How much does diamond dust weigh?

[The Sigil]

Hi all! Interesting Thread.
I don't mean to hijack the thread but has anyone ever considered the hardness modifier between deformable (eg. metal) and non-deformable (eg. stone/gemstone) materials.
...
Any Comments?

I personally look at Hardness and instantly think "Damage Reduction." Thinking that immediately makes me think of "tensile strength." In other words, how much of a "hit" can an object take before shattering or bending? The shattering/bending is represented by the object losing hit points, while the ability of the object to remain elastic (in the physical sense) is represented by Hardness.

Let us take, as an example, a twelve-inch-diameter column of iron, compared with a twelve-inch-diameter column of stone, compared with a twelve-inch-diameter column of glass. Now, take a sledgehammer and hit each one. The iron, with its high hardness (10), deforms a little (loses some hit points). The stone, with a lesser hardness (8) maybe chips a bit (minor hp loss), but does not see massive cracking (which would indicate a greater hp loss). The glass, by contrast, chips a bit (like the stone) but probably sees spiderwebbing of cracks start (more hp loss than stone). Repeat for several more blows. Tell me which column is going to give first (assume the blows are of equal force).

Or, drop a metal bowl. A stone bowl. A glass bowl. Start at a height of one inch. Increase the height by an additional inch with each drop. Which do you think will shatter first? All are falling from the same height and taking the same amount of "damage" from the fall - the difference is that the metal bowl's "Damage Reduction" allows it to stick around a lot longer.

I think glass is perhaps a bit too low (1 vs 8? probably not right...), but I think you are trying to interpret hardness as "Moh's Hardness" due to its name -- and not "Damage Resistance" as it shows up in the rules (i.e., tensile strength). Does that help at all?

--The Sigil

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Saeviomagy!

Real world hardness has very little to do with toughness. Drop an iron cup. Drop a glass. Which do you think is going to break?

Exactly, which is why the rating for Stone Hardness seems puzzling. Though I suppose that test in small part it depends whether the stone in question is pourous or non-pourous.

Glass is harder than most types of stone; but is also less pourous so it will fracture more easily.

However, I still think the official rating for stone is a bit too generous.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Sigil!

I personally look at Hardness and instantly think "Damage Reduction." Thinking that immediately makes me think of "tensile strength." In other words, how much of a "hit" can an object take before shattering or bending? The shattering/bending is represented by the object losing hit points, while the ability of the object to remain elastic (in the physical sense) is represented by Hardness.

Let us take, as an example, a twelve-inch-diameter column of iron, compared with a twelve-inch-diameter column of stone, compared with a twelve-inch-diameter column of glass. Now, take a sledgehammer and hit each one. The iron, with its high hardness (10), deforms a little (loses some hit points). The stone, with a lesser hardness (8) maybe chips a bit (minor hp loss), but does not see massive cracking (which would indicate a greater hp loss). The glass, by contrast, chips a bit (like the stone) but probably sees spiderwebbing of cracks start (more hp loss than stone). Repeat for several more blows. Tell me which column is going to give first (assume the blows are of equal force).

Or, drop a metal bowl. A stone bowl. A glass bowl. Start at a height of one inch. Increase the height by an additional inch with each drop. Which do you think will shatter first? All are falling from the same height and taking the same amount of "damage" from the fall - the difference is that the metal bowl's "Damage Reduction" allows it to stick around a lot longer.

I think glass is perhaps a bit too low (1 vs 8? probably not right...), but I think you are trying to interpret hardness as "Moh's Hardness" due to its name -- and not "Damage Resistance" as it shows up in the rules (i.e., tensile strength). Does that help at all?

Thats pretty much what I arrived at myself. Though instead of raising Glass Hardness (which would in essence mean raising Diamond Hardness as well) I would probably simply lower stone to Hardness 5 and keep Diamond at Hardness 20 (as you have it).*

*Though Hardness 25 for Black Diamond.

 

[Wormwood]

As for the weight, I would make it the same as sand, or maybe table salt.

I imagine it could be easily confused with table salt.

Once.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Diamonds are rated for Color, Cut, Clarity, and Carat weight (a carat weighs 1/5 of a metric gram). Blue or clear diamonds are worth more than, say, yellow, with pink being right up there as well. Diamond dust is an inescapable biproduct of polishing and cutting the stones. However, given ts value to the magical world the price of the dust might well be inflated, perhaps to as much as 10% of the equivelant of 1 carat rough diamonds of the same quality (cut not being applicable to the dust). So if what is the value of a 1 carat rough diamond in D&D? Bear in mind that for much of history other gems held the edge in price over diamonds, with rubies and emeralds being the most sought after.

I might go with 100 gp per carat of rough diamond of average quality, or 10 gp per carat of diamond dust. equaling 50 gp per gram of diamond dust. For imperial measure that would make an ounce of diamond dust worth roughly about 1500 gp.

And of course you can twiddle with the varying qualities of diamond dust being of different values.

The Auld Grump, but these are merely guesses of course...

 

[tarchon]

I'm inclined to think "diamond" should just be taken as "hard precious stone." We're talking quasi-medieval culture, and pre-modern notions of mineralogy were extremely vague. There wasn't really any working classification scheme for minerals, and many of the names we associate with them "diamond", "sapphire," "opal" and so on were applied to whatever roughly matched the classical descriptions of the stone. Indeed, "diamond" typically just referred to whatever was the hardest mineralknown to a particular philosopher, and there's strong evidence that it even referred to metals at times ("adamant" and "diamond" are variant forms of the same word). Moh's hardness scale didn't come along until 1822, just to give an idea how comparatively advanced the capability of reliably identifying minerals is, the same order as building rifles and steam engines.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

I imagine it could be easily confused with table salt.

Once.

LOL

My teeth are grinding to a fare-thee-well and my mouth is bleeding! Where did you get this $4!#@ salt and why did it cost so ^#&* much?

 

[green slime]

LOL

My teeth are grinding to a fare-thee-well and my mouth is bleeding! Where did you get this $4!#@ salt and why did it cost so ^#&* much?

But dear! Your smile has never been so brilliant!

 

[kkoie]

sounds like she'll have to buy a significant amount of diamond dust just to ensure she has enough so that she won't risk losing it.

 

[Mercule]

sounds like she'll have to buy a significant amount of diamond dust just to ensure she has enough so that she won't risk losing it.

I think she threw down something like 4,000 gp on diamond dust.

Ya gotta love a fantasy economy.