[3.5] Billionaire Playboy Philantropist Challenge - the best with just cash

[Flickerdart]

Joe Schmoe, unremarkable human commoner with no feats or skills to speak of and 10 in each stat, inherits infinity gold. Without silly things like "he buys a Phylactery of Changing and is a dragon," "he gets an artificer to change his bonus types and has infinite ability scores" or any custom items or UMD abuse, how powerful can Joe get? How long can he keep up in a party with just items boosting his feeble HP, saves, and attack options?

In the interests of the challenge, I would like to avoid MIC's unslotted/sharing slot item rules.

At first glance, it seems like he would be a pretty good match for 5th level guys - a 21 in each stat (Tomes + Belt of Magnificence) gives him ability scores as good as anyone's, and a +5 weapon compensates for his 0 BAB, lack of damage-boosting feats, and non-proficiency. He has +11 to each save (21 stat, +6 vest), which is quite remarkable for that level, and +10 to any skill he can roll untrained (21 stat, +5 competence item).

Can Joe throw more money at the problem, and what kind of a bill does he rack up?

[Cranthis]

In combat scenarios, he could probably be contributive until about level 6, based on what you've said. After that, he becomes usefull in other manners. In combat he starts falling behind, but out of combat, he can solve any problem by, sometimes literally, throwing money at it. He can just buy himself an army. Even a level 20 can fall to ten thousand level 1-6 soldiers.

[jiriku]

If Joe has unlimited WBL, then he can afford a brace of luck blades and he's throwing wish around in every encounter. Joe can buff himself with potions, meaning that he probably carries a bandoleer of heroics potions to grant himself fighter feats. I'm thinking Joe is probably wielding a +5 valorous brilliant energy lance as his primary weapon, and ubercharging. Between using luckblades duplicate being a caster and his lance to charge things to death, I expect Joe contributes effectively up to at least 10th level. With his ring of djinnie calling he can use the djinn's spell-like abilities to provide his party with free food and drink plus overland flight for long-distance travel. Further, he owns a theurgeme vessel fitted with a planar helm, along with a planar amulet and cubic gate, so he's pretty much the party's one-stop shop for travel. With his admiral's bicorne, cloak of charisma +6, rod of rulership and breastplate of command, combined with those skill-boosting items you mentioned, he's quite functional as the party face. In fact, he's probably also their boss.

[Jormengand]

Yeah, I'm going to say that he has a metric boopton of wish-granting items. Given that he can cast pretty much any spell he likes of 8th or lower level, and certainly of 6th or lower level, he's pretty much invincible. He can probably make do with a +lots morningstar, seeing as he can actually be proficient with it.

Usually, he'll just sit back and watch a monster VIII beating his enemies up.

[Graypairofsocks]

You didn't rule out getting Epic Level magic items, so you should probably add a bunch of the epic weapon qualities and also increase the enchantment level to >20 on any weapons he uses.

There is also a weapon quality that grants proficiency with the weapon it is on, can't remember the name though.

[ShurikVch]

How about mercenaries?
In theory, infinite gold allow to hire infinite number of mercenaries (of infinitely high level)
Maybe, you want to hire the Artemis Entreri?
How about the Elric of Melniboné?
Or, maybe, Cloud Strife?

[Ingus]

It is broken. Literally.

But let's rolepaly it.
Joe Schmoe is the illegitimate son of . Waukeen dies, leaving Joe with a pile of gold he cannot possibly count.
Instead of buying a Mordenkainen Playboy Mansion and a Chalice of Infinite Mojitos, he has the silly idea of bein an adventurer (he may have, despite description, a severe malus in Wisdom :smalltongue:).
The only possible caveat I need is that Joe can't be robbed - divine heirloom and stuff - or I'll need more steps and it will annoying (ok, ok, I'm lazy, I admit it :smallbiggrin:)

Being is nickname [I]Average Joe, he doesn't know how to do it. Being, in fact, an Average Joe, he does what people do in this cases.
He goes to the professionals - AKA spellcasters, at least in D&D world - and starts to toss his first money requiring divine advice (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#spellcastingAndServices). Let's assume he goes to a LG temple.
He asks the best divination in roster and the Church lets him have a Commune (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commune.htm) spell.
He then gets a very useful tip: "take a bodyguard and an advisor".
As parvenù does, he take a very expensive one, a Greater Planar Ally (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/planarAllyGreater.htm), maybe a Planetar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/angel.htm#angelPlanetar).
The Planetar is faithful (LG) and very good protector (great SLAs and 17th level Cleric casting) and a great advisor (Int 22, Wis 23, 4 Knowledges).
He has Raise Dead to keep Joe going.

Then add to this all the stuff Joe can buy. And then add a dozen rings of three wishes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm#threeWishes) and a dozen rings of Greater Spell Storing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm#spellStoringMajor), and a Hand of Glory (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#handofGlory) just to be sure.

Normal setup: use one Ring of Greater Spell Storing to Shapechange in advance (let's say Planetar, we're not munchkins), and wear two remaining Rings of Major Spell Storing and a Ring of Three Wishes.

Result: you win D&D forever

[flare'90]

With infinite money you can replicate and improve The Cube and be effectively invincible against anything. Items of Wish take care of the rest.

[Vaz]

Are custom items on the table, or only explicity created ones?

If custom created, he can pick up any feat through slotless magic items created using the slotless Magic Items in the MIC and the A+EG for feats on magic items. This includes access to near enough every skill as a class skill via the Apprentice feats, and every skill point maxed via Open Minded feat.

With lots of Armour with Armour Spikes and Armour Blades, and a ton of hidden weapons, he has access to enough spellblades to prevent targeted dispels.

He can pick up a ton of items of Planar Touchstone for Catalogues of Enlightenment for the ability to cast a number of spells/day from the variant domains.

A use activated item of Truestrike and Wraithstrike gives you +20 to hit with touch attacks.

He can pick up Wizard Spellcasting via Magical Training feat, Sanctum Spell, Precocious Apprentice, Earth Spell, Extra Slot, Heighten Spell to get 9th's, combined with Bloodlines and Necrotic Cyst, and Arcane Disciple of your god gets you 9th level spells. I think there is a Divine version as well in a Dragon Mag.

