If money Were No Object

[Maat Mons]

Let's suppose your D&D character is sitting around dreaming of all the magic items he can't afford. What comprises his hypothetical "ultimate" gear set?

For purposes of this daydream, your character imagines he has no budgetary restrictions, and is limited only by body slots. So which items are, as MMO players say "best in slot?"

To keep this from being trivial, I figure we need to rule out custom items. Otherwise an arbitrarily wealthy character could just get slotless versions of everything, or get one super item that functions as a combination of all printed items.

Also, maybe we shouldn't look at epic items, since some of those are uncapped. But I see no reason not to use the options from page 234 of Magic Item Compendium.

[Maat Mons]

To kick things off, here are some possible contenders.

Armor Special Abilities
Heavy Fortification: Immunity to critical hits and sneak attack.
Proof Against Transmutation (Complete Arcane, p142): Immunity to form-altering effects (disintegrate, flesh to stone, baleful polymorph, etc.).

Arms
Bracers of Armor (Arms and Equipment Guide, p130): Up to +12 in armor special abilities.

Body Slot
Greater Vestments of Power (Magic of Faerun, p166): Dimension door at will; true seeing at will.

Face
Hathran Mask of True Seeing (Unapproachable East, p57): Continuous true seeing.

Head Slot
Cowl of Warding (Magic of Faerun, p156): Continuous mind blank and freedom of movement.

Ring slot
Ring of Death Ward (Dragon 342, p68): Continuous death ward.
Ring of Solar Wings (Book of Exalted Deeds, p115): 150-foot fly speed (good maneuverability).

[Crake]

If money's no issue, why not just stack all the enchantments ontop of each other to have everything you could ever want?

[Svata]

Yeah, you stack everything you can onto every item in every slot, for redundancy. You have CON on your belt and your necklace and your boots. You have Cha on your Cloak and your Vest and your Headband/Helmet. You put Mind Blank on your Helmet and your Eyes. Stack redundancies. Why? Because you have infinite money and there's no reason not to, just to resist dispellings/disjunctions more often.

[Saintheart]

Let's suppose your D&D character is sitting around dreaming of all the magic items he can't afford. What comprises his hypothetical "ultimate" gear set?

The Tippyverse.

[Maat Mons]

Just gonna quote myself here.


To keep this from being trivial, I figure we need to rule out custom items.

[Crake]

Just gonna quote myself here.

Stacking enchantments aren't "custom items", custom items are things like "a ring of protection from evil" or something. There's rules for stacking multiple enchantments onto one item that fall completely within RAW, in both the DMG and MIC. A ring of invisibility and protection for example, isn't a custom item, though you probably won't find one randomly generated.

Ruling out epic does put a price limit on the items, for the most part, so it's really a question of "how many enchantments can we put in each slot before we hit the 200k epic price cap".

[Bohandas]

If we're ruling out epic magic items then +4 bane weapons are a must, as these can pierce epic damage reduction (they have a +6 enhancement bonus against their affiliated type)

[Heliomance]

Shoulders: If you have a good reflex save, the Starmantle Cape is a pretty damn good buy. Stack Resistance +5 on top of it if you can.

Waist: Belt of Magnificence +6 maybe?

[Misereor]

Probably something akin to what my "Low Magic Age" level 200 party are running around with.
Immunity to poison, +40 or thereabouts to all abilities and saves, +50something D6 damage to all attacks, autosummoning of level appropriate Elemental at the beginning of combat, regeneration, autodamage to melee attackers, fortification, etc.

[Maat Mons]

Stacking enchantments aren't "custom items"

Magic Item Compendium allows the stacking of a few, specific item abilities. This is on page 234, and is what I was talking about when I said "the options from page 234 of Magic Item Compendium" are A-okay.

Other combined items are indeed "custom items." But I really have no desire to debate that issue with you.

The fact is, I explicitly said that "one super item that functions as a combination of all printed items" was a no-no. And you suggested that I "stack all the enchantments ontop of each other to have everything."

[RoboEmperor]

Unslotted Warforged Components let any warforged have as many magic items on them as they want. Or any character with UMD.

I'd personally grab a **** ton of Stone of Controlling Earth Elementals because I'm into summoning.

[Maat Mons]

Okay, well you're technically within the "no custom items" stipulation. But, remember, I specifically listed "slotless versions of everything" as one of the things I didn't want to consider in this thread.

[Menzath]

An at will ring of wish that casts with about 300k xp.

[Goaty14]

Shoulders: If you have a good reflex save, the Starmantle Cape is a pretty damn good buy. Stack Resistance +5 on top of it if you can.

Don't you also need a ring of evasion? Starmantle + (+14) Ref save only does you in for half.

[Telonius]

Feet slot: I think that an Anklet of Translocation would be a strong contender.

