[KraakenDazs]

So i'm not sure weher i should consider this an SR4 or 5 question, because i'll be pointing out data from SR4, the SR wiki, AND SR5...

Regeants in SR5 are basically a converted equivalent of power of a DRAM of orichalcum. A dram, being a standard 1.77 grams, and cost (20) nuyen i think, dont have my book but it's close to that.)

SO, we can extrapolate that 1.77 gram's worth of orichalcum is worth 20 nuyen.

The SR wiki says a single unit of orichalcum is worth 88k (i think it was 50 in Arsenal, but again, from memory) for 10 GRAMS, which is a unit.

So making a katana blade out of orichalcum, at about 1kg the blade, would either cost you 11.7k if you use regeant rules, OR 8.8 MILLIONS if using the wiki.
Which would it be? Am i missing something, like purity of orichalcum, downpricing due to Haley's Comet temporarily making orichalcum easier to gather, some consistency goof in the rules? Figure i'd point it out, if anything, it might be taken under advisement for SR5 supplements and the equivalent price of Orichalcum. It's a very, very minor thing, but if it can at some point save a GM from the headache caused by an overly enterprising rule lawyer PC, then my job'll be done

Even with downpricing, i cant believe that in a few years, an 8 million dollar weapon would suddenly be 752 times cheaper

[Giabralter]

I'm curious. Where do you find that 1 unit equals 10 grams?

[Michael Chandra]

http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Orichalcum

I think 1.77 grams for 1 dram of Orichalcum is basically far too little. If we follow the 5k-for-1-gram guideline, a dram would be a mere 0.004 gram. I can understand most reagents having a weight of 1.77 grams or more per dram, but Orichalcum? No way.

[Inconnu]

The correct way to go about this is to turn around and make a alloy of the orichalcum and steel. XD

[Giabralter]

The correct way to go about this is to turn around and make a alloy of the orichalcum and steel. XD

Ukkru I believe is the alloy of iron and oricalchum. See parageology.

[Novocrane]

Maybe the number of PCs flooding the market in SR4 had an effect.

[Beaumis]

So making a katana blade out of orichalcum, at about 1kg the blade,

Foci are not pure orichalcum, they just contain enough for the focus in question. The more orichalcum, the higher the potential force of the focus. In contrast to prior editions, 5th has done away entirely with the orichalcum requirement and simply requires reagents of some sort.

Regeants in SR5 are basically a converted equivalent of power of a DRAM of orichalcum.

No they aren't. They are just mana charged objects of some sort. Orichalcum is merely the standard used to measure the "charge" of mana contained in an object.

Reagents have a higher inherent concentration of mana than normal substances, but they are otherwise identical to their mundane counterparts. The power of a set of reagents is measured in drams of orichalcum, or simply drams, an imprecise but useful comparison to the power in the magical material known as orichalcum. Orichalcum is the purest reagent known, chunks of metal that are perfect mana conduits. A reagent that is worth a single dram of orichalcum usually weighs more than the traditional 1.77 grams, but is usually still fairly small and tends to weigh less than 5 grams (less than the weight of a pistol bullet). This means that a single object as light as 25 grams can be worth 5 drams of reagents.
Reagents come in all types and forms. [...] Naturally occurring reagents vary by tradition. Hermetic magicians prefer minerals, pure elements, old trinkets, and virgin ores. Shamans favor parts of plants and animals, naturally polished rocks, and small, intricately crafted handmade items.
(P. 316 Core)

Page 317 has rules for harvesting naturally occurring reagents.

Orichalcum is exceedingly rare and has not occurred naturally since Halley's comet passed.

Edit: I missed the word power in your post and thought you meant that reagents are orichalcum. My bad. Still, you cannot extrapolate from reagent costs to orichalcum as it's rarity alone would greatly influence the price. Since foci do not require orichalcum anymore (and the requirements in the past were continually lowered), the price drop can be mostly explained away with technological progress (reagents instead of orichalcum), the rising mana level (and therefore less alchemical materials used to achieve the same effect) and market saturation (because weapon foci are relatively rarely destroyed and thus do not leave the market).

[Reaver]

yea.


orichalcum's value has dropped a lot since 3e.... for many of the reasons listed by Beaumis. Part of the reason that Orichalcum was so valuable was that it was originally just about the ONLY material that could be mass harvested and used to make foci of all types. But as the mana levels have continued to rise, more and more objects and ways have been found to make foci.

it's really no different then our world. Back in the 1800's a wealthy man had silverware.... an important man ate with gold utensils.... But they truly powerful ate with Aluminium!!! And now we make soda cans outta the stuff!!!

[KraakenDazs]

Still, a 752 times price drop is a bit insane.