If an Elf, he can pick up Otherworldly to become an Outsider. With Assume Supernatural Ability (enough slotless ones to grant every Su ability in the game), he can use a Skin of Proteus to become a Visilight for NI Charisma. The Skin of Proteus as written is limited by its ML. This changes

Darkstalker feat for immunity to 4 pinpointing abilities, and Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis for HiPS (along with permanently maxed, and a high Dexterity).

A Use activated item of Miracle, Wish, and Reality Revision gets you the ability to cast every 8th level or lower spell or power in the game, pretty much (exclusing Wu Jen exclusives).

Innate Spell feat in conjunction with a ton of Improved Spellcasting Capacity (based off Charisma, so the Visilight trick allows you the additional Spellslots) gets you every spell you can cast as an at will SLA, and with Quicken SLA can cast every single one of them 3/day as a Swift action.

You can shape every soulmeld with Shape Soulmeld, and have every Chakra open, and have every Chakra doubled up, and every single one completely filled with Essentia.

[Amphetryon]

With infinite money you can replicate and improve The Cube and be effectively invincible against anything. Items of Wish take care of the rest.

This. We already know from the old Test of Spite that The Cube was an all but unbeatable build with a human commoner as its pilot.

[Segev]

If I may, I think a more interesting thought experiment would be to see just how much Joe The Average Commoner would have to exceed normal WBL at each level in order to keep up with various PC classes at each level.

If we really want to formally break it down, place Joe in each of the four classic roles in an otherwise optimized party, and let him use nothing but items. What is the bare minimum WBL he needs at each level to do his job comparably to an optimized character in an appropriate PC class for the role he's occupying?

Recall that the optimized PC he's replacing would have normal WBL for that level, too, so Joe almost certainly needs more WBL than that to do the job.

To simplify matters a little bit, assume Joe has the same level as the rest of his party; all his levels are just in Commoner. edit: Or, better still, Aristocrat. After all, he's obviously rich, and we don't want him using the unique commoner flaws, now do we?

[John Longarrow]

Note: Joe doesn't even need to get items/stat boosts to go "Adventuring".

Joe pays off a plane to provide muscle. Say he buys out Hell so he's got a lot of devils that go ahead. Each one explains in terrifying detail just what will happen to any given orc, goblin, troll, giant, dragon, ect... that doesn't "Play along" with Joe. They get dragged down to Hell for the rest of eternity. Joe then goes ahead and fights a bunch of being willing to die on his blade rather than face what his "Friends" have in store for him. Joe even has servant running ahead/behind keeping things clean for him, cool/warm enough to be comfortable, and laying out refreshments before/after his "Fights".

When you have enough wealth, who cares about actually being good at anything? For the most party, you can buy what you want and there are far too many people invested in keeping you around (and keeping themselves paid/avoiding pre-paid retribution).

In the game I'm running, the major enemies are using the power of cash to pull off tricks other evil groups have to spend many years on as other groups have to actually level up to epic to get their mitts on epic spells.

[Ingus]

This. We already know from the old Test of Spite that The Cube was an all but unbeatable build with a human commoner as its pilot.

Do you have any link short on hand?

[Darrin]

Do you have any link short on hand?

The full details of the Cube have never been publicly posted. I'm not sure how the Test of Spite worked, but I think the character sheets were sent to a neutral party or chairperson? To avoid certain builds from being deliberately sandbagged, a contestant wasn't required to publicly post their build (although I believe many did so during or after the Test of Spite). Sofawall wasn't one of them, but he discusses a few details about it here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=8187767&postcount=7).

[Barstro]

My thoughts;
1) Someone with infinite wealth, 10 stats and average ambition will spend the money like a first round draft pick and eventually be killed/dominated/manipulated for the money
2) Give the person some decent ambition and/or good advisers and you'll get a puppet king/emperor. Not too shabby.

Let's put the money in a spendthrift trust that can be accessed only for adventuring purposes. I don't have enough knowledge to answer theses question, but they are my concerns.
1) Can stats be increased high enough to contribute or be safe?
2) Same as above, but concerned with DC for caster spells
3) Could this person ever keep up with iterative attacks?
4) In summary; at what level does the average PC get stat boosts that surpass Average Joe's max with all possible magic items?

In the end, I think we either build a steampunk Ironman (or Pathfinder Alchemist going either Beast or Genius), or the person needs to take a leadership role instead of an active fighting roll. But I'm not sure he would have the mental stats to do really be a leader.

[AvatarVecna]

Without an upwards cap, this can get ridiculous so easily. Wish at will only costs 2,860,000 gp, and that's not even getting into epic level slots or infinte XP spells. With infinite money, you have infinite power, so long as there's magic items aplenty.

Ring of Infinte Wishes cost breakdown

--Use Activated: 9*20*2,000 (spell lvl*caster lvl*2000)=360,000
--XP cost: 5*5000*100 (5*XP cost*charges)=2,500,000

Total cost: 2,860,000 gp. Note: even if this is way off, it's still less than infinite, so Joe could afford it.


Let's do a slightly different thought experiment: let's give Joe WBL 40, for total wealth of 13,600,000 gp. If Joe spent every last gp of that, he could get a Epic Ring of Infinite Wishes. It would have caster level 40, be heightened to 13th level (allowing just about anything in terms of non-epic magic, and limited epic magic), and would have a max XP cost per wish of 25120.

Epic Ring of Infinite Wishes cost breakdown

--13*40*2000 (spell lvl*caster lvl*2000)=1,040,000
--5*25120*100(5*XP cost*charges)=12,560,000

Total cost: 13,600,000 gp


That's not even touching infinite wish loops.

[Flickerdart]

Sorry - in case it wasn't already clear from the first post, "Joe buys wishes and wins the game" is an obvious and boring answer that I'm not interested in. Epic magic items should probably also be off the table, for a similar reason.

I completely forgot about the Cube, though. Let's steer clear of TO.

[Giddonihah]

To keep relevant Joe doesn't even need to go beyond the SRD nonepic wondrous items.

Joe cant be bothered to walk places mundanely, instead he will cruise around in a blinged out Apparatus of the Crab, where he has several small sized butlers drive it for him. He has a portable catapult attached to the Crabs back (not an actual catapult persay, more of a launcher) which he uses to launch Swan Boat tokens in order to crush his enemies in moolah. Not him of course, but an elemental servant that he controls with the Censor of Controlling Air Elementals. In case something needs to die even worse, he uses Cubes of Instant Fortress instead, which coincidentally are his favorite method of executing unruly common folk.

