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Well if they are the only miners I guess they could only earn that amount. Usually lots of people and tech is involved which costs money,
If you want it to produce more, count it as loot and let it produce x gp /level. on slow lvl streaks they are looking for new veins, Or have new short term taxes, Or riots, low employment, theft, workers town is attacked, rumors about pcs drive them off,...this will get them to do something and earn xp.
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This caused a lot of issues because one of my players pointed out, quite correctly, that if they were mining gems from a gemstone mine they should be producing a lot more than just the profession check result.
How is that quite correct? Are you assuming that mining a bag of gems produces more money than mining a bag of silver? Absolutely correct. But mining that bag of silver might only take a couple days, while mining that bag of gems could take years.
Also it feels like it doesn't depend WHAT they are mining, just the skill check is what counts.
This is definitely one way to handle it - your proposed skill check is quite good enough.
If you want to add realism into it, randomly determine what type of gem they might mine next (say you decide it's a 100 gp amethyst) and then the miner rolls a profession check, say, that says today they earn 1.7gp. Since that's less than the value of the amethyst, you tell him that he mined nothing. Zip. Zero. Next day, he gets 2.1 gp, up to a total of 3.8. Still nothing. Next day, next day, and the next day, he's up to a total of around 10gp, still nothing. Another 45 days later, he finally gets his total up to 100 gp, so you tell him that on that day, his mine produced an amethyst.
Meanwhile, the silver mine produced 17 sp on the first day, 21 more sp on the second, about 100 sp total by day five, and about 1,000 sp total by day 50, just like the gem mine, but their results are more measurable each day.
It works just fine for a simplified game mechanic, and it doesn't punish one player for operating a silver mine while another player operates a diamond mine, or a third player who opens a tavern, etc. - they should all make about the same amount of money for the same investment of time and resources. If not, then the mechanic is imbalanced and the players will be highly motivated to open whatever kind of business wrecks the game system and WBL rules the fastest.
This caused a lot of issues because one of my players pointed out, quite correctly, that if they were mining gems from a gemstone mine they should be producing a lot more than just the profession check result.
Also it feels like it doesn't depend WHAT they are mining, just the skill check is what counts.What do you think?
How do you decide how much did the PCs and NPCs mine?
Well, the amount of stuff they mine depends more on where they are mining than on their skill in mining. Even in a gemstone mine, most of what you actually lift with your shovel is dirt; if they're mining precious metals, that's usually in the form of silver ore or something, and you're lucky to get ten ounces of metal per ton of ore. (Gold ore is even worse, typical around 5 grams of gold per ton of ore.)
Also remember that uncut gemstones are largely valueless; most of the value of a diamond is in the cutting, most gems are ruined in the cutting process, and even those that survive have lost most of their weight.
So, as with so many other things, it ultimately comes down to GM fiat. How wealthy do you want them to get? If you don't mind substantially inflating the party past the WBL guidelines, you have all the excuse you need to give them fabulous amounts beyond the dreams of avarice. If you want them to stay poor and hungry, then they're shoveling tons of dirt for a few grams of actual gemstones..... which is still a decent, well-paying job by the standards of most of Golarion.
After all, this game is not called Placer Mines and Paychecks, and they still want a reason to adventure.
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It works just fine for a simplified game mechanic, and it doesn't punish one player for operating a silver mine while another player operates a diamond mine, or a third player who opens a tavern, etc. - they should all make about the same amount of money for the same investment of time and resources. If not, then the mechanic is imbalanced and the players will be highly motivated to open whatever kind of business wrecks the game system and WBL rules the fastest.
This.
Although there's also an argument to be made that the PCs are special people, who should be able to make risky businesses profitable. If nothing else, the PCs are possibly the only people who would have the, er, testicular fortitude to try to open and work a mine in the Valley of Really Painful Death. Others have tried, lured by the extremely high yielding unobtainium ores, but have all died a really painful death at the hands of the wandering grue. (They may have been third-rate warriors, but they were first-rate second courses.)
If your group has the mettle to mine the metal, they will earn the medal that will no doubt decorate their urn.
Assuming it is being done to more or less role playing obtaining the material, I would give them anywhere from twice to ten times their skill check. It should cost money to get the tools and materials though.
UNLIMITED DIAMOND DUST
Can we say wish spells for everyone eh eh!
