What to buy with a heaping pile o'loot?

[Koromin M'thul]

Greetings,

My character, a warlock, has recently come into 201,000 gp, and I am looking for suggestions as to what would be best to spend it on. I already own great armour and Warlock gear is on my list. What would be good aid myself/party made of a Bard, Druid, Ranger, Rogue, and Warlock? Our DM has hinted that we will have some tremendous challenges ahead.

Thanks for you time and advice

[Solo]

What level?

[Koromin M'thul]

As ridiculous as it may sound, we are level four. We stumbled into a vast ancient treasure house and completely hoodwinked the DM. We've got tonnes of gold to play with, but are going to be put to the test.

[Kompera]

Some Healing potions are always a handy thing to have.

[Solo]

As ridiculous as it may sound, we are level four. We stumbled into a vast ancient treasure house and completely hoodwinked the DM. We've got tonnes of gold to play with, but are going to be put to the test.

Hire a 10th level Wizard as a bodyguard.

[Ponce]

I pushed this item in another thread today, but I do it again anyway! A couple eternal wands of command undead are a great investment that never lose their value (which I might add is disproportionately higher than their market price).

[FlyMolo]

ERm. Psionic tattoos. Like potions, but you can never lose them. Better, crawling tats of concussion and entangling ectoplasm. Look so awesome.

[TheThan]

how about a wizard's tower to act as a base of operations?

[Chronos]

Whatever you buy, don't get too attached to it, because your DM is even now plotting ways to get you guys back down to WBL.

Come to think of it, it might not be a bad idea to buy things that he can't easily take away. You could get a pretty ability score tome for that kind of money, and he's going to have a hard time yoinking away an inherent bonus.

Then again, he might also just let you keep it but not give you any more wealth until you catch up to it, at around level 19. In that case, it probably wouldn't be worthwhile to sink all of it into one or two items, since you'll want more flexibility in all of the levels in between.

Oh, and what books do you have available? There are some great items from non-core sources.

[CaptainSam]

Beer and wenches! 'Nuff said! Sorry, that was the bard in me speaking.

Wands, lots of wands! Healing is always good as you seem to have no healers. My group had the same problem. We are a bard, rogue, wizard and a fighter, so I had to act as the party healer.

[Iku Rex]

Books available?

[Ellisthion]

7 warships (175k), with the remaining money to hire people to man them.
20,100,000 pieces of chalk.
2,010,000 hunks of cheese.
10,050,000 chickens.

[Glyde]

Drop a cart full of Javelins of Lightning on someone. Just for kicks.

[Alleine]

A giant hamster ball. Enchanted, of course.

[FlyMolo]

Some stat-boost items and some psionic tatoos. Dimdoor if you can swing it, I don't remember whether that's below level 3. Items to save your butt later, especially if you're getting no more money.

[Farmer42]

Definitely going to vote for wine, women, and song. The DM can't burn you for blowing all that money in the highest class cat-house in town, and if you guys exceed your means, there's all kinds of crazy plothooks that follow. Granted, that might not be how your DM handles it.

[BRC]

Ignore it, just let it sit there until your DM forgets about it, then, use it to hire an army of mercenaries and steamroll through whatever your DM throws at you. Or just buy a Ring of 3 wishes, then sit on it.

[kirbsys]

Charitable donations, wands of cure major wounds, a castle, servants, an apparatus of kwalish.

[Hal]

Lyre of Building. Construct yourself a grand fortress.

[BRC]

I calculated that for about 10,800 GP, according to the creating magic items rules, you can get an item that, with a command word, fires a 4d6 Scorching Ray. It's Laser Beams, what's not to love, LASER BEAMS!

[Farmer42]

Iunnno, I always liked the toy-shotgun shaped wand of Magic missile. The missiles, the better. Especially if you also pay to have a ca-chick ghost sounded to it after every activation.

[Crow]

I'm going to cast my vote for whores, mead, and orgies as well. The more extravagant the better. Invite everyone in town!

You've just stumbled upon the easy score that adventurers dream about. Spend all that money before your DM kills you!

[Collin152]

Buy? Buy?!
Who uses their money to buy things?
You use this money as a lure for bandits. Then you capture the bandits, steal their stuff, sell it, sell them into slavery, and so continue amassing wealth until the economy is your plaything.

[holywhippet]

Boots of springing and striding - speed never hurts.

Bags of holding - no more encumberance

Personally though I'd be looking to invest the money in owning your own property. You get a bonus to followers when you hit level 6 if you own an estate.

[Solo]

Use the money to become an economic superpower, hire minions, build a base, and try to take over the world.


