|
So I was just passing the time before bed playing around with the values of lead and gold you'd be dealing with for a pathfinder philosophers stone in the real world. As roughly as I can work out 500 kilograms purchased at around $1,100 will give you around a kilogram of gold.
A philosophers stone converts 1,000 lbs of lead (0.5 ton) to 50,000 GP worth of gold. A kilogram of gold is roughly worth 58,000 us dollars. There's a bit of leeway (for one thing a GP to US$ conversion rate) but your roughly dissolving 99% of your starting lead each time you do this. Well worth it sure as your looking at a profit of 50 times your starting expenses (for a level 20 alchemist who gets 1 free stone month) but still. 499 of kilograms just go bubble, bubble, blooop and are lost in your refinement of 1 kilogram of gold.
I find this interesting as I always pictured as a straight lead - gold but the rule it gives you the starting lead amount and final gold value means your not looking at that at all. I will need to look at the iron to silver conversion tommorow.
Gold in game terms is 50gp per pound, whether in coins, bars, or loose. So you still end up with 1000 lbs of gold at the end.
|
In the estimation my friends and I have made, a gp is worth between 50 and 100 euros or dollars.
The basis is the page about the cost of living. An average lifestyle is 10 gp month, but we speak of a medieval/renaissance society, so probably an average lifestyle is more akin to that of an immigrant worker than that of an average US/EU citizen.
The average lifestyle would be 500-1000 €/$ month, without an electric bill, without a car (and generally without a horse), drawing water from a well, without having a PC and replacing it every few years, and so on.
Not as comfortable as our lives, but average for Golarion.