Physical Analysis...
CRGreathouse said:
I'm also curious about adamantine.
* Is it "adamantine" or "adamantite"? Both are used in the core rulebooks and SRD (the PH, and the PsiH use "Adamantite", while the Open Gaming Foundation and the DMG use "Adamantine")
* What is its weight? The PH says 3/4 iron, but that sounds wrong somehow...
* Is it pure or an alloy? If it's an alloy, what is it an alloy of?
* What is its color and luster?
I know these were addressed in 2E (and before), but I want to know if the changes were intentional or not, and if anything else has changed.
WARNING: This is a long post that takes you through a step-by-step analysis... if you want just the summary of findings, skip to the end of the post.
I remember reading something by Ed Greenwood (FR Creator) in reference to edits that needed to be performed on "Dwarves Deep." He made the distinction:
Adamantite - raw ore
Adamantine - derived alloy
One assumes that the mines referred to in the first post actually contain adamantite. Adamantite is commonly referred to as a metal, and is often referred to as very difficult to work. In D&D, we often assume weapons are made of steel (and Iron-Carbon mixture). I did a little research and this link proved quite useful
http://orb.rhodes.edu/encyclop/culture/scitech/iron_steel.html
One presumes that if steel gets a melting point of upwards of 1000 degrees F, adamantine (alloy) will have an even HIGHER melting point - making it exceptionally difficult to find a smith with a hot enough forge. Adamantite itself may have a lower melting point, however... I would suggest that due to the comments that adamantite is hard to work also, that it be assigned an arbitary melting point of about 1500 degrees - twice as hot as the melting point of iron. (Degrees in F)
For adamantine to have a weight of 3/4 that of iron, we know the following must be true... at most 3/4 of the alloy can be iron. I would suggest that for ease of use, let us assume that the alloy is 2/3 iron and 1/3 adamantite. We can then reverse-engineer the weight of adamantite...
3/4 I (weight of adamantine compared to an equal volume of iron) = 2/3 I + 1/3 A (the proportions of iron and adamantite in the mix)
(3/4 - 2/3) I = 1/3 A
(9/12 - 8/12) I = 1/3 A
1/12 I = 1/3 A
1/4 I = A
In other words, adamantite weighs 1/4 as much as a similar volume of iron.
The density of iron is 7874 kg/m^3. This corresponds to... (2.2 lb/kg and 3.28 ft/m...)
491 pounds per cubic foot. For sake of simplicity, let's round this off to 500 pounds per cubic foot.
Thus, adamantite weighs about 125 pounds per cubic foot (1/4 the weight of a similar volume of iron).
Is the 2/3 to 1/3 proportion a good guess? It's not too bad we know we can't have less than 1/4 adamantite because otherwise we have too much weight (from the iron) - as a precedent, bronze is usually between 10 and 25% tin (mixed with copper). The hardest and strongest bronze contains a lot of tin and a little bit of lead.
http://www.russianbells.com/founding/bronzealloy.html
http://home.att.net/~tom.jordan/LibertyBell/history/bronze.htm
Furthermore, it makes for easy calculations to use the 2/3 to 1/3 proportion in the alloy. While there is (of course) no empirical evidence on adamantite/adamantine, I would suggest that the above "fudges" are more or less useful for a fantasy game. It also tells you how much adamantite is needed to make an adamantine weapon... a longsword weighs 4 pounds, so about 1 and 1/3 pounds of adamantite are needed (one third of four pounds). We are told that adamantite for such a weapon adds 9,000 gp to the cost... I will assume for simplicity that the entirety of this cost is simply the cost of the adamantite. We then have
4/3 lb of adamantite = 9,000 gp
or 4 lb of adamantite = 27,000 gp
or 1 lb of adamantite = almost 7,000 gp
However, we also have plate armor costing +10,000 gp for adamantine, but weighing 50 lbs. Thus, about 1/3 of this... or 16.7 pounds... is adamantite. This gives a cost of
16.7 lb = 10,000 gp
or about 600 gp per pound
This is quite a large range... we have 7,000 gp on one end and 600 gp on the other. :-(
However, let us do some comparison... keep in mind that the SRD tells us that there are about 50 coins to the pound, so a pound of gold is worth 50 gp. A pound of platinum? Worth 500 gp.
To extend this logic, I would suggest that adamantite is the next "step up" and weighs in at a hefty 5,000 gp per pound. This decision necessitates the bumping up of the cost of adamantine armor... for simplicity, multiply all values in the SRD by ten. Now adamantine armor is REALLY expensive... to the tune of 100,000 gp for a suit of heavy armor... but physically, it maintains consistency.
In summary...
1.) "ADAMANTITE" is the raw ore.
2.) "ADAMANTINE" is the alloy, consisting of 1/3 adamantite and 2/3 iron (perhaps with trace amounts of lead or tin or carbon or whatever else - the trace elements could be the carefully-guarded secret).
3.) Adamantite has an *extremely* high melting point - about twice that of iron (and probably higher than that of steel) - say, 1500 F. Adamantine might have a melting point still higher.
4.) Adamantite weighs about 125 pounds per cubic foot (iron weighs about 500 pounds per cubic foot).
5.) Adamantine (the alloy) weighs about 375 pounds per cubic foot.
6.) Adamantite is worth about 5,000 gp per pound.
7.) Adamantine should be worth at least 1,700 gp per pound (1/3 of 5,000 gp/pound, rounded) based on the value of the material only... you could argue that it should be more based on the utility inherent in the crafted item or less based on the fact that it's extremely hard to re-work... harder to re-work than adamantite, so adamantite is more valuable to make a new item. I would suggest that these are more or less balanced and that the value remain around 1,700 gp per pound.
8.) Armor made of Adamantine should be ten times as expensive as the SRD and DMG suggest.
Colorwise, I would suggest that adamantite be given the sheen/shininess of burnished silver (very shiny) but is a darker color - closer to the deep gray of graphite. That's a matter of personal taste only - YMMV.
Thoughts?
--The Sigil
Edit: Removed reference to relative value of mithral/adamantine
