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Jallorn
2010-08-06, 06:02 PM
I'm trying to get a DM to go for this VoP fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140428&), but he's convinced that there is no problem with normal VoP. I would like to ask that you playgrounders help me to convince him to see my side with a board (this one) that discusses just why VoP as is sucks, and, hopefully, explains why the fix is more balanced.

Hirax
2010-08-06, 06:10 PM
VoP is a newb trap like as much as whirlwind attack. I don't favor a linear progression like you lay out, I'd prefer a system where you pick and choose what features you get as you advance, but one way or the other VoP as written is BoED is weak.

Gnaritas
2010-08-06, 06:25 PM
VoP is a newb trap like as much as whirlwind attack. I don't favor a linear progression like you lay out, I'd prefer a system where you pick and choose what features you get as you advance, but one way or the other VoP as written is BoED is weak.

Yes yes, calling his DM a newb will get him convinced.

Vangor
2010-08-06, 06:27 PM
The only problems I find with VoP are the feat requirements and limitations for some classes (spellbooks). VoP should not be as powerful as wealth by level, but the initial feat and VoP itself being a feat makes voluntary poverty and absolute charity seem a supposed route for power (as all feats are) rather than a character facet. This runs counter to the idea of being worthy of Exalted feats.

May include levitation and eventual flight, but the linked fix seems to be how to avoid any negative aspects of magical items such as shopping, bookkeeping, or loss, not that this, while better than current VoP, is really equal to wealth for every character.

Just play a character of charity and ignore the feats.

Hirax
2010-08-06, 06:30 PM
Yes yes, calling his DM a newb will get him convinced.

I'm amused you chose to read my post that way. :smallconfused:

But seriously, VoP as given in BoED permanently gimps you on attacks, AC, ability scores, and saves compared to what non-VoP party members will have at ANY level. If exalted feats didn't generally suck this would mitigate these losses somewhat. But most of them do suck unfortunately, and the few okay ones would scarcely get used on the same character.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-06, 06:39 PM
I'm trying to get a DM to go for this VoP fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140428&), but he's convinced that there is no problem with normal VoP. I would like to ask that you playgrounders help me to convince him to see my side with a board (this one) that discusses just why VoP as is sucks, and, hopefully, explains why the fix is more balanced.

Wings of Flying already beats VoP in usefulness for noncasters.

Starbuck_II
2010-08-06, 07:24 PM
I'm amused you chose to read my post that way. :smallconfused:

But seriously, VoP as given in BoED permanently gimps you on attacks, AC, ability scores, and saves compared to what non-VoP party members will have at ANY level. If exalted feats didn't generally suck this would mitigate these losses somewhat. But most of them do suck unfortunately, and the few okay ones would scarcely get used on the same character.

Lets not exaggerate. I'm sure, it works it low levels.
You can't afford full plate till 4th if follow WBL.
Look at levels 1-4:
1st level: +0 Chain shirt (without ACP/SF/Weight)
2nd level: +1 Chain Shirt
4th level: +1 weapon.

Also bonus feats, but mostly eh.

Ragnarok'n'Roll
2010-08-06, 07:42 PM
I think VoP is fine as it is and isn't nearly as bad as people moan about.


Personally I like VoP for the fact that I don't have to worry about loot at all (besides donating my share asap). I also know that by level XX I will have the equalivant of a ring of endure elements, ring of sustance, +2 orge gauntlets etc. Not having to worry about what equipment the DM throws in my path or if we'll get to a shop before we die is nice :smallsmile:

If you build your character with the bonuses you get in mind you can plan for some nice synergy that really minimizes how far behind you end in equipment/power after level 15. I don't mind even giving up some gp worth of equipment just for the security of knowing what I am going to get 5 levels down the road.


I don't allow the VoP 'fixes' in my game but they are popular. My attitude is if VoP is so broken, then don't use it.

Ragnarok'n'Roll
2010-08-06, 07:49 PM
VoP as given in BoED permanently gimps you on attacks, AC, ability scores, and saves compared to what non-VoP party members will have at ANY level.


Completely and utterly untrue.

Jallorn
2010-08-06, 07:50 PM
I think VoP is fine as it is and isn't nearly as bad as people moan about.


Personally I like VoP for the fact that I don't have to worry about loot at all (besides donating my share asap). I also know that by level XX I will have the equalivant of a ring of endure elements, ring of sustance, +2 orge gauntlets etc. Not having to worry about what equipment the DM throws in my path or if we'll get to a shop before we die is nice :smallsmile:

If you build your character with the bonuses you get in mind you can plan for some nice synergy that really minimizes how far behind you end in equipment/power after level 15. I don't mind even giving up some gp worth of equipment just for the security of knowing what I am going to get 5 levels down the road.


I don't allow the VoP 'fixes' in my game but they are popular. My attitude is if VoP is so broken, then don't use it.

So your argument is that if someone sees a mechanic that they like but that is poorly executed, they should forget it?

Perhaps a little background would help this conversation. I'm playing a Centaur Druid who has traded his wild shaping and his armor for some monk and ranger abilities (as per the UA variant) and Spontaneous summoning for Bardic Knowledge. He is a wise mentor type (like his inspiration Chiron) and has no need for possessions, being able to survive just fine on his own. He is good aligned, but hardly an exalted character, so aside from VoP and Nymph's Kiss, none of the exalted feats appeal to him. He also doesn't rely all that much on his magic (So very rarely does he use flashy or powerful spells), preferring to use it mostly just for utilitarian purposes, and enter combat directly himself. VoP as is would be a serious gimp and provide him with a host of abilities he doesn't want or need and that don't make sense for him to have. That's why I want the fix. I haven't said this to my DM yet, but I don't even plan to take advantage of the flight or sustenance, since, again, they don't particularly fit the character.

Jallorn
2010-08-06, 07:51 PM
Completely and utterly untrue.

Compare any class that has a moderate dependency on magic items between a VoP and non-VoP form, and you will find that the VoP class is severely weakened.

Talbot
2010-08-06, 08:05 PM
*Shameless Plug*

You may want to try and get him to ok this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162270) VOP alt instead.... it grants a lot less stat/offensive boosts while bumping up survivability and giving a little more flexibility.

Ragnarok'n'Roll
2010-08-06, 08:22 PM
Compare any class that has a moderate dependency on magic items between a VoP and non-VoP form, and you will find that the VoP class is severely weakened.


level 1 monk non-vop has 4 AC less than a monk with vop. Everything else is pretty much equal...

The orginal statement was any class at any level. I said it was untrue and it is.

Ragnarok'n'Roll
2010-08-06, 08:30 PM
So your argument is that if someone sees a mechanic that they like but that is poorly executed, they should forget it?



More along the lines of I personally don't think it's poorly executed but if you do, then maybe its not for you.

However,

You seem to have an interesting character concept in mind so I'd say all the power to you about approaching your DM with options and trade-offs to make your character 'fit' your ideas. I just disagree that VoP is 'teh broken'

Thrice Dead Cat
2010-08-06, 09:30 PM
At low levels, VoP is at least equal as having real monies for some characters, but as you progress it turns into a limited 80% standard WBL. Unless through race or some form of permanent aid, most VoP characters will never be able to fly or gain terribly much in the way of weapon enhancements, armor enhancements and general wondrous items, some of which can be crucial for Not Dieing (TM).

Milskidasith
2010-08-06, 10:09 PM
The only problems I find with VoP are the feat requirements and limitations for some classes (spellbooks). VoP should not be as powerful as wealth by level, but the initial feat and VoP itself being a feat makes voluntary poverty and absolute charity seem a supposed route for power (as all feats are) rather than a character facet. This runs counter to the idea of being worthy of Exalted feats.

May include levitation and eventual flight, but the linked fix seems to be how to avoid any negative aspects of magical items such as shopping, bookkeeping, or loss, not that this, while better than current VoP, is really equal to wealth for every character.

Just play a character of charity and ignore the feats.

I do not understand why you think the vow of poverty thing should weaken a character, or why you think characters should be weaker because they are exalted. They're incredibly good, not incompetent.

Also, the linked fix, save the epic progression of it that is given later, burns a feat and all your WBL in order to get you bonuses that, while good, don't give you the benefits of specific magic items you might need, such as, say, a belt of battle, or scrolls for more spells known, or items that can copy feats for you (gloves of the balanced hand). While that VoP is certainly worth taking, it's not overpowered, and the notion that a feat should actively make a character weaker simply doesn't make sense to me.

Hirax
2010-08-06, 10:32 PM
level 1 monk non-vop has 4 AC less than a monk with vop. Everything else is pretty much equal...

The orginal statement was any class at any level. I said it was untrue and it is.

Fair enough, at low levels the difference is trivial you're right, the gap only gets wider and wider though.

Vangor
2010-08-06, 11:12 PM
I do not understand why you think the vow of poverty thing should weaken a character, or why you think characters should be weaker because they are exalted. They're incredibly good, not incompetent.

I did not say characters should be weaker because they are exalted, but being good for the rewards is not worthy of being exalted, and trying to reap rewards of being equal or better than what wealth could buy you in terms of what is important in d&d, magical enhancements and abilities, is counter to the idea of charity. I would argue all good characters are essentially weaker individually than evil counterparts, but the important aspect of good characters is building reliable, trustworthy relationships which evil characters cannot necessarily do. For a charitable character worthy of being exalted, I would be willing to bet most anyone who recognizes you would be willing to offer help you truly could not buy, which is what voluntary poverty should entail, not a lack of bookkeeping your magical items.

You're giving away all of your wealth for charity, not throwing a bunch of gold towards a ritual. The vow is extreme, eclipsing merely having a code of conduct.


While that VoP is certainly worth taking, it's not overpowered, and the notion that a feat should actively make a character weaker simply doesn't make sense to me.

Notice in my explanation vow of poverty would not be a feat because a feat making a character weaker absolutely does not make sense to me either. If a vow of poverty'esque feat were to be made as many people expect to rival wealth by level without real drawbacks, we should just call this "Absorb Magical Equipment".

Demons_eye
2010-08-06, 11:23 PM
level 1 monk non-vop has 4 AC less than a monk with vop. Everything else is pretty much equal...

The orginal statement was any class at any level. I said it was untrue and it is.

All right I give the one non VoP monk a monks belt and a ring of deflection. Yes WBL wise hes not right but if you found those things for a boss fight, or DM just decided to, VoP monk is gimped.

Milskidasith
2010-08-06, 11:32 PM
I did not say characters should be weaker because they are exalted, but being good for the rewards is not worthy of being exalted, and trying to reap rewards of being equal or better than what wealth could buy you in terms of what is important in d&d, magical enhancements and abilities, is counter to the idea of charity. I would argue all good characters are essentially weaker individually than evil counterparts, but the important aspect of good characters is building reliable, trustworthy relationships which evil characters cannot necessarily do. For a charitable character worthy of being exalted, I would be willing to bet most anyone who recognizes you would be willing to offer help you truly could not buy, which is what voluntary poverty should entail, not a lack of bookkeeping your magical items.

So... you are arguing that exalted characters should be weaker because they are exalted. That's exactly what you are saying, even if you are reframing the question by saying less "Exalted is weaker" as "Exalted can't do all the things evil can do because friendship is more important than metagame concepts."

Expanding on that point: The VoP feat is a metagame concept. Just because a character has it doesn't mean he knows "I'm getting more value than most people of my skill would with the gold they get by adventuring, but everybody who seems to get granted this power has the same specific abilities while people who use items get variety and can sacrifice benefits they don't want." All he really has to know, and even this may not be entirely necessary, is just that his devotion to whatever gives him power. That doesn't mean the character is metagaming, even if the player wants to play a really devout holy man without sacrificing competency. There are probably plenty of people with an actual vow of poverty in the campaign world that don't get anything, and, likewise, you can easily refluff a VoP character as being item'd out the wazoo, as long as he still gets the specific benefits.


You're giving away all of your wealth for charity, not throwing a bunch of gold towards a ritual. The vow is extreme, eclipsing merely having a code of conduct.

Yes, and that doesn't mean it has to be so extreme as to cause an effect on purely metagame aspects of the game. Just because he's vowed to be poor does not mean that he knows he's magically getting more benefit than rich people (which he isn't necessarily; again, flexibility versus straight benefits; MAD classes get a lot more than SAD classes out of VoP, and item dependent builds can't really use the VoP effectively). Not only that, but again, being merely fluff, you could just say the guy carries around all the magical gear he wants with VoP (custom made, if you want to explain why it advances constantly), but that it only gets set benefits and it's arcanomagnetic signature disrupts the phlebotinium based pseudo-magickey-science of other items.


Notice in my explanation vow of poverty would not be a feat because a feat making a character weaker absolutely does not make sense to me either. If a vow of poverty'esque feat were to be made as many people expect to rival wealth by level without real drawbacks, we should just call this "Absorb Magical Equipment".

That's another example of refluffing. Refluffing is a good thing for the game. I cannot possibly see how giving up all your wealth for no mechanical benefit can ever be good for the game, just because, metagame-wise, you are very weak.

Basically, here's how I see it:

VoP is, mechanically, giving up access to flexibility in equipment in order to get generic benefits.

The fluff attached is one of extreme devoutness and intentional poverty, but that doesn't have to be the case.

Fluff and crunch are interchangeable.

Therefore, VoP can be taken by any character, regardless of fluff, to get set benefits without flexibility. Whether they absorb excess magic from equipment due to a mutation, have their own custom built gear that they can't wear with other things, or actually do just get powers due to their devoutness to their cause, it's still there.

Likewise, the fluff of vow of poverty, forswearing material wealth, does not necessarily imply the crunch. Not all poverty stricken people can say "Hey, I'm poor, slap on some stat boost."

In short-er: There is no reason playing a character who is devout about not having possessions needs to hinder you metagame-wise, and there is no reason that wanting to get an easy magic item package in a box requires you to play a really devout poor person.

Vangor
2010-08-07, 12:55 AM
So... you are arguing that exalted characters should be weaker because they are exalted. That's exactly what you are saying, even if you are reframing the question by saying less "Exalted is weaker" as "Exalted can't do all the things evil can do because friendship is more important than metagame concepts."

Again, not what I said. I said, "I would argue all good characters are essentially weaker individually," but this is strictly by playing as good characters. Mechanically I see no reason to weaken them and no way this makes sense. They should not be weaker purely because they are exalted, but they will be weaker individually because they are exalted, because they will ignore rewards and expend resources and further where a less good character would not. This is all this meant.

Poverty is an entirely different aspect because the weakness is being without such items. This is unavoidable.


That doesn't mean the character is metagaming, even if the player wants to play a really devout holy man without sacrificing competency.

If your character would not have chosen to be charitable without a fixed vow of poverty, you are metagaming. The world down the road becomes too difficult with standard buffs, and therefore he leaves the path of poverty. Except, you "fixed" poverty, and therefore he stays with poverty because this is not so bad. And this is the problem is you preemptively metagame in such a way he never has to choose a life of hardship as far as your campaign is concerned.


There is no reason playing a character who is devout about not having possessions needs to hinder you metagame-wise, and there is no reason that wanting to get an easy magic item package in a box requires you to play a really devout poor person.

You seem to have missed my initial point, "This runs counter to the idea of being worthy of Exalted feats." If you are concerned lack of possessions will hinder your statistics, divest the roleplay aspects. Every discussion of VoP seems to steer towards how bad and what a trap the feat is, which I am not arguing, but everyone starts from this position a heavily roleplay invested feat needs to be mechanically more balanced.

This is why I also said, "the linked fix seems to be how to avoid any negative aspects of magical items." If this is all a person wants a person will have no argument from me. However, if a person wants to be exalted by way of charitable deeds, I'll mention they seem to be ignoring exactly what this entails.

Kaww
2010-08-07, 01:38 AM
Try VoP, Vow of nonviolence, Vow of peace, Saint With high Con and Cha. That is not weak. Hell it's better than damage reduction. If someone succeeds to attack you chances are his weapon will crumble and deal no damage. Play it with someone who charms and dominates and it's a breaker of minds. I have a lvl 6 bard with dc 25 charm person. If you think this is not overpowered what is?

Milskidasith
2010-08-07, 01:55 AM
Again, not what I said. I said, "I would argue all good characters are essentially weaker individually," but this is strictly by playing as good characters. Mechanically I see no reason to weaken them and no way this makes sense. They should not be weaker purely because they are exalted, but they will be weaker individually because they are exalted, because they will ignore rewards and expend resources and further where a less good character would not. This is all this meant.

Yes, you are saying good characters should be weak. I don't understand how I could be any more clear with this: Saying good characters should be incapable of being as effective in combat due to being good is saying they should be weak, regardless of if the justification is that doing so would break the flavor or if you just give them mechanical penalties.


If your character would not have chosen to be charitable without a fixed vow of poverty, you are metagaming.

This makes no sense at all. I honestly cannot comprehend the view that the only way you aren't metagaming when playing a VoP character is to have been willing to play somebody who was utterly incapable of doing anything against level appropriate foes due to having no equipment.

Not only that, but not everybody builds from fluff first; plenty of people go crunch first, then fluff. Neither is any better or worse than the other, and neither is metagaming, which isn't even inherently bad because, to a degree, it is necessary. If all you are saying is that taking the VoP in order to offset having no cash is making a choice based on the power of the character, I say... so what? The character doesn't choose the feat, the player does, and you can refluff it however you want, and you shouldn't have to play a horribly underoptimized character just to fit your concept. In this case, if you absolutely refuse to refluff, then yes, metagaming is a very good thing, much like metagaming to know how your spells work or when you've hit or missed or about the entire concept of saving throws is a good thing; playing with characters who did not know about the system at all would be nearly impossible and tremendously unfun.


The world down the road becomes too difficult with standard buffs, and therefore he leaves the path of poverty. Except, you "fixed" poverty, and therefore he stays with poverty because this is not so bad. And this is the problem is you preemptively metagame in such a way he never has to choose a life of hardship as far as your campaign is concerned.

This is all fluff. It has nothing to do with the crunch. The two are separate. You don't have to actually play a character that is woefully incompetent at everything to play somebody who is a man who gave up all material possessions due to devoutness, and I am fairly certain a standard adventuring life is high in hardship. Even then, it does not matter. The only metagaming that exists in this situation is the fact that the player doesn't want to be incompetent, which is perfectly reasonable. The player does not have to suffer hardships just because the character concept does, much like players don't have to be eloquent to play high charisma characters.

Again, taking the VoP feat if you are a character who doesn't want items for whatever reason is, if it is metagaming, certainly not bad in any way whatsoever.


You seem to have missed my initial point, "This runs counter to the idea of being worthy of Exalted feats." If you are concerned lack of possessions will hinder your statistics, divest the roleplay aspects. Every discussion of VoP seems to steer towards how bad and what a trap the feat is, which I am not arguing, but everyone starts from this position a heavily roleplay invested feat needs to be mechanically more balanced.

You've entirely missed my point. The point is this: It doesn't matter what the fluff is. The fluff is irrelevant to the crunch. The crunch is irrelevant to the fluff. The vow of poverty is an exalted feat, yes (although the rework isn't) so it does come with certain restrictions... but the player is the guy who chooses the mechanical aspects of the character, and the character is the one who is roleplayed. The player doesn't have to be a perfect exalted person in real life to play one, and, likewise, he doesn't have to be willing to endure the hardship of being completely without any kind of bonuses in a game designed towards getting them just because he wants to play somebody who swore off magic items.

The point is basically this: In the campaign world, the characters don't know about feats anyway. If a guy has the vow of poverty feat, he doesn't know "I took the vow of poverty so I don't have to use items," he just knows "Insert explanation (absorbing magic, cusstom and preset items, being devout towards a cause) gives him strength." Likewise, nobody in the campaign knows that he has the feat; he just does those things. The player making decisions to make the character more effective does not, in any way, make the character greedy for being more effective.


This is why I also said, "the linked fix seems to be how to avoid any negative aspects of magical items." If this is all a person wants a person will have no argument from me. However, if a person wants to be exalted by way of charitable deeds, I'll mention they seem to be ignoring exactly what this entails.

Character /=/ player. Likewise, being mechanically competent doesn't matter for roleplaying. NPCs don't know you have the vow of poverty, and players don't have to be willing to go without all mechanical usefulness to play a character who wants to go without items.

Point summarized: The character and the player, the roleplaying aspects and the mechanics, the fluff and the crunch, whatever you want to define them as, are different.

All of your arguments deal with how "The character isn't worthy of being exalted because he wants to be competent" and stuff like that, but it intentionally clouds what should otherwise be clear; the character wants to achieve his goals, the player wants him to be competent. The fluff says he's poor and doesn't use items, the crunch says that he's got a way to not be useless while still maintaining that. The roleplaying says that he's an exceptionally devout man, the mechanics say that he's a mildly competent fighter by the numbers.

If a player wants to play somebody who is very devout and self sacrificing, the player himself does not need to be self sacrificing. He doesn't have to be weak and get criticized for metagaming by picking up a feat that allows his concept to work at all.

Jallorn
2010-08-07, 02:11 AM
-snip-
If your character would not have chosen to be charitable without a fixed vow of poverty, you are metagaming. The world down the road becomes too difficult with standard buffs, and therefore he leaves the path of poverty. Except, you "fixed" poverty, and therefore he stays with poverty because this is not so bad. And this is the problem is you preemptively metagame in such a way he never has to choose a life of hardship as far as your campaign is concerned.
-snip-

You are forgetting that metagaming is acceptable when creating a character. As long as you are consistent, then it's generally ok. In fact, constructing a character's stats is inherently a metagame concept. So you see a nice feat and decide to build an aspect of your character's personality around it, great, I see no problem with it. It wouldn't be much fun to play a character who can't do anything because he's poor, now would it? You are hung up on the idea that forsaking items has to make you weaker, but that's just dumb when it comes to playing a hero. Heroes in stories who forsake material goods are often superhuman to some extent, because they have adapted to the world without the crutch of items most people have. He's not a simple aesthetic monk, he's a hero, one in a thousand, if not more, so yeah, I think that the feat should be balanced with a character who doesn't have it. That said, the advantage of not being able to lose those powers is certainly worth a small drop in approximate wealth balance.

Milskidasith
2010-08-07, 02:14 AM
That said, the advantage of not being able to lose those powers is certainly worth a small drop in approximate wealth balance.

And the inability to be flexible with those powers, leaving you many that, as a non MAD character, you probably won't lose, along with giving less ability to pump one stat or buy specific gamechanging (for their level) items, like anklets of translocation or the belt of battle, is worth a nice drizzle back into the wealth bucket.

Ozymandias9
2010-08-07, 03:21 AM
Yes, you are saying good characters should be weak. I don't understand how I could be any more clear with this: Saying good characters should be incapable of being as effective in combat due to being good is saying they should be weak, regardless of if the justification is that doing so would break the flavor or if you just give them mechanical penalties.

Scenario: A dragon attacks the town and burns down the orphanage. There are two adventurers in town, one good and one evil. Together the adventurers slay the dragon and take its horde. The good adventurer gives a significant portion of his take to rebuild the orphanage. The evil adventurer spends the full amount on phat lewtz. Which adventurer has gained more power?

Less unnecessarily didactically, so long as there is both:
A) a fluff element which includes a willingness to give up material goods without personal gain
-and-
B) a crunch system in which uses material goods to increase power

it will not always be possible to divorce those fluff and crunch elements. They are, after all, both based on the same thing-- the material good.

The point of VoP was to partially offset the sacrifice that the fluff dictates.

However, if the sacrifice is fully offset, it ceases to be sacrifice and becomes trade. While the character is probably not fully aware of the details of feats and WBL, they likely have some concept of their power. If VoP were a trade that a character concerned only with power would make, then it will likely break the verisimilitude of taking it to represent self-sacrifice.


This makes no sense at all. I honestly cannot comprehend the view that the only way you aren't metagaming when playing a VoP character is to have been willing to play somebody who was utterly incapable of doing anything against level appropriate foes due to having no equipment.

From my perspective, the purpose of VoP is to allow you to play a character that you feel should have been willing to do so, but did not because of the basic level of meta-gaming necessary to make the game fun. It's a compromise between breaking verisimilitude because your character can't actually be as self-sacrificing as such a character should be and being useless forever.


The point is basically this: In the campaign world, the characters don't know about feats anyway. If a guy has the vow of poverty feat, he doesn't know "I took the vow of poverty so I don't have to use items," he just knows "Insert explanation (absorbing magic, cusstom and preset items, being devout towards a cause) gives him strength." Likewise, nobody in the campaign knows that he has the feat; he just does those things. The player making decisions to make the character more effective does not, in any way, make the character greedy for being more effective.

The thing is that he does know that it gives him strength. And if it gives him strength in a truly equitable trade, it ceases to be self-sacrificing. It becomes, well, a trade.
For this not to be an issue, the character would have to be unaware of the fact that those strengths come from his self-sacrifice.


He's not a simple aesthetic monk, he's a hero, one in a thousand, if not more, so yeah, I think that the feat should be balanced with a character who doesn't have it.
If you're looking at the feat as representing mystic aestheticism, then I would agree with you. If you are looking at the feat as representing active monetary self-sacrifice, it becomes more questionable.

What it really seems to come down to to me is where verisimilitude breaks for you and your table.

JaronK
2010-08-07, 03:37 AM
Does your DM run normal WBL? Many don't, and if he's not giving full wealth VoP actually comes out amazing. I've had that happen a bunch.

JaronK

Vangor
2010-08-07, 03:45 AM
Yes, you are saying good characters should be weak. I don't understand how I could be any more clear with this: Saying good characters should be incapable of being as effective in combat due to being good is saying they should be weak, regardless of if the justification is that doing so would break the flavor or if you just give them mechanical penalties.

Being selfish, thieving, intimidating, etc., gets you more things and lets you keep more things than being giving, honorable, diplomatic, and so forth. If you so happen to use a Remove Disease on an ill peasant, you may be less capable when needing to actually cure Mummy Rot later. They are not "incompetent", but individually they are without compared to a less good counterpart. "Individually" does not tend to matter where you have chances to be good, though, hence why I say this.


This makes no sense at all. I honestly cannot comprehend the view that the only way you aren't metagaming when playing a VoP character is to have been willing to play somebody who was utterly incapable of doing anything against level appropriate foes due to having no equipment.

I do not recall saying metagaming was bad. You tried to resolve the idea of this not being metagaming, but this is.

I believe the difficulty of this whole conversation can be boiled down to I am arguing from the notion a person wanting to alter VoP may want to actually play an immensely charitable character worthy of being considered exalted. You are arguing from the idea of a mechanically functioning ascetic lifestyle. From most discussions on VoP, my notion tends to be wrong with the idea of badass with a walking stick being on the forefront. For wanting to wield a walking stick, though, VoP is not a very good foundation, which is why I assume someone wants the fluff side.

kestrel404
2010-08-07, 06:29 AM
I think the only fix VoP needs is to allow Incarnum feats in addition to sacred feats. Done.

Anything you want to complain about not getting from magic items, you can get from the Shape Soulmeld, Open X Chakra, and Bonus Essentia feats, as well as the various 'gain ability X by spending essentia for the day' feats.

JaronK
2010-08-07, 10:23 AM
Being selfish, thieving, intimidating, etc., gets you more things and lets you keep more things than being giving, honorable, diplomatic, and so forth. If you so happen to use a Remove Disease on an ill peasant, you may be less capable when needing to actually cure Mummy Rot later. They are not "incompetent", but individually they are without compared to a less good counterpart. "Individually" does not tend to matter where you have chances to be good, though, hence why I say this.

This sounds like the "good people are dumb" argument. If the good character keeps his money and uses it go become a greater warrior because he knows the world depends on him, but the evil character uses his money to build a nifty tower full of luxury because he feels he deserves that (being better than everyone else), the good character will be more powerful, will he not?

Knowing you need effective combat power != evil.

JaronK

Milskidasith
2010-08-07, 11:42 AM
Being selfish, thieving, intimidating, etc., gets you more things and lets you keep more things than being giving, honorable, diplomatic, and so forth. If you so happen to use a Remove Disease on an ill peasant, you may be less capable when needing to actually cure Mummy Rot later. They are not "incompetent", but individually they are without compared to a less good counterpart. "Individually" does not tend to matter where you have chances to be good, though, hence why I say this.

You are arguing good characters should be incompetent and evil characters are always going to take mechanically optimal options. You can rephrase it all you want, but that's what your point boils down to. And it doesn't have to be true; good people can know they need to be capable of saving the world, evil people can waste money and resources, good people can ignore minor problems of peasants to save the planet, evil people can waste their time killing peasants instead of looting from kings. Etc. Just because you are good doesn't mean you have to be dumb, or that you will always be weakened by simply presenting the opportunity to spend resources to do good deeds in front of your character.


I do not recall saying metagaming was bad. You tried to resolve the idea of this not being metagaming, but this is.

I never said it wasn't metagaming. You said it was metagaming in a way that was either totally pointless (saying that building a character based on game mechanics is metagaming, while true, doesn't mean anything since you need to know the rules to make a character), or implying it's a bad thing. There's really no other reasonable interpretation of your post besides "metagaming = bad."


I believe the difficulty of this whole conversation can be boiled down to I am arguing from the notion a person wanting to alter VoP may want to actually play an immensely charitable character worthy of being considered exalted. You are arguing from the idea of a mechanically functioning ascetic lifestyle. From most discussions on VoP, my notion tends to be wrong with the idea of badass with a walking stick being on the forefront. For wanting to wield a walking stick, though, VoP is not a very good foundation, which is why I assume someone wants the fluff side.