So far, i'm ''house ruling it''  (or will be, as i'm not about to drop impressive quantities of ori on my players anytime soon. ) as a dram of orichalcum regeant is based on it's equivalent orichalcum ORE, found naturally. (Rare as s*** i'll grant you that, but with what i call it a ''limited magical potential'' compared to the pure stuff.)

the 88/50k (I think Arsenal had it listed at 50, another odd pricing, but that *was* post-year of the comet so i figured the 88-to-50k pricing *was* from depreciation of the market due to the natural veins appearing, (and yes, Shadowrunners flooding the market )  for 10 gram price would refer to treated,refined or alchemical orichalchum.

Anywayz, hopefully such a small yet overlooked inconsistency will be adressed in future splatbooks

[Reaver]

Meh, it doesn't really need any changes at all

Any oldtimers remember the Ares MP-3 laser weapon?


things drop in value all the time. I know I won't sweat it no matter the price simply cause it really has no bearing on the game at large.

[KraakenDazs]

Reagents have a higher inherent concentration of mana than normal substances, but they are otherwise identical to their mundane counterparts. The power of a set of reagents is measured in drams of orichalcum, or simply drams, an imprecise but useful comparison to the power in the magical material known as orichalcum. Orichalcum is the purest reagent known, chunks of metal that are perfect mana conduits. A reagent that is worth a single dram of orichalcum usually weighs more than the traditional 1.77 grams, but is usually still fairly small and tends to weigh less than 5 grams (less than the weight of a pistol bullet). This means that a single object as light as 25 grams can be worth 5 drams of reagents.
Reagents come in all types and forms. [...] Naturally occurring reagents vary by tradition. Hermetic magicians prefer minerals, pure elements, old trinkets, and virgin ores. Shamans favor parts of plants and animals, naturally polished rocks, and small, intricately crafted handmade items.
(P. 316 Core)

Edit: I missed the word power in your post and thought you meant that reagents are orichalcum. My bad. Still, you cannot extrapolate from reagent costs to orichalcum as it's rarity alone would greatly influence the price. Since foci do not require orichalcum anymore (and the requirements in the past were continually lowered), the price drop can be mostly explained away with technological progress (reagents instead of orichalcum), the rising mana level (and therefore less alchemical materials used to achieve the same effect) and market saturation (because weapon foci are relatively rarely destroyed and thus do not leave the market).

Well, yes and no, while i do believe extrapolating it from the rules isn't a precise guideline (it says so right there in the rules, after all), there is still a LARGE discrepancy between the surmised price of 10 grams of ori (88k), and the extrapolation of ''one dram is worth 20 nuyen on the market. '' (As pointed, 752 times the price.) Unless, the point here being that orichalcum gets almost the entirety of its pricing from its rarity, and not it's magical potential. Or again, that the magical-*released*-potential *as a regeant* of orichalcum is (20 nuyen's worth) per 1.77, while its usage in other circumstances could be widely different. Making orichalcum a regeant-usable substance to be *solely* calculated on weight, as opposed to everything else. That could be actually a very fine explanation, if a bit overly complicated.

Still, i'd be a bit confunded telling one of my PCs that they basically used 1.77 grams of ori on a spell, which they could have instead sold for about 13k, and gotten  650ish drams instead of colorful feathers

[Reaver]

Reagents have a higher inherent concentration of mana than normal substances, but they are otherwise identical to their mundane counterparts. The power of a set of reagents is measured in drams of orichalcum, or simply drams, an imprecise but useful comparison to the power in the magical material known as orichalcum. Orichalcum is the purest reagent known, chunks of metal that are perfect mana conduits. A reagent that is worth a single dram of orichalcum usually weighs more than the traditional 1.77 grams, but is usually still fairly small and tends to weigh less than 5 grams (less than the weight of a pistol bullet). This means that a single object as light as 25 grams can be worth 5 drams of reagents.
Reagents come in all types and forms. [...] Naturally occurring reagents vary by tradition. Hermetic magicians prefer minerals, pure elements, old trinkets, and virgin ores. Shamans favor parts of plants and animals, naturally polished rocks, and small, intricately crafted handmade items.
(P. 316 Core)

Edit: I missed the word power in your post and thought you meant that reagents are orichalcum. My bad. Still, you cannot extrapolate from reagent costs to orichalcum as it's rarity alone would greatly influence the price. Since foci do not require orichalcum anymore (and the requirements in the past were continually lowered), the price drop can be mostly explained away with technological progress (reagents instead of orichalcum), the rising mana level (and therefore less alchemical materials used to achieve the same effect) and market saturation (because weapon foci are relatively rarely destroyed and thus do not leave the market).

