Smelting

Smelting(General, 1)
Ability: Intelligence
Modifier: ‐1
The smelting proficiency is closely tied to the mining proficiency, since between them they provide all of the metal used in the campaign world. A character with this proficiency can operate a smelter, which is essentially an extremely hot forge. Using this forge and the occasional application of certain liquids, including water and acids, the smelter separates the metal from the rocky ore with which it is usually mined.The amount of ore that can be processed is more a function of the size of the smelter than the character’s working rate. A small smelter can process ore as fast as four miners can produce it. A medium smelter can process the ore excavated by up to 20 miners. A large smelter can process the ore excavated by up to 100 miners.Because of the materials needed to operate it, a smelting operation costs money to maintain. This expense is in addition to the cost of the smelting equipment itself. A small smelting operation costs 5sp per day to operate; the cost of a medium smelting operation is 12sp per day, and a large smelting operation costs 25sp a day to run. The smelter only costs money when it is in operation. Thus, it is common practice to collect a stockpile of ore before beginning to smelt it, so that the smelter can run at maximum efficiently until all the stockpiled ore has been processed.