Creative Director
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Question about silverdisks
Spoiler:You find both batteries and silverdisks in various areas in Fires of Creation. Are these terms used interchangeably or are there differences between batteries and silverdisks?
The difference is...
Silverdisks are depleted batteries that are worth 10 gp and are used as currency in Numeria, but have no other use.
In-world, the terms are interchangeable (since the bulk of the tech-ignorant don't know the difference between a full battery and a depleted one), but in print, they mean something very different.
uhhh. I thought the value was 1gp not 10gp.
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Creative Director
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uhhh. I thought the value was 1gp not 10gp.
10 gp is correct. Not sure where you're getting 1 gp from.
And on further investigation,
Maybe use Shimmerdisks and Silverdisks? In home games at least.
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uhhh. I thought the value was 1gp not 10gp.10 gp is correct. Not sure where you're getting 1 gp from.
The techslinger stat-block in Numeria: Land of Fallen Stars lists the value of silverdisks as 1 gp.
A related question is...
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Creative Director
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uhhh. I thought the value was 1gp not 10gp.10 gp is correct. Not sure where you're getting 1 gp from.
The techslinger stat-block in Numeria: Land of Fallen Stars lists the value of silverdisks as 1 gp.
A related question is...
** spoiler omitted **
The techslinger stat block is wrong then, alas.
I guess then that a silver disk is like a platinum coin for Numeria considering that each platinum is worth 10 gp in Golarion.
I guess then that a silver disk is like a platinum coin for Numeria considering that each platinum is worth 10 gp in Golarion.Yup. Same value. Just a little bit of world flavor to make buying and spending things in Numeria feel a bit different.
I don't have the Technology Guide yet, since I just ordered it yesterday, but will it have a better clarification about Silverdiscs? Because according to the "Laser Slinger..." (PF SRD)
Advanced Silverdiscs:
These small, coin-sized discs are etched with circuitry, and contain 10 charges each. When placed in a special slot in the laser pistol, a silverdisk transfers its charge into the gun's internal capacitors, effectively reloading the weapon. A silverdisk can be recharged (with a 20% chance of being destroyed) with an active generator. A charged silverdisk glows with light equivalent to that of a candle. A silverdisk is worth 100 gp as long as it is capable of holding a charge; a dead silverdisk is worth 1 gp.
Are "Advanced Silverdiscs" something different from normal Silverdiscs? If not, this entry drastically needs to change and could you post a corrected version?
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Creative Director
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I guess then that a silver disk is like a platinum coin for Numeria considering that each platinum is worth 10 gp in Golarion.Yup. Same value. Just a little bit of world flavor to make buying and spending things in Numeria feel a bit different.I don't have the Technology Guide yet, since I just ordered it yesterday, but will it have a better clarification about Silverdiscs? Because according to the "Laser Slinger..." (PF SRD)
Are "Advanced Silverdiscs" something different from normal Silverdiscs? If not, this entry drastically needs to change and could you post a corrected version?Advanced Silverdiscs:
These small, coin-sized discs are etched with circuitry, and contain 10 charges each. When placed in a special slot in the laser pistol, a silverdisk transfers its charge into the gun's internal capacitors, effectively reloading the weapon. A silverdisk can be recharged (with a 20% chance of being destroyed) with an active generator. A charged silverdisk glows with light equivalent to that of a candle. A silverdisk is worth 100 gp as long as it is capable of holding a charge; a dead silverdisk is worth 1 gp.
That's an error that crept into the text, alas, before the final rules for batteries were in place. Wish I'd had caught it and corrected it. You can't recharge batteries.
Since this bit of text only exists as an NPC special ability, it's not going to impact much at all, in any event.
That said, the site you linked to isn't ours—it's a fan-created and fan-maintained site, and I don't have the capability to change things there.
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That's an error that crept into the text, alas, before the final rules for batteries were in place. Wish I'd had caught it and corrected it. You can't recharge batteries.
Since this bit of text only exists as an NPC special ability, it's not going to impact much at all, in any event.