This method to slow for destroying areas of stuff? Well luckily he has a bag of holding full of the Orb of Storms, allowing him to cast Storm of Vengeance as much as he desires, to destroy any nasty towns or cities that disrespected the Noblest of Joes.

Now as for the Apparatus of the Crab itself, its been blinged out (using sovereign glue and/or Gnome mechanics) , it can hover and fly using a metric ton of Decanters of Endless Water (conveniently drowning those to poor to have a ride), it has sweet brakes in that its been reinforced with adamantine and Immovable Rods, it has the aforementioned death catapult. When things get very dire it has a handy dandy selfdestruct feature, with a few hundred Necklaces of Fireball waiting in a portable hole (which you of course are immune to thanks to Fire immunity item)

Joe is starting to remind me of Gilgamesh.

[AvatarVecna]

Sorry - in case it wasn't already clear from the first post, "Joe buys wishes and wins the game" is an obvious and boring answer that I'm not interested in. Epic magic items should probably also be off the table, for a similar reason.

I completely forgot about the Cube, though. Let's steer clear of TO.

Infinite Money, non-epic, no wishes, hmm? Alrighty then.

Custom Head Slot Item: Crown of Limitless Form

It gives you continuous "Shapechange" up to 25 HD for the low low price of 825000 gp! Depending on your definition of "non-unique", you could transform into just about anything!

Alternatively...
Step 1: Buy the services of an army of mercenaries; they should be high-level (BAB 16+) and master archers.
Step 2: Buy the lot of them (and yourself) archery gear (the best bows, Gloves of Dexterity, etc).
Step 3: Buy the lot of them (and yourself) Wings of Flying.
Step 3: Buy the lot of them (and yourself) as many Efficient Quivers as can be carried (it's a slotless item).
Step 4: Buy the lot of them (and yourself) as many of these (http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=59125&d=1380670128&thumb=1) as they can hold in their many Efficient Quivers.
Step 5: Proceed, with your archer army's assistance, to completely destroy all of creation, one 10ft cube of space at a time. Well, 6 per round per mercenary, plus 2 from you, so it's a little faster than that.

[Ingus]

So, no Rings of Spell Storing either?

[Flickerdart]

Infinite Money, non-epic, no wishes, hmm? Alrighty then.

Custom Head Slot Item: Crown of Limitless Form

It gives you continuous "Shapechange" up to 25 HD for the low low price of 825000 gp! Depending on your definition of "non-unique", you could transform into just about anything!
It's like when I said "no custom items" and "no transforming into stuff" people just glossed over it, huh.



Alternatively...
Step 1: Buy the services of an army of mercenaries; they should be high-level (BAB 16+) and master archers.
Step 2: Buy the lot of them (and yourself) archery gear (the best bows, Gloves of Dexterity, etc).
Step 3: Buy the lot of them (and yourself) Wings of Flying.
Step 3: Buy the lot of them (and yourself) as many Efficient Quivers as can be carried (it's a slotless item).
Step 4: Buy the lot of them (and yourself) as many of these (http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=59125&d=1380670128&thumb=1) as they can hold in their many Efficient Quivers.
Step 5: Proceed, with your archer army's assistance, to completely destroy all of creation, one 10ft cube of space at a time. Well, 6 per round per mercenary, plus 2 from you, so it's a little faster than that.
That's not the commoner doing anything, that's an army doing stuff while he watches. Boring.

[Renen]

No 1 said he cant level up... so he goes out and has his allies that he summoned with wish or something, beat on some epic monsters.
Thwn he goes to a psion and gets psych reformed into illithid savant.
He then goes on to pulling off tippy's "kill a greated deity" trick.
Game won

OP said to stear clear of TO, but we can just stop at some random point in the build, without becoming TO.

[Aegis013]

If there's some way for Average Joe to utilize his wealth in ways that buff his allies (assuming that's not just piling magic items on them endlessly in the first place), he'll be fairly useful for quite awhile. Since Average Joe is unlikely to keep up in straight damage or the like, outside of TO such as The Cube, his best bet is probably to try to act as a force multiplier.

With the brevy of defensive magic items at his disposal, such as hundreds of Shadow Cloaks (Drow of the Underdark) for 3 Immediate Action teleports per fight, he'll be able to avoid a lot of attacks, supply immunities to his allies with things like Banner of Storms Eye, and generally be pretty capable of defending himself from harm, and other oft sought out magical item defenses, he'll be well protected.

Though without UMD, the option to utilize butt-loads of wands is not viable (as Average Joe has no feats and skills to speak of) as a means of supporting his allies. So he has to find other ways.

Tome of Battle offers us some interesting options through the items on page 150; as Average Joe levels up, he can get prerequisite free maneuvers (or possibly stances, if you use that interpretation) from those items, though he'll never get higher than 5th level maneuvers, these gems include: Distracting Ember, Fan the Flames, Iron Guard's Glare (complemented by his escape tactics from his items), Diamond Mind Save Replacers, Cloak of Deception, Island of Blades, Shadow Jaunt, Shadow Stride, Mountain Hammer, Bolstering Voice, and Leading the Charge.

If he gets an enormous number of potions of Heroics and uses the interpretation that if you know a maneuver already it can self qualify for its own prerequisite if you lose the maneuver you had to get it, you can unlock other gems such as White Raven Tactics, Tactics of the Wolf, Hunter's Sense.

I'm sure there are some I've overlooked, but these will help him contribute in combats to a small degree.

Another option for contributing is repeated use of Bowls of Commanding Water Elementals and its derivatives. Normally prohibitively expensive to use costing 100,000gp each, Average Joe has little better to do with his round. He can try to summon a Huge Elemental to contribute to combat each round that passes, allowing him to play as a minor summoner. While the creatures don't appear for 1d4 rounds, effectively being able to cast Summon Monster VI or VII for a single elemental any time he wants could be useful, especially in the hands of a clever player.

Use of gems such as Amulet of Second chances, of which I'm sure Average Joe never leaves home without a few hundred, will allow him to rescue his teammates from certain situations by reversing time. After a trap is sprung to tell his allies about the trap, for example.

Greater dispelling light crossbows and various other kinds of special weapons can help Average Joe contribute. A lot of magical effects will go down when you've got hundreds of greater dispelling weapons in one of your portable holes.

Some situations can be solved with clever use of items such as Quaal's Feather Token (tree) or, for Average Joe, it's more absurd version; Daern's Instant Fortress.

