Diamonds are not rare or special, that I just compressed carbon! In a magic world that would boil down to it being nk different than a normal clear crystal! Most gems as components don't make alot of sense to me as they are just colored rocks at the end of the day. What would make sense is using compressed crystalized magic and for something like revive spell you would use one made of life force magic giving the component the heavy value it deserves, also enables some classes to make there own components over time by expending spell slots and a base component to create a crystal and keep growing it.
I feel like gems in Fantasy World are just fundamentally different from gems in real life. The symbolic traits we assign to gems are actually true in these worlds, just as silver is more than just a rare metal, but something that actively damages certain undead and fiends.
I like your ideas as a house rule, but disagree with the premise.
Rare metals and gems are just as rare in d&d as in the real world. Magic is already everywhere in the world via the weave and material components are just a way to focus and change that magic into the desired effect. The faerunian gods (and authors) have made it so.
Now I'm wondering if fabricate can turn a ton of coal into a few diamonds.
I'm gonna go with "no," barring some special setting-specific stuff. Fabricate says "You also can't use it to create items that ordinarily require a high degree of craftsmanship, such as jewelry, weapons, glass, or armor, unless you have proficiency with the type of artisan's tools used to craft such objects." In general, D&D characters aren't proficient with pressure chambers :p
It doesn't really matter what you use for your expensive material components. What matters is that the PCs mark off 1,000 gp when they cast a spell that consumes something worth 1,000 gp. It could be gems, it could be gold, it could be difficult to produce tinctures and infusions. The point of expensive material components isn't to highlight the economy of the game world. It's to give the spell a real, material cost to the PCs.
That said, essentially nobody in a D&D campaign setting would understand diamonds as "compressed carbon". Remember, in D&D the elements are: air, earth, fire, and water. There's no such thing as the periodic table. Indeed, it's quite arguable -- given the existence of the Inner Planes as verifiable fact -- that physics and chemistry as we understand them is wholly inaccurate for a D&D campaign world. After all, D&D physics allow for such things as magic, while ours does not. Earth is an element in D&D in the same way that you and I say that iron is an element. Not just based on flawed knowledge. Not just based on ancient philosophy. Actually, factually, call up Ao, Oghma, and Boccob and they will verify it, earth is an element in D&D campaign worlds in the same way that we mean that iron is an element in ours.
Even if you could, you'd still need x00gp worth of coal to make a resurrection diamond. That's a lotta coal.
The cost of the gem component represents how much treasure you're not using on cool shit like high-level adventuring supplies, magic items, airships/castles, retainers/noble titles, and other such stuff. The actual 'gemstone' component allows a DM to determine the actual supply of such gems; perhaps diamonds pure enough to be used for resurrection rites are not only deeply expensive, but also very rare, making every character death a dire blow and every chance to secure enough diamonds for a resurrection a capital-E Event.
This is also a very easy thing to houserule. My own games have dispensed with diamonds as material components for everything but Revivify; any other clerical resurrection spell requires a Tear of Life instead, which can only be obtained through direct service rendered to a deity or furtherance of that deity's goals. Which, needless to say, comes with its own potential issues and enemies. I've actually got a bunch of stuff written up for Tears of Life, specifically because this is such an easy drop-in place to add some drama to character death for high-level players. Not to mention hanging story hooks on - after all, good-aligned deities are not the only ones capable of gifting Tears of Life to their servants...
I like your ideas as a house rule, but disagree with the premise.
Rare metals and gems are just as rare in d&d as in the real world. Magic is already everywhere in the world via the weave and material components are just a way to focus and change that magic into the desired effect. The faerunian gods (and authors) have made it so.
Diamonds are not rare, they are one of the most common things we find in our planets crust next to iron, they are trillions of billions of them most people just THINK they are rare because how else would a jewelry store sell them for so much!
And on that note of the elemental plan of air is anything like our gas giant planets it probably rains diamonds there, littlery. On the planet Neptune it rains diamonds THAT IS HOW COMMON THEY ARE in a high carbon planet, because in most D&D worlds there are lots of humans we have to assume most things are carbon based so because diamonds are the second most common type of carbon they should be a abundance of them
Finding and extracting those super-common diamonds from the crust of the planet is difficult for a largely medieval tech base. All jewels are extracted by hand, refined by hand, and prepared for use in arcane rituals by hand. Like DxJxC said, they are just as rare in Faerun as in IRL. Which means really damn, until you get to the level of deep-penetrating resource extraction we've gotten to.
