[Low-Tech] Material or quality

[Anders]

This is really just a footnote but it puzzled me - why is Silver listed under Weapon Quality and not under Weapon Composition?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Anders

This is really just a footnote but it puzzled me - why is Silver listed under Weapon Quality and not under Weapon Composition?

That's a very good question!

One possible expanation is that silver is basically a crappy material to make a sword out of, and no matter how skilled you are as a smith, you can't make a better-than-average sword, i.e. Fine and Very Fine are flat-out-impossible to achieve. And in fact unless you're a very skilled smith who knows a lot about silver or has tried to pull that silly stunt multiple times before, you can't achieve anything more than cheap...

[The Colonel]

I would personally go with the idea that historically, no-one seems to have made weapons out of silver as it is far too expensive given its poor metallurgical qualities. Any weapon like objects made of silver would probably be purely artwork and better priced as such.

Yes, this is a pain for fantasy where you need silver weapons to kill things, but you'd probably need magic to make a sensible weapon out of silver anyway.

Silver coating on the other hand... I would guess adding an appropriate CF for decoration.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Silver coating on the other hand... I would guess adding an appropriate CF for decoration.

Silver coated weapons are listed as +2 CF.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Yes, this is a pain for fantasy where you need silver weapons to kill things, but you'd probably need magic to make a sensible weapon out of silver anyway.

Or a liberal attitude towards alloying; there are probably a lot of options if you're willing to go well below the 92.5% of sterling silver.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Or a liberal attitude towards alloying; there are probably a lot of options if you're willing to go well below the 92.5% of sterling silver.

For bronzes sure, copper and silver mix quite well. Magnesium silver alloys can be pretty good too. You can forget steels - silver isn't very soluble in iron at all. Still copper or magnesium alloys as tough as low end steels and 5 or 10% silver content ought to be achievable. Some platinum group metals apparently do pretty well too.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by malloyd

For bronzes sure, copper and silver mix quite well. Magnesium silver alloys can be pretty good too. You can forget steels - silver isn't very soluble in iron at all. Still copper or magnesium alloys as tough as low end steels and 5 or 10% silver content ought to be achievable. Some platinum group metals apparently do pretty well too.

I've consulted with various oracles, and they've all given consistent answers (mark your calender, ladies and gentlehobbits! Consistent answers from multiple oracles, 23rd of April 2015!!!), telling me that even a 10% silver alloy won't have a stronger metaphysical effect, e.g. on werewolves, than a regular steel blade with a coating of silver.

It may be that a 5% or 10% silver alloyed with bronze or copper is preferable to a weapon coated in silver, in terms of maintenance or the like. It might also look quite nice, although my guess would be that 10% silver 90% copper will look quite like normal bronze.