So we're in a dungeon, and a tunnel massively collapses, blocking off part of the map. Time passes, the PCs get more resources, and now they're talking about re-opening the blocked tunnel. How long should it take with what kind of resources and manpower?
It depends on their resources and how long the tunnel is.
Yeah, wraithstrike has the right of it. How long does it take to dig a hole?
Pre-industrial machinery, a miner would be hard-pressed to move four or five cubic yards of dirt in a day; loose stone might be half that. If you need to re-shore a tunnel, that will cut your work rate in half again.
A 5 foot square contains roughly 8 cubic yards of collapsed material, so call it a day's work for a human miner with Golarian-tech tools.
Of course, the availability of magic can also significantly affect the speed of their mining effort.
Edit: For instance, if you can get a caster or other source of Stone to Flesh, and a herd or swine or other non-selective and voracious meat eaters, you can probably clear a collapsed tunnel pretty quickly.
Thanks all for all the useful details. 5 ft per person per 8 hr shift sounds both reasonable and easy to implement. Good for limiting their digging to places where it would actually make sense too.
Without Knowledge (Engineering) or Profession (Miner) this could be dangerous.
Rather than Strength, I would have Constitution help with more productive shifts. It is about being able to maintain a steady pace, not feats of strength. Have them make Con checks to avoid exhaustion.
I would allow high str to help out here. Let the 20 str clear 4 squares in one shift.
You know that old song "you load sixteen tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt"?
Four squares would be roughly thirty-two tons of dirt, more with rocks mixed in. Just sayin'.
If they don't take the time to shore up their tunnel with timbers or other supports, they won't be able to keep it from re-collapsing, possibly burying them partway along. Depending on where the collapsed tunnel is located, the PCs might have some real work just getting appropriately-long timbers to the site.
IIRC, digging a new tunnel and shoring it up is relatively straight-forward. The ground/rock/whatever is packed tight, and you can shore up the passage you make every however-many feet along. Once a collapse happens, it's actually a lot harder, because what's above the collapsed section is no longer densely packed; it's cracked and shifted and dangerous. That's why it can take so long to rescue trapped miners, and why they often choose to create a whole new shaft rather than clearing the debris from the original shaft - and also why they're always concerned as they dig the new shaft that the vibrations of their digging might cause the earth to shift again, collapsing additional sections where the miners might have taken refuge.
So if you're the DM, and you don't want them to be able to dig out the collapsed section at this time, it's perfectly reasonable to tell them they can't safely excavate the collapse without using something like Stone Shape to solidify the walls and ceiling as they go.
From the section on hazards (cave ins):
Characters who aren't buried can dig out their friends. In 1 minute, using only her hands, a character can clear rocks and debris equal to five times her heavy load limit. The amount of loose stone that fills a 5-foot-by-5-foot area weighs 1 ton (2,000 pounds). Armed with an appropriate tool, such as a pick, crowbar, or shovel, a digger can clear loose stone twice as quickly as by hand. A buried character can attempt to free himself with a DC 25 Strength check.
So there's a mechanic you can use. Otherwise use other folks' suggestions on the subject.
From the section on hazards (cave ins):
Characters who aren't buried can dig out their friends. In 1 minute, using only her hands, a character can clear rocks and debris equal to five times her heavy load limit. The amount of loose stone that fills a 5-foot-by-5-foot area weighs 1 ton (2,000 pounds). Armed with an appropriate tool, such as a pick, crowbar, or shovel, a digger can clear loose stone twice as quickly as by hand. A buried character can attempt to free himself with a DC 25 Strength check.So there's a mechanic you can use. Otherwise use other folks' suggestions on the subject.
I'd just like to note that this is "clearing" an area in the sense of "making a large enough gap for your friend to crawl out of before he suffocates," not "making a nice clean subway tunnel."
A strength 10 character has a heavy load limit of 100 pounds. Any miner would laugh at the idea of loading 500 pounds of rock in a minute (half a ton, with a crowbar).
From the section on hazards (cave ins):
Characters who aren't buried can dig out their friends. In 1 minute, using only her hands, a character can clear rocks and debris equal to five times her heavy load limit. The amount of loose stone that fills a 5-foot-by-5-foot area weighs 1 ton (2,000 pounds). Armed with an appropriate tool, such as a pick, crowbar, or shovel, a digger can clear loose stone twice as quickly as by hand. A buried character can attempt to free himself with a DC 25 Strength check.So there's a mechanic you can use. Otherwise use other folks' suggestions on the subject.I'd just like to note that this is "clearing" an area in the sense of "making a large enough gap for your friend to crawl out of before he suffocates," not "making a nice clean subway tunnel."
A strength 10 character has a heavy load limit of 100 pounds. Any miner would laugh at the idea of loading 500 pounds of rock in a minute (half a ton, with a crowbar).
So maybe multiply by a factor of 10 for careful work and shoring up? In 10 minutes they carefuly clear and shore up 5 times their Heavy Load limit without tools. That way roughly every 2 hours of work a Str 10 PC with a crowbar could handle a single 5-by-5 area. The entire party, working for 2 hours with appropriate tools could be expected to clear and shore up a 10' x 10' section of hall, or 1 day's work gives them 40'x10' worth of space.
Now during all of this the chance for re-collapse would still exist. You'd need skill checks (DC 20), you'd need "appropriate" tools such as picks, chisels, shovels and such. You'd also need a place to put all the excavated debris and finally you'd need the spars/timbers/undead giants needed to support the roof as you shore up the tunnel to be already on hand before work begins.
Finally you'd need checks for fatigue during the work. This is hard labor so perhaps follow the rules for Forced March or something. I'd modify that mechanic to say you work in 2 hour blocks; after the first block the next block is a DC 10 Fort save or 1d6 Nonlethal and Fatigue. The next 2 hour block is a DC 12 Fort save or another 1d6 damage; if already Fatigued move to Exhausted and so on.
So maybe multiply by a factor of 10 for careful work and shoring up?
A strength 10 character has a heavy load limit of 100 pounds. Any miner would laugh at the idea of loading 500 pounds of rock in a minute (half a ton, with a crowbar).
Closer to 100, maybe more. As I said earlier, moving 4-5 tons of dirt per day was a good job for a realistic miner, not counting the shoring up aspects, and assuming dirt instead of rock. That's roughly two hours per ton. (A ton of dirt and a cubic foot of dirt are roughly equivalent.)
Three things to bear in mind:
* The original title of "Sixteen tons" was "Nine-ten tons," as in "Nine-to-Ten tons."
* This is supposed to represent someone who is notably outstanding at his job (as in, "the straw-boss said, `Well, bless my soul.'") ...
* ... and includes a certain amount of industrial-era equipment (being set in the 1930s).