Besides. The relative rarity of the gemstone is unimportant. 300gp of diamonds for a Revivify could be one well-worked stone, or it could be a sack of diamonds bigger than the party's poor beleaguered Loot Mule. It's still 300gp worth of diamonds, regardless of what the actual weight of gemstone is for that gold value.
That said, essentially nobody in a D&D campaign setting would understand diamonds as "compressed carbon". Remember, in D&D the elements are: air, earth, fire, and water. There's no such thing as the periodic table. Indeed, it's quite arguable -- given the existence of the Inner Planes as verifiable fact -- that physics and chemistry as we understand them is wholly inaccurate for a D&D campaign world. After all, D&D physics allow for such things as magic, while ours does not. Earth is an element in D&D in the same way that you and I say that iron is an element. Not just based on flawed knowledge. Not just based on ancient philosophy. Actually, factually, call up Ao, Oghma, and Boccob and they will verify it, earth is an element in D&D campaign worlds in the same way that we mean that iron is an element in ours.
well on the contrary, in the D&D world if you have magic and potions that means they have a VERY STRONG grasp of science and understanding of elements, what do you think spell and alchemical components are! matter of fact all the alchemical components are just elements on the periodic table of elements! and now that we have the artificer class its pretty much the scientist class! its just that in D&D science so SO advanced they skipped right to being able to shoot lighting out of there hands, turning lead to gold and being able to heal people by touching them! to top that off elfs live VERY long lives AND they reincarnate when they die and get most of there old memories back and even leave themselves things for there future incarnations, it only takes one elf wizard with some spare time to write a book about how gems form in the planets crust to explain these things, on top of that the wizard can just summon and talk to a spirit from the elemental planes to get a detailed explanation on how there element works because when you brake it down everything belongs to one of the four elements/states of matter: gas, liquid, solid or thermal. So yes I think THAT ANY WIZARD IN THE SCHOOL OF TRANSMUTATION will know how matter works and how to change it with advanced mathematics and chemistry along with a little magic. Having magic doesn't mean there will be LESS science it means there will be WAY MORE of it, spells are described as extremely complicated and advanced formulas expressed in different ways, sometimes mathematical, sometimes in song (with is just math making sound) or though gods (witch are beings who have a deep understanding of how everything in the universe works). so please, tell me again how magical people in D&D don't know how matter is forms and works.
Diamonds are kinda rare (hence their value). And that's pretty much all they represent in D&D spellcasting: something of value. D&D is a gamist system that uses this arbitrary value for balance. But if you need a mystical explanation, try "Magic always comes with a price", "First law of Equivalent Exchange" or look to the real world history of sacrifice.
dude diamons are not "kind of rare" and what value, have YOU EVER TRIED TO SELL A DIAMOND? you will be lucky to get 50 bucks regardless of how valuable you think it is, the only people who make money off of diamonds are jewelry companies because they want to sell them, what are they going to tell you: hey do you want to buy this very pretty but common stone they can just make by the thousands in a lab or mind tons of it from mines? nope they are going to tell you it is worth thousands so they can sell it too you for thousands lol. Just google it if you don't believe me. https://diamondfoundry.com/blogs/the-foundry-journal/are-diamonds-rare-1 (just one articular) on top of that as I stated before any transmutation wizard would 100% know how they are formed and making alot of heat and pressure with a spell would be stupid easy, I can think of several spells that already do that XD. GOLD however is very VERY rare, on our planet we only have about a total a few Olympic swimming pools worth of it.
Okay, I get it. It's a brain caltrop for you. I'm sorry this snags your enjoyment of the game. Unfortunately, whether diamonds are rare or not, the game treats them as if they are and assigns a monetary value you have to meet/exceed to make the item qualify as a material component. What that component is doesn't actually matter. You could make it x00gp worth of polished agates, x00gp worth of rare spices, x00gp worth of skillfully carved wooden totems, or x00gp of whatever else floats your boat, and the spell will work exactly the same. Won't impact your game in the slightest, mechanically.