The point still stands. You can play an exalted character who has a VoP ability that keeps them relevant without somehow showing you aren't ready to play an exalted character. I don't understand what you are even trying to say anymore; you argue metagaming isn't bad, but your only argument is that the metagaming for taking VoP is bad because it shows the player isn't as selfless as the character concept. You say that you can refluff this, but then say that anybody who wants to take VoP shouldn't be taking it because it goes against the concept of somebody who gives up all wealth willingly.

What are you trying to say?

Also, you can have a walking stick with the VoP. It's essentially a zero cost item.


Scenario: A dragon attacks the town and burns down the orphanage. There are two adventurers in town, one good and one evil. Together the adventurers slay the dragon and take its horde. The good adventurer gives a significant portion of his take to rebuild the orphanage. The evil adventurer spends the full amount on phat lewtz. Which adventurer has gained more power?

Response: You're making an incredibly specific scenario as some form of trap, but there are some problems with it. First off, why do they have to rebuild the orphanage? They saved the town, they're not the ones obligated to drop cash or spells on rebuilding. Yeah, it's a good thing to do, but they are still good for saving the town from the dragon to protect the rest of the people. Second: Why isn't the evil guy spending any cash? He could easily rebuild the orphanage to recruit new people, or just to have good PR, or because even though he's greedy, he doesn't hate children for no reason. Third: Mundane buildings aren't expensive. At dragonslaying levels, dropping 100 g on rebuilding an orphanage is, by D&D's rather stupid economic RAW, enough to keep them fed for months.


Less unnecessarily didactically, so long as there is both:
A) a fluff element which includes a willingness to give up material goods without personal gain
-and-
B) a crunch system in which uses material goods to increase power

it will not always be possible to divorce those fluff and crunch elements. They are, after all, both based on the same thing-- the material good.

Yes, it is entirely possible to divorce them, because they aren't together to begin with. Refluff VoP, then you're fine. You don't even have to refluff it away from having no wealth, just say he's granted the abilities by his god or whatever. It's just an example. There's no reason to say that a good character has to be, crunchwise, weak, just because he gives up magic items. On the other side of the coin, you could have a guy without VoP who's loaded up with magic items, but still fluffs himself as using nothing but mundane items. So what?


However, if the sacrifice is fully offset, it ceases to be sacrifice and becomes trade. While the character is probably not fully aware of the details of feats and WBL, they likely have some concept of their power. If VoP were a trade that a character concerned only with power would make, then it will likely break the verisimilitude of taking it to represent self-sacrifice.

A character's sacrifice is not the same as a player sacrificing things. The character can still, by fluff, have no luxuries and be uncomfortable, etc, etc. without giving up power, and there's no reason to mix the two; punishing the player because he wants to play a certain character concept is a bad idea, and since fluff and crunch are completely separate, it doesn't make sense by a rules standpoint either. Making sure VoP is weak is just a reason to have refluffed characters who are using actual magic items; that's certainly how I'd do VoP without a fix unless I was feeling really lazy.


From my perspective, the purpose of VoP is to allow you to play a character that you feel should have been willing to do so, but did not because of the basic level of meta-gaming necessary to make the game fun. It's a compromise between breaking verisimilitude because your character can't actually be as self-sacrificing as such a character should be and being useless forever.

Except refluffing doesn't break verisimilitude, because it only contradicts the fluff that is no longer in use. To break verisimilitude, you'd have to actually have a contradiction, which just doesn't happen here. Again, as long as VoP is mechanically ineffective, I'll be loaded up with magic items while fluffing it as having nothing but a few weapons and mundane items.

I do not understand the concept of "the player has to sacrifice because the character does." It's the same strange reasoning as why cha 3 barbarians with no diplomacy, when played by the cool kid, can sway kings with their words, while the shy player with charisma 30 and a +70 diplomacy bonus can't convince a shopkeeper to let him buy items at normal cost.




The thing is that he does know that it gives him strength. And if it gives him strength in a truly equitable trade, it ceases to be self-sacrificing. It becomes, well, a trade.
For this not to be an issue, the character would have to be unaware of the fact that those strengths come from his self-sacrifice.

Which is entirely possible, being a fluff issue. Not only that, but this seems like an argument against the entire argument of devout characters; are clerics now not devout servants of their gods because they know it gets them the ability to drop high level spells? Do druids not care about nature just because they get spells for saying they care about it? This is the same situation; it doesn't make any sense to say that the character can't get power from being devout to a specific cause, because only advancing that cause *is* a sacrifice.


If you're looking at the feat as representing mystic aestheticism, then I would agree with you. If you are looking at the feat as representing active monetary self-sacrifice, it becomes more questionable.

Fluff /=/ crunch.


What it really seems to come down to to me is where verisimilitude breaks for you and your table.

The thing I see is that you are not willing to separate fluff and crunch. The character is the character, the player is the player, the numbers are the numbers, the RP actions are the RP actions. They don't have to affect each other, especially not negatively.

true_shinken
2010-08-07, 12:00 PM
Vow of Poverty does not need a fix.
It is not supposed to be powerful.
Not everything in D&D is made to powergame. VoP is an alternative if you want to play a character that donates all his walth to the poor and does not suck so much.

Milskidasith
2010-08-07, 12:02 PM
Vow of Poverty does not need a fix.
It is not supposed to be powerful.
Not everything in D&D is made to powergame. VoP is an alternative if you want to play a character that donates all his walth to the poor and does not suck so much.

Fluff /=/ crunch. If I wanted a character that gave up all his wealth, you know what I'd do? Buy magic items, say I'm not wearing any, and actually would be useful.

Fluff is not a reason for the crunch to be bad. Likewise, though this is a rarer issue and much harder to properly criticize (since, with refluffing, it's not a huge deal anyway), good, balanced crunch doesn't make absolutely terrible fluff any better, though I'm not sure if there really is any fluff that bad.

Jallorn
2010-08-07, 12:09 PM
Vow of Poverty does not need a fix.
It is not supposed to be powerful.
Not everything in D&D is made to powergame. VoP is an alternative if you want to play a character that donates all his walth to the poor and does not suck so much.

I have absolutely no idea what makes you think that. Everything in DnD is supposed to be relatively balanced with everything else, simply providing different options for different types of characters. A game is almost never fun when what little you can actually do can be done better by another character simply because of fluff. So technically, nothing in DnD is made to powergame, but it's there anyway.

In short: You're just plain wrong.

Disclaimer: I have attempted to be as polite as possible, and apologize if any of this comes off as offensive.

Jack_Simth
2010-08-07, 12:14 PM
I'm trying to get a DM to go for this VoP fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140428&), but he's convinced that there is no problem with normal VoP. I would like to ask that you playgrounders help me to convince him to see my side with a board (this one) that discusses just why VoP as is sucks, and, hopefully, explains why the fix is more balanced.

Like most options, it's more or less effective given certain things at the table, and it's better or worse for some builds than others.

For instance, if you're playing a very low-wealth game (e.g., you're not expected to see so much as a Wand of Cure Light Wounds by 10th level), then obviously, the Vow of Poverty is a rocking feat - because it is an attempt at coming close to replacing standard wealth-by-level.

If you're playing in a full Wealth-by-level campaign with Ye Olde Shoppe ofe Everye Magjickquale Iteme ine The Booke ande Thene Some, then the Vow of Poverty is almost always a noticeably sub-par choice.

If you're playing in a game where equipment is commonly attacked or not available (due to Sunder, Slight of Hand, Disjunction, disarming for prison, et cetera), then the Vow of Poverty (which can't be removed in that manner becomes more mechanically attractive.

If you're playing a non-magic character (Fighter, Rogue, Monk, et cetera), a low-magic character (Paladin, Ranger, and such), or a character with a critical item dependency (Wizard, I'm looking at your Spellbook!), then you've got the problem that you're lacking the 'specialty effects' - you can't deal with flight, special materials DR, certain types of regeneration, and so on. If you're playing a Full caster (Cleric, Sorcerer, Druid, et cetera - Wizard can work with certain Alternate Class Features), or a particularly well-built partial caster (Bard), then you can get past that (Fly spells, direct-damage spells bypassing DR, spells for each common type of regeneration, et cetera), and for them, the Vow of Poverty doesn't look so bad.

*Most* of the people who object outright to the Vow of Poverty due so due to flavor concerns - giving up your wealth to gain power? Doesn't seem very Exalted. Some do think it overpowered, and in certain circumstances and for certain builds, it is... but the same could be said for *anything* in D&D. Of course, the variations on tables and circumstance, of necessity, causes variations in how people view it... as they're thinking about the gaming table they go to, which is mostly going to be unique to them.

If you really do want to convince him that the Vow of Poverty is mechanically weaker than standard Wealth by Level, then it's a *lot* of work, but it is usually doable:
Demonstrate.

Build two parties of four standard characters (Say, a Sorcerer, Cleric, Fighter, and Rogue) at each of several particular benchmarks (1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th).
In one set, everyone has the Vow of Poverty. In the other, everyone uses Wealth by Level. Keep to Core items for wealth (this is important), class, race, and any non-Exalted feats (this is important because you don't want him saying that 'oh, well that particular item you used is broken' after you're done). Beyond the Vow of Poverty vs. Wealth, keep the two parties as similar as feasible.

Build a set of challenges appropriate to each of those levels - a close combat encounter, a ranged combat encounter, a terrain hazard encounter, a social encounter, et cetera - the more, the more convicing. Or better yet, have HIM come up with a set of level-appropriate challenges for the parties in question at the levels in question.

Then run both parties through their level-appropriate challenges, and see which party does better.

If you are both open to being convinced, this will convince one of you.

true_shinken
2010-08-07, 12:14 PM
Fluff /=/ crunch. If I wanted a character that gave up all his wealth, you know what I'd do? Buy magic items, say I'm not wearing any, and actually would be useful.
Except that does not depend on you. It depends on the DM and in this case I'm sure no one would allow that.
"I'm using a wand, but it's not a wand, so I don't have to draw it and it can't be sundered."
"I'm using armor, but I'm not actually using armor, so I won't take armor check penalty."
The inverse is also ridiculous. If your refluffed non-wand is suddenly sundered... what the heck happened in game? And how does your naked character make so much noise while walking?


Fluff is not a reason for the crunch to be bad. Likewise, though this is a rarer issue and much harder to properly criticize (since, with refluffing, it's not a huge deal anyway), good, balanced crunch doesn't make absolutely terrible fluff any better, though I'm not sure if there really is any fluff that bad.
So what? Book of Exalted Deeds was not written to provide "good, balanced crunch". The book is all about the fluff. It even says so in the introduction. Complaining about what VoP should or shouldn't be just means you didn't get it. It is not supposed to be that strong. You want a crunch alternative? Go homebrew one, like people tend to do. Go crazy. Just don't complain about how VoP works as written, because it does what it intended to do. It just does not lend itself to (much) powergaming. Even as written, VoP is pretty decent on druids, for example.


All right I give the one non VoP monk a monks belt and a ring of deflection. Yes WBL wise hes not right but if you found those things for a boss fight, or DM just decided to, VoP monk is gimped.
Oh, so if you don't follow the rules (and somehow get more than 1000 times your expected WBL, since you need a ring of protection +4 to compete with VoP) you are gimped. Thanks for clearing that out.


I have absolutely no idea what makes you think that. Everything in DnD is supposed to be relatively balanced with everything else, simply providing different options for different types of characters. A game is almost never fun when what little you can actually do can be done better by another character simply because of fluff. So technically, nothing in DnD is made to powergame, but it's there anyway.

In short: You're just plain wrong.

Disclaimer: I have attempted to be as polite as possible, and apologize if any of this comes off as offensive.
Did you even read the sidebars on voluntary poverty and the introduction to the Book of Exalted Deeds? VoP is meant to "help outweigh the lack of those items". It's just a "don't suck so much" clause. It's not a "go crazy with equipment you can't ever lose" thing. That feat was created so that you could make a voluntarily impoverished character without competly gimping yourself. If you want to be balanced, find another way.

Milskidasith
2010-08-07, 01:12 PM
Except that does not depend on you. It depends on the DM and in this case I'm sure no one would allow that.
"I'm using a wand, but it's not a wand, so I don't have to draw it and it can't be sundered."
"I'm using armor, but I'm not actually using armor, so I won't take armor check penalty."
The inverse is also ridiculous. If your refluffed non-wand is suddenly sundered... what the heck happened in game? And how does your naked character make so much noise while walking?

Here's the thing: Refluffing still works here! The equipment you are using is mundane gear (which the VoP fix allows, and isn't a bad idea on the normal vow of poverty), and you can just channel magic through sticks. I never said I would be mechanically better in any way, and you assuming that is actually offensive to me. I said you could refluff your gear into being mundane gear and common stuff you found which works, while not specifically within the confines of VoP, still as a workable poor character, not that I'd ask for all the power of magic items without getting any of the penalties (and notice, I said I'd buy magic items and not be wearing any magic items, not that I wouldn't use appropriate mundane gear as refluffing).



So what? Book of Exalted Deeds was not written to provide "good, balanced crunch". The book is all about the fluff. It even says so in the introduction. Complaining about what VoP should or shouldn't be just means you didn't get it. It is not supposed to be that strong. You want a crunch alternative? Go homebrew one, like people tend to do. Go crazy. Just don't complain about how VoP works as written, because it does what it intended to do. It just does not lend itself to (much) powergaming. Even as written, VoP is pretty decent on druids, for example.

Stop insulting us, please. We "get it." We understand that it's supposed to have restrictions and all that, and that is fine for fluff, but mechanically, the feat is sub-optimal, and upgrading the feat doesn't make you any less Exalted, because the character doesn't know he's taking feats and mechanics don't have to interfere with the fluff or vice versa.



Did you even read the sidebars on voluntary poverty and the introduction to the Book of Exalted Deeds? VoP is meant to "help outweigh the lack of those items". It's just a "don't suck so much" clause. It's not a "go crazy with equipment you can't ever lose" thing. That feat was created so that you could make a voluntarily impoverished character without competly gimping yourself. If you want to be balanced, find another way.

Bad design goals are still bad design goals, unbalanced feats are still unbalanced, and fluff and crunch are still completely separate from each other. The design goal of "Make it so, instead of refluffing, you gimp yourself, but not as much as if you just didn't use items" is a very poor one, which is why the VoP fixes and people supporting refluffing exist.

true_shinken
2010-08-07, 01:24 PM
Here's the thing: Refluffing still works here! The equipment you are using is mundane gear (which the VoP fix allows, and isn't a bad idea on the normal vow of poverty), and you can just channel magic through sticks.
Which still means it does not matter if your gear is stolen or sundered. You are still gaining mechanical benefits from refluffing.



I said you could refluff your gear into being mundane gear and common stuff you found which works, while not specifically within the confines of VoP, still as a workable poor character
Except not. Anything that costs gold pieces already means you are not poor. Having a weapon, a spell component pouch or a suit of armor already makes you a lot richer than most people.


Stop insulting us, please. We "get it." We understand that it's supposed to have restrictions and all that, and that is fine for fluff, but mechanically, the feat is sub-optimal, and upgrading the feat doesn't make you any less Exalted, because the character doesn't know he's taking feats and mechanics don't have to interfere with the fluff or vice versa.
I'm not insulting anyone. I'm just saying the feat is supposed to work exactly like it does. It is intended to be sub-optimal. If you want to homebrew a "fix", like I said before, knock yourself out. VoP is just not supposed to work like you want.


Bad design goals are still bad design goals, unbalanced feats are still unbalanced, and fluff and crunch are still completely separate from each other. The design goal of "Make it so, instead of refluffing, you gimp yourself, but not as much as if you just didn't use items" is a very poor one, which is why the VoP fixes and people supporting refluffing exist.
Well, there are LOTS of unbalanced feats in the game. D&D 3.5 is not a balanced game. Period. Stop pretending otherwise.
"Bad design" is just a matter of perspective. What you dislike, other people might like. You think it's a poor one because you "don't want to gimp yourself". I as a DM have a player with VoP; I work to get him into situations where he might shine even if his power is a bit lacking. I don't have a problem with his VoP at all. He never even asked for a boost to his VoP, because he wants the feat for a concept.
Not everyone thinks fluff and crunch don't mix, and D&D designers also don't think that. Lots of options have fluff requirements/disadvantages that people who insist on 'refluffing' simply ignore on their 'refluffing'.
If you think this way, fine. I just don't and the people who wrote BoED obviously don't as well.

Milskidasith
2010-08-07, 01:34 PM
Which still means it does not matter if your gear is stolen or sundered. You are still gaining mechanical benefits from refluffing.

No, if it gets stolen or sundered, it's stolen or sundered. I think I was pretty clear on that issue.


Except not. Anything that costs gold pieces already means you are not poor. Having a weapon, a spell component pouch or a suit of armor already makes you a lot richer than most people.

It's called refluffing for a reason. You are bringing fluff up on this a ton, but guess what? It can be homemade, crappy armor/weapons with sentimental value. Effectively zero cost, hard to replace, etc, etc. There's a reason it's called refluffing, and, again, I find it insulting you are assuming I would actively try to game the system when all I am proposing is refluffing things; all the mechanics stay exactly the same.


I'm not insulting anyone. I'm just saying the feat is supposed to work exactly like it does. It is intended to be sub-optimal. If you want to homebrew a "fix", like I said before, knock yourself out. VoP is just not supposed to work like you want.

Trying to argue that fluff should determine mechanics is still bad, and yes, it is insulting to say "You can do what you want, but your way is wrong" which is basically what this entire paragraph was.



Well, there are LOTS of unbalanced feats in the game. D&D 3.5 is not a balanced game. Period. Stop pretending otherwise.


I am not pretending it is a perfect game. I am just advocating acting in a way that makes it more balanced.


"Bad design" is just a matter of perspective. What you dislike, other people might like. You think it's a poor one because you "don't want to gimp yourself". I as a DM have a player with VoP; I work to get him into situations where he might shine even if his power is a bit lacking. I don't have a problem with his VoP at all. He never even asked for a boost to his VoP, because he wants the feat for a concept.

Bad design is a matter of perspective, yes, but the base question of "Should we make feats that mechanically gimp you" is pretty much always a "no" in the design category. The fluff doesn't make up for this, which is my entire point.

Personal examples are a bad argumentative tool. I can say that I've played a poor character who still had gear that was refluffed exactly the way I've said, or seen people in my party who took the VoP frustrated because they weren't doing as well, or whatever, but guess what? It won't convince you, because you can't verify it, and, further, anecdotes really don't matter to balance.


Not everyone thinks fluff and crunch don't mix, and D&D designers also don't think that. Lots of options have fluff requirements/disadvantages that people who insist on 'refluffing' simply ignore on their 'refluffing'.
If you think this way, fine. I just don't and the people who wrote BoED obviously don't as well.

They don't mix to enough of an extent fluff should actually hurt a character mechanically. D&D core books specifically advocate refluffing. There are a few things with fluff requirements, such as PrCs, but most of those are incredibly simplistic; no good people get to be PrCs that focus on [evil] spells, for instance, or a PrC that gets you to join an organization requires you to have met a member of the organization. Those have slightly more limited refluffing if you aren't willing to completely remove the fluff requirements, which I would support but isn't really RAW, but even then, there's a vast amount of refluffing you can do.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-07, 01:35 PM
Well, there are LOTS of unbalanced feats in the game. D&D 3.5 is not a balanced game. Period. Stop pretending otherwise. No one is pretending otherwise... but I think you are missing a very vital point: We don't have to abide to all the rules as if they were dogmas.

Thus, if someone wants to rework VoP into functionality, stopping other people's attempts to do so because "it's not what VoP is meant to be" is just ignoring the fact that no one is supposed to follow a rule they don't like.



tl;dr: don't bother saying houseruling breaks the game's concepts. that's the purpose of houseruling.

true_shinken
2010-08-07, 01:49 PM
No, if it gets stolen or sundered, it's stolen or sundered. I think I was pretty clear on that issue.
So your ability to 'infuse items with magic' makes no sense. That's the kind of thing I'd have issues in a game I DM. I prefer when stuff makes some sense.


It's called refluffing for a reason. You are bringing fluff up on this a ton, but guess what? It can be homemade, crappy armor/weapons with sentimental value. Effectively zero cost, hard to replace, etc, etc.
The components enough make this an issue.

There's a reason it's called refluffing, and, again, I find it insulting you are assuming I would actively try to game the system when all I am proposing is refluffing things; all the mechanics stay exactly the same.
My point is that the mechanics staying exactly the same does not make any sense using the refluffing you propose.



Trying to argue that fluff should determine mechanics is still bad, and yes, it is insulting to say "You can do what you want, but your way is wrong" which is basically what this entire paragraph was.
If you feel insulted, I apologize. My point stands, though.


Bad design is a matter of perspective, yes, but the base question of "Should we make feats that mechanically gimp you" is pretty much always a "no" in the design category. The fluff doesn't make up for this, which is my entire point.
But it is a not a feat that gimps you.
BoED was not written with the concept of 'giving quirky new powers'. It was written with the concept of 'translating some stuff to D&D rules'. Voluntary poverty is common among people known as saints in our world, but would completly gimp D&D characters. So they make a feat to allow you to play that specific concept (not someone who 'infuses magic onto their equipment', not someone who 'does not need magical items'). If it was as strong as magical equipment, you'd soon have lots of people taking VoP just for the benefits, and that's obviously not what was intended. It was meant to be a matter of concept first, mechanics second.
Even then, VoP does not 'gimp you' like you so frequently say. Any spellcaster that still can use his magic with VoP will STILL be miles ahead of non-casters with or without VoP.
I'm not saying your way is wrong. I'm just saying it is not what I think and cleraly not what the designers of BoED as well. The right way to play your game is the way you want it.



Personal examples are a bad argumentative tool. I can say that I've played a poor character who still had gear that was refluffed exactly the way I've said, or seen people in my party who took the VoP frustrated because they weren't doing as well, or whatever, but guess what? It won't convince you, because you can't verify it, and, further, anecdotes really don't matter to balance.
And so what? I'm trying to convince you of anything. You have your playstyle and I have mine. I'm just mentioning something I thought was interesting.


They don't mix to enough of an extent fluff should actually hurt a character mechanically. D&D core books specifically advocate refluffing. There are a few things with fluff requirements, such as PrCs, but most of those are incredibly simplistic; no good people get to be PrCs that focus on [evil] spells, for instance, or a PrC that gets you to join an organization requires you to have met a member of the organization. Those have slightly more limited refluffing if you aren't willing to completely remove the fluff requirements, which I would support but isn't really RAW, but even then, there's a vast amount of refluffing you can do.
One of those things with fluff requirements? Exalted feats. VoP just happens to be one of them.
You can refluff anything you want if your DM allows. The D&D core books just say you can change the name of things, though. It specifically states it. Visual effects are handled under spells (and spell only) and meant to be very slightly altered - anything that even makes your spell look more powerful is out. Refluffing, the way you present it, is simply a house rule. Discussing house rules is not the goal for this forum. There is another one full of homebrewed stuff and house rules I'm sure you'd enjoy.


No one is pretending otherwise... but I think you are missing a very vital point: We don't have to abide to all the rules as if they were dogmas.

Thus, if someone wants to rework VoP into functionality, stopping other people's attempts to do so because "it's not what VoP is meant to be" is just ignoring the fact that no one is supposed to follow a rule they don't like.



tl;dr: don't bother saying houseruling breaks the game's concepts. that's the purpose of houseruling.

Indeed, you are right.

Milskidasith
2010-08-07, 02:06 PM
So your ability to 'infuse items with magic' makes no sense. That's the kind of thing I'd have issues in a game I DM. I prefer when stuff makes some sense.

It's D&D. People fly, teleport at will, wield swords that are on fire and freezing cold at the same time, and, by fifth or sixth level, do things far better than olympic atheletes could hope to do. The ability to have your magic weapons look like pieces of crap doesn't make any less sense.


The components enough make this an issue.

Only if you go strictly by the basic VoPs fluff, which is the exact opposite point of refluffing.


My point is that the mechanics staying exactly the same does not make any sense using the refluffing you propose.


They do make sense. My initial proposal was vague on the details, but you can easily get it refluffed so it works. All the problems with the issue have been details you made up about how it would work to attack them.


If you feel insulted, I apologize. My point stands, though.

So... you're sorry for saying that the way I play is wrong, but still say the way I play is wrong? That still offends me.


But it is a not a feat that gimps you.

Mechanically, you give up all WBL to get very specific items that total up to 80% of your wealth by level. That gimps you.


BoED was not written with the concept of 'giving quirky new powers'. It was written with the concept of 'translating some stuff to D&D rules'. Voluntary poverty is common among people known as saints in our world, but would completly gimp D&D characters. So they make a feat to allow you to play that specific concept (not someone who 'infuses magic onto their equipment', not someone who 'does not need magical items'). If it was as strong as magical equipment, you'd soon have lots of people taking VoP just for the benefits, and that's obviously not what was intended. It was meant to be a matter of concept first, mechanics second.

My question is this: What does this have to do with what I've said? I've simply said that mechanics and fluff don't have to go together, and good fluff doesn't make up for bad mechanics. Saying "This is about fluff, even if the mechanics aren't great" is simply reiterating a point I've already disagreed with. The question is this: Why do you have to be gimped to play a poor character?


Even then, VoP does not 'gimp you' like you so frequently say. Any spellcaster that still can use his magic with VoP will STILL be miles ahead of non-casters with or without VoP.

They're still weaker than non VoP spellcasters. When a feat actively makes you worse for taking it, it is definitely gimping you. Don't say "it gives you a ton of benefits if you already weren't using items" because it's still weaker than just getting items (whether by actually having them or refluffing homemade stuff as giving magical effects).


I'm not saying your way is wrong. I'm just saying it is not what I think and cleraly not what the designers of BoED as well. The right way to play your game is the way you want it.

You actually did say the way I played was wrong. Also, in general, the designers of D&D products haven't really thought things through, at all, and even if they had, RAI doesn't really matter when discussing the mechanics of increasing the power of VoP and the ability to refluff it if you really care that much about exalted characters being gimped.


One of those things with fluff requirements? Exalted feats. VoP just happens to be one of them.

Actually, VoP has pretty crunch requirements; no items.


You can refluff anything you want if your DM allows. The D&D core books just say you can change the name of things, though. It specifically states it. Visual effects are handled under spells (and spell only) and meant to be very slightly altered - anything that even makes your spell look more powerful is out. Refluffing, the way you present it, is simply a house rule. Discussing house rules is not the goal for this forum. There is another one full of homebrewed stuff and house rules I'm sure you'd enjoy.

You are suggesting that we should follow the rules as intended of exalted, yet also arguing that I am not following RAW by suggesting refluffing. That's a bit of a contradiction. Not only that, fluff is not a rule at all, so bringing up RAW when talking about it doesn't make sense.*

*As a note: RAI of Exalted feats is not a fluff issue (or not purely one) because it deals with the fact you think that since the developer's meant it to be weak, it should stay that way.

true_shinken
2010-08-07, 02:09 PM
Stuff I didn't even read
Like Snake-Aes said, you refluff because you don't like the game as it is. Refluff whatever the heck you want, I couldn't care less.

SonOfJubilex
2010-08-07, 02:11 PM
VoP is good, if used right.

I know, many argue that "But Jubie, VoP is a noob trap!"

Maybe, but if you are using Incarnum, you have magic items without having magic items. Plus, if you multiclass into Psi-Warrior and use the Soulbound Weapon, you can have an "enchanted" weapon, but it be a part of you. Fluff-wise, Soulborn is awesome for this.

Quick question however: Does a Soulbound Weapon from the ACF count as a Mind Blade for the feat Psycarnum Blade?

Greenish
2010-08-07, 02:13 PM
Quick question however: Does a Soulbound Weapon from the ACF count as a Mind Blade for the feat Psycarnum Blade?No, but I should think that it breaks VoP.

true_shinken
2010-08-07, 02:13 PM
Quick question however: Does a Soulbound Weapon from the ACF count as a Mind Blade for the feat Psycarnum Blade?

Not per RAW, no. It is the kind of thing I'd be willing to houserule in my games.

SonOfJubilex
2010-08-07, 02:22 PM
No, but I should think that it breaks VoP.

Why should manifesting a Soulbound Weapon break VoP? You create a weapon from the energies of the universe. Hence why Psycarnum Blade fits thematically: You draw from your soul, using part of you as the catalyst for the energies around you, forming your weapon into a semi-real form similar to a Mind Blade

Math_Mage
2010-08-07, 02:33 PM
I think true_shinken and Milskidasith are looking at VoP differently. To one, it's meant to represent giving up something; to the other, it's meant to let adventurers be badasses without items. (Or, um, with only really crappy-looking items that are actually powerful magic? I kinda got lost at that point.)

You two want different things from the Vow. Personally, I guess I agree with true_shinken about how the Vow was intended mechanically and flavorfully. Yes, Milskidasith, it ultimately gimps the character relative to WBL. That's the point. That's what it's supposed to do...in D&D's Christmas Tree environment. If you want to change the game balance so characters aren't so reliant on their items, a stronger VoP is one way to start, and probably a good idea. But that's because D&D makes wealth powerful, not because it models poverty poorly.

true_shinken
2010-08-07, 02:38 PM
I think true_shinken and Milskidasith are looking at VoP differently. To one, it's meant to represent giving up something; to the other, it's meant to let adventurers be badasses without items. (Or, um, with only really crappy-looking items that are actually powerful magic? I kinda got lost at that point.)