Really? The Technology Guide says batteries can be recharged.
Placing a battery in a generator’s charging slot can recharge it. However, each time a battery is recharged, there’s a 20% chance that the battery is destroyed in the process. A destroyed battery is worth only 10 gp.
Yes, a destroyed battery is worth the same as a silverdisk. Suggesting... destroyed batteries are silverdisks.
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Creative Director
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That's an error that crept into the text, alas, before the final rules for batteries were in place. Wish I'd had caught it and corrected it. You can't recharge batteries.
Since this bit of text only exists as an NPC special ability, it's not going to impact much at all, in any event.
Really? The Technology Guide says batteries can be recharged.
Placing a battery in a generator’s charging slot can recharge it. However, each time a battery is recharged, there’s a 20% chance that the battery is destroyed in the process. A destroyed battery is worth only 10 gp.
Ah! Fair enough, I was mistaken. You can recharge them but with a chance of destruction. I went back and forth on recharges or not, and in the end decided that since we can recharge batteries today in the real world, the super-science versions should be rechargeable too, but not without a chance of destruction. But then forgot, I suppose, I decided to go with that. Good thing it's written down!
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I blame Cosmo for the Nanopugwampis that are playing Calvinball in Jacob Rex's noggin and making him forgetful. :)
Yes, a destroyed battery is worth the same as a silverdisk. Suggesting... destroyed batteries are silverdisks.
So wait!
how much money can i get for destroying my batteries,
i could really use some new batteries
My guess is that they're super heavy, i mean our batteries are heavier than you'd guess just looking at them. Super batteries using unknowable technology could be super dense.
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Creative Director
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Batteries weigh 1 lb. Silverdisks read "coin-sized"....which speaks to me of 50:1 lb. Error or are silverdisks just ridiculously heavy platinum pieces?
Pretty much, yes. They're relatively heavy due to the fact that they've got super-science in them.
They're probably made of Glaucite, aren't they? Stuffs heavy..ish.
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So let me get this straight. A silverdisk is a used battery. However, a used battery (silverdisk) is worth 10gp and a charged battery is worth 100gp? And as far as weight goes, a battery weighs how much? And a battery weighs 1 lb, but a silver disk weighs 50:1 pounds?
Unless someone can explain it better:
I think in my campaign I am just gonna run it that all batteries are silverdisks. I imagine them as being much larger hearing aid batteries or the likes of that. If it says they get a battery, I am just gonna insert, charged silverdisk. I am also gonna up the recharge destruction rate to 50%. I will let them cycle through all their money to get recharged batteries if they want to.
So other than that any thoughts?
Silverdisks are not used batteries; they're broken ones. Usable batteries that are uncharged are still worth 100gp. Silverdisks weigh 1 lb, exactly like batteries.
Look at a few posts up and JJ explains their weight.
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I'm really having a lot of trouble with this silverdisk/battery thing with all the conflicting information in books and this thread.
I think I'm going to go with
battery = charged, buys for 100gp, sells for 50gp
silverdisk = discharged, buys for 10gp, sells for 10gp, can be charged in generator
I'm probably also going to refluff the glow of a charged silverdisk as an LCD screen on one side of the disc that powers up and shows random statistics when the disc is charged and is powerless when the disc is discharged. Sort of like the disc of a smartwatch.
I'd personally say that depleted batteries buy/sell for half-price, but by itself someone might not be able to tell if they're just depleted, or broken. Perhaps one might even go as far as saying each silverdisk has a 10% chance of being a depleted battery rather than a destroyed one, though the players would have to examine all silverdisks they find to see if its destroyed or simply depleted. A simple Knowledge(Engineering) check by someone with the Technologist feat would probably suffice to figure it out.
Our group treats them like art objects/jewelry instead of as ammunition because it definately works as a new form of currency/collector's item.
Just like how several old computer junkies still have floppy disks, and the old vacuum tubes (computer component), and some gamers have atari's, the original nintendo, sega, etc.
