I've been working on a conversion of the Elder Scrolls universe to Pathfinder for a little while now, focusing on Morrowind first, then moving on to the newer (and older) games.

However, I've run into a bit of a bump in the road regarding special materials from the Elder Scrolls. Some of them are simple, like Adamantium and Mithril, but others, like Glass/Malachite and Ebony are a bit tougher. So, I thought, since I have access to a collective of gaming-oriented minds available, why not tap that resource? So I ask you:

How would you stat the special materials of the Elder Scrolls universe?
This message was last updated by a moderator, as it was the wrong forum, at 17:30, Mon 14 Mar 2016.

In reply to NowhereMan (msg # 1):

I'd reflavor weapon enhancements. As I recall, glass and ebony weapons were generally more damaging and rarer, so just say that all +3 weapons are made of material X and all +4 weapons are made of material Y, etc.

Oooh I would follow that project with interest.

To answer you NowhereMan would entirely depend upon how complicated you want to be.

I once put together a custom crafting table with about 15 materials for a home-brew world.  Players loved it (the game centered around much longer time-tables than a usual campaign - so crafting a norm.)

Two ideas were "certain materials are easier/harder to work."
"certain materials are easier/harder to enchant."

So a +2/-2 to Craft DCs
Then a +10% GP/-10% GP for enchant costs.

Similar ideas can create some variance that can be very fun.

Also you can modify small properties inside of that.

When it gets down to it, later episodes of TES simply had two chains of materials with each step being flat out better than the one before it.

"Light" materials would have slightly increased material hardness/HP and decreased weight while "heavy" materials would have dramatically increased material hardness/HP and similar or increased weight.  In terms of game effects, for armors, I'd do away with stock "mithral" and the like and provide a series of "mithral"-like bonuses (better ACP, better max dex, lower weight) for light materials and an increasing series of damage resistances for heavy materials.  For weapons, "light" materials might progress down a chain whereby heavier weapons are made possible to use with Finesse and have to-hit bonuses or increased critical ranges.  Heavier materials might progress down a chain whereby weapons get a boost to damage (possibly only when used to power attack) or increased critical multipliers.

There's nothing really special about the materials things are crafted from in TES, after all, so simple statistic boosts seem to fit the theme best.

So after some thought, here is what I would do for the basic materials:

Bone = Bone (i.e. has fragile quality)
Iron = Cold Iron
of the normal price?
Silver = Silversheen
Steel = Default weapon
Elven = Mithral
Dwarven = No special material but can give access to the dwarven style weapons and armor, or maybe Elysian Bronze
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipm...s#TOC-Elysian-Bronze
Glass = Dreamstone (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipm...rials#TOC-Dreamstone)
Ebony = Adimantine

The suggestions praguepride puts forth were mostly what I was originally considering, but Adamantine and Mithral, which they used for Elven and Ebony, are already canonical materials in TES.

The latest two games in the main line, Oblivion and Skyrim, severely cut back on the weapons, armors, and materials, and that's something I'm looking to avoid.

I am considering using the Dwarvencraft template from 3.5 to represent Dwarven weapons and armor. I may end up doing a similar homebrew for Elven items, since I don't really believe "Elven" should be its own material. In Skyrim, it's constructed from "quicksilver", which I assume is good ol' Bethesda inconsistency for mithril, and refined moonstone, so I think it'd be similar to Pathfinder's mithral. Since I'm also going to be using mithril/mithral as a material, and Elven armor was superior in TES4, it would likely be more expensive than mithral, possibly restricted to just light armor, and have drastically reduced arcane spell failure, to represent the elven affinity for magic.