Waist: Belt of Battle, or Belt of Magnificence... I'd go with Belt of Battle. If adding +Stat to other items is possible (per MiC), Magnificence is useless. Since money is no object, you could just plunk a +6 onto whatever other item you need and not worry about it taking a slot away from something else. Belt of Battle helps you break action economy. This is a Very Powerful Thing.

If adding +Stat to other body slot items isn't available, Belt of Magnificence would look a lot better. You wouldn't have to worry about important stat boosting items taking up a body slot, and could instead take something that gives you an option that you didn't have before.

[Maat Mons]

Shoulders: If you have a good reflex save, the Starmantle Cape is a pretty damn good buy.

Oh yeah, good one.

If we're talking about high-level characters, the "if you have a good reflex save" qualifier may not be necessary. At 20th level, you get +6 base for a bad save. Figure a +5 resistance bonus, and a +6 enhancement bonus to dexterity, and you'd only need a baseline dexterity of +8 to get 15 even on a roll of 2.

Speaking of rolling 1s, is there an item take removes auto-failure on a 1? Or would you need the pride domain?




Don't you also need a ring of evasion?

I recall extensive debate centered on the use of the word "normally" in evasion. Anyway, yes, never taking damage from weapons would be pretty awesome.

With all the cool rings that exist, would a hand of glory wind up being the best neck-slot item?




Feet slot: I think that an Anklet of Translocation would be a strong contender.

I was kind of expecting a more expensive item, but you have a point. I guess there's nothing stopping you from having a bunch of them, and switching them out between encounters.

[tyckspoon]

Oh yeah, good one.

If we're talking about high-level characters, the "if you have a good reflex save" qualifier may not be necessary. At 20th level, you get +6 base for a bad save. Figure a +5 resistance bonus, and a +6 enhancement bonus to dexterity, and you'd only need a baseline dexterity of +8 to get 15 even on a roll of 2.

Speaking of rolling 1s, is there an item take removes auto-failure on a 1? Or would you need the pride domain?


Specifically within the context of 'you are not limited by WBL' you should also have at least +1 Luck (Luckstone or Luck Blade) and +1 Competence bonus (Pale Green Ioun Stone). Could probably get Insight (Parrying weapon property) pretty easily, so you're in only-on-a-1 for that particular save.

For rerolls, the Luck Blade will give you one. There's a cheap cloak that can give you another one, but that'll slot conflict with a number of other useful items. The Luck feats from Complete Scoundrel offer several ways to reroll ones or have a 1 count as a 20 instead, but it's kind of feat intensive. You could of course be a Cleric with the Luck domain, but if you were going to go that way you'd probably prefer Pride (or use your limitless cash to have an unending stash of Pride Domain Draughts and just pretend to be a Pride Cleric that way. Make it part of your morning buff pattern.)

[Venger]

Speaking of rolling 1s, is there an item take removes auto-failure on a 1? Or would you need the pride domain?

So we're basically assuming that combining items is not allowed, so there can only be one item at each slot for your thought exercise, yes?

In addition to the options described re: 1s on saves, steadfast determination makes it impossible to autofail on a 1, but only for fort saves, not ref.

[ben-zayb]

Similar to MMOs, Best-In-Slot would depend on a variety of factors such as role, classes, spec/build, campaign settings/rules, and circumstances.

I'd note that the most basic stacking rule of adding +Resistance bonus to saves, +Armor bonus to AC, etc., +Enhancement bonus to each ability score, is a must, although you already mentioned that.

For specific ones, the first place I go for suggestions would be the list of necessary magic items (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?187851-3-5-Lists-of-Necessary-Magic-Items). Bunko's Bargain Basement (http://bg-archive.minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=350.0) isn't so bad either.

Personally, I prefer:

Head: Cowl of Warding (Mind Blank, Freedom of Movement, Spell Turning)
Face: Hathran Mask of True Seeing (True Seeing) or Third Eye Expose (always know when you are directly being lied to)
Throat: Amulet of Second Chances (Time Regression 1/day)
Shoulders: Starmantle Cloak (damage prevention)
Torso: Tabard of Valor (mettle)
Body: Blueshine Mithralmist Shirt of Soulfire and Light Fortification (miss chance, anti-death effect, anti-crit)
Arms: Wand Bracers or Bracers of Armor +8 Ghost Ward
Hands: Scholar Shadow Hands of Shadow Stride (tactical teleport 1/encounter)
Finger 1: Ring of Telekinesis
Finger 2: Ring of X-Ray Vision
Waist: Belt of Many Pockets (storage) or Belt of Battle (actions)
Feet: Boots of Temporal Acceleration
Slotless 1: Psychoactive Ring of Proteus (Metamorphosis for things like flight)
Slotless 2: Teeth of Andromalius (Discern Location 1/day)