Well, the warlord, monk, sorcerer, and paladin|sorcerer all have 81 +/- 1 hit points. I guess your character has the worst defenses of them on average (except the barbarian, who has the highest HPs in the group to compensate for poor defenses), but it's not by a lot (the barbarian has the same AC; your sorcerer's Fort is only one point worse than my warlord or the paladin|sorcerer; his ref is better than the barbarian, figheter, or the paladin|sorcerer) and he's got the best will defense in the group.Warlord, barbarian, fighter, monk and paladin . . . wait a minute. I'm the squishie? That's such a weird sensation.
Well, Sariel is definitely not a solo operator; I'd prefer it if one or two PCs had a long-standing history with her. Heck, it wouldn't be surprising if one or two people she was working with at the time were the ones who were actually summoned, and they brought her along.That's up to individual player choice. Each of you can decide for yourselves whether you want to have previous history with any of the others or whether your PC is more of a solo operator
1. The entire party should not have extensive history working together in this form, although they may all be familiar with each other from previous experience or general reputation either one. Think "Avengers" ....
2. You have all been summoned by the Leaders of the World because of your renown, and brought together to undertake a mission of utmost importance to the continued survival of your Free Peoples..
How does this interact with the standard starting gold rule (you start with the value of a level n-1 item -- in this case the 9000 gp of an 11th level item -- to spend on magic and high-ticket items; mundane items are free but don't be silly)?
I can think of a few possibilities here...
1) The magic items are free; you can't use your starting gold for permanent magic items.
2) These items replace standard starting gold. This runs into some difficulties with consumable magic/alchemical items, rituals/ritual components, and expensive mundane equipment (consumeable items are much cheaper than permanent items, and I'm not sure how you'd pay for rituals and ritual components).
3) These items still have to be paid for out of standard starting gold.
*Sigh!* That's what I get for trying to be clever with the char-gen guidelines.
How about this:
4) These items still have to be paid for out of standard starting gold, except for L1/L2 items which are gratis within the limits of good taste and reason already mentioned.
[MENTION=11437]Insight[/MENTION] your "excess 9,000 gp" to spend on 'whatever' is a problem.