I like your ideas as a house rule, but disagree with the premise.
Rare metals and gems are just as rare in d&d as in the real world. Magic is already everywhere in the world via the weave and material components are just a way to focus and change that magic into the desired effect. The faerunian gods (and authors) have made it so.
Diamonds are not rare, they are one of the most common things we find in our planets crust next to iron, they are trillions of billions of them most people just THINK they are rare because how else would a jewelry store sell them for so much!
And on that note of the elemental plan of air is anything like our gas giant planets it probably rains diamonds there, littlery. On the planet Neptune it rains diamonds THAT IS HOW COMMON THEY ARE in a high carbon planet, because in most D&D worlds there are lots of humans we have to assume most things are carbon based so because diamonds are the second most common type of carbon they should be a abundance of them
Diamonds larger than grains of sand are pretty rare.
The elemental plane of air is not like a gas giant. The air is breathable, less dense than water, and doesn't crush carbon into diamonds. You might as well have just said "if the upper atmosphere is anything like the mantle."
Diamonds are not rare or special, that I just compressed carbon! In a magic world that would boil down to it being nk different than a normal clear crystal! Most gems as components don't make alot of sense to me as they are just colored rocks at the end of the day. What would make sense is using compressed crystalized magic and for something like revive spell you would use one made of life force magic giving the component the heavy value it deserves, also enables some classes to make there own components over time by expending spell slots and a base component to create a crystal and keep growing it.
Diamonds are kinda rare (hence their value). And that's pretty much all they represent in D&D spellcasting: something of value. D&D is a gamist system that uses this arbitrary value for balance. But if you need a mystical explanation, try "Magic always comes with a price", "First law of Equivalent Exchange" or look to the real world history of sacrifice.
Diamonds in general are pretty common. Most of them are extremely deep (deeper than iron) and are also very small known as microdiamonds. Larger diamonds (larger referring to the 1/4-1/2 cm diamonds used in jewelry) are rarer and more valuable. Larger size, fewer flaws or rarer colors increase the rarity and value significantly.
Not to mention that Faerun (and most fantasy settings) don't have huge, highly advanced diamond mines.
The purpose of requiring a specific gem instead of a number of gold pieces is because it doesn’t matter how much gold you have on you, in the bank, or anywhere else for that matter. If you don’t have that one specific rare component you cannot cast the spell. That way you could have 1,000,000gp, but if the DM says that you can’t specifically find 300gp worth of diamonds then you cannot cast Revivify.
I agree with many earlier posts that state it is part of the game mechanics. The DM has some discretion on how frequently certain spells can be used by limiting the availability of the material components. It also represents a sacrifice the PC must make to accumulate the wealth needed to cast that spell or do something else with that wealth.
Why would diamonds in a D&D world have to be “just carbon”?
Why not something like this?
There are many myths and legends about what diamonds are and how they came into being. A few of the most knowledgeable sages of the world know that diamonds are the shattered remains of a primordial being destroyed in a war with the gods. What even they don’t know is that every diamond consumed in the casting of spells is helping the primordial being to reform. Soon it will be reborn and awaken.
Diamonds = compressed carbon. In a world of imagination where anything is possible, it seems boring and kind of lazy.
Also worth considering, Diamonds become significantly more rare in a world where high level spellcasters are consuming them as components for various spells. Even if they're not rare IRL, they would likely have a very significant rarity and value associated with them in a world where a diamond is needed to resurrect someone from the dead.
Also worth considering, Diamonds become significantly more rare in a world where high level spellcasters are consuming them as components for various spells. Even if they're not rare IRL, they would likely have a very significant rarity and value associated with them in a world where a diamond is needed to resurrect someone from the dead.
Bingo.
Most of what I'm reading from OP is, to paraphrase, "Why isn't this fantasy world just like reality?" I understand wanting things to make complete logical sense when trying to get immersed, yet sometimes you just have to roll with the hand-waving. This is one of those times; diamonds in D&D are special.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Its discussions like these that remind me of this little story:
The Fighter decided to ask our Wizard why he needs gold to cast a spell on some boots.
What follows is paraphrased from the best answer I've ever heard by a party wizard to such a simple question.
