PDA

View Full Version : Wealth in Chickens



Kosjsjach
2010-02-12, 09:19 PM
I was fiddling with a homebrew currency alternative (or more precisely, a javascript conversion program; suffice it to say I find the notion of purchasing a 1st-level potion for a pound of gold a bit absurd), and I noticed something rather amusing.

According to the DMG (and the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm)), a chicken costs 2 copper pieces.

Now this doesn't seem very silly until you start measuring wealth by how many chickens you could purchase with it. For example, the aforementioned potion (50gp) is equivalent to two-thousand five-hundred chickens.

That's a lot of chickens.

A masterwork weapon will cost fifteen-thousand more chickens than its non-masterwork counterpart, and a +1 enhancement will cost an additional one hundred thousand chickens (for a total of 115,750 chickens for a simple +1 longsword.)

I know this'll be a short-lived gag, but just for fun, go pick something from the PHB or DMG or MIC (or my favorite, A&EG)... and convert its price to chickens.

Or if you want to try variety, use something else as a base. For example, a pig is another trade good valued at 3gp.

Go ahead, try it. I swear it's fun. :smallbiggrin:

Sinfire Titan
2010-02-12, 09:23 PM
Any item with a price tag: Free thanks to Chicken Infested.



Seriously, no DnD thread can mention the word Chicken without that flaw being mentioned within 50 posts.

Kosjsjach
2010-02-12, 09:27 PM
Any item with a price tag: Free thanks to Chicken Infested.



Seriously, no DnD thread can mention the word Chicken without that flaw being mentioned within 50 posts.

Then it's a good thing it's out of the way. :smalltongue:

Y'hear that, everyone? Chicken-Infested has been covered!

Flickerdart
2010-02-12, 09:29 PM
The standard treasure reward for a 1st level encounter is 300. The standard Goblin is CR 1/3. That means any Goblin you care to name has in its possession the equivalent of five thousand chickens.

Scoot
2010-02-12, 09:29 PM
3,000,000 chickens for a Zeppelin.

Or 6,000 cows.

Either one is a bargain in my book.

Sinfire Titan
2010-02-12, 09:29 PM
Then it's a good thing it's out of the way. :smalltongue:

Y'hear that, everyone? Chicken-Infested has been covered!

OK good. Now please excuse me while I ruin the Poultry Economy.

mr.fizzypop
2010-02-12, 09:32 PM
What about an item that's worth 1cp?

Lycan 01
2010-02-12, 09:33 PM
That's where eggs come in, my friend...

FirebirdFlying
2010-02-12, 09:33 PM
Get two. One for you, and one for your chickens.

Kosjsjach
2010-02-12, 09:35 PM
What about an item that's worth 1cp?

The only trade good valued at 1cp is a pound of wheat, and I find it's just better to imagine a wide expanse covered in chickens than a huge heap o' wheat.

(Keep in mind, non-trade goods are sold back to merchants at half their buying price, so they don't work as well for the experiment.)

sonofzeal
2010-02-12, 09:36 PM
Any item with a price tag: Free thanks to Chicken Infested.



Seriously, no DnD thread can mention the word Chicken without that flaw being mentioned within 50 posts.
Seriously, 50? I'd put money that the average is 5 or less. It might be fun, actually, trying to design treads with "Chicken" in the title that don't get Chicken Infested mentioned.

Best odds are probably on something like "Playing Chicken with Edition Wars" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QyYaPWasos).

TheCountAlucard
2010-02-12, 09:38 PM
I know this'll be a short-lived gag, but just for fun, go pick something from the PHB or DMG or MIC (or my favorite, A&EG)... and convert its price to chickens.Firewood gets you half a chicken. :smallamused: So will a candle, a torch, or a piece of chalk... a mug, whetstone, or clay pitcher is worth exactly one chicken, while an empty flask or clay jug is worth one-and-a-half chickens, and a ladder is two-and-a-half.
A casting of wish could provide you with one million, two hundred fifty thousand chickens... or fifty pounds of platinum. Or twenty-five thousand tons of firewood.

