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As a jewelry salesman, one of the most annoying assumptions I hear from customers is that if the price of gold is $X/ounce, then the jewelry they're looking to purchase should not cost a penny more.
I apply the same logic to purchasing special materials in Pathfinder, although I have to admit these recent disturbances raise my doubts.
Well, the book price is 500gp/lb of the finished item.
Therefore, if the finished item weighs one pound, you can buy it for 500gp. Trying to sell an item priced by weight is based on how much it weighs, not on how much something else weighs!
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The question was answered via equipment examples in Ultimate Equipment. Mithral is priced with the new reduced weight.
- Gauss
The only thing that Ultimate Equipment proved is that we have writers who made the exact same mistake that they did with staves in the Core Rulebook.
Check for Ultimate Equipment errata. IF there hasn't been any yet, submit the question for FAQ. Herolab uses the more (and properly) expensive answer.
Hero Lab also fails to use the lower weight of small sized weapons when calculating the price of mithral weapons.
Never use Hero Lab as a rules source. It contains too many errors.
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proof by contradiction:
- assume it's the post-mithral weight
- so a masterwork mithral dagger costs 0.5*500 = 250
- that's retarded
- therefore, it is the pre-mithral weight
Explain the term that's retarded as it applies to your proof.
All you've offered is an opinion.
When you are setting price by weight, you will have masterwork weapons that cost less than 300gp.
Take a small sized dagger, with a base weight of .5lbs. Under no interpretation of RAW is a mithral small dagger going to cost more than 252gp.
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proof by contradiction:
- assume it's the post-mithral weight
- so a masterwork mithral dagger costs 0.5*500 = 250
- that's r*****d
- therefore, it is the pre-mithral weight
By your logic, a pre-mithral dart weighs 0.5lbs, so even at full weight a mithral dart would cost 250.5gp. Still less than a mwk steel dart, so 'proof by contradiction' leads to the conclusion that full weight isn't correct either.
But we know it's one or the other, so your 'proof by contradiction' is what's wrong.
The basic problem with mithral weapons is that they're priced by weight at all! They should either have a flat price (like adamantine) or priced by category (like alchemical silver).
The reason why it isn't is that the table was just cut&paste from the 3.5 DMG, and in that game there was no benefit for having a weapon made from mithral. Now, in PF, mithral weapons let you ignore DR/silver, so a mithral weapon makes sense. Trouble is, the pricing structure doesn't.
Until this is re-written by the design team, a suggested solution is that +500gp should be the minimum price for (non-ammunition) mithral weapons, simply so that it is never cheaper than mwk steel. Otherwise, the price should be based on how much it actually weighs, not on how much it doesn't weigh!
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I'll point out that when the book means starting weight, it *says* starting weight.
Compare Darkwood
To determine the price of a darkwood item,
use the original weight but add 10 gp per pound to the price of
a masterwork version of that item.
versus darkleaf and mithral
Armors fashioned from darkleaf cloth are
always masterwork items; the masterwork cost is included
in the listed prices. Other items +375 gp/lb.Weapons and armors fashioned from mithral are always
masterwork items as well; the masterwork cost is included in
the prices given below. Other items +500 gp/lb.
+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.
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proof by contradiction:
- assume it's the post-mithral weight
- so a masterwork mithral dagger costs 0.5*500 = 250
- that's retarded
- therefore, it is the pre-mithral weightExplain the term that's retarded as it applies to your proof.
All you've offered is an opinion.
When you are setting price by weight, you will have masterwork weapons that cost less than 300gp.
Take a small sized dagger, with a base weight of .5lbs. Under no interpretation of RAW is a mithral small dagger going to cost more than 252gp.
The point is that a masterwork weapon always costs at least 300gp.
However, by your version of the rules, the mithral dagger, which counts as silver, weighs less than a normal dagger, and is masterwork, costs less than a masterwork dagger?
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proof by contradiction:
- assume it's the post-mithral weight
- so a masterwork mithral dagger costs 0.5*500 = 250
- that's retarded
- therefore, it is the pre-mithral weightExplain the term that's retarded as it applies to your proof.
All you've offered is an opinion.
When you are setting price by weight, you will have masterwork weapons that cost less than 300gp.
Take a small sized dagger, with a base weight of .5lbs. Under no interpretation of RAW is a mithral small dagger going to cost more than 252gp.
The point is that a masterwork weapon always costs at least 300gp.