Edit: Wait, I thought attempting to charge depleted batteries and failing causes them to turn into the silverdisks, the platinum coin equivalent that can no longer be charged. If the silverdisks lying around can be charged, can a party use the generator to charge the 100+ silverdisks they could have on hand by that point?
Your original thought is what's clearly laid out in the technology guide, and somewhat contradicted through JJ's comments here and conflicting info in some other publications. Per the TG you have 100gp Batteries, which may be charged or uncharged. Charging a Battery has a 20% chance of destroying it and turning it into a 10gp Silverdisk. There are no published methods to repair or recharge a Silverdisk.
The (few) batteries and (lots) of Silverdisks in Fires of Creation fit the TG stuff.
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Creative Director
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Edit: Wait, I thought attempting to charge depleted batteries and failing causes them to turn into the silverdisks, the platinum coin equivalent that can no longer be charged. If the silverdisks lying around can be charged, can a party use the generator to charge the 100+ silverdisks they could have on hand by that point?Your original thought is what's clearly laid out in the technology guide, and somewhat contradicted through JJ's comments here and conflicting info in some other publications. Per the TG you have 100gp Batteries, which may be charged or uncharged. Charging a Battery has a 20% chance of destroying it and turning it into a 10gp Silverdisk. There are no published methods to repair or recharge a Silverdisk.
The (few) batteries and (lots) of Silverdisks in Fires of Creation fit the TG stuff.
Ugh... yeah.
I got confused by my original tunover and various discussions that happened in development. Further complicated by some other stuff that crept into print in parallel with the Tech Guide.
But yes, that's actually the original intent. Batteries are 100 gp, can be recharged, and have a chance of being destroyed.
Once they're destroyed, they're 10 gp silverdisks. You can't recharge a silverdisk; you just spend it.
Charged silverdisks (which I am definitely calling "shimmerdisks;" thanks, Izkael) "glow with light equivalent to that of a candle," so I think the average person could differentiate shimmerdisks from silverdisks. But then that raises the question of you differentiate an empty-but-rechargeable silverdisk from a broken silverdisk.)
I thought it was made clear in the text that uncharged but unbroken batteries still had a certain level of "shimmer" (more like iridescent surface than glow) that broken silverdisks don't.
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So a battery's charge state has no bearing on its value? Both a charged and uncharged battery are worth the same?
Unless the battery is timeworn then yes.
Also you can totally repair a destroyed battery, you use that. Unless the battery is timeworn, in that case even if you repair it you still can't recharge it.
James, how many of the batteries in circulation (as currency) would you say are timeworn? 50%? 80%?
Because i can really see my players trying to get thier hands on as many silverdisks as they can, repair them via greater make whole and then try to recharge them.
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Creative Director
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So a battery's charge state has no bearing on its value? Both a charged and uncharged battery are worth the same?Unless the battery is timeworn then yes.
Also you can totally repair a destroyed battery, you use that. Unless the battery is timeworn, in that case even if you repair it you still can't recharge it.
James, how many of the batteries in circulation (as currency) would you say are timeworn? 50%? 80%?
Because i can really see my players trying to get thier hands on as many silverdisks as they can, repair them via greater make whole and then try to recharge them.
I'd say that most of the batteries in circulation are not timeworn, since they tend to break long before they hang out long enough to become timeworn.
I'd say that most of the batteries in circulation are not timeworn, since they tend to break long before they hang out long enough to become timeworn.So a battery's charge state has no bearing on its value? Both a charged and uncharged battery are worth the same?Unless the battery is timeworn then yes.
Also you can totally repair a destroyed battery, you use that. Unless the battery is timeworn, in that case even if you repair it you still can't recharge it.
James, how many of the batteries in circulation (as currency) would you say are timeworn? 50%? 80%?
Because i can really see my players trying to get thier hands on as many silverdisks as they can, repair them via greater make whole and then try to recharge them.
