Digging Tools Rules? [3.5]

[Aste...@gmail.com]

I was curious if there are any magic items that assist in digging in
3.5? The only thing I could find was the Mattock of the Titans, which
is kind of a crazy item.

I'm trying to come up with some numbers for the crafting of an item
that either grants a dig speed, or creates some digging ability. So
far, I've decided that digging a ten-foot cube every ten minutes would
be about 8000gp value. Thoughts?

[Aste...@gmail.com]

Here's what I've come up with so far for the item, which is a double-
bladed sword of creation/destruction.

Byronic Blade
two-bladed sword
Wielder must be a worshiper of the God of Life and Death.

+1 Merciful / +1 Negative Energy (+1d6 negenergy damage)

The positive energy side of the blade can be swung to create thin two-
dimensional bands of force that stand in place for 1hour/level of the
wielder. These can be used to create crude and simple constructions.
For example, a wielder could make a set of steps leading out of a pit,
taking a swing to create a step, stepping onto it, and taking another
swing to make a new step.

A permanency spell can make these constructions permanent, at which
point they become 1-inch thick metal, stone, wood, or other mundane
materials, and no longer levitate.
[compare to Nolzur's Marvelous Pigments, DMG]

This effect can also be used to create a wall in battle. The wall can
be as many feet long as the wielder's basic move action; the standard
action is taken by using the sword, and the move action defines the
length of the wall, from beginning to end of the move action. Each 5ft
segment of the wall has 15 hit points and a hardness of 8. Breaking
through the wall with a single attack requires a DC 22 strength check.
[compare to Wall of Stone, PHB]

The negative energy side of the sword can be used to dig or destroy
walls.

It can dig through four five-foot cubes every ten minutes. Part of the
matter that is dug through is absorbed into the sword as pure matter,
and powers the positive energy side's creation effect. Thus, it is not
necessary to carry dirt out of the area dug. It can dig through pure
stone at a rate of a four five-foot cubes per one hour.

In addition, this side of the sword ignores hardness when attacking
walls or other barriers.
[compare to Mattock of the Titans, DMG]

My character, who is a cleric of this particular campaign God, plans
on crafting this item at some point in the campaign. I'm trying to
come up with a reasonable price for it to guide my crafting.

4000gp, +1 pos energy (merciful) side
4000gp, +1 neg energy side

4000gp, positive side powers
8000gp, negative side powers

total: 20000gp base price

[Jefgo...@gmail.com]

The obvious choice per RAW would be a very large shovel enchanted with
a Command-activated Unseen Servant. Upon command, such an automated
shovel could repeatly move upto 20-pounds of material per round,
easily accomplishing the type of task your describing. Since mages
must be at least 3rd level to learn the Craft Wonderous Items feat,
such an automated shovel would perform for upto 3-hours per
activation.
(1st level spell effect activated by Command Word x 3rd level Wizard x
1,800 = $5,400gp plus cost of the shovel per the SRD.

If the price remains a consideration, I see no reason why a mage
couldnt custom-design a weaker zero-level servant capable only lifting
only 10-pounds, reducing the enchantment cost to $2,700gp each.

[Baird Stafford]

In article
<38922a20-cbb9-40d2...@s9g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
Aste...@gmail.com wrote:

> Here's what I've come up with so far for the item, which is a double-
> bladed sword of creation/destruction.

Why does it need to be a weapon? Can't you adapt the Spade of Colossal
Excavation from 1e?

Baird

--
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and in a divided country
that's enough to win elections. -Bill Steele

[Mark Blunden]

<Aste...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:95250b91-cf3c-47d3...@a29g2000pra.googlegroups.com...

The traditional magic item for labour-intensive menial tasks such as
large-scale earth moving is the golem. A flesh golem is a snap at 20,000 gp
and will do a reasonable job, though the clay golem is more traditional for
such tasks, and will set you back twice as much.

You may also want to take a look at the Lyre of Building, since its
capabilities do include ditches and tunnels.

Beyond that, there are spells that can be adapted to the purpose, by
incorporating them into magical items. The Druid's core spell list incudes
several that affect natural earth and stone, and there's always Disintegrate
if you want to be unsubtle about it.

--
Mark.

[Justisaur]

There's also
"Lyre of Building"

Possibly also:
"Spade of Colossal Excavation"
but that might be only previous editions.

Then there's all the other ways to do that like unseen servants
(possibly other summons), rock to mud, disintegrate, stone to flesh
(have a knife and fork handy).

- Justisaur

[Matthew Miller]

Jefgo...@gmail.com <Jefgo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm trying to come up with some numbers for the crafting of an item
>> that either grants a dig speed, or creates some digging ability. So
>> far, I've decided that digging a ten-foot cube every ten minutes would
>> be about 8000gp value. Thoughts?

