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Message: <blockquote data-quote="argo" data-source="post: 1868266" data-attributes="member: 5752">I remember seing an old coin scale in a mesuem once.  The thing was contained in a little wooden box about the size of your hand so it was easy to carry around and inside was a small scale with weights that coresopnded to the weight of common coniage and a small, flat metal sheet with slots cut in it that matched the proper dimensions (length and thickness) of those coins.  The idea was that if a coin had been cliped it would fit through the slot in the sheet but would be the wrong weight while if a coin was a slug (mixed with impure metals) it would weigh the proper ammount but be too big to fit through the slot (cuz precious metals are generally more dense than base).  Prety clever no?Anyway, I would call this an opposed forgery vs appraise check where the difficulty depends on how greedy the forger is.  If the forger wants to clip 1/4 the weight of the coin (thus getting 1 coin for every 4) I would make it a straight check, if he wants to clip 1/10 the weight he gets a +4 bonus to the forgery check and if he wants to clip 1/20 the weight he gets a +8 bonus.  Minting new coins would depend on if he wants to add impurities or not: adding 1/4 impurities (multiply the final take by 1.25) would assign a -4 penalty, adding 1/10 impurities would be a straight check and adding no impunities grants a +4 bonus (on the theory that most merchants probably don't give half a damn if the coin is forged so long as they are satisfied the it is real gold of the proper weight, espically is forgery is rampant in the campaign setting to begin with).All this is opposed by an appraise check.  Give the merchant a +5 bonus for using a specially designed tool like the one I described above.  Passing the coin so that the merchant doesn't feel the need to make an appraisal in the first place is probably bluff or diplomacy vs sense motive.Hope that helps.</blockquote>

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