However, by your version of the rules, the mithral dagger, which counts as silver, weighs less than a normal dagger, and is masterwork, costs less than a masterwork dagger?
Although it seems wrong that a mithral weapon costs less than a mwk steel weapon (and I agree), that is not a function of which weight (before or after mithral) we use to calculate the cost.
Even if we were to use the 'pretend it's still made of steel' method, a steel dart weighs half a pound while a mithral dart weighs one quarter of a pound. If you use the heavier weight to calculate the price, it still comes out to 250.5gp, which is just as absurd as before.
So, the objection to having a mithral weapon being cheaper than a mwk steel weapon has nothing to do with the price being calculated using pre/post mithral weight. That question must be adjudicated on its own merit; the 'cheaper than mwk' objection is just as problematic either way, so does not favour either side of the larger problem.
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proof by contradiction:
- assume it's the post-mithral weight
- so a masterwork mithral dagger costs 0.5*500 = 250
- that's retarded
- therefore, it is the pre-mithral weightExplain the term that's retarded as it applies to your proof.
All you've offered is an opinion.
When you are setting price by weight, you will have masterwork weapons that cost less than 300gp.
Take a small sized dagger, with a base weight of .5lbs. Under no interpretation of RAW is a mithral small dagger going to cost more than 252gp.
The point is that a masterwork weapon always costs at least 300gp.
However, by your version of the rules, the mithral dagger, which counts as silver, weighs less than a normal dagger, and is masterwork, costs less than a masterwork dagger?
Although it seems wrong that a mithral weapon costs less than a mwk steel weapon (and I agree), that is not a function of which weight (before or after mithral) we use to calculate the cost.
Even if we were to use the 'pretend it's still made of steel' method, a steel dart weighs half a pound while a mithral dart weighs one quarter of a pound. If you use the heavier weight to calculate the price, it still comes out to 250.5gp, which is just as absurd as before.
So, the objection to having a mithral weapon being cheaper than a mwk steel weapon has nothing to do with the price being calculated using pre/post mithral weight. That question must be adjudicated on its own merit; the 'cheaper than mwk' objection is just as problematic either way, so does not favour either side of the larger problem.
The problem with this is the Mwk Dagger vs. the Mithral Dagger. The former costs 302gp. The latter costs either 502gp or 252gp, dependent on if the pre-mithral or post-mithral weight is used.
We had this discussion at the table last night as the halfling rogue purchased a .25lb mithral dagger.
We quickly summarized the benefits:
1. Masterwork. (+300g)
2. Silver for terms of damage reduction. (+20g)
3. Light weight. (Intangible Value)
And decided that trying to get the item for less than the masterwork cost is rule lawyering a poorly wrote, counter intuitive clause. And it was house ruled that mithral weapons will cost the greatest of the masterwork price or the mithral price(500g * finished weight).
It was a compromise everyone accepted for the time being, the player did not get their 125g masterwork dagger, but they did get a their lightweight silvered masterwork dagger at a 20g discount. My 2c.
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The problem with this is the Mwk Dagger vs. the Mithral Dagger. The former costs 302gp. The latter costs either 502gp or 252gp, dependent on if the pre-mithral or post-mithral weight is used.
The problem of a mithral weapon being cheaper than a mwk steel weapon is equally true/untrue for both methods of calculating price by weight, with the single exception being a weapon that weighs exactly one pound!
This is not the way to decide which weight to use when calculating the price of a mithral weapon. Using double the weight of a mithral weapon to calculate price solves no problem at all, with the exception of weapons whose original weight is exactly one pound!
The solution to the absurdity of mithral weapons being cheaper than mwk is not to pretend that mithral weapons weigh twice as much, but to set a minimum price for a mithral weapon of +500gp, irrespective of weight or method used to calculate price-by-weight.
The only long-term solution is for Paizo to divorce mithral weapon prices from their weight, and either have a flat price (like adamantine) or have a price based on category (like alchemical silver).
If you think that charging double weight for mithral weapons solves the problem of mithral weapons being cheaper than mwk steel weapons, name a weapon that illustrates this where the weapon doesn't weigh one pound.
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Speaking as someone who designed custom engagement and wedding rings, and as a casual metal artist, working with gold, platinum, and stainless steel does indeed require different approaches and levels of labor. Stainless steel is the hardest to work with, platinum has the highest melting temperature, and matching gold solder to the alloy of gold you're given can be problematic.
But, that's reality, and there are no such intricacies in Pathfinder. Just FIY.