You two want different things from the Vow. Personally, I guess I agree with true_shinken about how the Vow was intended mechanically and flavorfully. Yes, Milskidasith, it ultimately gimps the character relative to WBL. That's the point. That's what it's supposed to do...in D&D's Christmas Tree environment. If you want to change the game balance so characters aren't so reliant on their items, a stronger VoP is one way to start, and probably a good idea. But that's because D&D makes wealth powerful, not because it models poverty poorly.
Man, you put it a lot better than I did. That's the whole point.
That said, if people want to refluff stuff for their games, I think it's fine for them.


No, but I should think that it breaks VoP.
I also don't understand why, really. Is there something in the wording I'm missing?
EDIT: Nevermind, I agree.
EDIT 2: Wait, no, I don't.

Greenish
2010-08-07, 02:38 PM
Why should manifesting a Soulbound Weapon break VoP? You create a weapon from the energies of the universe.No, you call an existing weapon to your hand.

[Edit]:
Yes, Milskidasith, it ultimately gimps the character relative to WBL. That's the point. That's what it's supposed to do...I actually don't agree with that. I've always thought that the main point of VoP was not giving yourself a handicap for laughs, but the act of giving your wealth away to help others, those in need. The point of VoP is that for the price of +1 weapon you could feed the beggars of a small city for weeks, or start a school for orphans.

[2ndEdit]:
I also don't understand why, really. Is there something in the wording I'm missing?
EDIT: Nevermind, I agree.
EDIT 2: Wait, no, I don't.:smalltongue:
Yeah, I'm not sure about that, but summoning a magic weapon to your hand seems to conflict with having vowed poverty.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-07, 02:44 PM
No, you call an existing weapon to your hand.

VoP forbids you from using magic items, and Call Weaponry calls you a magic item.... Make what you will of that but looking at what exactly the power does, it would break VoP.

true_shinken
2010-08-07, 02:46 PM
No, you call an existing weapon to your hand.

I have to disagree, Greenish. Well, kinda.
Mind's Eye is kind of silent on the issue: is it a common, existing, manufactured weapon or not? It does not say so. It does however hint the other way around - that the weapon is created by the power. You lose the weapon when call weaponry's duration ends and the description mentions 'you can still use the normal call weaponry', meaning soulbound weapon behaves somewhat differently... though what exactly is 'different' here is disputable.
The text is... wonky at best. So it could swing both ways.

SonOfJubilex
2010-08-07, 02:51 PM
No, you call an existing weapon to your hand.

[Edit]:I actually don't agree with that. I've always thought that the main point of VoP was not giving yourself a handicap for laughs, but the act of giving your wealth away to help others, those in need. The point of VoP is that for the price of +1 weapon you could feed the beggars of a small city for weeks, or start a school for orphans.

I actually must be reading Soulbound Weapon differently. You are calling an existing weapon, but it is not yours directly, therefore costs you nothing. It's the same as summoning something. You wouldn't penatlize an Incarnum user for making armor from Soulmelds if they have VoP.

Plus, the charater could give his gold he doesn't need for simple foods and water/beer (since beer is more sanitary) to charity to supply the poor.

sonofzeal
2010-08-07, 02:52 PM
I actually must be reading Soulbound Weapon differently. You are calling an existing weapon, but it is not yours directly, therefore costs you nothing. It's the same as summoning something. You wouldn't penatlize an Incarnum user for making armor from Soulmelds if they have VoP.

Plus, the charater could give his gold he doesn't need for simple foods and water/beer (since beer is more sanitary) to charity to supply the poor.
"Not yours directly" doesn't matter. A VoP character can't loan a +5 holy longsword from a friend, even if it's "not hers directly".

Greenish
2010-08-07, 02:54 PM
I have to disagree, Greenish. Well, kinda.
Mind's Eye is kind of silent on the issue: is it a common, existing, manufactured weapon or not? It does not say so. It does however hint the other way around - that the weapon is created by the power. You lose the weapon when call weaponry's duration ends and the description mentions 'you can still use the normal call weaponry', meaning soulbound weapon behaves somewhat differently... though what exactly is 'different' here is disputable.
The text is... wonky at best. So it could swing both ways.Well, it seems rather clear to me that using Call Weaponry, even for your Soulbound Weapon, will net you a magic weapon, and VoP bans you from using magic weapons.

Soulbound Weapon
You can summon a specific weapon to your hand that is bound to your very soul.
Level: 1st and 2nd.
Replaces: You lose your 2nd-level bonus feat.
Benefit: You must choose a soulbound weapon at 1st level and you gain the Weapon Focus feat with this weapon. Also, the first power you learn must be call weaponry. You can summon your chosen soulbound weapon to your hand using call weaponry.

At 2nd level, you gain the soulbound weaponclass ability, and the weapon you summon using call weaponry is of the same type as you chose at 1st level. Its physical appearance slowly changes, growing in power as you do. You must manifest the power call weaponry to obtain your soulbound weapon; you retain the weapon for the duration of the power. You may still use the call weaponry power as normal if you wish. This is a specific weapon every time you summon it, and it automatically gains a weapon enhancement at the following levels:

4th +1 weapon
8th +2 weapon
12th +3 weapon
16th +4 weapon
20th +5 weapon
Also, add the following augmentation to your call weaponry power:

Augmentation: When you manifest your soulbound weapon, for each additional 5 power points you spend, you may add a weapon enhancement of +1 value to the weapon. For example, if you spend an additional 10 power points, you could add two +1 weapon enhancements or a single +2 weapon enhancement.

SonOfJubilex
2010-08-07, 02:55 PM
"Not yours directly" doesn't matter. A VoP character can't loan a +5 holy longsword from a friend, even if it's "not hers directly".

I see it more like this: The universe is loaning you the weapon

true_shinken
2010-08-07, 02:57 PM
Well, it seems rather clear to me that using Call Weaponry, even for your Soulbound Weapon, will net you a magic weapon, and VoP bans you from using magic weapons.

Well, yeah, but would mean Soulknive's can't take VoP (well, not exactly; a mindblade is never outright stated to be a magical weapon, I believe) and becoming a Kensai would forfeit VoP as well.
I can see how you get this reading, I'm just... not so sure I agree.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-07, 02:57 PM
I see it more like this: The universe is loaning you the weapon

VoP forbids you from accepting items given to you, the only way to benefit from a magic item is when someone else uses it on your behalf.

Greenish
2010-08-07, 02:57 PM
I see it more like this: The universe is loaning you the weaponYou're not allowed to use loaned magical weapons when you've vowed poverty, even if your very own deity came and gave it to you.

sonofzeal
2010-08-07, 02:59 PM
I see it more like this: The universe is loaning you the weapon
Yeah... and that changes the situation how, exactly? We've already established that being "loaned" a weapon violates the vow. Why then does it matter what the source of the loan is?

That said, I'd generally houserule class feature type stuff to be okay, and have the Vow made to a particular source (say, Pelor) who can then grant occasional exceptions.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-07, 03:11 PM
Yeah... and that changes the situation how, exactly? We've already established that being "loaned" a weapon violates the vow. Why then does it matter what the source of the loan is?

That said, I'd generally houserule class feature type stuff to be okay, and have the Vow made to a particular source (say, Pelor) who can then grant occasional exceptions.

One has to be careful around the exceptions. Saying, for example, that you'd allow VoP to work with things you make mean the guy can craft his own gear(and burn a @¨%&# of xp).

Stuff like Call Weaponry, however, is usable by you alone, created by your power alone. It's an easy one to make exceptions for.

SonOfJubilex
2010-08-07, 03:21 PM
One has to be careful around the exceptions. Saying, for example, that you'd allow VoP to work with things you make mean the guy can craft his own gear(and burn a @¨%&# of xp).

Stuff like Call Weaponry, however, is usable by you alone, created by your power alone. It's an easy one to make exceptions for.

I agree. Since it is your energy to summon the weapon from the universe, you can't sell this weapon, you are the only one who can use it, and it seems approptiate.

sonofzeal
2010-08-07, 03:57 PM
One has to be careful around the exceptions. Saying, for example, that you'd allow VoP to work with things you make mean the guy can craft his own gear(and burn a @¨%&# of xp).

Stuff like Call Weaponry, however, is usable by you alone, created by your power alone. It's an easy one to make exceptions for.
For exceptions, I was thinking more plot-related stuff. So Pelor might bend over and say, "y'know we agreed you wouldn't use magic items but you have permission to use this one scroll this one time to save this kingdom from certain doom". Such exceptions should be rare, and up to the DM not the player, but can make the game more rich and interesting.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-07, 03:59 PM
VoP doesn't make sense even at fluff point anyway o.O Why would you NOT use an item you found in the dungeon? it's not like you can sell or donate it there so you might as well use it until you find a way to give it to people who could use it better.

Ozymandias9
2010-08-07, 05:04 PM
Response: You're making an incredibly specific scenario as some form of trap, but there are some problems with it. First off, why do they have to rebuild the orphanage? They saved the town, they're not the ones obligated to drop cash or spells on rebuilding. Yeah, it's a good thing to do, but they are still good for saving the town from the dragon to protect the rest of the people.
I'm not saying that its something that a good character is obligated to do. I'm saying that its something that a good character may feel inclined to do.


Yes, it is entirely possible to divorce them, because they aren't together to begin with. Refluff VoP, then you're fine. You don't even have to refluff it away from having no wealth, just say he's granted the abilities by his god or whatever. It's just an example. There's no reason to say that a good character has to be, crunchwise, weak, just because he gives up magic items.
I entirely agree that refluffed VoP makes an excellent, though underpowered,guide for any number of reasons to operate with only mundane gear. It works for mystic aestheticism; it works for standardized gear; it works for resource starved settings; works for a lot of things. Increasing the power level of the feat for any number of these things poses no great threat to breaking verisimilitude.

If, however, you are aiming for the fluff of VoP as presented (something that may certainly come up), then run into the fact that gold has relevance to both the role playing goals of the fluff you want and the structure of the mechanical thing you're representing.


On the other side of the coin, you could have a guy without VoP who's loaded up with magic items, but still fluffs himself as using nothing but mundane items. So what?

In doing this, you are essentially divorcing fluff and crunch so far that information presented on the character sheet cannot be said to be accurate for the character as role-played. It can certainly work, but there isn't much more extreme example you can make of separating the two, and it won't be an option everyone is comfortable with.


A character's sacrifice is not the same as a player sacrificing things. The character can still, by fluff, have no luxuries and be uncomfortable, etc, etc. without giving up power, and there's no reason to mix the two; punishing the player because he wants to play a certain character concept is a bad idea, and since fluff and crunch are completely separate, it doesn't make sense by a rules standpoint either. Making sure VoP is weak is just a reason to have refluffed characters who are using actual magic items; that's certainly how I'd do VoP without a fix unless I was feeling really lazy.

I'm really not seeing the player sacrifice at all, but that's beside the point. There IS a reason to mix the two if the character is supposed to have any concept of their power and the goal of the feat is to model voluntary self-sacrifice.
Character A, gets benefit X as a pleasant side effect voluntary self-sacrifice. If Character B, whose only goal is power, notices that X is more or as powerful as the things he would have to give up for VoP, why would he not take it? And if he takes it as a desirable trade, then it isn't self-sacrifice, the very thing that by default we want it to model.


Except refluffing doesn't break verisimilitude, because it only contradicts the fluff that is no longer in use. To break verisimilitude, you'd have to actually have a contradiction, which just doesn't happen here. Again, as long as VoP is mechanically ineffective, I'll be loaded up with magic items while fluffing it as having nothing but a few weapons and mundane items.

Saying "on one hand, this is the list of items my character has" and "on the other hand, my character has only a staff and a pair of clothes," strikes me as sufficient cognitive dissonance to break verisimilitude in and of itself. That a significantly more extreme case than saying "I'm going to use this class ability to model this instead."


I do not understand the concept of "the player has to sacrifice because the character does." It's the same strange reasoning as why cha 3 barbarians with no diplomacy, when played by the cool kid, can sway kings with their words, while the shy player with charisma 30 and a +70 diplomacy bonus can't convince a shopkeeper to let him buy items at normal cost.
The player doesn't have to sacrifice at all. They're not required to take VoP, and it they are taking it to represent something other than direct sacrifice (see above) it should likely be made more powerful.
However, if the character is actively making a point to give up personal power, how it is inconsistent for the character not to have less personal power. A should equal A.


Which is entirely possible, being a fluff issue. Not only that, but this seems like an argument against the entire argument of devout characters; are clerics now not devout servants of their gods because they know it gets them the ability to drop high level spells? Do druids not care about nature just because they get spells for saying they care about it? This is the same situation; it doesn't make any sense to say that the character can't get power from being devout to a specific cause, because only advancing that cause *is* a sacrifice.
That depends what the purpose guiding the cleric-or-druid-in-question's actions are: devotion, by its nature, implies the subordination of one's desires to what one is devoted to. If their powers are a sign of devotion, their goals for the use of those powers are, by definition, those to which they are devoted.
There may, however, be plenty of divine beings willing to give power for a trade rather than devotion. Moreover, it is also possible to be, say, devoted to the concept of greed-- which would not seem to require any sacrifice.

As an analogy, imagine the old west. If there's an emergency, people may get deputized. A deputy gets the power to shoot people to uphold the law. A good sheriff will attempt to make sure that they are deputizing the people whose goal is to uphold law and order, and as a side effect may need to shoot people. They will likely try not to deputize people that want to uphold law and order because it allows them to shoot people.


The thing I see is that you are not willing to separate fluff and crunch. The character is the character, the player is the player, the numbers are the numbers, the RP actions are the RP actions. They don't have to affect each other, especially not negatively.

I'm perfectly willing to refluff things. Last week I refluffed Dwarves as Rome and Gnomes as Hittites (Humans were Greek). I'm also perfectly willing to recrunch things so they better represent the goal in mind: in the same game I upped the power of VoP a bit to mechanically represent mystic aestheticism.

But having a full schism between crunch and fluff isn't by any means a small concession when the purpose of both fluff and crunch is to interact with and represent the same game world.

true_shinken
2010-08-07, 05:48 PM
But having a full schism between crunch and fluff isn't by any means a small concession when the purpose of both fluff and crunch is to interact with and represent the same game world.

I think this completly sums up this whole discussion and all the 'refluffing' thing that's been around these days.
Thanks, Ozymandias9. I couldn't agree more.

Starbuck_II
2010-08-07, 06:02 PM
VoP doesn't make sense even at fluff point anyway o.O Why would you NOT use an item you found in the dungeon? it's not like you can sell or donate it there so you might as well use it until you find a way to give it to people who could use it better.

Interesting variant idea.

You have to give it away as soon as possible (to charity/etc), but may benefit or use it until find a better owner.

VoC:
Feat Vow of Charity: Requires Nuetral aligned (not good/evil)

"it's not like you can sell or donate it there so you might as well use it until you find a way to give it to people who could use it better."
Snake-Aes, the Ogre

You gain benefitual powers in exchange you may only use magic items till you find a better owners (Charity, etc). You must take your fair share of treasure.

Then some text regarding what you get.

That might be a good feat if there ever is a Book of Extreme Neutrality.

Flickerdart
2010-08-07, 06:04 PM
Would you be forced to give the +5 humanbane sword you found to the next Ogre you bump into? He can make good use of it...to cut your head off.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-07, 06:25 PM
Would you be forced to give the +5 humanbane sword you found to the next Ogre you bump into? He can make good use of it...to cut your head off.

:p the idea is to give it to those that can further the cause...not the one who will instantly benefit from the item the most(good is not dumb!). So this guy would use whatever he found on his travels... but as soon as he reaches a settlement, he'll donate all his money, and give his gear to those who protect the settlement. Or if he finds and releases a prisoner, he gives his equipment to the guy.

It's the type of person who, after a battle, wants to loot every single piece of gear so he can arm the town's militia.


The party-friendliness barely changes based on VoP, since the rest of the party would already get dibs on gear that is better than theirs.

------
This also has the added benefit of causing awkward situations in nearly every village! Imagine the scene:
Kid1: Hey, who's that?
<A vagabond is seen approaching the village, holding a spear and a chainmail vest over dirty rags and a straw hat>
Kid2: I don't know! <Kid1 rushes to call an adult>
Vagabond: Hello, Kid. I have come from the forest, and could use some rest. Here, gives this to your parents <hands Kid2 a satchel with silver>
Kid2: Thanks, smelly-person! Dad might let you sleep in his barn, but it's dangerous! Wolves attack the cattle almost every day now.
Vagabond: I can take care of that. Hold this spear for a moment. <starts to remove Chainshirt>
<Kid1 and some adults arrive just in time to see a vagabond undressing in front of Kid2>

Serenity
2010-08-07, 11:32 PM
I think true_shinken and Milskidasith are looking at VoP differently. To one, it's meant to represent giving up something; to the other, it's meant to let adventurers be badasses without items. (Or, um, with only really crappy-looking items that are actually powerful magic? I kinda got lost at that point.)

You two want different things from the Vow. Personally, I guess I agree with true_shinken about how the Vow was intended mechanically and flavorfully. Yes, Milskidasith, it ultimately gimps the character relative to WBL. That's the point. That's what it's supposed to do...in D&D's Christmas Tree environment. If you want to change the game balance so characters aren't so reliant on their items, a stronger VoP is one way to start, and probably a good idea. But that's because D&D makes wealth powerful, not because it models poverty poorly.

Or the third way to think about it; the Vow is meant to represent an ascetic who, by virtue of being charitable, pure of heart, unbound by material concerns, and generally intensely spiritual, becomes a sacred badass. Yes, the Vow represents a specific character concept, but there is no reason why that concept should be any less powerful than a different one.

Math_Mage
2010-08-08, 12:03 AM
Or the third way to think about it; the Vow is meant to represent an ascetic who, by virtue of being charitable, pure of heart, unbound by material concerns, and generally intensely spiritual, becomes a sacred badass. Yes, the Vow represents a specific character concept, but there is no reason why that concept should be any less powerful than a different one.

A sacred badass without items is still a badass without items, hence fits definition #2. Cut the Gordian knot when you have something to cut with. You're arguing from the perspective "A badass character, who gives up nothing relative to a regular badass, can still be sacred"; he's arguing from the perspective "A sacred character, who gives up something relative to other badasses, can still be badass". He doesn't see any need to change the mechanics, which are adequate for his flavorful purpose; you don't see any need to keep the mechanics, which are inadequate for a different flavorful purpose. So why argue about it?

Rainbownaga
2010-08-08, 01:28 AM
I'm trying to get a DM to go for this VoP fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140428&), but he's convinced that there is no problem with normal VoP. I would like to ask that you playgrounders help me to convince him to see my side with a board (this one) that discusses just why VoP as is sucks, and, hopefully, explains why the fix is more balanced.

Do you have a good reason to give away all your equipment? As a dm I'd be cautious about letting someone change a rule like this, particularly if they didn't have a good fluff reason for doing so.

Firstly, by not being dependent you take some of the power away from the DM. In low power games, a character that falls behind the power curve can be given a more powerful item to help catch up, and a less powerful character

More importantly, as has been said throughout this thread, most of D&D is a trap- half the classes and probably 90% of the feats are 'underpowered' and a fair chunk of them are 'traps'. The general solution is to just not play them or sacrifice a small amount of power.

Sure, a VoP monk may not be able to fly, but they can benefit from fly spells, can take a ToB feat to jump (with a monk's insane modifiers) as a swift action once per combat, can ride on another flying character's back, or one of dozens of other work-arounds.

VoP is generally weak, this thread argues whether or not that should be the case. What you have to convince your DM is why you are taking it then.

Milskidasith
2010-08-08, 01:52 AM
Side note: Monks don't have great jump modifiers, and Tiger Claw maneuvers are not really a substitute for actually flying. Requiring your party to be buffbots for you is not a great thing.

Main point: Fluff doesn't matter. There's no reason to say "You need a good fluff reason to go from being gimped to being competent."

Ozymandias9
2010-08-08, 02:34 AM
Main point: Fluff doesn't matter. There's no reason to say "You need a good fluff reason to go from being gimped to being competent."

I disagree. Fluff matters immensely-- its what connects the mechanics to the game world, the guide as to what the mechanics represent. It need not (by any means) be the default fluff, but I would be unwilling to regularly play in a game with no attention to fluff at all.

jseah
2010-08-08, 04:50 AM
I disagree. Fluff matters immensely-- its what connects the mechanics to the game world, the guide as to what the mechanics represent. It need not (by any means) be the default fluff, but I would be unwilling to regularly play in a game with no attention to fluff at all.
I fully agree with this but would like to take it one step further. Fluff IS the mechanics, refluffing requires new mechanics.
Eg. fireball would light things on fire if described as creating a field of fire. And if it was a blast of flame, it should push things back.

For VoP however, there is no real fluff reason why such a vow could not give equal benefit to the items lost. However, there would be a reason to disallow characters who violate the spirit of the vow since sacrificing items for equal power abilities just for the abilities violates the self-sacrifice needed.
So add in a requirement that characters have to be self-sacrificing in order to take the vow (RP requirement) and bring the feat up to the level of all items + 1 feat.


Also, does anyone see any problem with a VoP character walking into town after a dungeon raid and suddenly the town economy dies to inflation? I mean, in the standard medieval fantasy setting, where craft skills earn you ~1gp a day, suddenly selling tons of items and giving away the money means you suddenly inflate prices through the roof (of basic goods which poor people you give the money to will buy).
XD Not quite so exalted any more hmmm?

Snake-Aes
2010-08-08, 06:10 AM
Side note: Monks don't have great jump modifiers, and Tiger Claw maneuvers are not really a substitute for actually flying. Requiring your party to be buffbots for you is not a great thing.

Main point: Fluff doesn't matter. There's no reason to say "You need a good fluff reason to go from being gimped to being competent."

Hmm, doesn't speed confer bonuses? Every 10 after 30' is a +4. They have a +4 for every three levels, netting a +24 by level 18

Greenish
2010-08-08, 09:05 AM
I fully agree with this but would like to take it one step further. Fluff IS the mechanics, refluffing requires new mechanics.No, refluffing by definition doesn't include changing mechanics, nor require it.
For VoP however, there is no real fluff reason why such a vow could not give equal benefit to the items lost. However, there would be a reason to disallow characters who violate the spirit of the vow since sacrificing items for equal power abilities just for the abilities violates the self-sacrifice needed.The point of vowing poverty is not to gimp yourself with the "self-sacrifice", it's to use the wealth you accumulate to help others.

It's not for you, it's for them.

jseah
2010-08-08, 09:25 AM
No, refluffing by definition doesn't include changing mechanics, nor require it.
Oh really, name any one refluffing (that doesn't involve some esoteric point of magic physics) and I can name an in-game situation where the before and after fluff give a different result.

Eg. the VoP fluffed as fixed custom made items would be different in that those items could be stolen while VoP benefits normally cannot. Sure, you can twist the fluff again, but I garuantee that there will always be a way to differentiate the two as long as they are different and don't involve "it's magic!" as an explanation.

In a world where things make sense, and logical results follow from logical premises, you cannot simply change things willy nilly and expect them to react the same way.
EDIT: I realize not everyone plays this way. What I meant applies to a world where everything is expected to have a consistent and predictive explanation.


The point of vowing poverty is not to gimp yourself with the "self-sacrifice", it's to use the wealth you accumulate to help others.

It's not for you, it's for them.
There's nothing wrong with saying that making a vow of poverty and following it gives you powers. Any in-universe explanation will do.

What I meant was that, according to certain definitions of Exalted, the Vow cannot both be Exalted as well as offsetting all loss from giving away WBL.

Boci
2010-08-08, 09:42 AM
Oh really, name any one refluffing (that doesn't involve some esoteric point of magic physics) and I can name an in-game situation where the before and after fluff give a different result.

My totemist produces a sac of hormones that he consumes in the morning that causes his body to mutate.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-08, 09:45 AM
My totemist produces a sac of hormones that he consumes in the morning that causes his bofy to mutate.

My gestalt psychic warrior / incarnate (pathfinder psychic warrior = win) has a vop-like feat called "In the hands of fate". you give up magic items like VoP does, but not potions. You are also not bound to give your money at all (it's not charity), the bonuses are all of the Luck type, and the fluff is that the guy is just that damn lucky.

jseah
2010-08-08, 10:06 AM
My totemist produces a sac of hormones that he consumes in the morning that causes his body to mutate.
You get killed by a necromancer and he animates you as a Bone creature. You retain all abilities, but try eating when you don't have a throat. And have no metabolism for hormones to work.

EDIT: Bone Creature template (BoVD 184), you lose nothing except Type (which is now undead) and gain some stuff irrelevant for the example.


My gestalt psychic warrior / incarnate (pathfinder psychic warrior = win) has a vop-like feat called "In the hands of fate". you give up magic items like VoP does, but not potions. You are also not bound to give your money at all (it's not charity), the bonuses are all of the Luck type, and the fluff is that the guy is just that damn lucky.
I'm not familiar with that. Is there any explanation for why you can't use magic items? For example, if it's a supernatural interference with magic items you wear, then AMF should suppress that interference and you should be able to use magic items (well, artifacts at least since normal magic items don't work as well)

Boci
2010-08-08, 10:08 AM
You get killed by a necromancer and he animates you as a Skeletal creature. You retain all abilities, but try eating when you don't have a throat. And have no metabolism for hormones to work.

I'm pretty sure skeletons and Bone Creature would loose VoP. They do not strike me as exalted. Besides its a game. There will always be flaws. Why doesn't my character bleed, why does being reduced to 2 hitpoint not have any effect on my ability to swing my weapon?

And if you really want an explanation, as a bone creature my wierd metabalisem becomes inbended in the bone marrow allowing it to secret supernatural liquids that form magical affects.

Milskidasith
2010-08-08, 10:12 AM
Oh really, name any one refluffing (that doesn't involve some esoteric point of magic physics) and I can name an in-game situation where the before and after fluff give a different result.

My guy who's really poor and doesn't want material wealth, but doesn't have VoP, has a bunch of homemade gear carefully made from common objects so it functions as magic. Everything's exactly the same; he has standard WBL, his gear can be stolen and used, etc. the only difference is that his magic items all look like pieces of junk only worn because he refuses to buy anything.

My Psywar isn't using the power of his mind, but is using chakra or whatever flavorful eastern sounding thing you want.

My Tiger Claw focused warblade doesn't just leap up on top of foes with Death from Above (though he can, if necessary) his bear Wild Cohort throws him up there during the strike if he's flanking.

My wizard is actually a sorcerer with natural magical talent, but who is actually capable of learning spells.

My sorcerer is actually a wizard who's really bad at anything but his signature spells.

My barbarian is actually a really cultured guy with great control over his adrenaline.

My Fighter... well, OK, fighter doesn't really have too much fluff, but you can change him from being a well trained warrior to a guy with a knack for fighting or to a psychotic, bloodthirsty killer.

Third Eye X's, instead of showing up on your head and looking odd, are just helmets.

Likewise, basically all gear can look different; gloves can be gauntlets, gauntlets can be golves, capes can be runes on the back of your armor, ioun stones can be stones, beads of pure magical force, whatever, etc.

My monk is an unarmed swordsage.

My priest of whatever isn't actually a cleric, but a fighter who just happens to be a priest.

Fireball is actually an implosion, not an explosion.

Wish isn't making a wish and hoping you get lucky, it's using pure magical force and part of your life energy to do what you want within mostly predictable means.

Magic is easy to learn and carefully studied.

Magic is hard to learn and feared.

Martial adepts are trained in schools.

Martial adepts are people with a natural talent who all do their things differently.

That longsword you're using is actually a greatsword.

Your sun swords for a TWF build don't look like blacklights and don't have to be cartoonishly large for wielding in one hand.

Reserves of Strength (the feat) isn't, well, Reserves of Strength, but actually a controlled release of energy from a plane of pure magical force that hurts the caster who tries it.

jseah
2010-08-08, 10:16 AM
I'm pretty sure skeletons would loose VoP. Besides its a game. There will always be flaws. Why doesn't my character bleed, why does being reduced to 2 hitpoint not have any effect on my ability to swing my weapon?
I'm sure it retains totemist abilities.
Actually, on second reading, your alignment doesn't change. You can be a Bone creature and still be Good or even Exalted.
(However, you will lose that Vow about not touching undead since you are one now)

Athough flaws in a game do exist, it does not help to make them bigger. Change the mechanics to go with the fluff I say.

Thrice Dead Cat
2010-08-08, 10:16 AM
Oh really, name any one refluffing (that doesn't involve some esoteric point of magic physics) and I can name an in-game situation where the before and after fluff give a different result.

And I can name at least five where I have changed the fluff with zero changes to the mechanics. Your point?


Eg. the VoP fluffed as fixed custom made items would be different in that those items could be stolen while VoP benefits normally cannot. Sure, you can twist the fluff again, but I garuantee that there will always be a way to differentiate the two as long as they are different and don't involve "it's magic!" as an explanation.

