Locating ore comes down to looking for visible veins in the faces of mountains and hills and then waving the ore detector around until the large deposit is located. This isn’t very fun in my opinion, so I thought of a dedicated class that would specialize in the act.
The class could be named the Geologist, Spelunker, or Dowser.
There would be no prerequisite class and the promotion item could be a simple pair of dowsing rods. Ideally they could be crafted by a level 1 or 2 carpenter.
The player sections off an area for the dowser to search, similar to a trapper. Also similarly to how the trapper’s areas have a rating for how wild they are, the dowser’s sectioned areas could give an estimate to how much ore is available in the location. If there was any ore, the dowser would then over a period of time then mark out a rough position of the ore, including roughly the area it’s in and how deep. The player could then simply have hearthlings dig and excavate the ore.
As level progression for this profession, the estimation time and accuracy could be improved and the depth at which they can detect ore increased. For example, at 1st level, the estimations would be somewhat rough and their range of ore detection shallow. At max level, their estimation time could be faster and more accurate, and their depth deeper. As an aside, they perhaps could tell what ore they are detecting below the surface at max level.