Weight of gems?

Here's what I could find, mostly based on
<http://www.tucsonshowguide.com/stories/mar03/sources.cfm>:

Black onyx is actually dyed chalcedony, which is a kind of agate, which
is a kind of quartz. Chalcedony was once a very popular gemstone. It's
almost always cabochon cut (round-faced).[*] Rough chalcedony costs
about $500 to $2,000 per kilogram and yields about 100 grams of cut
chalcedony (which is worth about $2,500). Therefore, your NPC's onyx is
worth about $2 million if rough, $50 million if already cut.

Now to convert it to gold pieces. There's no perfect way to do that, but
for these purposes, it's probably best to use silver for the conversion.
Based on the wages of laborers historically and in D&D, a gold piece
is roughly worth 1/2 Troy ounce of silver ($2 to $5). Fudging a bit,
that yields:

two tons rough chalcedony = 400,000 gp
two tons cut onyx = 10,000,000 gp

I suspect that your NPC actually has two tons of rough chalcedony. It
will yield 400 lbs of cut onyx worth about 1,000,000 gp total.

By the way, if my estimates so far are correct, each 50 gp onyx is
roughly a *50 carat* gem! That's huge! Enormous! Five carats is much
more reasonable for an onyx, so either the given value is totally
arbitrary, or my calculations are off by a factor of 10 somewhere.

Based on all this, I present my final guess:

Your NPC has a lot of rough chalcedony, which can be made into somewhere
between 100,000 and 1,000,000 gp worth of cut onyx. That's enough for
2,000 to 20,000 gems worth 50 gp each.

[*] Faceted gems are a fairly recent invention. In medieval times,
almost all gems were cabochon cut, IIRC.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Rupert Boleyn

2003-09-04 03:35:19 UTC

On Thu, 04 Sep 2003 02:57:37 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Another way of looking at it is to say that a shortsword (10gp) is
very roughly equivalent to a gun at $1000. Or a horse to a car. These
gives values of about $100 = 1GP (very roughly).

This gives about 20,000GP or 500,000GP.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
I suspect that your NPC actually has two tons of rough chalcedony. It
will yield 400 lbs of cut onyx worth about 1,000,000 gp total.

Or 50,000GP by my (far less generous) conversion.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
By the way, if my estimates so far are correct, each 50 gp onyx is
roughly a *50 carat* gem! That's huge! Enormous! Five carats is much
more reasonable for an onyx, so either the given value is totally
arbitrary, or my calculations are off by a factor of 10 somewhere.

Yes and no. Many semi-precious stones are actually quite big. I've got
a couple of pieces of tiger-eye sitting by my computer that are as big
as the end joint of my thumb (of course tiger-eye is very cheap).

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
[*] Faceted gems are a fairly recent invention. In medieval times,
almost all gems were cabochon cut, IIRC.

For many of the harder types 'cut' is too kind a word in Europe -
'polished' would be closer.

--
Rupert Boleyn <***@paradise.net.nz>
"A pessimist is simply an optimist with a sense of history."

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-04 04:59:20 UTC

Another way of looking at it is to say that a shortsword (10gp) is
very roughly equivalent to a gun at $1000. Or a horse to a car. These
gives values of about $100 = 1GP (very roughly).

I chose silver because precious metals tend to maintain their relative
values over time, and I guessed that other precious materials might do
the same. Not sure whether that's a good assumption.

While I think $5 per gold piece is a low estimate for costs in general,
I think $100 is far too high. For general cost of gear comparisons, I
think I'd use $20 per gold piece, and $5 for precious metals.

Also, note that 1 gp = $100 means that a 50 gp black onyx gem would
weigh about *one thousand carats* (200g). That's a ridiculously large
gem -- five inches in diameter? -- bigger than your fist, I think.

(Note that D&D coins weights are screwy. Based on wages and prices, a
Troy ounce of silver is worth about 20 sp, but a Troy ounce of silver
coins is worth less than 10 sp. The coins are worth less than the silver
they're made of!)

A 50 carat (10g) stone is very, very large. I'd guess about two or three
inches in diameter. Not totally unreasonable, but at that size I suspect
that the yield of cabochon cut stones from rough would drop below 10%.

Note that Justisaur has raised the amount of onyx to five tons. He still
hasn't said whether that's rough chalcedony or finished onyx stones,
which makes a huge difference in the result. If my calculations are
correct:

five tons rough chalcedony = 1,000,000 gp = 25,000 gems
five tons cut onyx = 50,000,000 gp = 1,000,000 gems

Unless this is an epic campaign, Justisaur may have some wealth control
problems if the PCs manage to beat this guy before he finishes his
undead army. Hm, how long will it take him to cast all those spells?

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Bryan J. Maloney

2003-09-04 05:25:16 UTC

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
(Note that D&D coins weights are screwy. Based on wages and prices, a
Troy ounce of silver is worth about 20 sp, but a Troy ounce of silver
coins is worth less than 10 sp. The coins are worth less than the silver
they're made of!)

Time to repost this old nugget?

Some information on the medieval English
penny of Edward I (1239-1307):

311 per pound
686 per kg

At this time, it was of remarkable purity, .9375, (which it soon lost).

By the time of Henry VIII, it had dropped to a gross weight of 699 per
US pound (1543 per kg) and a silver content of around 50%, the remainder
being copper, zinc, tin, and lead.

A presumably peasant's sword of around 1340 was sixpence (Standards of
Living in the Later Middle Ages, Christopher Dyer).

So, the D&D silver coin could just be horribly debased, less than 50% pure
silver. Presuming that the 1340-era sword was priced in "good" silver
coins, that would give a rough price of 12-15sp for a shortsword in the
debased coin.

Of course, that's only if one wants to have a veneer of "history" on
prices.

Rupert Boleyn

2003-09-04 12:37:43 UTC

On Thu, 04 Sep 2003 06:38:50 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Post by Bryan J. Maloney
Of course, that's only if one wants to have a veneer of "history" on
prices.

I usually aim for that in my games. I use pounds, shillings, and pence,
with weights and values close to those of early English coins.
(I usually ignore inflation and debasement for simplicity's sake.)

Last time I tried that with my current group half the players tiny
little minds melted from having to deal with non-decimal currency.

--
Rupert Boleyn <***@paradise.net.nz>
"A pessimist is simply an optimist with a sense of history."

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-04 15:53:45 UTC

I usually aim for that in my games. I use pounds, shillings, and
pence, with weights and values close to those of early English coins.
(I usually ignore inflation and debasement for simplicity's sake.)

Last time I tried that with my current group half the players tiny
little minds melted from having to deal with non-decimal currency.

I've done it with two groups. One rebelled and refused to do it. The
other complained a bit but eventually got used to it. The funny part is
that the biggest complainer (motto: "Math is for suckers") later
borrowed my setting for his own campaign and decided to use Carolingian
currency anyway.

I kept it simple by setting 1d = 1 sp, 1s = 1 gp, 1 pound = 2 pp. Yes,
there were still 12d per shilling, but we did most math in shillings, so
the 12-per thing was never a serious problem. Early on, the players
always knew they'd hit it big when I gave values in pounds. By the time
we got to epic levels, we started using pounds more as the piles of loot
got bigger and the players got more comfortable with the system.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Rupert Boleyn

2003-09-04 22:36:05 UTC

On Thu, 04 Sep 2003 15:53:45 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
I kept it simple by setting 1d = 1 sp, 1s = 1 gp, 1 pound = 2 pp. Yes,
there were still 12d per shilling, but we did most math in shillings, so
the 12-per thing was never a serious problem. Early on, the players
always knew they'd hit it big when I gave values in pounds. By the time
we got to epic levels, we started using pounds more as the piles of loot
got bigger and the players got more comfortable with the system.

Way back when I was ine vasity we had a C&S game going, set in a
psuedo-historical Europe, and we had historical coinage, including
flucating values of coin from Tours vs that from Paris, and so on. At
was fun at the time, but I suspect we wasted a good bit of time on
something that didn't really add a whole lot to a game based around
knights and foresters.

--
Rupert Boleyn <***@paradise.net.nz>
"A pessimist is simply an optimist with a sense of history."

Boyd & Michelle Bottorff

2003-09-04 23:55:39 UTC

I really liked the seashell system some of my elves were using. I was
quite disappointed to find out that shells were also a real-world
currency at times-- in fact, even until quite recently.

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-05 00:20:03 UTC

Post by Rupert Boleyn
Way back when I was ine vasity we had a C&S game going, set in a
psuedo-historical Europe, and we had historical coinage, including
flucating values of coin from Tours vs that from Paris, and so on. At
was fun at the time, but I suspect we wasted a good bit of time on
something that didn't really add a whole lot to a game based around
knights and foresters.

Hey, "it was fun at the time" is reason enough.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Rupert Boleyn

2003-09-05 08:15:00 UTC

On Fri, 05 Sep 2003 00:20:03 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Hey, "it was fun at the time" is reason enough.

Of course. However it's not reason enough to inflict it upon my
current group, entertaining though it might be to watch their brains
explode.

--
Rupert Boleyn <***@paradise.net.nz>
"A pessimist is simply an optimist with a sense of history."

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-05 16:20:13 UTC

Post by Rupert Boleyn
On Fri, 05 Sep 2003 00:20:03 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Hey, "it was fun at the time" is reason enough.

Of course. However it's not reason enough to inflict it upon my
current group, entertaining though it might be to watch their brains
explode.

Awwww!

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Bryan J. Maloney

2003-09-04 23:54:09 UTC

I usually aim for that in my games. I use pounds, shillings, and
pence, with weights and values close to those of early English coins.
(I usually ignore inflation and debasement for simplicity's sake.)

Last time I tried that with my current group half the players tiny
little minds melted from having to deal with non-decimal currency.

I've done it with two groups. One rebelled and refused to do it. The
other complained a bit but eventually got used to it. The funny part is
that the biggest complainer (motto: "Math is for suckers") later
borrowed my setting for his own campaign and decided to use Carolingian
currency anyway.
I kept it simple by setting 1d = 1 sp, 1s = 1 gp, 1 pound = 2 pp. Yes,
there were still 12d per shilling, but we did most math in shillings, so
the 12-per thing was never a serious problem. Early on, the players
always knew they'd hit it big when I gave values in pounds. By the time
we got to epic levels, we started using pounds more as the piles of loot
got bigger and the players got more comfortable with the system.

That's when you start throwing in marks just to muck 'em up!

Rupert Boleyn

2003-09-05 00:04:55 UTC

On Thu, 04 Sep 2003 23:54:09 GMT, "Bryan J. Maloney"

Post by Bryan J. Maloney

That's when you start throwing in marks just to muck 'em up!

I found Guineas blew my players minds quite nicely. Add in groats,
crowns, half-crowns, and florins and things get nicely complicated.

--
Rupert Boleyn <***@paradise.net.nz>
"A pessimist is simply an optimist with a sense of history."

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-05 06:04:19 UTC

Post by Rupert Boleyn
I found Guineas blew my players minds quite nicely.

Heh. "Why are they worth 21 shillings?!"

Post by Rupert Boleyn
Add in groats ....
crowns, half-crowns ....

