Bulk - Rules - Pathfinder 2e Nexus (2024)

Carrying especially heavy or unwieldy items can make it more difficult for you to move, as can overloading yourself with too much gear. The Bulk value of an item reflects how difficult the item is to handle, representing its size, weight, and general awkwardness. If you have a high Strength score, you usually don’t need to worry about Bulk unless you’re carrying numerous substantial items.

Bulk Limits

You can carry an amount of Bulk equal to 5 plus your Strength modifier without penalty; if you carry more, you gain the encumbered condition. You can’t hold or carry more Bulk than 10 plus your Strength modifier.

Bulk Values

Items can have a number to indicate their Bulk value, or they can be light (indicated by an L) or negligible (indicated by a —) for the purpose of determining Bulk. For instance,

is 4 Bulk, a

is 1 Bulk, a

or scroll is light, and a piece of

is negligible. Ten light items count as 1 Bulk, and you round down fractions (so 9 light items count as 0 Bulk, and 11 light items count as 1 Bulk). Items of negligible Bulk don’t count toward Bulk unless you try to carry vast numbers of them, as determined by the GM.

Estimating an Item’s Bulk

As a general rule, an item that weighs 5 to 10 pounds is 1 Bulk, an item weighing less than a few ounces is negligible, and anything in between is light. Particularly awkward or unwieldy items might have higher Bulk values. For example, a 10-foot pole isn’t heavy, but its length makes it difficult for you to move while you have one on your person, so its Bulk is 1. Items made for larger or smaller creatures have greater or lesser Bulk, as described in the Items and Sizes section.

Bulk of Coins

Coins are a popular means of exchange due to their portability, but they can still add up. A thousand coins of any denomination or combination of denominations count as 1 Bulk. It’s not usually necessary to determine the Bulk of coins in fractions of 1,000; simply round down fractions of 1,000. In other words, 100 coins don’t count as a light item, and 1,999 coins are 1 Bulk, not 2.

Bulk of Creatures

You might need to know the Bulk of a creature, especially if you need to carry someone off the battlefield. The table that follows lists the typical Bulk of a creature based on its size, but the GM might adjust this number.

Dragging

In some situations, you might drag an object or creature rather than carry it. If you’re dragging something, treat its Bulk as half. Typically, you can drag one thing at a time, you must use both hands to do so, and you drag slowly—roughly 50 feet per minute unless you have some means to speed it up. Use the total Bulk of what you’re dragging, so if you have a

laden with goods, use the sum of all the Bulk it carries instead of an individual item within.

Items and Sizes

The Bulk rules in this chapter are for Small and Medium creatures, as the items are made for creatures of those sizes. Large creatures can carry more, and smaller creatures can carry less, as noted on Table 6–19.

These rules for Bulk limits come up most often when a group tries to load up a mount or animal companion. The rules for items of different sizes tend to come into play when the characters defeat a big creature that has gear, since in most cases, the only creatures of other sizes are creatures under the GM’s control. In most cases, Small or Medium creatures can wield a Large weapon, though it’s unwieldy, giving them the clumsy 1 condition, and the larger size is canceled by the difficulty of swinging the weapon, so it grants no special benefit. Large armor is simply too large for Small and Medium creatures.

Bulk Conversions for Different Sizes

As shown in Table 6–19, Large or larger creatures are less encumbered by bulky items than Small or Medium creatures, while Tiny creatures become overburdened more quickly. A Large creature treats 10 items of 1 Bulk as 1 Bulk, a Huge creature treats 10 items of 2 Bulk as 1 Bulk, and so on. A Tiny creature treats 10 items of negligible Bulk as 1 Bulk. Negligible items work in a similar way—a Huge creature treats items of 1 Bulk as negligible, so it can carry any number of items of 1 Bulk. A Tiny creature doesn’t treat any items as having negligible Bulk.

Table 6–19: Bulk Conversions

Items of Different Sizes

Creatures of sizes other than Small or Medium need items appropriate to their size. These items have different Bulk and possibly a different Price. Table 6–20 provides the Price and Bulk conversion for such items.

Table 6–20: Differently Sized Items

For example, a

sized for a Medium creature has a Price of 1 gp and 1 Bulk, so one made for a Huge creature has a Price of 4 gp and 4 Bulk. One made for a Tiny creature still costs 1 gp (due to its intricacy) and has 1/2 Bulk, which rounds down to light Bulk.

Because the way that a creature treats Bulk and the Bulk of gear sized for it scale the same way, Tiny or Large (or larger) creatures can usually wear and carry about the same amount of appropriately sized gear as a Medium creature.

Higher-level magic items that cost significantly more than 8 times the cost of a mundane item can use their listed Price regardless of size. Precious materials, however, have a Price based on the Bulk of the item, so multiply the Bulk value as described on Table 6–20, then use the formula in the precious material’s entry to determine the item’s Price. See the Precious Materials section for more information.