03-21-2012, 10:43 PM | #1 |
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Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)
If bronze costs around 4 times iron, but the labor is the same, then why should the armor have a +3 CF as well?
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03-21-2012, 11:00 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)
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03-21-2012, 11:02 PM | #3 |
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Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)
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03-21-2012, 11:05 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)
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03-21-2012, 11:16 PM | #5 | |
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Location: Central Europe
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Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)
Quote:
GURPS doesn't have a realistic economic model; it has simple rules to let a busy GM answer "what weapons can I buy?" and "how much money does my day job leave me for adventuring?" Just a comprehensive, gamable, game-balanced model for armour prices would be the work of several PhD dissertations.
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03-21-2012, 11:52 PM | #6 |
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Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)
Bronze materials cost 4 times iron using the example prices of tin and copper in LTC 3, but most of the price of bronze items is labor which wouldn't change based on material. That means bronze items should be no where near 4 times the price of iron as used in other book(s).
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03-22-2012, 12:22 AM | #7 | |
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Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)
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03-22-2012, 12:52 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)
I have no idea which is more laborious, but making bronze armour is significantly different from making iron armour. On the rare occasions that an item was simultaneously available in iron and in bronze, I strongly suspect that different trades made the two versions. So I don't think you can assume that making a helmet should require the same number of hours, at the same cost per hour, whether it is cupric or ferrous.
I would guess that it would take around two years of research by three or four people (a bronzesmith, a blacksmith, an ancient historian, and possibly an economist or archaeologist) to get a plausible guess at the relative price of bronze plate, iron plate, bronze scale, and iron scale in a hypothetical preindustrial economy that produced both. For what its worth, some back-of-the-envelope calculations from historical prices suggested that quadrupling GURPS prices produces something vaguely plausible for Bronze Age weapons.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature |
03-22-2012, 01:08 AM | #9 |
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Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)
Making bronze items require significantly more time to make would result in keeping the times 4 final cost. But I haven't heard anyone say that it does with anything other than a "makes sense for gaming" opinion.
I don't have a problem with any reasons or results, I just want more than a shoulder shrugging for why. |
03-22-2012, 01:48 AM | #10 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)
I'm pretty sure that bronze is easier to work than iron.
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