While Average Joe probably isn't going to keep up in toe-to-toe combat. He should be able to contribute in a lot of situations, and he probably won't be a liability for the group who opts to take him to a dungeon, as his magic items will likely be able to provide him significant defenses.

I'd guess that a clever and well prepared player with access to a reasonable magic-mart could play Average Joe and competently hold his own in a tier 3 group probably until mid levels (10-15) before really falling behind in his capability to contribute. He's no wizard, but he's got a lot of tricks in his bags, including bags of tricks.

[Vaz]

If there is not challenge, there is no XP.

[Renen]

Can he get infinite Feats with datk chaos shuffle?

Also, everyone saying UMD isnt viable... but cant we...
1) Boost charisma to high levels with +5 from tomes. +6 from item. +2 from succubus you bribed. + some more from things I cant remember now
2) boost charisma mod. +5 from some staff from miniatures handbook. +2 (I think) from goggles of scroll reading.
3) Use spells. Like +5 to UMD from wieldskill spell.

Are we high enough to successfully UMD most things?

[Gabrosin]

I suggest that in addition to no custom items, we limit the purchase of any real item to one instance. So you can buy a Candle of Invocation, but just the one.

The answer is still probably "close to Pun-Pun", even if we rule out "buy all the people as your army" or "pay for something much nastier than you to serve you in some way". After all, for any spell, you can theoretically pay someone to cast it for you.

[Jormengand]

There must be some way of granting yourself quick draw with an item, in which case do that and then staff of rapid barrage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/staffs.htm#rapidBarrage) everything that gets in your way infinite times.

I'm not sure why you can't keep dropping Instant fortresses (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#instantFortress) on people, either.

[Renen]

So, can you pull off chaos shuffle at lvl 1 with infinite weath?

[Flickerdart]

I suggest that in addition to no custom items, we limit the purchase of any real item to one instance. So you can buy a Candle of Invocation, but just the one.
Fair enough.



The answer is still probably "close to Pun-Pun", even if we rule out "buy all the people as your army" or "pay for something much nastier than you to serve you in some way". After all, for any spell, you can theoretically pay someone to cast it for you.
"Pay a wizard to win the game for me" isn't doing things yourself.


Are we high enough to successfully UMD most things?
UMD abuse is boring and thus out of scope.



There must be some way of granting yourself quick draw with an item, in which case do that and then staff of rapid barrage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/magicItems/staffs.htm#rapidBarrage) everything that gets in your way infinite times.
Epic items are very silly indeed, but he doesn't have the STR to carry infinite staves.



So, can you pull off chaos shuffle at lvl 1 with infinite weath?
You could, but it doesn't actually do very much at all for a human commoner. Also, buying spells is boring.

[Renen]

He can just wish up chaos shuffle. And feats can be quite useful. Heck, I remember some "get lvl 9 spells with only feats" posts.
And it seems that any actually good suggestion like UMD, buying spells, or cohorts are "boring". I find the "can contribute up to lvl 5 because I though he would just swing a +5 sword around" boring.

[Flickerdart]

And it seems that any actually good suggestion like UMD, buying spells, or cohorts are "boring". I find the "can contribute up to lvl 5 because I though he would just swing a +5 sword around" boring.
There are hundreds of threads about how UMD is awesome, spells are awesome, and cohorts are awesome. I'm trying to explore some other options here. Like, the Water Elemental thing is interesting because it's something a regular PC wouldn't/couldn't do and might not even consider. Using the money to become/hire a caster and win? Everyone already knows about that.

[Amphetryon]

There are hundreds of threads about how UMD is awesome, spells are awesome, and cohorts are awesome. I'm trying to explore some other options here. Like, the Water Elemental thing is interesting because it's something a regular PC wouldn't/couldn't do and might not even consider. Using the money to become/hire a caster and win? Everyone already knows about that.

Why wouldn't/couldn't a regular PC do the 'Water Elemental thing,' and how is it explicitly different than your proscription against UMD/Custom Magic Items/boring things that everybody knows?

I feel like you've got some nifty solution already in mind that you're hoping one of us will stumble upon; could we at least get a hint as to what the right answer is, here?

[Flickerdart]

Why wouldn't/couldn't a regular PC do the 'Water Elemental thing,' and how is it explicitly different than your proscription against UMD/Custom Magic Items/boring things that everybody knows?
Because a Bowl of Commanding Water Elementals is tremendously expensive and cumbersome to carry; by the time a PC can afford it, the CR7 elemental it makes has been irrelevant for a long time. At the same time however, the elemental sticks around, which is fairly useless to a PC that gets the item because it's so weak but great for this guy because he's even weaker. It's a very underused item that has a use here.

Or you can pay a bunch of wizards to planar binding an elemental for you. Except everyone would want this, and everyone can get this, and we get a thread a month talking about how wizards binding minions are amazing.

[Tvtyrant]

I was going to use greater dragon ally... :C

Cubes of Force are awesome and anyone with money can use them, so I would say he uses that as his primary defense. He has two sentient magic items: A Rod of Lordly Might with Kill all Goblins and Minor Image, Cure Moderate Wounds, Hold Monster, Lesser Globe of Invulnerability, Dismissal, Fear and Phantasmal Killer. The other is a Rod of Rulership, who hates Orcs. Listen, Search and Spot are ranked, along with Wall of Fire, Magic Circle against Evil, Locate Creature, and Mass Inflict Light Wounds.

He rides in a sky chariot powered by a coldfire engine, and seeks out groups of goblins and orcs to subjugate believing this to be what adventurers do.

This should only cost him around 460,000 GP.

[ArqArturo]

Instead of buying a Mordenkainen Playboy Mansion and a Chalice of Infinite Mojitos, he has the silly idea of bein an adventurer (he may have, despite description, a severe malus in Wisdom :smalltongue:).

Real adventurers would have at least taken the Chalice :smallsmile:.

[Aegis013]

Because a Bowl of Commanding Water Elementals is tremendously expensive and cumbersome to carry; by the time a PC can afford it, the CR7 elemental it makes has been irrelevant for a long time. At the same time however, the elemental sticks around, which is fairly useless to a PC that gets the item because it's so weak but great for this guy because he's even weaker. It's a very underused item that has a use here.

Or you can pay a bunch of wizards to planar binding an elemental for you. Except everyone would want this, and everyone can get this, and we get a thread a month talking about how wizards binding minions are amazing.