I forget what crowns are worth.

Post by Rupert Boleyn
and florins and things get nicely complicated.

Florins are nasty. Especially if you introduce the whole Italian
dual-standard coinage. "Uh, is this a silver silver coin or a gold
silver coin?"

But Bryan made a good call with marks. "13 shillings, 4 pence? WTF?!"
Just don't tell them that it's 160d -- way too easy that way.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Rupert Boleyn

2003-09-05 08:17:43 UTC

On Fri, 05 Sep 2003 06:04:19 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Post by Rupert Boleyn
I found Guineas blew my players minds quite nicely.

Heh. "Why are they worth 21 shillings?!"

Post by Rupert Boleyn
Add in groats ....
crowns, half-crowns ....

I forget what crowns are worth.

Post by Rupert Boleyn
and florins and things get nicely complicated.

Florins are nasty. Especially if you introduce the whole Italian
dual-standard coinage. "Uh, is this a silver silver coin or a gold
silver coin?"

I find even good old English ones are quite scary enough. I mean, why
would you need a 20d coin as well as a 12d coin (and a 30d, and a 60d
if you add in half crowns and crowns).

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
But Bryan made a good call with marks. "13 shillings, 4 pence? WTF?!"

That should be 13 and 4, or 13 bob and a groat for real confusion.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
Just don't tell them that it's 160d -- way too easy that way.

Naturally. Just like I neglected to tell them that a guinea was 21
shillings, rather than the 20 a normal pound/sovreign is. :)

--
Rupert Boleyn <***@paradise.net.nz>
"A pessimist is simply an optimist with a sense of history."

Geoffrey Brent

2003-09-08 00:07:50 UTC

How about the Angel, the Rose, the Rose Real, and those Dollars that
England minted during the reign of Elizabeth I?

Or, skipping forwards a few hundred years, Australia's Holey Dollar and
Dump. In 1813 the colony was short of currency, so Governor Macquarie
bought up Spanish dollars (worth 5 shillings apiece), and punched out
the centers to create a large Holey Dollar and a small Dump.

By valuing the Holey Dollar at 5 shillings and the Dump at
one-and-threepence, he not only made sure they stayed in the colony, but
also more than recouped the cost of 'minting' them...

That extra shilling is the gentleman's privilige. A gentleman spends the
Guinea as a straight pound. The extra shilling is intentionally over-
spent as a sign of being a true gentleman.

Ah, inbuilt gratuity.

Rupert Boleyn

2003-09-05 08:18:44 UTC

On Fri, 05 Sep 2003 06:04:19 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
But Bryan made a good call with marks. "13 shillings, 4 pence? WTF?!"
Just don't tell them that it's 160d -- way too easy that way.

I always simply remember it as 2/3rds of a pound. Easy, as long as
you're okay with the notion that the currency isn't decimal.

--
Rupert Boleyn <***@paradise.net.nz>
"A pessimist is simply an optimist with a sense of history."

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-07 22:42:52 UTC

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
But Bryan made a good call with marks. "13 shillings, 4 pence? WTF?!"
Just don't tell them that it's 160d -- way too easy that way.

I always simply remember it as 2/3rds of a pound. Easy, as long as
you're okay with the notion that the currency isn't decimal.

Definitely. Although there's still the question, "Why *two* thirds? Why
no 1/3 unit? And also the fact that most sources IME omit the fact that
it's 2/3, which forces the reader to derive the relationship himself.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

b***@dmcom.net

2003-09-07 23:43:58 UTC

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
Definitely. Although there's still the question, "Why *two* thirds? Why
no 1/3 unit? And also the fact that most sources IME omit the fact that
it's 2/3, which forces the reader to derive the relationship himself.

"and the English mark equals 8 ounces or 226.8 grams. The English unit
was used almost entirely for measuring precious metals. "

"troy weights a traditional English weight system of great antiquity,
apparently in use since long before the Norman conquest of 1066.
The system is believed to be named for the French market town of
Troyes, where English merchants traded at least as early as the time of
Charlemagne (early ninth century). The system is based on the troy pound
[2] of 5760 grains. The pound was divided into 12 ounces (480 grains)
each containing 20 pennyweight (24 grains). Apothocaries, however,
divided the troy ounce into 8 drams (60 grains) each containing 3
scruples (20 grains). The origin of the troy system is not clear, but a
number of scholars believe the dram corresponds to the denarius, a Roman
coin that weighed about 60 English grains and (when used as a weight)
was also divided into 3 scruples. The troy system was always the
theoretical basis of the traditional English monetary system, in which
there were 12 pence (pennies) to the shilling and 20 shillings to the
pound. However, in medieval England pennies did not actually weigh a
pennyweight, because they were made using the tower weight system (see
above) and thus weighed 22.5 grains instead of 24. In 1527, Henry VIII
abolished the tower pound and made the troy system official for coinage;
thereafter silver shillings weighed exactly 0.6 troy ounce. The smaller
troy weights continued in common use in pharmacy and monetary affairs
into the early twentieth century, but the troy pound was abolished in
1878 to avoid any commercial confusion with the avoirdupois pound. The
troy system is practically obsolete today, but the prices of precious
metals are still quoted by the troy ounce. "

That does not nessesarly add up, though certainlu posible if a pound to
not weigh a pound in metal.

adds: http://www.hemyockcastle.co.uk/money.htm

"Mark:
Money. Normally the silver mark, a measure of silver, generally
eight ounces, accepted throughout medieval western Europe. In England
was worth thirteen shillings and four pence, ie. two thirds of £1.
Equivalent to present value of the Euro.

The gold mark was worth £6."

--
news:news.groups FAQ at http://www.dmcom.net/bard/ngfaq.txt
Want a new group FAQs http://web.presby.edu/~nnqadmin/nnq/ncreate.html

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-07 23:59:09 UTC

***@dmcom.net <***@dmcom.net> wrote:
[snip a bunch of stuff about the Carolingian currency system]

Post by b***@dmcom.net
That does not nessesarly add up, though certainlu posible if a pound
to not weigh a pound in metal.

Huh? Please try writing in English next time.

And it does add up. A pound Troy (5760 grains, 12 ounces Troy) is not
the same thing as a pound avdp (7000 grains, 16 ounces avdp).

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

b***@dmcom.net

2003-09-08 01:52:30 UTC

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
[snip a bunch of stuff about the Carolingian currency system]
Huh? Please try writing in English next time.

It appears you understood my post.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
And it does add up. A pound Troy (5760 grains, 12 ounces Troy) is not
the same thing as a pound avdp (7000 grains, 16 ounces avdp).

No it does not add up, if the mark is based on troy it is 1/2 of a troy
pound and less then 1/2 a pound avdp, if a mark is 1/2 of pound avdp
3500 gains which is not 2/3rds of a troy pound (2/3 of a troy pound is
3840 grains, 2/3 of an avdp is 4666.666667 gains).

The only correct answer appears to be that the English pound did not
weigh a pound of the metal silver, the numbers do not compute. There is
no way you can get a monatary pound out of gold either as a pound as the
pound standard (weight, most likely troy) = 12 pounds monatray
(English/Angle/Saxon/Jute/Celt/Briton/Roman/whatever origin).

*shrugs* The "tower weight system" does not fully work either. "The
troy system was always the theoretical basis of the traditional English
monetary system, in which there were 12 pence (pennies) to the shilling
and 20 shillings to the pound. However, in medieval England pennies did
not actually weigh a pennyweight, because they were made using the tower
weight system and thus weighed 22,5 grains instead of 24."

The math indicates that this pound weighed 5400 grains, 2/3 of which
would weigh 3600, very slight amount over 1/2 of an avdp and still less
then 2/3 troy (3840 grains)

In the end you (unless I have a calculation error) have this:

lb in grains Troy avdp tower weight system
1 lb 5760 7000 5400
2/3 lb 3840 4666.666667 3600
1/2 lb 2880 3500 2700

The closest numbers are tower weight system 2/3 coming close to equaling
1/2 avdp pound (near a 3 percent diference in weights). IAE the only way
it comes close to adding up is using the tower weight system, the
variences from other combonations of 2/3 to 1/2 are larger then 3
percent.

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Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-08 04:14:16 UTC

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
[snip a bunch of stuff about the Carolingian currency system]
Huh? Please try writing in English next time.

It appears you understood my post.

Lucky guess, I suppose.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
And it does add up. A pound Troy (5760 grains, 12 ounces Troy) is not
the same thing as a pound avdp (7000 grains, 16 ounces avdp).

The English mark is a unit of value worth 8 Troy ounces of silver: 3840
grains, about 249g. I don't know where you got the first quote, claiming
that the mark weighs 226g, but the source is totally incorrect. First,
marks don't weigh anything; it's a unit of value, not a coin. Second,
226g is 8 ounces avdp, and you never, ever weigh silver in avoidupois.

Post by b***@dmcom.net
The only correct answer appears to be that the English pound did not
weigh a pound of the metal silver, the numbers do not compute.

The English pound was also a unit of value, not a coin, so it obviously
didn't weigh anything. However, its value was indeed a Troy pound of
sterling silver. Your conclusion is ridiculous.

Post by b***@dmcom.net
There is no way you can get a monatary pound out of gold either as a
pound as the pound standard (weight, most likely troy) = 12 pounds
monatray (English/Angle/Saxon/Jute/Celt/Briton/Roman/whatever origin).

I have no idea what you're trying to say here. Could you please at least
*try* to write coherent English sentences? What little I can puzzle out
of the above suggests that you don't have the slightest clue what you're
talking about.

The pound sterling is the value of a Troy pound of sterling silver.
There are 12 Troy ounces (480 grains each) in a Troy pound. A mark is a
unit of value equal to 8 Troy ounces of sterling silver (13s 4d). A
shilling is 12d, or 1/20 Troy pound of silver, and a penny is 1/240 Troy
pound (24 grains) of silver.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-05 00:31:49 UTC

Post by Bryan J. Maloney

I usually aim for that in my games. I use pounds, shillings, and
pence, with weights and values close to those of early English coins.
(I usually ignore inflation and debasement for simplicity's sake.)

Last time I tried that with my current group half the players tiny
little minds melted from having to deal with non-decimal currency.

I've done it with two groups. One rebelled and refused to do it. The
other complained a bit but eventually got used to it. The funny part is
that the biggest complainer (motto: "Math is for suckers") later
borrowed my setting for his own campaign and decided to use Carolingian
currency anyway.
I kept it simple by setting 1d = 1 sp, 1s = 1 gp, 1 pound = 2 pp. Yes,
there were still 12d per shilling, but we did most math in shillings, so
the 12-per thing was never a serious problem. Early on, the players
always knew they'd hit it big when I gave values in pounds. By the time
we got to epic levels, we started using pounds more as the piles of loot
got bigger and the players got more comfortable with the system.

That's when you start throwing in marks just to muck 'em up!

Damn! I'll need to remember that for next time.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Bryan J. Maloney

2003-09-04 12:47:17 UTC

No, the face value D&D coin is worth *less* than the metal content
(admittedly, based on a long string of assumptions and inferences).

They state what the actual precious metal content is?

