I did not see any tool or skill that jumps out to me and says "this deals with the act of/running/building of/running a business of running a mine and processing the material from the mine"
1) Is there a skill and or toll I am missing?
2) Did you/do you just add mining to your list of tools?
2a) Is it an artisan tool or in another tool category?
Skills are to some degree variable, and up to the player and DM to come to an agreement. You could argue that straight intelligence or wisdom might apply. History, to represent long years in the business. Dexterity or strength for the actual mining/processing. Maybe smith's tools will work, maybe you want to purchase a handful of separate items like books and ink if you were more on the business end of things. D&D lets you make this up for yourself!
Are you talking about running the mine, or doing the actual mining, because running a business and working in a business are usually two different skill sets. That said, for the act of mining, I think you got it with artisan's tools. Rulsewise, it's kind of a catchall term for tools in general. The list in the PHB is not meant to be exhaustive. It's just some common examples, since it would be next to impossible to list every sort of tool for every profession that uses tools.
I guess you'd need to homebrew a cost and a weight for them, but that shouldn't be too tough. Maybe start with a war pick for a baseline and go from there. Or if cost and weight are irrelevant, you can just say you have proficiency in mining tools, and you've got some with you and you're good.
There's the Miner's Pick. Using the actual pick is likely going to take a Strength-based check, but knowing a good spot to uncover a vein of mineral would take different skills.
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Thanks for the info, I did a search and did not see anything useful come up.
I understand that D&D 5e is trying to keep things as simple as possible which has its advantages and disadvantages.
At first I thought mining might covered be under the Nature skill but then after seeing the list of tools it makes more sense to me to have it listed in the tool section.
The other issues of it being an Artisan Tool or not is more of a question and I think it would not be as it is just a lot of manual labor but then again smithing is listed as a Artisan Tool for the Human Mark of Making race so maybe it should be listed there.
There's a couple of profession-based backgrounds among the official ones (fisher, sailor, craftsman, ...) but there's also a whole lot that aren't there and that don't exactly fit the bill of any of the official ones if you'd reflavor them. No farmer, no forester, nothing to do with raising livestock or breeding and training animals of any kind. Other than guild merchant there's nothing for traders, and guild merchant is pretty specific. And no miner, obviously. And without background, there's also no corresponding proficiency - nothing for working the land, tending to animals (Animal Handling doesn't cover that), or running a business. So just make it up. If you want your character to know what they're doing while working a mine, call it proficiency (mining tools) and give those tools the same cost as smithing tools for instance. Put whatever you think is appropriate in there, but don't worry too much about it. Until you'd want to use a mining implement for something else, it doesn't really matter what is or is not among them. Give them a lantern and a pick for sure, those can come up outside mining situations, and whatever else is assumed not to be relevant to general adventuring.
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There's a couple of profession-based backgrounds among the official ones (fisher, sailor, craftsman, ...) but there's also a whole lot that aren't there and that don't exactly fit the bill of any of the official ones if you'd reflavor them. No farmer, no forester, nothing to do with raising livestock or breeding and training animals of any kind. Other than guild merchant there's nothing for traders, and guild merchant is pretty specific. And no miner, obviously. And without background, there's also no corresponding proficiency - nothing for working the land, tending to animals (Animal Handling doesn't cover that), or running a business. So just make it up. If you want your character to know what they're doing while working a mine, call it proficiency (mining tools) and give those tools the same cost as smithing tools for instance. Put whatever you think is appropriate in there, but don't worry too much about it. Until you'd want to use a mining implement for something else, it doesn't really matter what is or is not among them. Give them a lantern and a pick for sure, those can come up outside mining situations, and whatever else is assumed not to be relevant to general adventuring.
As DM I have made several calls for a ability check + proficiency modifier for things that I think would fall into a characters skill set due to their background. Sailor and knot tying for example.
…just food for thought - the use of a mining pick has little to do with what you’re asking about - the running of a mine and the processing of the materials from the mine.
For pure knowledge about how to mine ore, I would probably go with Nature. But it definitely takes more than that to run an entire mine. Running a successful business would likely require a large number of different skills.
Persuasion (Or Intimidation, if that's your vibe) for managing a productive workforce, or for networking with supply chain partners.
