Justifying Vows for nongood characters (3.%)

[SoD]

Anyhoo, I was thinking recently of an idea for a character; druid shapeshifter variant with vow of poverty. A NE druid who is out for the fun of the hunt, maxing out hide/move silently, etc.

The reasoning for Vow of Poverty? Basically that natures creatures hunt without the use of magical items, and stuff like that, and he emulates it, living without want for shiney swords and the like. He does more than not having any, but actively scorns those who rely on them as they draw on power from those items, rather than themselves.

So I beleive Vow of Poverty would be fitting; only it gives you exalted feats...which do NOT fit. Anyway, I was thinking if it gave acess to a different lot of feats, or some other ability, or something, but not sure what to give it.

And, in expectation;


Vow of Poverty is weak, man!
Whatever. I'm not asking for a masively optimised character, merely one that's fun to play and gains some benefit from not owning stuff. I repeat; I do NOT care about the optimisation of this character.

[monty]

Obviously, you'd have to completely redo the fluff. Make a couple of other changes, like changing the DR to /good. For the feats, maybe let them take vile feats instead of exalted? Something like that, anyway.

Also, I want to play 3.%. Where did you find it?

[Salvonus]

Also, I want to play 3.%. Where did you find it?

You use percentile dice instead of d20s. Sheesh, man, have you been living under a rock? :smallwink:

As for the feats... Well, you could just take Vile feats, no? They're generally better (mechanically speaking) than Exalted feats, but VoP is kinda weak anyway.

[dspeyer]

Vile doesn't quite seem to fit. What you really want are nature-aligned feats. There's no solid list of them, but anything that improves wildshape or uses wildshape to power other things seems like a good choice. Some of those can be quite powerful.

[Fishy]

Vile doesn't quite seem to fit. What you really want are nature-aligned feats. There's no solid list of them, but anything that improves wildshape or uses wildshape to power other things seems like a good choice. Some of those can be quite powerful.

You're thinking of the [Wild] feats from Complete Divine and Complete Adventurer. There's a list of them, and they have a tag, and everything. You get extra wild shape uses, or you can burn Wild Shapes in order to get mildly interesting effects that you could conceivably be leaning on magic items for.

I have no idea how optimized it is, and it obviously doesn't work for rangers and scouts and other druidy things, but ask your DM about a Feral Vow (or something) that gives [Wild] feats instead of [Exalted]

[Tempest Fennac]

I'd just keep the feat as it it, apart from possibly changing the bit about who you need to donate money to (if the Ashbound or the Children of Winter Druid sects exist, you could just give money and magic items you find to them). Just out of curiosity, which race are you planning on using, and did the DM let you take Hide and MS in place of 2 other class skills? (I'd let you do that.)

Monty, if you were serious, I think SoD just made a typo when he was naming the thread due to 5 and % using the same key (I couldn't tell if you were joking when you asked about that so I thought I'd explain it to be safe).

EDIT: I just remembered 1 feat from Crystal Keep which would help with Hide and MS if the DM won't let you swap skills:

Nightbringer Initiate
[General]
(FoE p147)

Prequisites:
Ability to spontaneously
cast Summon Nature’s
Ally
Non-Good alignment

Effects:
Member of the Nightbringer Druidic Sect, who are connected with darkness, undead, & the plane of Mabar.
Hide & Move Silently become Druid class skills for you.
Add the following spells to your Druidic spell list:
1st: Inflict Light Wounds(PH p244) – Touch deals 1d8 damage +1 per level (max +5).
2nd: Darkness(PH p216) – 20’ radius of supernatural shadow.
3rd: Deeper Darkness(PH p217) – Object sheds supernatural shadow in 60’ radius.
4th: Enervation(PH p226) – Subject gains 1d4 negative levels.
5th: Summon Monster V(PH p287) – Summons an extraplanar creature to fight for you (Shadow Mastiff only)
6th: Planar Ally(PH p261) – As Planar Ally, Lesser, but up to 12 HD. (native of Mabar only)
7th: Control Undead(PH p214) – Undead don’t attack you while under your command.
8th: Create Greater Undead(PH p215) – Creates shadows, wraiths, spectres, or devourers (Shadows only).
9th: Gate(PH p234) – Connects two planes for travel or summoning (Mabar only).

The only problem is that Ashbound would fit much better for your character concept then this sect would. :smallfrown:

[JellyPooga]

If I were DM-ing that, I'd allow you to take [Wild] feats instead of Exalted, but I'd halve the amount you get to 1 per 4 levels instead of 1 per 2 (IMO Exalted Feats are a pile of steaming, largely, whilst some of the [Wild] Feats are pretty gnarly). If I was feeling generous I'd perhaps make it 1 per 3 levels instead.

I'd change the DR to DR:X/Cold Iron. Nature = Fey, Fey have DR/Cold Iron.

Exalted Strike would make your attacks be treated as either Cold Iron or Adamantine at 10th level (instead of Good Aligned).

[Narmoth]

There's several ways to adjust it:
1. the vow gives you any feats, not only exalted feats
2. the vow gives you exalted feats, luck feats, and vile feats (if you manage to use them without violating your alignment)
3. the vow gives you exalted feats, divine feats and luck feats
4. the vow gives you one normal feat for every 2 exalted feats
5. the vow gives you any non-standard feats: exalted, vile, corrupted, luck, divine and so on, except class feats that you don't qualify for (fighter only, bard only, arcane metamagic, and so on)

[dspeyer]

You're thinking of the [Wild] feats from Complete Divine and Complete Adventurer. There's a list of them, and they have a tag, and everything. You get extra wild shape uses, or you can burn Wild Shapes in order to get mildly interesting effects that you could conceivably be leaning on magic items for.

I have no idea how optimized it is, and it obviously doesn't work for rangers and scouts and other druidy things, but ask your DM about a Feral Vow (or something) that gives [Wild] feats instead of [Exalted]

I was thinking of both those and things like Draconic Wildshape and Fast Wildshape, which don't have the [wild] tag, hence my statement that there isn't a canonical list.