I'm glad one of my suggestions merited some interest. I can give you a load out of what I'd use in what slot on Average Joe, but eventually, hunting down every graft ever to see if it's worth it, since, after all, price is no object, got tedious. Average Joe could manage to be a pretty decent summoner kind of character early in his career. Though I'm not entirely sure what I'd do with him late game. Especially in the level 15+ range.

[9mm]

he builds THE CUBE from test of spite and becomes the soft chewy center.

[Flickerdart]

I'm glad one of my suggestions merited some interest. I can give you a load out of what I'd use in what slot on Average Joe, but eventually, hunting down every graft ever to see if it's worth it, since, after all, price is no object, got tedious. Average Joe could manage to be a pretty decent summoner kind of character early in his career. Though I'm not entirely sure what I'd do with him late game. Especially in the level 15+ range.
Damn, I forgot about grafts. When you include the ultra-pricey Sithilar stuff, is there even any Joe left, or does he become more Cyborg than Iron Man?

[Renen]

Well basically there are 2 answers to this:
1) Be a caster, by using the power of money

But you dont like that. So the next answer is

2) Be a mundane with really good equipment but become outclassed eventually because nothing compares to casters at high levels, especially if you stay at lvl 1.

Did I about cover it?

Things like bowl of summoning elementals should also be considered "boring" because it imitates spellcasting. (Its an at will summon monster item)

[dextercorvia]

Arms


Body/Armor
Mithril Chain Shirt +5/Greater Blurring/Greater Agility/Greater Stamina/Aporter/Greater Balance/Deepdweller/Easy Travel/Healing
w/Armor Spikes +5/Defending/Eager/Warning
Dastana +5/Freedom/Greater Healing/Landing
w/Armor Spikes +5/Defending/...
Chahar Aina +5/Greater Healing
...
Mithril Buckler +5/Greater Healing/Masking
...

Face
Third Eye Dominate -- the DC is a bit low, but it will serve for several levels.

Feet
Boots of Teleportation -- expensive, but you can be the party taxicab

Hands
Gauntlets of Dexterity -- looks like the best option here

Head
Helm of Brilliance -- a variety of effects, prismatic spray is useful

Rings
Regeneration -- you are squishy (and you can loan it out or carry a spare to help with healing)
Telekenesis -- Trigger Traps at a distance, general combat ability (does it count as custom if we get it made at CL20?) For extra giggles keep a bag of Beads of Force, and fire them off CL at a time

Shoulders
Mantle of Spell Resistance -- decent protection for the first 10 levels or
Phoenix Cloak -- flying is always good, perfect maneuverability is better

Throat
Amulet of the Planes -- Pinpoint accuracy with an easy to pass Int check.

Torso
?

Waist
?
Misc.
Mirror of Life Trapping -- seems like it would be a good way to dispose of monsters. DC 23 is decent for the first 10 levels or so.
Chaos Diamond -- at least 1/day Word of Chaos at CL 19, that will keep you relevant for a while. Buy in bulk, and hope your party is also chaotic.

[Aegis013]

Damn, I forgot about grafts. When you include the ultra-pricey Sithilar stuff, is there even any Joe left, or does he become more Cyborg than Iron Man?

Sadly no. Characters are capped at 5 grafts from my understanding.
At least, that's what it says on Faiths of Eberron pg. 156, as well as that they must all be of the same kind. The same is repeated in Races of the Dragon pg. 126, and Magic of Eberron, pg. 126.

This rule is not present in Lords of Madness, but I'm not sure we can just cast it aside and get all of the grafts from that book. So, we probably just have to pick a type that is the best, and take the best 5. Though Sithilar grafts are normally prohibitively expensive, and +2 untyped Str, Dex, or Con would be great for some characters, I don't think Sithilar grafts are the way to go on Average Joe. I think the Wakeful Mind construct graft would probably be better than all of the Sithilar grafts.


Arms


Body/Armor
Mithril Chain Shirt +5/Greater Blurring/Greater Agility/Greater Stamina/Aporter/Greater Balance/Deepdweller/Easy Travel/Healing
w/Armor Spikes +5/Defending/Eager/Warning
Dastana +5/Freedom/Greater Healing/Landing
w/Armor Spikes +5/Defending/...
Chahar Aina +5/Greater Healing
...
Mithril Buckler +5/Greater Healing/Masking
...

Face
Third Eye Dominate -- the DC is a bit low, but it will serve for several levels.

Feet
Boots of Teleportation -- expensive, but you can be the party taxicab

Hands
Gauntlets of Dexterity -- looks like the best option here

Head
Helm of Brilliance -- a variety of effects, prismatic spray is useful

Rings
Regeneration -- you are squishy (and you can loan it out or carry a spare to help with healing)
Telekenesis -- Trigger Traps at a distance, general combat ability (does it count as custom if we get it made at CL20?) For extra giggles keep a bag of Beads of Force, and fire them off CL at a time

Shoulders
Mantle of Spell Resistance -- decent protection for the first 10 levels or
Phoenix Cloak -- flying is always good, perfect maneuverability is better

Throat
Amulet of the Planes -- Pinpoint accuracy with an easy to pass Int check.

Torso
?

Waist
?
Misc.
Mirror of Life Trapping -- seems like it would be a good way to dispose of monsters. DC 23 is decent for the first 10 levels or so.
Chaos Diamond -- at least 1/day Word of Chaos at CL 19, that will keep you relevant for a while. Buy in bulk, and hope your party is also chaotic.

Has some of the stuff from mine. I'll retype it, but I'm not going to look through the grafts and psychoactive skins and whatnot.

Arms: Bracers of Bloodrage

Body: +5 Adamantine Heavy Fortification Full Plate with +5 Defending Warning Eager Armor Spikes

Face: Third Eye Dominates (at least 100 available)

Feet: Boots of Temporal Acceleration (at least 100 available, these are for using Bowls of Water Elemental Summoning and other such slow magic items, or to set multiple blast disks or whatever)

Hands: Shadow Hands (Master) - Shadow Jaunt

Head: Cowl of Warding

Ring 1: Ring of Nine Lives (at least 100 available) - Immediate action auto pass a save? Yes please.

Ring 2: Ring of Universal Energy Resistance, greater

Shoulders: Shadow Cloak (at least 100 available) - Immediate action teleports? Yes please.

