I actually looked into this before finding this post, wanting to find out how much holy water was in an item of Holy Water. After all, the weight appears to include the flask it's in. So the math I did is below.
I started off by looking at the components to make holy water. it's just 25 gp of powdered silver. Presumably, the magic converts that to water. Now, 1 lb of silver is 5 gp from the Player's Handbook. Then, we have 5 lbs of silver. The density of silver is 10.49 g/cm³, and 5 lb is equivalent to 2,267.96 g. 2,267.96/10.49 = 216.202097235 cm³ of silver. Then converting that to liquid cups, we get 0.913832797431 US cups of Holy Water. 1 cup of regular water is 0.52 lbs, so multiplying 0.52*0.913832797431 = 0.47519305466, which is my rough estimate for the weight of the Holy Water. In other words, a large amount of silver is converted into holy force to deal damage to the undead. That is, only 0.47519305466 lbs remain of the original 5 lbs, so 90.4961389068% of the weight disappears. The most basic answer would have to be magic, though. It's just magic. I still had fun with math!
Some of the problem is that 0.02 lb for coins is pretty heavy; for comparison, a quarter is 0.0125, a nickel is 0.011, a penny is 0.006, a dime is 0.005.
I actually looked into this before finding this post, wanting to find out how much holy water was in an item of Holy Water. After all, the weight appears to include the flask it's in. So the math I did is below.
I started off by looking at the components to make holy water. it's just 25 gp of powdered silver. Presumably, the magic converts that to water. Now, 1 lb of silver is 5 gp from the Player's Handbook. Then, we have 5 lbs of silver. The density of silver is 10.49 g/cm³, and 5 lb is equivalent to 2,267.96 g. 2,267.96/10.49 = 216.202097235 cm³ of silver. Then converting that to liquid cups, we get 0.913832797431 US cups of Holy Water. 1 cup of regular water is 0.52 lbs, so multiplying 0.52*0.913832797431 = 0.47519305466, which is my rough estimate for the weight of the Holy Water. In other words, a large amount of silver is converted into holy force to deal damage to the undead. That is, only 0.47519305466 lbs remain of the original 5 lbs, so 90.4961389068% of the weight disappears. The most basic answer would have to be magic, though. It's just magic. I still had fun with math!
I think this math can be improved. If you want to know the relative weights of the same volume of different substances, you simply need to know the ratio of their densities. The same volume of water will weigh 1 g/mL/10.49 g/mL = 9.533% of a particular volume of silver. That means that you'll have 90.46%-ish of "lost mass." That is a one step problem, not a 5 or 7 step one.
Additionally, you could cut some steps by sticking with metric or imperial instead of converting back and forth and by using the approximate conversion "a pint's a pound the world around" (fluid ounces = ounces weight for water, it has a density of ~1 oz/fl.oz.) Finally, you're reporting too many digits -- sure you shouldn't round while calculating but writing all those numbers down isn't helpful to the reader, especially when you 're limited to 4 digits from the measurement of Silver's density.
I was interested in this as well and found this thread. It looks like in real life that powdered silver is roughly four times as valuable as silver bars (1kg of powdered silver was available for $2,900, whereas a 1kg silver bar was available for roughly $775). In my mind, this is close enough to five times the value to just say the Ceremony consumes 1 pound of powdered silver, which is worth 25gp (five times the value of a 1 pound bar of silver or 50 silver coins).
If a player gets their hands on a fine jewelry file and wants to go through the time-consuming process of filing metal (I've no clue how long it might take to file down 1 pound of silver, but it's surely laborious; 1 pound of pure silver is roughly 0.5 in. x 1.5 in. x 3.5 in., about the size of a standard credit card if it was a half-inch thick), then I'm happy to let them turn 5 gp of raw material into a 25gp item.
I was interested in this as well and found this thread. It looks like in real life that powdered silver is roughly four times as valuable as silver bars (1kg of powdered silver was available for $2,900, whereas a 1kg silver bar was available for roughly $775). In my mind, this is close enough to five times the value to just say the Ceremony consumes 1 pound of powdered silver, which is worth 25gp (five times the value of a 1 pound bar of silver or 50 silver coins).
