D&D 5E Value of 1 lb. of mithral?

[Agglomérante]

At what value would you set 1 lb of mithral in your campaign? According to the DMG (p.157):

• 1 lb of gold is 50 gp
• 1 lb of platinum is 500 gp

Does anybody recall any reference in D&D material to the value of mithral bullion (coins, ingots)?

The party is about to enter Wave Echo Cave, where I've added a vault full of 20 lb mithral ingots (and a purple worm tunnel that allowed Rust Monsters in). The PCs are about to sign a contract with Gundren allowing them to carry out as much as they can carry on their backs, and no more.

If I make those mithral bricks too valuable, I'll damage my campaign.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Doesn't the PHB list a mithral shirt as light armor? Given a price and weight, you could determine the maximum price per weight for a finished product made out of that material. The base cost for materials - the bulk cost of mithral - would be half of that.

 

[trentonjoe]

It isn't in the PHB, it's in the DMG.

Mithral the metal is only mention twice in the PHB, once in the CREATION spell (you can make it, kinda) and once as a spell component for imprisonment.

 

[the Jester]

Back before there was a cost for mithral in 3e, I used to value a mithral coin at 10,000 gp. An adamantine coin would fetch probably twice that.

In 3e, a mithral shirt weighed 10 lbs. and was valued at 1,100 gp. A chain shirt was 100 gp, so that comes out to 100 gp/lb., including the labor to forge it.

That always sounded too cheap to me, but hey.

I don't think there has been anything in 5e to help give an official price for mithral yet.

 

[Agglomérante]

Thanks all for chiming in.

For what it's worth, mithral armour is classified as uncommon (max value 500 gp).

In 3e, a mithral shirt weighed 10 lbs. and was valued at 1,100 gp. A chain shirt was 100 gp, so that comes out to 100 gp/lb., including the labor to forge it.

That always sounded too cheap to me, but hey.

Thanks Jester. That's something at least. So let's say 600 gp for 10 lbs, or 60 gp/lb. Only 20% more valuable than gold.

So, for your consideration in your own campaigns:

• A mithral ingot weighing 20 lbs is worth 1,200 gp. That's the same weight as a real-world ingot of copper, btw.
• A gold ingot of the same dimensions weighs 26 lbs (in the real world too) and is worth 1,000 gp

Not unreasonable when you consider that all it's got over steel is it's light.

The funny thing is that steel was really hard to make in the middle ages so it was reserved for weapons, armour and tools. Steel ingots would be valuable, too.

The characters will be wealthy if they survive, but there's been so much talk of wanting to build a keep that I think I'll enable it. They could totally geek out designing their headquarters

 

[Astrosicebear]

Heres a good thread.

Now these estimates put mithral at 500gp/lb.

Others, like this thread, put it at ~90/lb.



D&D has always stipulated that 50 coins equate to 1 pound. But mithral/adamantine do have different wieghts, so we can assume that 50 adam. coins weighs much more than 50 copper coins.

So the whole thing is flawed.

 

[Celebrim]

At what value would you set 1 lb of mithral in your campaign?

Since 1e era, I've used 5 times the value of Platinum. Adamantium was priced at twice that, or 50 times the value of gold. I also have Orichalcum, which is worth twice that, or 100 times the value of gold. I should note however that I don't have 50 coins to the pound, so 1lb of gold is 20 g.p., so using my larger coins, mithral is 500 g.p. to the pound.

The 3.5e era price for mithral was 500 gp to the pound. This would be 10 times the price of gold using the 50 coins to the pound standard, or 25 times the price of gold using 20 coins to the pound, or 50 times the price of gold using 10 coins to the pound.

 

[the Jester]

D&D has always stipulated that 50 coins equate to 1 pound.
So the whole thing is flawed.

Nerd quibble: 1e and earlier, it was 10 coins to 1 pound, so those were some big, fat, meaty coins! (I don't recall off hand whether it was still 10:1 in 2e or not, but I know that 3e and later have been 50:1.)

 

[baradtgnome]

I suggest you set it where you want and simply clarify that the mithril and adamantine items as priced are not 100% pure material. The items are often compounds because 'pure' metal does not work as well for complicated reasons only these special smiths and alchemists understand. As previously noted, armor has other elements of padding & buckles etc. You can imagine similar limitations for other items.

Save yourself a heachace trying to making everything tie out perfectly. As a DM you have enough headaches already.

 

[Agglomérante]

Save yourself a heachace trying to making everything tie out perfectly. As a DM you have enough headaches already.

Sage advice. The 1,200gp per 20 lb ingot is fine with me, even it it's at the low end of the scale. Mithril's more common in my world then. Done!

Love your avatar

 

[KarinsDad]

Oops. Misread OP's post.

 

[aramis erak]

D&D has always stipulated that 50 coins equate to 1 pound. But mithral/adamantine do have different wieghts, so we can assume that 50 adam. coins weighs much more than 50 copper coins.

So the whole thing is flawed.

No, it has not. In fact, 3E is the first place I recall seeing 50 cn = 1 lb.
Holmes (page 9) gives a 300 coins to 30 pounds as the limit of a bag.
Moldvay/Cook BX used 10 cn = 1 lb. (B63).
Mentzer BECMI uses 1 pound = 10 cn. (Basic, P 61)
Alston's Cyclopedia also uses 10 cn = 1 lb. (p. 226)
AD&D 1E specifies 10 cn to 1 pound as well (PHB 9)

I can't find the reference for coin weights in the Core Rules 2.0 PHB RTF...

And Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer, Alston, and Gygax all had all coins (for convenience) measured at 10 to the pound.
3.0 and later used a much more realistic (but still heavy) 50 to the pound. The Roman denarius was 240 to the troy-pound, or about 291 to the US pound (643 to the kg)... as were early medieval silver pennies (typically of 90% silver, 10% copper and/or tin for durability).

Edit: For comparison US coins per pound, rounded nearest integer
Penny 181, Nickel 91, dime 200, Quarter 80, half dollar 40, dollar 56.
And UK coins: penny: 127, two pence 64, 5d. 140, 10d 70, 20d 91, 50d 56, 1£ 48, 2£ 38, 5£ 16
The €2 coin is about 53 per pound. The €1 is about 60.5 per pound, and the €0.01 is about 197 per pound.

http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/?action=coin_specifications
http://www.royalmint.com/discover/uk-coins/coin-design-and-specifications
http://europa.eu/legislation_summar...roducing_euro_practical_aspects/l25028_en.htm
​

Now, as to Mithral... I've assumed it's just another name for platinum myself...
Silver in color: check.
Harder than iron: check
nearly impossible to work with medieval tools: check
not meltable with a typical blacksmith's forge: check
Worth more than gold: Check (tho' only a few dollars an ounce more recently)

Tho' I'm tempted to make it 10x as valuable as platinum, just for S&G's...

 

[Celebrim]

Now, as to Mithral... I've assumed it's just another name for platinum myself...

I don't think it was intended to be any real metal, but its described properties make it closer to Titanium.

 

[Agglomérante]

It's just lightweight steel, imho.

 

[aramis erak]

I don't think it was intended to be any real metal, but its described properties make it closer to Titanium.

Excellent point... hadn't thought of that... but yeah, half the mass, and stronger still... either one will do.

 

[Agglomérante]

Well, there's always 3.5e:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialMaterials.htm#mithral

Mithral is a very rare silvery, glistening metal that is lighter than iron but just as hard. When worked like steel, it becomes a wonderful material from which to create armor and is occasionally used for other items as well. Most mithral armors are one category lighter than normal for purposes of movement and other limitations. Heavy armors are treated as medium, and medium armors are treated as light, but light armors are still treated as light. Spell failure chances for armors and shields made from mithral are decreased by 10%, maximum Dexterity bonus is increased by 2, and armor check penalties are lessened by 3 (to a minimum of 0).

An item made from mithral weighs half as much as the same item made from other metals. In the case of weapons, this lighter weight does not change a weapon’s size category or the ease with which it can be wielded (whether it is light, one-handed, or two-handed). Items not primarily of metal are not meaningfully affected by being partially made of mithral. (A longsword can be a mithral weapon, while a scythe cannot be.)

Weapons or armors fashioned from mithral are always masterwork items as well; the masterwork cost is included in the prices given below.

Mithral has 30 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness 15.

Type of Mithral Item	Item Cost Modifier
Light armour	+1,000gp
Medium armour	+4,000pg
Heavy armour	+9,000gp
Shield	+1,000pg
Other item	+500gp/lb

I'd add some expense for the difficulty in working with mithral, say. It takes longer. Still, 500gp per pound without the deduction works out to 10,000gp for a single 20lb mithral ingot. Too valuable for my scenario, alas.

 

[EvanNave55]

influx caused lower market price

One other thing to keep in mind is that if there is this mine with tons of mithral here, the huge influx of mithral will cause the market price of it to plummet. IMHO I think the market price of mithral within a region around this mine would actually be lower than gold. However this could vary wildly so you could use this to justify any price lower than normal near the cave.

 

[Agglomérante]

One other thing to keep in mind is that if there is this mine with tons of mithral here, the huge influx of mithral will cause the market price of it to plummet. IMHO I think the market price of mithral within a region around this mine would actually be lower than gold. However this could vary wildly so you could use this to justify any price lower than normal near the cave.

Good idea!

In my scenario the Phandelver mine's been running for hundreds of years with skeletal miners. I did the math using the 1e DMG mining table and even if there's just a trace of mithral in the host rock (0.001% if memory serves) it works out to a 60' cube stack of smelted mithral after 500 years of three shifts of 10 skeletons digging.

 

[TarionzCousin]

In my scenario the Phandelver mine's been running for hundreds of years with skeletal miners. I did the math using the 1e DMG mining table and even if there's just a trace of mithral in the host rock (0.001% if memory serves) it works out to a 60' cube stack of smelted mithral after 500 years of three shifts of 10 skeletons digging.

Is that with or without smoke breaks?

#undeadrights!

 

[jrowland]

As an aside,

I've always considered Mithral to be equivalent to a modern steel, essentially an alloyed stainless steel like SAE 630 uh...HERE SOMEWHERE.

Dwarves and Elves know the secrets to alloying steel and manufacture mithral. It's not found in nature, and in my games, mithral trade bars make no sense (you make mithral for a functional PURPOSE, you trade/ship the components: Chromium, iron, nickel, Vanadium, etc) YMMV

FWIW, Adamantium I have from meteorites only (material plane) or more common in the outer/inner planes as a regular mined metal.

Back on topic, J.R.R. Tolkiens Middle Earth when the Dwarves still populated and mined moria, it was worth 10 times its weight in gold. Of course, by the time of the hobbit, it was effectively priceless. So 10x weight in gold seems about right if you want Mithral Trade Bars.