Peter Knutsen

2003-09-04 15:38:20 UTC

Post by Bryan J. Maloney
Of course, that's only if one wants to have a veneer of "history" on
prices.

I usually aim for that in my games. I use pounds, shillings, and pence,

That's a pointless thing to do. My Ærth campaigns simply use pennies
(Xd - which conveniently happens to be the standard unit of currency
in FFRE, because the denarius is more universal than the
dollar/thaler), so a player might keep track of hundreds of pennies or
(literally) millions of pennies if his character is very wealthy.

Keeping track of shillings, silver marks, pounds and gold marks is
left as a job for the *character*. It's a big mistake when Ars Magica
or Pendragon supplements list costs in £/s/h. Roleplaying gaming is
about making in-character decisions, and pointless accounting
complexity does not affect the quality or in-character'ness of the
decisions made, except in so far as the players may have less mental
ressrouces left for the roleplaying after they've dealt with the
pointless currency issues.

with weights and values close to those of early English coins.

I do track denominations (French pennies vs Italian pennies) when it
matters, and weight if it is relevant (i.e. for large amounts), and
also cash-equivalent objects like rings (finger, arm and neck rings)
and hack-silver. Art objects get a cost multiplier which only applies
if the object is unmolested (like a silver candle stick with pearls,
which is worth 2X pennies if whole, but only X pennies if hacked or if
bartered to someone uncouth who sees it merely as hack-silver).

(I usually ignore inflation and debasement for simplicity's sake.)

I figure it happens so slowly that it's not worth taking into account.
If German pennies are worth half as much as Danish pennies at the
start of the campain, then they are also worth half as much as Danish
pennies at the end of the campaign, even if that is two decades later.

--
Peter Knutsen

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-04 20:28:59 UTC

Post by Peter Knutsen

I usually aim for that in my games. I use pounds, shillings, and pence,

That's a pointless thing to do.

It's pointless to use a system of coinage that adds flavor to the
setting? Lay off the crack, Peter.

Post by Peter Knutsen
Keeping track of shillings, silver marks, pounds and gold marks is
left as a job for the *character*.

My players generally only recorded shillings (which are equivalent to gp
in my setting). I described treasures, bounties, etc. in pounds,
shillings, or pence as appropriate for the scale, and translated them to
gp on request. After a while, the players didn't need my help anymore.

Post by Peter Knutsen
Roleplaying gaming is about making in-character decisions, and
pointless accounting complexity does not affect the quality or
in-character'ness of the decisions made ....

The extra flavor helps to get in character, to strengthen the mental
firewall between the player world and the character world.

Post by Peter Knutsen

(I usually ignore inflation and debasement for simplicity's sake.)

Not what I was talking about. By the high medieval period, inflation and
debasement were already significant, but for my setting I assumed that a
penny was still a pennyweight of sterling silver.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-04 06:41:00 UTC

Bradd W. Szonye, worshipped by llamas the world over, wrote...

I understand that current Canadian dollar coins are like that, in a
deliberate move to make counterfeiting them pointless.

Interesting. It didn't happen often historically, or at least not for
long -- the coins would disappear because people would melt them down.
Of course, that too is pointless if you limit private ownership of
bullion.

My impression is that this is fairly common today - I guess the
question then becomes, does anyone know when this practice started?

No clue.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Justisaur

2003-09-04 07:35:17 UTC

Another way of looking at it is to say that a shortsword (10gp) is
very roughly equivalent to a gun at $1000. Or a horse to a car. These
gives values of about $100 = 1GP (very roughly).

I generally use $100 per gold ($1 per CP). It seems to work out best.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
Also, note that 1 gp = $100 means that a 50 gp black onyx gem would
weigh about *one thousand carats* (200g). That's a ridiculously large
gem -- five inches in diameter? -- bigger than your fist, I think.

That's too big considering you have to put them in the eye sockets. I
was thinking of comming at it from a D&D perspective if possible, as
that will hopefully give less contravertial results. Like how much does
a gem weigh and what's a typical gem worth in D&D?

It was originally a statue, and was finished black onyx. Now what it
looks like after it's all broken up is another matter. He might need to
get a gemcutter. And that would be a lot of gems to finish. Might
take him awhile.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
five tons rough chalcedony = 1,000,000 gp = 25,000 gems
five tons cut onyx = 50,000,000 gp = 1,000,000 gems
Unless this is an epic campaign, Justisaur may have some wealth control
problems if the PCs manage to beat this guy before he finishes his
undead army. Hm, how long will it take him to cast all those spells?

Well he is 17th lv. He's also currently a 'friend' of the PCs
(Mwhahahahaha!). So with a desicrate spell up... don't think he has
access to that though, so I'll drop it. 34 human skeletons per
casting. He can cast it 4 times a day, so 136 skeletons a day. Almost
1000 per week. My orginal target was 10,000 so it would take him about
3-4 months. Not bad.

Hmm. Reading up the spell again, it's now 25 gp PER HD. Of course
standard human skeletons are 1 HD...

--
- Justisaur -
check http://justisaur.tripod.com/well.htm for my encounter generator,
xp calculator, and other usefull documents.

Rupert Boleyn

2003-09-04 12:40:06 UTC

They're not actually that big, and 25gp (v3.5) ones are even smaller.

Post by Justisaur
It was originally a statue, and was finished black onyx. Now what it
looks like after it's all broken up is another matter. He might need to
get a gemcutter. And that would be a lot of gems to finish. Might
take him awhile.

For the Desecrate spell, surely he can find a neutral or evil cleric
who needs a bit of gold?

--
Rupert Boleyn <***@paradise.net.nz>
"A pessimist is simply an optimist with a sense of history."

Justisaur

2003-09-04 20:13:28 UTC

They're not actually that big, and 25gp (v3.5) ones are even smaller.

For the Desecrate spell, surely he can find a neutral or evil cleric
who needs a bit of gold?

Hmm. Thought it was a higher level spell, only 2nd lv cleric. Yes he's
got a 5th lv evil cleric cronie. That halves the time (since it doubles
the number of HD possible per spell.)

Allow 6-8 weeks for delivery of your undead army :)

He might be able to create some nastier undead with create (greater)
undead. He'd want to be able to control them pretty well though, as
most of those "hate life" which isn't a problem with uncontrolled
awakened skeletons.

- Justisaur -
check http://justisaur.tripod.com/well.htm for my encounter generator,
xp calculator, and other usefull documents.

Justisaur

2003-09-05 01:23:10 UTC

Post by Justisaur
Well he is 17th lv. He's also currently a 'friend' of the PCs
(Mwhahahahaha!). So with a desicrate spell up... don't think he has
access to that though, so I'll drop it. 34 human skeletons per
casting. He can cast it 4 times a day, so 136 skeletons a day. Almost
1000 per week. My orginal target was 10,000 so it would take him about
3-4 months. Not bad.

Limited Wish gives him access if he needs it. You should ALWAYS
create undead in a desecrated area with an alter for the extra 2 HP
per HD if nothing else.

Ooh. I hadn't noticed that.

Post by Rupert Boleyn
For the Desecrate spell, surely he can find a neutral or evil cleric
who needs a bit of gold?

Hmm. Thought it was a higher level spell, only 2nd lv cleric. Yes he's
got a 5th lv evil cleric cronie. That halves the time (since it doubles
the number of HD possible per spell.)
Allow 6-8 weeks for delivery of your undead army :)
He might be able to create some nastier undead with create (greater)
undead. He'd want to be able to control them pretty well though, as
most of those "hate life" which isn't a problem with uncontrolled
awakened skeletons.

Cutting/polishing the Gems still feels like the real delay. Fabricate
creates 'a product', and there are good reasons to not allow it to mass
produce, but if you do allow mass production with a fabricate (or allow
the NPC to invent a level 9 mass fabricate spell) then that problem may
well be solved.
Alternately could he somehow get the skeletons to cut the gems, hmm,
no Int, so they probably cannot use an untrained Craft check, OTOH
he could use Awaken Undead from Savage Species on a few skeletons,
and have them do the cutting/polishing.

He's planning on using that spell anyway, there's no other way I can see
to get a whole bunch of skeletons to do your bidding... I'm still
wondering about thier personality though. Do they have his personality,
the previous um... owner's personality, or some random personality?
Since they are Neutral Evil *always* according to the 3.5e MM I don't
see either A, or B working (he's LE, not NE).

At level 17 there are so many options that this should be solvable, if
worst comes to worse gate or teleport somewhere with lots of
gemcutters and let them do it for half the resulting stones.

It's a rather desolate setting, last bastion of humanity and all that,
so it's not really an option.

If you go by craft and actually have to spend all that time cutting,
polishing and dying then it could take a really really long time. Lets
see, if you go by average int, with no skill, and a DC of say 12. You
have 250 sp worth of work to do, you get an average of 15.5 on a
successful roll, x 45% success rate x 12 for the DC for an average of
83.7 sp of work per week per skeleton working on it, each skeleton needs
3 weeks to make one finished stone... Yep that will take a really long
time... Assume he hires a decent gemcutter, say with a +15, can take 10,
it still takes him one week per gem. Even with say 10 full time
apprentices, it would take a month just to get enough for one casting.
Damn.

Hmm, that brings up another odd idea. Most crafts use 1/3 the finished
costs in materials, does that mean that the black onyx is worth 3x as
much after being "finished"? Probably not germain to the descussion, we
can just figure out what the finished product is worth.

Looking at Fabricate, I'm not entirely sure that it shouldn't be able to
create multiples. He can do 17 cubic feet per casting, that should
finish the gems rather quickly. He won't have any problem with the 12
DC even being untrained, since his Int is up in the 25-30 range.

Even if it were argued that he could only make one gem per casting since
the result is a "product", he could cast 4 of these a day, and get gems
much faster than going through all the hasle of gemcutters.
Unfortuantly at that rate it lowers him to about 1 year per 1,000,
definitely too slow. The spell description says "items" though, so I'm
inclined to think you can make more than one item per casting. On the
other hand I'm not sure I'd want PCs getting ahold of this spell
(interpreted that way), it could quickly unbalance the game, as you
could craft a lot of items with it and make a very big profit in a
hurry.

I think I'll go with the multiple items interpretation. So that just
leaves figuring out how long it will take him to find and dig up
skeletons. And still nailing down how much 10,000 lbs of onyx is worth.

DougL

--
- Justisaur -
check http://justisaur.tripod.com/well.htm for my encounter generator,
xp calculator, and other usefull documents.

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-05 06:05:41 UTC

Even if it were argued that he could only make one gem per casting [of
fabricate] since the result is a "product", he could cast 4 of these a
day ....

Don't forget that you can use your higher-level slots (for both spells,
fabricate and animate dead).

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Mark Blunden

2003-09-04 18:43:27 UTC

That's too big considering you have to put them in the eye sockets.

Since price-conversion based on real-world values seems to lead to such
variable results, why not just take the above as your starting-point -
assume that a 50 GP (if v3.0) or 25 GP (if v3.5) onyx gem is just the right
size to fit snugly into an empty eye-socket, work out how much an
eyeball-sized onyx weighs, and then see how many of them you can get out of
your available supply.

--
Mark.

