Help! Urgent science question I need answered!

[Angel of Adventure]

So, my PCs are lugging around a 10ft long, 2 ft wide metal spike in their Epic quest to bring back the heart of a Genus Loci. (Took some liberties with the EHL description, but anyway. . . )

I really need to know how much it weighs as this has many, many implications to their use of it.


Anyone know how much a 10 ft long, 2 ft wide piece of steel would weigh?

Thanks,

AoA

 

[freebfrost]

Steel is about 40.8 lbs per square foot.

I wasn't sure if it is a round piece or wedge-shaped or what, so you'll have to do the math on that...

 

[Turjan]

The density of steel is about 7,85 g/cm3. You mean something 10 feet long and with a (round) diameter of 2 feet, or what? That would be roughly 7 metric tons.

 

[Nightfall]

In other words, you need a dragon to get that sucker out and about.

 

[trancejeremy]

If it's 10x2x2 it would be 40 cubic feet. Since it's probably not shaped like a box, but is a spike, it's probably closer to 10-11 cubic feet. Steel weighs about 500 lbs a cubic foot. So I would say about 5000 lbs.

 

[Wavestone]

Turjan is almost on the right track.. his values are true if you assume the spike has a cylindrical shape.. If you treat it as a cone with a 2 ft diameter base, tapering to a point at 10 ft, you would get a value of 2.332 metric tons instead of 6.997 metric tons.. The end result is about 5136 lbs.. thus both turjan and trancejeremy is right, depending on the shape of the spike..

I still think Nightfall said it best, in the fewest words..

 

[Nightfall]

Wave stone,

Yeah well anything that weighs LESS than 200 lb, most NORMAL characters can BARELY handle.

So when it reaches the 1000 lb+ stage, giants, dragons and such are about the ONLY things capable of lifting and/or wielding such an item.

 

[Wavestone]

An addenda here. Using the encumbrance rules, and assuming the spike weighs 5136 lbs (my earlier post..), you need 27 str to be able to drag it on the ground at 5 ft speed.. To carry it as a heavy load, you need 39 str.

According to MM, a sample creatures that could carry it ( str 39+):
ancient red dragon, great wyrm blue/green, great wyrm bronze, silver wyrm, old gold dragon..
storm giant, hill giant dire wereboar (in hybrid and boar form), nightwalker, the tarrasque, or a titan. In short, its pretty epic to carry it around on one person.. Magic? Telekinesis- need a caster level of 205 to move it. A good bet would be to use a lot of beasts of burden.. charming a few giants would do nicely.

Methinks the original poster is in for some interesting logistics..

Allright, its late, I'm tired, and there are probably better stuff to do than thinking about this.. like going to bed for one...

 

[boolean]

Don't forget that encumbrance is also modified by creature size, and whether or not the creature is a biped/quadruped.

A large quadruped has x3 the carrying capacity of a medium biped of the same strength.

So a large quadruped only needs a strength of 31 to carry 5520 lbs as a heavy load.

For a cylinder of about 15000 lbs, a large quadruped with a strength of 39 can carry 16800 lbs as a heavy load. A huge quadruped of strength 34 could carry the same.

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

Don't forget that encumbrance is also modified by creature size, and whether or not the creature is a biped/quadruped.

A large quadruped has x3 the carrying capacity of a medium biped of the same strength.

So a large quadruped only needs a strength of 31 to carry 5520 lbs as a heavy load.

For a cylinder of about 15000 lbs, a large quadruped with a strength of 39 can carry 16800 lbs as a heavy load. A huge quadruped of strength 34 could carry the same.

An elephant, Huge Quadruped (6x), str 30. It would only be a medium load.