Or use it for charitable purposes or something. Investing it in your hometown and other cities is a great way to bet yourselves good will and power.

[Squash Monster]

Candles of Invocation.

*is shot*

Lyre of building is a good choice. Given what it implies you do next.

[Ganurath]

Donations to affiliations until you're back to WBL, keeping some money aside for the emergency diamond dust fund. Having the favor of all the major powers of the Material Plane can do more than a meer 200K.

[dman11235]

No one has suggested this yet? Seriously? A +5 tome of charisma. If your DM is planning on taking back that loot, he can't take that back. And it gets it out of the way, because when else are you going to have enough at one time?

[Chronos]

You've just stumbled upon the easy score that adventurers dream about. Spend all that money before your DM kills you!This is a good point... If this was just an aside to an epic quest to save the planet from destruction, then you've got a reason to keep adventuring. Most plot hooks short of that, though, don't mean much any more. It's very hard to justify someone abruptly gaining that much wealth, and doing anything with it other than just retiring.

Which would also save the question of how the DM will rebalance things: You all get new character sheets and start over. Congratulations; you've just won D&D.

[Curmudgeon]

What would be good aid myself/party made of a Bard, Druid, Ranger, Rogue, and Warlock? Our DM has hinted that we will have some tremendous challenges ahead. Spend it all now, and in such a way that you appear to be trying to moderate the impact of such a tremendous windfall -- except in the long run you'll be gaining substantial benefit.

Example suggestion: buy a Tome of Clear Thought +5 for your Rogue. Immediate impact: better Search checks, and not much else. But your Rogue will be adding on skill points at every level thereafter, with a long-term effect that makes a significant difference in your party's capabilities. This will use up most of the loot. If you blow the rest on consumables (such as 45,000 gp for a wand of Greater Magic Weapon at CL 20 to boost your weapons up to +5 temporarily) your DM will figure that when the consumables run out you're back to where you should be -- except that the Rogue's skill points will be starting to make a real difference.

[13_CBS]

Or use it for charitable purposes or something.

Who are you and what have you done with Solo?! :smalleek:

[Ninjalitude]

A giant hamster ball. Enchanted, of course.

Could you stat this world-changing invention?

[GoC]

Buy a flying, iron armored boat and equip it with some heavy weaponry like a turret of disintegrate and a couple of fireball turrets! Then go to town as a band of flying pirates!:smallbiggrin:

EDIT: And definitely include a device of Call Lightning to execute divine smites on any who annoy you.:smallcool:

[Farmer42]

Two words: Gnomish Submersible.

[Chronicled]

Were it me, I'd get that mechanical crab apparatus in the DMG. Just so I could say that I had.

What I did in a somewhat similar situation (of outsmarting the DM for much loot) was have my level 6 rogue get a +5 Con tome. None of the other players knew about it, but I had as many HP as the fighter, and a nice Fort save, to boot. Whereas, had I put it into +Dex or flashy items, they would have figured something was up from my markedly improved combat efficiency (or presence of flashy items). If you get a tome, make it one that won't make you unbalanced offensively for your level. Nonremovable, defensive, low-key purchases are the idea here.

The idea to buy up favors is great too. I'm a fan of buying a Craft: Contingent Spell (Teleport) that on your death brings you to a friendly, pre-paid temple for resurrection. Or paying a high-level cleric to scry on your party 1/week, and come resurrect you if your lifestyle of killing things and taking their stuff catches up with you.

[Randel]

Elemental Airships are listed at 92,000 gp in the Eberron Campaign setting. Could be pretty fun to have.

Or you could find yourself an empty dungeon and outfit it with all sorts of deadly traps and loyal guardian monsters. Then put the rest of the money in a big pile so you can fight off all the other adventurers who try to take your loot.

Buy a whole bunch of Decanters of Endless water, Some bottles of air, everlasting food and water, some kind of sturdy airtight frame and a permant wall of fire... see if you can build a rocket ship. Might want to include some rings of feather fall and a cube of force.

Oh, and Carpets of Flying, immovable rods, rings of feather fall, portable holes... those are all good to have.

[holywhippet]

No one has suggested this yet? Seriously? A +5 tome of charisma. If your DM is planning on taking back that loot, he can't take that back. And it gets it out of the way, because when else are you going to have enough at one time?

Here's the question though, what will your DM let you buy. Some DMs do not believe in popping into the local magic shop and buying super powerful items. A +5 tome of charisma should be a tough thing to find, not just something you can easily buy. Otherwise, rich fighters would just purchase their way into having insane levels of strength and constitution.

[Lycanthromancer]

I'd buy services off of a level 17 wizard and a level 17 shaper-psion (if you can find one).