History for understanding market trends and where best to move product.
Arcana to understand the value or usage of any rare ores or gemstones that would make for good spell components.
Smith Tools or Jeweler Tools for processing raw materials into actual products.
Etc, etc. You can make an argument for a lot of different skills.
I'd probably want a little more detail on what exactly the player wants to do before I decide what skill they are rolling. If I am giving players huge amounts of downtime and the player simply wants to "start up a mine from scratch", I'm turning that into multiple different checks across a variety of skills.
To clarify something, things like Carpenter's Tools are not in 5e so you can be a carpenter. They're so you can be a former carpenter who is now an adventurer and can bring those skills to bear as needed in their new career. Anyways...
Considering that IRL you would have different teams of people each building, running, and working the mine and different professions within each of those teams, I don't think you can wrap this in one proficiency.
It's also worth asking, how deep do you want to go into this? Do your players want to spend hours playing Mine Business Simulator or is this just a couple rolls they want to make for downtime that will only take about 5 minutes of table time? If it's the latter I wouldn't put too much effort into fleshing out a whole system.
I'd probably say this needs to be a party venture and let the players decide what roles their characters want to play in the business. Figure out a roll from there (i.e. Barbarian wants to dig or work the mine => Athletics check, Bard wants to arrange buyers and barter for materials => Persuasion check, etc.) and assume they can hire people for any other roles that aren't filled. Failed checks mean they need to hire others to do the job which takes a bite out of their profits. Have them roll their checks, figure out the profits (which should be substantially less than what they'd find exploring those spooky old ruins by the lake) , and then ideally get back to the real adventurin' D&D was made to emulate.
Mining is a special field just like Smithing is a special field. To be a mining supervisor, you have to know things about different types of rock, you have to be able to recognize specific types of ore, you have to know things about loads and stresses in a tunneling application and you have to know enough geometry to figure out how close tunnels are to one another and at what relative angles they cross.
Some of these skills seem to be intelligence based, and others seem to be wisdom. I'd probably lean towards intelligence.
If the PCs background seems in some way reasonable to consider them to have practical knowledge of mines, then just let them also be proficient in mining supervision.
The tools used in a medieval time frame would be picks, sledge hammers and long rod drill bits. They also need surveyor's transits, which would be horribly expensive. Transits must have discs etched with angles to a phenomenal accuracy and precision. Another problem with mining is getting fresh air inside the mine. You will almost certainly hand-wave that away.
So go to a blacksmith and ask him to make some sets of miners tools, or hire miners that have their own tools. Have an artisan make a surveyor's transit. Then send some folks to the mountains to find an exposed ore deposit, and start digging.
Finally, as mentioned by Scatterbrained, these sidelines are not intended to become a PC's career. I would discourage anyone from attempting to make a "civilian career" into their main quest. If you are having the party tunnel into a castle or a dungeon, then I could see that. But except for the problem of secrecy, it would be better to hire miners than to do the work yourself.
Good luck and have fun.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I think you proved my point by your statement "...,but don't worry too much about it."
I have been gaming since the late 70's and often expand rules to cover areas that are not covered by the game rules as well as identify areas that the games "rules" make problematic with their system model. Both exceedingly simple and complex systems often have their own issues to deal with, ie most GM's and players do not want to have to do all the math and engineering to build a nuclear device in their game or to analyze if a specific weapon design would work and how effective it would be on the flip side a simple game may confuse players and GM's into thinking anything with a nucleus can be made into a nuclear device.
I can see the advantage to having specific tool proficiencies in specific situations and how that changes how GM's run and prep for their games as well as players "play" their PC's. The mining skill above IMHO could/would provide advantage on using the perception skill to notice problems with a tunnels bracing.
I have found that providing more detail (to the best of a GM's and or authors ability) can greatly enhance players enjoyment of the game. By the same token the GM have to remember that the player is not the PC and the PC is not the player and GM accordingly.
