What magic items do your players actually use?

[Concrete]

In my experience, the magic items I let my players find usually end up either sold or collecting dust in the darkest corner of a bag of holding.

There are those that tend to end up used rather frequently, such as the aforementioned bag of holding and other "passive" items, but I'm more interested in items that one actually have to use, and which one can find interesting uses for.

So, what magic items have your players taken a shine to? I'd like to hear your stories and recommendations, both regarding things I should leave them, and things I absolutely, under no circumstances, should let them have.

[Psyren]

You mean aside from "The Big Six" (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20070302a) right? Just to keep everyone from pointing to those.

[Azoth]

Jingassa of the fortunate soldier. 1/day immediate action crit or sneak attack negation.

Swift Runner's Shirt. 1/day turn your swift action into a move action.

Our casters make use of the Unfettered Shirt's 1/day freedom of movement when facing things that like to grapple.

The inferior Ioun Stone that stores 1 spell level in it. Tends to get a low level buff put in it on off days or before rest so the BSFs can use their own actions to buff themselves.

From Steelforge (DSP product):

Steelwalker Boots. Move half speed while full attacking. Downside is if you don't land a hit you get staggered next round.

[Geddy2112]

Rings of sustenance are really popular at my table.

One player had an alchemist with a third arm so he could have a ring of shield in his third hand, keeping his others free.

I tend to give my familiars blast or utility wands, even with the low saves it is fun for a familiar to have a bunch of tricks.

One person in my group loves spectral shrouds, its a decent chest slot item for the price.

Spellguard bracers+gloves of elvenkind make casting defensively very easy.

Almost any item that competes with a stat boosting slot(belts and headbands) are crap vs the stat boost, and players will sell those at the drop of a hat. Also avoid obscure weapon and armor enchantments-players will get them if they want, otherwise just stick to +X and maybe some kind of elemental damage/keen/vorpal.

[Spore]

1) Scrolls. No really, my group regularly uses one-shot scrolls to solve entire plot points. It is like having a wizard, just much much more expensive.

2) Hat of Disguise. Want your character to have 13 different cover personas? There you go. Having trouble finding a fitting character pic? There you go.

3) Glamered Armor. Me? Wearing armor? Nooo.

4) Sheath of Bladestealth. I am unarmed, I swear.

5) Boots of Striding and Springing. Idk what they thought about when making better move speed so cheap.

6) Gloves of Elvenkind. +5 to Spellcraft AND Craft checks? Heck yeah.

7) Metamagic Rods of varying coleur. Mostly used are extend (buffs) and empower (damage spells) rods.

[Faily]

Items I or my group have used:


Glove of Storing - basically giving you Quick Draw and the ability to store away your weapon as a Free Action too, instead of dropping things on the battlefield.

Gloves of Arrow-snatching - At low-level, this one is really nifty for more squishy characters to avoid being picked off by archers.

Flying Carpets - For when you need to travel long distances. Or just carpet-bomb something.

Ring of Counterspelling (with a Dispel Magic in it) - For when you're so reliant on buffing yourself up with magic, it's nice to avoid the first try of debuffing you.

Otherworldy Kimono - Resistance bonus to saves is nice, as is the CL buff, but dat Maze-effect... Mmmmm...

[EvilAvocado]

Besides the "Big 6"
Pearls of power
Meta magic rods
Some of the cracked/flawed ioun stones
Bags of holding


The problem is a lot of the coolest or most fun items to get are too expensive to buy or even craft. Finding some of those in a loot hoard is ALWAYS fun.

[Malimar]

I pulled out Dr. Blelyj, level 16 witch, the only character I've ever played to a high level, to see what he happened to have. (I don't recall which of these I bought and which were acquired over the course of Rise of the Runelords.)

potions: remove disease, neutralize poison, lesser restoration, putrefy food & drink
scrolls: contact other plane, limited wish, resurrection x3
wands: clairvoyance/clairaudience, cure light wounds, enlarge person
Lesser Metamagic Rod of Extend
Necklace of Fireballs type IV
Headband of Vast Intelligence +6
Robe of Runes (RotR robe that works kind of like a Pearl of Power, IIRC)
Belt of Incredible Dexterity +2
Cloak of Resistance +1
Pearl of Power 1
Bag of Holding type I
Orange Prism Ioun Stone

(I was also alarmed to rediscover marked in his inventory "10x yeti testicles". As I recall, Dr. Blelyj wanted to breed yetis with woolly mammoths to create giant fluffy centaurs, and hoped harvesting these from defeated yetis would somehow suffice in lieu of convincing live yetis to participate.)


When creating a character with actual WBL to spend, I almost always spring for a Ring of Sustenance and either Boots of Striding and Springing or Boots of Skating.

[weckar]

Immovable Rod - A classic with 1001 uses.
Boots of lost speed - initially meant a jokey cursed item, these boots make it so that you are never considered to have a running start for a jump, or be running at all. Imagine my surprise when my players find a use for it darting across narrow rooftops with barely a balance check to make?
Eye of Angulahr - An interesting item of my own creation: the user has to give up their own eye to use it (hilarious in-dungeon-surgery hijinx did ensue). It allows switching between several different vision modes at will, but at the cost of wisdom damage every time.
Mirror of Things Already Seen - it's a camcorder.
Gloves of Telling - another jokey item proven more useful than expected: Holding anything while wearing these gloves tells you the exact physical properties of anything you are holding. It proceeded to find use as a conning device, to detect forged currency, to perfectly reproduce the composition of rare alchemical items etc....

[Efrate]

Stat boosters, save boosters, some way to fly, some way to teleport, freedom of movement, mind blank, + to CL, extra dimensional storage are all great and useable by pretty much anyone.

Any casters love metamagic rods, pearls of power, and wands with good spells at reasonable (IE not base) CL, magical armor bonuses, or defensive bonuses.

Mundanes want there type of weapons and armor all magicy and shiny and wonderful.

High utility items that save spell slots or scrolls, just as long as they don't compete with one of the stat booster slots.

Items with bonuses to class relevant skills.

Something with a dimensional anchor effect, something to counter concealment/illusions, elemental/negative energy/energy drain resistances, rings of sustenance, disease immunity items, any items that gives displacement, and anything that helps them get closer to unkillable murder hobo.