Dig Speed?

This is a small thing, but does anyone have a recommendation for how fast characters should be able to dig with their bare hands?

In a nutshell, my party is in a burning building being kept on fire by a magic stone in the basement (which they entered at the end of our last session). The stone is keeping the fire going, as well as supporting the mephits and elemental that are roaming around. To ground the magic in the stone and put out the fire, they need to bury it in three feet of dirt and leave it there for three rounds. 

While the Handbook says one hour to dig a 5X5 hole, I was originally going to say athletics check DC 14. On a success, dig two feet, on a failure dig one. That seemed fair. It's just a small hole, so moving one foot of a small patch of dirt in six seconds made sense. But as they're about to realize, they neglected to bring any digging equipment and their druid didn't prepare a useful shape. So unless they come up with something more clever, they'll be burying this thing with their bare hands. Timing matters because there'll be fire and monsters while they're trying to bury this thing.

So... to my original question, does anyone have a thought for how I should call this? How fast do you think a party can dig with their bare hands? I'm tempted to say that the barbarian is a dwarf with stonesense, so just call it "close enough" and bump the DC to 18. But does anyone have a better thought?

The type of soil has a big influence.  Is it sugar sand or Georgia clay or New England rocky soil?  Have you ever dug into soil with your bare hands?

The hole needs to be deeper than 3 feet.  The hole needs to be 3 feet plus the height of the stone.

If one feels endangered and they need to dig, adrenaline can make one dig faster.

Say you want them to take three turns and the stone is 18", then do pass = dig 15"  fail = 8"

Quote from ereed48109 >>

This is a small thing, but does anyone have a recommendation for how fast characters should be able to dig with their bare hands?

Realistically, trying to dig a 3' hole with your bare hands is nearly impossible in hard soil, and exceedingly time consuming even in extremely loose soil (such as sand), and would be likely to cause injury; even a very basic tool, such as a helmet or a cookpot, will do a better job.

Looking at rules, digging a 5'x5'x5' hole in an hour is a rate of 1 cubic foot per 5 rounds (and that's with an appropriate tool), and a 3' hole is probably 5-10 cubic feet of material.

Fortunately it's a small stone, just a river rock, and they're in a basement with just loose dirt for the floor. Cutting it about in half sounds like the best move to get a good mix of thematic realism, while also letting them actually play the scene. Thanks!!

Burrow Speed is a mechanic of the game. As a result I'd suggest that the answer is 0ft as standard. To modify this, they'd need the tool appropriate to the material of the ground (Pick for stone, shovel for dirt etc). With those tools it ought to take the full 1hr for player characters to be able to dig the 5ft by 5ft hole the book suggests.

Mold Earth, Stone Shape, and a few other spells exist for exactly this purpose though. To allow the PCs to dig without the spells, or equipment is to undermine the point and utility of the spells in question. Similarly, it also undermines a Druid's ability to wild shape into a creature that has a Burrow Speed.

That's where the larger advice comes in. We all have a tendency to want to say 'yes' to our players' ideas, but we have to be cognisant to how our homebrews or adjudications can affect or undermine other features and mechanics.

As a result the answer is to modify your design of the scenario. Does it need  to be 3ft of dirt, or could 2 inches of cover suffice?

Could it instead be that the stone must be buried below the ground level? This would mean they'd be required to dig, but not dig to an excessive level.

Is it a problem for you as DM to handwave that the Mephits ignore the player character who is digging, and focus instead on the other characters present?

The answer is to modify your design rather than the rules. That's half the challenge for a DM designing scenarios, adventures, and campaigns. That will always be preferable to setting a precedent which could undermine player options.

While realism is by no means a hard requirement for D&D, sometimes making beating your head against a wall fail can produce interesting creativity.

Quote from martintheactor >>

Is it a problem for you as DM to handwave that the Mephits ignore the player character who is digging, and focus instead on the other characters present?

Thank you Martin & Pantagruel!  

This in particular might be the particularly good answer here! I'm a little embarrassed I didn't think of it... Behind-the-screen answer is, it doesn't need to be buried in three feet of dirt, it just needs to be covered in three feet of dirt. And maybe the answer is the mephits and elemental will ignore the players in general unless they're disturbing the stone. That will give them room to work on a solution, while keeping the realism intact. 