If you have one cast genesis for you (preferably the psionic version, as it's cheaper - ie, non-epic), then you have a base of operations on the Astral Plane. Make sure this plane has the timeless trait.

Then have the wizard cast astral projection on you and your party.

Then place your real bodies in the demiplane.

Voila, not only are you invincible (for a single death), but you're also immortal (as your body is in stasis on a timeless plane).

Much easier than lichdom, and you don't have to be a rotten corpse for the rest of your existence.

The price for these services? --9060 gp + 5 gp per astral projected person (it's higher for an arcane version of genesis).

It's even better if you can convince a kineticist to manifest dispelling buffer (a level 6 kineticist power)

Since your body is in a timeless plane, any spell cast on it will be Permanent Until Dispelled. The same isn't necessarily true for your astral body, though. :p In addition, genesis is an instantaneous effect, which can't be dispelled or disjoined.

Also, I second effects that can't be removed, such as tomes. Tomes are especially yummy.

[edit] Oh, and polymorph any object is a nice spell to nab, especially if it's permanent, and essentially undispellable.

Make sure to set up some defenses to prevent people from doing anything to your body, such as a permanent contingencied teleport, or something.

Also, make sure you buy lots of castings of the clone spell, and a portable hole to store them in.

[Aquillion]

I think most of the suggestions so far are missing a vital point:

Our DM has hinted that we will have some tremendous challenges ahead.This isn't an 'accidental' windfall. The DM is deliberately giving him a boost over WBL, with the understanding that he's going to be facing excessive, beyond-CR challenges in the near future. His DM is assuming he'll spend it in an optimization-heavy or burn-cash-to-win-short-term way, and if he doesn't it will probably hurt the game when he hits those "tremendous challenges" without the advantages that this money was supposed to buy him.

Not making any specific suggestions; I'm just saying. I recommend that you don't blow it all or try to spend it on something "stealthy" / hard-to-remove like a stat tome (unless you want that anyway). When your DM hands you a big wad of cash and basically says 'here, go spend this on something powerful, I'm going to hit you with tremendous challenges soon', you'll actually be risking ruining the game if you don't spend it well.

[Funkyodor]

Well, investing 1/4 of it into a Rod of Absorption is a nice idea. Any spells targeted at you get sucked up. And once full, you can toss it to the Bard and let him free cast to his hearts content for a while. Double benefits. You might even convince the bard to pay you for it, heh, heh.

Permenancied spells might be a good idea, but don't go overboard because if a Dispel does sneak by, then the spells might go poof. See Invisible sounds great.

Keeping about 1/4 fluid cash might not be a bad idea if the DM hinted at things getting hard. It's always handy if you need to hire a bunch of Merc's in a hurry.

The +5 Tome to one stat is not the way to go. A fixed bonus to one stat that takes up the majority of the heaping o'loot pile sounds crappy.

Contingent teleport and pre-paid raise dead/resurrection sound like good ideas, but they do have minor risks. If you are out of range when it goes off then nothing happens (I.E. on another plane, outside of 900 mile radius, etc.), or there is that chance you might appear in a gutter outside the church (2%) or in a similar location surrounded by people with question marks over their heads (1%).

[Triaxx]

I once had a similar situation, and the character in question bought a one use tattoo of polymorphing. Come the end of the game, he still had the tattoo, and we defeated the BBEG. The Ceiling starts falling, so the character polymorphed into something with unforgivably massive strength, and held the ceiling for the rest of us to get out.

Of course he got squashed when the ceiling finally overwhelmed him.

But buy something that seems useless now, but might come in handy later. A ring of Greater Dispell, that's only one use. Or a belt of Sanctuary. Matched belts of benign transposition. (You take one, the fighter takes the other.)

I'm not much for Tomes myself, but you might find them useful. On the other hand, a 1/day tome of Elemental Summoning might be just the ticket. Elementals make very good back up.

[DrizztFan24]

Spend it in crafting. Pay off some higher level warlock to provide the crafting and then you provide the xp and the gold. You can get more items for less.

[Oslecamo]

Just out of curiosity, how are you carrying so much treasure at level 4?

[Chronicled]

I'm not much for Tomes myself, but you might find them useful. On the other hand, a 1/day tome of Elemental Summoning might be just the ticket. Elementals make very good back up.

That's true. At your level, one of the elemental summoning censures/stones/bowls/braziers would get you a buddy more powerful than the rest of your party. Nothing like sitting back and watching the elder fire elemental pound your enemies into paste.

[GoC]

The price for these services? --9060 gp + 5 gp per astral projected person (it's higher for an arcane version of genesis).

