Goodman Games

why is this a 30gp item?

Forging a good solid chain was once a difficult task. It takes precision and patience and a lot of iron. But if you want to offer different types of chain say "simple, strong, and fine" chains at different (and lower) prices. Go for it! DCC is all about house ruling to fit your personal tastes.

The reason its strange is that sometimes a 0 level guy gets one, and then he's rich already! But its not a terribly useful item. With such a short equipment list, its kinda funny.

Just because someone can buy it for 30gp doesn't mean he can sell it for 30gp... My players have used chains for various innovative tasks, including using them as barter for something seemingly more useful. But, 5 10' chains become a very durable (and heavy) 50' rope...

Something to chain the farmer's hot daughter to after you burned his farm.

Two thoughts occur here...

1 - He's rich already. If a 10' chain is, as you claim, "not a terribly useful item," then the character is absolutely not rich - people do not take items in trade that they don't have a use for or know someone that does have a use for it that will help them profit in some way from accepting the chain in the first place... which means the chain, despite it's listed cost in gold on the equipment table, is going to prove extremely difficult to get anything at all for... it's value is, more often than not, zero.

It's like mentioned in so many places in DCC adventures - an item has no use to the party but might be valued at some amount to a collector/scholar/whatever that actually has interest in the item... the chain has no value to anyone except those few and far between that have a use for it, and those potential buyers are likely far enough away and hard enough to find that any perceived profit from the chain is going to be spent just getting to the buyer in the first place - so hopefully the first potential buyer actually buys.

DCC implies, with its mentions on the adventurer's effect upon a local economy, that all the prices listed on equipment charts should be considered to be either a) typical asking price from a merchant regularly dealing in that type of item or b) value of the item to the right person at the right time.

2 - Not a terribly useful item. Not that I can think of that many uses for a 10' chain off the cuff, I hate hearing a player say "not useful," about any piece of their inventory... mostly because it shows a close-minded approach to item usage that leads players to get frustrated by a simple challenge, declare themselves stumped, and give up... when they could have, had they taken a moment to check their inventory with a mind ready to find an unexpected use for an item.

I guess you could call it a pet peeve of mine... players selling down to one suit of armor because "no use" for extra suits, selling down to one melee and one ranged weapon because "no use" for backups, selling off mirrors, ducks, pigs, iron spikes, 10' poles, or whatever else because their is "no use" in keeping them around... and now someone says that a chain isn't that useful either...

Well... what about when you need to secure a heavy, sharp or jagged object - like a metal statue, or a big jagged bolder - so that you can haul it out of the way? A rope will break under the strain, especially as it rubs against the rough edges... a chain though, that gives you something you can attach to the troublesome object.

Same with having to bind low-heat flaming entities - rope burns long before chain melts.

Taking a giant prisoner? I'd bet a chain is a better bet than rope... assuming you don't want him getting free.

A chain, it would seem to me, is also a better improvised weapon than a rope.

I had a 0 level player ask if he could wrap the chain around his arm and use it kinda like an improvised shield for slashing/blunt weapons. I thought it was a very creative use for the 10' chain and gave him a +1 to AC.

If she's "hot" because of the burning farm, that's just sick, dude!

Buddy of mine played a cleric of Orcus in 3e. He used animate dead and... well... Use your imagination, it was his "harem".

Demonstration of someone who never encountered a rust monster lacking (likely out of game) knowledge of what it does. People roll their eyes at rust monsters (and gas spores and rot grubs and gelatinous cubes), but those kinds of monsters serve a purpose. They contribute to the player's experience point totals.

See, that's the weird thing about my group - they've fought rust monsters in various editions of D&D, they've had monsters sunder their equipment, they've even been waylaid by a wizard they offended and robbed entirely of magical gear and watched as a character in DCC lost a weapon to a fumble result...

Then they sold all their spare armor and weapons... right before the cleric managed disapproval and had to sacrifice 40% of his belongings to get past it, meaning (thanks to selling everything extra) that the cleric is currently without armor because his other option was to be basically lacking in all possessions other than armor and holy symbol.