* Life's like that. Best thing's to just get on with it.

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-04 19:05:20 UTC

Post by Mark Blunden
Since price-conversion based on real-world values seems to lead to
such variable results, why not just take the above as your
starting-point - assume that a 50 GP (if v3.0) or 25 GP (if v3.5) onyx
gem is just the right size to fit snugly into an empty eye-socket,
work out how much an eyeball-sized onyx weighs, and then see how many
of them you can get out of your available supply.

A 50-carat round onyx gem is almost exactly the same size as a human
eyeball. A 25-carat gem is closer to the size of the eye's iris. Thus,
my earlier estimate that cut onyx is worth about 1 gp per carat works
out nicely for this spell.

Yes, I made a bunch of assumptions in deriving that price, and I suspect
that the gp value of the component was based on game balance, not carat
weight, but it does make for a happy coincidence. (It also backs up the
1 gp = $5 standard, at least for valuing precious metals and gems. The
1 gp = $20 standard is probably better for mundane gear.)

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-04 20:02:29 UTC

Anyway, a five ton statue should yield roughly 500 kilograms of cut
onyx, enough for 100,000 gems at 25 carats (25 gp) each. Altogether,
they'll be worth about 2.5 million gp.

This plan has a few practical problems for the NPC and for you as DM.

First, you need to exceed the 4 HD per caster level limit on animate
dead. IIRC, you have some way around this cap already.

Second, you need some way to cut the gems. I have no idea what a
realistic limit would be, but going by the D&D Craft rules, it'd take
your basic master gemcutter (Craft +10) about a day to cut each gem. A
great master could cut two per day. It'll take him a very, very long
time to cut and dye all that onyx. Let's assume that the cleric finds a
magical way to cut it quickly.

Third, he'll need 100,000 reasonably intact corpses.

Fourth, the cleric can only cast /animate dead/ about 24-30 times per
day, if he loads up all of his 3rd-level and higher slots. He can create
about 800 to 1,000 skeletons per day if he devotes all of his magic to
it. It'll take him over three months to create all 100,000 skeletons.

Fifth, he'll need a place to hide the first several thousand skeletons
while he finishes the job. If he can control them, perhaps he can store
them in their own graves until they're ready.

Finally, if anybody catches on before he's finished -- and there's a
good chance that somebody will notice after the first few thousand
skeletons, then you'll have a couple million gp worth of onyx sitting
around. While this isn't a big problem for the NPC, it could be a major
campaign control problem for you as DM.

This plan would work a lot better if you use a plot dev--, er, epic
level spell to do the whole job in a short time. Even that might cause
trouble. If it turns into "defeat the necromancer before he can create
his army," then you'll have all that onyx sitting around where greedy
little PCs can get at it.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Rupert Boleyn

2003-09-04 22:42:00 UTC

On Thu, 04 Sep 2003 20:02:29 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Anyway, a five ton statue should yield roughly 500 kilograms of cut
onyx, enough for 100,000 gems at 25 carats (25 gp) each. Altogether,
they'll be worth about 2.5 million gp.

This plan has a few practical problems for the NPC and for you as DM.
First, you need to exceed the 4 HD per caster level limit on animate
dead. IIRC, you have some way around this cap already.

That's not a limit on what you can animate, only on what you can
control at any one time.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
Second, you need some way to cut the gems. I have no idea what a
realistic limit would be, but going by the D&D Craft rules, it'd take
your basic master gemcutter (Craft +10) about a day to cut each gem. A
great master could cut two per day. It'll take him a very, very long
time to cut and dye all that onyx. Let's assume that the cleric finds a
magical way to cut it quickly.

I suspect the dyeing could be done quite quickly because for that
quantity it'd be worth setting up a production line of vats, etc.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
Fifth, he'll need a place to hide the first several thousand skeletons
while he finishes the job. If he can control them, perhaps he can store
them in their own graves until they're ready.

A walled enclosure would probably do.

--
Rupert Boleyn <***@paradise.net.nz>
"A pessimist is simply an optimist with a sense of history."

Justisaur

2003-09-05 01:59:17 UTC

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
Second, you need some way to cut the gems. I have no idea what a
realistic limit would be, but going by the D&D Craft rules, it'd take
your basic master gemcutter (Craft +10) about a day to cut each gem.
A great master could cut two per day. It'll take him a very, very
long time to cut and dye all that onyx. Let's assume that the cleric
finds a magical way to cut it quickly.

I suspect the dyeing could be done quite quickly because for that
quantity it'd be worth setting up a production line of vats, etc.

I assumed the dying time was negligible compared to the cutting time,
which is about one gem per day BTB.

I'm wondering where you are getting this figure, by my calculations it
should be 1 per week for a very good gemcutter, 1 per 3 weeks for
someone with no skill.

--
- Justisaur -
check http://justisaur.tripod.com/well.htm for my encounter generator,
xp calculator, and other usefull documents.

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-05 02:26:19 UTC

I assumed the dying time was negligible compared to the cutting time,
which is about one gem per day BTB.

I'm wondering where you are getting this figure, by my calculations it
should be 1 per week for a very good gemcutter, 1 per 3 weeks for
someone with no skill.

Oops! I somehow forgot that Craft checks are once per week, not once per
day. Honestly, that sounds far too long for gemcutting, but then I'm not
a gemologist.

By the way, the 1/3 raw materials cost is almost exactly right for onyx.
1kg of onyx is worth $1,000; it yields 100g (500ct) of cut stones worth
about $2,500.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

b***@dmcom.net

2003-09-05 13:40:29 UTC

I assumed the dying time was negligible compared to the cutting time,
which is about one gem per day BTB.

I'm wondering where you are getting this figure, by my calculations it
should be 1 per week for a very good gemcutter, 1 per 3 weeks for
someone with no skill.

Oops! I somehow forgot that Craft checks are once per week, not once per
day. Honestly, that sounds far too long for gemcutting, but then I'm not
a gemologist.

BTB you can do day work also. "Progress by the Day: The character can
make checks by the day instead of by the week, in which case the
character's progress (result times DC) is at one tenth the weekly rate."

Of couse it depends on the DC set and degree of skill and check roll, if
a 25 gp gem can be produced in a day. It certainly is too long to
require a week to produce a gem, a day sounds too long. There can be
another way to approch this however.
"Check: The character can practice a trade and make a decent living,
earning about half the check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated
work. The character knows how to use the tools of the trade, how to
perform the craft's daily tasks, how to supervise untrained helpers, and
how to handle common problems. "
A gem cutter would be cutting gems as a daily task, the skill check
perhaps applied only to crafting a very specific gem (eg, dimond cut in
the shape of a heart) rather then production line small gems.

http://www.palagems.com/romance_stone.htm

offers "cutting a 26-carat emerald that was unearthed by ancient Indians
in Colombia, dispatched to Spain by the Conquistadors, sunk in hurricane
and lost on the ocean bottom for the last 370 years. Value? About
$250,000. No sweat. Twelve hours later, the rough stone was a glittering
gem, the color of a mountain stream." (It was a 69 faceted gem).

http://www.gemstoneartist.com/Cutting.asp
offers "I also perform repair cutting of damaged gemstones. Here are a
couple of photos of a very large amethyst I recently repaired:

The "before" photo on the left shows a scratched table (1), worn crown
facets (2), and a severe chip near the girdle (3). The stone is also
covered with myriad tiny scratches, virtually "frosting" the surface and
giving it a dull appearance.

The "after" photo on the right shows the same stone after a complete
crown recut - about three hours later. The damage has been repaired and
the full sparkle and beauty of this gem have been restored."

This site also offers a "CUTTING INVESTMENT CALCULATOR:" that might be
of some use (not sure, output does not display in my browser).

IAE it does appear under the right conditions more then one gem can be
cut per day and certainly less then one week.

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Justisaur

2003-09-05 21:01:37 UTC

I assumed the dying time was negligible compared to the cutting time,
which is about one gem per day BTB.

I'm wondering where you are getting this figure, by my calculations it
should be 1 per week for a very good gemcutter, 1 per 3 weeks for
someone with no skill.

Oops! I somehow forgot that Craft checks are once per week, not once per
day. Honestly, that sounds far too long for gemcutting, but then I'm not
a gemologist.

Gem cutters generally don't have a production line, except perhaps in
modern times. I could easily see cutting a stone as a 1 day venture on
average though.

Post by b***@dmcom.net
http://www.palagems.com/romance_stone.htm

This set claims 50-60% of a stone lost in faceting. Of course as Bradd
has mentioned faceted stones were not available in medieval times, it's
very recent in fact.

I would think cutting a gem should fall under the usual craft. But
obviously the normal craft rules don't make sense. If we went with $100
per gp (just being concervative for the DC), that gem would be worth
2,500 gp after cutting. A real master gemcutter - lv 20, skill focus,
30 stat, masterwork magic tools +20, and say 5 synergies would have a
+64, setting the DC at say 18 for masterwork, and rolling a 20 would
make 151 gp per week of it, so it would take 16 weeks by DnD rules.

Obviously this isn't right, as the article describes it took 12 hours.
If we go with the daily bread and butter method the gemcutter only earns
37gp for the entire week of work cutting this stone. Actually thinking
about it, that's not that bad, as it was an unusual stone, if you
continue out the cutting over a year she'd be making almost as much as
that one stone is worth, and you could just say that stone was averaged
out over the year.

I think that works.

Post by b***@dmcom.net
offers "cutting a 26-carat emerald that was unearthed by ancient Indians
in Colombia, dispatched to Spain by the Conquistadors, sunk in hurricane
and lost on the ocean bottom for the last 370 years. Value? About
$250,000. No sweat. Twelve hours later, the rough stone was a glittering
gem, the color of a mountain stream." (It was a 69 faceted gem).
http://www.gemstoneartist.com/Cutting.asp
offers "I also perform repair cutting of damaged gemstones. Here are a

Interesting, custom cutting gives about a 35% yield as opposed to 15% on
a commercial (standardized) cut. I'd imagine any medieval gem cutter
would of course be 'custom' cutting, as they don't generally have a
concept of standardization.

Post by b***@dmcom.net
The "before" photo on the left shows a scratched table (1), worn crown
facets (2), and a severe chip near the girdle (3). The stone is also
covered with myriad tiny scratches, virtually "frosting" the surface and
giving it a dull appearance.
The "after" photo on the right shows the same stone after a complete
crown recut - about three hours later. The damage has been repaired and
the full sparkle and beauty of this gem have been restored."
This site also offers a "CUTTING INVESTMENT CALCULATOR:" that might be
of some use (not sure, output does not display in my browser).
IAE it does appear under the right conditions more then one gem can be
cut per day and certainly less then one week.
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--
- Justisaur -
check http://justisaur.tripod.com/well.htm for my encounter generator,
xp calculator, and other useful documents.

b***@dmcom.net

2003-09-06 18:12:15 UTC

Post by Justisaur
Obviously this isn't right, as the article describes it took 12 hours.
If we go with the daily bread and butter method the gemcutter only earns
37gp for the entire week of work cutting this stone. Actually thinking
about it, that's not that bad, as it was an unusual stone, if you
continue out the cutting over a year she'd be making almost as much as
that one stone is worth, and you could just say that stone was averaged
out over the year.
I think that works.

