Question(s)

[NevinPL]

How much Mithral one needs, to make a 20 lbs armor ? 10, 20 ?

[(Un)Inspired]

You're going to need at least 17 Marglins of Mythril to make a 20 lbs armor. A marglin is a special unit of measurement used only for Mythril and is a combination of volume and mass; similar to density but as we know mythril doesn't ever have a definable density (probably the reason marglins were created in the first place).

[Devils_Advocate]

Mithral is half as dense as steel. As such, steel armor that weighs 20 lbs would only weigh 10 lbs if made of mithral instead.

To make mithral armor that weighs 20 lbs, obviously you'd need 20 lbs of mithral. But that armor would weigh 40 lbs if made of steel.

"Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?"

[NevinPL]

To make mithral armor that weighs 20 lbs, obviously you'd need 20 lbs of mithral.
If it was that obvious, I wouldn't ask.


"Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?"
Nice try, but I didn't ask how much 10, or 20 lbs of Mithral weights.
Guess they should "sort" special materials not by weight, but by volume, or something.
Thank you.

[Tohsaka Rin]

You`d need half as much mithral as the armor normally weighs.

[Xintas]

If it was that obvious, I wouldn't ask.



Just because it was stated in a matter of fact way does not mean he is wrong. In all honesty, you probably need more. Some of the material is going to be shaved off or wasted in the smelting/forging process and the leather straps/any inner cushioning (for the adventurer who likes to be comfy) would have a negligible weight (~1lb tops). This would easily be countered by the wasted mithral.

TL;DR If someone lets you make 20 lb mithral armor with only 20 lbs, be happy.

[Telonius]

It would really depend on what the price (per pound) of mithral is. Craft rules say you spend 1/3 of the market price on raw materials.

[Urpriest]

It would really depend on what the price (per pound) of mithral is. Craft rules say you spend 1/3 of the market price on raw materials.

This.

Remember, each suit of armor is different, and each suit of armor is made of many different materials. A suit of "mithril" armor is also going to have some leather, some padding, probably some iron studs in places...and that composition is going to vary from piece to piece. You need 1/3 of the market price in materials, some of that is raw mithril, some isn't.

[NevinPL]

Some of the material is going to be shaved off or wasted in the smelting/forging process...
Yeah, I was thinking about that some time ago. A 1 rolled here, a SNAFU there, and instead of chain shirt, you have chain tank-top :D
So I require about 10-20% more, than books say.

[Devils_Advocate]

A 1 rolled here, a SNAFU there, and instead of chain shirt, you have chain tank-top :D
To borrow from TuggyNE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/member.php?60117-TuggyNE), "Proper use of taking 10 and taking 20 covers a multitude of sins."


If it was that obvious, I wouldn't ask.
Well, my first instinct is to say that this is all tautologically as obvious as it is, as all things are tautologically as obvious as they are, and yet you asked anyway, so the above appears to be incorrect. :P But obviousness seems to be subjective in nature, such that what is obvious to one person may not be obvious to another. In this case, it seems that what was obvious to me was not equally obvious to you, and it seems that this was your meaning. Fair enough, my friend!

So, given that we're on the subject of the construction of armor and weapons and whatnot, why don't I take a page out of the book of the managers of Sigil's military supplies, and attempt break things down?

:smallcool:


Nice try, but I didn't ask how much 10, or 20 lbs of Mithral weights.
Well, yeah. You asked how much mithral is needed to make a 20 lb armor. The answer to which is "None, because armor of any weight doesn't have to be made of any mithral at all"! But I was trying to provide you with a more useful response than that.

To make a 20 lb armor composed entirely of mithral, you need 20 lbs of mithral. Because the armor is 20 lbs of mithral in armor form. Even if you wish it into existence, 20 lbs of mithral is still involved. It's involved by being the armor you wished up!

You may use up more than 20 lbs in the construction process. But what of it? You could doubtlessly waste arbitrarily large amounts, if you set out to be as inefficient as possible. Why you'd want to do that is anybody's guess, but, hey, that's your business. But the minimum amount is 20 lbs, since that much has to end up in the final product. So that's how much you need. And so long as you're not too wasteful, you shouldn't use up too much more.

Conversely, a 20 lb armor may be only partially composed of mithral. But to the extent that it's not mithral, it's... well, not mithral! So my answer doesn't become less accurate, just less applicable. Nevertheless, the weight of an object primarily composed of metal will be mainly due to the weight of the metal. That's why you can just halve the normal weight of primarily-metal objects made of mithral, for simplicity's sake.

Furthermore, waste of mithral and use of other substances will cancel each other out to a degree, with the result that the weight of the mithral used should be pretty close to the weight of the armor. Of course, this is all addressing things from a simulationist perspective, ignoring the absurd rules for the prices of mithral armor and the raw materials for items.

Basically, you asked a question to which one cannot give a useful response without making simplifying assumptions. (Un)Inspired replied by making a joke about that. I just went ahead and made the simplifying assumptions. And, hey, upon review, those assumptions? TOTALLY VALID! :D Both in being probably fairly applicable to actual crafting and in being technically correct in the abstract.


Guess they should "sort" special materials not by weight, but by volume, or something.
I'm curious what you mean, and what sort of sorting you had in mind.

[NevinPL]

I'm trying to:

find nice shadow, darkness themed template (other than Shadow\Dark), for an animal (shadow mastiff).
Are there more than those ?
make "Teflon" NPC, i.e. one that can get out out of anything, has aces up his sleeve for any situation, etc., without going epic levels, and easy on the cheese.
Is there a list of "magnificent bastards", somewhere on the forum ?
build a sort of Xellos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xellos)\Garak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elim_Garak) mash-up NPC, that seems civil, and harmless, but when push comes to shove >:-) Did someone seen, did something like that ?