Ummm... Milskidasith was never arguing that one should gain the benefits of Vow of Poverty and instead come from magic items: he was arguing that you could fluff yourself to be a dirt mow farmer who could just so happen to grab some random stick and have fireballs shoot out of it, for example. The fluff is that he's poor, but happens to be able to channeling his soul/magic/flying pandas through the wand anyhow. The crunch is that he blew his normal WBL fort he actual wand of fireballs. It gets stolen and suddenly Joe Schmoe is making fireballs with his soul or what have you.

What you presented is essentially a strawman argument.



In a world where things make sense, and logical results follow from logical premises, you cannot simply change things willy nilly and expect them to react the same way.

Except that I can. Yes, there are some cases where some fluff will not work for some mechanics, but that does not mean that in general I can't refluff my druid as being a barbarian from the northern tribes.



EDIT: I realize not everyone plays this way. What I meant applies to a world where everything is expected to have a consistent and predictive explanation.

Right, and that's still possible for a lot of refluffing, as I showed above.

Greenish
2010-08-08, 10:19 AM
Oh really, name any one refluffing (that doesn't involve some esoteric point of magic physics) and I can name an in-game situation where the before and after fluff give a different result.A warrior who enters a state of intense concentration in the battle. A raging barbarian.

Calling Spiked Chain a Greater Spinning Sword, to borrow from another thread on the topic.

What I meant was that, according to certain definitions of Exalted, the Vow cannot both be Exalted as well as offsetting all loss from giving away WBL.You can pull your own definitions out of your… head as much as you wish.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-08, 10:25 AM
I'm not familiar with that. Is there any explanation for why you can't use magic items? For example, if it's a supernatural interference with magic items you wear, then AMF should suppress that interference and you should be able to use magic items (well, artifacts at least since normal magic items don't work as well)

You wouldn't be. It's much more lenient than VoP in that violating it only disabled the feat for a month. It's all Ex instead of Su, and you aren't charitable or anything, you just don't trust magic items.

Boci
2010-08-08, 10:26 AM
I'm sure it retains totemist abilities.

Actually, on second reading, your alignment doesn't change. You can be a Bone creature and still be Good or even Exalted.
(However, you will lose that Vow about not touching undead since you are one now)

I thought you were asking for VoP refluffing. Never mind. I explained why I retain my abilities, and it works either which way.


Athough flaws in a game do exist, it does not help to make them bigger.

If you can find a flaw that will occure reguarly, sure. IF you can find some obscure template not commonly used that makes explaining my abilities a bit difficult if I was killed and raised again then I don't care and I have to ask do you really care as well?


Change the mechanics to go with the fluff I say.

A lot harder than refluffing.

Math_Mage
2010-08-08, 10:49 AM
My guy who's really poor and doesn't want material wealth, but doesn't have VoP, has a bunch of homemade gear carefully made from common objects so it functions as magic. Everything's exactly the same; he has standard WBL, his gear can be stolen and used, etc. the only difference is that his magic items all look like pieces of junk only worn because he refuses to buy anything.

I'm not sure DMs would be comfortable with a player saying "I want my guy to be poor, so I'll just make all my magic items look like junk." It's not as if Wand of Fireballs: Poor Edition is really worth less than the original.

jseah
2010-08-08, 10:53 AM
Milskidasith:

I changed the order, since all the magic ones were better grouped and answered together. I did put an exception about magic theory.

Spoilered for length

My guy who's really poor and doesn't want material wealth, but doesn't have VoP, has a bunch of homemade gear carefully made from common objects so it functions as magic. Everything's exactly the same; he has standard WBL, his gear can be stolen and used, etc. the only difference is that his magic items all look like pieces of junk only worn because he refuses to buy anything.
Then your gear can't really be sold... and common objects cannot be worth all that loot you just hauled back from the dragon's cave. You could clear out the entire city of spoons before you're out of gold.


My Tiger Claw focused warblade doesn't just leap up on top of foes with Death from Above (though he can, if necessary) his bear Wild Cohort throws him up there during the strike if he's flanking.
And if your Bear is somehow prevented from doing so? Like being mind-controlled for instance.


My barbarian is actually a really cultured guy with great control over his adrenaline.
Well, that's no change from the original barbarian. He can already fly into a rage whenever he likes anyway. Apart from the daily limit thing.


My Fighter... well, OK, fighter doesn't really have too much fluff, but you can change him from being a well trained warrior to a guy with a knack for fighting or to a psychotic, bloodthirsty killer.
XD, not much to say. Fighter really is very bland. Aren't those just alignment things though?


Third Eye X's, instead of showing up on your head and looking odd, are just helmets.
Helmets are more easily stolen. A big squid can eat your helmet, not quite a psionic third eye in your head.


Likewise, basically all gear can look different; gloves can be gauntlets, gauntlets can be golves, capes can be runes on the back of your armor, ioun stones can be stones, beads of pure magical force, whatever, etc.
Gloves are easier to take off than gauntlets and are less hard. Gauntlets would also make chopping your hand off more difficult.
Capes catch on things and burn easily, runes... don't.
Beads of pure magic disappear completely in an AMF, stones just drop to the ground and can be picked up.


My monk is an unarmed swordsage.
XD Unarmed swordsages can't turn ethereal. But that's a nice one.


My priest of whatever isn't actually a cleric, but a fighter who just happens to be a priest.
You don't qualify for weapon specialization?


Fireball is actually an implosion, not an explosion.
Explosive Spell metamagic works the wrong way now.


Magic is easy to learn and carefully studied.
Magic is hard to learn and feared.
Martial adepts are trained in schools.
Martial adepts are people with a natural talent who all do their things differently.
One universe can easily have a magic/martial arts university, the other has it much harder.
Society changes.


That longsword you're using is actually a greatsword.
Weight differences?


Your sun swords for a TWF build don't look like blacklights and don't have to be cartoonishly large for wielding in one hand.

If they now start glowing, using them at night paints you as a pretty obvious target from very far away.


Reserves of Strength (the feat) isn't, well, Reserves of Strength, but actually a controlled release of energy from a plane of pure magical force that hurts the caster who tries it.
And if you're on a plane with no extraplanar connections (say due to being a Forbiddance locked demiplane with no astral links) you can't use the refluffed one.


My Psywar isn't using the power of his mind, but is using chakra or whatever flavorful eastern sounding thing you want.
My wizard is actually a sorcerer with natural magical talent, but who is actually capable of learning spells.
My sorcerer is actually a wizard who's really bad at anything but his signature spells.
Wish isn't making a wish and hoping you get lucky, it's using pure magical force and part of your life energy to do what you want within mostly predictable means.
These depend on the in-universe explanation for magic.

Eg. If your universe has branded magic with certain flavours like sorcerors getting theirs from dragons, and wizards from books, it makes zero sense for sorcerors to get magic from books and use the vancian system.
Snake-Aes:
Well, was there any reason given for why not using magic items due to distrust should give Luck bonuses?

Greenish:
Concentration can be broken, say through mind control, while rage isn't, at least the adrenaline version of rage.
And Spiked Chains can wrap around things while Spinning Swords cannot? Tie a criminal down with one and not the other.

Boci:
Forgive me, I thought that was an example about totemist abilities.
Do totemist abilities shut off in an AMF? Supernatural bone marrow should while bone creatures don't.

Boci & Thrice Dead Cat:
The use of an obscure template was merely to demonstrate my point.
Refluffing VoP away from being an "pure good" feat, should make it stop being an Exalted feat. Doesn't mean it can't work, just that refluffing should have in-game effects.

Grabbing a random stick and shooting fireballs would also be kinda weird depending on how you explain magic.

Boci
2010-08-08, 10:55 AM
Boci:
Forgive me, I thought that was an example about totemist abilities.
Do totemist abilities shut off in an AMF? Supernatural bone marrow should while bone creatures don't.

Yes a totemist's abilities are shut off by a AMF.


Boci & Thrice Dead Cat:
The use of an obscure template was merely to demonstrate my point.

Then your point isn't very strong, is it?

Snake-Aes
2010-08-08, 10:56 AM
Snake-Aes:
Well, was there any reason given for why not using magic items due to distrust should give Luck bonuses?


You prefer to trust your skill and capabilities. It's as if you had Kamina levels of self-confidence.

jseah
2010-08-08, 11:05 AM
Yes a totemist's abilities are shut off by a AMF.
Ok, change that from Bone Creature to a Ghost. Now you have no bone marrow.


Then your point isn't very strong, is it?
This can go on forever you know, I made a strong statement. Perhaps too strong.
I have no doubt someone will eventually exhaust my creativity in conjuring strange situations.

Perhaps I should correct it to a weaker form:
Almost all refluffing that doesn't involve magic theory can be demonstrated to be different in the world.


You prefer to trust your skill and capabilities. It's as if you had Kamina levels of self-confidence.
XD Oh, but I hated that anime.
So there is a difference then, well, you said that you didn't have to give stuff away so that's the difference. You don't wreck economic havoc wherever you go... >.>

Well, I somehow get the feeling you aren't giving this as an example.


Milskidasith:
I would like to correct my response to the barbarian one. I mistook your statement for refluffing rage when it was refluffing barbarian.

Being a really cultured guy means you are accepted in different social circles. Perhaps a nasty gentlemen type of circle instead of a tribal one.

Boci
2010-08-08, 11:08 AM
Ok, change that from Bone Creature to a Ghost. Now you have no bone marrow.

Spiritual manifestation of my ability to manipulate hormones.


Perhaps I should correct it to a weaker form:
Almost all refluffing that doesn't involve magic theory can be demonstrated to be different in the world.

Yes, and if the difference involves an uncommon template applied to my PC or a really niche situation I fail to see why anyone should care.


Being a really cultured guy means you are accepted in different social circles. Perhaps a nasty gentlemen type of circle instead of a tribal one.

Nothing mechanically different.


Helmets are more easily stolen. A big squid can eat your helmet, not quite a psionic third eye in your head.

Third eye is a magical item, it can be stolen just like a helmet.


Gloves are easier to take off than gauntlets and are less hard. Gauntlets would also make chopping your hand off more difficult.

How can you cut off someone's hand?


Capes catch on things and burn easily, runes... don't.

Neither do magical capes, but both can be damaged by fires that are hot enough.


Beads of pure magic disappear completely in an AMF, stones just drop to the ground and can be picked up.

Leaving you with a non-magical stone.

Conclusion: The majority of your examples will either never happen, or happen with such rarity that they do not bear consideration. Some exceptions, but they are the minority.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-08, 11:11 AM
Perhaps a nasty gentlemen type of circle instead of a tribal one.

League of extraordinarily nasty gentlemen.

Math_Mage
2010-08-08, 11:20 AM
http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/members/vertigo+paris/albums/misc+pics-36/thread-derail-1953.jpg

jseah
2010-08-08, 11:23 AM
Boci:


Yes, and if the difference involves an uncommon template applied to my PC or a really niche situation I fail to see why anyone should care.
<...>
Conclusion: The majority of your examples will either never happen, or happen with such rarity that they do not bear consideration. Some exceptions, but they are the minority.
You should in the cases that are large enough to be obvious. The totemist one would qualify to be small enough to not be stated in the rules.

After all, you could easily derive what would happen if that edge case occured. (ie. your refluffed ability doesn't work there)

Spoilered for length.

Spiritual manifestation of my ability to manipulate hormones.
So you can manipulate hormones due to your training as a totemist while being a spirit. But you have none to manipulate.


Nothing mechanically different.
Different skillset. Different followers from leadership. Is now compatible with the flavour for taking Favoured in House X (eberron)


Third eye is a magical item, it can be stolen just like a helmet.
It can be stolen by taking it off your head by touching and giving a mental command (as per item description of how it sticks to your head). Not by yanking.
- One involves a mental action, the other doesn't.


How can you cut off someone's hand?
You put it on a chopping board and use an axe. But never mind that, gauntlets are made of metal, gloves aren't. Energy resistances change, hardness changes, hp of the item changes.


Neither do magical capes, but both can be damaged by fires that are hot enough.
You can nat. 1 a fireball and have your cape take damage (and successfully save for your armour). But it makes no sense for the runes to take damage while your armour doesn't.


Leaving you with a non-magical stone.
Which can be stolen, while non-existent beads cannot.


League of extraordinarily nasty gentlemen.XD

Mathmage:
Sorry. I really should have known better than make an absolute statement.

Greenish
2010-08-08, 11:27 AM
Long reply to jseah. He is on the verge of getting it!
And if your Bear is somehow prevented from doing so? Like being mind-controlled for instance.Then you jump.

Well, that's no change from the original barbarian. He can already fly into a rage whenever he likes anyway. Apart from the daily limit thing.Yeah, the mechanics are exactly the same. The fluff isn't, which is the very point.

XD, not much to say. Fighter really is very bland. Aren't those just alignment things though?Alignment doesn't define the character's fighting style.
Helmets are more easily stolen. A big squid can eat your helmet, not quite a psionic third eye in your head.By the rules, Third Eyes are just as difficult to sunder/steal as helmets. A big squid that could eat your helmet could eat your Third Eye. Mechanically, there's no change.
Gloves are easier to take off than gauntlets and are less hard. Gauntlets would also make chopping your hand off more difficult.There are no mechanics for putting gloves/gauntlets on, nor are there any for chopping hands off. There is no mechanical difference.
Capes catch on things and burn easily, runes... don't.No difference when it comes to game rules. Really, the point was that changing the fluff need not have any effects on the mechanics of the game.
Beads of pure magic disappear completely in an AMF, stones just drop to the ground and can be picked up.A bead of pure magic can turn into a stone and drop to ground when in AMF.
XD Unarmed swordsages can't turn ethereal. But that's a nice one.Nor can monks before level 19, but they will still be monks. Classes are metagame constructs.
You don't qualify for weapon specialization?Of course you do. Your class is Fighter, but your occupation is priest. For example, in Eberron most priests are Experts.
Explosive Spell metamagic works the wrong way now.It flips you. It's magic. :smallamused:
One universe can easily have a magic/martial arts university, the other has it much harder.
Society changes.Precisely! Do you see the light at long last?
Weight differences?It has a slimmer blade profile cutting down the weight.
If they now start glowing, using them at night paints you as a pretty obvious target from very far away.Yes, the same as normal sun blades. See, mechanics haven't changed, merely the fluff has!
And if you're on a plane with no extraplanar connections (say due to being a Forbiddance locked demiplane with no astral links) you can't use the refluffed one.The plane of pure magic can't be blocked, especially not with magic.
These depend on the in-universe explanation for magic.

Eg. If your universe has branded magic with certain flavours like sorcerors getting theirs from dragons, and wizards from books, it makes zero sense for sorcerors to get magic from books and use the vancian system.See, the fluff can be changed without changing mechanics! (Also, sorcerers use vancian casting too. The spells are concrete entities that always have the same result and cost the same amount of resources. You can't just light your pipe with Fireballs.)
Greenish:
Concentration can be broken, say through mind control, while rage isn't, at least the adrenaline version of rage.Nope, the concentration can't be broken via mind control, but a, say, calm emotions interrupts the intense focus needed.
And Spiked Chains can wrap around things while Spinning Swords cannot? Tie a criminal down with one and not the other.A greater spinning sword can wrap around things and tie down criminals.

Jallorn
2010-08-08, 11:27 AM
-snip-

This is a very good point. A lot of these arguments are a bit unclear, and even though I've been following them, I'm a bit confused by some of them. Ah well, I've also decided that I won't be responding to any of the theory interpretation.

Boci
2010-08-08, 11:41 AM
I'll let Greenish deal with the issue of refluffing and just point out the statements I believe are wrong.


You put it on a chopping board and use an axe..

1. There are no mechanics for that.

2. You'd think they would remove the gauntlets/gloves then.



But never mind that, gauntlets are made of metal, gloves aren't. Energy resistances change, hardness changes, hp of the item changes.

So magical silk is as strong as magical metal.


You can nat. 1 a fireball and have your cape take damage (and successfully save for your armour). But it makes no sense for the runes to take damage while your armour doesn't.

Simple: the armour softens difforming the runes slightly, but is still functional as armour.

jseah
2010-08-08, 12:17 PM
Long reply to jseah. He is on the verge of getting it!
Let's modify the statement to not be so absolute,
"Any fluff change of individual abilities that ALREADY have fluff will have an in-game effect. "

Attaching fluff to bland things will make characters that are different, but more radical changes could have an in-game effect.
More on topic, VoP isn't bland...

EDIT: Scratch that. I realize that you aren't considering setting differences to be a mechanical difference while I am.


Then you jump.
But a mind controlled bear could throw you to the wrong person. Especially if you didn't know it was mind controlled.


Alignment doesn't define the character's fighting style.
You do show up differently on a detect alignment. Which changes the situations in which you have to fight.


Of course you do. Your class is Fighter, but your occupation is priest. For example, in Eberron most priests are Experts.
And most priests would have knowledge religion? Which you don't have as a class skill?


Yeah, the mechanics are exactly the same. The fluff isn't, which is the very point.
By the rules, Third Eyes are just as difficult to sunder/steal as helmets. A big squid that could eat your helmet could eat your Third Eye. Mechanically, there's no change.
There are no mechanics for putting gloves/gauntlets on, nor are there any for chopping hands off. There is no mechanical difference.
No difference when it comes to game rules. Really, the point was that changing the fluff need not have any effects on the mechanics of the game.
These were taken up by Boci. My answers to his replies are also relevant to yours.


A bead of pure magic can turn into a stone and drop to ground when in AMF.
Emphasis mine. There is no stone.
Besides, magical force does not have a hardness score. Stone does.


Nor can monks before level 19, but they will still be monks. Classes are metagame constructs.
But I don't think you can build a swordsage with the exact same numbers as a monk. If you handed in character sheets with the classes erased, you can tell which is which.
Besides, one is useful, one isn't.


It flips you. It's magic. :smallamused:
Remember I added the qualifier that "it's magic" doesn't cut it. If you're running a world with strict magical principles, you cannot just say "it's magic".

Of course, if your world runs on "it's magic!" then I have nothing further to say since magic has become DM fiat. Magic A isn't really Magic A anymore.


Precisely! Do you see the light at long last?

I don't get it. A fluff change generates an in-universe observable difference. You're changing the setting here. Obviously that affects things like how easily you'll get scrolls and stuff.

That's an effect (mechanically, restrictions on WBL spending). Which will change how people build characters.


It has a slimmer blade profile cutting down the weight.
And you have a "longsword" that deals 2d6 damage instead of 1d8. That's a mechanical difference.
Or if you go from Greatsword down, one is 2-H, the other is 1-H.


Yes, the same as normal sun blades. See, mechanics haven't changed, merely the fluff has!
Wait, wait. I must have read that wrongly. Normal sunblades glow... and your refluffed ones look like blacklights?
Then it goes from being a target at night to not being a target at night. Spot checks to see you change.


The plane of pure magic can't be blocked, especially not with magic.
More magic theory. Said plane could be planeshifted to from the Prime?


See, the fluff can be changed without changing mechanics! (Also, sorcerers use vancian casting too. The spells are concrete entities that always have the same result and cost the same amount of resources. You can't just light your pipe with Fireballs.)
Sorry. I misused vancian. I meant, memorize fixed spells.

The difference is that your change will require a different setting. Which has different effects on character creation.


Nope, the concentration can't be broken via mind control, but a, say, calm emotions interrupts the intense focus needed.
Yes, concentration can be broken by mind control. It is an active mental state after all.


A greater spinning sword can wrap around things and tie down criminals.
The last I knew, swords didn't bend. Question:
Do you regard a different tactical situation or strategic challenge to be a mechanical difference?
Like having to defend the town from orcs VS trying to avoid getting caught.

Because I am treating it as if it is a mechanical difference. If I include that into the statement, do you think the statement is a better one?

Boci:

1. There are no mechanics for that.
2. You'd think they would remove the gauntlets/gloves then.
There are mechanical differences for losing a hand. Like not being able to use it and having to grow it back using the Regeneration spell.
Although, I'll concede that there are no mechanics for losing limbs apart from heads.


So magical silk is as strong as magical metal.
It isn't. There are values for material properties given in the SRD.

There are also rules for how enchantments affect this.


Simple: the armour softens deforming the runes slightly, but is still functional as armour.
That also results from Heat Metal. Also, I could mention the difference of being able to take my cape off in an AMF while the runes disappear.

************************************
EDIT2:
The main thing I'm pointing out, is a little gripe that you should remove the [Exalted] tag from VoP if you're refluffing it to be not a "good" act.
And maybe not make it cost Sacred Vow as a feat.

Greenish
2010-08-08, 12:47 PM
Question:
Do you regard a different tactical situation or strategic challenge to be a mechanical difference?
Like having to defend the town from orcs VS trying to avoid getting caught.

Because I am treating it as if it is a mechanical difference. If I include that into the statement, do you think the statement is a better one?I don't see what the situation has to do with what we're talking about.

Anyway, an Urumi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urumi), also called "Spinning Sword" in Secrets of Sarlona.

The main thing I'm pointing out, is a little gripe that you should remove the [Exalted] tag from VoP if you're refluffing it to be not a "good" act.
And maybe not make it cost Sacred Vow as a feat.How is giving all your wealth to charity not a good act?

[Edit]:
But I don't think you can build a swordsage with the exact same numbers as a monk.Why would you even want to? The point is that your Swordsage can easily call himself a monk, given that he spends his time practicing martial arts and meditating in a temple.

Math_Mage
2010-08-08, 01:19 PM
How is giving all your wealth to charity not a good act?

How closely are we tying player motivations and character motivations here? It's a little annoying when a player says "I want to make my character Exalted and take a vow of poverty, but I'm not doing it unless I get something just as good as WBL for my character in return." Like a businessman who donates to charity because it's covered by tax deductions anyway. This is by contrast to the player who says, "I want my character to be powered by sacredness instead of magic items, so let's write up a VoP fix to make it happen." One player is trying to base his character on sacrifice, but refuses to sacrifice anything; the other is up-front about the trade being made. I dunno, the former just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

This doesn't make the character's actions not Good or Exalted, of course. I'm just feeling my way through my opinion here.

Greenish
2010-08-08, 01:23 PM
How closely are we tying player motivations and character motivations here? It's a little annoying when a player says "I want to make my character Exalted and take a vow of poverty, but I'm not doing it unless I get something just as good as WBL for my character in return." Like a businessman who donates to charity because it's covered by tax deductions anyway. This is by contrast to the player who says, "I want my character to be powered by sacredness instead of magic items, so let's write up a VoP fix to make it happen." One player is trying to base his character on sacrifice, but refuses to sacrifice anything; the other is up-front about the trade being made. I dunno, the former just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

This doesn't make the character's actions not Good or Exalted, of course. I'm just feeling my way through my opinion here.How about "I want my character to be powered by sacredness instead of magic items, but I don't want to be less effective because of it"?

jseah
2010-08-08, 01:32 PM
I don't see what the situation has to do with what we're talking about.
That was in relation to the one about wizarding colleges and sorceror magic sources.


Anyway, an Urumi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urumi), also called "Spinning Sword" in Secrets of Sarlona.
That doesn't look like it would give that "drop to avoid counter-trip" that spiked chain has. But it could be similar.


How is giving all your wealth to charity not a good act?
That particular form is fine. That was how it was written anyway.
It's the ones where you make it "a custom made suit of armour" that should not be [Exalted].

The argument about whether making it up to par with items makes it not "good" I shall not enter.
But I was pointing out that if you make it not satisfy (whoever that was who made that argument)'s requirement for being Exalted, then it shouldn't be for him.

EDIT: now I remember. It was me saying that fluff change must generate a mechanical difference of removing [Exalted] that started this whole derail.


[Edit]: Why would you even want to? The point is that your Swordsage can easily call himself a monk, given that he spends his time practicing martial arts and meditating in a temple.
Well, he can call himself a monk, but he obviously has abilities that are different from other monks using the original class.

What he cannot do is call himself the same type of monk as the PHB one since he is patently not. At least not without a bluff check. ;)

Math_Mage
2010-08-08, 01:38 PM
How about "I want my character to be powered by sacredness instead of magic items, but I don't want to be less effective because of it"?

That's the second option I gave. I'm sorry if I gave the mistaken impression that the second guy was giving up power. I thought the term "VoP fix" would be an adequate indicator to the contrary.

Boci
2010-08-08, 01:40 PM
What he cannot do is call himself the same type of monk as the PHB one since he is patently not. At least not without a bluff check. ;)

No one ingame knows that core came before ToB.

Greenish
2010-08-08, 01:46 PM
Well, he can call himself a monk, but he obviously has abilities that are different from other monks using the original class.

What he cannot do is call himself the same type of monk as the PHB one since he is patently not. At least not without a bluff check. ;)Classes are metagame constructs. He is just as monk as another monk who might have different talents.

Really, you don't have to be the class called samurai to be a samurai. Even in OotS-verse, where people actually are aware of the game mechanics.

jseah
2010-08-08, 02:00 PM
^Boci / Greenish:
I mean, you can fluff it as coming from a temple and what not, (which doesn't explain how other non-temple unarmed swordsages are using your special monk moves, can they read your martial scripts when yours involve Ki and theirs involves some other system for Desert Wind?)

You are still not the same as the normal monk. Anyone who watches you kick their collective ass will easily tell you that. They might not be able to tell you're in the same boat as the Warblade, but they can tell you use different techniques from them.

There's like, two different words for "monk". Monk the class, the bunch of people with certain abilities. And monk the descriptor, a bunch of ascetics who have a vaguely religious practice.

EDIT:
Btw, I do agree that classes are a metagame construct. I just don't agree that you can refluff them with completely no impact. (whether that impact be mechanics changes or just some RP problems)

Boci
2010-08-08, 02:03 PM
You are still not the same as the normal monk. Anyone who watches you kick their collective ass will easily tell you that.

How will they know your not a monk? You grew up in a monestary and practice martial art. Your making a monutain out of an anthill with this refluffing issue. It does not disrupt the game and makes for more unique and origional characters.

true_shinken
2010-08-08, 03:47 PM
My gestalt psychic warrior / incarnate (pathfinder psychic warrior = win) has a vop-like feat called "In the hands of fate". you give up magic items like VoP does, but not potions. You are also not bound to give your money at all (it's not charity), the bonuses are all of the Luck type, and the fluff is that the guy is just that damn lucky.

Well, that feat is a lot different from VoP. It grants less benefits (you don't get a built-in ring of sustenance, if I remember correctly) and it allows some other stuff... you could even have symbionts, I believe.
And let's face it, they made this feat so that James K could still be a badass without magical gear.
And about the flavour, I don't think it's "I'm that lucky"... it's supposed to be "F*ck yeah, I'm that AWESOME!"




The use of an obscure template was merely to demonstrate my point.
Refluffing VoP away from being an "pure good" feat, should make it stop being an Exalted feat. Doesn't mean it can't work, just that refluffing should have in-game effects.

Grabbing a random stick and shooting fireballs would also be kinda weird depending on how you explain magic.

I completely agree with you. Refluffing is all fine and dandy when made with a lot of thought and considering the impact of the game - say, refluffing Suel Arcanamachs as a certain guild in a certain big city, or reluffing Elemental Warriors as dragonslayers from Fairy Tail. You ask your DM, he okays it and then stuff will have adequate impact on his game.
Maybe you'll find some DM who okays stuff like 'my gear looks like crap, but works like normal' and does not care about the ridiculousness of it and how the game world works in one way for all characters in a completely different way for a single guy. Maybe you'll enjoy his game, even.
I'd never allow anyone to do that in my games, because I want them to be consistent.



Spiritual manifestation of my ability to manipulate hormones.
That... is quite ridiculous. Sorry.



So magical silk is as strong as magical metal.
Is it? This is not in the realm of player decisions. If some kind of material known as 'magical silk' exists, it's up for the DM to decide or not.


How closely are we tying player motivations and character motivations here? It's a little annoying when a player says "I want to make my character Exalted and take a vow of poverty, but I'm not doing it unless I get something just as good as WBL for my character in return." Like a businessman who donates to charity because it's covered by tax deductions anyway. This is by contrast to the player who says, "I want my character to be powered by sacredness instead of magic items, so let's write up a VoP fix to make it happen." One player is trying to base his character on sacrifice, but refuses to sacrifice anything; the other is up-front about the trade being made. I dunno, the former just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

This doesn't make the character's actions not Good or Exalted, of course. I'm just feeling my way through my opinion here.
Every time you post in this thead, I like you a bit more, Math_Mage.


How about "I want my character to be powered by sacredness instead of magic items, but I don't want to be less effective because of it"?
As a DM, I'd say "you need some kind of disadvantage, else you are just getting power for free". Then I'd probably end up with something like Ao Sabor do Destino like Snake-Aes mentioned.
I don't think it's what the OP wants. Like Math_Mage said, it looks like he just does not want the hassle of having his equipment lost. It's not done for concept, flavour, fluff, whatchacallit. It looks like it's simple power hungriness and I wouldn't waste my time or disturb my own game's internal workings for that.

Boci
2010-08-08, 03:53 PM
And about the flavour, I don't think it's "I'm that lucky"... it's supposed to be "F*ck yeah, I'm that AWESOME!"

Then maybe he refluffed it.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-08, 03:55 PM
No, not really.

I called it luck because, well, all the bonuses are luck bonuses.

Milskidasith
2010-08-08, 04:02 PM
EDIT:
Btw, I do agree that classes are a metagame construct. I just don't agree that you can refluff them with completely no impact. (whether that impact be mechanics changes or just some RP problems)

Since somebody else already pointed out all the issues with your post in response to mine (that everything you pointed out was either a fluff difference, ignorable, or that you were making up rules or details about what I was saying in order to prove me wrong, which is kind of strawmanning me), I'd just like to say two things.