"sigh…Because gold is magic. The first day I was an apprentice, I remember my Maestro asked me the simple question, 'Why can’t we create gold?' I thought it was an odd question, but as he left me alone to think about it, I realized I’d heard of wizards creating fire, summoning water, producing force, and all sorts other of objects and effects… but never of a Wizard just sitting in a tower summoning mounds of gold. You’d think if it was possible, someone would’ve done it by now right? Well…why haven’t they?
It’s because gold is magic. Well, a physical manifestation and metaphysical conduit at the same time, but for your purposes, it is magic. I mean, when you sit and look at the evidence laid out, how could you not have come to the conclusion sooner? Let’s take, oh…dragons, for example. When you imagine a big bad dragon, the next thing you imagine is it guarding its’ hoard. Hoard of what you say? Oh, that’s right, GOLD. Doesn’t it strike you as a little odd that an entity whose literal being is infused with magic just happens to have not only an insatiable, but uncanny magnetism towards large quantities of gold, along with the urge to acquire as much as possible? Possibly Like-Begets-Like, mayhaps?
What about Dwarves? This is a race whose history lies below ground, closest in proximity to the veins and shafts where gold accumulates and grows (Yes, I said grows). Also the only natural race with a strange resistance to magic. Interesting, wouldn’t you say? Almost as if there’s a subtle inoculation against it by such proximity for generations…
Lastly, to get back to what exactly I am doing with all this gold when I’m making your lovely magic item, or all my scrolls…You’re right that I’m not spending thousands of coins upon jewels and masterwork items to hold the magic in place. That’s ludicrous, but if eldritch manipulators are spending money on high end items to imbue, it’s probably a personal focusing preference. For myself though, as you can see, I am working with normal mundane items. As to the details, first I am transmogrifying via prestidigitation these elegant golden coins into their more metaphysically soluble powder form because essence diffusion is easier by an order of magnitude when working with particulates instead of a boatload of Big Ol’ Coins. Next, with a certain amount of forceful application of will and choice incantations, you will notice the gold powder I am sprinkling and kneading on top of the object appears to be being absorbed. Remember what I said about manifestation and conduit? So the gold is not only priming these boots to be receptive towards my spells, but it’s starting to establish a channel to arcane ley lines it order to keep the magic going. And yes, it is indeed very time consuming rubbing gold powder into an item one pinch at a time while maintaining the proper mental focus. There’s a REASON it takes us about eight hours for every thousand gold a magic item requires. You think a consortium of magic users got together and decided on union hours for magic making? Hell no. Its plain, old, tedious, but important work if you want it to function correctly.
Now, master-of-arms and all things armly, would you kindly let me focus on the task at hand so that when I’m done, we don’t have to worry about our Holy Dictator suffering from extreme vomiting and nausea whenever he puts his shoes on because I had to split my attention trying to condense decades of intense arcane study into an elementary discourse?"
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
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Diamonds are not rare or special, that I just compressed carbon! In a magic world that would boil down to it being nk different than a normal clear crystal! Most gems as components don't make alot of sense to me as they are just colored rocks at the end of the day. What would make sense is using compressed crystalized magic and for something like revive spell you would use one made of life force magic giving the component the heavy value it deserves, also enables some classes to make there own components over time by expending spell slots and a base component to create a crystal and keep growing it.
I feel like gems in Fantasy World are just fundamentally different from gems in real life. The symbolic traits we assign to gems are actually true in these worlds, just as silver is more than just a rare metal, but something that actively damages certain undead and fiends.
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I like your ideas as a house rule, but disagree with the premise.
Rare metals and gems are just as rare in d&d as in the real world. Magic is already everywhere in the world via the weave and material components are just a way to focus and change that magic into the desired effect. The faerunian gods (and authors) have made it so.
Now I'm wondering if fabricate can turn a ton of coal into a few diamonds.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.
I'm gonna go with "no," barring some special setting-specific stuff. Fabricate says "You also can't use it to create items that ordinarily require a high degree of craftsmanship, such as jewelry, weapons, glass, or armor, unless you have proficiency with the type of artisan's tools used to craft such objects." In general, D&D characters aren't proficient with pressure chambers :p
It doesn't really matter what you use for your expensive material components. What matters is that the PCs mark off 1,000 gp when they cast a spell that consumes something worth 1,000 gp. It could be gems, it could be gold, it could be difficult to produce tinctures and infusions. The point of expensive material components isn't to highlight the economy of the game world. It's to give the spell a real, material cost to the PCs.
