Ok, so I managed to get a set of Ring Gates, and an Enveloping Pit, after some wealth by level shenanigens. So the party can pass items and themselves back and forth from ship to adventure sites pretty freely without "wasting" teleportation magic. I also can manifest through the Ring Gates, and not have to worry about some of the difficulties I was having without them (having to keep Sense Link up all the time, what to do if the party gets more than 1 mile away, etc). Now, as long as we can keep the ship within 100 miles of the party, I'm good to go.
I was thinking that we should strap one Ring Gate onto someone's shield or armor, and leave the other one facing down onto the floor of the ship. Since Eddie basically "is" the ship, he should be able to look and act through the Ring Gate while it is lying on the floor like this, but anyone looking back into the other one will just see a metal slab (or whatever the floor is made of). I'll also do this in a room that is full of Black Sand, so he has constant healing, and I'll use Share Pain on the Psicrystal. I think the Ring Gate itself, and the floor of the room, will block LoE to the portal for the Black Sand, so you guys won't be constantly bathed in negative energy.
I realize now that I basically went to a lot of trouble just to optimize something silly, and that even though I doubled his WBL, almost half of that was spent on an item that is basically just to overcome a self-imposed limitation. I still think it should be fun, but now I'm trying to come up with an explanation for him.
Why would he want to basically imprison himself inside the ship? He is basically indestructible (unless someone destroys the whole ship), but he is also trapped, and can only act vicariously through his psicrystal, or through the ring gates. So his invulnerability comes at a huge price.
So... who wants to carry my Ring Gate?
I was thinking I'd have it look like something weird or silly, like a gaping demonic maw, or a pair of red puckered lips, and explain that as why he got it for 75% of the normal price.
Or maybe it is tainted with evil and dedicated to Orcus, or is intelligent and constantly hums an annoying song (banana phone?), or something.
Also, any suggestions on RPing this guy, and why he'd want to permanently imprison himself inside a ship? Want to work on coming up with our collective backgrounds?
