D&D 5E (2014) "Fixing" electrum pieces - looking for a player's perspective

[Coroc]

I'm sure Gygax had his reasons but realism wasn't one of them when he made coins so heavy. The reality is coins especially of high metallic value were very small and lightweight. A 1000 silver coins to a lb for example. We just chose to have it different to make hauling fortunes back from the dungeon possible.

Typical gold coin would be 8 grams. So 1000 of these would be about 16 pounds. Silver is much lighter.

 

[Emerikol]

Typical gold coin would be 8 grams. So 1000 of these would be about 16 pounds. Silver is much lighter.

Yes i was thinking silver in my example. Should have been clear on that fact.

 

[Emerikol]

Typical gold coin would be 8 grams. So 1000 of these would be about 16 pounds. Silver is much lighter.

I did a quick check on gold coins and they ranged from 3.5 to 7 but many were on the low end of that number. So 4 grams would be 8 pounds.

 

[Coroc]

I did a quick check on gold coins and they ranged from 3.5 to 7 but many were on the low end of that number. So 4 grams would be 8 pounds.

yeah, it can be 4g or 8g according to aunt gemini, doesn't matter, most people do not check that gold is really heavy

Check this out:

Text in red is impressive 1kg of gold in not even as big as a pack of cigarettes.

A 1 kg steel bar is roughly 2.5 times larger in physical volume than a 1 kg gold bar.
Because gold is much denser than steel, it packs the same amount of weight into a significantly smaller space.

Volume and Density Comparison

Metal	Density	Volume of 1 kg Bar	Physical Visual Equivalent
Gold	~19.3 g/cm³	~51.8 cm³ (3.16 in³)	About the size of a smaller smartphone (like an iPhone 13 mini), but thicker.
Steel	~7.85 g/cm³	~127.4 cm³ (7.77 in³)	Slightly larger than a standard juice box or a deck of playing cards.

Typical Physical Dimensions
If both metals were cast into a standard rectangular bar shape, their dimensions would look roughly like this:

• 1 kg Gold Bar: Roughly 80 mm × 40 mm × 18 mm (3.1" × 1.6" × 0.7").
• 1 kg Steel Bar: Keeping the same length and width (80 mm × 40 mm), the steel bar would have to be nearly 40 mm thick (about 1.6 inches) to weigh the same—making it look more like a chunky block or a small brick. [

 

[Emerikol]

yeah, it can be 4g or 8g according to aunt gemini, doesn't matter, most people do not check that gold is really heavy

Oh yeah I wasn't disputing heaviness of gold. I was disputing D&D's notions of coinage capacity and part of that is the size of the coin. How much is a coin the size of a dime going to weigh? A gold dime weighs over three times what a normal dime weighs. We also have to realize that there weren't pure gold coins as gold is too soft. The ratio likely falls once you factor in that medieval minters didn't mint pure gold coins.

 

[Coroc]

Oh yeah I wasn't disputing heaviness of gold. I was disputing D&D's notions of coinage capacity and part of that is the size of the coin. How much is a coin the size of a dime going to weigh? A gold dime weighs over three times what a normal dime weighs. We also have to realize that there weren't pure gold coins as gold is too soft. The ratio likely falls once you factor in that medieval minters didn't mint pure gold coins.

What is also kind of fun fact is that some european nobles, when short on money, clipped off the outer borders of silver coins and minted more money out of of the clippings, without the nominal value of the coin changing, one of the first cases of inflation.

Also in some periods of the middle ages the prices of some goods remained pretty constant for a very long time like decades or even more.

 

[LordBP]

Deleted the tables due to formatting issues once posted.

 

[LordBP]

Below is some information on English coins from various years that I've collected. Weights are in grams and sizes are in mm.

Gold was nearly pure and silver was a mix (sterling silver). The softness of gold didn't matter much as the circulation of it was much less than of silver.

Year	Name	Weight	Pure Silver	Pure gold	Pence	Ratio	Coins/LB	Diam	Thick
1158	Penny	1.458	1.349				311.11	15.00	0.73
1344	Penny	1.312	1.214				345.73
1344	Gold Double Leopard	6.998		6.962	72	12.55	64.82
1344	Gold Noble				80			34.00
	Gold Half Noble				40			25.50
	Gold Quarter Noble				20			20.00
1346	Gold Noble				80			34.00
	Gold Half Noble				40			25.50
	Gold Quarter Noble				20			20.00
1351	Penny	1.200	1.110				377.99
1351	Gold Noble	7.776		7.736	80	11.48	58.33	34.00	0.81
	Gold Half Noble	3.888			40			25.50
	Gold Quarter Noble	1.944			20			20.00
1412	Penny	0.972	0.899				466.67
1412	Gold Half Noble	3.499		3.481	40	10.33	129.63
	Gold Quarter Noble	1.750			20
1464	Penny	0.777	0.719				583.55
1464	Gold Half Angel	2.591		2.578	40	11.16	175.03

Below are the weights and sizes of the American silver coinage for comparison.