Well, yes and no, while i do believe extrapolating it from the rules isn't a precise guideline (it says so right there in the rules, after all), there is still a LARGE discrepancy between the surmised price of 10 grams of ori (88k), and the extrapolation of ''one dram is worth 20 nuyen on the market. '' (As pointed, 752 times the price.) Unless, the point here being that orichalcum gets almost the entirety of its pricing from its rarity, and not it's magical potential. Or again, that the magical-*released*-potential *as a regeant* of orichalcum is (20 nuyen's worth) per 1.77, while its usage in other circumstances could be widely different. Making orichalcum a regeant-usable substance to be *solely* calculated on weight, as opposed to everything else. That could be actually a very fine explanation, if a bit overly complicated.

Still, i'd be a bit confunded telling one of my PCs that they basically used 1.77 grams of ori on a spell, which they could have instead sold for about 13k, and gotten  650ish drams instead of colorful feathers

I think a lot of people here are confused

page 317 SR5

The easiest way to get reagents of your own tradition
is to buy them. Your local talismonger can sell them to
you at 20 nuyen per dram.

Basically people are reading a measurement and assuming it is  orichalcum. It is not. It's an other reagent with the same potential as a dram of orichalcum!

it's like when you go to the store and buy a carton on milk. It's volume is listed in a fluid measurement (ounces, liters, gallons, etc) which is actually based on water, not on the substance you bought.

A dram of orichalcum weighs 1.77 grams. The reagent you buy COULD weigh signifigantly more (but the usual weight is between 3 and 10 grams)...
(just like a liter of water weighs more then a liter of gas....)


we don't actually know what the current cost of orichalcum is as it is not relivant. It could be $100 a gram, it could be $1,000,000 a gram. But I can buy something that works just as well for only $20. it may weigh more, it may not be an ore (it could be a feather as you said. or a stone, or a piece of bone, or anything), but it has the same magical "ompf" as a dram of orichalcum... and that is all that matters.

[KraakenDazs]

's okay Omae, i confused myself too.

I'm just a notorious nitpicker. I like to contingent most situations ahead of time and thoroughly enjoy a good debate on essentially moot debates. Wether i'm right, wrong, or i end up mostly confused...it's all good

but to go back to the topic, (Warning: Incoming extremely odd metaphors!) water or milk makes little difference as long as the volume is respected. But weight isnt volume. A foot long meatball subs that contain 400 calories, and a chocolate chip cookie that contains just as much, dont weight the same .

What throws a curveball here, is that  the text would basically say. ''You need 400 calories to cast this spell'' ''400 calories, is based on traditonnally eating 1.77 grams of Orichalcum meatball sub. '' ''400 calories are worth 20 nuyen'' 2 of those propositions are correct, but you cant reconciliate the 3rd, because to be fair, meatball subs are reaaaally rare because everything's soy, so while you could eat your meatball sub, you can also sell it for 600 cookies.''

BUT i believe your last sentence sums it up. ''Orichalcum meatball subs may be incredibly pricier than cookies, but they pack the same oomf!''

[Reaver]

basically, all that you need to know is that when you buy a reagent at the talislegger for $20, it has the same magical effect as orichalcum.

It could be anything you desire.... (but it is probably NOT orichalcum!)


and really, what that reagent is, doesn't matter as it does the job it is supposed to do.


basically it kinda moot

It's like you saying "I have a 250 horsepower car!!! it goes 200 km/h!!"

then I say, "No, you have 186500 watt motor, that allows your car to go 200 km/h"

They are actually both correct.


(250 HP = 186500 watts...... A Watt is a unit of work over 1 hour, while HP is a unit of foot pounds per second.....)


Or, if you want, I could give you can example expressing Bars to pascals... or atmosphere to humidity..... or any other 2 dis-similar measurements that actually equate to the same thing (if you actually know what you are looking at )

 

[KraakenDazs]

again, but solely for the sake of argument, because i fully agree with you there, but the problem exists when you decide to use orichalcum in *other* situations, where the price radically skyrockets. (per wiki and sr4, sr5 still doesnt have any actual sr5 rules for it.)

your example is one of regeants vs regeants, where a bunch of rare feathers or a quartz crystal or 1.77 grams of orichalcum basically does all the same magical equivalent thing when used *as* regeants

But with the various orichalcum pricings, its mostly like saying ''You can use your litter of milk to drink it, and it'll cost you 2 bucks.''
OR, you can use that liter of milk, and add it to some other recipe, and the *milk* part of your milk, well, now it costs 1504 bucks (a bit less by sr4 standards), other ingredients notwithstanding in the calculations, because milk is super rare. (i'd use motor metaphors, but i'm not much of a gearhead)

And thats where i find the explanations lacking. Of course, nothing IN that sentence says anything about the dram of 1.77 grams of orichalcum being WORTH 20 nuyen, thats just an extrapolation of the facts that a) 1.77 grams of orichalcum = 1 regeant worth of magic power, and b) You can buy regeants in various forms for 20 nuyen. In my mind, that makes it c) 1.77 grams of orichalcum could reasonnably be prixed 20 nuyens, its approximative and likely unreasonnable, but in no way ''752 times the price'' approximative