I agree that running a business would require the person to use a lot of different skills in D&D 5e (as it does in most other games), but it seems to me that the simplicity of D&D 5e (again I think it is a strength and a bit of a weakness, and if you "stay with in the lane(s)" of the system it does a good job) necessitates that the general knowledge if how to do things be included in the taking of the "tool". Those things you need to know would include knowing you need to be informed in the relevant areas of knowledge (skills) even if you do not have training in those areas.
To me, this reminds be of one of the issues we had with adding ideas to AD&D back in the 80's and how trying to keep things simple and expand upon the AD&D system to make it more in tune with what we were looking for in a RPG was tough.
Yes, detail is important and how, were and how, were a specific GM uses skill and tool proficiencies is also important. As one GM may simply ignore them and another GM may use them heavily.
The other issue as I stated above is that when writing adventures and "running" a game the GM/writer has to know more about the various skills and tool and how they would be/could be used in that situation and that can impede some people from GM'ing a game or writing a module for others to use. On the other hand if writers of adventures include more tool use and non-standard skill use it often expands the play and immersion of the group.
In general I agree that other skills need to be or could be used in various situations in running a mine or the act of mining. But IMHO, having the mine tool (or the right tool for the situation) would guide you when and how to better use the skill.
I after reading the nature skill thought that mining was not needed as it could be wedged into the skill description but as I thought more about it that might expand the skill to other areas and make nature a super skill (ie have more value then other skills).
I think I remember reading in on of the D&D 5e books notes on tools and how they could influence skills by providing mods or advantage/disadvantage to specific skills and I think this is an area in which the mining tool would work well with skill use. I would probably try and stay with the advantage/disadvantage theme of 5e where all possible. On a side note I think that a rewrite of 5e with closer integration of tools would be a huge improvement in the game and would help GM's and players a great deal.
I agree and think in general magic can or could help here.
The idea of magic integration into "jobs" opens up a host of spell ideas that often have no impact on adventuring but at times add to over all game play. For example a magical sonic device that detects structural weakness's in timber, stone work and metal that the group uses to find and fix issues in a mine, find a goblin tunnel, id an weak timber in a ship (preventing it from sinking) and analyze weapons and armor for weakness and fix them. The magic item in question suddenly becomes very useful in a number of daily tasks as well as adds additional detail (and possible complexity) to your game...if you so desire it.
Reading you reply also brought back an old memory from the 80's in which I played a game that was different from the TSR (D&D, Boothill, Top Secret, etc) system style and tried to include more "real world" like (if magic existed) rules and obstacles and how that changed how I and others RPG'ed. The other systems often had us tack on home rules to AD&D that could dramatically alter the system (some in good ways and some in bad) and often expanded our enjoyment of gaming.
I did not see any tool or skill that jumps out to me and says "this deals with the act of/running/building of/running a business of running a mine and processing the material from the mine"
1) Is there a skill and or toll I am missing?
2) Did you/do you just add mining to your list of tools?
2a) Is it an artisan tool or in another tool category?
Thanks
MDC
Skills are to some degree variable, and up to the player and DM to come to an agreement. You could argue that straight intelligence or wisdom might apply. History, to represent long years in the business. Dexterity or strength for the actual mining/processing. Maybe smith's tools will work, maybe you want to purchase a handful of separate items like books and ink if you were more on the business end of things. D&D lets you make this up for yourself!
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Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
Are you talking about running the mine, or doing the actual mining, because running a business and working in a business are usually two different skill sets. That said, for the act of mining, I think you got it with artisan's tools. Rulsewise, it's kind of a catchall term for tools in general. The list in the PHB is not meant to be exhaustive. It's just some common examples, since it would be next to impossible to list every sort of tool for every profession that uses tools.
I guess you'd need to homebrew a cost and a weight for them, but that shouldn't be too tough. Maybe start with a war pick for a baseline and go from there. Or if cost and weight are irrelevant, you can just say you have proficiency in mining tools, and you've got some with you and you're good.
There's the Miner's Pick. Using the actual pick is likely going to take a Strength-based check, but knowing a good spot to uncover a vein of mineral would take different skills.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Thanks for the info, I did a search and did not see anything useful come up.
I understand that D&D 5e is trying to keep things as simple as possible which has its advantages and disadvantages.
At first I thought mining might covered be under the Nature skill but then after seeing the list of tools it makes more sense to me to have it listed in the tool section.
