Carrying Capacity of Rope

[Rio124]

We had an instance where we had the strongest character in the group tie a rope around himself and had the rest of the party (6 members) attached to the other end of the rope. The mage cast fly on the strongman and he carried us up to the next level of the adventure.

The question was asked if the silk rope was strong enough to carry ~1500 pounds. The PRD shows that the rope break DC is 24 but it doesn't say what the carrying capacity is. Anyone figure out how to determine the carrying capacity of rope?

(As opposed to having a rope be able to hold a 10-ton boulder from falling off a cliff.)

[Buri Reborn]

I don't believe this is stated anywhere. I would think a safe bet would be to use the break DC as an effective strength score for the purposes of bearing a load.

[Gisher]

That's a good question. The only rope that I can find with a stated weight limit is a Rope of Climbing. That can support 3,000 lb, but I assume that is magically greater than a normal rope.

[BigNorseWolf]

Rope strength by thickness

Which would beg the question how thick is it?

50 feet of rope weighs 10 pounds, so it weighs .2 pounds per foot.

Which puts it somewhere between 3/4 and 1 inch according to This page

which gives it around 5,800 pounds caryying capacity.

Not that i trust my math at 1 am.

[bbangerter]

The other question is, did your strongman have a str of 30+ to be able to carry 1500 lbs? (or str of 25+ while being large in size).

Alternately, was there a reason he had to carry the entire group all at once? Or could he have made several trips taking 2 other people at a time for 3 trips total?

[Cevah]

If the strongman was stupid and held one end of the rope while others were elsewhere on the rope, then the rope had to hold all ~1500#.

If instead the mage tied each person to the strongman by a portion of rope, then each bit of rope only needs to hold 1/6th of 1500#, i.e. 250#. Or even 125# if they were held bya loop of line.

/cevah

[BigNorseWolf]

Cevah wrote:

If the strongman was stupid and held one end of the rope while others were elsewhere on the rope, then the rope had to hold all ~1500#.

If instead the mage tied each person to the strongman by a portion of rope, then each bit of rope only needs to hold 1/6th of 1500#, i.e. 250#. Or even 125# if they were held bya loop of line.

/cevah

I just assumed they were all together because the scene pretty much bes for a rendition of "you came in like a wrecking ball....""

[Gisher]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Cevah wrote:

If the strongman was stupid and held one end of the rope while others were elsewhere on the rope, then the rope had to hold all ~1500#.

If instead the mage tied each person to the strongman by a portion of rope, then each bit of rope only needs to hold 1/6th of 1500#, i.e. 250#. Or even 125# if they were held bya loop of line.

/cevah

I just assumed they were all together because the scene pretty much bes for a rendition of "you came in like a wrecking ball....""

My favorite version.