Using an Elemental to mine ore?

[Lonewolf147]

I have a player that has a small earth elemental for a familiar.

This got him thinking about it's ability to travel through unworked stone. Would that elemental be able to retrieve objects embedded in the stone (their Earth Glide ability, giving the example of a fish swimming in water, lends me to think that the stone magically warps around them and they can't actually touch anything in the stone itself)? Gems, ore, etc?

This would be extremely useful for the group as they have come across a gold vein in the cave system they are exploring, but would take months to extricate by normal means.

[Matticussama]

Nothing about Earth Glide indicates that it allows the Earth Elemental to move objects, so there is no RAW reason to think it should allow it to retrieve the ore or any other objects.

However, Earth Elementals are the perfect scouts to use to locate natural resources like gold, silver, gems, etc. Once the party finds a deposit, however, all it takes is a few Soften Earth and Stone spells and the resources ripe for extracting. Hire a crew of unskilled laborers (now they're just digging through clay, so no experienced miners are really needed) and go to town. It isn't quite as easy as having the Elemental fetch it for them, but it allows them to get the same resources within the spirit of the rules. It can also help the group decide on a place to settle (if they want to), or introduce fun adventure hooks like bandits/raiders who hear about the mining operation in the area...

[Vaz]

If it as analogous as passing through a solid as to swimming through a liquid, then it is analogous to passing through a gas, and so walking through air.

This means that the air/liquid/solid is displaced, but not actually extracted. You can technically cup your hands under water (say holding dye), and move them upwards, but the flow of water means that you do not capture all of it, and by the time you have reached the surface, most of the dye has left your hands, leaving a very miniscule bit.

To be honest though, if you've got an Elemental Familiar, you can summon a Burrowing Creature, Thoqua is the go to.

[Miranius]

I have used that tactic before. My DM just rolled randomly to see what is underneath. Once we "discovered" a long-buried wall-of-iron that seemed a leftover from some random occurence. Didn`t have to do ANYTHING with us and confused the hell out of us until we identified it.

I guess if your players can solve the problem of transporting the ore from some yet-unmined claim, finding buyers / smelting-plants and so on.... they deserve the cash ;)

Going with the possibility of that, staked claims in such a world would most likely hire guardian-elementals or at least an alarm-system (for example a contingency-summoning or alarm in a nearby mining-authority) to prevent such a thing. Or an offshoot of a thieves-guid that claims monopoly on that particular "trade" ;)

[Lonewolf147]

Thanks for all the good info.

My player uses his elemental as a scout inside the cavern walls, looking for secret passageways and such. It's a cool tactic, so I allow it.

The gold vein is in a massive dungeon complex (Rappan Athuk) and there are many many things that will be attracted to their operation :)

[Lonewolf147]

Although, let me pose this. It says Earth Glide won't work through metal. Would the metal in an ore vein (gold, silver, copper, iron, etc) prevent it from passing through it?

BTW, I love the idea of finding a random iron wall buried in the earth somewhere. LOL

[Vaz]

Depends. I think there may have been something to do with making metal weapons pass through the Earth Glider.

As all earth is made up of elements, and most of them are metallic, then technically you cannot pass through them. I doubt Wizards went into that deep a thought about it, but I'm willing to bet that unless there's a gap you could otherwise squeeze through, then you cannot pass through the metal (this includes my previous idea).

[Zeb]

As all earth is made up of elements, and most of them are metallic Silicates, then technically you cannot pass through them.

fixed that for you

[Vaz]

One sec, let me just try and remember this from school.

The earth's rocks are typically made up of COPSS - which IIRC, is Carbonates, Oxides, Phosphates, Sulphates, and Sulphites.

All of those are formed of Metallic Elements.

Edit; Silicates are ones which are reasonable odd occurences in a DnD game; Quartz is about the most common one. I suppose I shouldn't have put "most"; but regardless, the most likely things you are coming up against are likely to be dense with metallic elements, and hence, for pedantry by science, illegal passage for Earth Glide

[Fouredged Sword]

Metal ore is rarely something that is just chunks of metal burried in stone. Normally it is in compounds that need refinement. Gold is an exception to this, but the gold is still normaly what amounts to tiny flecks.

Yes, I would allow the earth elemental to go down and gather gold dust from the earth.

He has to do it by hand though, and picking up one speck of dust at a time would be slow going. The elemental would make a profession (miner) check every day with +10 for having earth glide, maybe +10 more for having a rich gold vein to mine. This would be the GP earned based on the normal prof check rules.

If the party want to park and hang out while the elemental digs they will make more money from the random encounters than the elemental digs up.

[8wGremlin]

It's and old technique. but using earth elementals to see where the richest veins are, and where they are and the shortest easiest route would make mining it a hell of a lot easier.

Even if they couldn't extract it themselves, they could definitely point you to the best areas.

[tadkins]

This is a cool thread. I've thought about a character concept (either a dwarf cleric or dwarf druid) who would do something similar, using earth elementals and divinations to discover valuable treasures, ore and artifacts buried beneath the earth.

As far as the rules go, the Earth Glide description says "as easily as a fish swims through water". I'd assume the random bits of metal in the ground could serve as an obstacle for the elemental, just as plants and other things serve as obstacles for fish in the water.

[Cirrylius]

He has to do it by hand though, and picking up one speck of dust at a time would be slow going.
Couldn't he just cup his hands and swim back and forth for a few hours?

[Lonewolf147]

This is a cool thread. I've thought about a character concept (either a dwarf cleric or dwarf druid) who would do something similar, using earth elementals and divinations to discover valuable treasures, ore and artifacts buried beneath the earth.

I've thought about it too, but personally I think the concept would work better for an NPC than a PC. Too much sitting around just 'mining'. And even if adventure comes to the mine (raiders, claim jumpers, random encounters, etc) I don't think it would be as much fun just sitting in one place.


