This is the spiritual successor to http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1410875-so-how-much-is-a-septim-worth-in-skyrim/ thread. Without creating a complete list, let's list a few items:

Firewood: 5
Book: 1
Grand Soul Gem: 0.5
Potion: 0.5
Elder Scroll [casing included]: 20
Necklace: 0.5
Circlet: 2
Steel Sword: 10
Steel Armor: 35
Steel Shield: 12

I did a little math and got a pretty strong belief that a unit exactly equals to one half of a pound [=226 g in the metric system], or at least that's what the devs had in mind. So, the above would translate to:

Firewood: 1,130 g
Book: 226 g
Grand Soul Gem: 113 g
Potion: 113 g
Elder Scroll [casing included]: 4,520 g
Necklace: 113 g
Circlet: 452 g
Steel Sword: 2,260 g
Steel Armor: 7,910 g
Steel Shield: 2,712 g

Even though some weights look a bit off due to the rounded values of the original weights, 226 grams for a weigh unit look pretty reasonable to me. We should obviously ignore the carrying capacity when doing the math, since it can increase to a hypothetical 700 limit [default 300 carrying limit + 80 levels * 5 per level], which would translate to a ridicolous 158 kilos carrying capacity. What do you guys think?

I believe it is 1 unit = 1 pound.

To be fair, I've never tried to translate the weight from TES to ours, because there are several factors which will make the translation difficult to do.

Tamriel has two moons, which will definitely have an affect on gravity, and this will skew any potential conversions. Even as I drop items in the game, I notice they drop slightly less than our own. Since the game model is scaled, someone would have to measure distance, time the drop, then make a calculation for gravity.

Then, this number would be used to determine a gram to "1" unit in Skyrim.

Too much work for me, so I'll leave this to the brainiacs who care to figure it out.

The gravity, good point, I didn't consider that. Does anyone know what's the Nirn size compared to Earth's? Looks like the Lore doesn't mention it.

[yes, we're really going into nerd mode here]

I don't think there's much point worrying too much about exact weights. It has to be an abstraction that balances a loose element of realism with good gameplay. You can carry a ridiculous amount of stuff compared to what would be possible IRL, but the game would be highly tedious if it was too realistic - a warrior in heavy armour couldn't carry much else besides their weapon. I think the most vital component is if items have good balance in their relative weights and the game has a reasonable carry weight without being too restrictive or too enormous for gameplay purposes.

Two moons would have more effect on the tides then gravity actually. Our moon has almost no effect on our gravity, due to its distance. The mass of Nirn compared to Earth likely hasn't been defined but if things do falls slower (and I have noticed this) then Nirn probably does have a slightly smaller mass then our Earth. Then there's air density, it is possible that items fall slower because Nirn has a thicker atmosphere and thus increased wind resistance.

The 'objects falling slower' thing is likely just a shortcoming of the physics engine in the game. We've been observing how physics works in our world since we've been born (duh!) so we quickly pick up difference between the two worlds.

Meh I don't worry about it too much. However, the older books from medieval times easily weighed a few pounds each. They were a little different that the mass market paperbacks we find at Barnes and Noble today

I think it's probably more like 1 unit = 1/3 pound. That gives a L1 Dragonborn carry capacity of 100 pounds. Also, I don't think a warhammer would weigh more than about eight or nine pounds, and a one-handed weapon like a sword or mace would weigh less.

However, some of those food portions are pretty miniscule using that scale. But since the Dragonborn doesn't need to eat anyway, I suppose it doesn't matter.

being that i am really interested in this for some reason ill just do this...
BUMP

Earth's gravity and its influence on character jumping is similar to Nirn's, so it can't be too different (then again if we take into account the giant's moon-shot... )

YOU DON'T SAY?

A warhammer would, in real life, easily weigh over 20 pounds. Ever held a normal hammer? Now imagine that same thing, but considerably longer, and with a heavier hammerhead. 10 kilograms / 20 pounds easily. Also, at 1/3 pound per unit, something like Banded Iron Armor would weigh around 10 pounds, which is highly unrealistic given the huge amount of iron and material that go into it. I still think 1 pound per unit seems about right.

I wouldn't think too much about carrying capacity, since anything over 40 pounds would be unrealistic.

Lowest possible weight is 0.1 so small items like ingredients and rings will weight this. This is also balanced, higher quality items are heavier so you can not carry so much of it? Why should an high quality armor be heavier than an iron one? You can always make an iron armor more protective by making it thicker, food is light to make it more useful compared to potions.
Also plenty of bugs in the weights like why is leather twice as heavy as the fur?

Price of most books are cheaper than real world paperbacks. This is probably also because of balance.
In Morrowind books was more expensive as they was in shelves they was also very easy to steal at level one.
In Skyrim and Oblivion they are mostly collector items.

second this. bethesda is an american based company so i dont think they had the metric system in mind but couldn't call it a pound because of international players.

most skyrim books are 1 unit and they're big hard covered books so i'd say they weigh at least 1 pound.

as for some armor and weapon types being unrealistically heavy, they're mainly made with unrealistic materials in a fantasy world so its to be expected. Also weights aren't meant to be realistic, they're meant to balance the game so you cant wear the best armor and carry all the potions and equipment you want. Arrows are weightless to be fair to pure archers but some bows are heavy to balance that

Deriving a conversion between Nirn weight systems and Terrestrial ones is fine, but treating TES celestial bodies like those in our universe won't help you any. It'll just muddy the issue horribly.

The lore suggests that the moons aren't exactly as they appear (their roundness may be an optical illusion), and aren't anologous to terrestrial moons. The cosmology of TES is...weird. The moons are the remains of Lorkhan's body, falling stars are magicka-charged meteoric glass falling from Aetherius (the source of Varla stones), and the sun is actually a hole in the sky, as are all the stars.

Even if they were similar to the Earth's moon (very large relative to the associated planet) the influence would not be significant.

Based on mass and distance, the sun has more influence (~180 times as much) on earth-bound objects than the moon does. Earth's gravitic influence is ~300,000 times greater than the moon's.

Yeah, Nirn is infused with magic. Thus i doubt real-world physics apply there.

Still, an interesting thread nonetheless.

exactly, i use a 10lb framing hammer and i own a 20lb sledgehammer...pretty close to iron/steel 1h and 2h maces and warhammers yet these are tools so they're designed to be lighter to work with. a warhammer could easily weigh 20lbs+

Taking Mundus's cosmology into light, seeing how the planets are undead gods, Tamriel's weight system must be quite different. Perhaps they run on an exponential scale of gravity, where everything becomes ridiculously heavy after one- or two-hundred pounds.

This thread is highly informative, nvthless

That doesn't affect mass, only weight. It seems the OP is talking about mass, even though he said weight. Weight is the force of an object on the earth due to gravity.

For example, a 1kg item weighs 9.81 kgms^-2 (aka newton's).

I don't think there is a proper connection for mass, given that a roll of paper weighs as much as an ebony ingot in game, they didn't put much thought into it.

To be precise, 0.1 is the lowest possible displayed weight, i.e. the game shows a weight that in truth might be far lower than what is actually shown. The CK shows that many ingredients weigh around 0.01.

A 2-handed warhammer easily weighed 20-30+ pounds in medieval times