MJBurrage's page

Are there two versions of this figure?

The image here shows bright silver armor with gold highlights.

The image in many other places (Miniatures Market, Troll & Toad, etc.) show a darker silver armor with no gold highlights.

+500 gp/lb. using the original item weight would make for ludicrous prices. Even using the mithral item weight leaves the issue of armor being much cheaper by weight than other items.

But "clarifying" that mithral other items cost a minimum of +500 gp, and more if heavier than 1 lb. would match all the other items listed in rulebooks so far.

The question was answered via equipment examples in Ultimate Equipment. Mithral is priced with the new reduced weight.

- Gauss

The simplest fix for mithral weapons might be to "clarify" that mithral weapons are priced by their new lower weight, but such pricing does not include the masterwork cost.

I.E. armor has special numbers and those include masterwork. Other items do not have special costs, and the cost by weight does not include masterwork.

Are there any official mithral weapons that state they are masterwork and have a price.

Special material prices do not translate into amount of the material used.

They are a game mechanic to represent how mechanically valuable (as opposed to economically valuable) that special material is when applied to that category of armor.

Trying to state that X armor has X amount of mithral in it is futile.

- Gauss

I know why the armor cost what it does (game mechanics and balance), I'm just pointing out that once that valuation exists it gives a limit to the value of mithral that can be calculated.

Going with the most forgiving approach possible: The rules require that an item be primarily made of a material to gain the benefit of said material. So a 10 lb., 1100 gp., mithral shirt must contain at least 5 lbs. of mithral. That give an absolute maximum value for mithral as a raw material of 73 gp./lb. (= +250 gp/lb.) So for the +500 gp/lb. to be economically viable, one would have to make light armor double the price at +2000 gp.

Other assumptions only make mithral worth even less, which leads to one conclusion. The official price of a mithral shirt is too low to exist economically with the given value of mithral itself. What you do with that information is up to you, but not liking it does not make it go away.

That's also presuming the entire thing is made out of mithril. Even with a chain shirt, you'd have a gambeson or leather jerkin underneath (similar to studded leather but without the studs). Then if a DM wanted to argue with you to prevent such cheesery, he could say the weight also included things like the rest of your outfit - pants, boots, etc - things necessary to be dressed respectably enough to be seen in public.

With a shield, to prevent such tomfoolery, the DM could argue that a steel shield isn't entirely steel - but instead is a solid sheet of metal mounted onto a wooden backing. Easier to affix handles/straps to woood than it is steel/mithril, without threatening the integrity of the shield's blocking surface by punching holes in it.

The weight of other worn gear has nothing to do with the calculations in my posts, that would always be extra to the weight an cost of any armor.

I also considered the arguments about some items being made from more that one material, but every depiction and detailed description of mithral shirts I have seen is pretty clear that they are just that, a shirt made of mithral links without anything else underneath. I.E. such a shirt can be worn unnoticed under regular clothing. Even if there was some fabric included, it would not reasonably be more than a pound or two, most of the weight would still be the mithral which at half the weight of steel, is still much heavier than cloth.

Just to play devils advocate, lets say that a 10 lb. mithral shirt only contains 5 lbs. of mithral; that is still a max raw material cost of +1000 gp / 5 lb. / 3 (crafting rules) = 66.67 gp/lb.

The problem with a 500 gp/lb. value for mithral, is that at that price there are many official mithral items that if purchased at their official market price, and then melted down would yield mithral for much less.

The most egregious example being a 1,100 gp mithral shirt weighing 10 lbs. Any player could just buy the shirt and melt it down to get mithral for 110 gp/lb. And to craft such a shirt, the armorer must have a supplier willing to sell mithral for 1/3 of that (36.7 gp/lb.)

Even if we double the price of mithral light armor to +2,000 gp, there is the next example of a 1,020 gp mithral heavy shield weighing 5 lbs. Any player could just buy the shield and melt it down to get mithral for 204 gp/lb. And to craft such a shirt, the armorer must have a supplier willing to sell mithral for 1/3 of that (68 gp/lb.)

A market value of mithral as a raw material of ~68 gp/lb. implies a market price for miscellaneous mithral items of +200 gp/lb. (using the mithral weight), or +100 gp/lb. (using the original weight).

So if a GM were to ask me for +500 gp/lb. for already crafted items, I would ask if I could commission a crafter to do the work using mithral I supply. Presuming the GM says yes, I would then buy and melt down, mithral shirts to save a ton of money.

Adamantine is listed in Ultimate Equipment under Trade Goods as 300gp/lb. There are no formulas (that I saw) that mention what it costs to create non weapon/armor items out of it.

The problem with a 300 gp/lb. value for adamantine, is that at that price there are many official adamantine items that if purchased at their official market price, and then melted down would yield a large profit.

The most egregious example being a 5,100 gp adamantine shirt weighing 20–25 lbs (see above). Any player could just buy the shirt and melt it down to get adamantine for ~250 gp/lb. And to craft such a shirt, the armorer must have a supplier willing to sell adamantine for 1/3 of that (~85 gp/lb)

Unlike mithral, adamantine does not have a price listing for items that are not armor or weapons. How does one determine the cost of items outside of these parameters? What about adamantine shields?