Couldn't he just cup his hands and swim back and forth for a few hours?

You mean like panning in a river? I don't think that would work with Earth Glide the same as in water.

[tadkins]

I've thought about it too, but personally I think the concept would work better for an NPC than a PC. Too much sitting around just 'mining'. And even if adventure comes to the mine (raiders, claim jumpers, random encounters, etc) I don't think it would be as much fun just sitting in one place.


It'd probably be more of a side thing. On a typical adventure he'd be doing things regular clerics or druids do; casting spells, buffing the party, probably summoning good/earthly creatures to assist in battle.

Edit: I wonder if something like a Silver Elemental would be possible. A creature that's both good *and* earth-based. Lycanthropes would probably hate it to bits. xD

[Kirgoth]

Have it add +10 insight bonus to your profession mining check. So with profession miner of 4, masterwork tools and an average roll of 10.5 you could expect to earn 13.25 gold on average per week, or 689 gold per year. Not bad given the average untrained assistant earns 36.5 gold per year.

[kalikorz]

I have a character doing the same thing looking for gem deposits. I essentially made him spend a lot of days and used a .05% chance of the elemental finding anything within a 6 mile hex and used the pathfinder rules for searching a hex. So he had to summon the earth elemental for a total of 24 hours or two days of searching within a hex and had a .05% chance of finding anything. Then I rolled a d6 to see what type of gem 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000, or 5000 gp type of gem he found. If his elemental found anything it would have had to surface and smash the ground apart to get to the gems. It also had to search just below the surface to be able to do this. Here is my game logic backing. from MM pg 123-124

Living Elements: The earth elemental is actually a bodiless life force on it's home plane. A wild elemental spirit has no desire other than to course through the element of it's native plane.

Earth Elemental: It's head and body consist of dirt and stone, occasionally set with chunks of metal, gems, and bright minerals. Earth elementals glide through rock and earth as though they were liquid. Earthbound creatures have much to fear from an earth elemental. since the elemental can pinpoint the precise location of any foe that stands on solid ground in it's vicinity.

Senses: Darkvision 60ft, Tremorsense 60ft.

Earth Glide: The elemental can burrow through nonmagical unworked earth and stone. while doing so, the elemental doesn't disturb the material it moves through.

Here is the claim:

An earth elemental using either darkvision, if we see the earth glide with the water analogy, or tremorsense, would be able to see the different types of material in the ground. However, When he glides it is actually doing it's unbodied spirit act. This means it reappears composed of the material wherever it reappears. it doesn't form out of granite and drag that material through the earth and come out with the exact same form it first appeared as. It is literally made of the stuff that he surfaces through. So when mining with an elemental It cannot "pick up" the material however it can appear underground in the same spot as that material and then burrow using Its natural strength to dig Its way out of the earth while made of whatever deposit it chose to appear in. It can only do this relatively close to the surface. Much the same way a character can dig it's way out if he or she had been stone to mud and then mud to stone and left in the ground. Once it has clawed it's way to the surface it can then earth glide into the ground and go a couple of squares away resurfacing as different material and leaving his gem laden material behind where he was. Then it is a simple matter of strolling over to the pile of gems and picking them up. Elementals are not smart so it probably couldn't sit there and sift out all the gems and compose himself entirely of gems. It could however puzzle out how to get the gems to the surface and then carry them. As far as limiting movement underground. The description says specifically unworked earth which contains all elements. So in my mind as long as it is not worked then he can get through it. One old ruined wall of stone buried underground and he is halted. One sword hitting him and he is hurt. To get into specifics about getting out you can figure it's a DC 25 break dc to crack loose in the ground. A 10 hardness and 20hp/inch of material above him. However an elemental is immune to exhaustion or fatigue so he can just crush his arms together and deal grapple damage to the terrain until he has enough room to punch and then punch his way through to the surface. If it's too far away it would take him too long so he has to be relatively close to the surface. It speaks primordial (terran) so of course it can tell you where the deposit is as mentioned above. I ended up saying the elemental would bring back it's carrying capacity of gems it found using the above logic. I really wish I knew how much gems weighed but at 1 gem being a 10th of a pound the character ended up with tens of millions of GP doing this for 250 days.

[DrMotives]

It'd probably be more of a side thing. On a typical adventure he'd be doing things regular clerics or druids do; casting spells, buffing the party, probably summoning good/earthly creatures to assist in battle.

Edit: I wonder if something like a Silver Elemental would be possible. A creature that's both good *and* earth-based. Lycanthropes would probably hate it to bits. xD

The older editions had the quasi-elements. While the paraelementals were statted out in MotP, the quasi-elementals never got a 1st party conversion in 3.x. But they were a blend of positive energy and the base elements, or negative energy with base elements. Mineral elementals were made of precious gems & crystals, which is kind of like your silver elemental. The other positive ones were radiance, steam, & lightning. The negative ones were dust, ash, salt, and vacuum.

[daremetoidareyo]

Just in case you somehow missed this: http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Tale_of_an_Industrious_Rogue,_Part_I

[tadkins]

I remember this thread. Geology is fun!


The older editions had the quasi-elements. While the paraelementals were statted out in MotP, the quasi-elementals never got a 1st party conversion in 3.x. But they were a blend of positive energy and the base elements, or negative energy with base elements. Mineral elementals were made of precious gems & crystals, which is kind of like your silver elemental. The other positive ones were radiance, steam, & lightning. The negative ones were dust, ash, salt, and vacuum.

Ah, that's pretty awesome. It's just cool thinking of what kind of elemental combos you can make out of various gems/minerals/chemical elements. Sort of like Redcloak's Titanium Elemental.