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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
 Posted - 24 Jul 2010 : 11:36:49
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Hello Everybody,
question today is, what are the mining capacities ( average ) and the ore - values of the various metals etc.
would be very thankful if somebody could provide a list or guideline.
in general for smithing etc. material pricing is said to be 1/3 for weaponsmithing etc, but this imho indicates that you have to buy it.
I am much more interested in the value of mined ore from a player / npc run mine.
Thx in advance.
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Saxmilian
Learned Scribe
USA
157 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jul 2010 : 16:44:36
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| I used a rule that a single character could mine a number of pounds of mineral per day equal to their skill check. A typical mine would "pan out" for 1d100 years (which is why some coal miners work generation after generation and dwarfs build kingdoms around them. The value of the mine would depend on the mineral. But then again...the going rate for a pound of adamantine...whew! |
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Saxmilian
Learned Scribe
USA
157 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jul 2010 : 16:50:05
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Where I said Years...there was the sub0condition of pounds of minerals...some small veins (liek the ones panned out by my dwarf only yielded a few hundred pounds of silver, though I decided that mining was by the pound, and each pound yielded only a percent worth of actual ore (which needed to be smelted) so you could spend weeks or months mining a single vein and acquire only a few hundred pounds. Depends on how generous u want to be...a silver mine that will yield 20 years of silver even if the ore is raregetting 11% silver per pound mined (meaning 1 pound of silver per 11 pounds) is worth thousands of gold.
On the other hand, staking a claim, and defending it was more than Cactus the Barbarian wanted to do, he mined a few days for enjoyment, marked the location on a map and went on his way, so go by years or pounds, either ore (haha!) |
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Hoondatha
Great Reader
USA
2449 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jul 2010 : 19:02:18
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If you can find the old 2e supplement The Complete Book of Dwarves, there's an entire chapter devoted to mining. How long they last, how much various races can pull out of the ground, etc.
An even better resource is in Dragon #152, in the article "In a cavern, in a canyon," which goes into even more detail. It's an older edition, but most of the lore is edition neutral, and there's an awful lot of good stuff in there. |
Doggedly converting 3e back to what D&D should be...
Sigh... And now 4e as well. |
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4686 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jul 2010 : 22:52:31
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There is no good source because the true answer is it depends.
While is is not hard to determine how much rock a person can dig (oh actually it can be depending on how much shoring is required), the purity of the base rock and ore will always vary.
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"Small beings can have small wisdom," the dragon said. "And small wise beings are better than small fools. Listen: Wisdom is caring for afterwards."
"Caring for afterwards ...? Ker repeated this without understanding.
"After action, afterwards," the dragon said. "Choose the afterwards first, then the action. Fools choose action first."
"Judgement" copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Moon |
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Halidan
Senior Scribe
USA
470 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jul 2010 : 02:13:40
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| For those of us who are old enough to remember a company called Judges Guild, they had an excellent set of random tables to determine if a prospector could find anything worth mining, the size and type of the element found, it's purity, and how much could be mined by a single person each day. Maybe someone has posted these old charts on the net, or one of the other sages has a copy laying about. Mine are long gone. |
"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied,
"If you seek for Eldorado!"
Edgar Allen Poe - 1849 |
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Jorkens
Great Reader
Norway
2950 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jul 2010 : 08:13:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Hoondatha
If you can find the old 2e supplement The Complete Book of Dwarves, there's an entire chapter devoted to mining. How long they last, how much various races can pull out of the ground, etc.
An even better resource is in Dragon #152, in the article "In a cavern, in a canyon," which goes into even more detail. It's an older edition, but most of the lore is edition neutral, and there's an awful lot of good stuff in there.
Another good book ( although a bit rules heavy for me, but better than the Wilderness book) for mining rules is the 1ed. Dungeoneers Survival Guide. It is usually cheap. |
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Hoondatha
Great Reader
USA
2449 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jul 2010 : 15:12:05
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| Good point. I've even got that one in dead-tree version and forgot about it. But you're right, it's a good one. |
Doggedly converting 3e back to what D&D should be...
Sigh... And now 4e as well. |
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Dalor Darden
Great Reader
USA
4211 Posts |
Posted - 19 Aug 2010 : 06:25:51
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quote:
Originally posted by Jorkens
quote:
Originally posted by Hoondatha
If you can find the old 2e supplement The Complete Book of Dwarves, there's an entire chapter devoted to mining. How long they last, how much various races can pull out of the ground, etc.
An even better resource is in Dragon #152, in the article "In a cavern, in a canyon," which goes into even more detail. It's an older edition, but most of the lore is edition neutral, and there's an awful lot of good stuff in there.
Another good book ( although a bit rules heavy for me, but better than the Wilderness book) for mining rules is the 1ed. Dungeoneers Survival Guide. It is usually cheap.
Specifically it starts on page 48 of the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide. I am with Jorkens in that it is a little heavy to use; but it will give you a solid idea. |
The Old Grey Box and AD&D for me! |
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Alystra Illianniis
Great Reader
USA
3750 Posts |
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Jorkens
Great Reader
Norway
2950 Posts |
Posted - 19 Aug 2010 : 18:06:48
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quote:
Originally posted by Alystra Illianniis
Anyone have links to those, or downloads? I'd love that info!