Jarawara
2010-02-12, 09:38 PM
I have a friend who trades the markets. He translates all trade profits into how many McDonald's Quarterpounders he made or lost on a trade.

I've never seen his physique - I can only hope he's just using that as an analogy, and not an actual monetary guide to life.

Splendor
2010-02-12, 09:43 PM
Side note...

I always though it was funny that a pig costs 3gp but 1lb of bacon costs 4gp.

Is on pig really worth 150 chickens? or 1lb of bacon worth 200 chickens?
You could always be fed with 150 chickens but how long would only 1 pig last.

Crow
2010-02-12, 09:49 PM
What book is Chicken-Infested in?

Beorn080
2010-02-12, 09:50 PM
Plus, pigs are pretty much a one shot resource. I can't recall ever hearing of a pig product that didn't result from butchering it, yet chickens produce eggs, and cows milk.

I think the real question is this. Is it more cost effective to buy a scroll of stinking cloud, or simply start jamming chickens into the mouth of the cave and throw a wall of stone over the entrance? The only problem I could see with the chickens is that they would need to be solidly packed into the entrance.

Kosjsjach
2010-02-12, 09:58 PM
While I am amused, I'm also dismayed that so few have actually named something and priced it in chickens (or goats, or firewood, or buffalo jerky (45gp/lb, for those that were wondering)).

I might end up regretting it, but here. According to the Arms and Equipment Guide, an ounce of Elderberries costs 1sp. I'll endure a Holy Grail quote if someone'll just convert it to something. :smallwink:

josh13905
2010-02-12, 10:02 PM
The only trade good valued at 1cp is a pound of wheat, and I find it's just better to imagine a wide expanse covered in chickens than a huge heap o' wheat.


However you're missing a very important fact. Wheat is flammable.

Buy all the wheat you can
Store in enemy castle
Light on fire.


Alternatively,

Breed new species of flame immune chickens
Purchase Airship
Fly over Town with chicken
Set chickens on fire
Dump Chickens overboard and watch the city panic.
Flaming Chickenpalooza!

Sinfire Titan
2010-02-12, 10:05 PM
What book is Chicken-Infested in?

It's from a Dragon Magazine. An April Fool's issue. It's a Commoner-only flaw that makes it so they have a percentage chance of pulling a chicken out instead of whatever they were going to grab. Give him Quickdraw, a Spell Component Pouch full of Clubs (of which there will be infinite), and he can literally bring about a flood of chickens.

Elfin
2010-02-12, 10:12 PM
If you insist...a +5 Vorpal greatsword is worth ten million, seventeen thousand, five hundred chickens.

Kosjsjach
2010-02-12, 10:16 PM
If you insist...a +5 Vorpal greatsword is worth ten million, seventeen thousand, five hundred chickens.

Thank you. :smallbiggrin:

Beorn080
2010-02-12, 10:27 PM
Alright, a single scroll of stinking cloud is 375 GP. That's 18750 chickens. Now transportation issues aside, it seems more cost effective to dump 10000 dead chickens into the goblin caves and wait for them to drown in their own vomit.

Randel
2010-02-12, 10:37 PM
Make a Create Food and Water trap, then build it into a gigantic factory farm where you raise chickens (might need some kind of thing for cure disease what with so many chickens in one place).

7,500 gp gives the resetting trap (which equates to 375,000 chickens in cost).

It can feed 216000 human a day, or at least three times that amount in chickens. (648,000 chickens).

Thus, once you set up the Create Food trap then all you need is a sufficient starting number of chickens and you can feed them until they start reproducing. Then just keep about 600,000 of them in circulation laying eggs and send out the ones who start to get old or something.

And congratulations, you've got your very own perpetual motion Chicken Factory! Just sit back and let that initial investment provide a perpetual steady supply of money... sweet, feathery, clucking, egg-laying money!


And since the Create Food trap makes food that only lasts 24 hours, it in itself isn't that useful for running an economy. However, by using it to feed chickens that lay eggs then it becomes a bit more useful. You have your giant Chicken Factory sending out chickens (they would require feed to keep them alive so the people who get them would either have to feed them or eat them. Thus, your national chicken currency has a tendency to move around quickly).