Er,.... first, Wish doesn't demand diamond dust, but a diamond, a single diamond, worth 25,000 gp. You can labor in a mine for decades before you find one of those.
Second, most of the diamonds coming out of a mine are near valueless. I can buy bulk, uncut ("rough") diamonds by the kilogram for about US $25. (They are, of course, the size of seed pearls, nearly opaque, flawed like a Greek tragic hero, and mud-colored, but they're still diamonds). The 1000gp of diamond dust you need to cast Restoration would fill a hogshead -- well, a firkin, anyway -- if you used these diamonds for the dust....
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I would just use the rule right in the profession description. 1/2 their profession check per week in gold.
Don't forget for mining, all they are doing in MINING. There is still the process of refining the ore into metal. That is not simple nor is it something they can just do out in the field. Nor is it all something they can do on their own. There is a ton of rock that they need to cart around and have someone else convert into ingots, and those people need to get paid. The same is true for gems. Who is going to separate the gems from the rock after the player busts it up with his pick? Who is going to cut those gemstones so they are actually valuable?
If a player wants to say "but I'm a miner i should make more" i'd say fine, then start detailing all the carts and pack animals, hirelings, business plan, security, everything you are going to do from mining to turning it into metal. (and again, don't forget security)
And if they balk at drawing up a business plan they have to spend weeks on, then I say "you could just roll and take 1/2 of that in gold, like the rules state"
Points in a profession is not a magic trip to moneyland that they should get and other players should not because they picked a different profession. Especially if they think they should get more for not doing any more work on their character than the next player.
If they really want to get into that they would be better served playing EVE or even A Tale In the Desert.
From the profession skill:
Check: You can earn half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession's daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems. You can also answer questions about your Profession. Basic questions are DC 10, while more complex questions are DC 15 or higher.
Craft and Profession skills are very loosely defined, because most of the game isn't about being a carpenter or a miner or a doctor. It's partly designed to let low-level PCs make some money in low-wealth games, partly to reflect the wide variety of skills people have available. If you want more realism, you'll have to come up with it yourself.
Mining depends on quality of ore, availability of same, skill of the miner, use of tools, etc. Then there are hazards.
Sometimes (e.g., the initial discoveries of Sutter's gold rush in California in 1848 you can literally scoop up quite a lot of gold with very little effort. Sometimes (e.g., the Homestake mine in South Dakota) you process a ton of ore with very expensive drills and machines to get an ounce or so of gold. DM will have to adjudicate the result he wants for his game.
One thing to consider: in a long-settled world, a lot of the easy pickings will already have been mined. (Maybe mines "regrow" crystals or ore in a fantasy world, or the Dwarves somehow encourage volcanic eruptions to restock the lodes as they grow low.) But "lots of gold lying around", no, probably not. Unless you as the GM want the adventure to be about the gold rush -- or dealing with the robbers who come in the wake of the miners, or the fey and/or druids upset about the mining of all their valleys.
You can just say "Make your Profession check -- ok, that's how much you get paid for the coal you dug up this week." But if the player is really interested in mining, shape the adventure around the mine. Kobolds underground, cave-ins, collapses, the need to protect a shipment of timber for pit props from the bandits who want those poles to build their fort with, fights among the sutlers and miners, someone's attempt to collect taxes from the miners...
I figure if PCs gain wealth, they gain wealth. If they don't, they don't. As a GM, I'll place stuff, but I don't regard WBL as a Sacred Rule that Must Be Followed; it's a rough guideline, and if you're above it or below it things will be different in various ways, but if you understand those you can deal with it.
As a GM, I can generate fun for the players either way. If they have less treasure than they think they should, they'll be more eager to leap for the lures I dangle before them; if they're very wealthy, then for some reason lots of people will have them as targets (thieves, rogues, bandits, dragons, insurance salesmen, long-lost relatives...)
Either way, the game goes on.
We need to determine how much silver can be obtained from a silver mine.
That's easy: none!
Silver mines produce silver ore, not ready-made silver.
I figure if PCs gain wealth, they gain wealth. If they don't, they don't. As a GM, I'll place stuff, but I don't regard WBL as a Sacred Rule that Must Be Followed; it's a rough guideline, and if you're above it or below it things will be different in various ways, but if you understand those you can deal with it.
