Mining with a Waraxe

[Brother MacLaren]

So the PCs know the general layout of the caves they're going into. They know that one alcove is separate from a larger cave (where they suspect an ambush waits) by about 5' of rock. The dwarf wants to take his adamantine waraxe and hack through the stone.

By the DMG, a 5-ft-thick natural stone wall has 900 hp for a 10-by-10 section. At Full Power Attack with his axe in two hands, the dwarf does 19.5 per hit (5th level, 16 Str), so that's 46 rounds for the full section, or about a minute to create a 5-by-5 opening. He's shattering 11 cubic feet of stone -- weighing about a ton -- with each swing.

Even with an ordinary waraxe, he'd be doing 11.5 per hit, so taking not even twice as long. With a Mattock of the Titans, he could smash a 10' cube of rock in an hour -- what a useless item, it seems. And, of course, an ordinary miner needs to have a 14 Str and using his pick 2-handed to do ANY damage to stone, and even then once every six swings.

Do I have these rules correct? And are they truly as nonsensical as they seem?

Seems to me that if you have stone HP and hardness such that ordinary miners can make any progress, a strong Power-Attacking character will just blow them away.

 

[ainbimagh]

Yes I have ruled that you cannot power attack inanimate objects because of this.

However a maul of the titans would tear through it in 1/3 the time

 

[Infiniti2000]

You are forgetting two rules:

Ineffective Weapons
Certain weapons just can’t effectively deal damage to certain objects.

Vulnerability to Certain Attacks
Certain attacks are especially successful against some objects. In such cases, attacks deal double their normal damage and may ignore the object’s hardness.

Use the first to say that weapons that are not intended to beat on stone (or iron or whatever) do half damage or even less. Use the second to say that (for example) picks ignore the hardness of stone.

Problem solved per the rules.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Problem solved per the rules.

Yes, I had seen those, so I had house-ruled it to take five times as long (still knocking out 400 pounds of stone per swing).

I should probably look up medieval mining rates to figure how fast a miner can work (in terms of feet per day through stone), to get a sense for what would be a fair benefit for using a pick.

The dwarf might start carrying a pick -- great for CdG's, great for tunneling, and for fighting animated objects of stone (with the axe for wooden ones). Which is fine, I suppose, they have Stone Shape and are close to the level where you get Polymorph (e.g. umber hulk).

Power Attack is really what makes high-level characters cut through stone like a hot knife through butter, but I don't see a logical in-game reason to deny it.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Yes, I had seen those, so I had house-ruled it to take five times as long (still knocking out 400 pounds of stone per swing).

I claim that that is not a house rule. You are merely applying those rules suitably in your game. This difference in what you call it is mostly unimportant, but it may matter to some (for instance, if you desire a core rules only game, you have a great amount of leeway in your adjudication on this, still staying within core rules because it's undefined).

 

[pallandrome]

Remember though, stone carries sound REALLY WELL. If the ambush group can hear at all, or, possibly, can feel the vibrations in the floor, they will not be suprised even a little bit. A full minute to prepare for an attack is a LIFETIME, in DnD terms. Quite possibly literally for the poor dwarf.

 

[Darklone]

Be careful about cave-ins.

And yes, the barbarian with adamatine greataxe cuts his way pretty fast through castlewalls.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Remember though, stone carries sound REALLY WELL. If the ambush group can hear at all, or, possibly, can feel the vibrations in the floor, they will not be suprised even a little bit. A full minute to prepare for an attack is a LIFETIME, in DnD terms. Quite possibly literally for the poor dwarf.

Silence spell should negate most vibrations, since those are a form of sound. Cast it on some small object that you can throw away when you want to cast spells.

And as to letting the targets prepare for an attack... that can be used against them if the players are clever. Start tunneling, let them think you're getting close, then back off for a few minutes or even an hour. All those buffs are gone and all those spell slots used up.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Be careful about cave-ins.

I would say that since he is a dwarf, he can create the hole in such a way that he can prevent any possible cave ins. Just how I would personally rule it.

 

[lukelightning]

I would say that since he is a dwarf, he can create the hole in such a way that he can prevent any possible cave ins. Just how I would personally rule it.

I'd say "make a profession(miner) check (even unskilled) with +2 'cuz you're a dwarf."