First of all, since I didn't see a response: I never said you can pick up a stick with your "I'm poor but using WBL to have stuff" character and magically use it, nor that you can't sell your gear. It's still got your spirit, or essence, or whatever in it, and you only have so much (WBL amount) to put into stuff. If you sell it, you get some, but not all, of your spirit/essence/whatever back.

Second: If you are truly agreeing classes are metagame constructs, why can't you call your unarmed swordsage a monk? The only arguments you have made are that you'd notice you're different than other monks, which would require all monks to be straight monk 20s. Even that is a fluff difference. Even if everybody in a monastery only takes monks levels and has all the same feats and fights exactly the same, having people know your fighting style isn't the same as a true monk, even if it has similarities, doesn't mean you can't call yourself a monk, or that you couldn't have been in a monastery. It might lead to some roleplaying differences, sure, but that's the entire point of refluffing. You're making our position out to be that refluffing won't change any fluff or crunch, which is a strawman; only if there is a clear mechanical difference between one refluffed thing and another would your point about refluffing changing mechanics be true.

true_shinken
2010-08-08, 04:11 PM
No, not really.

I called it luck because, well, all the bonuses are luck bonuses.

Yeah, I know, I'm not discussing anything ^^
I'm just saying James K is that awesome, that's all. When they say "James K beat the Chameleon! Without magic!" you don't go "what a lucky guy" you go "OMG, that pirate is SO AWESOME!"

Snake-Aes
2010-08-08, 04:14 PM
XD Indeed. But...what was this thread about again? O.o I am rather confused now.

true_shinken
2010-08-08, 04:16 PM
XD Indeed. But...what was this thread about again? O.o I am rather confused now.

Talk about derailed. Btw, I think the OP never bothered to post here a second time.

Jallorn
2010-08-08, 04:20 PM
Talk about derailed. Btw, I think the OP never bothered to post here a second time.

This is my fourth post, thank you very much.

true_shinken
2010-08-08, 04:21 PM
This is my fourth post, thank you very much.

Oh, sorry Jallorn. ^^
Somehow I didn't think you were the OP. I apologize again.

Greenish
2010-08-08, 04:41 PM
^Boci / Greenish:
I mean, you can fluff it as coming from a temple and what not, (which doesn't explain how other non-temple unarmed swordsages are using your special monk moves, can they read your martial scripts when yours involve Ki and theirs involves some other system for Desert Wind?)

You are still not the same as the normal monk.Maybe it's them who are different.
There's like, two different words for "monk". Monk the class, the bunch of people with certain abilities. And monk the descriptor, a bunch of ascetics who have a vaguely religious practice.Precisely. In-game characters are only conscious about the latter kind. Monks who take different feats, swordsages, unarmed swordsages, rogues, barbarians... There are many different approaches to being an ascetic, and none of them is any "monker" than the others.

The classes could as well be called "Class X", "Class Y" and "Bob the Janitor".

Serenity
2010-08-08, 05:27 PM
How closely are we tying player motivations and character motivations here? It's a little annoying when a player says "I want to make my character Exalted and take a vow of poverty, but I'm not doing it unless I get something just as good as WBL for my character in return." Like a businessman who donates to charity because it's covered by tax deductions anyway. This is by contrast to the player who says, "I want my character to be powered by sacredness instead of magic items, so let's write up a VoP fix to make it happen." One player is trying to base his character on sacrifice, but refuses to sacrifice anything; the other is up-front about the trade being made. I dunno, the former just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

But that's just the thing: the player's sacrifice or lack thereof has nothing to do with the character's sacrifice. I see absolutely no difference between your two different players. Both want to play a character who is Exalted, charitable, and ascetic, but feel that such a character would not be fun to play if, as a consequence of that roleplaying choice, is less powerful.

The character with the Vow of Poverty made a sacrifice out of the goodness of his heart, and was rewarded for his spiritual purity and goodness by the Cosmic Forces of Good. That the metagame perspective makes it an 'even trade' doesn't change the fact that the character made a sacrifice, surrendering all claim to anything and holding themselves to a narrow path of conduct. We don't only allow someone to play a barbarian if they can bench 200 and have a temper, after all. The player is distinct from his character.

true_shinken
2010-08-08, 06:23 PM
That the metagame perspective makes it an 'even trade' doesn't change the fact that the character made a sacrifice, surrendering all claim to anything and holding themselves to a narrow path of conduct.

Except it won't be an even trade; this was mentioned time and time again in his thread. If your magical gear is not physical, you are already at an advantage - it can't get sundered or stolen, it can't be stopped by an antimagic field and the like.

Milskidasith
2010-08-08, 06:27 PM
Except it won't be an even trade; this was mentioned time and time again in his thread. If your magical gear is not physical, you are already at an advantage - it can't get sundered or stolen, it can't be stopped by an antimagic field and the like.

If you are seriously arguing that the VoP is more powerful than having items, I really don't know what to say. You can outright buy all the benefits with WBL and still have a lot left; getting the upgraded VoP, while certainly more useful, still doesn't give enough flexibility to make it any more powerful than WBL.

EDIT: Also, sundering and stealing gear are incredibly rare things, simply because, by virtue of how D&D works, destroying a characters gear is worse for him than actually killing him.

true_shinken
2010-08-08, 06:38 PM
If you are seriously arguing that the VoP is more powerful than having items, I really don't know what to say. You can outright buy all the benefits with WBL and still have a lot left; getting the upgraded VoP, while certainly more useful, still doesn't give enough flexibility to make it any more powerful than WBL.
The whole thread is about 'VoP needing to be fixed to be on pair with WBL'. If VoP indeed gave benefits identical to WBL, yes, you would be getting a huge benefit. That's the thing.


EDIT: Also, sundering and stealing gear are incredibly rare things, simply because, by virtue of how D&D works, destroying a characters gear is worse for him than actually killing him.
That's a gross generalization. There are a few monsters built around the concept of destroying/stealing items (rust monsters, ethereal filcher and nightwalker spring to mind), others have Improved Sunder (like most giants, I believe) and sundering is an action anyone can take and it can easily change the tide of a fight - it logically should be a common option. Also, losing gear is a staple of the fantasy genre. Happens to Conan all the time. Also happens all the time during Year of Rogue Dragons also - Dorn just can't keep a sword for long (he loses his magical bastard sword as of the second battle in the book!).
If it is rare in your games, that's fine. But assuming it is 'so rare it makes no difference' in other people's game is at best a gross generalization.

Milskidasith
2010-08-08, 06:51 PM
The whole thread is about 'VoP needing to be fixed to be on pair with WBL'. If VoP indeed gave benefits identical to WBL, yes, you would be getting a huge benefit. That's the thing.

Except VoP gives set benefits... the inability to have gear stolen doesn't make up for the lack of flexibility, such as not being able to get massive bonuses to your key stat or get certain unique items like Belt of Battle. Bringing it up to wealth-by-level appropriate benefits would not make up for the fact that they would be set benefits that many characters wouldn't need.


That's a gross generalization. There are a few monsters built around the concept of destroying/stealing items (rust monsters, ethereal filcher and nightwalker spring to mind), others have Improved Sunder (like most giants, I believe) and sundering is an action anyone can take and it can easily change the tide of a fight - it logically should be a common option. Also, losing gear is a staple of the fantasy genre. Happens to Conan all the time. Also happens all the time during Year of Rogue Dragons also - Dorn just can't keep a sword for long (he loses his magical bastard sword as of the second battle in the book!).
If it is rare in your games, that's fine. But assuming it is 'so rare it makes no difference' in other people's game is at best a gross generalization.

The point is that losing your characters gear, in D&D, is something that means it is time to reroll your character; it is literally easier to die in D&D than make up for lost cash. Yes, anybody can use it, but it is one of those things that generally shouldn't be used or assumed to be in play because it ruins the loot output for the players or makes the characters feel the need to reroll, respectively. That is the same reason, although more extreme, why nobody ever honestly suggests using unmodified disjunctions in a game; sure, you can use it, but why get rid of any loot from the boss/make the players better served by rerolling than continuing?

In short, sundering/stealing equipment is not done in D&D because it's one of those things that, due to the way D&D works, bad for the players no matter how you're using it, and suggesting that using a, to put it simply, broken mechanic gives more benefit to the vow of poverty than flexibility in item choice does is something that makes no sense to me.

EDIT: Also, Conan and Dorn are, by D&D standards, low level and will obviously be less affected by losing their gear. Not that trying to argue "It works in *insert fantasy book*, so it should work in D&D" makes much sense anyway, but this example seems particularly poor; if there was a book where characters power was, for non magic classes, mostly based around their magic gear and their gear was constantly stolen, the example might make more sense.

true_shinken
2010-08-08, 08:07 PM
Except VoP gives set benefits... the inability to have gear stolen doesn't make up for the lack of flexibility, such as not being able to get massive bonuses to your key stat or get certain unique items like Belt of Battle. Bringing it up to wealth-by-level appropriate benefits would not make up for the fact that they would be set benefits that many characters wouldn't need.
Except that wealth by level appropriate benefits would include something akin to a belt of battle effect, so your point is moot.




The point is that losing your characters gear, in D&D, is something that means it is time to reroll your character; it is literally easier to die in D&D than make up for lost cash.
What? This makes no sense. The game is built on the premise that you get, at each level, approprate wealth. If you lost a magical sword, you'll eventually get a new one.


Yes, anybody can use it, but it is one of those things that generally shouldn't be used or assumed to be in play because it ruins the loot output for the players or makes the characters feel the need to reroll, respectively.
"Feel the need to reroll" is ridiculous. Any "new character" joins the party a level lower and with less gold and less gear as well. And really, your character is no longer any good just because he is slightly less powerful? You lost your sword for a while so you'll have to depend on a masterwork weapon till you get to a shop - so what?


That is the same reason, although more extreme, why nobody ever honestly suggests using unmodified disjunctions in a game; sure, you can use it, but why get rid of any loot from the boss/make the players better served by rerolling than continuing?
Disjunction destroys all of the items. Sundering/stealing is controllable. Your comparison holds no meaning.


In short, sundering/stealing equipment is not done in D&D because it's one of those things that, due to the way D&D works, bad for the players no matter how you're using it, and suggesting that using a, to put it simply, broken mechanic gives more benefit to the vow of poverty than flexibility in item choice does is something that makes no sense to me.
I don't think it's a broken mechanic. I've always played with this and never had any problem.
Also, it's not that 'it's not done in D&D' - it's just not done in YOUR GAME. It's even SUGGESTED in DMG2 for a change of pace.


EDIT: Also, Conan and Dorn are, by D&D standards, low level and will obviously be less affected by losing their gear.
Dron Graybrook is officially a level 10 Fighter, actually. Year of Rogue Dragons is a D&D novel.

Math_Mage
2010-08-08, 08:37 PM
But that's just the thing: the player's sacrifice or lack thereof has nothing to do with the character's sacrifice. I see absolutely no difference between your two different players. Both want to play a character who is Exalted, charitable, and ascetic, but feel that such a character would not be fun to play if, as a consequence of that roleplaying choice, is less powerful.

The character with the Vow of Poverty made a sacrifice out of the goodness of his heart, and was rewarded for his spiritual purity and goodness by the Cosmic Forces of Good. That the metagame perspective makes it an 'even trade' doesn't change the fact that the character made a sacrifice, surrendering all claim to anything and holding themselves to a narrow path of conduct. We don't only allow someone to play a barbarian if they can bench 200 and have a temper, after all. The player is distinct from his character.

My beef is not with the character. It mostly has to do with what kind of fix the player's asking for and how he's asking for it. Come to that, I don't really have a general beef with redoing VoP; I've said more than once that VoP fixes can be a great thing for someone who wants to make a character without bowing to the Christmas Tree effect. Which is why I dislike the "I carry around common objects that happen to be magic items" or the "I use some percentage of WBL to buy items that I then refluff as inherent bonuses" type of VoP "fix"; it's indicative of a lazy mechanic who doesn't want to adjust his character sheet to fit his concept at all. That's one example of the wrong type of fix, to me.

Awnetu
2010-08-08, 08:41 PM
As a DM, I'd say "you need some kind of disadvantage, else you are just getting power for free".

So giving up access to magic items and gold, and being tied to a certain alignment counts as trading nothing? For a set list of benefits, some of which may never be used in a campaign?

Bob the fighter takes VoP because he decides that he wants to live a life dedicated to helping provide for those who have nothing, and as a result finds that a god looks favorably upon it and grants him special powers. How do the strength of the benefits the god grants him make the decision to become charitable any less good? He could have heard of such benefits bestowed upon certain individuals in the past, but while that may have an effect on his decision, anything that makes a decision to help others easier to make is still not really taking away from the good of the act. Especially not when in the world of D&D, losing access to your wealth and magical items, can CRIPPLE your character, being dead means you can't help anyone.

Milskidasith
2010-08-08, 09:17 PM
Except that wealth by level appropriate benefits would include something akin to a belt of battle effect, so your point is moot.

No, you're strawmanning me here. Read the proposed VoP fix. It doesn't have anything resembling a belt of battle effect. You are attacking a position that I have not stated. Please do not do so and actually post about things that I have said.


What? This makes no sense. The game is built on the premise that you get, at each level, approprate wealth. If you lost a magical sword, you'll eventually get a new one.

But if you lose a magical sword, you still don't have it now and if you are destroying magical swords, you still don't have wealth by level. Not only that, but wealth by level never states you get back any gold you lose; you certainly don't get more gold after using a consumable item, and it is, at best, disputable (read: there is no ruling on it, so you shouldn't be saying there is) that you will get your wealth by level back because you broke a more permanent item.



"Feel the need to reroll" is ridiculous. Any "new character" joins the party a level lower and with less gold and less gear as well. And really, your character is no longer any good just because he is slightly less powerful? You lost your sword for a while so you'll have to depend on a masterwork weapon till you get to a shop - so what?

Two things:

First, you don't have to enter the party a level lower. That's a houserule, AFAIK, albeit an extremely common one. Second of all, even if you do enter the party a level lower, you still have level appropriate wealth, while the guy with destroyed gear does not, and losing level appropriate wealth is a massive loss.


Disjunction destroys all of the items. Sundering/stealing is controllable. Your comparison holds no meaning.

Actually, it does. They're the exact same things, just on different scales. Breaking everything a character owns/destroying all your loot is the same as breaking 10% of what you own or losing 10% of your loot.



I don't think it's a broken mechanic. I've always played with this and never had any problem.
Also, it's not that 'it's not done in D&D' - it's just not done in YOUR GAME. It's even SUGGESTED in DMG2 for a change of pace.

OK, I'll change that. Sundering/stealing is not done in most D&D games. It is not assumed to be done, because breaking what characters are based on is bad. Just as disjunction is bad (and definitely requires a reroll), so is sundering/stealing. And even if you are using them often, since this argument is entirely about the benefits of VoP compared to WBL, the ability to avoid getting your gear stolen when you will make it up later (as you said), is not worth the flexibility of actually getting what items you want, which still makes VoP a weak feat when it's giving you below the normal amount of gear, unless you are routinely suffering from having more than 20% of your wealth by level being broken at a time, and that's assuming that VoP gear is 100% optimal for your character, instead of being varied bonuses which don't give all the powers you need and may or may not even be beneficial to your character.

Ozymandias9
2010-08-08, 09:47 PM
The character with the Vow of Poverty made a sacrifice out of the goodness of his heart, and was rewarded for his spiritual purity and goodness by the Cosmic Forces of Good. That the metagame perspective makes it an 'even trade' doesn't change the fact that the character made a sacrifice, surrendering all claim to anything and holding themselves to a narrow path of conduct. We don't only allow someone to play a barbarian if they can bench 200 and have a temper, after all. The player is distinct from his character.

My concern with upgrading VoP, at least for the default fluff, is not whether or not it comes even in the metagame. It is whether a reasonably astute character in the game world would consider it an equitable trade. That degree of knowledge of power level is metagame knowledge to some settings, and most assuredly not for others.

There are certainly applications of VoP to different fluff that have no such conundrum, and where those are in play I have no issue making it closer to WBL (though I generally don't bother when it's modeling uniform low gear play in a resource starved setting or the like).

Milskidasith
2010-08-08, 09:55 PM
My concern with upgrading VoP, at least for the default fluff, is not whether or not it comes even in the metagame. It is whether a reasonably astute character in the game world would consider it an equitable trade. That degree of knowledge of power level is metagame knowledge to some settings, and most assuredly not for others.

The point is that characters in the game world do not know they are making a trade at all. They can't say "I want to be poor" and boom, glowing green lighting bolts from YALORT strike them and give them bonuses. It's a benefit from their devotion they get because they were willing to sacrifice wealth and be devoted to the cause, not something they knew they would get for giving everything they make to charity. Even though you don't say your complaint is a metagame one, everything you have said is a metagame concept; characters don't know that they get benefits from willingly being poor.

Starbuck_II
2010-08-08, 10:04 PM
What? This makes no sense. The game is built on the premise that you get, at each level, approprate wealth. If you lost a magical sword, you'll eventually get a new one.


And till then you can't harm most monster (DR/magic is common).

Granted, if Mr. Cleric is willing to buff party with chaining Greater Magic Weapon then sure, masterwork will work.

Ozymandias9
2010-08-08, 10:41 PM
The point is that characters in the game world do not know they are making a trade at all. They can't say "I want to be poor" and boom, glowing green lighting bolts from YALORT strike them and give them bonuses. It's a benefit from their devotion they get because they were willing to sacrifice wealth and be devoted to the cause, not something they knew they would get for giving everything they make to charity. Even though you don't say your complaint is a metagame one, everything you have said is a metagame concept; characters don't know that they get benefits from willingly being poor.

You're telling me, that under no circumstances would observant NPC Q notice that there is a patter of people who give up all wealth being rewarded with supernatural abilities of a specific kind. That they wouldn't notice, per say, that these 10 people who gave up wealth all together no longer need to eat? Or, if VoP were reworked to grant flight, that no one would notice that those 10 people could all fly without the aid of spell or item? That the characters themselves don't notice that they seem to have capacities that others gain only from hideously expensive items?

That's like saying that no-one will notice that adventures with a strong connection to nature often have the ability to turn into animals. I don't expect any character to know the specifics of the wild shape mechanics, but I also would expect people who come into contact with other characters who have druid levels to eventually notice a pattern.

Milskidasith
2010-08-08, 10:58 PM
You're telling me, that under no circumstances would observant NPC Q notice that there is a patter of people who give up all wealth being rewarded with supernatural abilities of a specific kind. That they wouldn't notice, per say, that these 10 people who gave up wealth all together no longer need to eat? Or, if VoP were reworked to grant flight, that no one would notice that those 10 people could all fly without the aid of spell or item? That the characters themselves don't notice that they seem to have capacities that others gain only from hideously expensive items?

I'm not saying they won't notice it, I'm saying the characters don't actively make sacrifices in hopes of gaining those powers. Much like all holy men aren't capable of smiting X or casting divinely granted spells, not all guys without any wealth get granted powers by their god.

Even further, this is still a fluff issue that can be refluffed. If you want the VoP to be incredibly rare, of course the character wouldn't know he's making a sacrifice to get power because there's probably only a few legends about such a thing. If you want to make it a "Go to a temple, give up your stuff, get benefits from this god if you don't annoy him too much" type thing, you can do that as well. Either way, it's just fluff, so it doesn't matter.


That's like saying that no-one will notice that adventures with a strong connection to nature often have the ability to turn into animals. I don't expect any character to know the specifics of the wild shape mechanics, but I also would expect people who come into contact with other characters who have druid levels to eventually notice a pattern.

That's exactly what I said. :smallconfused: Characters won't know the specifics of "Give up cash, get power" and it doesn't necessarily happen to everybody, and may not even be common enough to be anything but a legend (or it may be common enough every town has its resident "poor flying guy") but how many people it does happen to is an entirely setting specific issue (and, in some campaigns, they could know that giving up items and devoting themself to a certain god grants them powers). Likewise, not everybody who likes nature is a druid, but there are obviously stories about people with such dedication, or connection at least, to nature that they gain spells and wildshaping and such.

Ozymandias9
2010-08-08, 11:22 PM
That's exactly what I said. :smallconfused: Characters won't know the specifics of "Give up cash, get power" and it doesn't necessarily happen to everybody, and may not even be common enough to be anything but a legend (or it may be common enough every town has its resident "poor flying guy") but how many people it does happen to is an entirely setting specific issue (and, in some campaigns, they could know that giving up items and devoting themself to a certain god grants them powers). Likewise, not everybody who likes nature is a druid, but there are obviously stories about people with such dedication, or connection at least, to nature that they gain spells and wildshaping and such.

I'm not saying that it isn't a setting specific concern. I noted that that knowledge isn't a given. But if the setting happens to be one where every town has a "poor flying guy," then if one of the primary purposes is to represent sacrifice on the part of the poor flying guy, the benefits of poverty should not be so great that another character would regard it as an equitable bargain: sacrifice is, by definition, inequitable.

If that isn't the case, than it would make more sense for the characters in the game reasonably aware of the power level to regard the decision as mystic aestheticism rather than self-sacrifice: and those represent different ideas.

Milskidasith
2010-08-08, 11:26 PM
I'm not saying that it isn't a setting specific concern. I noted that that knowledge isn't a given. But if the setting happens to be one where every town has a "poor flying guy," then if one of the primary purposes is to represent sacrifice on the part of the poor flying guy, the benefits of poverty should not be so great that another character would regard it as an equitable bargain: sacrifice is, by definition, inequitable.

If that isn't the case, than it would make more sense for the characters in the game reasonably aware of the power level to regard the decision as mystic aestheticism rather than self-sacrifice: and those represent different ideas.

OK, so you... don't disagree with me at all? I see no disagreements here, unless you are still against VoP being mechanically effective while still being called a sacrifice in a setting where most characters are neither aware of nor capable of gaining the benefits of the vow of poverty.

Ozymandias9
2010-08-08, 11:38 PM
OK, so you... don't disagree with me at all? I see no disagreements here, unless you are still against VoP being mechanically effective while still being called a sacrifice in a setting where most characters are neither aware of nor capable of gaining the benefits of the vow of poverty.

Mechanically effective isn't necessarily the same thing as "Equal to Wealth by Level." If you had a character concerned with power to the near exclusion of all else, they would (if aware of its general effects) not note a VoP that was equivalent to WBL as a significant sacrifice. No believable character is going to be that single minded-- it's presented here as an base point for later argument. In this case, realistically, the lack of material comforts would likely be more than enough to offset it.

But consider, in contrast, a situation in which characters do not routinely spend all of their WBL on adventuring capacity (incidentally, the DMG notes that having a load of magic items and not a penny to your name is undesirable): if you tune VoP to WBL in this situation, you will end up with the VoP character being noticeably more powerful than others. The same power minded character is going to now notice that the "flying poor guy" tends to be more powerful than others around. At this point, that character may reasonably start to regard the "flying poor guy's" choice less as selflessness and more as something in lines with the thematic tone of a Wu-Jen's taboos (though admittedly more extreme in most cases).

We seem to agree that this isn't a huge issue if VoP is exceedingly rare, but that is also a setting concern. If VoP is common enough that people are going to make the connection between the powers gained from the voluntary poverty and the poverty itself (and I generally assume when discussing design that this is the case to at least some degree), then it becomes relatively important that the mechanics interact with the idea they are supposed to represent in a way that allows the game world to remain internally consistent.

Awnetu
2010-08-09, 12:21 AM
Would a PC seeking power at the expense of everything else qualify for Vow of Poverty anyways? (Doesn't seem like something an [Exalted Feat] would allow.)

And why would the PC know for sure that he would get the same benefits from voluntarily being poor? The player knows this sure, but it could for all that PC knows, be because of the gifts bestowed upon that player by the god they follow.

In your setting, I highly doubt the gods would look favorably on their followers letting others know that the gateway to their power lies in the Vow of Poverty, and would probably rescind those gifts.

Milskidasith
2010-08-09, 12:28 AM
Would a PC seeking power at the expense of everything else qualify for Vow of Poverty anyways? (Doesn't seem like something an [Exalted Feat] would allow.)

The metagame aspect of "It gets me power" is the players choice, not the characters. The character is just really devoted to giving up all wealth to help others.


And why would the PC know for sure that he would get the same benefits from voluntarily being poor? The player knows this sure, but it could for all that PC knows, be because of the gifts bestowed upon that player by the god they follow.

The PC wouldn't know, is the exact point. Or rather, depending on the fluff, they'd know to a greater or lesser degree; they may know that many devout poor people get granted powers, or there may be only a few legends, or you are the first of your kind. Who knows? It's a fluff issue, as I said, and refluffing can occur.


In your setting, I highly doubt the gods would look favorably on their followers letting others know that the gateway to their power lies in the Vow of Poverty, and would probably rescind those gifts.

Stop strawmanning me and respond to things I have actually said. I never suggested that the character would go around saying "give up your goods to get power", nor did I suggest that the vow of poverty was an actual piece of fluff. It's a metagame construct, and depending on the fluff, you may or may not need to actually make an official vow; you could just be immensely charitable and devout, and, as I have said, your character does not necessarily know there are any benefits to doing it, or the extent of said benefits, or the chance of getting said benefits, or if he's more or less devout than others who have received those benefits, or anything, because those are all fluff issues, which, as I have stated multiple times in every post, can be refluffed away.

Awnetu
2010-08-09, 01:02 AM
I was actually directing most of that towards Ozy.

In every RPG I have ever read about or played, PC stood for player character, I was pointing out that the Character doesn't necessarily make this connection, even though the Player knows why its happening.

Ozy started describing a setting with the VoP being common knowledge and I presented what I felt was an adequate answer to that.

I don't think preforming good deeds to earn enormous power is something that would be looked upon with favor in the same setting. And I could see the characters who told such secrets about how others could become as powerful might lose that power.

At the same time, I don't see why I should punish the player behind that character for wanting to have a character who took the Vow. The feat was made so the concept could work (Try doing that concept on a noncaster without the feat, I'm betting it would be pretty painful at the later levels.)

Now, obviously if your campaign will not be following the WBL guidelines, you shouldn't use a version of the Vow that tries to emulate that. But at the same time, why not make it so the player is still at about the same level(as the party) through the gifts of a god, who felt that the selfless act warranted such rewards?

*Edit* If you are trying to remove items from players, could you not sever that player from the god granting the gifts at the same time? Then he's stuck too.

Ozymandias9
2010-08-09, 01:23 AM
I was actually directing most of that towards Ozy.

In every RPG I have ever read about or played, PC stood for player character, I was pointing out that the Character doesn't necessarily make this connection, even though the Player knows why its happening.

Ozy started describing a setting with the VoP making the character super totally awesome results in it becoming common knowledge, and I presented what I felt was an adequate answer to that.

I don't think preforming good deeds to earn enormous power is something that would be looked upon with favor in the same setting. And I could see the characters who told such secrets about how others could become as powerful might lose that power.

At the same time, I don't see why I should punish the player behind that character for wanting to have a character who took the Vow. The feat was made so the concept could work (Try doing that concept on a noncaster without the feat, I'm betting it would be pretty painful at the later levels.)

Now, obviously if your campaign will not be following the WBL guidelines, you shouldn't use a version of the Vow that tries to emulate that. But at the same time, why not make it so the player is still at about the same level(as the party) through the gifts of a god, who felt that the selfless act warranted such rewards?

I'm not generally suggesting that a character seeking only power would qualify for an Exalted feat. I'm sure I could contrive a situation where it would be possible, but that's not the point.

My overarching point regards how the rest of the world will view the character. In a setting where the characters in general are aware of the gist of the benefits of a more powerful VoP, there will be a point at which the level of power gained means it is no longer reasonable for other characters to regard the choice as sacrifice. For characters with motivations wildly disparate to sacrifice, that line will be more easily reached: that's not necessarily a bad thing-- the selfish should not always have a great grasp on selflessness.

However, it is also entirely possible for less disparate characters to reach viewpoint at some given power level. Given how extreme the power level of high level d&d already is, full-wealth by level equivalence may well qualify for some settings.

Consider the mirrored case, where your PC encounters an NPC with the abilities in question. If effect is strong enough that you would view it as something thematically akin to a Wu-Jen's taboo rather than the universe aiding the selfless, then I would expect NPCs to view it the same way relative to a PC.

Awnetu
2010-08-09, 01:44 AM
Does a NPC or another PCs view on it matter all that much?

The gift would be bestowed by a god who felt the sacrifice was in fact, made with pure intentions, and decided to reward the player. The other people may decide that they should do it too, but they would have to convince a god they possessed the same conviction, to receive the same bonuses as well. This wouldn't work so well if they were doing it with the expectation that they would be compensated, because a god would not view THAT choice as being a true sacrifice.

The rarity of the VoP bonus granted in that manner (So far as I know, gods aren't throwing around gifts to people in D&D.) would kind of reinforce the whole rewarded for a great sacrifice idea.

Out of character, even if the player in a min maxer, so long as the character is true to the backstory, and represents those ideals, the God would be satisfied with giving out the gift.

As I stated in my last post, the bonuses would bring the character closer inline with the other PC's in the setting if you were trying to fix VoP. Just pick the implementation that you feel best suits your campaign, if it DOES become so strong that the versatility granted by items doesn't match up with the effects of VoP, then you may have overshot your fix, in that case, as a DM you would have several options to fix that as well, (Change the fix, increase WBL, etc.)