Plus, the copper piece would be replaced by infertile eggs (since you've got at least 600,000 chicken of which most of them should be laying an egg a day) so that's 6,000 gp getting sent out a day which means the trap should pay for itself on the first day of full production!


And with access to some more spells, you can use a permanant Wall of Fire to heat up a huge pot, thus letting you boil 600,000 eggs a day to ship out all over (or maybe use ice magic to make ice blocks to provide the refridgeration to move all the eggs or chicken meat around).

With the Fell Animate metamagic and Destructive Retribution, you can use magic to kill lots of chickens and turn them into zombies that explode with negative energy when destroyed!

A necromantic society would find this invaluable! First, each exploding zombie chicken would be able to act as walking landmine, just plant them somewhere and tell them to suicide bomb any pesky heroes or non-undead armies that come by. Each one deals about 1d6 of negative energy damage to adjacent enemies. Not too shaby.

Plus, the negative energy heals undead! Each exploding zombie chicken is basically a cheap Inflict Light Wounds to heal undead, or a group of undead that stand around it! Exploding Undead Chickens don't expire either, so once your giant chicken factory goes into full swing then you can just Fell Animate them when they come out and stockpile the zombies in a vault somewhere and sell them.

Every intelligent undead would want an exploding zombie chicken or so around to heal themselves with or provide some extra damage and protection. It would be a since to convince them to accept exploding zombie chickens as payment for stuff and due to constant production and their ability to stay functional forever then they become the best currency ever!

Plus, they are self-guarding! If you're undead and keep your wealth in exploding zombie chickens instead of gold then who would rob you?


Adventurers: All right you vampire, prepare to die!

Vampire: All right, all right. I give up. You may take my money just don't harm me.

Adventurers: Um, okay. Where do you keep your loot?

Vampire: Just over there in that vault, its not even locked.

Adventurers: Okay... lets just open it up and HOLY COW, ITS FULL OF ZOMBIE CHICKENS! Ow, Ouch *stab* *stab* *KA-BOOM!* Oh GOD THEY EXPLODE AND HEAL EACHOTHER!! AGGHHH!!

Vampire: Hahhaaahaaa!! You fools! I had all my gold coins exchanged for Necorpopolis Exploding Zombie Chickens! My family fortune is safer than ever! Yipee!

Exploding Zombie Chickens: Brain-awk! Braw-kawk! *KA-BOOM!*


Plus, Exploding Zombie Chickens are a stable currency! Well, slightly unstable but financially speaking they're okay. Since Exploding Zombie Chickens tend to get used up then inflation isn't a problem (except when they explode).

Plus, investment is a snap! A regular chicken sells for 2 cp, but an Exploding Zombie Chicken should be worth much more (I'd say 1 gp at least)! Farmers can raise chickens and take them to a government licensed necromancer who then turns them into genuine Exploding Zombie Chickens! The farmer then has just instantly increased the value of his livestock... er, undeadstock.

Yup, exploding zombie chickens should be the standard currency of every thriving Necromantic Civilization.

Splendor
2010-02-12, 11:34 PM
Another one
PHB lists 1 load of bread at 2cp and 1/2 lb, 1lb of salt at 5gp, and 1 lb of flour at 2cp.
1 teaspoon = .0208lbs

Now the basics you need to make 1/2 lb of bread is 1/2lb of flour (1cp), water (free), 1 teaspoon of salt (5.2cp) and some yeast (?). So to make 1/2 lb of bread costs you 6.2cp and only sells for 2cp.

Never take profession baker you lose money.

SurlySeraph
2010-02-12, 11:49 PM
If you insist...a +5 Vorpal greatsword is worth ten million, seventeen thousand, five hundred chickens.

I can feel the epic rules calling to me. They tell me I can have a Rod of Epic Might for a mere 214,671,600 chickens.

EDIT: Google tells me that a chicken weighs 6 pounds on average. That's 644,014.8 tons of chicken. That's about the weight of 317 space shuttles.

sonofzeal
2010-02-13, 12:21 AM
I can feel the epic rules calling to me. They tell me I can have a Rod of Epic Might for a mere 214,671,600 chickens.