Throat: Amulet of Second Chances (at least 100 available)

Torso: Vest of the Archmagi for +5 resistance to saves and +8 AC in the event you're not wearing your armor

Waist: Belt of Magnificence (I'd considered Belts of Battle, but Temporal Acceleration boots seemed better for this guy)

I admit Boots of Teleportation would be good secondary options, as well as Ring of Telekinesis. At this point I looked at Psychoactive Skins, and Grafts... but I didn't finish looking.

[Flickerdart]

Sadly no. Characters are capped at 5 grafts from my understanding.
At least, that's what it says on Faiths of Eberron pg. 156, as well as that they must all be of the same kind. The same is repeated in Races of the Dragon pg. 126, and Magic of Eberron, pg. 126.

This rule is not present in Lords of Madness, but I'm not sure we can just cast it aside and get all of the grafts from that book. So, we probably just have to pick a type that is the best, and take the best 5. Though Sithilar grafts are normally prohibitively expensive, and +2 untyped Str, Dex, or Con would be great for some characters, I don't think Sithilar grafts are the way to go on Average Joe. I think the Wakeful Mind construct graft would probably be better than all of the Sithilar grafts.
Actually, there's a whole separate grafts system used in Eberron that no other graft types have. There are handbooks covering this; consensus seems to be that you can stick to the rules for the graft type when using that graft type.

[Vhaidara]

Sadly no. Characters are capped at 5 grafts from my understanding.
At least, that's what it says on Faiths of Eberron pg. 156, as well as that they must all be of the same kind. The same is repeated in Races of the Dragon pg. 126, and Magic of Eberron, pg. 126.

This rule is not present in Lords of Madness, but I'm not sure we can just cast it aside and get all of the grafts from that book. So, we probably just have to pick a type that is the best, and take the best 5. Though Sithilar grafts are normally prohibitively expensive, and +2 untyped Str, Dex, or Con would be great for some characters, I don't think Sithilar grafts are the way to go on Average Joe. I think the Wakeful Mind construct graft would probably be better than all of the Sithilar grafts.

This applies only to grafts from Races of Dragon, Faiths of Eberron, and Magic of Eberron. Fiend Folio, Libris Mortis, and Lords of Madness grafts do not use the same rules, since they don't have a body slot.

So now we've gone from Tony Stark to Stitches the grafted abomination from one of my threads.

Though personally, I still think this guy won the thread.

To keep relevant Joe doesn't even need to go beyond the SRD nonepic wondrous items.

Joe cant be bothered to walk places mundanely, instead he will cruise around in a blinged out Apparatus of the Crab, where he has several small sized butlers drive it for him. He has a portable catapult attached to the Crabs back (not an actual catapult persay, more of a launcher) which he uses to launch Swan Boat tokens in order to crush his enemies in moolah. Not him of course, but an elemental servant that he controls with the Censor of Controlling Air Elementals. In case something needs to die even worse, he uses Cubes of Instant Fortress instead, which coincidentally are his favorite method of executing unruly common folk.

This method to slow for destroying areas of stuff? Well luckily he has a bag of holding full of the Orb of Storms, allowing him to cast Storm of Vengeance as much as he desires, to destroy any nasty towns or cities that disrespected the Noblest of Joes.

Now as for the Apparatus of the Crab itself, its been blinged out (using sovereign glue and/or Gnome mechanics) , it can hover and fly using a metric ton of Decanters of Endless Water (conveniently drowning those to poor to have a ride), it has sweet brakes in that its been reinforced with adamantine and Immovable Rods, it has the aforementioned death catapult. When things get very dire it has a handy dandy selfdestruct feature, with a few hundred Necklaces of Fireball waiting in a portable hole (which you of course are immune to thanks to Fire immunity item)

Joe is starting to remind me of Gilgamesh.

[Aegis013]

Actually, there's a whole separate grafts system used in Eberron that no other graft types have. There are handbooks covering this; consensus seems to be that you can stick to the rules for the graft type when using that graft type.

I guess in that case, just find the graft type you like best from the Eberron and RotD books and get those. Then get all of the other grafts that are nice.


This applies only to grafts from Races of Dragon, Faiths of Eberron, and Magic of Eberron. Fiend Folio, Libris Mortis, and Lords of Madness grafts do not use the same rules, since they don't have a body slot.

So now we've gone from Tony Stark to Stitches the grafted abomination from one of my threads.

Though personally, I still think this guy won the thread.


Apparatus of the Crab optimization is pretty cool, I will admit.

[Vhaidara]

Oh, the grafts are even better. They don't replace a body part like the new ones do. They are additional. Thus, my creation, Stitches, with over 2 dozen arms, a dozen legs, three tails, two heads, and two pairs of wings was born.

[Giddonihah]

Hmm had the idea of a Sovereign Glue 'Water' Gun.

Setup: Castle somewhere with a large reservoir of Sovereign glue and a high pressure pump attached to a Ring Gate. Make that several reservoirs attached to several Ring gates. Make the pumps command activated, or some other way to remotely turn them on or off through a ring gate.

On your side a Ring gate attached to a aiming device, perhaps a Crossbow Handle. Fire sticky glue in large amounts at everyone. When the gate runs out of material that can pass through it per day, switch it out for another cartridge, err Gate.

Other magic liquid fire hoses could be made simply by switching the Ring gate in the handle, Salve of Slipperiness is fantastically trolly, Holy Water is practical, Universal Solvent is trolly if you can argue it literally unbinds any glue and not just those two items, Alchemists fire and acid are hurty doom, and perhaps meanest of all you can drown people in your favorite poisons.

Naturally these are all different 'cartridges' that you can switch between as you feel like. Heck one cartridge could just be the ole fashion balista firing through the ring gate trick, or anouther could have a trained basilisk waiting patiently, and another could lead to the fridge.


edit: I remember there being an extraplanar ring gate, if that exists then you could probably use planar traits to make some awesome munitions.

[DMVerdandi]

Well, I think you could have a pretty cool thing going up with joe.
While I don't feel like finding actual items and what not, truthfully, one of the best uses would be in buying tons of spell-trigger items. Specifically, eternal wands. Getting two of those for every useful spell you can find effectively makes you a spell caster. Then having some of those wands stored in wand chambers, and other various wand holding items, and such.

Then schemas for what spells can't be done with the wands. Really, just having a bunch of items stored in your own personal genesis plane, and switching your load out every day.

Of course you can have rad magical weapons and items that boost your scores exactly where they need to be.