If a player gets their hands on a fine jewelry file and wants to go through the time-consuming process of filing metal (I've no clue how long it might take to file down 1 pound of silver, but it's surely laborious; 1 pound of pure silver is roughly 0.5 in. x 1.5 in. x 3.5 in., about the size of a standard credit card if it was a half-inch thick), then I'm happy to let them turn 5 gp of raw material into a 25gp item.
That is pretty much exactly opposite of how the rules are trying to make currency work (with same metals always worth the same amount at same weight). If you want to run your games that way, go for it, but I don't think that is a good argument in the rules forum.
If the price of a diamond is worked out based off several factors, not just it's size, then why does everyone default to working out the equivalent gold to silverconversion in coins?... I mean, I get that it's the easy, go-to thought that comes to mind at first, but there are at least two other factors here; 1) this isn't solid silver or even a silver coin (which would likely not be pure silver but most likely mixed with other metals like copper, nickel or zinc; vice versa with gold). 2) this is a specialty product that's going to have a specific, small group of people interested in it and thus a much higher price (premium) can be placed on this product. So, from just the smallest bit of consideration it's clear - to me, at least - that it's not a straight conversion from 25 gold coins to the equivalent amount of silver coins. Besides, what is the purpose of currency to begin with? Currency doesn't have an intrinsic value; we have to agree upon it.
As it is, I was looking up this question to see what others have posted and I was able to find some good info from SomeNotCoolGuy's (SNCG) post. I have a player who was asking about silver powder and turning silver coins into powder. Good thing for him is that he doesn't need to convert nearly as much silver (based off what I posted above, along with SNCG's post). Bad for him is that I determined he couldn't do it with silver coins as they're not pure silver (99.9%). That can only be gotten from silver bars and that level of purity would most likely be found from dwarven silver.
Powdered Silver isn't just silver shavings. It is a chemically precipitated product with many, numerous, intermediary steps and additional ingredients required.. This is the single biggest misunderstanding. People often assume if they have 25 gp of silver coins they have an equivalent item. They do not. You might as well walk around with a blank canvass and a bucket of paint and claim you have the Mona Lisa.
Edit: the process is interesting here is a video of a guy doing it. Timestamped at roughly when it starts precipitating but the whole vid goes into more about multiple ways to create it and various purifies and stuff. fascinating subject.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
It might be (if you aren't super concerned with grain size and purity, it's perfectly possible to get silver powder by taking a file to a silver ingot).
If the price of a diamond is worked out based off several factors, not just it's size, then why does everyone default to working out the equivalent gold to silverconversion in coins?...
In order to prevent PCs from melting down/minting coins into/from RAW material for easy profit, WotC made coins literally worth their weight in said material.
RAW, 50 coins weigh 1 pounds and a 1 pound trade bar of a metal is worth 50 coins of that metal.
It might be (if you aren't super concerned with grain size and purity, it's perfectly possible to get silver powder by taking a file to a silver ingot).
Yes, powdered silver is indeed concerned with grain size and purity.
It needs to be powder. (grain size)
and... silver. (purity)
Powdered silver is, when wet, similar in consistency to a silt-like mud. And, when dry, similar to powdered sugar. (confectioners sugar)
It is a super fine dust. (or paste, when wet)
Filing a metal just isn't going to achieve that. You'll end up with sharp shards, not a fine powder.
Again, "powdered silver" is achieved through a chemical precipitation process. In D&D terms it is an alchemical creation.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Yes, powdered silver is indeed concerned with grain size and purity.
Depends what you're using it for. In the real world there isn't a lot of use for the sort of powder you'd get from a file, but that doesn't make it not powder. Just not a powder that's particularly useful to us. That doesn't mean it's useless in D&D. Sure, you can define holy water as requiring some sort of specially prepared silver, but there's nothing ridiculous about saying a coarse powder is adequate.
Yes, powdered silver is indeed concerned with grain size and purity.
Depends what you're using it for. In the real world there isn't a lot of use for the sort of powder you'd get from a file, but that doesn't make it not powder.
It does actually. Make it not a powder. Filing down an ingot/bar/coin wouldn't result in powder it'd result in filings. Entirely different shape/structure and size.
"Powdered Silver" is a term for a specific substance. There are a number of ways to produce it, currently, but many of them require modern technologies. Of the options available to what we'd consider a medieval technological level, chemical precipitation is just about the only method you've got available to you. Or magic.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Have to agree with Rav here, powdered silver is a specific item (or sort of item perhaps). If a DM wants to allow a PC to make it for himself by all means go ahead but I can't see it being allowed at any other cost than the prescribed 25G.