EDIT: Google tells me that a chicken weighs 6 pounds on average. That's 644,014.8 tons of chicken. That's about the weight of 317 space shuttles.
Ah..... but how many chickens can fit inside a space shuttle?

lsfreak
2010-02-13, 12:46 AM
Assuming each chicken takes up one square foot, my belt of battle is worth 13 acres of chickens!

And my greater rod of quicken would supply every resident of Spain with a clove of garlic to fend off those pesky vampires. (Alternatively, Tokyo, Beijing, Mumbai, Moscow, and Mexico City combined).

Coplantor
2010-02-13, 12:58 AM
The standard treasure reward for a 1st level encounter is 300. The standard Goblin is CR 1/3. That means any Goblin you care to name has in its possession the equivalent of five thousand chickens.

those bastards would make fortunes if they stop pillaging and dedicated to farming! whatever the word for taking care of chickens is!

tribble
2010-02-13, 01:22 AM
those bastards would make fortunes if they stop pillaging and dedicated to farming! whatever the word for taking care of chickens is!

poultering?

Coplantor
2010-02-13, 01:26 AM
poultering?

Ha! Silly me, and I call myself a harvest moon player.

Dire Moose
2010-02-13, 01:34 AM
Please don't tell Link about this thread. Well, unless you want him to go completely paranoid, that is.

absolmorph
2010-02-13, 01:43 AM
My paladin is worth 2,270,205 chickens (45,404.1 gp/4,540,410 hunks of cheese/454,041 fishhooks/1,513,470 empty flasks/45.4041 spyglasses/90,808.2 good meals per day).
Well, worst comes to worst, I know how to feed my kingdom if things go bad.
EDIT: Well, that's what his gear is worth, at least. I think running a kingdom probably is worth a couple million chickens on its own.

bosssmiley
2010-02-13, 10:33 AM
According to the DMG (and the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm)), a chicken costs 2 copper pieces.

Now this doesn't seem very silly until you start measuring wealth by how many chickens you could purchase with it. For example, the aforementioned potion (50gp) is equivalent to two-thousand five-hundred chickens.

Welcome to the world of the Turnip, Gold and Wish Economies, as illuminated by K & Frank's Tome Series (link in sig).

Turnip, Gold and Wish Economies in brief: each successive economy considers the money base of its precursor to be meaningless chump change, and that of it's successor to be unattainable.

Baldrick the turnip farmer barters for goods and maybe sees some copper once in a while. Gold is just a target for thieves.
PCs start in the gold economy, and are thus already part of the social and monetary elite of the D&D world from the get go.
High level PCs find gold becomes incidental to raw magical power (you can wish for gold, you can't wish for more wishes).

4E ripped this off for its gold > platinum > planar diamond money base progression. Of course, being 4E the implications for an actual gameworld were glossed over (coz thinking things through is unfun :smallwink: ).

Foryn Gilnith
2010-02-13, 10:56 AM
I have a friend who trades the markets. He translates all trade profits into how many McDonald's Quarterpounders he made or lost on a trade.

That's a decent benchmark IMO. Similarly, beer is a decent benchmark for the worth of a currency. Somebody converted GP prices to USD prices using the cost of beer in D&D/USA. The resulting prices were an interesting comparison.
http://www.d20source.com/2006/03/what-is-one-gold-piece-worth
http://www.d20source.com/2008/04/how-much-is-a-gold-piece-worth

Jayabalard
2010-02-13, 11:42 AM
Plus, pigs are pretty much a one shot resource. I can't recall ever hearing of a pig product that didn't result from butchering itTruffles - arguably a pig product.

Harperfan7
2010-02-13, 02:02 PM
Hilarious chicken story

Kudos.

I cried.

ericgrau
2010-02-13, 02:29 PM
However you're missing a very important fact. Wheat is flammable.

Buy all the wheat you can
Store in enemy castle
Light on fire.