Ozymandias9
2010-08-09, 03:27 AM
Does a NPC or another PCs view on it matter all that much?

Immensely. It's not going to change the mechanical outcome (I never said it would), but it's going to have an effect on tone. That's been my whole point: VoP can be refluffed to meet any number of concepts and gradations you desire. For many, if not most, of those options making it more powerful would actually be preferable.

But the default tone is fairly simple: you're not just good, you're super-good and a beacon of selflessness. You are so selfless, you radiate goodness. While one can certainly play a beleaguered saint (it may, in fact, be more interesting), I don't think the default tone of VoP would seem to imply to most players that people will find their character's motivations for taking such a vow questionable.

In truth, I find playing an exalted character straight is fairly boreing. I would far rather play the beleaguered saint with VoP than the unquestioned one. I prefer an Orwellian tone to an Exalted one.

But an Exalted Character is, by default, at least as visibly super-good as a paladin. When you start creating situations where it's not only likely, but reasonable for characters to question the nature of such goodness, you are (in my experience) likely to change the tone of how setting deals with morality-- and one of the points of Exalted options and BoED in general was to create a framework for bread-and-butter mainstream, modern, western morality.

true_shinken
2010-08-09, 08:11 AM
And till then you can't harm most monster (DR/magic is common).

If you 'can't harm' stuff with DR just because you lost a magical weapon, you shouldn't be in melee at all. You really deal less than 5, 10 or even 15 points of damage per turn? You shouldn't be attacking with a weapon, then.



No, you're strawmanning me here. Read the proposed VoP fix. It doesn't have anything resembling a belt of battle effect. You are attacking a position that I have not stated. Please do not do so and actually post about things that I have said.
I'm not attacking your position or anything. I'm just saying that if there is a 'VoP fix' that indeed makes it on par with WBL, it would need a belt of battle effect.




But if you lose a magical sword, you still don't have it now and if you are destroying magical swords, you still don't have wealth by level. Not only that, but wealth by level never states you get back any gold you lose; you certainly don't get more gold after using a consumable item, and it is, at best, disputable (read: there is no ruling on it, so you shouldn't be saying there is) that you will get your wealth by level back because you broke a more permanent item.
Look at it this way. It's not breaking the weapons (which the game has rules for and monsters supposed to do, meaning it probably could and should be done) that creates a problem - it's not giving the gold back. You really think you are supposed to not break weapons just because it's not written somewhere you should give the gold back? Frankly, it's ridiculous.



Two things:

First, you don't have to enter the party a level lower. That's a houserule, AFAIK, albeit an extremely common one. Second of all, even if you do enter the party a level lower, you still have level appropriate wealth, while the guy with destroyed gear does not, and losing level appropriate wealth is a massive loss.
It's in the DMG. It's not a houserule.



Actually, it does. They're the exact same things, just on different scales. Breaking everything a character owns/destroying all your loot is the same as breaking 10% of what you own or losing 10% of your loot.
So you are saying 100% = 10%...?
OK, so being hit for 10 points of damage has the same impact of being hit for 100 points of damage, I suppose.



OK, I'll change that. Sundering/stealing is not done in most D&D games. It is not assumed to be done, because breaking what characters are based on is bad. Just as disjunction is bad (and definitely requires a reroll), so is sundering/stealing.
It does not 'require' anything. If your character lost all gear and you jusy say 'I want to reroll!', you are ruining the game's inner verossimilitude. If an adventurer lost his gear, what would his do? Try to get new gear. It happens often in fantasy novels (and even videogames). If a DM threw a disjunction at you, he probably had a reason to do so - be it demonstrating the bad guy's ruthlessness or getting rid of an overpowered item you somehow got. If you simply 'reroll', you'd ruin the DM's work.




And even if you are using them often, since this argument is entirely about the benefits of VoP compared to WBL, the ability to avoid getting your gear stolen when you will make it up later (as you said), is not worth the flexibility of actually getting what items you want, which still makes VoP a weak feat when it's giving you below the normal amount of gear, unless you are routinely suffering from having more than 20% of your wealth by level being broken at a time, and that's assuming that VoP gear is 100% optimal for your character, instead of being varied bonuses which don't give all the powers you need and may or may not even be beneficial to your character.
Yeah, that's my whole point. I'm fine with that.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-09, 08:18 AM
If you 'can't harm' stuff with DR just because you lost a magical weapon, you shouldn't be in melee at all. You really deal less than 5, 10 or even 15 points of damage per turn? You shouldn't be attacking with a weapon, then.

DR is "Per attack", though you are correct that 5/10/15 isn't much to bypass at later levels. At low levels, however, the big dumb fighter still has his damage output halved by a dr 10.

Serenity
2010-08-09, 10:26 AM
It's in the DMG. It's not a houserule.

Uh...where? A character loses a level if he gets raised, but I have never heard of this rule in all the years that I have played D&D.

Caphi
2010-08-09, 10:30 AM
DR is "Per attack", though you are correct that 5/10/15 isn't much to bypass at later levels. At low levels, however, the big dumb fighter still has his damage output halved by a dr 10.

A DR 10 target at very low levels won't be intended to be a fair fight for the melee anyway. Either it's caster bait, a hopeless fight (or so the GM hopes), or a puzzle boss.

JaronK
2010-08-09, 10:33 AM
Uh...where? A character loses a level if he gets raised, but I have never heard of this rule in all the years that I have played D&D.

Never heard of it either. Where is this rule that you have to join the party a level lower found?

JaronK

Starbuck_II
2010-08-09, 10:41 AM
Never heard of it either. Where is this rule that you have to join the party a level lower found?

JaronK

I remember AD&D had that rule. He might be mismembering or a common houserule at his DM's place.

jseah
2010-08-09, 10:48 AM
How will they know your not a monk? You grew up in a monestary and practice martial art. Your making a monutain out of an anthill with this refluffing issue. It does not disrupt the game and makes for more unique and origional characters.
Perhaps we are valuing different things? I happen to value consistency in my settings very highly, changing even RP aspects tends to make my hair stand on end.
Well, I should have said that earlier, are other people willing to play with that level of handwaving?

EDIT: I could just withdraw my point and say it doesn't apply to your group if you can live with that level of inconsistency.
Personally, I get very irritated when random stuff happen for no good reason.


Since somebody else already pointed out all the issues with your post in response to mine (that everything you pointed out was either a fluff difference, ignorable, or that you were making up rules or details about what I was saying in order to prove me wrong, which is kind of strawmanning me), I'd just like to say two things.
A fluff difference leads to a mechanical difference.
Eg. Magic being easy leads to scrolls being widely available.
EDIT: also, making up details or bringing in fringe cases was meant in response to a challenge-like statement I unwisely issued. They are very unlikely to come up, but if they do come up the difference due to your refluffing must take place in order for consistency to be maintained.

And what you call ignorable depends on how much your group values consistency.
I did state that my point was contingent on wanting a consistent and predictive explanation for most things.


First of all, since I didn't see a response: I never said you can pick up a stick with your "I'm poor but using WBL to have stuff" character and magically use it, nor that you can't sell your gear. It's still got your spirit, or essence, or whatever in it, and you only have so much (WBL amount) to put into stuff. If you sell it, you get some, but not all, of your spirit/essence/whatever back.
I don't really get this. If your wands you have are just sticks you use your spirit/essence on, then it's just a stick to anyone else right? How do you sell it?


Second: If you are truly agreeing classes are metagame constructs, why can't you call your unarmed swordsage a monk? The only arguments you have made are that you'd notice you're different than other monks, which would require all monks to be straight monk 20s.
More noticeable than two monks with a different bunch of feats.
The same way a Monk/Psychic Warrior with Tasha--- (I can't spell it) is very different from a Monk/Fighter or your Swordsage. Enough difference that it would lead to distinctly different Tactical situations.


It might lead to some roleplaying differences, sure, but that's the entire point of refluffing.
Roleplaying differences, if large enough, will lead to your character using a different style of play. If you are an asetic-flavoured unarmed swordsage, you will meet different things compared to a ninja-flavoured unarmed swordsage. He's on the run from the law, you are not, which leads to a very obvious difference in how to play your character.
- You pick different feats and different maneuvers to deal with your different situations and act completely differently in town. That's a mechanical difference, you cannot pick a ninja-like skill/manuever set for an "monk" swordsage (unless you also refluff those and the chain continues).


Maybe it's them who are different.
Yes, it could be. Maybe in your setting all monks are called swordsages and learn Ki in schools while all swordsages are monks and train in temples.

The thing is, if a certain technique (say a swordsage maneuver) comes from training in a martial arts school in that setting...
Then your character either rederives that technique on his own or learns it from that school.

If you refluff the technique... it's not same technique anymore.


Precisely. In-game characters are only conscious about the latter kind. Monks who take different feats, swordsages, unarmed swordsages, rogues, barbarians... There are many different approaches to being an ascetic, and none of them is any "monker" than the others.

The classes could as well be called "Class X", "Class Y" and "Bob the Janitor".
They are also conscious of the former kind. It's measurable in-game by which abilities you have.

"Tim can hit you fast and hard with his fists, while Tom over there pulls some amazing magical stunts. "

The metagame aspect of "It gets me power" is the players choice, not the characters. The character is just really devoted to giving up all wealth to help others.

The PC wouldn't know, is the exact point. Or rather, depending on the fluff, they'd know to a greater or lesser degree; they may know that many devout poor people get granted powers, or there may be only a few legends, or you are the first of your kind. Who knows? It's a fluff issue, as I said, and refluffing can occur.
Actually, this is exactly what I was trying to say.

When you bring VoP's power level up, you need to enforce a further restriction on VoP that characters cannot be taking it just for the power. Otherwise, it violates the default fluff of VoP.

And to change the fluff of VoP, you also change the fluff of what it means to be Exalted.
Or maybe not, depending on how you refluffed VoP (or removing [Exalted] from it)

Fluff changing leads to a setting or mechanics change in order to maintain consistency.
Conversely, Mechanics changing leads to a setting or fluff change in order to maintain consistency.

Awnetu
2010-08-09, 01:47 PM
Giving yourself to a god for a higher cause would pretty much ruin the 'for the power' reason to take the feat, if the Characters motivation for taking the vow is simply to become more powerful the god would not say, I accept your vow, here is the list of powers you get.


Lets say my name is Bob, and I play a character named Awnetu.

In game Awnetu has the Sacred Vow feat already. He has pledged himself to a higher cause as per that feat. Now I(Bob) know that I was taking it to get to Vow of Poverty, and did talk to my DM to get the better version in game. But Awnetu has no idea what a feat is, to him, he was simply taking the Vow because its part of what the character concept is, a holy warrior who fights for his god.

Now Awnetu just hit level 3, and I choose for him to take the Vow of Poverty feat. In game, Awnetu decides to forsake all material wealth so that he may better serve his god. Having given up all his wealth and taken the Vow, Awnetu suddenly finds that he is being infused with divine power from his god for his sacrifice.

Awnetu is the character, and Bob is the player, Bob knows that he took the feats so that the character would still be useful in game, but able to model the warrior that gave up everything to better serve his god. Now it doesn't matter that in order to have a more effective Holy Warrior I decided to play a cleric, or a fighter/barbarian, (nothing there wouldn't work with those classes.) or that I wanted a stronger version of the feat. Awnetu took it to remove the material distractions from his life.

If you enforce the fluff in your world, take a look at the requirements for Vow of Poverty, a character who takes it has devoted himself to a higher cause/god, that pretty much rules out a power hungry character taking the feat. The only difference between the fixed VoP and the original VoP, is the magnitude of the rewards bestowed upon the character by the god.

And mechanics wise, VoP has one really harsh stipulation, if you EVER violate it, you can't atone and you lose all benefits permanently, also no retraining of that feat is allowed. So you (the player) traded 2 feats for nothing if you were playing a power hungry character.

Greenish
2010-08-09, 01:59 PM
EDIT: I could just withdraw my point and say it doesn't apply to your group if you can live with that level of inconsistency.
Personally, I get very irritated when random stuff happen for no good reason. There is no inconsistency. There's no "random stuff" happening "for no good reason".

There are monks who practise martial arts.

jseah
2010-08-09, 02:29 PM
There is no inconsistency. There's no "random stuff" happening "for no good reason".

There are monks who practise martial arts.
And depending on the setting, monkish philosophy might not jive with stuff like Sapphire Nightmare Blade or Assassin's Stance.
Unless you also refluff them, which could easily end up with you refluffing half the school.
- Or maybe you redefine the eastern monk to be a... I dunno, ninja-like character?

And then what happens to normal swordsages who learn the normal shadow hand versions and both of you can read/use each other's scripts despite not having similar backgrounds or training.
There's the inconsistency there.

Awnetu
2010-08-09, 02:39 PM
Why would a monk not use the Sapphire Nightmare Blade attack? Nothing in the attacks description goes against any code a monk would follow(Except non-violence, but the same goes for flurry of blows then.) The same goes with assassin's stance. The name can be changed if that's what you have a problem with.

Just because Kung Fu was developed in China doesn't mean that it cant be taught in America, its really not hard to believe that though we come from different backgrounds, we couldn't have learned the same fighting style.

As for training, that can be done different ways for any practice, it doesn't take much to believe the same could happen between the Sword Sage and the Monk using the same maneuvers.

Starbuck_II
2010-08-09, 02:41 PM
Sapphire Nightmare blade? +1d6 damage/flat foot.
Assasin's Stance: Learning how to hit in vitals like a rogue.

Seeing as Monks don't hate rogues...I'm confused how they don't combine well.

Greenish
2010-08-09, 02:42 PM
And depending on the setting, monkish philosophy might not jive with stuff like Sapphire Nightmare Blade or Assassin's Stance.Those have nothing to do with philosophy.
And then what happens to normal swordsages who learn the normal shadow hand versions and both of you can read/use each other's scripts despite not having similar backgrounds or training.
There's the inconsistency there.What inconsistency? Martial arts are martial arts.

What "normal swordsages"? You're still assuming that classes are in-game concepts.

Tavar
2010-08-09, 02:42 PM
So...what's the difference between that and, say, Divine Casters?

Ozymandias9
2010-08-09, 02:53 PM
What "normal swordsages"? You're still assuming that classes are in-game concepts.

There are plenty of settings where they are.

Consider:
Magewrights in Eberron
Wizards of High Sorcery in Dragonlance
Knightly Classes in Dragonlance
Magician (and to a lesser extent sorcerer/wizard) in Birthright
Noble in Dragonlance and Birthright
Clerics a huge number of settings.
Paladins in almost any setting

Caphi
2010-08-09, 03:02 PM
There are plenty of settings where they are.

Consider:
Magewrights in Eberron
Wizards of High Sorcery in Dragonlance
Knightly Classes in Dragonlance
Magician (and to a lesser extent sorcerer/wizard) in Birthright
Noble in Dragonlance and Birthright
Clerics a huge number of settings.
Paladins in almost any setting

<Swordsage> Swordsage? What's "swordsage"? I don't use a sword. I fight with honed body and disciplined mind. Weapons are not needed. I think you would call me, ah, what's Common for it? "Monk" is the word. You can call me "monk".

Snake-Aes
2010-08-09, 03:02 PM
While there are many classes that hang around factions, these are fluff, aren't they? A magewright in eberron is just a normal, low-power caster. It could be assumed most "backwater village casters" are actually those.
Even classes whose features rely on factions can have those fluffed out "Arcane order? I'm just drawing from my attuned crystals!".


Anyway, as long as the fluff is consistent with the mechanics, the class is fine. I consider them abstractions because all of them can be fluffed however you want.

jseah
2010-08-09, 03:02 PM
Those have nothing to do with philosophy.What inconsistency? Martial arts are martial arts.

What "normal swordsages"? You're still assuming that classes are in-game concepts.
By "normal swordsages" I refer to the non-refluffed swordsages that are still assumed to exist in the setting.

Since monks (referring to those with the set of special abilities from the monk class) do operate in a different way, this means that whatever in-game explanation for those monks (that's what I meant by philosophy) are not the same in-game explanation for your swordsage refluffed as monk. (otherwise you won't have different abilities)

And your swordsage refluffed as monk somehow has a different explanation from a swordsage NOT refluffed as monk despite being mechanically identical. Right down to being able to understand each other.
That's inconsistent.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-09, 03:07 PM
By "normal swordsages" I refer to the non-refluffed swordsages that are still assumed to exist in the setting.

Since monks (referring to those with the set of special abilities from the monk class) do operate in a different way, this means that whatever in-game explanation for those monks (that's what I meant by philosophy) are not the same in-game explanation for your swordsage refluffed as monk. (otherwise you won't have different abilities)

And your swordsage refluffed as monk somehow has a different explanation from a swordsage NOT refluffed as monk despite being mechanically identical. Right down to being able to understand each other.
That's inconsistent.
Hmm, I don't think many agree with what you are calling "inconsistent". Why shouldn't 2 different mechanics be able to cover the same fluff?
Or why couldn't the same mechanic cover two different fluffs? (this is even one of the fluff-as-you-will things that the books mention)

jseah
2010-08-09, 03:15 PM
Hmm, I don't think many agree with what you are calling "inconsistent". Why shouldn't 2 different mechanics be able to cover the same fluff?
Or why couldn't the same mechanic cover two different fluffs? (this is even one of the fluff-as-you-will things that the books mention)
Hmm... Could be why this is going nowhere. XD

Perhaps it's because I see the fluff as explaining the mechanics and the mechanics modelling the fluff? In a way that is a one-to-one correspondence?

Snake-Aes
2010-08-09, 03:17 PM
Hmm... Could be why this is going nowhere. XD

Perhaps it's because I see the fluff as explaining the mechanics and the mechanics modelling the fluff? In a way that is a one-to-one correspondence?

I feel it's more free-form than that. Much of the 'fluff variance' in a single class can be easily explained by the different builds. As long as people don't start asspulling it should be alright.

One of the few possible complications is the cross-compatibility you mentioned. It's hard to explain why a (swordsage)monk can use the paper and the (monk)monk can't, but both fill a very valid concept.

Tavar
2010-08-09, 03:19 PM
That's one way to view a class system, but it's not one that DnD makes an effort to follow. There are many, many classes that share significant amounts of fluff, crunch, or both. I mean, one of the suggested backgrounds to use with a swordsage is that of a monk.

Flickerdart
2010-08-09, 03:24 PM
By "normal swordsages" I refer to the non-refluffed swordsages that are still assumed to exist in the setting.

Since monks (referring to those with the set of special abilities from the monk class) do operate in a different way, this means that whatever in-game explanation for those monks (that's what I meant by philosophy) are not the same in-game explanation for your swordsage refluffed as monk. (otherwise you won't have different abilities)

And your swordsage refluffed as monk somehow has a different explanation from a swordsage NOT refluffed as monk despite being mechanically identical. Right down to being able to understand each other.
That's inconsistent.
Two people study under different masters and learn different techniques. One learns from a Swordsage and adapts the techniques of the Nine Swords to hand-to-hand combat. Another learns from a Monk and gets killed in the next dungeon. But they both learned in a similar manner, they just learned different styles.

jseah
2010-08-09, 03:32 PM
Flickerdart:
In which case, they are not both the same "monk" anymore.
One has a nine-swords background, the other is the traditional Ki/flurry monk. Different mechanics, different fluff. That's perfectly fine.

EDIT: it's when you say that swordsage is a monk, and monk is also the same monk fluff, while both have vastly different abilities, that a problem arises.

Snake-Aes; Tavar:
I think I see the point now.

Greenish and Milskidasith do not see mechanics as modelling something explained in the universe, while I do.
They also do not see fluff (or in-universe explanations) as requiring modelling by mechanics, while I do.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-09, 03:41 PM
Flickerdart:
In which case, they are not both the same "monk" anymore.
One has a nine-swords background, the other is the traditional Ki/flurry monk. Different mechanics, different fluff. That's perfectly fine.

Oh, I think this is somethign big that I kinda obscured: The fluff has to make sense. Like in the cross-compatibility dilemma, if the exact same fluff explains different things, it's probably going to fall apart. They can be both "monks", as in they were trained in a monastic system, with a rigid discipline and a self-discovery perspective, but they learned different things.


Snake-Aes; Tavar:
I think I see the point now.

Greenish and Milskidasith do not see mechanics as modelling something explained in the universe, while I do.
They also do not see fluff (or in-universe explanations) as requiring modelling by mechanics, while I do.

Awnetu
2010-08-09, 04:04 PM
Flickerdart:
In which case, they are not both the same "monk" anymore.
One has a nine-swords background, the other is the traditional Ki/flurry monk. Different mechanics, different fluff. That's perfectly fine.

EDIT: it's when you say that swordsage is a monk, and monk is also the same monk fluff, while both have vastly different abilities, that a problem arises.



What about Alternate Class Features?

Monks can trade off abilities for other abilities, (Flurry of Blows for Decisive Strike for example).

I guess what my problem is, where in the fluff for the monk does it say "Monks have Flurry of Blows/Ki Strike".

The monk class skills list that, but that's crunch isn't it?

jseah
2010-08-09, 04:23 PM
Like in the cross-compatibility dilemma, if the exact same fluff explains different things, it's probably going to fall apart.
I should have just said this from the start. But yes, reusing the same fluff for different mechanics will be inconsistent.

Perhaps the more contentious statement is that different fluff for the same mechanics is similarly inconsistent. >.>

However, I think it is mainly how importantly you treat in-universe explanations.
If you treat them as "the one and only true explanation" as I do, then perhaps we wouldn't have derailed the thread so much.
Conversely, if I was willing to accept some small level of "a wizard did it", we also would not have had it.
- too much hyperbole here. But I imagine this is how my position appears to others.


What about Alternate Class Features?

Monks can trade off abilities for other abilities, (Flurry of Blows for Decisive Strike for example).
They are slightly different monks. Less different than a swordsage "monk".


I guess what my problem is, where in the fluff for the monk does it say "Monks have Flurry of Blows/Ki Strike".
It doesn't. But your character's fluff (whatever that is) cannot be the same fluff as the monk's for flurry of blows (whatever you come up for it), without you also having flurry of blows as a monk does.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To bring this back on track, the increasing power of VoP makes it a more and more attractive option for characters. In-game.

They are the ones who swear the vows and carry them through, a character who swears those vows (and fufills all actions) for the purpose of getting that power should not qualify for VoP. [Regardless of the player's reasons for taking the feat]

This was not a problem because normally VoP < WBL. When it's equal or greater that you need to change the fluff of VoP to include that. (or modify the mechanics a bit more to take away the entire fluff of [Exalted], since you're already homebrewing the feat, doing that is easy enough)

Greenish
2010-08-09, 04:39 PM
Greenish and Milskidasith do not see mechanics as modelling something explained in the universe, while I do.
They also do not see fluff (or in-universe explanations) as requiring modelling by mechanics, while I do.I can't speak for Mil, but I do see mechanics modelling what happens in the game, and having fluff to match the crunch is one of my main goals, if not the main goal for me when building characters.

That said, I don't see the entity "monk" as being defined by having three good saves, flurry of blows and slow fall for X feet when next to a wall. A monk is as monk does, so to say.

Awnetu
2010-08-09, 04:43 PM
They are the ones who swear the vows and carry them through, a character who swears those vows (and fufills all actions) for the purpose of getting that power should not qualify for VoP. [Regardless of the player's reasons for taking the feat]

This was not a problem because normally VoP < WBL. When it's equal or greater that you need to change the fluff of VoP to include that. (or modify the mechanics a bit more to take away the entire fluff of [Exalted], since you're already homebrewing the feat, doing that is easy enough)

The Pre-Req for Vow of Poverty is a feat that states your character pledges their life to a god/higher cause. The character just traded away their wants/wishes to the whims of the god they claimed to serve. Would that not be a more than fair trade?

I don't see any way to claim that the character is just grabbing for power that couldn't be seen as a DM stealth banning the feat.

I guess you could add the line, "If the character goes against the gods command/wishes/ideas or disrespects the god, then they are treated as if they had broken the vow."

Though I kinda figured that was implied through the Sacred Vow requirement.



It doesn't. But your character's fluff (whatever that is) cannot be the same fluff as the monk's for flurry of blows (whatever you come up for it), without you also having flurry of blows as a monk does.

And there we go, that's where the confusion lies. No one is claiming the Sword Sage uses Flurry of Blows, nor did anyone use the fluff from Flurry of Blows to describe the Sword Sage Maneuvers.

Milskidasith
2010-08-09, 04:55 PM
I can't speak for Mil, but I do see mechanics modelling what happens in the game, and having fluff to match the crunch is one of my main goals, if not the main goal for me when building characters.

That said, I don't see the entity "monk" as being defined by having three good saves, flurry of blows and slow fall for X feet when next to a wall. A monk is as monk does, so to say.

Fluff is fluff, crunch is crunch. One crunch character can be thousands of fluff concepts, and likewise one fluff concept can be represented by thousands of crunchy builds.

I do not see the point of the "it's not a monk" debate; paladins and clerics are both priests/holy men/clerics/paladins depending on the concept, fighters and warblades both fight, so why can't swordsages be called monks if they have all the monk traits but the crunch? A big deal is being made about the fact they fight differently, but that does not mean they were not trained in a monopole manner, and the very act of identifying many ss maneuvers is using metagame concepts. Considering the mysticism of monks, most of the Su maneuvers wouldn't even seem odd for a self proclaimed monk unless everybody in the world had metagame knowledge about class features.

Starbuck_II
2010-08-09, 06:25 PM
They are slightly different monks. Less different than a swordsage "monk".


It doesn't. But your character's fluff (whatever that is) cannot be the same fluff as the monk's for flurry of blows (whatever you come up for it), without you also having flurry of blows as a monk does.


You could just be using Flashing sun. It gives additional attacks just like Flurry. One caveat: no restriction of special monk weapons.
But Drawback: used up till regained with full rd action (finding your center) so can't spam Flurry of Blows.

Boci
2010-08-09, 06:53 PM
They are slightly different monks. Less different than a swordsage "monk".

So essentially a monk is a PC or NPC with the monk class? What about a fighter / swashbuckler brought up in a monestary? What about the flaming/elemental fist ACF for monks?

Math_Mage
2010-08-09, 11:46 PM
It's in the DMG. It's not a houserule.


Er, if I may...

Introducing New Players

Players come and go. When a new player joins the group, take the average of the levels of the existing PCs and allow the new player to make a character of that level.

jseah
2010-08-10, 12:10 AM
The Pre-Req for Vow of Poverty is a feat that states your character pledges their life to a god/higher cause. The character just traded away their wants/wishes to the whims of the god they claimed to serve. Would that not be a more than fair trade?
He swears to serve his god (Sacred Vow) and then proves greater devotion through poverty (VoP) in order to gain power?


And there we go, that's where the confusion lies. No one is claiming the Sword Sage uses Flurry of Blows, nor did anyone use the fluff from Flurry of Blows to describe the Sword Sage Maneuvers.
Also applies to Greenish & Milskidasith:
Wait. How much of this is just a misunderstanding?
When you say that swordsages are monks (and monks are still monks) I thought you were saying that swordsages had the exact same fluff as monks.

If they're not the same, I have no problem (provided they're different enough). It's just that your swordsage monk != your monk monk. And that your swordsage monk has to be more different than your monk monk compared to a decisive strike monk. (or elemental fist monk. Arguably, more different than even a Fighter monk)

I mean, you can call your characters whatever you want, names are just labels. But the content (or fluff/background/whatever) behind the mechanics of your character needs to match what mechanics you have.

Milskidasith
2010-08-10, 01:12 AM
Also applies to Greenish & Milskidasith:
Wait. How much of this is just a misunderstanding?
When you say that swordsages are monks (and monks are still monks) I thought you were saying that swordsages had the exact same fluff as monks.

If they're not the same, I have no problem (provided they're different enough). It's just that your swordsage monk != your monk monk. And that your swordsage monk has to be more different than your monk monk compared to a decisive strike monk. (or elemental fist monk. Arguably, more different than even a Fighter monk)

I mean, you can call your characters whatever you want, names are just labels. But the content (or fluff/background/whatever) behind the mechanics of your character needs to match what mechanics you have.

It's all fluff. The fluff is essentially identical to that of a monk. I don't see a problem with this, and you have yet to make an argument that shows a problem with the fluff of a monk/unarmed swordsage being the same that didn't rely on characters being able to identify metagame concepts such as manuevers or monk class features. The fluff is separate from the crunch, and while they have to make sense (talking about being great in melee as a squishy spellcaster would be rather bad, for example), there's no reason that essentially the same fluff can't be used for different mechanical builds.

Unless your argument is actually something as trivial as "Your swordsage monk has to be from a different monastery than Bob's monk monk" in which case I don't even know why you would bother bringing it up. Even then, I don't agree, but that's such a trivially small point there's not much of a reason to spend time discussing it.

In short: The fluff and the mechanics are, besides needing to make sense with each other, 100% separate. You can have a swordsage monk who studied at the same academy and was taught the same way as a monk monk, and the only fluff difference between the two I might write in is that the monk monk was an average student, and the swordsage monk was an exceptional one, and that's only to take a jab at how weak the monk class is.

Awnetu
2010-08-10, 01:13 AM
He swears to serve his god (Sacred Vow) and then proves greater devotion through poverty (VoP) in order to gain power?

