Gloves of Thievery. I don't recall where I got them (does anyone know?) but they give you Advantage on Sleight of Hand rolls. Give them to Astarion and you'll never lose a lockpick or disarming kit again. Well, almost never. There are some DC 30 traps and locks, but with the gloves even those become doable.
lol ironically a merchant sells these. The Zhent hideout guy I think.
The merchant for a bunch of crooks, yeah.
For early game, the first two first items I picked up from merchants at the Grove were really good. Gloves of missile snaring (use a reaction to negate arrow damage) are great for the goblin fights, gnolls or anyone else with marksmen, if you give to the character most likely to be a target. Kept them equipped for quite a while. Still using the hunting bow (advantage against monstrosity enemies and giving the hunter’s mark skill to anyone), now much further into story on level 7.
Other early game gear I’m still using are the gloves of the growling underdog (advantage to attacks if there are two or more targets in melee range) and the Whispering Promise Ring (bless everyone you heal) is fantastic for Clerics.
A bit later on, it’s harder to pick out favorites, because there’s so many options, but the Blood of Lathander Mace is ridiculously good.
Edit: Sorry, see you already mentioned a couple of those.
I gave the armour you mentioned to shadowheart, along with the gloves of dexterity, which makes her quite hard to hit as well as making her actually a pretty good shot with a bow. The gloves would be even better if I respected her to have crap natural dex, but that feels a bit like cheating.
I made a masterwork knife with the susser wood to use in my off hand on a duel wielding sword bard because its sometimes handy, but not that amazing as a main weapon Also both the forge armours are very good, but the weapons seem a bit lackluster considering the hassle of getting them.