I'm pretty sure a 17th level wizards time is worth more than 45gp the hour.

[Lycanthromancer]

I'm pretty sure a 17th level wizards time is worth more than 45gp the hour.That's according to the spellcasting services as presented in the Player's Handbook.

[Titanium Dragon]

No one has suggested this yet? Seriously? A +5 tome of charisma. If your DM is planning on taking back that loot, he can't take that back. And it gets it out of the way, because when else are you going to have enough at one time?

You can't, RAW; a Tome of Charisma +5 (or even +4) costs more than 100,000 GP, which you can't even purchase in a metropolis. As such, to get a +5 ability bonus, you gotta buy scrolls of wish (or something else which gives you wishes) then use them all consecutively to get your wishes.

You could buy a couple rings of three wishes, get a +5 inherent bonus to some stat, then with the remaining money buy something else decent and have a random wish lying around for future use. :P

[Lycanthromancer]

If the 201,000 gp you got was JUST for you (and isn't to be split amongst the party), then you have the starting wealth of a 15th level character.

What is the gp limit for the amount of gold you can spend?

What kind of campaign can you expect?

What books and supplements can you use?

D'you have UMD maxed out?

Do you actually have access to high-level loot? High-level characters, such as wizards and artificers?

I guess what I'm saying is: what kinds of restrictions are you under?

By the way, your best bet, if the DM allows it, would be to get a Thought Bottle. Being a warlock, you can be an item-creationist, and do some seriously awesome things.

Also, get a polymorph any object or a true mind switch and turn into a psionic mind-flayer. Good times.

[Lycanthromancer]

Your best bet for getting +5 to any ability score is to go to a cleric of your alignment that is unaligned with a deity, then paying him to cast miracle. There's no XP cost (since, by definition, a +1 to an ability score is 'in line' with the other effects, as it's doable by a wish spell, which specifies that the effect is, indeed, 'in line' with that level of power).

Very cheap.

As in, 7,650 gp vs 137,500 gp (for a tome) or 144,000 gp (for wishes) cheap.

[Aquillion]

Your best bet for getting +5 to any ability score is to go to a cleric of your alignment that is unaligned with a deity, then paying him to cast miracle. There's no XP cost (since, by definition, a +1 to an ability score is 'in line' with the other effects, as it's doable by a wish spell, which specifies that the effect is, indeed, 'in line' with that level of power).

Very cheap.

As in, 7,650 gpNo dice. Read Wish again; nothing in Wish implies that those listed effects are all of equal power. (It says "You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these...", but nothing that says that those effects are all of the same power, and the line saying '...in line with these effects' has been removed. In other words, its longer list is providing several possible effects of divergent power, not a bunch of guidelines of supposedly roughly similar power the way Miracle does.) Simply having them on the same list doesn't mean they're 'in line' with each other in terms of power; indeed, the fact that they specifically cut those effects out when copying from Wish to Miracle makes it completely and undeniably plain that they are not in the same line of power.

Miracle just lists the least-powerful effects from the Wish list; that just means that Wish can do a couple things Miracle can't (without stretching the power beyond their lists, anyway). So you have to pay XP and risk an unpredictable divine decision to get those effects via a Miracle.

With the XP cost, of course, you're going above 3,000 gp a casting and it isn't generally available. But there are other problems, even on top of that. First, you need 5 castings in immediate succession to get a +5 bonus. That means you'll either need one caster who can cast that many 9th level spells in a row (which means higher than CL 17) or multiple casters. And, well, multiple casters? Not likely. In fact, you're not even guaranteed one caster:


In addition, not every town or village has a spellcaster of sufficient level to cast any spell. In general, you must travel to a small town (or larger settlement) to be reasonably assured of finding a spellcaster capable of casting 1st-level spells, a large town for 2nd-level spells, a small city for 3rd- or 4th-level spells, a large city for 5th- or 6th-level spells, and a metropolis for 7th- or 8th-level spells. Even a metropolis isn’t guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells.Casters capable of casting 9th-level spells, in other words, only appear when the DM deliberately provides them.

[Crow]

If this was a Dm windfall, you can be assured that you will be facing some overpowered challenges in the future. In addition to this, you will be riding the DM railroad all the way there I suspect.

Again; Mead, Whores, Orgy. Dire tiger skin furnishings, rare delicacies that don't even taste good but are expensive as hell because they come from the other side of the world. Invite everybody, especially the rich. Blow the money in the most extravagant way possible.

Your characters are probably going to die soon. Make a good time of it instead of blowing it on item which probably won't help you that much anyways.