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Keep in mind, too, that as there are variants in the workload for different real metals, which can be significant, you're talking about a mythical substance with near-magic properties. There will be an according work-load increase.
@Malachi: Alternately, to remove the property that they added to Mithral, which is that it functions as silver for purposes of overcoming DR. At that point, there's no real reason to have a Mithral weapon. But I agree, providing a weapon-weight formula would be good. Personally, I don't think that it needs to be divorced from the weight formula, just modified. Call it: 500gp, + 400gp per lb. of the finished item. Exact numbers flexible, but sample formula.
Also, to answer your question: Any form of ammunition. Any weapon that weighs one pound or less.
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Also, to answer your question: Any form of ammunition. Any weapon that weighs one pound or less.
Thanks for answering, but how does the existence of ammunition weighing less than a pound show that doubling mithral weight to find its price solves the absurdity problem of mithral weapons being cheaper than mwk steel weapons?
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Blowgun darts. Purchased in a batch of 50 (standard crafting batch), the price comes out to 325gp for Mwk darts, or 275gp for Mithral darts.
I'm not saying that doubling the price solves the entirety of the problem. I am saying that it comes closer to solving the problem than the current setup where you use the Mithral-item-weight. If you think about it, the pricing scheme is ridiculous. Example:
As a shield:
Light mithral shield: 1009gp, modified weight 3 lbs.
Heavy mithral shield: 1020gp, modified weight 7.5 lbs.
As a weapon:
Light mithral shield: 1509gp (after weight), or 3009gp (before weight)
Heavy mithral shield: 3770gp (after weight), or 7520gp (before weight)
There's no consideration for size or weight in the items that are called out as not functioning by weight. It's the same 1000gp worth of mithral despite almost 5 additional (after weight) pounds of mithral. For heavy armors, it's the same 9000gp despite the 7.5 lbs. (after weight) of difference (which will be primarily metal) between mithral banded mail and mithral full plate. And mithral banded mail costs 5000gp more than mithral chainmail, despite being lighter (2.5 lbs. after weight) and having significantly less metal content.
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Blowgun darts. Purchased in a batch of 50 (standard crafting batch), the price comes out to 325gp for Mwk darts, or 275gp for Mithral darts.
I'm not saying that doubling the price solves the entirety of the problem. I am saying that it comes closer to solving the problem than the current setup where you use the Mithral-item-weight. If you think about it, the pricing scheme is ridiculous. Example:
As a shield:
Light mithral shield: 1009gp, modified weight 3 lbs.
Heavy mithral shield: 1020gp, modified weight 7.5 lbs.As a weapon:
Light mithral shield: 1509gp (after weight), or 3009gp (before weight)
Heavy mithral shield: 3770gp (after weight), or 7520gp (before weight)There's no consideration for size or weight in the items that are called out as not functioning by weight. It's the same 1000gp worth of mithral despite almost 5 additional (after weight) pounds of mithral. For heavy armors, it's the same 9000gp despite the 7.5 lbs. (after weight) of difference (which will be primarily metal) between mithral banded mail and mithral full plate. And mithral banded mail costs 5000gp more than mithral chainmail, despite being lighter (2.5 lbs. after weight) and having significantly less metal content.
I agree with you completely about the absurdity of pricing mithral weapons by weight, and about the absurdity of mithral weapons being cheaper than mwk steel weapons.
Another absurdity is a the other end of the scale: adamantine (the 'best' special material for weapons) costs a flat +3000gp per weapon. If you price mithral at +500gp/lb of it's actual weight, then a weapon weighing more than 6lbs (12lbs for a steel version) would cost more than an adamantine version.
As absurd as that is, using double the actual weight makes it even more absurd! If the original weapon weighs more than 6lbs, then it's more expensive than adamantine even though the mithral version only weighs just over 3lbs.
My original point was this: when trying to work out how to price mithral weapons (actual mithral weight or original steel weight), then the fact that 'if a weapon weighs exactly one pound it makes one absurd then not the other' is itself an absurd way to decide the issue when every single weapon that doesn't weigh exactly one pound is just as absurd (or not) under both pricing systems.
Its not a valid argument to determine the original pricing question. If the 1lb weapons have a bearing on the argument in one direction, then the heavier weapons being more expensive than adamantine is an equal argument in the opposite direction. But neither is adequate to decide the main issue.
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Greetings... Have you tried HeroLab? You can input a custom weapon or armor and select the special material and it figures the cost for you.
