Adamantine and Mithral

[TwinPeaksGuy]

My Deep Gnome Fighter has the Earthspur Miner background.

As a crafting activity, can he mine Mithral or Adamantine? How about gems? If so how would he go about that?
If he gains proficiency with smith's tools, could he both mine materials and forge/upgrade his own gear? Not talking about enspelling anything, just working with +0 items with properties derived from their materials, as is done routinely with silvering weapons.

The rules for silvering (pay 100gp to a smith, on a weapon you already have) are pretty straightforward, and given silver's relative abundance that makes sense, but there are no rules for any other materials. Aside from mentions in the Monster Manual about a few creatures having damage resistances and the Drow preferring Adamantine as a weapon material, the rules are conspicuously silent.

Thoughts?

 

[kalani]

Unfortunately no. Only the downtime options listed in the Player's Guide and on the AL website (eg. scribing spells) are legal. Mining ore is not a valid option. Some adventures may give additional options specific to that adventure, but that is an exception not a rule.

The crafting downtime activity allows you to craft any item within the Allowed Rules for your Story Origin. At present - that means items in the PHB only. Adamantine and Mithril items are not available for purchase (and are actually treated as magic items in 5E). Silvering a weapon is the only option available to players via purchase or crafting.

All other unusual materials (including durkhwood, stone, adamantine, mithril, etc) cannot be crafted. I believe characters can purchase some durkhwood, coral, and bone items in Out of the Abysd be however (but I could be wrong). Out of the Abyss does however, allow players to craft makeshift weapons as a special rule within that adventure (although the specifics are vague).

 

[TwinPeaksGuy]

"Crafting. You can craft nonmagical objects."

That's all it says. No specific types of crafting are mentioned. Presumably if I were a Guild Artisan(Mason) I'd be able to build a forge given time and materials. or make a shield if I were a Smith, again given time and materials.

The background gives mining tools as part of the equipment package. It states you know how to carry out the activity of mining. Not seeing how carrying out the activity of mining doesn't qualify as either crafting or practicing a profession for someone with this background.

"Adamantine and Mithril items are not available for purchase (and are actually treated as magic items in 5E)."
Please, where exactly does it say that? I note that the MM entries for some creatures say "resistant to xxx damage from non-magical weapons not made of Adamantine" so if Adamantine was magical why would it need to be mentioned separately? Why not just say non-magical weapons and be done with it?

Please note I was not looking to purchase, but to make an item from scratch, including mining the ore.
I'd believe it was difficult. I'd believe it was expensive (you probably destroy a lot of tools). I'd believe you ran a risk of getting attacked. I'd believe it was time consuming. I read the rules and don't see where it says it's impossible. The MM actually lists it as a preferred material for Drow gear, so it's out there somewhere.

 

[skerritthegreen]

Adamantine and Mithral are magic as per the DMG. You can't make magic items in the DnDAL.

 

[TwinPeaksGuy]

Really? being hard and light are magical qualities?

Silver overcomes some resistances too, and against more creatures. Is it magical?

 

[skerritthegreen]

Mithral and Adamantine are under magic items in the DMG, silver is not.

 

[TwinPeaksGuy]

So just shut up and deal with the arbitrary ruling. There is no real reason to give, got it.

 

[skerritthegreen]

So just shut up and deal with the arbitrary ruling. There is no real reason to give, got it.

I'm not sure why the game designers choose to list them as magic items, but that's where they are. In the DnDAL, players can't access things in the DMG not specifically given out in an adventure, so no, you can't mine/craft using those materials.

 

[kalani]

Technically, you can't mine anything as Mining is not a valid downtime activity. Even players who have gained mining rights to a mine (which happens in one of the earlier adventures) can't actually mine it in AL (it is basically a fluff reward).

 

[TwinPeaksGuy]

The discussion of these materials is just enough to muddy the waters. There are no simple Adamantine weapons listed in the DMG's Magic Items section (Armor is listed, as a +0 item resistant to critical hits), yet the MM mentions them as an option for removing resistance (mechanically exactly parallel to silver) so by inference an Adamantine war hammer could be about as magical as a silvered dagger, a +0 item at best, unless spells were on it. (Enspelled there's no argument, it's a magic item.) A Drow short sword whose spells were already destroyed by sunlight might be another example of something uncommon but available with some degree of difficulty.

I strongly suspect there was at one point a section on Adamantine and Mithral in the PHB which was pulled, there are echoes of it in the other books that were never removed. The disconnect bugs me.


So there was an unanswered question about mining for gems, or gold/platinum as I'd add now. Would that count for either crafting or practicing a profession?