Weight and worth

[Master Z]

How much is a single unit of weight in each game, and how much is a single septim worth in each game? It's obviously changed through each of the games, but it's not so clear, at least to me, what the actual numbers might be. I'm going to take a guess and say that, in Skyrim, 3 weight units is about 1 kilogram. Any other ideas?

[Musicman247]

There's no way to equate a fictional economy and measurement system with a real one. For instance, how many Euros does it actually cost to buy an enchanted ring of Feather? What about a health potion? An iron sword?

Even if you take the basest of items like an apple, the value is usually 1 septim. A set of armour is a couple hundred septims. Even if you could buy a suit of battle ready armour for 200 Euros, would you buy an apple for 1 Euro? The economy doesn't scale correctly, and the weight is close to the same.

[Master Z]

Well, obviously, the economy is hard to calculate, though comparing something that doesn't exist, like a ring of feather, to something that does, like an iron sword, isn't a very good example. You can look up the price of iron swords many years ago, though it might be difficult to turn that price into septims without knowing how much the average person in Tamriel makes.
And the weight? Except for a few oddities (Gold bars/ores should weigh a lot more, leather weighing more than the pelts/hides used to make them, etc.), the weight seems to be fairly consistant. According to wikipedia, a full suit of steel plate armour would weigh around 20 kg, And in Skyrim, a full suit weighs 59 units (Thus, my guess of 3 kg)

[Kerr]

I'm impressed that people can carry so much weight. In reality it is just a game mechanic that doesn't make sense in any real world context.

[toast123]

I'm impressed that people can carry so much weight. In reality it is just a game mechanic that doesn't make sense in any real world context.

you mean to tell me you cant carry 3 suits of metal armor and 5 great swords while trekking across the wilderness

[Mattbott]

1 ounce of gold will buy a good suit, in any era - this has been a rule of thumb applied in RL as far back as roman times and beyond so could be used in TES

so one calculation could be:

suit fine clothes in Skyrim= 120 septims (i think), a nice suit in Dublin = €1200
1 septim = €10

[Musicman247]

So an apple is worth €10? Ouch!

[Kerr]

Yeah, it is horrible.

[Mattbott]

lol yes, maybe there's only 1 working apple tree in Skyrim..

plus game prices don't go below 1 septim unless you give stuff away, so there are a load of things which cost 10 bucks .. and paying multiples of €10 for nord mead/ale is a bit much unless you're talking wine strength booze

so theres definitely refinement needed to the ounce of gold = great suit theory

plus we're in a world wide recession here in RL so you might get a great suit for €800 etc (and Skyrim is in the middle of a civil war after an extra planar incursion followed by Thalmor invasion so Skyrim prices will be haywire - maybe an apple should be a tenner in a warzone..)

tis a complicated question to answer

[Kerr]

When an apple costs €10 and a Moro bar costs less than €1 it isn't a hard choice.

Really this problem is made by having nothing smaller than gold. In Dragon Age for example they have bronze, silver and gold. 100 bronze makes a silver, 100 silver makes a gold. Tamriel has euro coins but no cent coins. They could make it two tier with 100 silver coins making 1 Septim coin.

[Mattbott]

yeah, exactly

one way the Thalmor could take over the economy would be to issue cents or silver coins or whatever, and slowly phase out septims which would be melted down and Thalmor-ised

the whole value of money in Skyrim is a bit dodgy tho when you consider a bandit lair has a spell which changes iron ingots into gold ingots for when you need to buy some €10 apples

[Travalanche]

My character has a carrying capacity of 675 which allows him to carry like 60 swords or something, his arms should be like tree trunks.

[Mattbott]

maybe Tamreil has a lower gravity compared with Earth

[Br3admax]

yeah, exactly

one way the Thalmor could take over the economy would be to issue cents or silver coins or whatever, and slowly phase out septims which would be melted down and Thalmor-ised

the whole value of money in Skyrim is a bit dodgy tho when you consider a bandit lair has a spell which changes iron ingots into gold ingots for when you need to buy some €10 apples

Most people can not use magic, even some Elves have trouble with it. Also that spell is not very well known.

[Mattbott]

i'd see Tamreil as a 'high fantasy' world where everyone has a bit of magic, whether its racial or birthsign powers, magic replaces technology and medicine. So if alteration now has the power to make iron into gold, it's out there - a good dovahkiin could give the alchemy scroll to one of the temple of the nine type do gooder sects and suddenly poverty is abolished for a while at least (until they find another finitely available material to replace gold as the unit of value) , so just cos it hasnt happened doesnt make it impossible

Spoiler:

also Conceivably a power/justice hungry dovahkiin would buy every mercenary on the continent and pwn the Thalmor, or de stabilise the country by favouring a Jarl with tons of new gold

nords reject magic but imo anyone who wants it can use it in some shape or form, even if they dont really want to go to the unseen university. I see magic as the TES version of computer literacy

then again if you ignore magic altogether , stealth perks will miraculously cause gems and valuables to appear in chests more frequently as well, and they are available to anyone who wants to sneak around and spend perk points so there's plenty of factors in play to completely un balance any notion we might make of a stable economy in TES. So a €10 apple is crazy but might actually be true in Skyrim cos of these exceptional factors - Beth have their work cut out trying to make sense of this tbh

i think currently gold is worth around €1300 per ounce. Very very nice suit lol

[Overwatch]

I know it says "weight" in the games but I like to think of it as more as space. How much space does this and this item take in your invisible bag. The more you level certain attributes somehow gives you an ability to carry a larger bag therefore increasing your carrying capacity.

[Mattbott]

i think they should make encumbrance as fiercely realistic as possible, and introduce bags of holding/magical alchemy satchel type magic and feather spells as a fantasy mechanic to get round this problem. If the graphic of your character matched what they carried, you would look ridiculous

maybe hardcore mode in TES6...?

/necropost