Greetings! I'm trying to come up with good "group buys"-- that is, items that everyone in a party could pool money for and be happy about getting. So far I've come up with two: the Banner of the Storm's Eye and a Rod of Chaining. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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Recently, something incredible happened. I'm getting ready to play an Epic-level campaign (starting at level 24) where the DM has severely reduced wealth by level (starting with 200,000gp). Some people groaned a bit, but that is the amount of money we're using. So we all settled down to work on high-level builds that didn't take much money.
While we were working, I mentioned that I would be using a rod to cast Chain Greater Magic Weapon on everyone's weapons (all of them; some people have five or six). I also said that it was a pity I couldn't Chain day-long buffs of a level higher than third, since a Rod of Chaining was too expensive. More than half the party immediately chimed in, offering to share their gold. In fact, one guy subscribed half of his total character wealth, and actively resisted suggestions for other items he could buy his own character. I was very surprised.
So now it turns out I have a bunch of enlightened party members who will gladly work together to get the most out of limited wealth. Obviously I want to take advantage of this-- the DM warned that the campaign would likely be quite lethal. So I come to these forums looking for...
a) Good items to buy for the group with the group's money (like a Rod of Chaining and a Banner of the Storm's Eye. I think)
b) Good "buffs" of first through sixth level. They can be on any spell list (any 3.5 spell list), but they need to last for 1 hour/level or more and I'd prefer that they be legal targets for Chain Spell (Reach is possible, but undesirable, since my character is feat-starved in the extreme).
What we currently have in the party:
A Spellthief (using a homebrew fix that resembles a partial-progression blue mage)
A Marilith Abjurant Champion (some homebrew on the Marilith to help her get six weapons on low wealth)
A Swiftblade/Initiatie of the Sevenfold Veil
A Kensei/Rogue
A Shield Warrior (with a very nice homebrewed epic progression)
A Dread Necromancer
A Chaos Mage (odd homebrewed class)
A Conjurer (who I believe is using Malconvoker)
I'm afraid I can't give much more detail than you see here, since everyone is still working on their builds. But (thanks to the Shield Warrior) it looks like we'll be staying pretty close to each other on the battlefield, so "aura" items like the Banner could see a lot of use. What do you say?