Of course this is also where I agree with various other posters here that crafting is utterly underwhelming and rarely worth even considering.
As many of us has realized, holy water is such a niche and mostly useless item that it should be much much cheaper. It's normally only useful in really low levels when the damage and damage type is actually useful, and the 25gp puts it out of the reach of most characters.
"Powdered Silver" is a term for a specific substance. There are a number of ways to produce it, currently, but many of them require modern technologies. Of the options available to what we'd consider a medieval technological level, chemical precipitation is just about the only method you've got available to you. Or magic.
No, it isn't. Commercial silver powder vendors include a datasheet specifying features such as purity and grain size, and that is a particular product, but if you don't make any such specifications, it's it isn't.
"Powdered Silver" is a term for a specific substance. There are a number of ways to produce it, currently, but many of them require modern technologies. Of the options available to what we'd consider a medieval technological level, chemical precipitation is just about the only method you've got available to you. Or magic.
No, it isn't. Commercial silver powder vendors include a datasheet specifying features such as purity and grain size, and that is a particular product, but if you don't make any such specifications, it's it isn't.
Silver Powder is a specific substance. It is a chemically precipitated product.
Look, where do you think silver comes from? Do you think people just find chunks of it? Much of it needs to be extracted from other raw material. Lead is a huge source. How do you get silver out of lead?
You chemically extract it. It can be dissolved into solution. Then, later, precipitated out of solution. The result?
Silver Powder.
At this point you could melt the powder and that would form bars/ingots. But once melted, you completely change the structures the metal particles are forming.
Filing down a bar/ingot at this stage for 1. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Time efficiency-wise. But 2. Would give you a different shaped/structured substance. Yes, it is possible to mechanically generate fine-grain particles of silver this way. Yes, that might be, to the naked eye, indistinguishable from Powdered Silver. But that doesn't make it Powdered Silver.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I find it hard to believe that anyone claims to know exactly what the developers meant (and that it was not the common understanding of the words) when they said powdered silver or how they intend that silver was produced in D&D settings. Silver is produced in a variety of ways, and just some simple searching shows that precipitation from aqueous solutions was not one of the more common methods for commercial production.
Just about anything I can quickly read (Yes, I know, it is the internet) suggests that smelting is probably the most likely production means for a pseudo-medieval society. Other common antiquity technology options also involve heat. That means ingots.
Beyond that, powdered silver is certainly no more of a specific thing than powdered diamonds in the text of the rules.
I find it hard to believe that anyone claims to know exactly what the developers meant (and that it was not the common understanding of the words) when they said powdered silver or how they intend that silver was produced in D&D settings. Silver is produced in a variety of ways, and just some simple searching shows that precipitation from aqueous solutions was not one of the more common methods for commercial production.
Just about anything I can quickly read (Yes, I know, it is the internet) suggests that smelting is probably the most likely production means for a pseudo-medieval society. Other common antiquity technology options also involve heat. That means ingots.
Beyond that, powdered silver is certainly no more of a specific thing than powdered diamonds in the text of the rules.
The point wasn't ever that a specific technique had to be used. It was that the value of the product was potentially higher than just its weight. That time, other reagents, and effort went into its production. Could you generate powdered silver mechanically? Close enough, sure. But the effort and energy to do so is even more than the chemical precipitation method. In a world where Alchemy is a skill, choosing to slowly grind a giant hunk of silver down to a fine powder is a silly decision. It'd take forever. Just get an alchemist to do it. Regardless how you do it, you're processing it. That means the value of the product is higher than the raw ingredient. It is a straightforward concept:
The planks of wood costs more than the rough log they were cut from.
In short: You're not adding 5 Lbs of silver into a vial of holy water.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
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I actually looked into this before finding this post, wanting to find out how much holy water was in an item of Holy Water. After all, the weight appears to include the flask it's in. So the math I did is below.
