Some monsters live in environments that deal constant energy damage so that any stuff left nearby is destroyed. Other monsters have special abilities that deal energy damage over a wide area and destroy stuff. In both cases, I want the stuff to survive. Here are some examples:
- A fire weird (Monster Manual II 90-2, 94) lives in a pool of fire that deals fire damage to creatures and objects therein. (Don't worry—the fire weird itself is immune to fire.) The weird's smart enough to own useful gear, and I want to equip it appropriately, but if, while in her pool, she drops something, it'll be destroyed by the fire damage. Likewise, if she doesn't want to carry something, leaving it in the pool will see it destroyed and leaving it outside the pool sees it vulnerable to casual theft.
- A wizard with a penchant for gardening keeps as a servant/pet/guard a greenvise (Monster Manual II 120-1). The greenvise's extraordinary ability death fog deals to each creature and object in a 60-ft. spread 3d8 points of acid damage—no saving throw. (Don't worry—the greenvise itself is immune to acid.) Each use of the greenvise's death fog ability will see the surrounding area decimated… including all the tools the wizard-gardener had been using to prune his greenvise.
When I've encountered this issue while dungeoncrafting, I've longed for a dead simple way to make nearby or carried items immune to energy damage, be it completely or selectively. For example, it seems like overkill to pay 2,000 gp to make the wizard-gardener's Profession (gardener) masterwork tool out of riverine (Stormwrack 128) solely so that it survives the greenvise's deathfog!
Is there a mundane or magical game element that's relatively inexpensive (ideally just double the cost of a normal item or something but certainly under 2,000 gp per lb.!) that can protect forever items from energy damage?
If instead an individualized list of game elements better meets this criteria—like an alchemical coating that prevents sonic damage and a magic item effect that grants an item immunity forever to acid damage and so on—, that kind of list makes an appropriate answer, too.