The other issues of it being an Artisan Tool or not is more of a question and I think it would not be as it is just a lot of manual labor but then again smithing is listed as a Artisan Tool for the Human Mark of Making race so maybe it should be listed there.
Thanks for your help, incite and thoughts.
MDC
There's a couple of profession-based backgrounds among the official ones (fisher, sailor, craftsman, ...) but there's also a whole lot that aren't there and that don't exactly fit the bill of any of the official ones if you'd reflavor them. No farmer, no forester, nothing to do with raising livestock or breeding and training animals of any kind. Other than guild merchant there's nothing for traders, and guild merchant is pretty specific. And no miner, obviously. And without background, there's also no corresponding proficiency - nothing for working the land, tending to animals (Animal Handling doesn't cover that), or running a business. So just make it up. If you want your character to know what they're doing while working a mine, call it proficiency (mining tools) and give those tools the same cost as smithing tools for instance. Put whatever you think is appropriate in there, but don't worry too much about it. Until you'd want to use a mining implement for something else, it doesn't really matter what is or is not among them. Give them a lantern and a pick for sure, those can come up outside mining situations, and whatever else is assumed not to be relevant to general adventuring.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
As DM I have made several calls for a ability check + proficiency modifier for things that I think would fall into a characters skill set due to their background. Sailor and knot tying for example.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
…just food for thought - the use of a mining pick has little to do with what you’re asking about - the running of a mine and the processing of the materials from the mine.
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Deck of Decks
For pure knowledge about how to mine ore, I would probably go with Nature. But it definitely takes more than that to run an entire mine. Running a successful business would likely require a large number of different skills.
Etc, etc. You can make an argument for a lot of different skills.
I'd probably want a little more detail on what exactly the player wants to do before I decide what skill they are rolling. If I am giving players huge amounts of downtime and the player simply wants to "start up a mine from scratch", I'm turning that into multiple different checks across a variety of skills.
To clarify something, things like Carpenter's Tools are not in 5e so you can be a carpenter. They're so you can be a former carpenter who is now an adventurer and can bring those skills to bear as needed in their new career. Anyways...
Considering that IRL you would have different teams of people each building, running, and working the mine and different professions within each of those teams, I don't think you can wrap this in one proficiency.
It's also worth asking, how deep do you want to go into this? Do your players want to spend hours playing Mine Business Simulator or is this just a couple rolls they want to make for downtime that will only take about 5 minutes of table time? If it's the latter I wouldn't put too much effort into fleshing out a whole system.
I'd probably say this needs to be a party venture and let the players decide what roles their characters want to play in the business. Figure out a roll from there (i.e. Barbarian wants to dig or work the mine => Athletics check, Bard wants to arrange buyers and barter for materials => Persuasion check, etc.) and assume they can hire people for any other roles that aren't filled. Failed checks mean they need to hire others to do the job which takes a bite out of their profits. Have them roll their checks, figure out the profits (which should be substantially less than what they'd find exploring those spooky old ruins by the lake) , and then ideally get back to the real adventurin' D&D was made to emulate.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Homebrew an Artisan's Tool, link it to a stat you think is the most suited and use that. A bit like Smithing or Tinkering. That's your best bet.
Mining is a special field just like Smithing is a special field. To be a mining supervisor, you have to know things about different types of rock, you have to be able to recognize specific types of ore, you have to know things about loads and stresses in a tunneling application and you have to know enough geometry to figure out how close tunnels are to one another and at what relative angles they cross.
Some of these skills seem to be intelligence based, and others seem to be wisdom. I'd probably lean towards intelligence.
If the PCs background seems in some way reasonable to consider them to have practical knowledge of mines, then just let them also be proficient in mining supervision.
The tools used in a medieval time frame would be picks, sledge hammers and long rod drill bits. They also need surveyor's transits, which would be horribly expensive. Transits must have discs etched with angles to a phenomenal accuracy and precision. Another problem with mining is getting fresh air inside the mine. You will almost certainly hand-wave that away.
So go to a blacksmith and ask him to make some sets of miners tools, or hire miners that have their own tools. Have an artisan make a surveyor's transit. Then send some folks to the mountains to find an exposed ore deposit, and start digging.
