off for these and similar creatures?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Does it seem for some reason unbelievable that a creature can't lift another of its kind? I mean, there are plenty of people that I can't lift, and I can't say for sure but I don't think that a typical, full-grown elephant can bench press another a typical, full-grown elephant. It's still a decent question, but is it a problem? \$\endgroup\$ – Hey I Can Chan Jul 30 '17 at 21:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ @HeyICanChan I'm currently desinging a few "supers" classes and fell over that part when I looked at the capacities there. So nope not a real problem but instead something that raised my itnerest as not even giants can lift one anotehr (even with a few points of strength more) \$\endgroup\$ – Thomas E. Jul 30 '17 at 21:05
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As is, no.

Also you just listed the heavy load, which is what they could "walk" around with all day. There is also lift over head and drag.

Lifting and Dragging: A character can lift as much as his maximum load over his head. A character’s maximum load is the highest amount of weight listed for a character’s Strength in the heavy load column of Table: Carrying Capacity.

A character can lift as much as double his maximum load off the ground, but he or she can only stagger around with it. While overloaded in this way, the character loses any Dexterity bonus to AC and can move only 5 feet per round (as a full-round action).

A character can generally push or drag along the ground as much as five times his maximum load. Favorable conditions can double these numbers, and bad circumstances can reduce them by half or more.

You could always improve the earth elemental by casting ant haul and bulls strength, but even that doesnt really help because they are just so heavy. Its at points like this where the rules start falling apart.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ So I guess an earth elemental doing pull ups is out of the question without some serious help! \$\endgroup\$ – Jesse Cohoon Jul 30 '17 at 22:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ Also remember that your 'load' does not include your own body; it's what you can lift in addition to that. You try walking around with an equally heavy person on you all day and see how easy it is. \$\endgroup\$ – Ifusaso Jul 31 '17 at 4:20

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