First forum thread away!

I'm thinking about a mod idea that would apply old-school Morrowind item prices to weapons/armor and Artifacts. Three of my Daedric Artifacts combined can't pay for a house on Solitude? No thank you. I looked up on UESP and calculated the ratios of the materials's costs to one another (a consistent ratio), and managed to get together a table of costs together, using the Iron Sword and Leather briastplate as the base. Like so:

ARMOR, LIGHT: (Material, Gold Value for Curiass, Shield/Helm, Gauntlets/Boots, Multiplier from Base)
Fur/Hide, 40, 20, 10, .4
Studded, 70, x, x, .7
Leather, 100, 50, 25, 1 - BASE FOR ARMOR
Elven, 300, 150, 75, 3
Scaled, 500 250 125 5
Elven Gilded 1000 x x 10
Glass 400000 200000 100000 4000
Dragonscale 640000 320000 160000 6400

ARMOR, HEAVY: (Material, Gold Value for Cuirass, Shield/Helm, Gauntlets/Boots, Multiplier From Base)
Iron 200 100 50 2
Banded Iron 300 150 x 3
Steel 400 200 100 4
Dwemer 5000 2500 1250 50
Steel Plate 10000 5000 2500 100
Orcish 40000 20000 10000 400
Ebony 500000 250000 125000 5000
Dragonplate 800000 400000 200000 8000
Daedric 1000000 500000 250000 10000

WEAPONS (Material, Gold Value for Dagger, Sword, War Axe, Mace, Greatsword/Bow, Battleaxe, Warhammer, Multiplier from base)
Iron 10 25 30 35 50 55 60 1 - BASE FOR WEAPONS
Steel 20 50 60 70 100 110 120 2
Silver 40 100 120 140 200 220 240 4
Orcish 400 1000 1200 1400 2000 2200 2400 40
Dwarven/Nord Hero 500 1250 1500 1750 2500 2750 3000 50
Skyforge Steel 200 500 600 700 1000 1100 1200 20
Elven 4000 10000 12000 14000 20000 22000 24000 400
Glass 40000 100000 120000 140000 200000 220000 240000 4000
Ebony 50000 125000 150000 175000 250000 275000 300000 5000
Daedric 100000 250000 300000 350000 500000 550000 600000 10000
Dragonbone 250000 625000 750000 875000 1250000 1375000 1500000 25000

I know it seems like a ridiculously exponential increase, but the ratios are exactly what they were in Morrowind for material types, and between equipment in Skyrim. I can even put forth a lore-friendly reason for most these values too:
Iron, Leather, Fur, and Steel are common, and therefore cheap.
Elven weapons are Thalmor weapons, and only the best for the Thalmor.
Dwarven gear is hard to come by, requiring ventures into lethal traps in order to get equipment.
Orcs are fantastic smiths, and their high-quality craftsmanship is in high demand.
Steel Plate is molded to an individual, protecting like little else. But such protection and personal attention to detail comes at a price.
Skyforge Steel may fetch a high price on the open market, but no self-respecting Companion would sell off his weapon for gold, and Eorlund oonly charges Companions the cost of materials.
Glass and Ebony have always been rare and in high demand, but ever since the eruption of Red Mountain, the rarity of such pieces sky-rocketed, and as such their price.
Daedric Armor is simply the best, but to find a piece is a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
Dragonbone is probably the rarest of materials, for good reason.


Ideally, this would be combined with a mod like Morrowloot to make pieces rare and placed in correct positions. As long as bandits aren't running around in anything higher than steel armor, the economy probably won't break. In addition, it actually makes the Smithing Tree useful. You COULD try to sell the stuff you craft, I suppose, but you'd end up depleting a shopkeep's gold in one transaction, getting a small fraction of what an item's worth, and if you as a warrior want the best weapons, you either have to forge it or seek it out, making high-end equipment worth the gold.

(I also tried to re-calculate prices for artifacts, but I have no references to go off of. Some stuff in Morrowind is more expensive than in Skyrim, some items weren't there, etc. They WOULD have to be more than the above prices though, to make them worthwhile.)

So I guess I'm fishing for suggestions or to see if people are interested. I don't want to learn modding just to make a mod that nobody's interested in.