Mining

[RFLS]

So...does anyone know of rules for mining or prospecting rare materials? My group cleared out a mine the other day and decided that they wanted to occupy it.

[Slipperychicken]

I'm pretty sure that's governed by Profession (Miner).

[Coidzor]

Races of the Dragon discusses using profession mining to clear out 5' cubes or possibly 10' cubes, I forget which, in amongst the kobold stuff.

I think it's DMG II that has the business rules, though you're better off just going with either a homebrew fix for that system or an entirely new system.

If they just want to turn it into their lair, the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook has some stuff, but... you're again probably better off going homebrew and cobbling something together on your own/crowdsource'd.

[BowStreetRunner]

Oooh! As a DM this sort of thing would give me goosebumps! All the possibilities... I would definitely encourage them to hire a bunch of miners to work the mine for them. This could lead to such great

FUN!!!

[RFLS]

Originally Posted by Slipperychicken

I'm pretty sure that's governed by Profession (Miner).

Badly, but yes.


Anyway, I ended up homebrewing a fix for it, called "hand it the mathematics/business major." I gave him base stats for workers, cost of any supplies he asked for, monthly cost of workers and expendable supplies, and weight of ore/weight of stone mined per month (it's cold iron, btw), and told him he had to a) separate ore from whatevere-the-mining-equivalent-of-chaff-is, b) process the ore, and c) get both ore and waste to the surface. His character's a super-intelligent wizard, so I didn't feel that this was unreasonable. He came up with 120 lbs of cold iron per month, and maintenance fees of 10k gp per month. I feel like 20k profits every month isn't bad, given that the players are going to be building/maintaining strongholds across the landscape. Obviously, it won't be long until they decide to open another mine, but....it is so very easy to burn off excess wealth. Anyway. If anyone's curious, here's a very boiled down version of the string of math my player handed me to figure out productivity of a mine, based on average stats, level 1 commoners with maxed profession, constant output, and optimized production:

(((GP per pound of end product / 100 pounds) * ((Pounds / Day) / Worker)) * (# Workers) * (30 days / month))

The above equation gives you GP/month in raw output; it does not take in to account operating expenses.

Things which are subject to DM:
Density of ore
Wages for workers
Price of materials

Things that are up to the players:
How the delegate their workers
What materials they purchase

If you're curious, the above equation for my group went (250/100) * (12) * (35) * (30) = 31500 GP/month.

Of course, not every group has a math/business major. If this is your unfortunate case I'd recommend telling any group you get that the mine is capable of producing (Average level of group - 2) * 1000 * (Price per pound of mineral / 100) GP per month, at the time they receive the mine. This should, in game terms, keep things semi-balanced against WBL. The number to adjust if you want to give them more or less per month is how much you subtract from their average level.

That was about as clear as mud, huh?