90/10	Grams	Diameter	Thickness
Dime	2.5	17.91	1.35
Quarter	6.25	24.26	1.75
Half Dollar	12.5	30.61	2.15
Dollar	26.73	38.1	2.4

 

[NotAYakk]

Which makes, though, a ten-pound lump of melted silver worth the same as ten pounds of minted (or hand-stamped) silver coins; I'm not sure that's the intent.

Well, sort of.

A 10 pound lump of silver is going to be worth less because of the hassle of verifying it is actually silver and the annoyance of breaking it into standard size bits. So you'll be charged some discount for it.

Similarly, if your coins are all from strange lands, they might cut what they offer you, just because of the hassle. "I don't recognize that coin".

Same for metal jewelry; you can use it to buy stuff, but the cost of measuring and verification etc means there is a cost.

That is the kind of thing that bargaining can change, of course.

Of course, at large enough scales, verification and (re)minting it isn't going to cost much next to the raw metal.

Mild inconvenience does not equate to toxicity.

That, and everyone's arithmetic skills could use the workout provided by 12 copper to the silver and so on.

So, I've got a degree in mathematics. My mental math skills are above the top 1% of the population.

No, the level of realism of 21 shillings to the quarter horse isn't needed.

That kind of stuff in the real world had reduced costs eventually because it was universal and forced, so everyone picked up the skills needed to deal with it. But this is a game, and I'm not all that interested in coin conversion, and adding a math problem to every currency purchase is not something I'm interested in.

I'm sure there are people who want to play a simulation with that degree of precision (if not accuracy), but that ain't my problem.

Encumbrance already has a low level of people bothering with it. This was even true decades ago. Paying attention to it was a subtype of D&D even when it was a core rule. Making it more awkward to deal with doesn't make it more likely to be used, nor would it make the gameplay involving it more engaging to me.

Coins being 100 to the unit of weight the game cares about would make counting coins for weight insanely more common. However, encumbrance in 5e is well designed to encourage people to ignore it.

As historically money was a weight of precious metals thing, and doing so returns the game to the original purpose of encumbrance in D&D (measure how much treasure you could carry out of a dungeon), my idea of measuring money by pounds of silver aligns with my goal of encumbrance being used in a game.

I might also do a pass on the equipment list to simplify the weights of things; precision is less important than simplicity. As the world I'm working on has a degree of common magic items in industrial production (low level enchantments are everywhere), I can use this as an excuse to change weights of things. Bwahahaha.

I'd be tempted to go to kg, but it doesn't feel fantasy-ish. Mina is too obscure. Hmm.

 

[Coroc]

Well, sort of.

A 10 pound lump of silver is going to be worth less because of the hassle of verifying it is actually silver and the annoyance of breaking it into standard size bits. So you'll be charged some discount for it.

Similarly, if your coins are all from strange lands, they might cut what they offer you, just because of the hassle. "I don't recognize that coin".

Same for metal jewelry; you can use it to buy stuff, but the cost of measuring and verification etc means there is a cost.

That is the kind of thing that bargaining can change, of course.

Of course, at large enough scales, verification and (re)minting it isn't going to cost much next to the raw metal.


So, I've got a degree in mathematics. My mental math skills are above the top 1% of the population.

No, the level of realism of 21 shillings to the quarter horse isn't needed.

That kind of stuff in the real world had reduced costs eventually because it was universal and forced, so everyone picked up the skills needed to deal with it. But this is a game, and I'm not all that interested in coin conversion, and adding a math problem to every currency purchase is not something I'm interested in.

I'm sure there are people who want to play a simulation with that degree of precision (if not accuracy), but that ain't my problem.

Encumbrance already has a low level of people bothering with it. This was even true decades ago. Paying attention to it was a subtype of D&D even when it was a core rule. Making it more awkward to deal with doesn't make it more likely to be used, nor would it make the gameplay involving it more engaging to me.

Coins being 100 to the unit of weight the game cares about would make counting coins for weight insanely more common. However, encumbrance in 5e is well designed to encourage people to ignore it.

As historically money was a weight of precious metals thing, and doing so returns the game to the original purpose of encumbrance in D&D (measure how much treasure you could carry out of a dungeon), my idea of measuring money by pounds of silver aligns with my goal of encumbrance being used in a game.

I might also do a pass on the equipment list to simplify the weights of things; precision is less important than simplicity. As the world I'm working on has a degree of common magic items in industrial production (low level enchantments are everywhere), I can use this as an excuse to change weights of things. Bwahahaha.

I'd be tempted to go to kg, but it doesn't feel fantasy-ish. Mina is too obscure. Hmm.

The problem with jewelry today is, that if you got jewelry which was really expensive to buy, but want to sell it, you mostly only get the metal price. The reason for that is that people who can afford to buy expensive jewelry tend to buy it new and not used.