How much would gems weigh?

[Thrasher92]

Money is cumbersome. 50 coins of any currency weigh 1 pound (at least at my table). If a player starts converting his wealth into gems, for easier transportation, how much should the gems weigh altogether?

I know this would probably depend on the amount of gems and the type of gem (diamond, ruby, opal, etc.) but is there a table or list anywhere that can help me out?

Before anyone else wants to jump in on the weight and carrying capacity, my table doesn't often bother tracking weight because it is a huge hassle that none of us want to bother with us. I know that gold in the real world probably weighs far more due to the high density but, we always rule it that 50 coins of any type, silver, gold, platinum, or copper, all weigh 1 pound.

[Nifft]

Gems tend to be virtually weightless relative to their value in coins.

[lunaticfringe]

A carat is .2 grams and depending on the quality uncut diamonds can go for thousands per carat.

So virtually weightless compared to Coins is accurate.

[Talamare]

This is the Oppenheimer (Yellow) Diamond
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6f/4d/a9/6f4da93de6fd264cf9c758556dee7d94.jpg

It's roughly 20 millimeters by 20 millimeters
Aka, about 0.8 inches
One of the largest known uncut Diamonds

It weighs roughly 51 grams
or 0.11 lbs

The Oppenheimer (Blue) Diamond sold for $60 million
It was roughly 3 grams

[RazorChain]

Money is cumbersome. 50 coins of any currency weigh 1 pound (at least at my table). If a player starts converting his wealth into gems, for easier transportation, how much should the gems weigh altogether?

I know this would probably depend on the amount of gems and the type of gem (diamond, ruby, opal, etc.) but is there a table or list anywhere that can help me out?

Before anyone else wants to jump in on the weight and carrying capacity, my table doesn't often bother tracking weight because it is a huge hassle that none of us want to bother with us. I know that gold in the real world probably weighs far more due to the high density but, we always rule it that 50 coins of any type, silver, gold, platinum, or copper, all weigh 1 pound.


Gold coins in D&D are both heavy and worthless, it weighs 9 grams which is relatively heavy as for example the original Florin was 3.5 gram and the Roman Solidus was 4.5 gram and both were almost pure gold (98%+)

Putting price on gemstone per carat is hard because there is a lot of chose from and purity, rarity, size and cut drives up the prices. Fifty cut 1 carat diamonds are going to be much less worth than a single cut 50 carat diamond

Just to put it in todays standards: A 50 carat diamond ring went for 8.3 million $, that is over 450 lbs of gold or 22500+ gold coins in D&D

Hmm the only thing this tells me is that you need big ass diamonds for true resurrection and that wizard with his wish spell is making around 10 million $ per day using up his 9th level slot. God forbid if you have a Lich that has a 9th level spell slot and has spent a century in his crypt, he'll just buy everything....doesn't have to conquer with his undead army.

[furby076]

Gold coins in D&D are both heavy and worthless, it weighs 9 grams which is relatively heavy as for example the original Florin was 3.5 gram and the Roman Solidus was 4.5 gram and both were almost pure gold (98%+)

Putting price on gemstone per carat is hard because there is a lot of chose from and purity, rarity, size and cut drives up the prices. Fifty cut 1 carat diamonds are going to be much less worth than a single cut 50 carat diamond

Just to put it in todays standards: A 50 carat diamond ring went for 8.3 million $, that is over 450 lbs of gold or 22500+ gold coins in D&D

Hmm the only thing this tells me is that you need big ass diamonds for true resurrection and that wizard with his wish spell is making around 10 million $ per day using up his 9th level slot. God forbid if you have a Lich that has a 9th level spell slot and has spent a century in his crypt, he'll just buy everything....doesn't have to conquer with his undead army.

Lol.

But that would be so anti lich like. Can you imagine a mercantile lich "evil world conquest? That is so 3000 years ago and very inefficient these days. After spending 2 years getting my Wharton MBA, and given the uptick of the market, I've decided to invest in 4 ETFs and go to sleep for 500 years. I'll just buy the planet by then. No fuss, no mess from do-gooder adventurers. "

[holywhippet]

Hmm the only thing this tells me is that you need big ass diamonds for true resurrection and that wizard with his wish spell is making around 10 million $ per day using up his 9th level slot. God forbid if you have a Lich that has a 9th level spell slot and has spent a century in his crypt, he'll just buy everything....doesn't have to conquer with his undead army.

That doesn't sound right. For one thing the spell only allows you to create items worth 25,000 gp per casting. For another, if you use it this way you have a 33% chance of never being able to cast wish again. Fabricate is generally the go to spell for making money.

As for estimating the weight of a gem. Just imagine it is made out of glass and that will be about as heavy.

[Coidzor]

A 5 pound sack of what I think would be moderately sized for D&D gems looks something like this (https://www.amazon.com/Dashington-Mixed-Color-Glass-Marbles/dp/B01N9IWO7K/), and is in the 400-500 range when it comes to individual "gems."