That said, essentially nobody in a D&D campaign setting would understand diamonds as "compressed carbon". Remember, in D&D the elements are: air, earth, fire, and water. There's no such thing as the periodic table. Indeed, it's quite arguable -- given the existence of the Inner Planes as verifiable fact -- that physics and chemistry as we understand them is wholly inaccurate for a D&D campaign world. After all, D&D physics allow for such things as magic, while ours does not. Earth is an element in D&D in the same way that you and I say that iron is an element. Not just based on flawed knowledge. Not just based on ancient philosophy. Actually, factually, call up Ao, Oghma, and Boccob and they will verify it, earth is an element in D&D campaign worlds in the same way that we mean that iron is an element in ours.
Even if you could, you'd still need x00gp worth of coal to make a resurrection diamond. That's a lotta coal.
The cost of the gem component represents how much treasure you're not using on cool shit like high-level adventuring supplies, magic items, airships/castles, retainers/noble titles, and other such stuff. The actual 'gemstone' component allows a DM to determine the actual supply of such gems; perhaps diamonds pure enough to be used for resurrection rites are not only deeply expensive, but also very rare, making every character death a dire blow and every chance to secure enough diamonds for a resurrection a capital-E Event.
This is also a very easy thing to houserule. My own games have dispensed with diamonds as material components for everything but Revivify; any other clerical resurrection spell requires a Tear of Life instead, which can only be obtained through direct service rendered to a deity or furtherance of that deity's goals. Which, needless to say, comes with its own potential issues and enemies. I've actually got a bunch of stuff written up for Tears of Life, specifically because this is such an easy drop-in place to add some drama to character death for high-level players. Not to mention hanging story hooks on - after all, good-aligned deities are not the only ones capable of gifting Tears of Life to their servants...
Please do not contact or message me.
Diamonds are not rare, they are one of the most common things we find in our planets crust next to iron, they are trillions of billions of them most people just THINK they are rare because how else would a jewelry store sell them for so much!
And on that note of the elemental plan of air is anything like our gas giant planets it probably rains diamonds there, littlery. On the planet Neptune it rains diamonds THAT IS HOW COMMON THEY ARE in a high carbon planet, because in most D&D worlds there are lots of humans we have to assume most things are carbon based so because diamonds are the second most common type of carbon they should be a abundance of them
Cool.
Finding and extracting those super-common diamonds from the crust of the planet is difficult for a largely medieval tech base. All jewels are extracted by hand, refined by hand, and prepared for use in arcane rituals by hand. Like DxJxC said, they are just as rare in Faerun as in IRL. Which means really damn, until you get to the level of deep-penetrating resource extraction we've gotten to.
Besides. The relative rarity of the gemstone is unimportant. 300gp of diamonds for a Revivify could be one well-worked stone, or it could be a sack of diamonds bigger than the party's poor beleaguered Loot Mule. It's still 300gp worth of diamonds, regardless of what the actual weight of gemstone is for that gold value.
Please do not contact or message me.
well on the contrary, in the D&D world if you have magic and potions that means they have a VERY STRONG grasp of science and understanding of elements, what do you think spell and alchemical components are! matter of fact all the alchemical components are just elements on the periodic table of elements! and now that we have the artificer class its pretty much the scientist class! its just that in D&D science so SO advanced they skipped right to being able to shoot lighting out of there hands, turning lead to gold and being able to heal people by touching them! to top that off elfs live VERY long lives AND they reincarnate when they die and get most of there old memories back and even leave themselves things for there future incarnations, it only takes one elf wizard with some spare time to write a book about how gems form in the planets crust to explain these things, on top of that the wizard can just summon and talk to a spirit from the elemental planes to get a detailed explanation on how there element works because when you brake it down everything belongs to one of the four elements/states of matter: gas, liquid, solid or thermal.
