Yeah, I noticed that as well - 8 pts for a ~50 gold staff? I think I'd rather have a bucket more essence, or take a small flaw and get another trait or something. Bit disproportionate.

(edit: So that this isn't just a trite observation, suggestion: Make starting items relics that are leftover from before the Cataclysm. Make them somewhat / moderately / immensely powerful and impossible to actually make in-game. Some neat stuff can be done by passing this item on to your offspring et cetera, meaning it's got a bit more versatility than investing in a single character. Hey, it might even gain in power as you gain shards, meaning it's a bit of a long-term investment)

Even 5 points seems a bit steep.  Raising an attribute for 3 or a spear for 5?  Equipment just doesn't seem worth the investment.  Maybe a set of starter equipment would be tempting.

Otherwise you can just run around and quickly grab goodies lying around the map and buy something nice.

Basically, it saves you about 15-20 turns for the more expensive items; things you couldn't get right away. And it only lasts a small period of time before better stuff is available. While this could be a nice short term advantage... it's expensive to do that compared to taking other benefits which are longer lasting and potentially more significant. Now if they were 'pack' items like the scout pack but only for sovereigns, that would be interesting (and not take up an item space). Some of the NPC champs have special abilities - they could be like that (though maybe more utility as well as combat).

Yeah, some unique/special starting equipment would be cool. I'm sure not going to spend points on a spear or some leather bracers. I'm not completely sure how you'd balance it though. The idea of linking the equipment to shards is neat, since it wouldn't be as OP in the early game, but would still be worthwhile. Something like that to keep it balanced.

I like this idea, because it lets combat leaders get some gear, while caster/non combat heroes can invest in their starting cities more rapidly.

While the idea of unique starting equipment sounds cool, it'd probably cause more balance issues.

It's already _way_ too easy to blitz the AI with a combat hero in the first <30 turns, and having powerful starting gear would make that problem even worse (it's the same issue as the summoning spellbook, but with combat heroes)