Diamonds and Rubies can be a bit denser, but they also tend to be smaller for the same value, so it probably evens out enough for ballparking it.

[Knaight]

It was pointed out in another thread around here that D&D gems are likely to be larger than real world counterparts, and fist sized rubies and the like are certainly genre staples (although there are some big real world gems (http://www.catherinebest.com/blog/gemstone-blogs/the-top-11-biggest-gemstones-in-the-world-part-2/)). There's also the matter of how there's variation by gem, where a 5000 pound amethyst geode is worth vastly less than a 0.1 pound diamond.

Still, as a rough estimate a "standard" diamond, ruby, sapphire or emerald is about 1-5 carats. A "standard" amethyst or opal is about 10-100 carats. Turquoise, onyx, and jade can all get really big while remaining pretty cheap. Then there's pearls, which seem to get up to about 30 carats most of the time but which are exceptionally likely to get bigger in a fantasy setting (giant oysters, anyone?), and which are generally not that valuable compared to other gems.

This is all based on recent research for a similar purpose to yours, I'm not a gemstone expert by any means.

[RazorChain]

That doesn't sound right. For one thing the spell only allows you to create items worth 25,000 gp per casting. For another, if you use it this way you have a 33% chance of never being able to cast wish again. Fabricate is generally the go to spell for making money.

As for estimating the weight of a gem. Just imagine it is made out of glass and that will be about as heavy.


A ball made of 500lbs of solid gold is one item and worth exactly 25.000 gp as is a gem worth 25.000 gp.

Read the spell again...if you cast it more than once per long rest for this purpose you have a 33% chance to never being able to cast it again. So if you have more than one 9th level spell slot you can just use the others to replicate spells of 8th level or lower.

Also fabricate is so much work, you have to make things and sell it. It takes ages to cast compared to wish and requires a full time job. A Lich with a wish spell can just sit in his livingroom and watch his crystalball and just "wish pop" and a 25k gem is sitting there. Just think about it the Lich can produce 18.2 million pounds of gold during a one century break.

[holywhippet]

Read the spell again...if you cast it more than once per long rest for this purpose you have a 33% chance to never being able to cast it again. So if you have more than one 9th level spell slot you can just use the others to replicate spells of 8th level or lower.


No, for one thing you never get more than one ninth level (or eighth level for that matter) slot. The spell description says:


The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. After enduring that stress, each time you cast a spell until you finish a long rest, you take 1d10 necrotic damage per level of that spell. This damage can’t be reduced or prevented in any way. In addition, your Strength drops to 3, if it isn’t 3 or lower already, for 2d4 days. For each of those days that you spend resting and doing nothing more than light activity, your remaining recovery time decreases by 2 days. Finally, there is a 33 percent chance that you are unable to cast wish ever again if you suffer this stress.

As soon as you use wish to do something other than duplicate another spell you suffer stress (first line). Since you have suffered from this stress you have a 33% chance of never being able to cast wish again (last line). You do take necrotic damage from casting other spell until you recover but that is a separate matter.

[Tanarii]

I've always gone with the same as a coin. So 50 gems weigh a pound in 5e. (10 per pound in BECMi.)

As Knaight said, I recently had a thread on it seeming like the assumption D&D gems are fairly large. So even if that seems quite heavy it's still an easy number to use.

[Coidzor]

Another way to check this out would be to go to an aquarium supply store and look at how much space a 5 or 25 pound sack of quartz aquarium gravel takes up or to go to a hardware and home improvement store and look at their stone gravel.

Granite or marble is a bit denser than quartz but less dense than diamond or ruby, so it should give you a decent enough idea. Larger than gravel, home improvement or gardening center places sell drainage rock, too.

If carats are ever given for a gem, then you also know how much it weighs as 1 gram = 5 carats.

[Asmotherion]

I never bother tracking encubrance, going for whatever seems realistic based on Str score instead. If a guy with a low Str wants to keep a Warhammer and a Shield, he's gonna have some trouble in the long run.

If you want a realistic weight count, a Silver Denarius (an example of a silver coin used in Ancient Rome, with Silver being the most common currency in a game, at least in my experiance) weighted 6.81 grams, aka about 0.015 pounds. For simplicity's sake (and since not every coin is bound to be the same either way), round it down to 0.010 pounds, so that every 100 coins=1 pound of encumbrance.

Now, more about gems; depending on the gem in question, I'd say that it's weight can be anything from neglectable (0.001 pound or even less) to around a pound or more, if we're talking about a semi-precious stone of significant size, such as a fist-size amethyst for example. A Volcanic Crystal the size of a sword may also quallify as a gem, and is bound to be much heavier than your average diamond, but, due to it's rarity and size, score an equal market prize. Similarly, due to it's exotic origin, it may have strange magical properties that quallify it as a spellcasting component for some spells. Use this variant at your own discretion. That said, there is no fixed size for what quallifies as a "gem".