As far as feats, the ones that modify item use are the best.

You could also pass off good items to your adventuring pals, if there are any, if not have golems constructed, pets trained, ect. Leadership is always a good feat as well.


You get all the toys, and the toys are nice.

[Amphetryon]

Well basically there are 2 answers to this:
1) Be a caster, by using the power of money

But you dont like that. So the next answer is

2) Be a mundane with really good equipment but become outclassed eventually because nothing compares to casters at high levels, especially if you stay at lvl 1.

Did I about cover it?

Things like bowl of summoning elementals should also be considered "boring" because it imitates spellcasting. (Its an at will summon monster item)

Seems to me option 2 is 'boring and well-known,' on the basis that any non-casting base Class in the game already does that. Options that are 'boring and well-known' have thus far been dismissed by the OP.

No, I am not sure what the 3rd option is, here.

[Renen]

Option 1 has also been dismissed by OP, as we can neither pay anyone to cast for us, nor use UMD/wish to get spells. And being lvl 1, we cant exactly go cast ourselves.
Well, not unless we use locations and chaos shuffle for infinite feats, which we use to get high level spells, because feats can do that.

[Taveena]

Well, for additional items you could put all the Elemental summoning weapon enchantments. Get flight with the Air elemental for some extra utility? I can't remember what they all do, but hey, given he's got infinite money, carrying around a set of daggers enchanted to the nines with on-use effects could help.

[Vaz]

Option 1 has also been dismissed by OP, as we can neither pay anyone to cast for us, nor use UMD/wish to get spells. And being lvl 1, we cant exactly go cast ourselves.
Well, not unless we use locations and chaos shuffle for infinite feats, which we use to get high level spells, because feats can do that.

Use the A+EG rules to gain Magical Training, and then use the Versatile Spellcaster+Extra Slot trick to gain 9th level spells at 1st level.

[OMG PONIES]

Nitpicking Preamble: While you told another poster you're trying to avoid TO, this entire premise is theoretical. Even a first-level commoner would have 2 feats and a handful of skill ranks. An unclassed human would still have their racial bonus feat, at least.

The Original Problem: Assuming a level 0 human commoner with 10s across the board and infinite cash, how long could one be a relevant member of a party without relying on the below list of blacklisted ideas?

The list of things includes (but is not limited to) "silly things" like shape changing, custom items, artificer wankery, UMD abuse, unslotted items, slot sharing, wishes, epic magic items, The Cube, minions, hiring others, buying spells, using spells, cohorts, binding other creatures, or grafts.


...+10 to any skill he can roll untrained (21 stat, +5 competence item).

Ironically, this suggestion uses custom competence items, which is something you've blacklisted for others. Perhaps it would be easier to provide the short list of valid options?
My Short Answer: Never.

By providing Joe with infinite cash, we haven't solved his problem; instead, we've replaced the problem of "no resources" with the problem of "every resource." We leave Joe with two options: hoard the wealth or share the wealth. Both provide different problems of their own.


Hoard the Wealth

If Joe's an angry, miserly hoarder, he can keep the money for himself. He can buy the entire world's real estate--he can buy every item ever made if he wants. The more he spends, the more he has to worry about inflation, but we'll come back to that later. Assuming he's frugal and buys one of every published item that's allowed (and doesn't manage to trigger any grand inflation) he's now severely outclassed most folks with finite resources (which is everyone else). Opposite problem, but still a problem. No matter what he's got, there's someone somewhere in the world who doesn't have it and wants it. But Joe's not the type to share; he's a miser. Everyone comes to hate Joe. Poor Joe. They decide they want some of what he's got and plot to kill him. Whether or not they succeed is a different question.

Once we remove the items on your blacklist, we're back to a question that's been oft-debated: is spellcasting better than items? Could a wizard just scry-and-die Joe? My opinion is that this is an apples-to-marching-band scenario. It's not even apples-to-oranges, because at least they're both fruits. In essence, you're asking if a bomb is better than a bomb shelter. Depends on the bomb. Depends on the shelter. Comparing which of the two is stronger is better done with specifics than generics. You see, spellcasting can have more upfront power than non-spellcasting items for sure, but every spellcaster runs out of resources eventually (except maybe a warforged warlock who needs neither sleep nor rest to regain spells, but they are limited in other ways to compensate like the number of invocations available to them). In a war of attrition, though, infinite will always beat finite. Assuming Joe outlasts every spell a wizard's got, he just needs to wait. Then he's not fighting an all-powerful arcanist. He's fighting an old man. Poor form, Joe. Everyone comes to hate Joe once more, but for more universally justifiable reasons.


Share the Wealth

Option 2 is for Joe to share the wealth. He can share with his party so they're all super-buffed, or he can provide wealth to NPCs and foes alike in attempts to influence them. Everyone comes to love Joe. Hooray, Joe! This one's a larger economic problem, though. You see, cash only carries value when there's demand for it. Demand is caused by scarcity. Without scarcity, there's no demand and thus no value. If he's not careful, Joe can upset the entire economic infrastructure. Everyone comes to hate Joe. Poor Joe. See above.

For analogy's sake, consider a library with an infinite number of books. Let's assume that every other book has a red cover. If you remove every red book from your library and give them to a friend, you've still got an infinite number of books...but now your friend does, too. Such is the nature of infinity. You can probably see what I'm hinting at with good old Joe, then. Since he's got NaN gp, he can freely give NaN gp to each of NaN creatures. That's his real ultimate power: the influence of being able to satisfy the material desires of literally everyone in the world. Sounds great, right? Sign the check! Congratulations, you've now created NaN inflation. Since everyone has infinite cash now, nobody needs any cash. Supply outweighs demand to an infinite degree, and cash becomes worthless. Joe is right back where he started from; he's got nothing to offer the world that everyone else doesn't have. Granted, he can dive into his swimming pool of money Scrooge McDuck-style, but so can everyone else. Everyone comes to hate Joe. Poor Joe. Ibid.
The Proposed New Problem
Assuming only published non-epic items that do not allow the user to cast spells, that the user must act alone at all times, and that the user is a human commoner with 10s in every attribute but no feats or skill ranks...

What are the highest stat/save/attack/damage bonuses possible?
What options does said person have in terms of offense and defense, assuming no other creatures are enlisted for aid?
What ECL would be assigned to such a person?
That's one I'd have to puzzle over, but doing so soundly would require knowing what items are on the table, rather than developing an ever-expanding list of what's off the table.