The character makes the Vow to his god, he does not understand the concept of a feat. The other side of the feat is the gods reward for the vow.

Think about it, if you say, I throw away all material possessions, expecting a reward, does it make sense that a god would listen to such an arrogant mortal? I don't think so. If your character takes that vow for ONLY power, than I don't see why its not in the DM's power to have the god boss that character around, or hell say, that doesn't jive with how that character acts.

We differ on how we view the feat working, not in our view on who should receive the benefits, I believe the player taking the vow impresses/honors the god, meaning his character receives a gift from the god. You seem view it as the character knowing, Hey! If I say I like you, say a vow, and then say another vow, that's the way to power! And whats better? The god HAS to grant it to me.



If I may be so bold, when Green & Milsk say that a Swordsage can be a monk, they mean that the Swordsage (class) can represent the Monk(concept) not the monk class, even though the Swordsage does have the ability to emulate some of the Monk (class) abilities.

The belief is that while I do play a Sword Sage(class), his backstory could have no mentions to the fact that he is a sword sage(class or concept), he could in fact, have a background of being raised in a monastery, taught the importance of self discipline, and trained in Unarmed Combat. That is indistinguishable from a back story for a Monk. The abilities the character has may differ from that of someone who has taken straight monk(class levels), but the concept is the same. Nothing about a Sword sage is incompatible with the Monk (concept).

If you happen to view the Monk(concept) as a character with 3 good saves, Slow Fall near walls, Ki Strike, Flurry of Blows, and a 3/4ths BAB progression, then you are going to have to agree to disagree, because this becomes an argument about how you believe classes were meant to work in D&D.

As far as the 'inconsistency' someone else mentioned with regards to what happens if I meet another character whose abilities are those of the Swordsage (class), techniques and ideas are not unique to one location, it is not hard to believe that the techniques that make the 'monk' successful are spread throughout the hypothetical setting.

And yes, not all the monks in a setting have to have the exact same skill sets, because once again the idea of a 'Monk' is a concept, it just also happens to be one that we have a class of.

jseah
2010-08-10, 03:28 AM
^Milskidasith:
You have to explain why your swordsage monk is fluffed differently from other swordsages who have the same mechanics as you. As well as explain why your swordsage monk has different mechanics as other monk monks who have the same fluff as you.
EDIT: your fluff for your refluffed swordsage has to do that. Either that or your setting does it for you.

If you see that as trivial, then we just have to disagree there. It's not trivial to me.

^Awnetu:
People have pledged their services to their god for rewards, evil guys do it all the time. Fanatics do it all the time and think they are on the good side.
Not wanting to get into an alignment/paladin debate, arguably, paladins do it too.
I'm thinking of it as "I'll serve this god, do whatever he asks, including donating all my possessions, so that I can gain great power! I'll even use it for Exalted purposes!"

If according to you, this violates the fluff of the feat, then there you go. Your character cannot be allowed to take the feat for the purpose of power.

Boci
2010-08-10, 06:17 AM
^Milskidasith:
You have to explain why your swordsage monk is fluffed differently from other swordsages who have the same mechanics as you. As well as explain why your swordsage monk has different mechanics as other monk monks who have the same fluff as you.
EDIT: your fluff for your refluffed swordsage has to do that. Either that or your setting does it for you.

If you see that as trivial, then we just have to disagree there. It's not trivial to me.

If you played a monk in my game I would have one NPC say "If you're a monk, show us that shadow trick," They would then insist that if you could not do "that shadow trick" you were clearly not a monk.

A monk is anyone who grows up in monestry and learns to fight. Why are monk monks different? Different/older teachings. Why are there non-monk swordsages? Common source of their combat styles.

And thats all you need.

Milskidasith
2010-08-10, 10:16 AM
^Milskidasith:
You have to explain why your swordsage monk is fluffed differently from other swordsages who have the same mechanics as you. As well as explain why your swordsage monk has different mechanics as other monk monks who have the same fluff as you.

He's fluffed differently because not everybody in the world who can do similar things is 100% the same person or had the same experience; are you honestly telling me you'd complain if two barbarians or wizards had different backstories? This is the exact same reasoning. His crunch is different than those he has similar fluff to because not everybody who has very similar experiences winds up being the exact same person; again, this would be like saying every character who's basic story is that he ran away from his homeland after his father was killed had to be a rogue 5/barbarian 3/fighter 12, or that everybody who was a petty criminal had to be a straight rogue, or that everybody who is a holy man had to be a cleric. That's just not how things work.

In short: You're still basically arguing from metagame concepts, and your argument only makes sense if you hold that everybody who is mechanically similar has to have the exact same backstory, and everybody who has a similar backstory has to have the exact same mechanics. If you take a look around in real life, for instance, you'll see that, despite the relative similarity of human life (compared to D&D, anyway), people still wind up doing vastly different things.

Caphi
2010-08-10, 10:25 AM
^Milskidasith:
You have to explain why your swordsage monk is fluffed differently from other swordsages who have the same mechanics as you. As well as explain why your swordsage monk has different mechanics as other monk monks who have the same fluff as you.
EDIT: your fluff for your refluffed swordsage has to do that. Either that or your setting does it for you.

Suppose my character is an unarmed melee combatant who combines powerful blows with rapid combos, in addition to using a few other, flashier acrobatic and supernatural tricks to confuse enemies and get an advantage.

He's from an isolated school of elite fighters who aim to perfect their bodies and minds to achieve the pinnacle of humanity. On the side, they use their skills as a sort of army to maneuver the world as they see fit; the students act as mercenaries for the side the school favors, and the elders provide counsel (sometimes even conspiring behind the scenes).

Of note is that all students of this school are taught to have a very keen reading of people and events, can extrapolate political situations in a moment, and in addition have their senses carefully sharpened and preserved by training and diet.

No NPC can tell if this is a monk or an "unarmed swordsage".

Awnetu
2010-08-10, 01:02 PM
If you are serving the god, it doesn't matter much to him does it? So long as you fulfill his wishes, the powers he grants you are earned in his eye. If you have a problem with an evil character taking the feat for power (He can't), I don't know what to say, that really comes down to DMs choice as to whether or not their is an evil equivalent.

My comments were more aimed at the statements that simply grabbing for power through it would be a little silly given the feat and its pre-reqs fluff. If you are grabbing power for your deity, then they probably would have no issue with it, you still serve them.

I mean, ignoring the fact that anyone who thinks that Vow of Poverty would be more powerful than having WBL, (VoP in either form) is kind of misguided.

I personally have no problems with the character doing it for the power, I'd think they were silly if I was a DM, because Id only allow the version that best fit my campaign, (Meaning the Original unless I was actually doing full WBL.) And really the 'fixed' version still results in a net loss by the character.

I was under the impression that you were arguing that the character wasn't going to be serving the god(Er DM), in which case, that does violate the restrictions placed by fluff.

Otherwise, nothing about Vow of Poverty is going to conflict with those goals, so long as the character serves the god granting the powers.





Also, different 'monks' learn different things at different monasteries, not all the 'monks' in D&D do the same tricks. The Swordsage 'Monk' may even be the typical 'Monk' in the setting, not the Monk 'Monk'.

jseah
2010-08-10, 01:09 PM
Too late to start putting this in spoilers to avoid clogging. =/ Nevertheless:
Boci:
If all monks have "that shadow trick", then it's a good test. If all people with "that shadow trick" are monks, then someone showing it proves that he's a monk.
It depends on what you mean by "monk" (concept). That's just a label you call something when used in-game.

Older teachings monks and 9-swords adaptation monks are not the same monk. They cannot both use identical explanations for their mechanics. Something like having two different monk sects would do.

NPCs in-game can point to one and say "he just did 'that shadow trick', he's a Disciple of the Fist. So that's why there's two monks fighting in the street. Since the Followers of the Way dislike them. "
And a swordsage can come up and have a martial arts duel with a monk swordsage and say "I see the Disciples of the Fist adapt our tricks to their own ends" when he recognizes his own moves being used.
Going this way, you just created another type of monk in your setting, a swordsage monk. Then you've changed your setting to be consistent your swordsage refluffed as monk. That's fine.


He's fluffed differently because not everybody in the world who can do similar things is 100% the same person or had the same experience; are you honestly telling me you'd complain if two barbarians or wizards had different backstories?
<...>
The bits in the backstory that explain your mechanics has to be similar if you are the same. Whether you grew up in a farm or in the city is less important.

If sorcerors in the setting only get their power from draconic blood, then it makes little sense to have someone become a sorceror from studying magic in wizard school.

Similarly, if your swordsage monk has had completely different training from the militia swordsage (assuming that monk training is different from military training) and similar training to the monk monk.
So you either have to pick different maneuvers from the militia swordsage(some kind of RP restriction on them?)
or come up with some other explanation for why the you and the monk monk don't understand each other. (example given as a response to Boci)


In short: You're still basically arguing from metagame concepts, and your argument only makes sense if you hold that everybody who is mechanically similar has to have the exact same backstory, and everybody who has a similar backstory has to have the exact same mechanics.
Similar backstories should have similar mechanics. If you both went to wizard school, you both come out wizards (unless he failed and got kicked out while you aced it. But then, that's different backstories already)

The thing about metagame concepts that are also mechanics is that these have a direct impact on the universe. Thus they are important enough to need explanation.

------------------------------------------------

Caphi:
NPCs can tell the difference. As Boci mentioned above, one can do "that shadow trick", the other can't. One has SR, the other doesn't. Easily differentiable.

Each set of abilities go together. Whatever you call them, monk/swordsage/monk monk/swordsage monk, NPCs in the world can easily tell there are two sets of people with completely different abilities.
^^Awnetu:
It depends. The poster who was arguing against it pointed this out:
Premise: The feat calls for a sacrifice. A sacrifice is not a sacrifice if it is a fair trade.

So assuming we had a character fanatic enough to want to accrue all possible power to serve his god and poor enough to think VoP was a good trade, that character would violate the sacrifice part of the fluff of the feat but not the mechanical prerequisites.
The point was that the exception would have to be kept in mind when rebalancing the feat.

Milskidasith
2010-08-10, 01:17 PM
Jseah, I'm not going to take the time to quote your post point by point, because it is entirely based around metagame concepts being known in game; for instance, how everybody knows "sorcerers" have draconic blood even if sorcerers is an entirely metagame concept.

true_shinken
2010-08-10, 01:22 PM
Jseah, I'm not going to take the time to quote your post point by point, because it is entirely based around metagame concepts being known in game; for instance, how everybody knows "sorcerers" have draconic blood even if sorcerers is an entirely metagame concept.

Is it? Lots of setting have sorcerer vs wizard arguments, in-game. Forgotten Realms has this on novels and games (Neverwinter Nights 2 has Qara, for example).
Classes CAN be only metagame concepts. They can also not be. This is an example of when they are not.

Awnetu
2010-08-10, 01:33 PM
Awnetu:
It depends. The poster who was arguing against it pointed this out:
Premise: The feat calls for a sacrifice. A sacrifice is not a sacrifice if it is a fair trade.

So assuming we had a character fanatic enough to want to accrue all possible power to serve his god and poor enough to think VoP was a good trade, that character would violate the sacrifice part of the fluff of the feat but not the mechanical prerequisites.
The point was that the exception would have to be kept in mind when rebalancing the feat.


The Feat never mentions a sacrifice in the crunch or the fluff, Vow of Poverty is on Pg 48 in the Book of Exalted Deeds, Sacred Vow is on page 45, and all that says is you forsake an ordinary life. I believe living in the service of gods is not an ordinary life?

Ignoring that, the sacrifice is giving up your freedom to choose what abilities you have, there is a risk in placing faith that the god will reward you with abilities you can use, not just a random list of useless things like, breaths underwater 5 minutes longer, or can only walk on water if its near a forest and you are followed by a midget. There is also a chance that you will be tasked with killing dragons, but not have the ability to fly. The sacrifice is your free will because you are a tool of that god now.

Is the fanatic serving a [Good] god? Is he carrying out the [Good] gods wishes? If so, he violates nothing in the fluff or crunch in the feats, Vow of Poverty or the improved version.

If said Fanatic is a player and the DM is keeping them under the WBL guidelines, than using the improved version of PoV is the failure of the DM, that part is a choice made outside of game and has nothing to do with the fluff.

Boci
2010-08-10, 01:36 PM
Is it? Lots of setting have sorcerer vs wizard arguments, in-game. Forgotten Realms has this on novels and games (Neverwinter Nights 2 has Qara, for example).
Classes CAN be only metagame concepts. They can also not be. This is an example of when they are not.

Isn't the sor vs. wiz usually more spontenous versus preparing, which is different?

jseah
2010-08-10, 01:45 PM
Jseah, I'm not going to take the time to quote your post point by point, because it is entirely based around metagame concepts being known in game; for instance, how everybody knows "sorcerers" have draconic blood even if sorcerers is an entirely metagame concept.
Family trees? Each person who suddenly manifests sorceror powers has some family run in with dragons before. The actual dragon(s) involved might even still be alive and you can go pay them a family visit. XD

Sorcerors get arcane spells. They don't prepare spells. They have a limited but choosable spell selection. They don't specialize, etc.
Each of those things can be tested and observed in the universe despite also being a metagame concept and a mechanic. All at the same time.

It is possible to tell when someone is a sorceror rather than a wizard (or a beguiler or a wu jen or a bard)

EDIT: many many metagame concepts can be differentiated in-game. I won't say all. Absolutes tend to result in too many arguments.

true_shinken
2010-08-10, 01:54 PM
Isn't the sor vs. wiz usually more spontenous versus preparing, which is different?

Neverwinter Nights 2 specifically says Sorcerer x Wizard. Spontaneous and prepared casting is not even mutually exclusive. Wizards can cast spontaneously, after all, woth the right selection of ACF, feats or PrCs. Thet just don't get their power naturally, they study for it. That's the whole point.

Boci
2010-08-10, 01:57 PM
Neverwinter Nights 2 specifically says Sorcerer x Wizard. Spontaneous and prepared casting is not even mutually exclusive. Wizards can cast spontaneously, after all, woth the right selection of ACF, feats or PrCs. Thet just don't get their power naturally, they study for it. That's the whole point.

Meh, it all boils down to abilites. Like warriors vs. casters. Its not about the actual class of sorceror and wizards versus warblade and rogue, but about the difference in their abilities.



It is possible to tell when someone is a sorceror rather than a wizard (or a beguiler or a wu jen or a bard)

Yes but whose to say they would use that method for deviding things. An enchanter and a enchantment focused sorceror could be considered of the same tier, whilst a transmuter is something different.

true_shinken
2010-08-10, 02:13 PM
Meh, it all boils down to abilites. Like warriors vs. casters. Its not about the actual class of sorceror and wizards versus warblade and rogue, but about the difference in their abilities.
Yeah, and in game people refer to these abilities by class names.
Your argument is like saying soccer players and mimics are 'no different', since 'it all boils down to abilities'. People IRL know what a soccer player does so they call him a soccer player. They also know what a mimic does, so they probably wouldn't confuse a mimic with a soccer player.
If in game people know what sorcerers do and what wizards do (and it looks like most people do, from all D&D-related material we've seen and from the class descriptions themselves)... then it's the same case of soccer player x mimic.

Milskidasith
2010-08-10, 02:27 PM
Yeah, and in game people refer to these abilities by class names.
Your argument is like saying soccer players and mimics are 'no different', since 'it all boils down to abilities'. People IRL know what a soccer player does so they call him a soccer player. They also know what a mimic does, so they probably wouldn't confuse a mimic with a soccer player.
If in game people know what sorcerers do and what wizards do (and it looks like most people do, from all D&D-related material we've seen and from the class descriptions themselves)... then it's the same case of soccer player x mimic.

But the thing is, in game, people don't know all the metagame distinctions between classes. That's how it works, unless you have all commoners referring to each other as commoners, and people would be called things like "Fighter 2/Barbarian 1/Paladin 1/Warblade 2..."

Boci
2010-08-10, 02:37 PM
Yeah, and in game people refer to these abilities by class names.
Your argument is like saying soccer players and mimics are 'no different', since 'it all boils down to abilities'. People IRL know what a soccer player does so they call him a soccer player. They also know what a mimic does, so they probably wouldn't confuse a mimic with a soccer player.
If in game people know what sorcerers do and what wizards do (and it looks like most people do, from all D&D-related material we've seen and from the class descriptions themselves)... then it's the same case of soccer player x mimic.

Yes but whose to say they would use that method for deviding things. An enchanter and a enchantment focused sorceror could be considered of the same thing, whilst a transmuter is something different.

A swashbuckler might be called a fighter, whilst a fighter might be called a blade master.

Classes are metagame constructs. Their abilities are not.

Worira
2010-08-10, 03:00 PM
I'm not attacking your position or anything. I'm just saying that if there is a 'VoP fix' that indeed makes it on par with WBL, it would need a belt of battle effect.


So... If I understand correctly, your argument is as follows: If a VoP fix were to be balance with WBL, it would need a belt of battle effect. However, if VoP had a belt of battle effect, it would be overpowered in comparison with WBL.

Basically, you seem to be saying that making VoP balanced with WBL would make it overpowered. That's kind of self-evidently wrong.

Caphi
2010-08-10, 03:24 PM
Yeah, and in game people refer to these abilities by class names.
Your argument is like saying soccer players and mimics are 'no different', since 'it all boils down to abilities'. People IRL know what a soccer player does so they call him a soccer player. They also know what a mimic does, so they probably wouldn't confuse a mimic with a soccer player.
If in game people know what sorcerers do and what wizards do (and it looks like most people do, from all D&D-related material we've seen and from the class descriptions themselves)... then it's the same case of soccer player x mimic.

But there's more than one way to skin a cat, swing a sword, punch a guy, or cast a spell. At least, there is from the player's perspective. From the peasant's perspective, it doesn't really matter what the minor differences in three guy swinging swords are.

Kantolin
2010-08-10, 04:48 PM
Amusingly, I was in a party with three arcanists. It was insisted that I was obviously a wizard because I could utilize neither fireball nor magic missile, and was a half-orc. The other two arcanists in the party were obviously both wizards as they fulfilled both of the first criteria and were not half-orcs. They were, in fact, a warmage and a sorceror. A psion we ran into also was called a wizard due to the fireballing, and was never asked to magic missile, and wasn't a half-orc.

So hey. :P

When most people say 'monk', they probably mean some variant on 'punches people'. If it's common knowledge in a given setting that all monks can teleport exactly once, then anyone who can't do that (or who can do it more often) probably isn't going to be called a monk, even if they are. IF common knowledge is that monks are barefisted, then a quarterstaff-using monk probably isn't going to be called a monk, even if they are. Eh.

ThunderCat
2010-08-10, 05:11 PM
NPCs in-game can point to one and say "he just did 'that shadow trick', he's a Disciple of the Fist. So that's why there's two monks fighting in the street. Since the Followers of the Way dislike them. "
And a swordsage can come up and have a martial arts duel with a monk swordsage and say "I see the Disciples of the Fist adapt our tricks to their own ends" when he recognizes his own moves being used.
Going this way, you just created another type of monk in your setting, a swordsage monk. Then you've changed your setting to be consistent your swordsage refluffed as monk. That's fine.Well, in this one instance, I actually agree with Miko (and I don't think I need to link to that comic again :smalltongue:), classes are just a set of abilities, (theoretically) balanced against other sets, and tied together with a theme that may or may not overlap with that of other classes. You use classes to represent what your character can do, not what your character is. You don't become an aristocrat by taking the aristocrat class (though the abilities of many aristocrats are represented by that class), you become an aristocrat by being part of the aristocracy.

If people in the game world have a concept called 'monk', it could refer to people who aim towards self perfection, who practice a style of martial arts which favours mind over body, and who learn to perform incredible physical feats through sheer power of discipline and will. Or it could refer to people who learn to run really fast, fall slower if they can grab a wall, and always specialise in either restraining people by grabbing them, or knocking them out (but for some reason, almost never both). I personally think the first explanation makes more sense.

Just like monks in the real world practice different kinds of martial arts, and many of the greatest fighters learn from various styles and even invent their own, so monks would display a variety of styles and techniques, which experts might be able to identify, as well as their own unique abilities, developed as they each unlock their potential. And perhaps specific schools and organisations have easily identifiable signature moves which they only teach to their own, making it possible to identify a certain types of monks/ninjas/whatever, but that should be added as a piece of fluff unique to the game world, not assumed as default for all monks.


Family trees? Each person who suddenly manifests sorceror powers has some family run in with dragons before. The actual dragon(s) involved might even still be alive and you can go pay them a family visit. XD

Sorcerors get arcane spells. They don't prepare spells. They have a limited but choosable spell selection. They don't specialize, etc.
Each of those things can be tested and observed in the universe despite also being a metagame concept and a mechanic. All at the same time.

It is possible to tell when someone is a sorceror rather than a wizard (or a beguiler or a wu jen or a bard.Except sorcerers can also get their powers from fey heritage, celestial heritage, demonic heritage, and probably quite a few other things. It may be that most sorcerers with an expansive and well researched family tree (which is by no means all people) often turn out to have a supernatural being on it somewhere, but then again, there probably is quite a bit of supernatural influence in many of the bloodlines of the most influential and heroic individuals, so who can say? Is there any rule which states that sorcerers must be descended from anything in particular?

I played a beguiler who never referred to herself as a beguiler, and the fluff could just as easily be that of a sorcerer/rogue (her latent magical powers were discovered by a criminal organisation who (ab)used it for most of her youth, training her in the arts of magic and stealth), because that was what fitted the theme best. Having an actual profession named 'beguiler' just seemed superfluous.




As for the original topic, it seems everybody agree that VoP as it is now is underpowered compared to wealth per level, some people just think it's supposed to gimp a character. I guess it's the difference between wanting to play a badass ascetic, and wanting to play a character whose goodness is more of a weakness than usual. However, is there anything wrong with the former? The rules already allow for you to gimp yourself, why is it so important that there is no opportunity to play a badass ascetic? If some people like the concept of not relying on equipment and/or don't want to bother picking equipment, why not let them if it's mechanically balanced? Why does it have to be a weak option?

Boci
2010-08-10, 05:57 PM
It is possible to tell when someone is a sorceror rather than a wizard (or a beguiler or a wu jen or a bard)

How wizards and wu jen distinguished without character sheets? Surely wi gen are just wizards with strange habits and access to some unique spells?

jseah
2010-08-11, 05:21 AM
Basically, you seem to be saying that making VoP balanced with WBL would make it overpowered. That's kind of self-evidently wrong.
Not neccessarily. Part of the original argument was that VoP was a sacrifice (debatable) and that it HAD to be less powerful than WBL.
At least the argument was that the default fluff implied it.

Caphi/Kantolin:
But it could be differentiated. That requires explanation to some people. (like me)

It might not be common knowledge. But if it ever does come up, you do not want to be staring at a plot hole.


Yes but whose to say they would use that method for deviding things. An enchanter and a enchantment focused sorceror could be considered of the same thing, whilst a transmuter is something different.

A swashbuckler might be called a fighter, whilst a fighter might be called a blade master.

Classes are metagame constructs. Their abilities are not.
That's because the name of a class is just a label. Changing the label by calling it something else doesn't change your abilities.

Changing your background should change your abilities.
Of course, sometimes labels imply certain things about you. Like the "monk" label.


Also, wu jens have unique spells. The wizard can't use scrolls of wu jen-only spells without UMD.


If people in the game world have a concept called 'monk', it could refer to people who aim towards self perfection, who practice a style of martial arts which favours mind over body, and who learn to perform incredible physical feats through sheer power of discipline and will. Or it could refer to people who learn to run really fast, fall slower if they can grab a wall, and always specialise in either restraining people by grabbing them, or knocking them out (but for some reason, almost never both). I personally think the first explanation makes more sense.
And in-game, it is possible to notice that a subset of all the people who fall under the first category of self-perfection, have the abilities of the second category. (slow fall, running fast, etc.)

If you can differentiate them, then there exists two labels for them, which don't have to be defined and could be nearly whatever you like. (as given in my example of Disciples of the Fist and Followers of the Way)


And perhaps specific schools and organisations have easily identifiable signature moves which they only teach to their own, making it possible to identify a certain types of monks/ninjas/whatever, but that should be added as a piece of fluff unique to the game world, not assumed as default for all monks.
And those special abilities, if fluffed as differentiable, should have differentiable mechanical effects. Otherwise, how do people in the game manage to differentiate them?


Except sorcerers can also get their powers from fey heritage, celestial heritage, demonic heritage, and probably quite a few other things. It may be that most sorcerers with an expansive and well researched family tree (which is by no means all people) often turn out to have a supernatural being on it somewhere, <...>
In the example I gave, the setting had sorcerors descended from dragons only. But nevertheless, if it is known that ALL sorcerors have a bloodline from some supernatural being, then when you find out someone is a sorceror, you can immediately make the conclusion.

It could matter a lot in a setting where the inquisition burns all heretics and mutants. (which this might qualify)
Or it could make absolutely no difference in a setting where no one even remembers their grandparents.

Boci
2010-08-11, 06:40 AM
Changing your background should change your abilities.

I am sure any character would have different skill/feats if they had a different background.


Also, wu jens have unique spells. The wizard can't use scrolls of wu jen-only spells without UMD.

A wizard could take arcane diciple and make a divine might scroll, or research their own spell. I see no reason why a wu jen wouldn't be viewed as a sect of wizards with some unique spell they developed and some strange habits.

Greenish
2010-08-11, 08:10 AM
Also applies to Greenish & Milskidasith:
Wait. How much of this is just a misunderstanding?
When you say that swordsages are monks (and monks are still monks) I thought you were saying that swordsages had the exact same fluff as monks.The very same fluff can be represented both by Monk and Swordsage levels.

Demons_eye
2010-08-11, 01:13 PM
Yeah, and in game people refer to these abilities by class names.
Your argument is like saying soccer players and mimics are 'no different', since 'it all boils down to abilities'. People IRL know what a soccer player does so they call him a soccer player. They also know what a mimic does, so they probably wouldn't confuse a mimic with a soccer player.
If in game people know what sorcerers do and what wizards do (and it looks like most people do, from all D&D-related material we've seen and from the class descriptions themselves)... then it's the same case of soccer player x mimic.

I just have to say that those two are very different and an unfair example. If I was to meet a very good poker player and a very good black jack player I could call them very good card players. Those games are very different though, even if they are similar. I could call a lottery player and a craps player gamblers but they are even more different.

How can I tell the difference of Orc Fighter with Orc paragon class levels from a barbarian in game?

jseah
2010-08-12, 01:51 AM
The very same fluff can be represented both by Monk and Swordsage levels.
If you mean they both have martial arts training and they practice a brand of aseticism, while other parts of their background are different and yet consistent. (like having stolen the martial arts techniques from assassins/ninjas/whatever normal swordsages do)
Then that's fine, because it's not "the very same fluff".


I am sure any character would have different skill/feats if they had a different background.
In the same way that a different class would imply a different background?


A wizard could take arcane diciple and make a divine might scroll, or research their own spell. I see no reason why a wu jen wouldn't be viewed as a sect of wizards with some unique spell they developed and some strange habits.
Terracotta Lion/Warrior (CArc. p126) is wu jen only.

Besides, even if they are viewed as a sect of wizards, one should make the connection that their strange habits and elemental theme goes hand in hand with the weird spells they have. Perhaps one explains the other?


I just have to say that those two are very different and an unfair example. If I was to meet a very good poker player and a very good black jack player I could call them very good card players. Those games are very different though, even if they are similar. I could call a lottery player and a craps player gamblers but they are even more different.
Yes, you can call them both good card players. You can also call them good poker/blackjack players. In fact, if you wanted to differentiate them, you call them poker/blackjack players so as not to confuse people.


How can I tell the difference of Orc Fighter with Orc paragon class levels from a barbarian in game?
Barbarian gets rage and fast movement. Ora paragon gets "no light sensitivity".

Yahzi
2010-08-12, 02:38 AM
I do not understand why you think the vow of poverty thing should weaken a character
It's the same reason the feat that lets you memorize spells without a spellbook exists: because in some game worlds your spell book is actually vulnerable. Well, in some game worlds your items are actually vulnerable, and have VoP benefits that can't be stolen or dispelled is worth something.

Yahzi
2010-08-12, 02:45 AM
But the thing is, in game, people don't know all the metagame distinctions between classes. That's how it works, unless you have all commoners referring to each other as commoners, and people would be called things like "Fighter 2/Barbarian 1/Paladin 1/Warblade 2..."
Ya... that's how it works in my world.

It sounds strange, I know, but you know what? It actually works pretty well.

You want to play a tough fighter, a guy who's scrapped around in bars and trained with weapons to the point where he is pretty much guaranteed to mop the floor with any three ordinary people who mess with him? Welcome to STR 18.

But if you want to play a guy who can fall out of an airplane... into a burning building... and then have the airplane crash on top of him... and catch fire... and walk away from it all under his own power, well, welcome to Fighter Level 9.

An Olympic athlete has high STR, CON, and DEX... but he's still a 1st level commoner. The things high level fighters do are not the result of training or toughness; they are supernatural level effects. Might as well just admit it right out in the open.

Milskidasith
2010-08-12, 03:23 AM
Ya... that's how it works in my world.

It sounds strange, I know, but you know what? It actually works pretty well.