I easily got the price for say a mithril daggar at 502 GP , an Adamatine
daggar at 3002 GP, 50 shuriken at 2510 GP and 50 Adamantine shuriken
at 150010 GP
What does HeroLab say for a mithral dart?
What about a mithral greatsword?
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Greetings... Have you tried HeroLab? You can input a custom weapon or armor and select the special material and it figures the cost for you.
I easily got the price for say a mithril daggar at 502 GP , an Adamatine
daggar at 3002 GP, 50 shuriken at 2510 GP and 50 Adamantine shuriken
at 150010 GP
One thing to keep in mind with HeroLab is that it is not made by Paizo, or WotC, or any of the other companies that make the games it serves. It is a third-party program made by people who have to interpret the rules, and it does not include, say, the FAQ rulings by the Dev team. It can't be relied upon as a resource where a rules-question is asked because the people who programmed it may have gotten it wrong. It isn't programmed by the game developers. It's programmed by people like ourselves, who come to places where they have to ask questions, and they have their opinion on what the answer to the question is.
My apologies if that comes off sounding harsh. I was aiming in the general direction of informative.
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Greetings... Have you tried HeroLab? You can input a custom weapon or armor and select the special material and it figures the cost for you.
I easily got the price for say a mithril daggar at 502 GP , an Adamatine
daggar at 3002 GP, 50 shuriken at 2510 GP and 50 Adamantine shuriken
at 150010 GP
Hero Labs has a bug when creating Mithral weapons..
Try purchasing a small weapon and tell me if the program is actually calculating cost by weight,
Although I'm not using it in my current games, previously in 3.5 I had come up with the following special rules :
Mithral :
Mithral items cost 250 per pound of final weight, and are automatically masterwork if they are 2 pounds or more. For items less than two pounds, they cost 500gp and they are automatically MW.
Adamantine :
Adamantine items cost 500 per pound of metal involved in their final construction weight and are automatically MW if they are 1 pound or more. For items less than one pound, they cost 500gp and are automatically MW.
How I got these prices :
I went through all the armors that could be made from metal, and assumed all the weight was metal based (since we have no way to figure out percentages). Then figured out the 'average cost per pound' based on the flat additive for the two types of metal (1000/4000/9000 and 5000/10000/15000). Turns out when you do that Mithral actually comes out to about 196 (250 gp rounded up with a correction factor) and Adamantine comes out to about 525 (500 gp rounded down).
At the time, my players really liked it because it made more sense, and it allowed you to get a slight discount on some of the less often used armors that were lighter but lower defense. In other words, it gave reasons for someone to actually make Banded Adamantine.
Banded Adamantine = 17750
Full Plate Adamantine = 26500
Banded Mithral = 4625
Full Plate Mithral = 7750
Under the original rules, the cost would be :
Banded Adamantine = 15250
Full Plate Adamantine = 16500
Banded Mithral = 9250
Full Plate Mithral = 10500
Yes, it makes the Adamantine more expensive (this is due to the skew on the medium armors costing more and being made of less weight than the heavy armors). But it worked well when I used it. Plus it negated the issue with 'melting down mithral chain to get mithral cheaply'.
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Greetings... Have you tried HeroLab? You can input a custom weapon or armor and select the special material and it figures the cost for you.
I easily got the price for say a mithril daggar at 502 GP , an Adamatine
daggar at 3002 GP, 50 shuriken at 2510 GP and 50 Adamantine shuriken
at 150010 GP
I bolded the section that made me laugh. Shuriken are ammunition purchased in batches of 5. That means 50 Adamantine shuriken should only cost you 3,010gp, not 150,010gp.
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What does HeroLab say for a mithral dart?
What about a mithral greatsword?
The Mithral dart is 250 GP 5 SP
the Mithral Greatsword is 4050 GP
Thanks.
HeroLabs uses the weight of a steel equivalent to calculate the price of a mithral weapon. Whether they are correct or not is one debate (I think they're wrong), but the idea that this way of calculating the price of mithral weapons must be correct because it avoids the absurdity of mithral weapons being cheaper than mwk steel weapons is given the lie.
The 250gp5sp price for a mithral dart shows that it hasn't solved this problem, except for weapons which weigh exactly one pound! Further, it's price for a mithral greatsword makes it more expensive than an adamantine greatsword! Priced the other way, the mithral greatsword comes in cheaper than adamantine: 2000gp.
