[RPG] How Much Does a Petrified Character Weigh

conditionsdnd-5eweight

This came up in a session this weekend. One of my players was turned to stone (petrified) during combat. After combat, the rest of the party wanted to drag the statue around the rest of the dungeon, in hopes of finding a way to cure them. (And not wanting to leave the statue alone)

In lieu of any specific ruling on the matter, and because the half-orc has a STR of 19, we hand-waved the weight of the statue as irrelevant. But, if it weren't: How much would a petrified character weigh as a statue?

One of my players made the "how much does 150 pounds of feathers weigh" argument, but that didn't sit right with me, and I happened upon why only after the fact: because the density of stone is much higher (hopefully) than that of flesh. Therefore, the mass would scale at an equal ratio, assuming the same volume (that's d=m/v) — but I don't know the density ratio of stone vs flesh. Can someone provide that, or at least an educated guess?

Best Answer

A petrified character weighs 10 times their normal weight

This is answered in the first bullet point of the petrified condition (emphasis added):

  • A petrified creature is transformed, along with any nonmagical object it is wearing or carrying, into a solid inanimate substance (usually stone). Its weight increases by a factor of ten, and it ceases aging.

If the creature is turned into an unusual substance with a density very different from that of solid mundane stone, the DM could modify this weight factor to make it larger or smaller, as needed. But for your ordinary everyday turning to stone, the answer is 10x normal weight. Note that "normal weight" would mean the weight of everything that was petrified. This includes the weight of any of their clothing and equipment that was turned to stone along with them.