Mithral

[Orpheus108]

Greetings All,

I was just reading a post on the Glaive being made from Mithral and further down someone mentioned weapons could be made from Mithral would be lighter and good for TWF.

So question, if your fighting with 2 longswords, one made from Mithral, would that weapon be treated as a light weapon for the purpose of TWF

[Thurbane]

Greetings All,

I was just reading a post on the Glaive being made from Mithral and further down someone mentioned weapons could be made from Mithral would be lighter and good for TWF.

So question, if your fighting with 2 longswords, one made from Mithral, would that weapon be treated as a light weapon for the purpose of TWF

Nope, mithral doesn't work that way.

Feycraft template (DMG2) can work like that, though.

[Vaern]

Mithral only affects the weight class of armor. If used on a weapon the item will weigh half as much, but its classification as light, one-handed, or two-handed is unchanged.

[the_tick_rules]

That was me. Unfortunately mithral doesn't work that way in weapon form. I said it should because mithral is really junk as a weapon material. If you wanted to use it as such it would have to be a house rule.

[Remuko]

Greetings All,

I was just reading a post on the Glaive being made from Mithral and further down someone mentioned weapons could be made from Mithral would be lighter and good for TWF.

So question, if your fighting with 2 longswords, one made from Mithral, would that weapon be treated as a light weapon for the purpose of TWF

you might have misread. someone was saying it SHOULD work that way, but it doesnt. As is mithral does basically nothing for weapons.

[liquidformat]

Greetings All,

I was just reading a post on the Glaive being made from Mithral and further down someone mentioned weapons could be made from Mithral would be lighter and good for TWF.

So question, if your fighting with 2 longswords, one made from Mithral, would that weapon be treated as a light weapon for the purpose of TWF

The only reason to use mithral for weapons is to cut down your carrying weight besides that it does nothing.

[thompur]

The only reason to use mithral for weapons is to cut down your carrying weight besides that it does nothing.

Well, it does count as silver for overcoming DR, so if you know you'll be facing Devils or lycanthropes, it could be worthwhile since it wouldn't have the downside of a silver weapon.

[liquidformat]

Well, it does count as silver for overcoming DR, so if you know you'll be facing Devils or lycanthropes, it could be worthwhile since it wouldn't have the downside of a silver weapon.

I was unaware of it being treated as silver for overcoming DR and don't see that mentioned in the SRD, where is that from?

[tyckspoon]

I was unaware of it being treated as silver for overcoming DR and don't see that mentioned in the SRD, where is that from?

Pathfinder thing, gives a reason to have a mithral weapon (you get a Silver weapon without the damage penalty of an actual Silvered weapon.)

[Thurbane]

Interesting: so in PF Mithral counts as silver?

In 3.5, Starmetal counts as Adamantine.

I think there's some kind of 3.X metal that also counts as Cold Iron, unless I'm misremembering?

[Bullet06320]

I think there's some kind of 3.X metal that also counts as Cold Iron, unless I'm misremembering?

Abyssal Bloodiron: replicates cold iron, bonus to confirm crits. PH


https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?442820-Special-Materials-Index

[KillianHawkeye]

I like the TDDC (https://www.youtube.com/user/demonac/videos) explanation that a mithril weapon is just larger than normal to make up for the lighter material. Otherwise, a lot of weapons would just do less damage if they weighed half as much.

[the_tick_rules]

Or it could actually inflict more damage. But it would require an explanation of actual physics for it to make sense how.

[Crake]

I like the TDDC (https://www.youtube.com/user/demonac/videos) explanation that a mithril weapon is just larger than normal to make up for the lighter material. Otherwise, a lot of weapons would just do less damage if they weighed half as much.

Feycraft actually does less damage with it's lighter weapon category as well, so that at least kinda makes sense.

[KillianHawkeye]

Feycraft actually does less damage with it's lighter weapon category as well, so that at least kinda makes sense.

Force = Mass x Acceleration, so reducing the mass reduces the force of any weapon impact. A lot of weapons, like maces and axes and polearms, rely on that force of impact to do the damage they do. Swords and daggers and spears can possibly get by on sharpness and skill.

[ShurikVch]

I like the TDDC (https://www.youtube.com/user/demonac/videos) explanation that a mithril weapon is just larger than normal to make up for the lighter material. Otherwise, a lot of weapons would just do less damage if they weighed half as much.
Damage of melee piercing attacks don't rely on the weapon's weight at all

Nor, for that matter, damage of cutting attacks (there matter the blade's quality and size)

And chopping attacks are questionable:
On one hand, weight of the blade really adds something to the chopping power;
But, on the other hand - lighter blade can be accelerated to a greater speed (thus, making more damage...)