It can work in some cases, however overall crafting had little
consideration, because it was rarly considered to become a major element
of a game. The higher the DC the quicker one can make it if they can
take 10 or othererwise has no chance of failure.

<trimed>

Post by Justisaur
Interesting, custom cutting gives about a 35% yield as opposed to 15% on
a commercial (standardized) cut. I'd imagine any medieval gem cutter
would of course be 'custom' cutting, as they don't generally have a
concept of standardization.

Yes custom cutting would basically apply, no manufacting line.

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Rupert Boleyn

2003-09-05 08:23:55 UTC

On Fri, 05 Sep 2003 00:23:04 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
Second, you need some way to cut the gems. I have no idea what a
realistic limit would be, but going by the D&D Craft rules, it'd take
your basic master gemcutter (Craft +10) about a day to cut each gem.
A great master could cut two per day. It'll take him a very, very
long time to cut and dye all that onyx. Let's assume that the cleric
finds a magical way to cut it quickly.

I suspect the dyeing could be done quite quickly because for that
quantity it'd be worth setting up a production line of vats, etc.

I assumed the dying time was negligible compared to the cutting time,
which is about one gem per day BTB.

In that case I'd simply dye the rough stuff (so it counts as 'black
onyx') and use more of it per casting (to make up the value).
Basically exchange efficiency for time.

--
Rupert Boleyn <***@paradise.net.nz>
"A pessimist is simply an optimist with a sense of history."

Justisaur

2003-09-05 01:57:49 UTC

Anyway, a five ton statue should yield roughly 500 kilograms of cut
onyx, enough for 100,000 gems at 25 carats (25 gp) each. Altogether,
they'll be worth about 2.5 million gp.

This plan has a few practical problems for the NPC and for you as DM.
First, you need to exceed the 4 HD per caster level limit on animate
dead. IIRC, you have some way around this cap already.

Awaken Undead, and an astronomical diplomacy score. But figuring out
what motivates an awakened skeleton is going to be difficult, what their
personalities are etc...

Someone else suggested fabricate, that looks like it will do it in a day
or two.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
Third, he'll need 100,000 reasonably intact corpses.

The hard part is actually going to be figuring out how long it's going
to take him to gather up all the skeletons. There's basicly ruins from
a metropolis the current city (1-10% the size) is built upon, There were
about 100,000 to 1 million inhabitants at the time of the divine dragon
fire that killed nearly everyone off. So there should be plenty of
corpses - intact is another story, but there should still be enough.
I'm starting to think he might be better off doing it in another defunct
city, but marching all those skeletons could be a logistical nightmare.
Besides he would like to have them handy if anything...undesirable
happens.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
Fourth, the cleric can only cast /animate dead/ about 24-30 times per
day, if he loads up all of his 3rd-level and higher slots. He can create
about 800 to 1,000 skeletons per day if he devotes all of his magic to
it. It'll take him over three months to create all 100,000 skeletons.

Wizard. I only planned originally on having 10,000 skeletons when he
thinks he's ready to take over. Actually he could easly take over now
if he felt like it, he just wants to make sure his plan is hidden until
the last moment. He'll keep making skeletons after that of course until
he's out of onyx (unless he does something else with it, like create
greater undead or something).

Yeah that's tough. There's extensive ruins, I figure he's going to find
a large underground building or something to store them in.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
Finally, if anybody catches on before he's finished -- and there's a
good chance that somebody will notice after the first few thousand
skeletons, then you'll have a couple million gp worth of onyx sitting
around. While this isn't a big problem for the NPC, it could be a major
campaign control problem for you as DM.

The PCs already know he's got the onyx, they got it for him. So I can't
just hand wave it away. They didn't know how much it was worth, what
it's for, and they are slightly cowed by him. It doesn't really matter
in the long run, there's not anywhere they could actually use the money,
if they defeat him, they have pretty much won the campain anyway.

They know something funny is going on, but I don't think they are
anywhere near connecting the dots yet.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
This plan would work a lot better if you use a plot dev--, er, epic
level spell to do the whole job in a short time. Even that might cause
trouble. If it turns into "defeat the necromancer before he can create
his army," then you'll have all that onyx sitting around where greedy
little PCs can get at it.

--
- Justisaur -
check http://justisaur.tripod.com/well.htm for my encounter generator,
xp calculator, and other usefull documents.

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-05 06:07:20 UTC

The PCs already know he's got the onyx, they got it for him.

Yeah, but what do you do if they take the onyx for themselves? If
there's a chance they could foil his plot before he finishes animating
the skeletons, they'll get a hell of a haul.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Justisaur

2003-09-05 01:42:13 UTC

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
While I think $5 per gold piece is a low estimate for costs in
general, I think $100 is far too high. For general cost of gear
comparisons, I think I'd use $20 per gold piece, and $5 for precious
metals.

I generally use $100 per gold ($1 per CP). It seems to work out best.

That's far too high! While it may be convenient, it gives weird results
for almost everything. About the only thing that converts properly are
unskilled wages, but that's a poor standard, since wages don't translate
well between medieval and modern times. I'd go with $5 for precious
metals and gems, $20 for just about everything else.

That's too big considering you have to put them in the eye sockets.

Well, you can also place them in the subject's mouth.

Post by Justisaur
I was thinking of comming at it from a D&D perspective if possible, as
that will hopefully give less contravertial results. Like how much
does a gem weigh and what's a typical gem worth in D&D?

D&D doesn't give a usable answer to these questions. Besides, now you
have an answer based on real-world research!

Post by Justisaur
It was originally a statue, and was finished black onyx. Now what it
looks like after it's all broken up is another matter.

Hm, it might be fudging a bit, but it's probably better to consider it
rough chalcedony. Note that the interior of the statue would not be
black, so the stones will need to be dyed after you break up the statue.
Anyway, a five ton statue should yield roughly 500 kilograms of cut
onyx, enough for 100,000 gems at 25 carats (25 gp) each. Altogether,
they'll be worth about 2.5 million gp.
By the way, that 5-ton statue should have a volume of about two cubic
meters, about 20 times the volume of a human body. Therefore, if it's a
humanoid statue, it should be about 15 feet tall.

It's supposed to be a 7' tall statue.
Well I was actually basing the weight on a 6'10" tall statue from real
life as well. Hmm, looking up statues again. I think I had the weight
right the first time. 4000 lbs. but looking at my notes I put 5 tons.
*scratches head*. O.k. back to 2 tons.

o.k. by your figures, 40,000 gems. I'm still not sure about your
figures. Shouldn't there be 1750 carats to the lb? your figures give
250. Surely you aren't loosing 6/7ths of the material?

Post by Justisaur
Well he is 17th lv.

2.5 million gp is an awful lot of wealth for a 17th-level NPC.

He'll actually be um 22nd ECL shortly since he's going to become a
lich. But still that's quite a bit more than I had intended. 1 Mil for
the corrected ammount - by your figures.

--
- Justisaur -
check http://justisaur.tripod.com/well.htm for my encounter generator,
xp calculator, and other usefull documents.

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-05 02:15:29 UTC

By the way, that 5-ton statue should have a volume of about two cubic
meters, about 20 times the volume of a human body. Therefore, if it's
a humanoid statue, it should be about 15 feet tall.

A seven-foot humanoid statue is only about 1/4 cubic meter. Onyx is
2650 kg/m3, so the statue's mass should only be about 700kg (1,600 lbs).
That will yield about 70kg of cut onyx, 14,000 gems worth a total of
350,000 gp.

o.k. by your figures, 40,000 gems.

14,000 -- what's your source for the statue weight? It's very high.

I'm still not sure about your
figures. Shouldn't there be 1750 carats to the lb?

Yes. However, breaking up the statue into gems yields wastes about 90%
of the material. Cabochon cuts have only about a 10% yield from rough.
(Faceted cuts have about a 15% yield.)

your figures give 250.
Surely you aren't loosing 6/7ths of the material?

More than that, actually. The rest of the difference is probably
rounding and approximation error.

He'll actually be um 22nd ECL shortly since he's going to become a
lich. But still that's quite a bit more than I had intended. 1 Mil
for the corrected ammount - by your figures.

No, only 350,000 gp, unless my estimate of the statue weight is wrong.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Justisaur

2003-09-05 03:16:56 UTC

By the way, that 5-ton statue should have a volume of about two cubic
meters, about 20 times the volume of a human body. Therefore, if it's
a humanoid statue, it should be about 15 feet tall.

o.k. by your figures, 40,000 gems.

14,000 -- what's your source for the statue weight? It's very high.

Remember a statue tends to be much thicker than an acutal human. Unless
it was from a flesh to stone spell :). here:

6'10" 3600 lbs.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/lotus-sculpture/dancingganesh.html

I originally had a few other ones, but I'm having trouble finding them
now. I wasn't sure how much more a 7' statue (that's from head to toe,
unlike the one pictured there which is raised hand to pedistal) would
weigh, but 4000 lbs seems resonable.

Here's one... 7'6 4600 lbs.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/shopping/appianattract.html

I saw another one looking around IIRC 6'3" and 3200 lbs. I lost it
while looking for something a closer match, can't seem to find it again.

I'm still not sure about your
figures. Shouldn't there be 1750 carats to the lb?

Yes. However, breaking up the statue into gems yields wastes about 90%
of the material. Cabochon cuts have only about a 10% yield from rough.
(Faceted cuts have about a 15% yield.)

Wow, I didn't realize there was that much waste. So the finished stones
would weigh a grand total of 400 to 600 lbs at 40,000 yeild that's 1/100
of a lb each but a normal gem would be twice that size so 50/lb. That's
fairly reasonable, and same as the = to a coin estimate. The numbers
are looking pretty good.

Now if there were some way to recover all that waste :) There's mend,
but that would destroy the work done to make the gems. Stone shape
doesn't reconstitue a bunch of stuff into one piece aperantly either.
Ah well.

--
- Justisaur -
check http://justisaur.tripod.com/well.htm for my encounter generator,
xp calculator, and other usefull documents.

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-05 04:48:18 UTC

... what's your source for the statue weight? It's very high.

Remember a statue tends to be much thicker than an acutal human.

Not in my experience.

Post by Justisaur
6'10" 3600 lbs.
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/lotus-sculpture/dancingganesh.html

That's a statue of Ganesh, not a human! It's at least three times the
volume of a human, plus it has a large base.

I found some statues with heights and masses here:

http://www.fireplace-carving.com/figure.htm

Most are between 5'8" and 6'6", and they weigh about 190kg. However, I
suspect that the statues are hollow, because they only weigh about half
what they should, based on human proportions and the density of marble.

http://goodsfromjapan.com/shop/marble_statue.html

I estimate the human portion of this marble statue at about 30kg. The
whole thing is 80kg, but note that most of the volume (at least half) is
in the base.

http://lfpshop.com/catalog/m-a-italy.htm

Three human statues. I estimate their mass at 3.4kg based on their
height. Actual weight of all three: 3.5kg.

http://users.hol.gr/~ianlos/a013.htm

The Kore of Thera, a 2.3m, 750kg Greek marble statue. My formula
estimates her weight at 560kg, but note that the statue is considerably
thicker than a human.