30 lbs. of firewood costs the same as a pound of wheat, and strangely enough is also flammable. It may be better suited for the task :smalltongue:. It also seems too easy. I'm sure there's a step missing between 1 and 2.

lsfreak
2010-02-13, 03:29 PM
30 lbs. of firewood costs the same as a pound of wheat, and strangely enough is also flammable. It may be better suited for the task :smalltongue:. It also seems too easy. I'm sure there's a step missing between 1 and 2.

"I hear you've been having some trouble with your crops! I happen to have had a bumper crop, I could loan you a few tons to help your people get back on their feet."

versus

"Hey, mind if I store all this firewood in your castle?"
"Uh... firewood? Why?"
"No reason."
"... ... ... what's that petrol smell?"
"Nothing!"

ericgrau
2010-02-13, 04:47 PM
Okay, but how much wheat do they really need to eat? And what makes you think it'd be stored throughout the castle and not in a single designated area? Even covering a 50'x50' area with 1 foot of wheat would take 78 tons. Now maybe if you have a druid who wanted to ruin their already low stores with some holly berry bombs hidden inside the gift, now we got a plan brewing.

Coidzor
2010-02-13, 05:11 PM
Lookie what I just found! (http://www.ddpoultry.com/about.html)

drengnikrafe
2010-02-13, 05:39 PM
Plus, Exploding Zombie Chickens are a stable currency!

Permission to sig?

Lord Loss
2010-02-13, 05:56 PM
What if... we made a campaign setting with chickens as the currency... Ones with templates would be worth more CP (Chicken Points)... For instance your Half-Dragon Chicken would be worth 500 CP and would be a potent weapon...
bags of holding would be used, and you would need to feed your money...

ericgrau
2010-02-13, 05:57 PM
The forced breeding of dragons with chickens as a source of generating money could become a major plot point.

Mewtarthio
2010-02-13, 06:20 PM
You know, for 3.5 million chickens, you could buy every single person in the state of Connecticut a Thanksgiving dinner. Or you could buy yourself the right to run around giggling, "Look at my Rod of Lordly Might! It extends when you touch it! Hee, hee!"

Adventurers are jerks. :smalltongue:

Piedmon_Sama
2010-02-13, 06:26 PM
Plus, pigs are pretty much a one shot resource. I can't recall ever hearing of a pig product that didn't result from butchering it, yet chickens produce eggs, and cows milk.

As far as animals go (particularly pigs), there's always methane production a-la Beyond Thunderdome. XD

Otodetu
2010-02-14, 07:19 AM
While on the subject of economy, has anyone presented a good economic model based on a medium-magic fantasy world yet?

One not based on chickens.

AslanCross
2010-02-14, 07:25 AM
One of my party members did this once. He didn't have anything to spend his remaining 2000 GP on, so I told him, tongue-in-cheek, to buy chickens.

At the end of the adventure, we captured the lich's tower, which had a built in positive/negative energy manipulation machine.

He pumped his chickens full of positive energy and turned them into dire chickens (http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/downloads/1/16/15604/crop_120x90/chocobo.jpg).

Zom B
2010-02-14, 08:42 AM
Alternatively,

Breed new species of flame immune chickens
Purchase Airship
Fly over Town with chicken
Set chickens on fire
Dump Chickens overboard and watch the city panic.
Flaming Chickenpalooza!


Relevant. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb)Filler to meet char limit

Randel
2010-02-14, 12:11 PM
Permission to sig?

Go right ahead

lord_khaine
2010-02-14, 12:18 PM
More pigs.

Worira
2010-02-14, 12:39 PM
Dogs eat 2.5 chickens per day. A starving peasant could sell his clothes to buy 5 chickens. If he had a square yard of linen, however, he could buy 200. A very simple lock, of the sort you might put on a chicken coop, costs 1,000 chickens.

Pechvarry
2010-02-14, 01:49 PM
Assuming each chicken takes up one square foot, my belt of battle is worth 13 acres of chickens!

And my greater rod of quicken would supply every resident of Spain with a clove of garlic to fend off those pesky vampires. (Alternatively, Tokyo, Beijing, Mumbai, Moscow, and Mexico City combined).

This is beyond brilliant.

Otodetu
2010-02-14, 05:00 PM
Raising a single chicken from the dead with raise dead would cost two-hundred-thousand chickens.