In the 3.0 DMG and SRD, adamantine shields cost the same as light armor (+2,000 gp). The 3.5 DMG and SRD raised the light armor cost (+5,000 gp) and no longer listed a separate shield cost. This led to most SRD compilations by third parties (Hypertext d20 SRD, D&D Wiki, etc.) listing the 3.0 shield cost in their 3.5 SRDs. However, the v.3.5 Main D&D FAQ confirms that a 3.5 adamantine shield still costs the same as light armor (+5,000 gp)

Pathfinder is to my knowledge silent on the issue.

Other Items

As noted by others, raw materials cost one-third of an item's price. Therefore, one can calculate a ceiling for the raw material value by dividing a known item price by three, and then by the item's weight in pounds. Doing this for adamantine armor and weapons yields a range of ceiling values, with the notable ones detailed below (everything else has a raw material ceiling value over 100 gp).

If the raw material value of adamantine is set above an item's calculated ceiling value, than a character could simply buy that item, melt it down, and sell it back to the crafter for a profit.

The lowest ceiling for the raw material value of adamantine is from a sling bullet (60 gp price for a 1/2 lb. bullet = 40 gp/lb. raw material cost) which is lower than gold (50 gp/lb.), and would make the base price for adamantine other items 120 gp/lb.

The next lowest ceiling is from a chain shirt (5100 gp price for a 25 lb. shirt = 68 gp/lb. raw material cost), which would make the price for adamantine other items 200 gp/lb. However one has to either custom rule adamantine sling bullets, or raise their price to 100 gp each.

After that we have chainmail and the greataxe (both work out to ~84 gp/lb. raw material cost), which would make the base price for adamantine other items 250 gp/lb. However one has to either ignore both chain shirts and sling bullets, or tweak the rules for both. The chain shirt either weighs 20 lb. or it is priced at 6,350 gp. Sling bullets would have to be custom ruled, or priced at 120 gp each.

In my games, I ruled that—since a mithral chain shirt weighs 10 lb.—a masterwork steel chain shirt (and thus an adamantine chain shirt) weighs 20 lb., and that adamantine sling bullets are priced at 120 gp.

P.S. The same methods applied to mithril show that:

The lowest ceiling for the raw material value of mithral is from a chain shirt (36.7 gp/lb.), which implies that the price for mithral other items should by 55 gp/lb. (using original item weight) or 110 gp/lb. (using mithril item weight)

The next lowest ceiling is from a heavy shield (68 gp/lb.), which would suggest a price for mithril other items of 100 gp/lb. (original item weight) or 200 gp/lb. (mithril item weight) However the price of mithral shirts would have to be increased by raising the price of light armor to +2000 gp.

I.E. if you put the raw material value of adamantine and mithril much higher than gold, than anyone can make a profit by buying chain shirts and immediately selling them for their metal content.

Just to add back some confusion...

I dug out actual physical copies of the DMG, to see if their was more detail than the online SRDs.

DMG (3.0):

• Cold iron is not listed as a special material anywhere in the book.
  
• Holy Avenger, is not made of a special material, has weaker powers (than 3.5), and is priced/costed at 120,315/60,315 gp. (so 315 gp for the masterwork longsword)

DMG v.3.5:

• Iron, cold is described as a special material with an example not included in the SRD:
  
  DMG v.3.5 (page 284) wrote:

  "Weapons made of cold iron cost twice as much to make as their normal counterparts. Also, any magical enhancements cost an additional 2,000 gp. For example, a +2 longsword made of cold iron would cost 10,330 gp, because the price doubles for the longsword itself (15 gp to 30 gp), the +2 enhancement bonus costs 8,000 gp, and enhancing cold iron costs an additional 2,000 gp. (The price includes 300 gp for the masterwork component.)"

• Masterwork Cold Iron Longsword, is made of cold iron, is nonmagical, and is priced at 330 gp.
  
• Holy Avenger, is made of cold iron, has stronger powers (than 3.0), and is priced/costed at 120,630/60,630 gp. (this implies 630 gp for a masterwork cold iron longsword, contradicting the cold iron rules)

Given the written example, it is clear in the DMG v.3.5, how cold iron costing should work, but the price of a holy avenger may by an error that has never been corrected.

The holy avenger should either be priced at 122,330 gp (adding the correct cost of enhanced cold iron to the 3.0 power valuation), or its powers in 3.5 were revalued at 118,300 gp (3.5 price − 2,330 gp for an enhanced cold iron longsword).

Just to add back some confusion...

The 3.5 DMG (and thus Pathfinder) have a masterwork cold iron longsword at 330 gp AND the holy avenger at 120,630 gp.

The former implies that cold iron only doubles the base weapon cost, while the latter implies that cold iron also doubles the masterwork cost.

P.S. I personally hypothesize that the cost of the holy avenger was probably handwaved back in 3.0, not actually calculated in detail, and now its cost has simply been inherited by 3.5 and Pathfinder. Based on the cold iron rules, I would have expected the holy avenger price to end with ..2,330 gp. Perhaps, at an early stage of 3.0 development, magiced cold iron was going to be +300 and not +2000, so the holy avenger was 120,000 for its powers and 630 for the magiced cold iron longsword.