Unfortunately, I've already given "three feet" as the answer before they went into the burning building. That was what they were told by the questgiver (town sorcerer), and why I made the floor of the building dirt. They had plenty of time to prepare, so I just got caught flat footed when they didn't consider how they'd bury the stone before they went charging in. I assumed they'd bring a shovel. While I know the one hour for 5x5 is in the rules, for a small stone they'd only need to dig a small-by-3 foot hole. So for that I was going to happily say a barbarian can haul 1 foot's worth of dirt straight down in six seconds, so three rounds gets them three feet. But... they didn't bring shovels, their druid didn't prepare any appropriate shapes or spells, nothing. And I don't want them to be just kind of screwed now. 

So maybe the answer is, the burning building gives a degree of urgency (they can't spend hours on this task). But the monsters won't actively attack them as long as they aren't disturbing the stone, so they've got plenty of time to think, consider and experiment with ways to get it covered under three feet's worth of dirt. I like that, thanks!

A one-handed weapon like a dagger or sword can be used as an improvised digging implement, with it being ruined as a side effect if it's not magical if you want to give them a lifeline.  And the druid doesn't even have a basic wolf, fox, or bear shape?

Have you ever watched Survivor? Sometimes the competitors have to dig several feet through sand with their bare hands. It takes longer than you'd expect. I don't think dirt would be feasible without tools.

I think it would be better for them to use some sort of improvised tool, even if it is literally just a loose board they found on the ground. Digging with your hands is extremely slow, and even an improvised tool will make it go 10x faster.

Quote from ereed48109 >>

 

Unfortunately, I've already given "three feet" as the answer before they went into the burning building. That was what they were told by the questgiver (town sorcerer), and why I made the floor of the building dirt. They had plenty of time to prepare, so I just got caught flat footed when they didn't consider how they'd bury the stone before they went charging in. I assumed they'd bring a shovel.

 
I would suggest that sometimes it's okay to allow players to fail. There are two possibilities here though that I can suggest as an addition to the above.

1. Retcon. I know many DMs don't like this, but sometimes an above the table discussion before a session which includes something like "hey folks, I didn't think a particular thing through, and so need to retroactively fix it" followed by a description of the thing being fixed (the depth of burial for example) is always an option.

2. Allow the characters to fail. They knew the depth and had the opportunity to source a shovel. Now that they are struggling, you could let them struggle. Make it a learning opportunity. It's not fun to let them fail, but will assist them down the line. They'll have had the experience that the DM will allow them to fail and might motivate them to think through future preparations. For 5e, don't forget that Druids don't have a fixed number of wild shape forms they can choose. That's only 5.5e, and frankly if the player didn't consider at least one form with a swim speed, and a second with a burrow speed, that's on the player not the DM.

The reason I'm a fan of allowing the player characters to fail a task is because it is a legitimate outcome that we often forget to talk about. Most DMs want their players to succeed, but forget that allowing them to fail also allows them to learn from the failure. IT can open out new storylines, new quest opportunities, new social encounters. How many stories can you think of where the hero fails at a task and then has to rectify the mistake in order to eventually make good? It's a trope for a darn good reason.

Or, the Mephit thing. 

Or, they just happen to find a shovel at the location for...reasons...

...I may be overthinking this here...

No, I think allowing them to fail is a solid option. I'd just like to make sure there's still room in here for them to succeed. I don't like the feeling of "you failed last session when you didn't prep for this, but you're only just learning about it now."

Here, though, I just like retconning even less. I don't mind retconning occasionally, especially if I made a mistake. I've done it once or twice, especially when I realized after the fact that I accidentally railroaded over a good idea. But, I don't think it's good for the game to retcon away a fair challenge. 

I think the answer here feels like do both. The monsters won't bother them until they disturb the stone, giving them space to try and come up with a creative solution. If they can't, or if their solution doesn't work, well... then they might have try and escape and let the building burn down. 

To the point other people have made, there's room for some creativity here. (Although honestly, now I've got to take a best guess at "how fast can they dig with a helmet?") And fortunately they're in the basement of a blacksmith's shop, so if they try to find a tool, I can definitely fudge that. But they'll have to try and figure this out. I think the best change to make behind the screen is to tweak the monsters so they've got some time and space to figure that solution out.