The Complete Stonewards Mining Guide: Master Every Ore and Gem

Why Mining Matters and How This Guide Helps

If you've ever spent hours wandering from shop to shop hoping to find the exact crafting materials you need, this Stonewards mining guide is for you. Mining is one of the most rewarding gathering skills in the game, offering a reliable way to stockpile thousands of ore, stone, and rare gemstones without relying on unpredictable shop inventories. Whether you're leveling crafting, hunting for legendary diamonds, or just want a steady income stream, our Stonewards mining guide breaks down everything from optimized character creation to deep-floor strategies that maximize your returns.

Community reports from experienced miners confirm that a well-built mining party can achieve 100% success rates on every node in the game by mid-levels, turning what starts as a slow grind into a highly efficient resource engine. Let's dig into the details.

Building Your Optimized Mining Party

The foundation of any successful mining operation is your character setup. Player experience shows that three characters can participate in mining simultaneously — one main miner and two assistants — so you'll want to optimize all three from the start.

Ideal Miner Character Creation

If you already have a full party save and want to swap in optimized miners, the process involves purchasing Substitute Character slots at an Adventurer's Guild (costing 1,000, 4,000, and 9,000 gold for the first three slots), recruiting a Kobold from western towns, and then retraining them to reset to level 1 so you can choose the ideal class and familiar.

Party Composition Strategy

Your ideal mining party balances gathering efficiency with combat survivability:

• 3 Wisdom/Strength Miners — Handle all mining nodes while carrying maximum load
• 3 Strength Combat Characters — Clear enemy-filled floors between mining levels
• Prioritize Wisdom on miners for skill rank bonuses
• Stack Strength across the entire party to reduce return trips

Since mines span 80 floors with enemies occupying each level, your party needs to handle combat at various difficulty tiers. The deeper you go, the better the enemy loot drops, making combat characters just as valuable as your mining specialists.

Training and Understanding the Mining Skill

Where to Learn Mining

Mining can be trained at any town with an Artisan's Guild for a flat fee of 200 gold pieces. These guilds are identifiable by the crossed-tools icon over a blue flag displayed next to the town name. The four towns hosting Artisan's Guilds are:

Don't confuse the Artisan's Guild with the Adventurer's Guild, which uses crossed swords over a yellow flag and offers different services entirely.

How Mining Skill Is Calculated

Your effective mining rank is determined by several stacked modifiers. Understanding this breakdown is essential for planning your build, as highlighted in this Stonewards mining guide:

• Proficiency Rank — Earned through successful mining attempts
• Assigned Rank — Your max skill rank based on level
• Wisdom Modifier — Bonus from the main miner's Wisdom stat
• Feat Bonus — +3 from Skill Focus: Profession (Miner)
• Race Bonus — +2 for Kobolds
• Familiar Bonus — +3 for Armadillo

At character level 1, proficiency-based bonuses give +4 to max mining skill, increasing by +1 per level. This means a level 11 character can potentially reach mining level 30, which is the threshold for 100% success on Quartzite — the hardest node in the game.

Mining Locations and Node Breakdown

Once your miners are ready, you'll need to purchase access to mining sites. Each mine requires a one-time fee, and prices increase with each purchase. Community reports suggest buying one of each mine type, preferably near a town with a bank for depositing drops.

Mine Types and Recommended Priority

Regular Mine Ore Distribution by Depth

Stone Quarry Distribution by Depth

A key tip from this Stonewards mining guide: when returning to a mine after enemies respawn, clear the deepest floor first. All enemies on floors above will flee, meaning you only need to win two battles — one on the surface and one at the deepest level — to make the entire mine accessible again.

Mining Node Mechanics and Success Rates

Every mining node has a Difficulty Class (DC) threshold. The game rolls a d20, adds your mining rank, adds potential assist bonuses, and compares the total against the DC. Assist checks work similarly, with each assistant rolling against DC minus 5.

Node DC Reference Table

Once your assistants' mining levels reach DC minus 5, they provide a guaranteed +2 bonus each to your main miner. This means two assistants at level 30 effectively add +4 to your main miner, allowing a level 30 main miner to hit 100% success on Quartzite (DC 35).

At mining level 36, you no longer need assistants at all — a single miner can handle every node in the game. Additionally, higher mining levels increase ore yield per node, with level 36 miners pulling 6–8 ore from nodes that drop only 1 at level 1.

Rare Gemstone Drops by Tier

Every mining attempt has a chance to produce a gemstone rare drop. These are organized into six tiers, each tied to specific ore and stone types. This Stonewards mining guide compiles the complete drop hierarchy:

Platinum remains exceptionally rare across all mine types, appearing roughly twice per floor in deep or special mines. For more details on the game's crafting and gathering systems, check the official Low Magic Age page on Steam.

Proficiency Farming and Efficiency Tips

Proficiency farming is fastest when mining nodes where you already have a high success rate, since successful mining yields significantly more proficiency experience than failed attempts. With an optimized build, you can jump straight into high-rarity ores from the start.

The latest updates introduced several quality-of-life improvements:

• Middle-mouse button targets all visible ores at once, dramatically speeding up floor clearing
• Higher mining levels increase ore yield per node
• Enemy respawns occur every reset cycle, but clearing the deepest floor causes all upper-floor enemies to flee

For efficient material farming, work from the bottom up. If you need gold, clear floor 20 and mine upward through floors 19, 18, 17, and 16 rather than starting at 16 and fighting through each subsequent floor.

Benefits of Mining for Crafting and Profit

Once your mining operation is fully optimized, the benefits compound quickly. Every node at 100% success yields 1–10+ ore plus potential gemstones, meaning ore stockpiles reach the thousands rapidly. This directly feeds crafting training, which consumes enormous resource quantities.

While raw materials sell for only 20% of their value at shops, the time saved by mining directly — versus hunting across multiple shops waiting for resets — makes mining the superior gathering method. The combat encounters between floors also provide additional gold and equipment drops, with deeper floors offering progressively better loot.

FAQ

What is the best race for a Stonewards mining guide build? Kobold is the optimal race for mining due to its innate +2 mining rank bonus. Combined with an Armadillo familiar (+3) and the Skill Focus: Profession (Miner) feat (+3), a Kobold miner starts with significant advantages over other races.

How long does it take to reach 100% mining success on all nodes? With an optimized build, community reports indicate you can achieve 100% success on every node by approximately character level 11, which corresponds to mining level 30. At mining level 36, you no longer need assistants and can mine everything solo.

Where should I mine for legendary gemstones in this Stonewards mining guide? Legendary (Tier 6) gemstones like Blue Diamond and Pink Diamond only drop from Platinum nodes. Platinum is always rare, appearing roughly twice per floor in the Rare Metals Mine or floors 21–80 of the Regular Mine. There is no ideal farming spot — persistence is key.

Is it worth buying all mine types? Most players recommend purchasing at minimum a Regular Mine and Special Metal Mine. Coal and Iron mines are valuable if you plan to seriously pursue crafting training, while Stone and Precious Stone mines are lower priority unless you specifically need stone materials.