I spend a lot of time thinking about first names and for a brief time Eric Wheed was Richard Wheed... then I decided that it would be best to change that
The book could probably use a few more examples so I wrote one up:
Marcus was rather fond of the Hummer back in the First World; now he’s got bags of holding filled with gold and the Hummer isn’t quite so expensive looking as it was before. Unfortunately, trucks don’t run too well in the Second World–unless you’ve got the right abilities.
Marcus is a former human scientist exiled from the First World. He takes Craft (electronic), Craft (mechanical), and Repair as his background skills, foregoing trading in 2 skills for a feat. He starts out as a ranger to represent surviving in the wild; he takes Great Fortitude and Iron Will as his initial feats. He progresses to ranger-1/fighter-1/rogue-3 by 5th level taking Tensile Mercury Expertise as his 3rd level feat. Over the first 5 levels he’s raised his Craft (electronic) skill to rank 8, Disable Device to 8, Open Lock to 4 (since that’ll get axed in 3.5), and Craft (mechanical) to 8.
At 6th level he acquires Lightning Reflexes and takes a level of Metal Warden. He’ll take a level of Metal Warden at 7th, 8th, and 9th along with a Lightning Warden feat at level 9. This gives him 4 Metal Warden binding slots and 2 Lightning Warden binding slots by 9th level. He also has a Lightning Warden rank of 2 and can purchase up to 10 points of charge for powering Lightning Warden abilities.
Marcus also has received a standard gold allotment, 36,000 gp (or 36 ip) over the course of making it to 9th level. Marcus is maxing out his Warden powers; he prefers innate powers to magic gained from items. As such he devotes 30 ip to Warden bindings and uses the other 6,000 gp for some minor magic items.
Here’s how he allocates his bindings:
6th: Blading with 1 bonus point–this costs 3 ip and 260 xp; since it automatically uses the Spirit Veda Marcus doesn’t need to use up an item slot. Marcus can more easily use two-weapon fighting as a Metal Warden since he can form multiple weapons. Also, since he's now a 4th level Metal Warden he gets free proficiency with all Exotic weapons.
7th: Burst of Power–costing 2 ip and 160 xp; Marcus must bond this to a Veda so he chooses the “crown” slot. He won’t be able to gain benefits from wearing magical headgear since that slot is already ‘taken.’
8th: Armoring with 1 bonus point–this costs 3 ip and 200 xp; naturally he dedicates the base of spine slot to this since that’s normally devoted to armor anyway.
9th: Marcus picks up a lot here, but was planning for it so has ip stored up for use.
4 points of Charge for his Lightning Warden powers; this costs 4 ip and 320 xp but doesn’t use a slot.
Power Minor Electronics–costs 3 ip and 240 xp; he binds it to his skin slot, sacrificing the ability to benefit from magical robes.
Lightning Bolt–costs 1 ip and 80 xp; he doesn’t need to bind this to a slot since it automatically uses the Spirit Veda. When he throws this lightning bolt he’ll lose use of the car and any flashlights he carries until he recovers his Charge.
Engine Power–costs 5 ip and 400 xp; he binds it to his heart slot meaning that he can’t benefit from a magical vest.
He also dumps more power into Blading (raise to 2 bonus points; costs 4 ip and 300 xp) and Armoring (raise to 2 bonus points; costs 1 ip and 120 xp). He also converts his Burst of Power binding to a Spirit Veda at a cost of 2 ip and 160 xp (the same as the normal cost); this frees up his “crown” slot so he can now wear magical headgear or bind a different power to that Veda.
Total Cost: 28 ip and 2,240 xp; he’s got about 8,000 gp left for regular magic items then or can save up for more potent bindings. An extra point of Charge might be worthwhile too since that would allow him to retain use of the flashlight after throwing a lightning bolt.