They should be pretty cheap at Noble Knight Games, you have to buy the paper version though, as the legal downloadable options are no longer made available. |
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Dalor Darden
Great Reader
USA
4211 Posts |
Posted - 19 Aug 2010 : 18:08:03
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| I got my copy on eBay for less than $5 U.S.; but then there was shipping also. |
The Old Grey Box and AD&D for me! |
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Jorkens
Great Reader
Norway
2950 Posts |
Posted - 19 Aug 2010 : 18:14:03
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| The Dungeoneer's Survival Guide is 8$ for vg+ condition at Noble Knight and the Complete book of Dwarves is 10$ for an ex copy. Dragon #152 is 4.5$. Not exactly among the expensive TSR products. |
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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
Posted - 01 Mar 2011 : 22:48:22
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ok, a bit late, but the information in the complete dbook of dwarves and in the dungeoneer survivor guide, are exactly the same, except that with the dwarves book there are options for fancy stones, too.
my main problem with this is, that the majority of the mines, willbe depleted within 2-3 months, even if just 20 individuals are working in it - and then it is, according to the rolls a good vein.
as far as i am concerned, i will handle it in the way that the first check for finding a vein is skill / profession miner DC 15 (3,5e) so, a skilled miner can find existing veins pretty easily. if the first roll indicates a tin vein, the following veins, each with skill checked increased by 1, to 16, 17, 18. basic time for finding a vein is one week, increased by the multipliers for taking 10 or 20.
this leads to mining complexes, with different tunnels etc. in an area were mining is done, and secures, very much likely an ongoing mining option in an area where certain minerals / metals or gemstones canbe found.
given the example of the famous bloodstone mines in the bloodstone-series, it is said that they last for 5d100 man-years of operation. in the scenario, 100 dwarves work the mine. this would lead to the fact, that even if the mines were newly opened they wouldbe completely depleted after 5 years max. according to the history of the bloodstone-lands, there must either be hundreds of veins, which are mined right after another, or the indicators for the lasting of a vein / mine are simply off-balanced.
additionally, the indicated 200gp cost per week and employee, would make it hardly possible for anything less than gemstone or pure gold mines to be operated profitable.
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7974 Posts |
Posted - 02 Mar 2011 : 09:42:38
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Volo's Guide to All Things Magical (free download) is a good source for info about important metals, though it doesn't discuss mining.
Metal deposits had higher yields in early times; ancient peoples could even harvest precious metals gathered on the surface. By medieval times most "easy" mines had played out, or at least couldn't be dug any deeper because of problems caused by little air and too much water. Yields were also lower, but demand for the metals led to improvements in refining so actual production increased. In the case of iron (especially for swordmaking), some mines produced better steel than others; today we understand it's because of the particular content of alloys (other metals) in some sites. Ores in the early industrial age were often as rich as 40-60% or higher iron content; today we consider 0.5% iron content a rich yield and stripmine thousands of tons of ore each day, some of our richest yields come from the discarded slag of older mining operations.
Some mines operate for centuries. Certain silver mines in Spain were worked by ancient peoples and supported the entire Roman economy for centuries. Dwarves in the Realms work similarly rich sites, mining for silver and mithril. I think it's fair to assume that dwarves have more advanced mining technology than we did in medieval/renaissance eras, though their methods would not be as efficient as our modern ones (unless they employ magic, perhaps).
Mining on wikipedia. |
[/Ayrik] |
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Marc
Senior Scribe
657 Posts |
Posted - 02 Mar 2011 : 09:43:56
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| I looked at the rules years ago when the pcs had a town in Vaasa, in my experience they are just getting in the way of fun, DM's judgement of whether the business is successful should come from what PC's do, not rolling the difficulty checks. |
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Jakuta Khan
Senior Scribe
496 Posts |
Posted - 02 Mar 2011 : 10:06:04
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@arik,
I know about the earth-medieval mining operations, the celts and other barbaric ( ok, no discussion if celts were barbaric now plz ;) )people were also successfully mining gold and iron veins for centuries.....
but this is exactly the point. and then not, again
i am looking for rules / guidelines to generate newly discovered veins of metal in the forgotten realms surrounding.
for this, the DSG supplies several options, which are a bit unlogical to me, the connection to real life veins is secondary for me.
in the example of the bloodstone-mines they support the whole economy of the country for generations already, but with the rules given in the DSG, this would hardly be possible.
I am thankful for all information, but here I would like to specifically resolve the questions which i have refrshed in my last post :)
Of course as DM you can decide whatever you want,
@muluthulu I also agree with your point.
but sometimes even as DM it is much more fun to dice things out, especially for NPC stuff - gets a bit more occasional then in my eyes.
there are such a lot of entries in the different books about mineral wealth in certain mountains, that gives me the indication that setting up a mine there which generates sufficient metal is not that much of a problem ( just the mining operation, securing the sites, feeding people etc. is a completely different theme ).
and I am not satisfied with the general result of the DSG rules for veins - especially when it comes to mines durations.
therefore I am interested if there are any other rules for the duration of mines existing.
which directly leads to my next topic, about running baronies etc. in the realms, and which rules for this are existing.
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Mining in the realms