Along the way, I found many statues which were much heavier than my
estimates. Most of them had large non-humanoid portions, but not all.
One article even reported a 2.4 meter marble statue as weighing
75,000kg, which cannot be correct -- a solid block of marble that size
would weigh only 36,000kg.

So while it's hard to tell for certain, it looks like my formula is
correct at least for a large number of statues. Of course, a 7-foot
human statue *could* weigh two tons, if it had a large throne, frame,
pillar, etc. in the sculpture along with the human.

Yes. However, breaking up the statue into gems yields wastes about
90% of the material. Cabochon cuts have only about a 10% yield from
rough. (Faceted cuts have about a 15% yield.)

Wow, I didn't realize there was that much waste.

Yep.

Post by Justisaur
So the finished stones would weigh a grand total of 400 to 600 lbs ....

400 pounds. The 15% yield is for faceted cuts, and you don't cut onyx
with facets. (In fact, medieval gemcutters don't use facets at all,
IIRC -- polished or cabochon cut only.)

Post by Justisaur
at 40,000 yeild that's 1/100 of a lb each but a normal gem would be
twice that size so 50/lb.

25 carats is about 1/70 pound. I suppose 1/50 pound is a reasonable
estimate, but keep in mind that this is a fairly large stone, about 1/2"
in diameter.

Post by Justisaur
Now if there were some way to recover all that waste :)

Heh.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-05 20:36:14 UTC

I'm not too sure about 1 gp per carat, as stones generally follow a
more exponential value than a linear value. Try buying a 5 carat
diamond for what you can buy 5 1 carat diamonds for... Of course onyx
is a much more common stone, and can be found boulder size, so it
might follow a more linear progression.

I figured that it would be close to linear, as long as you don't try for
a truly ridiculous size.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Justisaur

2003-09-05 19:59:37 UTC

Post by Justisaur
Now if there were some way to recover all that waste :) There's mend,
but that would destroy the work done to make the gems. Stone shape
doesn't reconstitue a bunch of stuff into one piece aperantly either.
Ah well.

There is, if you're using Stone Shape, etc. - don't smash the statue
up in the first place, but use stone shape to extrude each stone out.
This should have very little wastage. :)

Oooh! Good idea! He can basicly make them into large marbles with
flash between them. Should reduce the waste down to 5-10% depending how
much polishing they need.

--
- Justisaur -
check http://justisaur.tripod.com/well.htm for my encounter generator,
xp calculator, and other usefull documents.

Boyd & Michelle Bottorff

2003-09-04 12:40:14 UTC

I understand that current Canadian dollar coins are like that, in a
deliberate move to make counterfeiting them pointless. My impression is
that this is fairly common today - I guess the question then becomes,
does anyone know when this practice started?

Canadian coins are worth more than melt value, except possibly the
penny.

Very few governments are willing to sell coins for less than it costs to
make them, for the very basic fact that most countries already have
budget problems, without losing revenue for something that they could
make money on. Only in countries with hyperinflation does this become
an issue. And they don't have to worry about people counterfeiting
anything.

The biggest deterrent to counterfeiting coins is the "why bother?"
value. It becomes impractical to carry around rolls or wads of
low-denomination money, difficult to use it for purchasing/banking, and
other problems.

Geoffrey Brent

2003-09-05 00:27:00 UTC

Post by Boyd & Michelle Bottorff
Canadian coins are worth more than melt value, except possibly the
penny.
Very few governments are willing to sell coins for less than it costs to
make them, for the very basic fact that most countries already have
budget problems, without losing revenue for something that they could
make money on.

This is why Australia phased out 1c and 2c coins - not worth anybody's
time to counterfeit, and costing more than their face value to make. I
don't think the melt value exceeded the face value, but the production
costs made up the difference.

Mike S.

2003-09-04 15:25:18 UTC

On Thu, 04 Sep 2003 04:59:20 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
While I think $5 per gold piece is a low estimate for costs in general,
I think $100 is far too high. For general cost of gear comparisons, I
think I'd use $20 per gold piece, and $5 for precious metals.

Well using our minimum wage and converting to US$ I get 1sp =
US$40-50. Based on the price of bread in D&Dland and NZ (and allowing
for the exchange rate NZ$-US$)I get 1gp = US$13.

Not really. Both marble and normal glass have a density of 2600
kg/m^3, so I think it'll do for ball-park gem densities (though
diamond is 3300 kg/m^3). A 200g lump of marble will have a volume of
77cc, which is a cube 4.25cm on a side (1.7"), or a sphere 5.3cm in
diameter (2.1"). If a hemisphere it'd be 3.2" across (or an 'oval
hemisphere' about 2.4" by 4.3"), so it's not small.

<snip>

I don't know if this helps, but my group was curious one day about how
large a 100 carat diamond would be. I was able to locate a cut sheet (a
three-part view of a faceting pattern with cutting angles and weight
formulas) for a round brilliant (very common cut) pattern and calculated
it all out. If I remember correctly, I used 45* for the crown and girdle
angle, and the girdle and pavilion angle (the visible top, the outside
edge, and the bottom respectively) and came out with a stone that was
around 24mm in diameter and I think around 18mm tall. It was a while ago
that I did this, but the final size was about an inch in diameter.
This was also done with the specific gravity of diamond (3.3 as above),
so an equal weight onyx would be larger overall.

- Mike

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-04 18:24:55 UTC

Well using our minimum wage and converting to US$ I get 1sp =
US$40-50. Based on the price of bread in D&Dland and NZ (and allowing
for the exchange rate NZ$-US$)I get 1gp = US$13.

I generally try to avoid medieval vs modern wage comparisons, because
the nature of compensation, taxation, real estate, and debt has changed
radically in the last 700 years. (The black death and the rise of the
urban middle class has a lot to do with that, I suspect.) I generally
prefer the bread or beer standard, but not for all applications. In this
case, I used a combination of the silver standard (since we're talking
about precious materials, which generally maintain relative value) and a
medieval vs medieval (Europe vs D&D) wage comparison.

Not really. Both marble and normal glass have a density of 2600
kg/m^3, so I think it'll do for ball-park gem densities (though
diamond is 3300 kg/m^3).

Onyx, like most forms of chalcedony, is about 2650 kg/m3, so your
calculations should be correct within about 1%.

A 200g lump of marble will have a volume of 77cc, which is a cube
4.25cm on a side (1.7"), or a sphere 5.3cm in diameter (2.1"). If a
hemisphere it'd be 3.2" across (or an 'oval hemisphere' about 2.4" by
4.3"), so it's not small.

Yeah, I overestimated a bit. It's still too large for the intended use,
though. Speaking of which, the material component seems reasonable after
all. You're supposed to put the gem in the creature's eye socket. By my
estimates, a 50 gp onyx weighs about 50 carats and is just a hair less
than one inch in diameter. A human eyeball is also about one inch in
diameter.

The D&D3.5 version switched to an onyx worth 25 gp per creature HD. For
a 1 HD human skeleton, that's about 5/8" diameter, which should easily
fit into an eye socket. After casting, the burned-out onyx might even
look like an iris floating disembodied in the socket.

I presume this is based on the amount of labour required to extract an
ounce of silver?

No, it's based on medieval standards for wages. In D&D, skilled laborers
earn about 1 gp/day, unskilled laborers 1 sp/day. That's very similar to
medieval European wages of 1s per day and 1d per day. This sets the
nominal value of a silver piece at 1 pennyweight of silver. However, the
sp actually weighs almost 6 pennyweight!

That suggests that D&D coins are heavily debased, with less than 1/6
actual silver content (and that's assuming no inflation). The real
problem is that D&D coins weigh about 140 grains, which is much too
heavy for a medieval coin. You can fix the problem easily by reducing
the weight of silver pieces to a pennyweight (300 per pound avdp instead
of 50 per pound avdp).

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
A 50 carat (10g) stone is very, very large. I'd guess about two or
three inches in diameter. Not totally unreasonable, but at that size
I suspect that the yield of cabochon cut stones from rough would drop
below 10%.

I think you've forgotten about the cube law. :)

No, I just overestimated (by about a factor of two). A 50c onyx should
be about 1" in diameter, not 2".

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
Unless this is an epic campaign, Justisaur may have some wealth
control problems if the PCs manage to beat this guy before he
finishes his undead army. Hm, how long will it take him to cast all
those spells?

I'm more interested in how he intends to get them all facing the same
way.

Hm? I seem to be missing a joke.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Rupert Boleyn

2003-09-04 22:47:24 UTC

On Thu, 04 Sep 2003 18:24:55 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
I generally try to avoid medieval vs modern wage comparisons, because
the nature of compensation, taxation, real estate, and debt has changed
radically in the last 700 years. (The black death and the rise of the
urban middle class has a lot to do with that, I suspect.) I generally
prefer the bread or beer standard, but not for all applications. In this
case, I used a combination of the silver standard (since we're talking
about precious materials, which generally maintain relative value) and a
medieval vs medieval (Europe vs D&D) wage comparison.

Actually, IIRC the value of silver rose quite significantly vs gold
during the medieval period in Europe as more gold entered the region
from trade and mining.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
The D&D3.5 version switched to an onyx worth 25 gp per creature HD. For
a 1 HD human skeleton, that's about 5/8" diameter, which should easily
fit into an eye socket. After casting, the burned-out onyx might even
look like an iris floating disembodied in the socket.

Heh.

I presume this is based on the amount of labour required to extract an
ounce of silver?

Ah. The other way is to assume that D&Dland has had serious inflation
compared to mediveal Europe, and that silver is worth less. This is
consistent with the commonality of gold coin (though they're also way
too big), and with all those teasure hoards lying around.

I'm more interested in how he intends to get them all facing the same
way.

Hm? I seem to be missing a joke.

How he's going to get all those skeletons to do what he wants.

--
Rupert Boleyn <***@paradise.net.nz>
"A pessimist is simply an optimist with a sense of history."

BlakGard

2003-09-05 04:53:22 UTC

Actually, IIRC the value of silver rose quite significantly vs gold
during the medieval period in Europe as more gold entered the region
from trade and mining.

Depends on which part of the medieval period you're talking about and where.
Up until the mid-13th century, gold was extremely scarce in most of Europe.
After the Plague, the value of silver rose significantly vs gold, because the
previously rare gold had fewer owners, which made it more common (silver,
which is naturally more common in Europe, didn't go through as drastic of a
change in frequency), but this only held true briefly, as the gold was
subsequently used up in the burgeoning industry that came after the Plague.

The value of silver wouldn't rise significantly (vs gold) again until gold
started
coming from the New World.

-=[ The BlakGard ]=-
"Somewhere there's danger;
somewhere there's injustice,
and somewhere else the tea is getting cold!"

Dave Butler

2003-09-05 02:48:33 UTC

[snip]

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
A 50 carat (10g) stone is very, very large. I'd guess about two or three
inches in diameter. Not totally unreasonable, but at that size I suspect
that the yield of cabochon cut stones from rough would drop below 10%.