I started off by looking at the components to make holy water. it's just 25 gp of powdered silver. Presumably, the magic converts that to water. Now, 1 lb of silver is 5 gp from the Player's Handbook. Then, we have 5 lbs of silver. The density of silver is 10.49 g/cm³, and 5 lb is equivalent to 2,267.96 g. 2,267.96/10.49 = 216.202097235 cm³ of silver. Then converting that to liquid cups, we get 0.913832797431 US cups of Holy Water. 1 cup of regular water is 0.52 lbs, so multiplying 0.52*0.913832797431 = 0.47519305466, which is my rough estimate for the weight of the Holy Water. In other words, a large amount of silver is converted into holy force to deal damage to the undead. That is, only 0.47519305466 lbs remain of the original 5 lbs, so 90.4961389068% of the weight disappears. The most basic answer would have to be magic, though. It's just magic. I still had fun with math!
Some of the problem is that 0.02 lb for coins is pretty heavy; for comparison, a quarter is 0.0125, a nickel is 0.011, a penny is 0.006, a dime is 0.005.
I think this math can be improved. If you want to know the relative weights of the same volume of different substances, you simply need to know the ratio of their densities. The same volume of water will weigh 1 g/mL/10.49 g/mL = 9.533% of a particular volume of silver. That means that you'll have 90.46%-ish of "lost mass." That is a one step problem, not a 5 or 7 step one.
Additionally, you could cut some steps by sticking with metric or imperial instead of converting back and forth and by using the approximate conversion "a pint's a pound the world around" (fluid ounces = ounces weight for water, it has a density of ~1 oz/fl.oz.) Finally, you're reporting too many digits -- sure you shouldn't round while calculating but writing all those numbers down isn't helpful to the reader, especially when you 're limited to 4 digits from the measurement of Silver's density.
I was interested in this as well and found this thread. It looks like in real life that powdered silver is roughly four times as valuable as silver bars (1kg of powdered silver was available for $2,900, whereas a 1kg silver bar was available for roughly $775). In my mind, this is close enough to five times the value to just say the Ceremony consumes 1 pound of powdered silver, which is worth 25gp (five times the value of a 1 pound bar of silver or 50 silver coins).
If a player gets their hands on a fine jewelry file and wants to go through the time-consuming process of filing metal (I've no clue how long it might take to file down 1 pound of silver, but it's surely laborious; 1 pound of pure silver is roughly 0.5 in. x 1.5 in. x 3.5 in., about the size of a standard credit card if it was a half-inch thick), then I'm happy to let them turn 5 gp of raw material into a 25gp item.
That is pretty much exactly opposite of how the rules are trying to make currency work (with same metals always worth the same amount at same weight). If you want to run your games that way, go for it, but I don't think that is a good argument in the rules forum.
If the price of a diamond is worked out based off several factors, not just it's size, then why does everyone default to working out the equivalent gold to silverconversion in coins?... I mean, I get that it's the easy, go-to thought that comes to mind at first, but there are at least two other factors here; 1) this isn't solid silver or even a silver coin (which would likely not be pure silver but most likely mixed with other metals like copper, nickel or zinc; vice versa with gold). 2) this is a specialty product that's going to have a specific, small group of people interested in it and thus a much higher price (premium) can be placed on this product. So, from just the smallest bit of consideration it's clear - to me, at least - that it's not a straight conversion from 25 gold coins to the equivalent amount of silver coins. Besides, what is the purpose of currency to begin with? Currency doesn't have an intrinsic value; we have to agree upon it.
As it is, I was looking up this question to see what others have posted and I was able to find some good info from SomeNotCoolGuy's (SNCG) post. I have a player who was asking about silver powder and turning silver coins into powder. Good thing for him is that he doesn't need to convert nearly as much silver (based off what I posted above, along with SNCG's post). Bad for him is that I determined he couldn't do it with silver coins as they're not pure silver (99.9%). That can only be gotten from silver bars and that level of purity would most likely be found from dwarven silver.
Powdered Silver isn't just silver shavings. It is a chemically precipitated product with many, numerous, intermediary steps and additional ingredients required.. This is the single biggest misunderstanding. People often assume if they have 25 gp of silver coins they have an equivalent item. They do not. You might as well walk around with a blank canvass and a bucket of paint and claim you have the Mona Lisa.
Edit: the process is interesting here is a video of a guy doing it. Timestamped at roughly when it starts precipitating but the whole vid goes into more about multiple ways to create it and various purifies and stuff. fascinating subject.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
It might be (if you aren't super concerned with grain size and purity, it's perfectly possible to get silver powder by taking a file to a silver ingot).
In order to prevent PCs from melting down/minting coins into/from RAW material for easy profit, WotC made coins literally worth their weight in said material.
