Mithril

[Trellian]

I do not know if this has been discussed or not, but one of my players wants to buy a mithril greatsword.

What do you guys feel that the price should be for mithril weapons? any other advantages besides the halved weight?

anyone see some difficulties obtaining it in... lets say Arabel or Cormyr in general? (He had to travel to the North for his Mithril Full Plate)..

 

[MythandLore]

I do not know if this has been discussed or not, but one of my players wants to buy a mithril greatsword.

It's been discussed a little, see below.

What do you guys feel that the price should be for mithril weapons?

+500 gp/lb. is the price. (Ouch, that's a lot of money)

any other advantages besides the halved weight?

Nope.
Kinda sucks don't you think?

anyone see some difficulties obtaining it in... lets say Arabel or Cormyr in general? (He had to travel to the North for his Mithril Full Plate)..

No problem.
Any major city in Cormyr would likely have some (as the nation is full of wizards and every noble in that country has at least one magic item), he may have to get the sword made special for him though because it is generally only made into armor.

 

[Trellian]

Eh... I'm nitpicking now... but the 500 gp/lb is for the new weight, right? Not for the old one...

So a 15 lb greatsword turns into a 7,5 lb mithril greatsword for a total price of 3,750 gp? oh my... thats a lot of gold..

 

[Omegium]

The price is simple: DMG 242, 500 gp/lbs. That is 7500, plus the normal price of a greatsword.
I have never seen any mithril weapons be used, since it doesn't give any bonusses except the weight. Maybe good for someone who can hardly support the weight of his equipment, but most fighter types don't care anyway.
If you consider the rules of magic of fearun, what states you do more damage with a heavy weapon made of gold, you should also do less damage with mithril, but that's not a rule fortunately.

 

[FANGO]

No, mithral does add something other than half weight. Not only is it lighter, but it is also stronger, as reflected by the hardness score of 15 rather than 10. So your player's sword will be harder to sunder, and also lighter. It will cost 500gp/lb of the new weight...there is no need to pay for material that you aren't using. Also, having a mithral weapon will just simply be cooler.

The main reason that heavy metals give extra damage is because they are more dense, yet more malleable and therefore would be weaker, except that in magic of faerun they are describe as being 'magically treated' to be as strong as steel. So the weapon is heavier but takes up the same space, so therefore it does more damage, but it is still as strong as a normal sword would be (hardness 10, 30hp/inch). Mithral should and does not give less damage because it is similar to real-world titanium. Titanium is much stronger than steel, so less of it needs to be used to make something strong. It's also light, so for the same amount of strength (or volume) you get less weight.

I would maybe (*maybe*...though definitely not in the case of a greatsword) allow a mithral weapon to be finessed, but only if it were already on the borderline of being finessable (like a longsword in the hands of a relatively strong, but even more dextrous person, maybe). This would help to balance out the huge cost for almost nothing...though of course I just thought of this and am not sure if it would be balanced or not, and would definitely be subject to DM discretion.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Reducing the Size Category by one?
(Haha: Two Weapon Fighting with a Mitrhil Greatsword and a Mitrhil Shortsword - That rocks... )

 

[MythandLore]

No, mithral does add something other than half weight. Not only is it lighter, but it is also stronger, as reflected by the hardness score of 15 rather than 10. So your player's sword will be harder to sunder, and also lighter. It will cost 500gp/lb of the new weight...there is no need to pay for material that you aren't using. Also, having a mithral weapon will just simply be cooler.

Yeah hardness, there you go.

The main reason that heavy metals give extra damage is because they are more dense, yet more malleable and therefore would be weaker, except that in magic of faerun they are describe as being 'magically treated' to be as strong as steel. So the weapon is heavier but takes up the same space, so therefore it does more damage, but it is still as strong as a normal sword would be (hardness 10, 30hp/inch). Mithral should and does not give less damage because it is similar to real-world titanium. Titanium is much stronger than steel, so less of it needs to be used to make something strong. It's also light, so for the same amount of strength (or volume) you get less weight.

Don't try to rationalize it, it will make you go crazy after a while.
Titanium never really works well as an example anyway, would a lite hammer hurt you as bad as a heavy one?
No.

I would maybe (*maybe*...though definitely not in the case of a greatsword) allow a mithral weapon to be finessed, but only if it were already on the borderline of being finessable (like a longsword in the hands of a relatively strong, but even more dextrous person, maybe). This would help to balance out the huge cost for almost nothing...though of course I just thought of this and am not sure if it would be balanced or not, and would definitely be subject to DM discretion.

Don't do it my friend, your walking a fine line into munchkin land.
The cost to the pc's scales with the character levels.
7,500 gp ain't much to a rogue who's enchanments on his sword are worth 200,000 gp.
7,500 to finessed a quarter mill sword at high level is way too good.
Everyone would do it.

 

[Bastoche]

about weapon dynamics

He is an over simplification of weapon dynamic:

The energy delivered by a sword is the following (in a very very simple model, although in a more elaborate one, the important point here would still hold):

E = 0.5*m*v².

suppose the sword movement is totally circular (another approximation, but not such a bad one), the energy would be:

E = 0.5*m*(r*w)²

Where r would be the length of the sword plus the length of the arm holding it. And w is the angular velocity.

As you can see, E is linear in fonction of the mass and it's quadratic in length or in angular velocity. In other words, a sword twice as heavy hurts twice as much. A sword twice as long hurts four times more and a sword that revolves twice as fast hurts four times four.

Therefore, a sword swung twice as fast but that is twice a light will do 2 times more damage. And you will agree with me that the more the weapon is light, the faster you can swing it.

So I conclure that the MoF heavy weapon thing, that mercurial thing is all BS and I got all these rules out from my campaigns. Now if heavy weapon did more damage for magical reason, I would buy, but that they do more damage for WRONG physical reasons, it makes me go

Just some thoughts...

 

[MythandLore]

Huh?
What's with all the numbers?

You have to also take into account that just because the weapon is lighter, doesn't mean you can swing it much faster (maybe you did, I'm to tried to tell).
i.e. half the weight doesn't mean twice as fast.
There's a maxium speed a person can move at.
But whatever, don't mess with the rules, for fear of unbalancing the game more then it already is.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

The change in weight would be offset by the harder metal allowing a better edge to be put on the greatsword. A standard great sword does more damage from sheer force than from its cutting edge. Making the sword out of mithril allows you to put a much keener edge on it so I would guess that the damage would balance out.

As another bonus I would say that only a highly skilled blacksmith can work in mithril and the item would automatically be considered a masterwork item and very good for accepting enchantments.