Finally, as mentioned by Scatterbrained, these sidelines are not intended to become a PC's career. I would discourage anyone from attempting to make a "civilian career" into their main quest. If you are having the party tunnel into a castle or a dungeon, then I could see that. But except for the problem of secrecy, it would be better to hire miners than to do the work yourself.
Good luck and have fun.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I think you proved my point by your statement "...,but don't worry too much about it."
I have been gaming since the late 70's and often expand rules to cover areas that are not covered by the game rules as well as identify areas that the games "rules" make problematic with their system model. Both exceedingly simple and complex systems often have their own issues to deal with, ie most GM's and players do not want to have to do all the math and engineering to build a nuclear device in their game or to analyze if a specific weapon design would work and how effective it would be on the flip side a simple game may confuse players and GM's into thinking anything with a nucleus can be made into a nuclear device.
I can see the advantage to having specific tool proficiencies in specific situations and how that changes how GM's run and prep for their games as well as players "play" their PC's. The mining skill above IMHO could/would provide advantage on using the perception skill to notice problems with a tunnels bracing.
I have found that providing more detail (to the best of a GM's and or authors ability) can greatly enhance players enjoyment of the game. By the same token the GM have to remember that the player is not the PC and the PC is not the player and GM accordingly.
Thanks
MDC
I agree that running a business would require the person to use a lot of different skills in D&D 5e (as it does in most other games), but it seems to me that the simplicity of D&D 5e (again I think it is a strength and a bit of a weakness, and if you "stay with in the lane(s)" of the system it does a good job) necessitates that the general knowledge if how to do things be included in the taking of the "tool". Those things you need to know would include knowing you need to be informed in the relevant areas of knowledge (skills) even if you do not have training in those areas.
To me, this reminds be of one of the issues we had with adding ideas to AD&D back in the 80's and how trying to keep things simple and expand upon the AD&D system to make it more in tune with what we were looking for in a RPG was tough.
Yes, detail is important and how, were and how, were a specific GM uses skill and tool proficiencies is also important. As one GM may simply ignore them and another GM may use them heavily.
The other issue as I stated above is that when writing adventures and "running" a game the GM/writer has to know more about the various skills and tool and how they would be/could be used in that situation and that can impede some people from GM'ing a game or writing a module for others to use. On the other hand if writers of adventures include more tool use and non-standard skill use it often expands the play and immersion of the group.
MDC
In general I agree that other skills need to be or could be used in various situations in running a mine or the act of mining. But IMHO, having the mine tool (or the right tool for the situation) would guide you when and how to better use the skill.
I after reading the nature skill thought that mining was not needed as it could be wedged into the skill description but as I thought more about it that might expand the skill to other areas and make nature a super skill (ie have more value then other skills).
I think I remember reading in on of the D&D 5e books notes on tools and how they could influence skills by providing mods or advantage/disadvantage to specific skills and I think this is an area in which the mining tool would work well with skill use. I would probably try and stay with the advantage/disadvantage theme of 5e where all possible. On a side note I think that a rewrite of 5e with closer integration of tools would be a huge improvement in the game and would help GM's and players a great deal.
Thanks for you thoughts
MDC
I agree and think in general magic can or could help here.
The idea of magic integration into "jobs" opens up a host of spell ideas that often have no impact on adventuring but at times add to over all game play. For example a magical sonic device that detects structural weakness's in timber, stone work and metal that the group uses to find and fix issues in a mine, find a goblin tunnel, id an weak timber in a ship (preventing it from sinking) and analyze weapons and armor for weakness and fix them. The magic item in question suddenly becomes very useful in a number of daily tasks as well as adds additional detail (and possible complexity) to your game...if you so desire it.
Reading you reply also brought back an old memory from the 80's in which I played a game that was different from the TSR (D&D, Boothill, Top Secret, etc) system style and tried to include more "real world" like (if magic existed) rules and obstacles and how that changed how I and others RPG'ed. The other systems often had us tack on home rules to AD&D that could dramatically alter the system (some in good ways and some in bad) and often expanded our enjoyment of gaming.
Thanks
MDC
Mining would be Nature I think.