My players will probably encounter a White Dragon soon, with the ability to burrow through ice and snow with 30 ft burrow speed.
Now, is it an actual action to vanish into the ice and start burrowing, or is that just part of the move action.
Say the Dragon is sitting on the ice, and wants to burrow. Can it now burrow into the ice, move 30 feet and emerge on the other side in a single action? And then possibly use the standard action to attack someone?
Can it burrow below someone and attack from inside the ground, without leaving and making itself vulnerable?
Or is changing movement modes like this actually an action in itself?
So said dragon has to spend a move action first to vanish into the ice, then can move 30 ft as another move action. While it's safe now it can't actually do anything, and next turn would have to spend a move action to break through the ice again and then can attack as a standard?
Change 'burrow' to 'swim' or 'fly' and all your questions will be pretty much answered.
Burrow works just like any other form of movement, except the creature is moving through the ground instead of through water or air.
The only action required to move is the move action used to move.
You can attack from beneath the ground just as easily an from beneath the water, however as the ground is opaque, unless you have something like tremorsense, the target would get total concealment.
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Burrowing is simply a form of movement. For combining it with other movement, do the same thing as you would for flying or swimming. When combining movement, I generally see this as proportional. For example if a critter has a move speed of 20', fly of 40', then moving 10' is half of a move action, and the critter could then fly another 20'. That said, I can't find a rules reference for it and may have inherited it from old 3.5 discussions. I can't find anything on scanning the 3.5 FAQ or Rules of the Game articles; not sure where I get it from.
If using that idea, starting to burrow is just part of the move action. It could start burrowing, move 30, and emerge on the other side and attack.
If it partially emerges, it's reasonable to give it some form of cover, similar to how you'd handle an incorporeal creature that is partially in a solid surface.