[Jormengand]

Epic items are very silly indeed, but he doesn't have the STR to carry infinite staves.

Efficient quiver. He can hold six staves for every 2 lbs he can carry.

[Lans]

What would the best way for him to gain hp be? Can Eternal Wands be made with mysteries? I'm not sure on the transperency of them

[Jormengand]

What would the best way for him to gain hp be? Can Eternal Wands be made with mysteries? I'm not sure on the transperency of them

Why does he need to gain hit points when he can basically make himself immune to everything, ever?

[Madara]

Here's an easier question.

How much gold does he need in order to contribute reasonably at each level?

[Renen]

It all depends on what "contribute reasonably" means. In other words party OP level. Higher the party OP level, the more money he has to use to keep up.

[SoraWolf7]

To keep relevant Joe doesn't even need to go beyond the SRD nonepic wondrous items.

Joe cant be bothered to walk places mundanely, instead he will cruise around in a blinged out Apparatus of the Crab, where he has several small sized butlers drive it for him. He has a portable catapult attached to the Crabs back (not an actual catapult persay, more of a launcher) which he uses to launch Swan Boat tokens in order to crush his enemies in moolah. Not him of course, but an elemental servant that he controls with the Censor of Controlling Air Elementals. In case something needs to die even worse, he uses Cubes of Instant Fortress instead, which coincidentally are his favorite method of executing unruly common folk.

This method to slow for destroying areas of stuff? Well luckily he has a bag of holding full of the Orb of Storms, allowing him to cast Storm of Vengeance as much as he desires, to destroy any nasty towns or cities that disrespected the Noblest of Joes.

Now as for the Apparatus of the Crab itself, its been blinged out (using sovereign glue and/or Gnome mechanics) , it can hover and fly using a metric ton of Decanters of Endless Water (conveniently drowning those to poor to have a ride), it has sweet brakes in that its been reinforced with adamantine and Immovable Rods, it has the aforementioned death catapult. When things get very dire it has a handy dandy selfdestruct feature, with a few hundred Necklaces of Fireball waiting in a portable hole (which you of course are immune to thanks to Fire immunity item)

Joe is starting to remind me of Gilgamesh.

Now I can't stop thinking of Kaneo Takarada from Kill la Kill.

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140121164642/kill-la-kill/images/3/37/2c3506bc.jpg
http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140117001146/kill-la-kill/images/thumb/7/74/Episode_16.png/640px-Episode_16.png

That being said, with what I've seen, you don't just have to pay for cohorts. Pay the Party to be your elite guard. You're basically giving them life insurance by being able to buy the diamonds for Resurrection. If you want to make sure you don't suck without your Crab-Mech, you pay for things like the Tomes of Stat boosting, a Belt of Magnificence, a Psychoactive Skin of Proteus, and such that allows you to become a physical god faster than the party can. If you're worried about Defense and AC, use the trick I learned about Clerics and stack your armor, a Gauntlet, and an Animated Shield with Defending Armor Spikes that you'll never use to attack to give yourself a floating +15 AC.

Oh, you want to have a secondary attack option in case your party dies? Become a spell-less Mailman. Ring of Unseen Servant or Telekinesis and a Bag of Alchemist Fires solves that problem. Use the Unseen Servant to drop the bag or chuck it with Telekinesis and watch stuff burn. If you deal damage to a town, quickly pay the reparations and improve your standing with the town.

[DawnQuixotic]

I think this would actually be an interesting character idea.

Make an artificer and instead of crafting items, fluff it as "buying" them. Fluff the infusions as being 1/day items themselves.

It'd be a stretch of a concept but if you're really open to alternate explanations for mechanics, it'd be pretty cool.

It'd actually be something I'd be interested in seeing homebrewed.
You could even have a scaling "coin toss" ability like a warlock's eldritch blast only you throw coins at the enemy.

[AvatarVecna]

He can just wish up chaos shuffle. And feats can be quite useful. Heck, I remember some "get lvl 9 spells with only feats" posts.
And it seems that any actually good suggestion like UMD, buying spells, or cohorts are "boring". I find the "can contribute up to lvl 5 because I though he would just swing a +5 sword around" boring.

Don't you know only cheating optimizers use their cash for anything other than magic items with +Xs at the end of their names?

[Endarire]

Infinite money means infinite magical storage.

Use said magical storage to, say, turn a buncha bags of holding inside out. Alternatively, use a combination of bags of holding and portable holes to suck your foes into the Astral Plane, or to make gates to the Astral Plane.

Get a buncha Elemental Gems (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Elemental_Gem) as disposable minions. They take only a standard action to summon, and these gems can be passed around your party. "Joe Commoner" can even give summoned Elementals these gems (like by putting a bunch of them in a pile next to where he summons his Elementals) for them to further summon Elementals. Elemental fight!

Also, give everyone Brooms of Flying for fun.

Finally, the best non-infinite solution I've found is "Buy out hell."

[Lans]

I think this would actually be an interesting character idea.

Make an artificer and instead of crafting items, fluff it as "buying" them. Fluff the infusions as being 1/day items themselves.

It'd be a stretch of a concept but if you're really open to alternate explanations for mechanics, it'd be pretty cool.

It'd actually be something I'd be interested in seeing homebrewed.
You could even have a scaling "coin toss" ability like a warlock's eldritch blast only you throw coins at the enemy.

That is awesome

[AvatarVecna]

From what I can understand, the only acceptable answers are things that aren't at all particularly impressive, considering the resources available. IRL, when someone not used to being at a certain level of economic prosperity suddenly gains a lot of money (like through various lotteries), they spend it all on a lifestyle they think fits their new financial status, and they often overestimate what that means and bankrupt themselves. But Joe can't do that. His average stats say he would spend his money in that manner, but unlike RL examples, he never runs out of money.

So what does he buy? The most expensive "technology" available: powerful magic. And there's no reason to think high-level/epic casters wouldn't be interested in providing spellcasting services for a huge stack of money: high level characters could always appreciate more money and more items.

But no. That would be boring. The infinite variety of magic available via magic items, the multitude of effects, the many ways one could use infinite cash to replicate the capabilities of a greater deity, is all apparently incredibly BORING.

[Endarire]

Is this post effectively about weird or underused tricks that come about with a sudden increase of wealth, or the distribution (to the PCs) of niche items?