[Gawdayumeet]

EQUIPMENT

Let's go left-to-right, top-to-bottom. These are what I had on when the challenge ended:

Ear: Onyx Earrings from gnoll commanders. +2 agility is rather nice, especially when I'm carrying multiple backpacks of shoulderpads and collars. Honorary mention goes to the Golden Ear Studs courtesy of Cubert and Zamel, which probably saved me an hour or two of grinding tradeskills (which is still less than the amount of time I spent obtaining them)

Neck: Spiked Collar from elite gnoll guardsmen. +3 is very nice, though I wasn't sure if a banded collar would have been better due to higher AC. The Investigator's Badge, while nice, is too spread-out to be more than a trophy. Honorary mentions to the Golden Locket (my first magic light source) and the Order of Thunder (which saved me several plat).

Face: Steel Mask from a platemail shopkeep. One of only two steel plate items I got before the end. I was rocking a Banded Mask for the majority of the play, however.

Head: Banded Helm, self-made. God, I hate the stupid little spear-point on the top. I should've saved money for the steel plate helm instead.

Finger: Ring of Pine from Merona Castekin and Limestone Ring from an undead knight. There were many other choices as well. The Rat-Shaped Ring, the Brass Ring, the Band of Rodcet Nife, and so on. Sadly, only these two had an actual combat advantage for me.

Wrist: Banded Bracers, self-made. For half the playthrough, I used a Steel Warrior Bracer instead. Not for the +1 Agi, but simply because it made light and the Spiked Collar was nicer than the Golden Locket.

Arms: Banded Sleeves, self-made. Not many options here.

Hands: Banded Gauntlets, self-made. Before then, I used Brown Leather Gloves, but I'm pretty sure the +2 Dex didn't give me much at all.

Shoulders: Rusty Spiked Shoulderpads from gnoll commanders. The +5 strength is there to distracted you from the fact that they let the gnoll shamans flash you far more often. Still optimal, though.

Chest: Banded Mail, self-made. Also few options here as well.

Back: Banded Cloak, self-made. If it wasn't already a requirement, I might've been upset at wasting a HQ Bear Skin on the Bear-hide Cape and then immediately making this.

Waist: Banded Belt, self-made. I'm running out of options of saying that there weren't many options.

Legs: Banded Leggings, self-made. I can't wait to get to the Blacksmithing section so you guys know how awful this was to make.

Feet: Steel Plate Boots, bought from a shoe shopkeeper. The other steel plate item. I think I might be one of only five people who have ever bought this item.

Prime: Two Handed Sword. If you're disappointed about this result, know that I'm ten times as disappointed. I thought for sure that my earlier combo of Gnoll Slayer and Forged Long Sword was the best, but the calculator says otherwise. I didn't even have enough time to train 2H Slashing before the end.

Secondary: None. With the Gnoll Slayer, I used a Forged Long Sword, alongside a Qeynos Kite Shield at the end to practice bashing, which I never ended up using.

Range: Rough Elm Recurve Bow, from Gillarian Naelev. This should have been much better, but I spent all my money on platemail. Which is, tragically, a better purchase.

Ammo: CLASS 1 Bone Point Arrow, self made. Please do not ask me how I managed to damage a willowisp with this. I have no clue.

Containers: 1 Handmade Backpack (self made), 1 Small Box, 1 Backpack, 1 Tailored Quiver (from Hager Sureshot), 1 Fletching Kit. I spent quite awhile training tailoring and killing bears, but only managed to get one handmade backpack. Better than nothing I suppose.

Lightsource: Greater Lightstone. I am so very proud of how I managed to get this. I'll tell you about it in a bit.

Food: Shark/Fish Rolls, self-made. I killed so many sharks that the limiting factor is bat wings. Still not remotely high enough baking to make it easily.

Drink: Water Flask. Ol' Reliable.

Other: I had a stockpile of Potions of Light Healing. I saved them until the finall boss, but the re-targetting on use is likely what caused my first death against them. Rather useless in combat.

Looking over this, I'm sure you might be thinking of a whole bunch of ways that this isn't actually BIS, but I can guarantee you that I've spent far more time thinking about it. Let's go over the obvious stuff.

Steel Plate Mail: Thousands of platinum down the drain for a handful of extra AC. In time, I would have eventually gotten the rest of the pieces, but at thirty plat per multi-hour BB run, I think that what I have is good enough.
Fine Steel Two Handed Sword: Drops from Dun and Eracon Krengon. They are Level 45, and I have zero pack-splitting ability. No thanks.
Darkwood Bow/CLASS 6 Steel Silver Tip Arrow: I pity whoever decides to play a supreme-one-chunk-equivalent character. 4000 plat on average for the bow, and there isn't a single mob in this entire region worth spending 20 plat on a single arrow. Not only that, but I wouldn't be able to use it more than once or twice a fight, since it can't be used in melee.
Tower Shield: I could just buy one, since it costs barely anything. Or smith it myself if I was being silly. But shields aren't useful here, since there's few spellcasters and the AC doesn't make up for the loss of DPS.
More Handmade Backpacks: This is the single most practical upgrade I could have gotten, but I don't need to carry much stuff around at the moment. Had I continued into a new game plus? Yeah, probably should.
Other potions: None of the other potions/magic gizmos sold in shops are useful, even if they didn't cost dozens of plat each. The Vial of Swirling Smoke is hilariously expensive, though.
Gnoll Hide Lariat: I only just now realized as I'm writing that this is actually a magic weapon, which means that my willowisp strat was entirely pointless. I'm screaming into my pillow. Still not worth using outside of tanking.

There are also a handful of near-misses regarding equipment that are noteworthy:

Fine Plate Armor: If there was a single spiderling in this whole area, this would have been BIS, as well as a nightmare. There are none, however. The sewer spiderling was merely an illusion.
Forged Two Handed Sword/Spear: There aren't the right molds here, or any Oak Shafts.
Enchanted Silver Jewelry: The Giant Fire Beetle Eye was justly nerfed. Could you imagine having to grind Jewelcrafting as every single class? Thankfully, we dodged it by playing at the end of updates.
Antonian Javelin: There is not a single MQ Sheet Metal in sight. It would have been BIS for Ranged in Qeynos City Only, though.
Antonian Long Sword: This one makes me sad. No Folded Sheet Metal here.

There might be, somehow, some other thing or two I missed, but I doubt that they would be even remotely significant. For meaningful improvement, this is about as good as I can get with these rules.