Venture-Agent, Washington—Bothell
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Wow, sorry for dragging this thread into the oddly-shaped special material armor argument. I know there is a lot of controversy over it and I have yet to find any official ruling in a blog, forum, or FAQ. I just went to 4400 gp for the price as when there is ambiguity I tend to go with the worse side so that if I'm wrong I haven't been "cheating" the entire time and if I run into a DM who's very adamant about one side its easier to gain gold then to suddenly have less gold, especially if I just emptied my wallet for some other item.
One thing I will never understand is how the value of mithral goes down when it is crafted into other objects, instead of increasing. Mithral is a 500gp per pound trade good. But for some reason a full shirt of chain that weighs 12.5 lbs is only worth 1,100gp, while a mihtral Tower Shield that weighs 22.5 lbs is worth only 1,030gp.
Couldn't I buy these and then melt them down for more value? Even if I had to split half the profits with some dwarf that knew how to do it, it would be a lot of profit. Whereas I feel bad for the crafter who must spend so much (500gp/lb) on the raw mithral from the mines and then sell it for only +1,000 gp, all because raw mithral is worth more.
I understand its a game, but it wouldn't be that complicated to make the math at least plausible.
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One thing I will never understand is how the value of mithral goes down when it is crafted into other objects, instead of increasing. Mithral is a 500gp per pound trade good. But for some reason a full shirt of chain that weighs 12.5 lbs is only worth 1,100gp, while a mihtral Tower Shield that weighs 22.5 lbs is worth only 1,030gp.
Couldn't I buy these and then melt them down for more value? Even if I had to split half the profits with some dwarf that knew how to do it, it would be a lot of profit. Whereas I feel bad for the crafter who must spend so much (500gp/lb) on the raw mithral from the mines and then sell it for only +1,000 gp, all because raw mithral is worth more.
I understand its a game, but it wouldn't be that complicated to make the math at least plausible.
This argument comes up often.
There are three counters.
- Luckily, in PFS, this isn't possible, since you can only ever sell something for half of what you paid for it. Melting down a huge-sized Mithral shirt earns you a destroyed item that is crossed off your ITS.
- In homegames, no rational GM would allow you to game the system like that. They'd either tell you up front, "Don't try it", or, if they're economically savvy, they'll introduce you to the whims of a market-driven economy.
- James Jacobs (or SKR, I can't recall) stated at one point that Pathfinder isn't a game of economics. The special materials are priced for game balance and assume a medium-sized humanoid PC, with a somewhat realistic extension for small- and large-sized needs. Neither system, going strictly off of weight, or strictly off of type, truly works 100% of the time, so the rules as they are try to mimic the closest approximation for the majority of instances.
We already have an FAQ for pricing Mithral items off weight, and most recently another FAQ defining Mithral's "limitations". This new FAQ request should hammer down any remaining confusion about how to handle Mithral going forward.
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a Mithral Tower Shield that weighs 22.5 lbs is worth only 1,030gp.Keep in mind tower shields are made of wood, and are thus not valid items to be made out of mithral.
Well, that's not true 100% of the time, but yes, generally you are correct.
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Well, that's not true 100% of the time, but yes, generally you are correct.a Mithral Tower Shield that weighs 22.5 lbs is worth only 1,030gp.Keep in mind tower shields are made of wood, and are thus not valid items to be made out of mithral.
Indeed, special items get to break the rules, thank you for pointing that one out.