I am not sure i got the break part, do you mean physically break (and most likely discarded) or do you mean destroyed via the 20% when charging?
Also i thought that silverdisks were being used as additional currency on Numeria for at least 200-300 years.|
Creative Director
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I'd say that most of the batteries in circulation are not timeworn, since they tend to break long before they hang out long enough to become timeworn.So a battery's charge state has no bearing on its value? Both a charged and uncharged battery are worth the same?Unless the battery is timeworn then yes.
Also you can totally repair a destroyed battery, you use that. Unless the battery is timeworn, in that case even if you repair it you still can't recharge it.
James, how many of the batteries in circulation (as currency) would you say are timeworn? 50%? 80%?
Because i can really see my players trying to get thier hands on as many silverdisks as they can, repair them via greater make whole and then try to recharge them.I am not sure i got the break part, do you mean physically break (and most likely discarded) or do you mean destroyed via the 20% when charging?
Also i thought that silverdisks were being used as additional currency on Numeria for at least 200-300 years.
Silerdisks have indeed been used as currency in Numeria for a long time.
"Break" in my comment = both definitions. Either broken into pieces, or failing to survive recharging.
So isn't that long time sufficient for the timeworn condition to kick in?
Interesting...
To rephrase James, any timeworn battery is probably also outright broken after one too many recharging cycles.
"New" batteries may have been taken out of stasis storage, so they haven't actually been through nine thousand years of wear.
One also presumes the Technic League is using their production labs (the cheaptest/simplest kind) to prioritize making enough batteries for their own needs. I think it works out to one crafting day per battery at a small cost, and while mass production probably isn't possible, the cost is low enough that you could theoretically batch produce several in a day if your GM/campaign background allowed/required it.
Or if you want a custom explanation: If batteries are so ubiquous a requirement for this tech and they break so often, it's a reasonable background assumption that Divinity had plenty of capacity for making new ones and the Technic league found those specialized facilities and used/uses them to churn out more to the limits of required materials or the specialized production aparatus eventually breaking.
Actually you can make 4 batteries each day, assuming you have enough yeild to power the production lab for 4 items.
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Creative Director
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One also presumes the Technic League is using their production labs (the cheaptest/simplest kind) to prioritize making enough batteries for their own needs. I think it works out to one crafting day per battery at a small cost, and while mass production probably isn't possible, the cost is low enough that you could theoretically batch produce several in a day if your GM/campaign background allowed/required it.
Or if you want a custom explanation: If batteries are so ubiquous a requirement for this tech and they break so often, it's a reasonable background assumption that Divinity had plenty of capacity for making new ones and the Technic league found those specialized facilities and used/uses them to churn out more to the limits of required materials or the specialized production aparatus eventually breaking.
Actually, the Technic League generally uses generators, not batteries, to recharge or power their stuff.
{reading between the lines of the lines between the lines} So, if the batteries are so recent, and the Technic League isn't making them, someone/something else is.
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Creative Director
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{reading between the lines of the lines between the lines} So, if the batteries are so recent, and the Technic League isn't making them, someone/something else is.
Note also that the passage of time does not automatically mean something becomes timeworn either. If it's somewhere safe and protected, the item (batteries INCLUDED in this case) can stay fully functional for a long time.
For random piles of silverdisks as loot, I'm undecided whether to treat them all as being burnt out/unusable, or to go ahead and have a small percentage roll that determines how many of them are usable and how many charges they might have. After all, generators are few and far between. I may just toss in viable ones on a whim from time to time instead too.
I was thinking this too but i am not sure what an appropriate number would be, 2%, 5%?
In my game, I ran it *nearly* as intended.
I let the PCs sell their silverdisks to any merchant for half price (5gp each for the skymetal value), but I told them that some especially tech-savvy merchants will take the disks at full value (10 gp each).
Sanvil Trett was the only such merchant in Torch, so the PCs made a habit of going to him to get "double value" for their technological coins during "Fires of Creation". They reacted really well to having a currency that not only looked different, but also spent differently!