most economical 20th level item buy.

[Alcopop]

So what items give you the biggest bang for your buck? Crafting tricks/nonsense aside that is.

I've always been fond of the good ol' belt of magnificence myself.

[Glimbur]

I'm a big fan of the Anklets of Translocation(MiC). Swift action activation is pretty nice, and teleporting even 10' is enough to get you out of grapples and some other sticky situations. As a bonus, they are super cheap.

[Doomboy911]

If you mean with the gold one would have at level 20 I'd burn it all on hirelings.

[Pisha]

Personally, I'm a fan of the Mirror of Opposition. Any GM worth his salt will only let you get away with it once, but if you pick your moment well, once is enough.

[Doomboy911]

Personally, I'm a fan of the Mirror of Opposition. Any GM worth his salt will only let you get away with it once, but if you pick your moment well, once is enough.

It would be cool to hit the main villain with that and run away with him joining forces with him in raising an equally devastating army. Even better if you can hit his right hand man and his wizard.

[Arbitrarity]

I enjoy Portable holes, or even better, enveloping pit (3600 gold, 50 ft deep portable hole, can be used as a trap, only usable if lawful evil, neutral evil, or lawful neutral).
Belts of Battle are ridiculous. Trade swift action for move/standard/full round actions for 1/2/3 charges, 3 charges per day, and +2 intiative.
Shadow Hands are good at a lower level, 3000 gold for a 1/5 minutes standard action 50 ft teleport.
+1 soulfire thistledown padded feycraft chain shirt, at around 27000 gold, provides permanent death ward, +5 AC, and has 0 ASF, 0 ACP. Anyone without restrictions (like monks) can use it with no penalty.
Heward's fortifying bedroll is a good deal at 3000 gold, for the occasional time-sensitive rest for your wizards.
Rings of Freedom of Movement are a classic.

[Doomboy911]

Shadow hands? Link please

Also portable holes are a neat little thing I found that one can put a portable hole in a portable as they have no rule against it which led to the 500 foot hole.

[vhfforever]

Candles of Invocation and Dust of Sneezing and Choking.

All of your problems solved, in a pile of each of those at the check-out line.

[Draz74]

Shadow hands? Link please
Tome of Battle.


Candles of Invocation and Dust of Sneezing and Choking.

All of your problems except the DM throwing books at you solved, in a pile of each of those at the check-out line.

Fixed that for you.

[sreservoir]

feather tokens tree are always fun. even abusable for druids and archivists.

[vhfforever]

Fixed that for you.

I just answered the "biggest bang" portion, not the "most survivable." :)

[Lateral]

For a psionic character, a fistful of +1 manifester bolts is a steal. 18,305 GP for 250 bonus PP? That's wonderful.

[Divide by Zero]

feather tokens tree are always fun. even abusable for druids and archivists.

1. Spend your entire WBL on 1900 tree tokens.
2. Dump them all in one place at the same time.
3. Profit?

[herrhauptmann]

+1 Smoking armor spikes. (If you're large sized, also get +1 smoking shield spikes on your animated shield, +1 smoking spiked gauntlet, and smoking on your primary weapon) Each item with 'smoking' covers only 1 5ft square. So creatures bigger than Medium are SOL.
Steadfast boots if you use a Two hander.
Durable on your armor
everbright on your main weapon.
Retribution amulet from BoED.
Crystals of: Screening, Aquatic action, bent sight,
Ring of arming+sustenance.
Ring of skills +10. (Take a bunch of skills you could use a solid +10 to, and put them all on 1 ring)

[Starwulf]

I enjoy Portable holes, or even better, enveloping pit (3600 gold, 50 ft deep portable hole, can be used as a trap, only usable if lawful evil, neutral evil, or lawful neutral).
Belts of Battle are ridiculous. Trade swift action for move/standard/full round actions for 1/2/3 charges, 3 charges per day, and +2 intiative.
Shadow Hands are good at a lower level, 3000 gold for a 1/5 minutes standard action 50 ft teleport.
+1 soulfire thistledown padded feycraft chain shirt, at around 27000 gold, provides permanent death ward, +5 AC, and has 0 ASF, 0 ACP. Anyone without restrictions (like monks) can use it with no penalty.
Heward's fortifying bedroll is a good deal at 3000 gold, for the occasional time-sensitive rest for your wizards.
Rings of Freedom of Movement are a classic.

Where is that armor from?(Soulfire thistledown etc etc)? Sounds pretty nice, I'd have loved to known about that when making a Gnome Beguiler a while back.

[olentu]

Where is that armor from?(Soulfire thistledown etc etc)? Sounds pretty nice, I'd have loved to known about that when making a Gnome Beguiler a while back.

I believe thistle down padding is from races of the wild, feycraft from DMG 2, you probably want mithril, and soulfire is from I think the book of exalted deeds.

[herrhauptmann]

I believe thistle down padding is from races of the wild, feycraft from DMG 2, you probably want mithril, and soulfire is from I think the book of exalted deeds.

Right on all counts. Soulfire is a +4 enchantment, and gives you immunity to most of the bad things like energy drain, negative energy effects (chill touch and others), death spells, magical death effects. pg 112

However, it's still 'armor,' when you have all those neat little things. So even with 0 ASF/ACP, a monk still loses class features for wearing it.

[Dusk Eclipse]

By the A&EC you can add armour properties to bracers of Armour, just throwing that out.

And one of my favourite items is a cloak from Drows of the underdark which gives you as an immediate action 3/day Short Range teletransportation (yes abrupt jaunt in item form) or concealment. A steal at something like 3000 GP or some such.

I also really enjoy the Survival pouch (MiC) I rarely make a character without one.

[Vulaas]

Holy crap, that Shadow Cloak is awesome!

Also, it depends on the character type. My scouts and Shadowcraft Mages never leave home without their Choker of Umbral Metamorphosis, for example, but could care less about my mage's Ring of Spellbattle.