The absurdity isn't a function of which weight you use to calculate the price of mithral weapons. The absurdity is a function of using any weight to make this calculation!
It should have either a flat price (like adamantine) or priced by weapon category (like alchemical silver).
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I always found special material cost by type to be problematic. The best solution would be to have a flat cost plus cost by weight. So if mithril weapons are always masterwork, just add the masterwork cost on separately.
For items priced by category, I'll make a suit of colossal mithril half-plate and then melt it down to ingots.
Cost: 16x600 + 9,000 = 18,600 gp
Weight: 12 x 50 /2 = 300 lbs
18,600/300 = 62 gp/lb
Compared to 500 gp/lb in CRB, what a bargain!!!
Horselord, why is by type problematic? If it grants a static bonus it should charge a static cost. That is how game mechanics work.
It is only when you try to work out the economics of material weight vs cost that things break down. But gold is not used for economics in 3.X/PF. It is used as a power metric and has nothing to do with economics. Does that break verisimilitude? Sure, but so does just about everything else about the 3.X/PF engine.
- Gauss
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By type is problematic because it comes out to be ridiculous roughly half the time. It costs more to make Mithral Banded Mail than it does to make Mithral Chainmail, despite the fact that the former has far less metal in it and weighs less. I agree with his assessment that flat cost in addition to a cost by weight would be a good idea. It should apply to everything, not just certain types of item. The flat cost may vary by type (one fee for armors, one for weapons, one for shields, etc.), but otherwise they should all be priced by weight for that degree of realism. Even worse with Adamantine, where the same materials cost applies to a dagger as applies to a greatsword.
Edit: A bit of side data. One of other forms of Skymetal (of which Adamantine is one) is called Noqual. It is priced at 50gp per pound, and functions as Mithral that is resistant to magic. Also more difficult to enchant, similar to cold iron, but still. 50gp per pound. Sounds like the majority of the extra costs for the special materials is going into the extra supplies (reagents, chemicals, etc.) needed to work them.
Jlighter, so what you are saying is: because something is lighter it should cost less? As opposed to: something should cost a certain amount based on the mechanical advantage.
Economics are not part of 3.X/PF. It should be a flat price based on effect and if you want realism, play a different game since 3.X/PF is not based on realism.
Adamantine grants X hardness and allows you to bypass certain DR. Weight is irrelevant, it is just a mechanical effect with a specific price based on that mechanical effect.
When applied to armor Mithral is basically the same, a mechanical effect (+2max dex, -3check penalty) and a variable mechanical effect (half weight).
Where Mithral falls down is in weapons where weapons should also be a static price. The mechanical effect of Mithral is: counts as silver and the variable mechanical effect is half weight.
Now, in a circumstance where the mechanical effect is part static and part variable I can see a variable priced based on the static+variable.
What I don't see is that this has any bearing whatsoever on 'realism' or 'economics' since those are not part of the rules. First, this is a game that does not come close to being realistic. Second, economics is not part of the game and really cannot be so long as GP = power is being artificially set in the mechanics.
There have been a number of threads discussing how the economics of magic items and other high value mechanical items cannot possibly work in any form of realistic economy.
In short, this game is not based on economics and realism, it is based on artificial values to represent mechanical advantages. While those values are often in error and the way they are calculated is up for debate, they are just a metric to control player power.
- Gauss
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When applied to armor Mithral is basically the same, a mechanical effect (+2max dex, -3check penalty) and a variable mechanical effect (half weight).
Where Mithral falls down is in weapons where weapons should also be a static price. The mechanical effect of Mithral is: counts as silver and the variable mechanical effect is half weight.
Correct, of course. : )
The non-variable things (+2max Dex, -3ACP for armour; bypasses DR/silver for weapons) are abilities that are valuable for any warrior, the 'half-weight' quality is much more valuable for armour. Why? Because saving 25 pounds on a suit of armour could easily make the difference between encumbered and unencumbered. Even the humble mithral shirt is 15 pounds lighter than a normal chain shirt.
But even a big mithral weapon like a greatsword is only 4 pounds lighter than its steel counterpart. The chance of those 4 pounds making the difference to your encumberance level is slim to none, especially when most greatsword users have high strength, whereas the wearers of mithral shirts are frequently Dex-based.
So the 'half-weight' quality is worth much more on armour than it is on weapons.
The valuable qualities in a mithral weapon are the ability to bypass DR/silver and, to a lesser extent perhaps, hardness 15 compared to steel's hardness of 10.