[...]

> The obvious choice per RAW would be a very large shovel enchanted with
> a Command-activated Unseen Servant. Upon command, such an automated
> shovel could repeatly move upto 20-pounds of material per round,
> easily accomplishing the type of task your describing. Since mages
> must be at least 3rd level to learn the Craft Wonderous Items feat,
> such an automated shovel would perform for upto 3-hours per
> activation.
> (1st level spell effect activated by Command Word x 3rd level Wizard x
> 1,800 = $5,400gp plus cost of the shovel per the SRD.

So, a cubic foot of earth weighs about 120 pounds. More, if it's really wet,
less if it's dry or loose. It's got a move speed of 15, but hey, let's error
on the generous side and say it can dig, move, and dump every round. Again
being generous, say 2 cubic feet every minute. We've got 180 minutes, so
we'll get to about a third of the 10-foot cube suggested by the original
poster -- in 3 hours instead of 10 minutes.

--
Matthew Miller

[Dragonkat]

In the first *Temple of Elemental Evil* there was the conversion of
spells that effect all four Elements, ala Part Earth. Wouldn't some
variation be useful?

Dragonkat

[Erol K. Bayburt]

What happens if a shovel is given a weapon enhancement bonus: +1 (or
more) to hit & damage? Can digging be treated as a Sunder-type attack
against whatever is being dug?
--
Erol K. Bayburt
Ero...@comcast.net

[Aste...@gmail.com]

Thanks guys. So I've decided that the dig speed was fair for 8000gp. I
changed the stats block of the weapon a little bit so that it had a
charge limit of 20 5x5 squares and such. I also found a lvl3 spell
called Burrow in the Underdark book that gives creatures a dig speed
of ten. So, in conclusion, I made the weapon CL13 (to match
disintegrate), and gave it the digging power of 4 five-foot squares
per 10 minutes.

[ It had to be a two-bladed sword, because that's the deity's favored
weapon. I'm hoping to consecrate it as a minor artifact someday, at
the end of the campaign. ]

[Baird Stafford]

In article
<31f778d7-47a1-4d15...@s9g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
Aste...@gmail.com wrote:

> [ It had to be a two-bladed sword, because that's the deity's favored
> weapon. I'm hoping to consecrate it as a minor artifact someday, at
> the end of the campaign. ]

If the deity is involved in mining and/or agriculture (i.e, Dwarven,
Gnomish - assuming Gnomes, of course - and some but not all Druidic
deities), a shovel or spade might well be among the sacred paraphernalia
found at shrines/churches/temples. I simply cannot imagine any reason
why a Deity whose favored weapon is a sword of any kind would allow
his/her sacred object to be profaned by using it for so prosaic and even
ignoble a purpose as turning the earth. That's peasant stuff.

Baird
role-playing again

[Keith Davies]

Baird Stafford <ba...@newstaff.com> wrote:
> In article
><31f778d7-47a1-4d15...@s9g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
> Aste...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> [ It had to be a two-bladed sword, because that's the deity's favored
>> weapon. I'm hoping to consecrate it as a minor artifact someday, at
>> the end of the campaign. ]
>
> If the deity is involved in mining and/or agriculture (i.e, Dwarven,
> Gnomish - assuming Gnomes, of course - and some but not all Druidic
> deities), a shovel or spade might well be among the sacred
> paraphernalia found at shrines/churches/temples. I simply cannot
> imagine any reason why a Deity whose favored weapon is a sword of any
> kind would allow his/her sacred object to be profaned by using it for
> so prosaic and even ignoble a purpose as turning the earth. That's
> peasant stuff.

I've got gods that wouldn't mind that (all significant dwarven gods are
gods of craft and of war), but they're pretty practical. Sure, use the
Holy Heavy Pick of Naurond (god of engineers) to dig a trench or put a
tunnel through a mountain, he's fine with that. He wouldn't have a
double sword as a favored weapon, though, it's *entirely* not related to
his portfolio.

Keith
--
Keith Davies You know you're working too much when you
keith....@kjdavies.org receive spam with
keith....@gmail.com "Subject: Erection issues resolved!"
http://www.kjdavies.org/ and you go looking for the trouble ticket.

[Aste...@gmail.com]

Well, I was trying to think of a non-combat use for "destruction"...
digging was the best I could come up with. ^_^; I guess I could make
it sundering or somethin'. But digging could be a badass use for a
sword! Imagine digging through a tunnel full of corpses! Chop chop
chop! Plus, I imagine the sword would dig by hacking and slashing,
absorbing the material of a tunnel, not by shovelin'.