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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mythusmage" data-source="post: 1148855" data-attributes="member: 571">The term I've heard used for toughness is 'shear strength'. This along with 'shear modulus' and density are what determines how tough an object is. The higher the shear strength, shear modulus, and density are, the tougher the material.Crystals tend to have a lower shear strength and modulus for their density. So do entirely amorphous objects. It's the partially amorphous, partially crystalline objects (such as metals) that do the best.The toughest metal I've run across is an alloy of palladium and iridium. But, it's also very heavy, and incredibly expensive. After that you get into the steels. But the really tough steels are the product of modern day metallurgy. In a medieval setting you're more likely to find mild steels, and many of those are actually weaker than standard bronze.Then you have wrought iron, which has its uses, but you really shouldn't use it in battle.Probably the toughest affordable metal is cast iron. But that requires a level of technology the typical D&D world won't have. Especially white iron, which requires a carefully controlled drawn-out cooling down period to produce. In addition, it's the wrong type of tough. That is, cast iron can take a lot of pressure applied for a long period of time, but a 'short, sharp, shock' will crack it like nobody's business.(I'm rambling. I will now stop it.)As to diamond dust. You don't need to bust up a rock to get any. Find somebody who specializes in cutting diamonds and ask him if he has any dust for sale. He should.The initial steps in producing a gem quality diamond produces lots of dust. As can he later stages. In addition, most diamonds are not gem quality. These industrial diamonds are often broken up for abrasives. A diamond cutter of gem dealer may have so much diamond dust around he'll pay you to haul it away. By this measure your character may have to buy as much as a hundred pounds of diamond dust to get the amount needed.But, It's more likely what needed is gem quality diamond dust, which you can only get by powdering a gem quality stone. The question now arises, how high in quality must the stone be?A perfect stone of the same weight will go for a higher price than a flawed stone. One that barely qualifies as a gem stone is going to be real cheap. At the same time color will inpact value, and that will depend on current tastes in diamonds. (I can remember a time when yellow diamonds were cheap where diamonds are concerned, but now a canary diamond (same color, different name) demand a premium price.) Then you have the matter of 'inclusions'. Imperfections that form a pattern. A star sapphire, for instance, can command a higher price than a perfect diamond of the same weight.(The Pink Panther Diamond of the movie series is a fictional example of a flawed stone with a higher value because of the 'pattern' of the flaw.)For the amount most PCs are apt to purchase a beeswax sealed envelope of smallish size will suffice to hold it. Probably about an inch on the side would work best. But, the dust in question will most likely sit in one corner looking rather lost.In which case, don't bother trying to 'fish out' the dust. Instead your PC should open the envelope, invert it, and let the dust fall out as he chants the incantation. He can then use the now empty envelope as a fire starter.Hope this made sense, sometimes my mind wanders.</blockquote>

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