If the Rolemaster Treasure Companion is anything to go by, a 1cm diameter
sphere of agate weighs 10c. Five times that weight gives a volume of
about 5 * (4/3) * 3.14159 * 1*1*1 = 20.944 cm3, so a sphere 3.76 cm in
diameter (call it an inch and a half).

Similar math puts a thousand-carat agate at about 10.22 cm in diameter,
which is about 4 3/8ths inches. Slightly under CD-sized, if we need a
reference object.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
Unless this is an epic campaign, Justisaur may have some wealth control
problems if the PCs manage to beat this guy before he finishes his
undead army. Hm, how long will it take him to cast all those spells?

Heh. With that much onyx, I figure it's better to just make the item
to cast the spell.

--
--DcB

Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-05 03:03:41 UTC

Post by Dave Butler
If the Rolemaster Treasure Companion is anything to go by, a 1cm
diameter sphere of agate weighs 10c. Five times that weight gives a
volume of about 5 * (4/3) * 3.14159 * 1*1*1 = 20.944 cm3, so a sphere
3.76 cm in diameter (call it an inch and a half).

Based on specific gravity (2.65), a 50ct onyx should be 3/4" in diameter.

Post by Dave Butler
Similar math puts a thousand-carat agate at about 10.22 cm in
diameter, which is about 4 3/8ths inches.

I get just a hair over 2" diameter. The Rolemaster book must
significantly underestimate the density of agate. Or maybe uses a
different form of agate; a few varieties are significantly more or less
dense.

Post by Dave Butler

Heh. With that much onyx, I figure it's better to just make the item
to cast the spell.

Ha! Actually, it looks like he overestimated the weight of his statue.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Dave Butler

2003-09-05 20:00:46 UTC

Based on specific gravity (2.65), a 50ct onyx should be 3/4" in diameter.

Post by Dave Butler
Similar math puts a thousand-carat agate at about 10.22 cm in
diameter, which is about 4 3/8ths inches.

Actually it's just me failing my Knowledge(Math) roll. Check the math
in my first calculation and you'll see that I'm using _diameter_ cubed,
instead of _radius_ cubed. Redoing everything more correctly gets
answers of 1.71 cm in diameter (5/8ths") and 4.64 cm in diameter
(1 13/16"), which are much closer to what you've calculated.

Remember that I'm doing a volume comparison based on numbers that've
almost certainly been rounded off to begin with, rather than working
directly with the specific gravity (which the RM TreasCo. lists as
2.60).

--
--DcB

Bob LeChevalier

2003-09-09 03:19:27 UTC

The specific gravity of quartz is 2.6, so 200 gm is 77 cubic cm. If
the gem is round, 4/3 pi r cubed is the volume. This works out to r
of 2.63 cm, or about 1 in. So a 200gm onyx would be 2 inches in
diameter.

lojbab

--
lojbab ***@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org

Tarrax Ironwolf

2003-09-09 10:51:22 UTC

"Bob LeChevalier" <***@lojban.org> wrote in message news:***@4ax.com...
| "Bradd W. Szonye" <bradd+***@szonye.com> wrote:
| >Also, note that 1 gp = $100 means that a 50 gp black onyx gem would
| >weigh about *one thousand carats* (200g). That's a ridiculously large
| >gem -- five inches in diameter? -- bigger than your fist, I think.
|
| The specific gravity of quartz is 2.6, so 200 gm is 77 cubic cm. If
| the gem is round, 4/3 pi r cubed is the volume. This works out to r
| of 2.63 cm, or about 1 in. So a 200gm onyx would be 2 inches in
| diameter.

Actually Quartz (and all the varieties of Quartz) SP is 2.65.

--
Tarrax Ironwolf
***@VEiwon.com
-------
"We played Dungeons & Dragons for three hours! Then I was slain by an
elf." -- Homer Simpson

Justisaur

2003-09-04 07:21:22 UTC

Here's what I could find, mostly based on
Black onyx is actually dyed chalcedony, which is a kind of agate, which
is a kind of quartz. Chalcedony was once a very popular gemstone. It's
almost always cabochon cut (round-faced).[*] Rough chalcedony costs
about $500 to $2,000 per kilogram and yields about 100 grams of cut
chalcedony (which is worth about $2,500). Therefore, your NPC's onyx is
worth about $2 million if rough, $50 million if already cut.

That's really weird they would use a dyed gem for the spell, but
whatever.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
Now to convert it to gold pieces. There's no perfect way to do that, but
for these purposes, it's probably best to use silver for the conversion.
Based on the wages of laborers historically and in D&D, a gold piece
is roughly worth 1/2 Troy ounce of silver ($2 to $5). Fudging a bit,
two tons rough chalcedony = 400,000 gp
two tons cut onyx = 10,000,000 gp
I suspect that your NPC actually has two tons of rough chalcedony. It
will yield 400 lbs of cut onyx worth about 1,000,000 gp total.
By the way, if my estimates so far are correct, each 50 gp onyx is
roughly a *50 carat* gem! That's huge! Enormous! Five carats is much
more reasonable for an onyx, so either the given value is totally
arbitrary, or my calculations are off by a factor of 10 somewhere.
Your NPC has a lot of rough chalcedony, which can be made into somewhere
between 100,000 and 1,000,000 gp worth of cut onyx. That's enough for
2,000 to 20,000 gems worth 50 gp each.

Found out the spell only requres 25 gp worth of black onyx in 3.5e...

Post by Bradd W. Szonye
[*] Faceted gems are a fairly recent invention. In medieval times,
almost all gems were cabochon cut, IIRC.
--

--
- Justisaur -
check http://justisaur.tripod.com/well.htm for my encounter generator,
xp calculator, and other usefull documents.

Rupert Boleyn

2003-09-04 12:40:47 UTC

Post by Justisaur
That's really weird they would use a dyed gem for the spell, but
whatever.

It's naturally dyed - comes out of the ground that colour, AFAIK.

--
Rupert Boleyn <***@paradise.net.nz>
"A pessimist is simply an optimist with a sense of history."

Rupert Boleyn

2003-09-04 22:48:27 UTC

On Thu, 04 Sep 2003 15:45:22 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Post by Rupert Boleyn
It's naturally dyed - comes out of the ground that colour, AFAIK.

According to a couple of gemology sites I found, chalcedony naturally
occurs in many colors, but black is not one of them. Black onyx is dyed
black by humans, using a blue-gray form of chalcedony.

Well, you learn something every day. Did you find out what's used for
the dye?

--
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Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-05 00:25:30 UTC

According to a couple of gemology sites I found, chalcedony naturally
occurs in many colors, but black is not one of them. Black onyx is
dyed black by humans, using a blue-gray form of chalcedony.

Well, you learn something every day. Did you find out what's used for
the dye?

No, but I didn't read it very carefully. You might want to check the URL
I posted upthread, which had lots of good information.

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Justisaur

2003-09-05 02:13:20 UTC

According to a couple of gemology sites I found, chalcedony naturally
occurs in many colors, but black is not one of them. Black onyx is
dyed black by humans, using a blue-gray form of chalcedony.

Well, you learn something every day. Did you find out what's used for
the dye?

No, but I didn't read it very carefully. You might want to check the URL
I posted upthread, which had lots of good information.

http://www.jewelry-plus.com/BlackOnyx.htm

slightly better link than the one you gave.

Aperantly onyx does naturally occur black, but it's much rarer.

The dye is by dipping the stone in sugar, then in sulfuric acid.

I think I'll assume this is natural black onyx, but it doesn't make much
of a difference.

My mom is a jeweler, you'd think I'd know this stuff by now :)

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Rupert Boleyn

2003-09-05 08:29:56 UTC

On Fri, 05 Sep 2003 05:11:58 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Post by Justisaur
http://www.jewelry-plus.com/BlackOnyx.htm
slightly better link than the one you gave.

Thanks! I saw that one but skipped it when I was looking for pricing.

Post by Justisaur
Aperantly onyx does naturally occur black, but it's much rarer. I
think I'll assume this is natural black onyx, but it doesn't make much
of a difference.

"Large boulder size rocks are not uncommon in agate, but not often seen
in black onyx." I suspect that 7-foot tall blocks of black onyx would be
extremely rare.

I also imagine that one dyed artifically would have a nice black
surface and a rather different colour inside.

--
Rupert Boleyn <***@paradise.net.nz>
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Justisaur

2003-09-05 02:15:10 UTC

Here's what I could find, mostly based on
Black onyx is actually dyed chalcedony, which is a kind of agate,
which is a kind of quartz. Chalcedony was once a very popular
gemstone. It's almost always cabochon cut (round-faced).[*] Rough
chalcedony costs about $500 to $2,000 per kilogram and yields about
100 grams of cut chalcedony (which is worth about $2,500).
Therefore, your NPC's onyx is worth about $2 million if rough, $50
million if already cut.

That's really weird they would use a dyed gem for the spell, but
whatever.

Well, it makes some sense, since the subjects of the spell have also dyed.
<ducks and runs>

I was thinking of that after I posted. Actually I was thinking more
along the lines of an unnatural transistion which both go through. Very
sympathetic (magically speaking).

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Loren Pechtel

2003-09-04 17:02:10 UTC

That's always a bogus conversion. You can't compare the wage of an
African worker (those poor guys earn only $2.5 a day) with the wage of
a European worker, beause the European worker pays a lot more for food
and rent and clothes, plus he also pays taxes and VAT. To get a proper
conversion, you need to take into account the cost of basic
necessities. Like how many kilograms of bread can an African worker
purchase, for a week's worth of wages, compared to how many kilograms
of bread a European worker can purchase.
No doubt they *are* underpaid. Just not by as *much* as it sounds like
they are.

Agreed. I know someone who came here (America) from China.
He would be making a lot more here than there. It was only after he
got here that he found out that prices were a lot higher, the higher
wage translated into a lower standard of living.

Seebs

2003-09-04 18:01:33 UTC

Post by Loren Pechtel
Agreed. I know someone who came here (America) from China.
He would be making a lot more here than there. It was only after he
got here that he found out that prices were a lot higher, the higher
wage translated into a lower standard of living.

Indeed. My family spent a year in China, and we were able to support three
people on the equivalent of about $50-100 in wages per *month*, and have some
savings. To be fair, they threw in an apartment with that, but it was still
pretty impressive.

-s

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Bradd W. Szonye

2003-09-04 20:04:31 UTC

Post by Seebs

Agreed. I know someone who came here (America) from China. He would
be making a lot more here than there. It was only after he got here
that he found out that prices were a lot higher, the higher wage
translated into a lower standard of living.

Indeed. My family spent a year in China, and we were able to support
three people on the equivalent of about $50-100 in wages per *month*,
and have some savings. To be fair, they threw in an apartment with
that, but it was still pretty impressive.

Moving to a high-wages, high-cost area can have one major advantage. If
you end up with more disposable income, you can't use it to buy more,
but it does become easier to pay off debts you incurred in your previous
home. Conversely, while $100 per month might support you while you're in
China, you'll have a hard time paying off any debts you incurred before
leaving the USA.

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Boyd & Michelle Bottorff

2003-09-04 23:55:40 UTC

I lived in Ecuador for a while. I can tell you from first-hand
experience that it IS as much as it sounds.