So yes I think THAT ANY WIZARD IN THE SCHOOL OF TRANSMUTATION will know how matter works and how to change it with advanced mathematics and chemistry along with a little magic. Having magic doesn't mean there will be LESS science it means there will be WAY MORE of it, spells are described as extremely complicated and advanced formulas expressed in different ways, sometimes mathematical, sometimes in song (with is just math making sound) or though gods (witch are beings who have a deep understanding of how everything in the universe works).
so please, tell me again how magical people in D&D don't know how matter is forms and works.
Diamonds are kinda rare (hence their value). And that's pretty much all they represent in D&D spellcasting: something of value. D&D is a gamist system that uses this arbitrary value for balance. But if you need a mystical explanation, try "Magic always comes with a price", "First law of Equivalent Exchange" or look to the real world history of sacrifice.
dude diamons are not "kind of rare" and what value, have YOU EVER TRIED TO SELL A DIAMOND? you will be lucky to get 50 bucks regardless of how valuable you think it is, the only people who make money off of diamonds are jewelry companies because they want to sell them, what are they going to tell you: hey do you want to buy this very pretty but common stone they can just make by the thousands in a lab or mind tons of it from mines? nope they are going to tell you it is worth thousands so they can sell it too you for thousands lol. Just google it if you don't believe me. https://diamondfoundry.com/blogs/the-foundry-journal/are-diamonds-rare-1 (just one articular) on top of that as I stated before any transmutation wizard would 100% know how they are formed and making alot of heat and pressure with a spell would be stupid easy, I can think of several spells that already do that XD.
GOLD however is very VERY rare, on our planet we only have about a total a few Olympic swimming pools worth of it.
Dude.
Chill.
Okay, I get it. It's a brain caltrop for you. I'm sorry this snags your enjoyment of the game. Unfortunately, whether diamonds are rare or not, the game treats them as if they are and assigns a monetary value you have to meet/exceed to make the item qualify as a material component. What that component is doesn't actually matter. You could make it x00gp worth of polished agates, x00gp worth of rare spices, x00gp worth of skillfully carved wooden totems, or x00gp of whatever else floats your boat, and the spell will work exactly the same. Won't impact your game in the slightest, mechanically.
Please do not contact or message me.
Diamonds larger than grains of sand are pretty rare.
The elemental plane of air is not like a gas giant. The air is breathable, less dense than water, and doesn't crush carbon into diamonds. You might as well have just said "if the upper atmosphere is anything like the mantle."
Diamonds in general are pretty common. Most of them are extremely deep (deeper than iron) and are also very small known as microdiamonds. Larger diamonds (larger referring to the 1/4-1/2 cm diamonds used in jewelry) are rarer and more valuable. Larger size, fewer flaws or rarer colors increase the rarity and value significantly.
Not to mention that Faerun (and most fantasy settings) don't have huge, highly advanced diamond mines.
The purpose of requiring a specific gem instead of a number of gold pieces is because it doesn’t matter how much gold you have on you, in the bank, or anywhere else for that matter. If you don’t have that one specific rare component you cannot cast the spell. That way you could have 1,000,000gp, but if the DM says that you can’t specifically find 300gp worth of diamonds then you cannot cast Revivify.
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I agree with many earlier posts that state it is part of the game mechanics. The DM has some discretion on how frequently certain spells can be used by limiting the availability of the material components. It also represents a sacrifice the PC must make to accumulate the wealth needed to cast that spell or do something else with that wealth.
Why would diamonds in a D&D world have to be “just carbon”?
Why not something like this?
There are many myths and legends about what diamonds are and how they came into being. A few of the most knowledgeable sages of the world know that diamonds are the shattered remains of a primordial being destroyed in a war with the gods. What even they don’t know is that every diamond consumed in the casting of spells is helping the primordial being to reform. Soon it will be reborn and awaken.
Diamonds = compressed carbon. In a world of imagination where anything is possible, it seems boring and kind of lazy.
Also worth considering, Diamonds become significantly more rare in a world where high level spellcasters are consuming them as components for various spells. Even if they're not rare IRL, they would likely have a very significant rarity and value associated with them in a world where a diamond is needed to resurrect someone from the dead.
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Bingo.
Most of what I'm reading from OP is, to paraphrase, "Why isn't this fantasy world just like reality?" I understand wanting things to make complete logical sense when trying to get immersed, yet sometimes you just have to roll with the hand-waving. This is one of those times; diamonds in D&D are special.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Its discussions like these that remind me of this little story: