D&D 5E How long would it take to mine a gold vein in medieval times?

[Zardnaar]

Cool.

So using the table in the free sample of their book posted at the link you shared, we are looking at 35 to 260 gp per week per miner from a gold mine, depending on the quality of the miner. If we go with the 30 miners assumed necessary to work a mine from the Magical Medieval Society Western Europe (MMSWE) book (and I don't know who based in history that number is) we get 1,050 to 7,800 per week.

Based on the posted YouTube video I got to 6,666 per month, which is 1,538 per week, which is on the lower end of the Angry Golem Games Dwarves & Mines numbers--but it makes sense that Dwarves would be more efficient than historical humans.

For the MMSWE book est of 50,000 per year, we get 962 gp / week, Magical Europe is doing worse than estimated historical Europe.

I'm going to just go with 6,666 per month until they exhaust the mine in 2.5 years, just because my players will think that there must be something cursed about it, despite the math.

Or it's just not a very good vein.

I searched medieval gold mines on YouTube there's several videos

I know more about Roman gold mines.

 

[Yaarel]

In a D&D economy, there is also magic.

For example, the Fabricate spell can process the ore, separate the gold from the other minerals. The gold can be in any form, from nuggets to coins to bars − to artwork.

In my campaigns, for these kinds of spells, I additionally require various skill checks, such as Performance to determine artistic value, and the relevant skills to determine the ability to craft durable high quality products. The pertinent tool proficiences demonstrate professional knowledge about the subject matter.

If the goal is simply to produce high-purity bars, that should be reasonably straightforward. So, a check using the Nature skill, Alchemist tools, or Smith tools, should work fine.



The spells, Move Earth, Stone Shape, Transmute Rock, and even Erupting Earth spell might help in certain situations. I would allow an Arcana check to successfully tweak a spell, depending on the plausibility or difficulty of the desirable effect. It is also possible that specialist spells or rituals exist for detecting gold, via divination or elemental spells.

 

[Yaarel]

Cool.

So using the table in the free sample of their book posted at the link you shared, we are looking at 35 to 260 gp per week per miner from a gold mine, depending on the quality of the miner. If we go with the 30 miners assumed necessary to work a mine from the Magical Medieval Society Western Europe (MMSWE) book (and I don't know who based in history that number is) we get 1,050 to 7,800 per week.

Based on the posted YouTube video I got to 6,666 per month, which is 1,538 per week, which is on the lower end of the Angry Golem Games Dwarves & Mines numbers--but it makes sense that Dwarves would be more efficient than historical humans.

For the MMSWE book est of 50,000 per year, we get 962 gp / week, Magical Europe is doing worse than estimated historical Europe.

I'm going to just go with 6,666 per month until they exhaust the mine in 2.5 years, just because my players will think that there must be something cursed about it, despite the math.

Heh. The numbers seem as reasonable as any numbers. : )

The number of miners only matter depending on the nature of the vein an the mine itself. Only so many people can fit at one time at the end of a tunnel. Sprawling out to much increases risk of collapse. Only if separate mines, or separate tunnels are possible would more miners be useful. An open-air pit mine might allow more access to more miners.



By the way, I think what you are doing about the gold mines is awesome. This kind of narrative buy-in helps the players immerse in the gaming world. The attention to economy and process makes that gaming world more verisimilitudinous and infrastructural. It is the kind of world that future character creations can be part of, so that the collective artwork grows and evolves, generationally.

 

[auburn2]

Does anyone know where I can find stats on mine production in medieval times? Say a rich gold vein was discovered. How much ore could be removed from from the mine daily/monthly? I know that it depends on number of people and other factors. I'm just trying to get some general stats I can extrapolate from. I realize in a D&D fantasy world there is magic that can speed things up but I want to start with mundane numbers as a basis.

Humans probably 10 feet a month, Dwarves or Sverfneblin could probably do about 10 feet a day, Drow with enslaved Umber Hulks probably 10 feet an hour.

 

[Maxperson]

Notably, tunnel mining is extremely dangerous from cave-ins, poison gases, lack of oxygen, flooding, etcetera.

Tsk! You forgot Balrogs.

 

[Maxperson]

The 1E DMG had an extensive section on mining.

Spoiler

View attachment 252279

The 1e Dungeoneer Survival Guide was even more in depth.

Spoiler

A given mine always contains a finite amount of mineral wealth. Occasionally, this amount is enough to keep a mining crew busy for a lifetime or more; much more frequently, however, the mine plays out after a certain period of time.

To determine how long before a mine’s wealth is depleted, the DM should secretly roll d100 at the start of the mining operation. The resulting number equals the number of man-weeks that the mine can be worked before depletion. If the resulting number was doubles (e.g., 11, 22, 33, etc.), however, the mine has a much longer duration. Roll d100 again, and this time read the result as the number of man-months that the mine lasts, adding this figure to the number of weeks already determined.

If this second d100 roll also yields doubles, roll d100 a third time, and this time read the result as the number of man-years before the mine is depleted. Further doubles rolls are also rerolled to provide an additional number of years, until a d100 roll is made without a doubles result.

It also went into value, smelting, mining hazards, the claim, quality of the mine products, shoring up tunnels, mining rates, and more.

 

[MNblockhead]

The 1E DMG had an extensive section on mining.

Spoiler

View attachment 252279

Interesting. I don't remember those rules. Don't believed I ever used them back when I was playing 1e in the 80s. They are more focused on time to create dungeons. They don't cover expected productivity of mines for precious metals, gemstone, etc.

 

[MNblockhead]

By the way, I think what you are doing about the gold mines is awesome. This kind of narrative buy-in helps the players immerse in the gaming world. The attention to economy and process makes that gaming world more verisimilitudinous and infrastructural. It is the kind of world that future character creations can be part of, so that the collective artwork grows and evolves, generationally.

Thanks. I do tend to abstract things quite a bit in most cases. I find that the PHP, DMG, and Xanathar's are good enough for the downtime activity that they cover. I use Matt Colville's Strongholds & Followers for rules for building strongholds and establishments. For factions and organization renown and infamy, I use organization rules from an old ENWorld EN5ider article that I've modified. We only play one long session per month, generally, so downtime activity is kind of a mini game played by e-mail between sessions.

For it to work, and be fund (at least for the group I play with), I've found that there are several guidelines worth following:

1. Create something to spend gold on that is meaningful to the the PCs
2. Have those downtime activities influence and help drive major storylines in the campaign
3. Have mechanical benefits associated with downtime activity

Number 3 is particularly important in my campaign which bases XP on GP. Characters level up much more slowly than in other campaigns I've run that have used standard XP rules or milestone leveling. But downtime activity gives the PCs ways to improve themselves and make preparations outside of leveling up. Spending gold on a stronghold or leveling up a strong hold not only gives a safe base of operations, but they provide demesne benefits that you get once per "extended rest" (one week spent at your stronghold). As you grow your stronghold and attract followers and retainers, get get easier access to resources and services. As you build up renown with an organization, you can spend that renown to call in a favor or save it up and when you do level up, you roll and organization die on a boon tables for a chance at getting access to either items, safehouses, or features that are similar to some background features.

I also like how it creates a sense of the "party" and the stronghold/town they build becoming a kind of shared character in the campaign. A PC could die but what they helped build can live on.

 

[Celebrim]

Interesting. I don't remember those rules. Don't believed I ever used them back when I was playing 1e in the 80s. They are more focused on time to create dungeons. They don't cover expected productivity of mines for precious metals, gemstone, etc.

The Dragon Magazine article (in Issue #152) extends those rules to cover weight ore mined as well as the purity of the ore.

To simulate, you'd still need to do things like determine the thickness of the ore vein in order to get a ratio of ore to stone mined (that is, some estimate of how many cubic feet of stone you have to remove per cubic foot of ore you mine) and you'd still need to figure out how much ore is present (usually measured as how many man weeks it would take to remove the ore at an average rate if you didn't also need to remove "worthless" stone).

One complication I think you'd run into is that in the real world the very purest veins described in the Dragon Magazine article probably aren't very big so you might put your finger on the button of how much metal is present if you roll a very large and very pure vein of say gold, as it's quite possible to generate from the combination of both rules a single vein of gold containing campaign altering amounts of metal.

 

[GMMichael]

For it to work, and be fund (at least for the group I play with), I've found that there are several guidelines worth following:

Your players have an interesting definition of fun(d). Wait...gold...that actually works...

Number 3 is particularly important in my campaign which bases XP on GP. Characters level up much more slowly than in other campaigns I've run that have used standard XP rules or milestone leveling. . .

I think they will start leveling up quite quickly when they begin mining XP.

Here's what I want to know: how much faster does a +1 pickaxe cut rock?

And this follows, sort of: which king is going to allow mages to enchant weapons when they could be enchanting infrastructure instead?