No, you don't pay as much for rent. However, your home is either brick
(sometimes hand-made brick) and concrete, or bamboo. Generally 10-30
square meters for the entire house. Running water is a nice bonus.
Sewers, when found, can't handle toilet paper. Electricity is also
optional, although some people just steal it.

Clothing is cheaper. Somewhat. But their clothing either comes from
Asia (with Asian prices), North America (same idea), or somewhere
nearby. And in many cases I observed, locally manufactured goods did
not tend to be nearly as durable as imported. And no matter what the
case is, when you're making $80/month, even less expensive clothing
takes a huge chunk out of the wallet. For some reason, most of the poor
people went for servicable clothes.

As for food... well, let's just say that there are no governmental
controls over it. And like clothing, when you're not making much, food
becomes a huge chunk of the budget. Food also tends to be more on the
basic side.

(Your comment about how much bread a worker can buy-- bread cost about
half as much there as in the US, where I live. A bannana ice/milk
mixture similar to, but not as good as a milkshake, ran about 1/6th of
the cost of a milkshake. A meal at an inexpensive resturaunt ran about
1/5th of an inexpensive US resturaunt. Hamburger and cheese, IIRC, were
somewhere above half cost, if bought from a store with refrigeration. I
never touched the open-air market stuff, for some reason. Chocolate ran
near US prices. Gasoline ran about 1/3 - 1/2 price.

(Local fruits (mangos, pineapple, and passionfruit) were much cheaper
than you would find in the US-- although if you compare their prices to
US-grown fruits (oranges, peaches, etc), they're only about a quarter of
the price. The only real deal was bannanas, running about 1/10th the US
price, and being MUCH higher quality. But trust me, you can't live off
just bannanas.

(So overall, food costs about 25% what it would cost a more
industrialized country. But when your take-home pay is 5%, that's a big
difference.)

Boy, did I ever ramble there. And it's not as bad in the cities. The
cities generally have electricity, sewers (so to speak), and running
water. In some places, the water is even drinkable without boiling.
Plus they had supermarkets with refrigerated sections, fast food joints,
and other conveniences of modern living. They had a better mass-transit
system, if you didn't mind standing up and occasionally hanging out the
door. And I did love being there, even with the problems I saw and
sometimes got.

Justisaur

2003-09-04 03:04:42 UTC

I din't know, but note that in v3.5 you only need 25gp per skeleton.
Also you can control twice as many HD as in 3e, and it's now a
Sor/Wiz4 rather than Sor/Wiz5 spell. IOW, it's all good. :)

Well that's better, twice as many skeletons then. but 2x? is still ?.
Also made a small mistake, he's got 10,000 lbs of black onyx. He
intends to raise as large an army of awakened skeletons as is possible.
Just so happens he's near the ruins of an old city that had over 100,000
in it at one time, probably at least that many corpses around, but
finding them and digging them all up could be a real chore.

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check http://justisaur.tripod.com/well.htm for my encounter generator,
xp calculator, and other usefull documents.

b***@dmcom.net

2003-09-04 03:38:57 UTC

Post by Justisaur
Specifically Black Onyx.

Type should not matter, value is based on type. However I can not find
a weight of them in either SRD and 2nd appears to list them at about 0,
perhaps 100 to a pound. The only encumberence I could find for gems was
in BD&D ( 1 gem = 1 coin, which in that version was 1/10 a poind IIRC).

My NPC Evil Wizard has about 4000 lbs of Black

Post by Justisaur
Onyx. I'm trying to figure out what this is worth so I can figure out
how many skeletons he can animate. He needs 50 gp worth for each
skeleton per the spell, but how much does 50 gp of black onyx weigh?

Ask the Sage, however it appears 50 gp do not weigh much at all.

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Bryan J. Maloney

2003-09-04 04:46:24 UTC

Post by Justisaur
Specifically Black Onyx.

Type should not matter, value is based on type. However I can not find
a weight of them in either SRD and 2nd appears to list them at about 0,
perhaps 100 to a pound.

Well, a carat is 1750 to the pound, so "really darn small" is a good
enough approximation for most precious and semi-precious gems.

The only encumberence I could find for gems was

Post by b***@dmcom.net
in BD&D ( 1 gem = 1 coin, which in that version was 1/10 a poind IIRC).

Wow. A 175 carat gem!

Post by b***@dmcom.net
My NPC Evil Wizard has about 4000 lbs of Black

Post by Justisaur
Onyx. I'm trying to figure out what this is worth so I can figure out

That would be seven million carats of black onyx.

Justisaur

2003-09-05 20:56:55 UTC

And according to old editions there is either 10, 50,
or 100 gems per lb.

That might work well enough for encumbrance, but don't use it as an
estimate for large-scale calculations like this. The margin of error
would be huge. A 1/10 lb gem would be about 200 carats! Even 1/100 lb
(~20ct) is far too heavy for all but the largest semiprecious stones.

I haven't been able to find a source for 3.5e (or even 3e) for
weight/encumberance of gems, if anyone does please let me know.

I think they're "no appreciable weight," which is the only correct
abstraction, given how little gems really weigh. Gems are about 72 times
more valuable than silver by weight. (The coins weigh too much in D&D
too. Real silver pennies are *at least* 300 to the pound.)

I always imagined SP silver dollar size, that's even too big for the
current system though, and closer to the old 10/lb. I would guess a SP
should be quarter size, actually that should yeild exactly 48 to the
pound - close enough to the 50/lb we have now. That's about the size
they show up in the PHB.

As another asside thinking about a strait conversion from gp (at 1 lb
per 50) yields about $86 for gold weight. Of course a silver conversion
yeilds about $1.20, and if you go with copper, well we are talking cheap
there $0.0124 each (don't start thinking you can melt your pennies down
and get more for them, in the us they are made with a thin layer of
copper over a zinc base, not to mention a penny is much smaller than
1/50 of a lb.)

If you wanted real conversions, 1 pp = 2 gp = 143 sp = 13838 cp. (could
round everything for simplicity 1 pp = 2 gp, 1 gp = 75 sp, 1 sp = 100
cp) Might be interesting to use those figures, but what would you use as
your base? I know Brad would use silver.

One other thing I need to think about is the actual value of all that
black onyx. After all with the conservative 10/pound that's 500,000
gp worth of it. If he only uses half of it on creating skeletons he
still has 250,000 gp worth of gems to fool around with.

Yeah, it's worth a ton.

At that estimate it's not too bad for a 22nd lv character. At my
current estimate of almost 5 mil, it's way too much. On second thought
I think I might retroactivly lower the size. What was your estimate
1,600 lbs? By my calculations that would come out to 78,400 skeleton
stones (25c, 30% waste) which still comes out to almost 2 mil... If I
go with your suggested 90% waste (which I think is way off base, can you
provide any links for support?) it comes out to 280,000 gp, or 11,200
skeletons.

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check http://justisaur.tripod.com/well.htm for my encounter generator,
xp calculator, and other usefull documents.

b***@dmcom.net

2003-09-06 18:12:19 UTC

Alright, so we have 10,000 lbs of onyx. Using 3e DMG a typical onyx gem
is worth 50 gp. And according to old editions there is either 10, 50,
or 100 gems per lb. I haven't been able to find a source for 3.5e (or
even 3e) for weight/encumberance of gems, if anyone does please let me
know. The closest thing I could find was 'arcane material, exotic' or
unique in the arms and equipment guide, which lists that at 1 oz per
'unit'. So if we go 1 oz per 50 gp gem, that's 16 to the pound.
Any opinion on which of these fits closest with real average size gems?

This has been bugging me and so I have been trying to find an answer.

From what I am finding (no URLs) there is no average size of a gem, it
depends on the type of gem.

pearls appear to have an average of 40 to 60 cts, (about 3 to an ounce).
diamonds appear to have an average of about 1 ct. ( about 142 to an
ounce).
some others have a range of .5 ct to 75 cts.

black onyx is generally cit (based on what sites I viewed) to around 25
to 35 cts. when being used in making a pearl necklace (should one want
that design).

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Justisaur

2003-09-07 15:50:46 UTC

This has been bugging me and so I have been trying to find an answer.
From what I am finding (no URLs) there is no average size of a gem, it
depends on the type of gem.
pearls appear to have an average of 40 to 60 cts, (about 3 to an ounce).
diamonds appear to have an average of about 1 ct. ( about 142 to an
ounce).
some others have a range of .5 ct to 75 cts.
black onyx is generally cit (based on what sites I viewed) to around 25
to 35 cts. when being used in making a pearl necklace (should one want
that design).

That's pretty much what I figured. You don't put 35 ct diamonds on
rings usually. The DND prices of diamonds are astronomical though, it
could reflect an average size around 35 ct. I'm thinking same weight
(or encumberance anyway) as a coin is about right for the average D&D
gem, which unsurprisingly is 35 ct.

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Geoffrey Brent

2003-09-08 02:05:54 UTC

Post by b***@dmcom.net
This has been bugging me and so I have been trying to find an answer.
From what I am finding (no URLs) there is no average size of a gem, it
depends on the type of gem.

The smaller you go, the more there are, so the true average is probably
close to zero. But smaller gems are less interesting, so less likely to
be mentioned.

Bryan J. Maloney

2003-09-04 05:25:58 UTC

50 gp or a 50 gp onyx? I estimate the latter to weigh about 50 carats
(10 grams, less than 1/3 ounce).

That's the "metric carat". The classic carat is 4 grains, or 4/7000
pounds.

Long story, but the source I was using for chalcedony prices used metric
carats, so it was easier to do the math that way. Thanks for the note on
classic carats! If my calculations are correct, they're about 50%
heavier than metric carats.

I think that metric carats are the modern worldwide standard, even in the
USA.

b***@dmcom.net

2003-09-04 13:32:22 UTC

Post by Justisaur
Specifically Black Onyx.

Type should not matter, value is based on type.

WTF are you talking about? Please *try* to write coherent English.

Type of gem does not effect the weight, it only effects the value not
the weight in D&D worlds (dor the most part).

Post by Justisaur
He needs 50 gp worth for each skeleton per the spell, but how much
does 50 gp of black onyx weigh?

Ask the Sage, however it appears 50 gp do not weigh much at all.

50 gp or a 50 gp onyx? I estimate the latter to weigh about 50 carats
(10 grams, less than 1/3 ounce).

The question was how much 50 gp of black onyx weighs, there was no other
question asked to be answered. A quick rule could be each gem has the
same weight as a coin as was done in BD&D (though BD&D money is 5 times
as heavy as AD&D money). You estimate makes the gem weight a little
more then a metal coin (45.35 gems to a pound).
Oh it looks like you mismatched Avoirdupois (U.S.) with Troy to get less
then 1/3 an ounce.

50 carats (metric) weighes, 10 grams (metric), about .35 ounce (
Avoirdupois (U.S.) ), about .32 ounce (Troy) , also about 385.8 carats
(Troy).

Conversions calculated from here http://www.speckdesign.com/Tweight.html
which is subject to some rounding errors, though generally close enough
for most calculations.

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Steven (Silverblade)

2003-09-04 08:13:39 UTC