RAW, 50 coins weigh 1 pounds and a 1 pound trade bar of a metal is worth 50 coins of that metal.
Yes, powdered silver is indeed concerned with grain size and purity.
It needs to be powder. (grain size)
and... silver. (purity)
Powdered silver is, when wet, similar in consistency to a silt-like mud. And, when dry, similar to powdered sugar. (confectioners sugar)
It is a super fine dust. (or paste, when wet)
Filing a metal just isn't going to achieve that. You'll end up with sharp shards, not a fine powder.
Again, "powdered silver" is achieved through a chemical precipitation process. In D&D terms it is an alchemical creation.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Depends what you're using it for. In the real world there isn't a lot of use for the sort of powder you'd get from a file, but that doesn't make it not powder. Just not a powder that's particularly useful to us. That doesn't mean it's useless in D&D. Sure, you can define holy water as requiring some sort of specially prepared silver, but there's nothing ridiculous about saying a coarse powder is adequate.
It does actually. Make it not a powder. Filing down an ingot/bar/coin wouldn't result in powder it'd result in filings. Entirely different shape/structure and size.
"Powdered Silver" is a term for a specific substance. There are a number of ways to produce it, currently, but many of them require modern technologies. Of the options available to what we'd consider a medieval technological level, chemical precipitation is just about the only method you've got available to you. Or magic.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Wait Rav! The rules tell you what mesh size powdered silver to use for holy water?
There is absolutely no evidence that indicates that we shouldn’t be using what an average reader would think is powdered silver.
Have to agree with Rav here, powdered silver is a specific item (or sort of item perhaps). If a DM wants to allow a PC to make it for himself by all means go ahead but I can't see it being allowed at any other cost than the prescribed 25G.
Of course this is also where I agree with various other posters here that crafting is utterly underwhelming and rarely worth even considering.
As many of us has realized, holy water is such a niche and mostly useless item that it should be much much cheaper. It's normally only useful in really low levels when the damage and damage type is actually useful, and the 25gp puts it out of the reach of most characters.
No, it isn't. Commercial silver powder vendors include a datasheet specifying features such as purity and grain size, and that is a particular product, but if you don't make any such specifications, it's it isn't.
Silver Powder is a specific substance. It is a chemically precipitated product.
Look, where do you think silver comes from? Do you think people just find chunks of it? Much of it needs to be extracted from other raw material. Lead is a huge source. How do you get silver out of lead?
You chemically extract it. It can be dissolved into solution. Then, later, precipitated out of solution. The result?
Silver Powder.
At this point you could melt the powder and that would form bars/ingots. But once melted, you completely change the structures the metal particles are forming.
Filing down a bar/ingot at this stage for 1. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Time efficiency-wise. But 2. Would give you a different shaped/structured substance. Yes, it is possible to mechanically generate fine-grain particles of silver this way. Yes, that might be, to the naked eye, indistinguishable from Powdered Silver. But that doesn't make it Powdered Silver.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Silver Powder is silver in powder form. If you have demands more specific than that, you'd better read the manufacturer's data sheet.
I find it hard to believe that anyone claims to know exactly what the developers meant (and that it was not the common understanding of the words) when they said powdered silver or how they intend that silver was produced in D&D settings. Silver is produced in a variety of ways, and just some simple searching shows that precipitation from aqueous solutions was not one of the more common methods for commercial production.
Just about anything I can quickly read (Yes, I know, it is the internet) suggests that smelting is probably the most likely production means for a pseudo-medieval society. Other common antiquity technology options also involve heat. That means ingots.
Beyond that, powdered silver is certainly no more of a specific thing than powdered diamonds in the text of the rules.
The point wasn't ever that a specific technique had to be used. It was that the value of the product was potentially higher than just its weight. That time, other reagents, and effort went into its production. Could you generate powdered silver mechanically? Close enough, sure. But the effort and energy to do so is even more than the chemical precipitation method. In a world where Alchemy is a skill, choosing to slowly grind a giant hunk of silver down to a fine powder is a silly decision. It'd take forever. Just get an alchemist to do it. Regardless how you do it, you're processing it. That means the value of the product is higher than the raw ingredient. It is a straightforward concept:
The planks of wood costs more than the rough log they were cut from.
In short: You're not adding 5 Lbs of silver into a vial of holy water.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.