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This is being WAY over-thought. There are two very simple equations here that are done totally separate.
1: Calculating the price, which requires you to check the equipment table. You find the column that says weight, then multiply that by 500gp. No where does it say it is 500gp per pound of mithril as a going rate. it says the cost is 500gp/lb for finding the price of something that is made of mithril.
2: Calculating the weight of a mithril item. Find the weight on the table, then divide it by two.
These two are totally independent.
This is being WAY over-thought. There are two very simple equations here that are done totally separate.
1: Calculating the price, which requires you to check the equipment table. You find the column that says weight, then multiply that by 500gp. No where does it say it is 500gp per pound of mithril as a going rate. it says the cost is 500gp/lb for finding the price of something that is made of mithril.
2: Calculating the weight of a mithril item. Find the weight on the table, then divide it by two.
These two are totally independent.
Except that the only published mithril items (except for one in an AP somewhere, I think) are priced according to their weight in mithril.
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yep. simple math rule turned into a cluster bomb of failure. This one is even better in a published book: Mithral Waffle Iron. This one has the rules: Find the new weight, then round it down to a whole number, multiply by 500, then add the base cost.
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yep. simple math rule turned into a cluster bomb of failure. This one is even better in a published book: Mithral Waffle Iron. This one has the rules: Find the new weight, then round it down to a whole number, multiply by 500, then add the base cost.
Which results in something ridiculous, because some items will then come out as costing exactly the same since fractions would all be rounded down to 0.
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yep. simple math rule turned into a cluster bomb of failure. This one is even better in a published book: Mithral Waffle Iron. This one has the rules: Find the new weight, then round it down to a whole number, multiply by 500, then add the base cost.Which results in something ridiculous, because some items will then come out as costing exactly the same since fractions would all be rounded down to 0.
Nope. No rounding for weight. Plenty of published items, including some weapons, weigh less than 1lb.
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Nope. No rounding for weight. Plenty of published items, including some weapons, weigh less than 1lb.yep. simple math rule turned into a cluster bomb of failure. This one is even better in a published book: Mithral Waffle Iron. This one has the rules: Find the new weight, then round it down to a whole number, multiply by 500, then add the base cost.Which results in something ridiculous, because some items will then come out as costing exactly the same since fractions would all be rounded down to 0.
I'm aware of that. I was talking about the formula that Shar Tahl posted, which explicitly states, "round down to a whole number."
Also, there are problems with the formula. Mithral manacles, for example. Same weight as the originals.
As I pointed out earlier, there is no problem with the pricing of Mithral Manacles IF pricing is based on the new weight.
However, regarding the weight of Mithral Manacles, they are NOT a pair of steel Manacles turned into Mithral. They are completely different and should be 3lbs and not 2lbs because of the extra thickness.
Link to my post on Mithral Manacles
- Gauss
I believe the only real problem with the Mithral rules as they are written currently is that the adjusted weight for miscellaneous items with (practically) negligible mass can't properly apply to items that are equal to or more than 1 pound.
A very simple and conservative "fix" would be to errata that crafting miscellaneous items with Mithral (and any other special material for that matter) use at least 1 pound worth of the material to craft, regardless of size (I mean, you get them as ingots, generally weighing 1 pound or more, but for such a fine-sized item, 1 pound is all you need), and even if you use that ingot for the smallest of items, the ingot you consume in the process can't really be reused again (because at that point it's deformed and unable to be reworked into anything worthwhile).
So with the proposed solution I presented above, Mithral still costs more than Masterwork, still has better function than Masterwork, and isn't overshadowing the comparison between the two.
Of course, a FAQ providing the same sort of intent would also suffice.
Official Rules Response
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FAQ: http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9r9u
Mithral: What weight do I use to determine the price of a mithral weapon or non-armor item?
To determine the additional price for the mithral (as compared to the normal item's price), use the non-mithral item's original weight and multiply that by 500 gp per pound.
For example, a steel dagger for a Medium creature weighs 1 pound. For its mithral equivalent, multiply that weight (1 lb.) times 500 gp/pound, or +500 gp. When added to the original item's cost (2 gp), the mithral dagger's total price is 502 gp.
There are likely some inconsistent mithral item prices in print, and these will be addressed in future printings of these books, as appropriate.
Malachi, that is why mithral should be a flat cost. Alas, we are slaves to legacy. :)
- Gauss