mithril vs. silver

[Kae'Yoss]

Can a sword be made from cold iron, adamantium, and silver to bypass DR of each?

-EE

No. Only one material at a time. You can use silversheen to give it the power to bypass DR/silver, but then it loses any other material traits (so an adamantine weapon won't bypass DR/adamantine if you apply silversheen).

 

[Kodam]

I can't find it on the charts. What's the abb? Mi?

Isn't (go kreynolds! ) "Au" the abb for gold ("aurum")? Perhaps he wanted to say that silver is different from gold is different from adamantium?

Just kidding...

 

[Ferret]

I wonder when someone would point that out; I think our suspect is Ag!

 

[The Souljourner]

Hey, why so narky? You don't have to take his happy response to Souljourner as a personal affront. have you fallen out with him in the past or something?

Yeah! I was feeling real good about myself for a minute there until someone decided to be a party pooper

And I stand by my assertion that mithral shouldn't count as silver. the fact that it costs more is irrelevant. The fact that it has benefits where silver has drawbacks is what is relevant. Regardless of how rich you are, you should have to take -1 to damage to bypass a lycanthrope's DR.

-The Souljourner

 

[paulewaug]

Also then- the particular properties of Silver or more accurately Alchemical Silver, will make for a weapon with an especially narrow/focused purpose.
Since the silver has a -1 to damage and if it was enchanted to be “magical +1” it would be +1 to hit and +0 to damage, in effect -correct?
Whereas a Cold Iron or Adamantine weapon enchanted would not have this..”deficiency” (for lack of a better word coming to mind) thereby making the cold iron or adamantine better for “general purpose” use.
Also as noted Cold Iron costs more (+2000gps) to “magically enhance.”
Now compare that to the cost of Mithral would likely make it better for general use as well .

So it looks like Mithral is only a good material if it is readily available and Adamantine is not, and even then it’s usefulness vs. enhancing a cold iron weapon is questionable.

Granted it has a higher Hardness than Cold Iron, but still-It has no DR reducing properties that cold iron can not only match but exceed, from the looks of it.

It looks like maybe Mithral is sort of a better kind of ”steel,” barring any house rules to make it otherwise.
So are we back to D&D Mithral maybe being “Titanium?”
I thought I saw that mentioned around here a few months ago in a metallurgy discussion-?

edit: to clarify my feeling about the "general usefulness of silver vs. iron vs. mithral ,etc.

 

[magnas_veritas]

So it looks like Mithral is only a good material if it is readily available and Adamantine is not, and even then it’s usefulness vs. enhancing a cold iron weapon is questionable.

For weapons, mithral's main appeal is that it's (1) cool and (2) light. It's also more durable than steel and cold iron weapons, but less so than adamantine. Honestly, it's probably best to not bother making most weapons out of mithral. Light/finesseable weapons might benefit, since the characters wielding those as primary weapons might appreciate a pound or two less on their rapier.

One way of getting around having to use Alchemical Silver (cheap, but you get what you pay for...) is to use the Truesilver enhancement from Ghostwalk...which treats the weapon as being silver for purposes of breaching DR. That's nice.

Brad

 

[paulewaug]

For weapons, mithral's main appeal is that it's (1) cool and (2) light. It's also more durable than steel and cold iron weapons, but less so than adamantine. Honestly, it's probably best to not bother making most weapons out of mithral. Light/finesseable weapons might benefit, since the characters wielding those as primary weapons might appreciate a pound or two less on their rapier.
Brad

Yeah but I am not feeling it's as cool as it was in 3.0.
In LotR it's cool, but in 3.5 D&D not so much, of course "Cool," like Beauty and Art, is in the eye of the Beholder. And Beholder's can be nasty! And as has mentioned Mithral in D&D is seeming a bit different than in LotR.
( kinda OT:So did Tolkien completely make up Mithral? I am not aware of it appearing in anything before his work?)

I agree that it seems Mithral in 3.5 would be best used for armor, and maybe "finessables," etc.

One way of getting around having to use Alchemical Silver (cheap, but you get what you pay for...) is to use the Truesilver enhancement from Ghostwalk...which treats the weapon as being silver for purposes of breaching DR. That's nice.
Brad

I'll have to check that out, rather ironic that they have an ehancement called "Truesilver," being that it is a popular alternate name for Mithral, thus starting my comparison in the first place.

Question:
So can you 'treat' Mithral with the Truesilver enhacement.
If so I am in busniess and "by the rules." heh heh

 

[Dinkeldog]

Moved at author's request.

My two cents:

I'm not thoroughly convinced that DR x/magic is a good thing. I think DR x/+3 etc. allows you to differentiate between a minor magic sword (+1) and unique swords, near artifact power (+5).

Similarly, I kind of like having gradations in other categories. So maybe some creatures would have DR x/silver, but say a paragon werewolf would have DR x/mithral. Then the PCs could use an ordinary silver weapon to penetrate the DR of a normal werewolf, but need mithral to get through the DR of the high-powered lycanthrope. I'd allow mithral to damage the DR x/silver creature.

I'd probably do something similar with Baatorian Green Steel and adamantium or something along those lines.

 

[paulewaug]

Thanks Dinkeldog!

Also, I like what you are saying.
I hadn't thought too much about it at first but when someone was talking about Dragons DR I got to thinking about how nice it is to have the need for "stronger" versions of a DR type.

Iron Golems could have multiple DRs of 10/Adamantine and 10/magic(+3).

And Dragons could still be DR/Magic but have the original "+" requirements of 3.0.

Requiring the use of "Truesilver Enhanced Mithral" to bypass the DR of a greater Lycan' would be, or as you stated, allowing Mithral to Bypass Dr/silver and not allowing Alchemical Silver to be strong enough against a Greater lycanthrope (I guess they are "Werewolf Lord" now in the MM).
I would probably do this with a Vampire as well at least against a more powerful version.

I'm interested to see how they will handle Baatorian Green Steel officially in 3.5. It hasn’t been presented anywhere yet since the revision has it?

 

[Cyraneth]

My two cents:

I'm not thoroughly convinced that DR x/magic is a good thing. I think DR x/+3 etc. allows you to differentiate between a minor magic sword (+1) and unique swords, near artifact power (+5).

Similarly, I kind of like having gradations in other categories. So maybe some creatures would have DR x/silver, but say a paragon werewolf would have DR x/mithral. Then the PCs could use an ordinary silver weapon to penetrate the DR of a normal werewolf, but need mithral to get through the DR of the high-powered lycanthrope. I'd allow mithral to damage the DR x/silver creature.

I'd probably do something similar with Baatorian Green Steel and adamantium or something along those lines.

The epic damage reduction trait has replaced the former "high plus" damage reduction. That said, I must admit that I really like your idea.

- Cyraneth