Skyrim:Carry Weight

Carry Weight is the maximum weight of all weapons, armor, and other items that you can carry. It is the equivalent of the Encumbrance attribute in Oblivion. All characters start with a Carry Weight of 300 (150 when using Survival Mode). If you try to carry a combined weight that is greater than your Carry Weight, you will be limited to walking, unable to run or sprint.

You will also be unable to fast travel while over-encumbered unless on a horse.

Carry Weight is only controlled by your base Stamina, and therefore temporary changes to Stamina, such as Fortify Stamina, do not have any effect on Carry Weight; this is also why you do not become over-encumbered every time you swing a weapon or do other activities that deplete your Stamina.

Current Carry Weight

You may inspect current carry weight in the bottom right of Inventory menu.

Increasing Carry Weight

1. Choosing to increase Stamina when leveling up increases your maximum Carry Weight by five points.
2. Carry Weight can be increased by 100 through the Extra Pockets perk in the Pickpocket tree.
3. The spell effect provided by the Steed Stone also adds 100 points to your total, as well as completely negating the weight of any equipped armor.

Circumventing Over-Encumbrance

• Moving faster. You can walk at a faster pace while over-encumbered if you repeatedly do forward power attacks and sheathe right before the stamina drain, ideally with a dagger. The Whirlwind Sprint shout can also aid moving forward, especially if you unsheathe a weapon during the sprint, which causes you to run a vast distance at incredible speed.
  • You can also walk at a slightly faster pace if you have a bow fully drawn while moving forward.
• Potions. You can drink a Potion of Strength (or a similar potion, e.g. Elixir of Strength or custom Potion of Fortify Carry Weight), and (if you are not still overencumbered) fast travel to any location (regardless of distance) while the effect is active.
• Enchantments. You can carry gloves, boots, and/or pieces of jewelry enchanted with Fortify Carry Weight, and equip them when you exceed your limit in order to fast travel. Clothing such as the zero-weight shoes are particularly useful for this.
• Transform. Werewolves using their beast form have their carry weight limit increased by 2000 points.
  • Transforming into a Vampire Lord^DG will also allow you to avoid being over-encumbered and travel faster.
• Horses. Horses will take you where you want to go regardless of over-encumbrance. You can also fast travel after mounting a horse. Arvak^DG is especially handy for this, as he can be summoned when you need him, then released when you don't.
• Consume (or otherwise use) certain items, such as unwanted food, ingredients, potions, or scrolls.
• Drop and drag. Drop a heavy item to remove over-encumbrance, and hold the Activate key to drag it while you move (be cautious when loading a save, as this will move the item back to where you've dropped it).
• Dead drops. Dead bodies can hold any number of items, and the player can hold the Activate key to manually drag the body around (preferably via first person camera). Small corpses (such as Skeevers) can be particularly useful due to their low inertia.
  • Similarly, a corpse can be flung ahead some distance by holding Activate to lift it, then dual-casting a spell such as Lightning Bolt. Care should be taken not to fling it into water.
• Reanimation. You can reanimate a corpse using a Spell, Staff, or power (such as the Ritual Stone power) after depositing items in it, avoiding the need to manually drag the corpse around -- the corpse will follow when fast-traveling, even if the time required is longer than the duration of the effect (in which case the corpse will collapse upon reaching the destination). The Dragonborn can then retrieve their items from its body.
• If one has a follower, one can drop an item on the floor, and command them to pick it up. This seems to negate their weight limit, allowing them to carry an apparently infinite amount of items. Keep in mind that this method will mean one is unable to actually give an item to said follower, however.
  • If one wants to give a follower multiple items at once, it is possible to store things in a container such as a chest, cupboard, sack, barrel, etc., and then command the follower to "Take All" from the container (using either the "Command" option from their dialogue options or directly long-selecting the follower until the cursor changes to the Command Cursor).
    • This is more efficient than dropping items and commanding followers to pick them up one by one, and especially useful in longer dungeons or Dwemer dungeons where items tend to be heavier as you can essentially use your follower as a pack mule and thus be able to complete the dungeon without having to go back to your safe house to unload.
    • Note that most (?) followers will not loot corpses, so it is recommended to use actual containers such as chests, cupboards, dressers, barrels, sacks, etc.
    • It is not recommended to give followers items that are consumable, such as enchanted weapons, potions or ingredients, unless you want them to use them. See each follower's own rules for what items they will equip and/or use.
• The Dremora Butler ability acquired as a reward for completing "Black Book: Untold Legends" will allow the player to summon a servant for 15 seconds and transfer up to a total of 248 base carrying weight in items.
• Alternatively, the player can purchase a house and store items in any container without fear of said items disappearing. The items will stay in the chest until taken back out.
  • The Abandoned House in Markarth is free to use, being a place with permanently safe containers, regardless of whether the Dragonborn is Thane or not.
  • Alternatively, Anise and Drelas both have cabins that can serve as permanently safe storage places, if the player elects not to purchase any houses.
• Another way to overcome encumbrance is to place excessive items on a dead body before raising it as a Dead Thrall. This will allow it to be used as a "pack mule" to temporarily carry extra items.
  • Theoretically, a Dead Thrall can also benefit from the Fortify Carry Weight enchantment, but this only works if the armor they were wearing was enchanted. In other words, it is possible to remove the corpse's armor to enchant it, then replace it on the dead body. It will not be possible to enchant armor which the character did not wear in life and have them wear it. Corpses which were equipped with more clothing slots when they were alive will fully maximize the value of this enchantment, because the more armor they wore in life, the higher the carry weight they can benefit from.
• Using console commands.
  • tgm" – (Toggle God Mode) will enable running, sprinting, and fast-traveling while encumbered, but will not remove limitations on the use of carriages.
  • player.ModAV Carryweight <#> – will permanently increase your carrying capacity by "#" points.
• Followers and Spouses can be used to carry extra items, although they too have their own limit that cannot be exceeded. (Total carrying capacity is approximately 290 units of weight)
  • However, it is possible to use the glitch in Multiple Followers to gain 3 to 4 followers, thus effectively multiplying the player's total capacity to 1,000 units of weight. This can be performed using Cicero and Dark Brotherhood Initiates, along with a fourth companion.
  • Followers can also benefit from the Fortify Carry Weight enchantment, although this is bugged. Should their original (unfortified) limit be exceeded, only one item or stack of items can be added, then the menu must be closed and reopened to add more, up to the absolute maximum capacity.

Notes

• You cannot execute a sneaking forward roll (ordinarily usable with the Silent Roll perk) when over-encumbered.source
• Carry Weight enchantments (even multiple) work on followers, but with a bug: As soon as you reach the normal (unfortified) carry weight limit, every single item you put on your follower makes the inventory menu react as if the carry weight limit would have been exceeded. To become able to add one (!) more item, you have to leave the dialogue and reenter it, for every single item up to the real (fortified) carry weight limit. After reaching the latter, toggling the inventory menu no longer opens space for more items.

Bugs

• In most of the cases when your follower's Carry Weight limit is exceeded (e.g. by ordering them to pick too heavy/too many items), they will not suffer any apparent over-encumbrance effect. See the Followers article for details.
• When over-encumbered and slowed, your speed moving with a drawn arrow is unaffected and significantly faster.