This table gives the Bulk of a creature for the purpose of carrying a creature. Does this include the Bulk of any equipment on the creature's person?
no.
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Have heard and seen people say both ways.
So just for discussions sake:
RAW yes, no rules say otherwise.
Rai its unclear since the numbers make no sense if you use other rules for bulk.
Bulk is "size, weight, and general awkwardness"
and 5-10 pounds are 1 bulk
do the average medium creature weigh just 30-60 pounds? no thats silly
the number is purely how unwieldy a creature are to carry
so most equipment wont make mutch difference, weapons and shield if they are strapped might, but armor and small trinkets and potions wont change the unwieldiness mutch.
and you can assume that anything like that is why they added the
"This table lists the typical Bulk of a creature, but the GM might adjust this number." part.
but it wont be 15 bulk to carry the average martial
(Personaly i im on the fence how you should rules this, was just talking about what the rules say, and most people would say that its not fun to stop combat and adding up all the creatures equipments bulk. prob why they even included a table for quick creature bulks rather then having individual bulks for all creatures in there stats)
Edit: clarifications and typos
It doesn't say. On the one hand, a medium creature and all their gear combined being the same bulk as 3 longbows doesn't make a ton of sense, considering they could be carrying that much bulk themselves and it effectively doesn't exist anymore.
On the other hand, if you count their gear, picking up and carrying a party member who wears any real amount of gear becomes impossible for a lot of characters unless you remove all your own stuff first, which means situations like "we need to grab an unconscious character and retreat to avoid death" suddenly becomes a lot harder to pull off.
Basically: pick which of the two you want to live with. We tend to use the first option precisely because we want retreat to be a viable tactic.
I just use the base and only add particularly heavy/cumbersome items to it.
As an example, I wouldn't bother adding stuff like a sword in its sheath, or a leather armour, but I would be adding the bulk of a full plate.
This is more or less how I do it too.
Characters in my game are rarely more than 9 Bulk or so.
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Bulk is a broken system; I find Bulk useless beyond equipping one's PC. It's quantum effects on a human scale. Bulk destroys genre norms re: carrying/rescuing people. A max Str person, i.e. Conan, should be able to toss an adult over each shoulder. Yet bodies could then be subject to shenanigans of loading up one teammate to capacity and carrying them.
The system's a maze of incongruous loopholes.
A petrified small character is 6 Bulk & medium is 12, and while the rules do add "typically", it's all stone so I'm unsure how one's original equipment would matter much. Yet one might well become lighter if petrified. (And easier to store in airless containers!)
5-10 pounds/Bulk seems like a baseline, sometimes it feels like there's a square root in there somewhere that lessens the effects of the bulkiest objects. IMO Paizo does intend for the Bulk examples to be the norm unless there are odd circumstances, verisimilitude be damned. And then there's interacting with set pieces... Oy.
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My rule of thumb is that it's probably okay to use the table if the creature is not encumbered themselves or carrying something overly large. If they are encumbered or etc. then I start accounting for their equipment, because if they're not able to carry their own equipment without difficulty, that will affect another creature trying to carry them
I simplify it myself, personally.
Like, a caster medium-sized character that is almost encumbered, I might add 1 Bulk to carry them. Barely encumbered? 2 bulk. Almost at max? 3 bulk.Of course, if it was a fully encumbered max STR barbarian? 6 bulk more might not be surprising. xD
But yeah, that would be case by case, and going by feel by quickly looking at what is on them without counting exact bulk. And it fit too, IMHO, a bit like how armor has less bulk when worn.
Now I'm imagining carrying some dead guy for the storage space. "Need a major healing potion? I'm out, but maybe Bernie still has a few..."
Ooh, before I forget. I noticed that Floating Disk (now called Carryall) got buffed in Player Core 2. Creatures can ride it now, and a 4th rank casting increases the Bulk limit from 5 to 10.