As a GM, I can generate fun for the players either way. If they have less treasure than they think they should, they'll be more eager to leap for the lures I dangle before them; if they're very wealthy, then for some reason lots of people will have them as targets (thieves, rogues, bandits, dragons, insurance salesmen, long-lost relatives...)
Either way, the game goes on.
Good for you. The only issue, for GMs with less self-confidence, is to make sure that the game stays balanced in a comfort zone. I've seen too many games crash and burn when wealth gets out of control, because when you have sixth level PCs wandering around with twelfth level equipment, there is a very fine line between a pointless and dull encounter and a TPK. A sixth level character with a +8 weapon is essentially an eggshell with a hammer; she can dish out damage, but doesn't have the hit points to take it. So anything that can stand up to her initial onslaught can probably turn around and crush her like a Dixie cup.
Ever heard the song "Sixteen Tons?" It's about a coal miner who could load 16 tons of ore in a single day of work. That's quite an achievement but it is not unreasonable to expect a miner to be able to produce 10 tons of ore in a day.
Imagine this: A miner swings his pick or shovel once every 6 seconds on average. Each swing produces on average a 5 pound piece of ore.
So that's 10 swings per minute, or 600 swings per hour. Medieval workdays were a lot longer than 8 hours - 12 would be reasonable for a labourer, though since that includes time to eat and such we'll call it 10 hours, so 6000 swings x 5 lbs = 30,000 pounds, or 15 US tons.
Of course that assumes a reasonably efficient removal system, mine carts and loaders, or what have you. How much does the miner earn? His daily wage, most likely. Perhaps scaled to how much he loads, but still, he's a miner.
"You load sixteen tons / what do you get? / Another day older and deeper in debt. / St. Peter don'tcha call me 'cause I can't go / I owe my soul to the company store..."
The reality is that in Pathfinder (as well as D&D 3.5) money is a part of your power level and the game is designed not to allow you to get too much money outside of adventuring. Items are sold and bought for a fixed amount and haggling is not possible. The economics of the game are designed entirely around getting equipment for adventuring.
A GM in a sandbox game where players are going into business for themselves has to be a bit more flexible. Salaries have to be paid, property has to be bought and maintained, earnings have to be protected, and so on.
As a GM I would say that a miner trying to earn money simply by using Profession (miner) is working for wages in someone else's mine. In such a case it doesn't matter how productive the mine is - he gets paid based on how good a job he does but it is still a wage.
If a player wants to operate his own mine I would say he has to follow 3 steps:
1. Prospect to find a source of ore - Might be Perception checks and an appropriate knowledge skill. Once a site is found and actually claimed somehow (that might be an adventure in itself)
2. Actually mine the ore using Profession (miner)
3. Refine the ore using an appropriate craft skill - alchemy for metals - for gems possibly stonecarving, as you have to chip away the attached rock without damaging the gemstones.
Steps 2 and 3 would continue until that particular vein is exhausted - remember that such things do not have an infinite amount of materials.
Peet
I feel most profession checks are a start to finish process. In this case:
- prospect the site
- dig a whole
- shoring up the new cavern to prevent (or atleast deter) a cave in
- reaching the actual vein of mineral (some veins are richer than others)
- extract the raw ore
- refine the raw ore into the actual valuable mineral
- locate a buyer for the end product
- sell the end product
To me, that's a lot of steps within a weeks time. This is why some weeks, produce more value to the person making the check than others. Also note, that a percentage die could be rolled for an ongoing operation to determine if any profits are made for the week or if the Mining Company actually takes a loss for the week.
Lastly, the greater the supply, the less valuable the product.
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That's easy: none!
Silver mines produce silver ore, not ready-made silver.
Well to be fair they could be a little generous and put some kobolds or something in there who might have some silver. ;)
You've got a lot of good answers in this thread. A gem mine wouldn't produce finished gemstones, and you can assume a lot of those checks come out with the profits which of course could be assumed have all the expenses worked into them as well. Sure you only make a couple gold a week, but your spending coin to get it too after all.
If you really want to get into it the day job system in Ultimate Campaign would help a lot for situations like this. Let them get units of goods or the like, and incur the costs of actually owning and running a mine.
FWIW, it wouldn't be the worst thing to give your players a little bit of extra gold if they invest increasing amounts of skill points in making money. Those are skill points that could have been spend learning how to dodge attacks of opportunity, or what monsters' weaknesses are, or how to swim (which is good when fighting in the water).