[Crake]

Force = Mass x Acceleration, so reducing the mass reduces the force of any weapon impact. A lot of weapons, like maces and axes and polearms, rely on that force of impact to do the damage they do. Swords and daggers and spears can possibly get by on sharpness and skill.

I mean, while your equation is correct, you've kinda got it wrong. The force remains constant, because the force is that of the wielder, unless you're doing an overhead attack and including gravity in the matter, but that's not always the case in your swings. As such, reducing mass doesn't actually reduce the force, it increases the acceleration, because the force is fixed by the strength of your swing.

Think about it, if you swing a quarterstaff or a sledgehammer, the quarterstaff will swing much faster than the sledge hammer, but, unless you do an overhead swing with the sledgehammer for a gravity assist, the strike will hit just as hard either way.

[Kayblis]

Damage of melee piercing attacks don't rely on the weapon's weight at all

Nor, for that matter, damage of cutting attacks (there matter the blade's quality and size)

And chopping attacks are questionable:
On one hand, weight of the blade really adds something to the chopping power;
But, on the other hand - lighter blade can be accelerated to a greater speed (thus, making more damage...)

Force transference isn't perfect. Inertia is important for penetration. An axe cuts considerably deeper than a sword and hits harder against armor because it has more inertia, both because it's heavier and because the weight is more concentrated on the hitting point. You can break bones through armor with a waraxe, not as good as a hammer but much better than a sword.

D&D does a decent enough job through abstraction. I'd say turning weapons into one category lighter just because of a lighter metal isn't really realistic at all, because you don't change the weapon design and handedness, which are the big factors in wielding. A Longsword is over a meter long, and it weighs 2~4lb(D&D uses the higher end, but IRL it varies a lot). Making it lighter doesn't make it smaller than a meter long, so it's not actually like using a Light weapon. Using two Longswords is clumsy as hell even if they're on the lighter end. That's not true for Feycraft, which specifically includes a change in design.

Mithril isn't a good material for weapons because it has no mechanical effect but costs a lot. I feel some unique effect could make it better, but turning a weapon into a different handedness is just arbitrary.

[CharonsHelper]

As to the mechanical reasons to get a mithral weapon? Some mithral weapons are actually cheaper than their steel masterwork equivalents. Especially for a small character, like a halfling rogue.

Small masterwork dagger? 302gp

Small mithral dagger (which is automatically masterwork)? 127gp

Mithral costs 500gp per pound more than the normal item, but it automatically counts as masterwork. A dagger is normally 1lb, a small dagger is 0.5lb, and a small mithral dagger is 0.25lb, or +125 gold to the base cost of 2 gold, and it automatically counts as being masterwork.

Any weapon that weighs 1lb or less as steel is cheaper to have a mithral version than a steel masterwork version.

In addition - while not a huge deal - mithral does have a higher hardness than steel (15 vs 10), so your weapon is somewhat less likely to be damaged.

[Telonius]

Force transference isn't perfect. Inertia is important for penetration. An axe cuts considerably deeper than a sword and hits harder against armor because it has more inertia, both because it's heavier and because the weight is more concentrated on the hitting point. You can break bones through armor with a waraxe, not as good as a hammer but much better than a sword.

D&D does a decent enough job through abstraction. I'd say turning weapons into one category lighter just because of a lighter metal isn't really realistic at all, because you don't change the weapon design and handedness, which are the big factors in wielding. A Longsword is over a meter long, and it weighs 2~4lb(D&D uses the higher end, but IRL it varies a lot). Making it lighter doesn't make it smaller than a meter long, so it's not actually like using a Light weapon. Using two Longswords is clumsy as hell even if they're on the lighter end. That's not true for Feycraft, which specifically includes a change in design.

Mithril isn't a good material for weapons because it has no mechanical effect but costs a lot. I feel some unique effect could make it better, but turning a weapon into a different handedness is just arbitrary.

They did something like that in Dwarf Fortress. Their "Mithral" material (called Adamantine there) is super-light but has massive yield, fracture, and tensile strength. (Much math about that here (https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Material_science)). Upshot of it is, in that game it's amazing for armor and edged weapons, but since it's so light making a blunt weapon with it is the equivalent of hitting somebody with a Nerf bat.