You want to play a tough fighter, a guy who's scrapped around in bars and trained with weapons to the point where he is pretty much guaranteed to mop the floor with any three ordinary people who mess with him? Welcome to STR 18.

But if you want to play a guy who can fall out of an airplane... into a burning building... and then have the airplane crash on top of him... and catch fire... and walk away from it all under his own power, well, welcome to Fighter Level 9.

An Olympic athlete has high STR, CON, and DEX... but he's still a 1st level commoner. The things high level fighters do are not the result of training or toughness; they are supernatural level effects. Might as well just admit it right out in the open.

This post was... shockingly irrelevant to the conversation at hand. We weren't talking about olympic athletes, the ability for people to endure, or the ability to hit stuff. It was about how characters aren't defined, in game, as being of X level in Y classes... nothing in your post really relates to that.

Even further, your fluff is so generic I could apply it to any class that gets martial weapon proficiencies, along with the cleric and druid. Also, fighter's aren't tough. Combine a lack of effective methods of self buffing with only decent hit dice and no way to increase their Con, they're about the least tough you can get as far as martial classes go.

Boci
2010-08-12, 04:48 AM
In the same way that a different class would imply a different background?

Nope, becausae the abilities of some classes are similar enough to imply a common origin.


Terracotta Lion/Warrior (CArc. p126) is wu jen only.

So? Divine Might can only be cast by wizards with arcane disciple (war), and white running wolves could only be cast by a wizard I played with a while ago.


Besides, even if they are viewed as a sect of wizards, one should make the connection that their strange habits and elemental theme goes hand in hand with the weird spells they have. Perhaps one explains the other?

Which do you think is more likely the majority of NPCs will think:

"They are like those spell book using mages, only with wierd traditions and some unique spells that are presumably passed down within their sect"

"They do not eat meat. That gives them special powers, and makes them completely different from the spell book using mage"

Besides, whats to stop a transmuter 3/ MS 7 and a transmutation based sorceror from being judged to be in the same catogory whilst a generalist wizard is something completly different?

Ozymandias9
2010-08-12, 06:23 AM
Which do you think is more likely the majority of NPCs will think:

"They are like those spell book using mages, only with wierd traditions and some unique spells that are presumably passed down within their sect"

"They do not eat meat. That gives them special powers, and makes them completely different from the spell book using mage"

I think a commoner might not notice the difference, but a person with limited investment in Knowledge: Arcana and a bit of paranoid bigotry might think:

"The effects they can produce are similar to those of academy Wizards, but they have strange rules that grant them additional power. They call them taboos--but honestly, it reminds me more than a bit of the kind of pacts warlocks make. You know the kind of blood we've shed to keep those demon slaves out of our land. This is just more of the same."

Boci
2010-08-12, 06:35 AM
I think a commoner might not notice the difference, but a person with limited investment in Knowledge: Arcana and a bit of paranoid bigotry might think:

"The effects they can produce are similar to those of academy Wizards, but they have strange rules that grant them additional power. They call them taboos--but honestly, it reminds me more than a bit of the kind of pacts warlocks make. You know the kind of blood we've shed to keep those demon slaves out of our land. This is just more of the same."

Only if you ignore all the ways a regualr wizard can get unique/uncommon spells. If I have an OCD wizard with a unique spell, is everyone going to think his OPCD grants him his new spell?
Besides, even if they do realize wu jen are different, would they make the connection to another class? A PrC seems more likely.

Ozymandias9
2010-08-12, 02:14 PM
Only if you ignore all the ways a regualr wizard can get unique/uncommon spells. If I have an OCD wizard with a unique spell, is everyone going to think his OPCD grants him his new spell?
Besides, even if they do realize wu jen are different, would they make the connection to another class? A PrC seems more likely.

I'm assuming here that Wu Jen aren't making (or at least, historically have not always made) a secret of the nature of their taboos. Thus, with some minor attention to Knowledge: Arcana, some characters should probably know that the taboos do serve a purpose.

And I don't think that the characters would have an idea of a class vs. a PRC. Outside of setting specific trends on PrCs representing things like organizations, that distinction pretty squarely a meta-game issue.

What this argument comes down to (in my opinion) is a fundamental difference in how people view the correlation between classes/abilities and the character skill set they represent. In general, I prefer a 1 to 1 conservative correlation where possible: if we are already representing, say, a good knowledge of where to hit vitals as sneak attack for the setting in question, I would prefer to keep representing it as such. I would prefer not to have 4 things representing the same "fluff skill".

Edit: 1-to-1 is probably the wrong way to say this. I have little issue with sneak attack modeling different things for different people. But once we have a mechanical model for something, I would prefer to stick with it in the absence of compelling reason to the contrary.

Greenish
2010-08-12, 02:24 PM
If you mean they both have martial arts training and they practice a brand of aseticism, while other parts of their background are different and yet consistent. (like having stolen the martial arts techniques from assassins/ninjas/whatever normal swordsages do)
Then that's fine, because it's not "the very same fluff".No, I meant what I said. The very same fluff can represent a member of either class.

Boci
2010-08-12, 05:14 PM
I'm assuming here that Wu Jen aren't making (or at least, historically have not always made) a secret of the nature of their taboos. Thus, with some minor attention to Knowledge: Arcana, some characters should probably know that the taboos do serve a purpose.

No, they would know that wu gen claim their tables serve a purpose. An arcana check may also reveal another group of wizard who have access to non-standard spells and strange habits. Say those with incarnum spell casting.


And I don't think that the characters would have an idea of a class vs. a PRC. Outside of setting specific trends on PrCs representing things like organizations, that distinction pretty squarely a meta-game issue.

So you think NPCs would know the difference between a wizard and a wu jen, but not a barbarian and a frenzied beserker?


But once we have a mechanical model for something, I would prefer to stick with it in the absence of compelling reason to the contrary.

I like to customize my character?

Ozymandias9
2010-08-12, 05:45 PM
I like to customize my character?

And that's fine by me. Like I said, its a difference in how people view that aspect of the game. You're main goal is a mechanically unique character. For me, that takes the presumption of PC exceptionalism too far for easy suspension of disbelief. Different strokes.

Boci
2010-08-12, 06:01 PM
And that's fine by me. Like I said, its a difference in how people view that aspect of the game. You're main goal is a mechanically unique character.

Technically my goal is to make the character I produce as close to the one I imagined as possible. This usually involves refluffing, since the writer and I are two different people.


For me, that takes the presumption of PC exceptionalism too far for easy suspension of disbelief. Different strokes.

What about NPCs, such as the BBEG? Are they to be bound by printed flavour as well?

Kantolin
2010-08-12, 06:03 PM
Terracotta Lion/Warrior (CArc. p126) is wu jen only.


I think the problem a lot of people are having with statements like this is that, what if the Wu Jen and the Wizard, very reasonably, have the same spell list? (Edit for clarification: Or the same spells in their spellbooks)

To your average person, the Wu Jen slinging lightning bolts, the Wizard slinging lightning bolts, the Shugenja slinging lightning bolts, the Sorceror slinging lightning bolts, and the Psion shooting a line of energy are all pretty dang identical.

If you study them, you could discover that the Wu Jen knows shocking grasp and the Wizard knows burning hands. They both have spellbooks, are extremely fragile, and very poor with weapons unless they utilize their spellcasting to do so. At some point you could get their individual stats, perhaps, and their skills. But where in there would you know that one was a Wu Jen and one was a Wizard? I mean, both could be vegetarians. Or perhaps only the wizard is a vegetarian, while the Wu Jen is really fond of the color red?

And then why on earth would it be useful to discern that? They both use spellbooks and shoot fire at you, and are a summation of what's in their spellbooks.

Edit: It then gets worse when you think of things like even the requirements I've stated above. What if the wizard takes weapon proficiency(longsword) or is an elf, and has a high strength? Then suddenly he's not nearly as poor with weapons as even other wizards. What if the Wu Jen takes spell mastery a bazillion times and thus has forgotten what his spell book looks like? Is he still a Wu Jen?

And then do you have toll booths where the guards there say, "State your name and class. What, wizard? Then prove it - cast Rary's Mneumonic Enhancer. Otherwise you're probably a sorceror." or something like that? Can two monks go to the same monastary, and at some point in their lives one takes great cleave and the other spring attack? How about one takes Soul Binding and the other takes Martial Study while a third friend of theirs takes Shape Soulmeld? Are any of these not monks? What if you have someone that's exactly as good at punching as these two? What if two monks from two different monastaries have slightly differing abilities?

Ozymandias9
2010-08-12, 07:18 PM
Technically my goal is to make the character I produce as close to the one I imagined as possible. This usually involves refluffing, since the writer and I are two different people.



What about NPCs, such as the BBEG? Are they to be bound by printed flavour as well?

I don't give a bit of care to the printed flavor. I just want the flavor used at a table to be consistent. Refluff all you want, talk to your dm about homebrew. Change whatever makes you happy.

But if we're at the same table, I would strongly prefer that whatever mechanics you eventually decide on to model the idea in question be used consistently to model that idea for that campaign.

jseah
2010-08-13, 12:13 AM
Greenish:
I don't see how that can happen without having the same mechanics. If fluff explains the mechanics, and mechanics models the fluff, there should be a 1-1 relationship between them.
I already explained that at length. Perhaps we should just disagree here.

Boci:
You would think that people would notice that ALL Wu Jens have quirky habits while not all wizards do. Hence Wu Jen is (100%) correlated with quirky habits, some study might even reveal they have elemental themes and how that relates to their (very similar to wizard) magic.

Kantolin:
The wizard still can't use a scroll of Terracotta Lion while the Wu Jen can. There are some small differences in how they work.
Sure, a wizard can have quirky habits, but not all wizards have quirky habits.


How about one takes Soul Binding and the other takes Martial Study while a third friend of theirs takes Shape Soulmeld? Are any of these not monks? What if you have someone that's exactly as good at punching as these two? What if two monks from two different monastaries have slightly differing abilities?
You are referring to two mechanically different characters with different explanations. Some of the explanations involve the defining the setting (like the existence of two different monasteries with their own training regimen)

Thrice Dead Cat
2010-08-13, 12:41 AM
Greenish:
I don't see how that can happen without having the same mechanics. If fluff explains the mechanics, and mechanics models the fluff, there should be a 1-1 relationship between them.
I already explained that at length. Perhaps we should just disagree here.

In the last thread to discuss metagame concepts, someone bothered throwing up a backstory for a character involving being taught secrets from her mom, running away from her assassin's, befriending orphans in some slums, and eventually finding her mother's secret stash of weapons.

Now is that character a rogue/shadowdancer with UMD, Diplomacy, Hide, and Move Silently? Or is it a rogue/swordsage? The same fluff could get you to either.


Boci:
You would think that people would notice that ALL Wu Jens have quirky habits while not all wizards do. Hence Wu Jen is (100%) correlated with quirky habits, some study might even reveal they have elemental themes and how that relates to their (very similar to wizard) magic.

Except not all Wu Jens have the same taboos. The elemental relations are relatively minor, boiling down to an extra CL here or there and a very limited free metamagic to a handful of spells. As certain faiths, areas in a campaign world, and universities of magic all have their own odd requirements or taboos, it because difficult to weed Wu Jens with their mandated taboos versus wizards with their potentially mandated taboos versus just oddball wizards or sorcerers.


Kantolin:
The wizard still can't use a scroll of Terracotta Lion while the Wu Jen can. There are some small differences in how they work.
Sure, a wizard can have quirky habits, but not all wizards have quirky habits.

And not all Wu Jen even have the same habits, as has been mentioned before. The fact that a wizard cannot use a scroll of a specific Wu Jen spell without either UMD, a feat, and/or the rules for independent spell creation is meaningless as their is a large, large overlap in the fluff behind the two classes: both a spellbook-based, Int-based, prepared casters with free feats at various levels, poor BAB, good will saves, 2+ Int with the same class skills, and d4 HD.



You are referring to two mechanically different characters with different explanations. Some of the explanations involve the defining the setting (like the existence of two different monasteries with their own training regimen)

Right, which kind of refutes the argument you have been making. Unless, of course, you can point at situations where this would be barred. Hell, most settings with detailed monasteries or "fighter schools" mention that they are home to multiple types of character (classes).

EDIT: For example, the Knights of Barakmordin described in Champions of Valor are a set of holy knights in service of the Triad. They include clerics, fighters, rangers, paladins, cavaliers, and general priests. Most of the rest of the organizations within the same book detail wildly different classes from a mechanical standpoint and multiple organizations also feature much the same in mechanical representation via multiclassed Paladin/Xs, Monk/Xs, clerics, wizards, and other sorts of casters.

This doesn't even take into account what Champions of Ruin has to say about similarly classes on the opposite of the alignment spectrum.

Kantolin
2010-08-13, 01:15 AM
You are referring to two mechanically different characters with different explanations. Some of the explanations involve the defining the setting (like the existence of two different monasteries with their own training regimen)

I actually could counter your first statement (Specialist wizard, caster level problems) as well as conceptually doing so (Are you actually saying that 'Oops sorry, you can't use this particular scroll that some other wizards can use? Not all wizards can use a small variety of spells), but well... it sounds like the problem is different.

It seems you insist that every character in a given class must be the exact same, and any changes to that must have a lengthy explanation in upbringing. Is this true? As that seems to be a very odd thing to insist upon. I mean, you have two wizards, one takes empower spell, the other takes sudden empower. Do they really need different explanations?

I mean, you'd think the typical response to 'soandso can't use a scroll of soandso' is 'Ah, not all wizards can do that' the same way not all wizards are the same specialty and not all monks can do 'that shadow trick'.

If you're saying that you'd need an explanation for everything beyond base attack bonus, then... well, then yes, you'd need an explanation for absolutely everything, and thus you couldn't have swordsages and monks that were monks, although you could simply explain that they were different schools (Along with non-flurry monks, and non-dimension door monks, and prestige classed monks, and monks who take shape soulmeld). To most people, however, it's not divided quite that narrowly - especially in-game, where 'that guy with the spellbook who shoots fireballs' is as specific as it usually gets.

Ozymandias9
2010-08-13, 01:28 AM
It seems you insist that every character in a given class must be the exact same, and any changes to that must have a lengthy explanation in upbringing. Is this true? As that seems to be a very odd thing to insist upon. I mean, you have two wizards, one takes empower spell, the other takes sudden empower. Do they really need different explanations?

Though it's not directed at me, I'll toss in my 2 bits.

I would say yes, at least insofar as they require explanations. I wouldn't usually really put huge detail on either one, but if for some reason one had been defined as how a specific game world element was being modeled, I would prefer to respect that definition for the duration of the campaign (which is not to say that the definition couldn't be further built upon).

Let's say, for example I, as a player, decide to use Empower Spell to represent an unusually strong mastery of the a specific element of magic on the part of my Wizard. Let's say it's the Karspachi Method of energy manipulation, introduced by the archmage Andrego Karspachi in the 3rd century. And Bob the Wizard is good at it.

I have no issue, per say, with Empower Spell also modeling something different as well (though I might if it's somehow wildly different). I also usually wouldn't bother with something that detailed in most games. But if I did bother, and I later came across another mage who is also very good at the Karspachi Method, I would generally expect that to also be modeled by Empower Spell. I would also expect that, should I come across a character who has Sudden Empower, it would be representing something different from (though possibly related to) the Karspachi Method (assuming of course, that the explaination were bothered with there as well).

In short, it's not that I need the fluff to be super detailed or that it needs to be the published fluff. But I do have a significant bias for the connection between fluff and mechanics to be consistent.


Edit: I'm now totally going to use "the Karspachi Method" the next time I have to role play wizard shop talk.

Kantolin
2010-08-13, 01:44 AM
I have no issue, per say, with Empower Spell also modeling something different as well (though I might if it's somehow wildly different).


I also usually wouldn't bother with something that detailed in most games. But if I did bother, and I later came across another mage who is also very good at the Karspachi Method, I would generally expect that to also be modeled by Empower Spell.

I... I think, then, that there isn't actually an argument here and you're having no real trouble with what's being suggested, in general. O_o You don't mind refluffing, although you do require more explanations for general things than most people do, but that's an opinion thing.

So... uh, hey.

Ozymandias9
2010-08-13, 01:53 AM
I... I think, then, that there isn't actually an argument here and you're having no real trouble with what's being suggested, in general. O_o You don't mind refluffing, although you do require more explanations for general things than most people do, but that's an opinion thing.

So... uh, hey.

I wonder if you would say the same if I applied it to something less narrow (and more likely to come up). For example, I'm fine with stuffing fist modeling several things. But if we used stunning fist as the model for precision striking pressure points, I would prefer it be used as such whenever we needed to model someone precision striking pressure points.

Milskidasith
2010-08-13, 01:57 AM
I am not sure why something as generic as your spells hitting harder needs to be fluffed as a certain thing, especially when the implication is the fluff for your character affects the fluff for other characters. I mean, I think refluffing is pretty much always a viable solution, but I can see why you may not want it, but... that's just kind of absurd, isn't it? Your spells hit harder. It doesn't need to be modelled the same way for every character. Maybe he just releases more energy, maybe he uses a specific method, maybe it's actually a new spell that's exactly like fireball but deals more damage for a spell slot two levels higher. Who cares?

EDIT: Ozy, I do not understand why you believe that, if refluffing is OK, you can't refluff it again if you already have it fluffed. If you are saying that you've invented one very specific piece of fluff (the... whatever method) that specifically models doing one thing, then yeah, I can see not using that fluff for other things, but that's only because it would be rather nonsensical to do so. I don't understand why, say, striking pressure points has to be stunning fist, instead of sneak attack, or death attack, or how you manage to power attack (make a blow towards a more critical spot, at the risk of being easier to block), or critical hits, or what keen weapons seek out, etc, etc. Saying "I believe in refluffing" but also saying "If I use X fluff for Y thing, X fluff can only be used for Y thing" is completely contradictory.

Ozymandias9
2010-08-13, 02:12 AM
I am not sure why something as generic as your spells hitting harder needs to be fluffed as a certain thing, especially when the implication is the fluff for your character affects the fluff for other characters. I mean, I think refluffing is pretty much always a viable solution, but I can see why you may not want it, but... that's just kind of absurd, isn't it? Your spells hit harder. It doesn't need to be modelled the same way for every character. Maybe he just releases more energy, maybe he uses a specific method, maybe it's actually a new spell that's exactly like fireball but deals more damage for a spell slot two levels higher. Who cares?

EDIT: Ozy, I do not understand why you believe that, if refluffing is OK, you can't refluff it again if you already have it fluffed. If you are saying that you've invented one very specific piece of fluff (the... whatever method) that specifically models doing one thing, then yeah, I can see not using that fluff for other things, but that's only because it would be rather nonsensical to do so. I don't understand why, say, striking pressure points has to be stunning fist, instead of sneak attack, or death attack, or how you manage to power attack (make a blow towards a more critical spot, at the risk of being easier to block), or critical hits, or what keen weapons seek out, etc, etc. Saying "I believe in refluffing" but also saying "If I use X fluff for Y thing, X fluff can only be used for Y thing" is completely contradictory.

On the empower point, I have no problem with Empower Spell representing something else for character B at the same time it represents the Karspachi Method for Bob.

But, from my perspective, the mechanics system for an RPG is supposed to be an abstracted model of the game world. If if we had, for example, both Stunning fist and sneak attack modeling pressure points, then we very well might end with what should be almost the exact same action for the game world result in significantly different results. That, for me, is a significant break in verisimilitude. To quote a wise man, verisimilitude in fantasy means that magic A should equal magic A.

Milskidasith
2010-08-13, 02:14 AM
On the empower point, I have no problem with Empower Spell representing something else for character B at the same time it represents the Karspachi Method for Bob.

But, from my perspective, the mechanics system for an RPG is supposed to be an abstracted model of the game world. If if we had, for example, both Stunning fist and sneak attack modeling pressure points, then we very well might end with what should be almost the exact same action for the game world result in significantly different results. That, for me, is a significant break in verisimilitude. To quote a wise man, verisimilitude in fantasy means that magic A should equal magic A.

D&D already has the same thing happening different ways, so I don't see your point, at all. Every martial character ever probably hits in roughly the same way (I stab him with my spear. I slash him with my sword) and deals wildly different damage with different effects tacked on. Why can't different people get different effects from similar blows when different people can already get different effects from similar blows?

Ozymandias9
2010-08-13, 02:39 AM
D&D already has the same thing happening different ways, so I don't see your point, at all. Every martial character ever probably hits in roughly the same way (I stab him with my spear. I slash him with my sword) and deals wildly different damage with different effects tacked on. Why can't different people get different effects from similar blows when different people can already get different effects from similar blows?

I really don't follow what you're referring to here. If you're talking about magical effects from weapon enhancements, I see that as an effect of the magic involved and not how the martial character hits the enemy. If you're referring to something like strikes and maneuvers or different sources of precision damage, while I generally don't bother to fluff each one, I do presume that they represent something more specific than I "I stab him with my sword." Dazing strike, for example, might represent striking at someone in such a way as to throw him off balance.

This is by no means, however, a hard and fast rule for me. It can't be. There are, for example, several Iron Heart Maneuvers involving attacking multiple targets that I would be hard pressed to have represent something significantly distinct form what whirlwind attack represents (if I had to try, I would likely fluff them as a more skillful execution of the same basic thing).

However it helps that, while they may differ in numerical outcome, they will all result in the same conceptual outcome-- the skill set that is being modeled allows you to attack multiple targets at once with varying degrees of success.

That's a different proposition that Mike hitting John's solar plexus on Monday and stunning him, while James hitting Ryan's solar plexus on Thursday causes his fist to deal as much extra damage as though he were also stabbing him with a sword.

Milskidasith
2010-08-13, 01:53 PM
I'm talking about basic weapons, Ozy, not enhanced ones. If fighter A slashes a guy with his sword, it deals X damage, while if fighter B slashes a guy with his sword, it does Y damage, even though they're both just slashing with a sword. Likewise, you can use pressure points (which isn't even specific, at all) to model different things, or coming from a monastery to model different characters, etc.

Your way of doing things seems to intentionally limit options for no reason other than "I did it this way first, it must be this way."

true_shinken
2010-08-13, 03:36 PM
I'm talking about basic weapons, Ozy, not enhanced ones. If fighter A slashes a guy with his sword, it deals X damage, while if fighter B slashes a guy with his sword, it does Y damage, even though they're both just slashing with a sword.

Except they are not 'just swinging a sword'. Fighting does not work like that. They have different ability scores, different base attack bonus, they chose different feats. Their fighting style is completly different from each other. They are as much 'doing the same thing' as a capoeira stylist does the same thing as a kyudo stylist.

Milskidasith
2010-08-13, 03:45 PM
Except they are not 'just swinging a sword'. Fighting does not work like that. They have different ability scores, different base attack bonus, they chose different feats. Their fighting style is completly different from each other. They are as much 'doing the same thing' as a capoeira stylist does the same thing as a kyudo stylist.

Exactly my point, since I knew you would say this. If all the people who are, to be very general, swinging swords are doing it in differing ways to get different effects... why can't people do other similar things to get different effects? That's exactly the point I am making to Ozy; saying "You can't use pressure points for sneak attack because I use it for my monk's stunning fist" is really silly with all the various techniques you can fluff it as.

I can see not wanting the exact same fluff if it is very, very, very specific and exactly the same as the mechanical effects, but general things such as "Lived in a monastery" or "Hits pressure points for fun and profit" don't need to have only one mechanic to them.

jseah
2010-08-13, 04:20 PM
I actually could counter your first statement (Specialist wizard, caster level problems) as well as conceptually doing so (Are you actually saying that 'Oops sorry, you can't use this particular scroll that some other wizards can use? Not all wizards can use a small variety of spells), but well... it sounds like the problem is different.
Also applies to Thrice Dead Cat:
Actually, there's something better to differentiate wizard and wu jen. Multiclass wizard/wu jen do not stack spell progression.
And specialist wizards cannot multiclass to generalist wizard.
Therefore, any in-game explanation for the differences between wu jen and wizard also have to hinge on the fact that they are different routes to arcane power.

Scrolls still work. Generalist wizards have a relation to all other wizards, ie. they can use any wizard scroll. Specialist wizards are already specified as focusing their study in one area to the detriment of others. Explanation is already given for them. The fact that you can't go Conjurer 3/Transmuter 1 shows that the fluff of spec. wizards is just a wizard that is rather focused.
Wu Jen don't have that. Thus the scrolls of wu jen-only spells are spells that are unique to the wu jen way of magic.


It seems you insist that every character in a given class must be the exact same, and any changes to that must have a lengthy explanation in upbringing. Is this true? As that seems to be a very odd thing to insist upon. I mean, you have two wizards, one takes empower spell, the other takes sudden empower. Do they really need different explanations?
Every exact same character must have the exact same explanations for their abilities. Yes. That is what I am asking. Change a feat or two and you might find a better path to explain those choices (ie. explain it in a different order).
I don't even ask that characters have all that explanation laid out. But if it ever becomes important, the explanations should be consistent with the mechanics (ie. you can look at the mechanics, derive the explanation for them and arrive at the same answer every time)

Backgrounds like whether you grew up in an orphanage or in the streets makes little difference (with exceptions) as long as they end up at the same place.

Also, if you were to explain your feat choice, I would expect different explanations for Sudden Empower and Empower Spell.
Eg. Sudden Empower being something like a spell(s) that you prepare at the start of the day and apply at will to explain why it's per day limited. Empower would just be some understanding of magic theory. They are very different feats.


In the last thread to discuss metagame concepts, someone bothered throwing up a backstory for a character involving being taught secrets from her mom, running away from her assassin's, befriending orphans in some slums, and eventually finding her mother's secret stash of weapons.

Now is that character a rogue/shadowdancer with UMD, Diplomacy, Hide, and Move Silently? Or is it a rogue/swordsage? The same fluff could get you to either.
That backstory doesn't display any mechanical abilities nor explain the way she gets her power/abilities/mechanics from. Well, apart from being good at talking and running away.

If the backstory included the fact that her mother was a rogue/swordsage, then I would expect the character to also be swordsage or rogue at least.


Except not all Wu Jens have the same taboos. The elemental relations are relatively minor, boiling down to an extra CL here or there and a very limited free metamagic to a handful of spells. As certain faiths, areas in a campaign world, and universities of magic all have their own odd requirements or taboos, it because difficult to weed Wu Jens with their mandated taboos versus wizards with their potentially mandated taboos versus just oddball wizards or sorcerers.

And not all Wu Jen even have the same habits, as has been mentioned before. The fact that a wizard cannot use a scroll of a specific Wu Jen spell without either UMD, a feat, and/or the rules for independent spell creation is meaningless as their is a large, large overlap in the fluff behind the two classes: both a spellbook-based, Int-based, prepared casters with free feats at various levels, poor BAB, good will saves, 2+ Int with the same class skills, and d4 HD.
Refer to first point to Kantolin. Multiclassing and how the classes relate to each other give a very neat explanation.

Mainly that how the class system works (ie. wu jen can multiclass to wizard, spec. wizard cannot multiclass to wizard) shows that wu jens and wizards have completely separate studies. The difference in fluff should then reflect this.


Right, which kind of refutes the argument you have been making. Unless, of course, you can point at situations where this would be barred. Hell, most settings with detailed monasteries or "fighter schools" mention that they are home to multiple types of character (classes).

EDIT: For example, the Knights of Barakmordin described in Champions of Valor are a set of holy knights in service of the Triad. They include clerics, fighters, rangers, paladins, cavaliers, and general priests. Most of the rest of the organizations within the same book detail wildly different classes from a mechanical standpoint and multiple organizations also feature much the same in mechanical representation via multiclassed Paladin/Xs, Monk/Xs, clerics, wizards, and other sorts of casters.

This doesn't even take into account what Champions of Ruin has to say about similarly classes on the opposite of the alignment spectrum.
The problem only occurs when they have the same explanation. You can't say "he took shape soulmeld, the other guy took martial study" at the same time as saying "both of them learnt the exact same things".

And the training they receive is different within the organization. An organization that trains only bards will be comprised of bards. An organization that trains fighters, monks and swordsages will get those.
I wouldn't expect those large organizations to train all their members in the exact same way. They would have a church, barracks, chapel, hunting ground... etc.

You don't see an organization that trains fighters get a wizard. A wizard might join, but he doesn't learn wizarding in a place that only teaches how to swing a sword.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kantolin, Thrice Dead Cat:
Perhaps I am just less forgiving of exceptions.
The various examples of refluffed things strike me as creating exceptions to the rules of how the setting is supposed to work.

It could just be me but if I expect something to work only one way, then it better only work one way. I have a tendency to prefer exceptions to be as rare as artifacts. Or never. (If the Inquisition has been fluffed as having wiped out *all* wizards in certain cities, and you want to be a wizard from there, there had better be an explanation on par with asking for a major artifact. )

When you want to refluff something away from the standard fluff explanation for the abilities, you are asking for an exception to the consistency of the fluff. Which has to be repaired by another justification.

Milskidasith:
Things like monasteries and stuff don't have to be unique. The important thing is that differentiable mechanics must have differentiable fluff.
But refluffing a character's abilities to suddenly require the creation of a branch of monks (for swordsage = monk) is something that should be already in the setting, not at character creation. Or worse still, mid-game.

Also, different ways (fluff) to different effects (mechanics) is a given. Similar ways to different effect is something that needs to be justified.
Scorching Ray cannot be used to light your pipe (different but related effect from fire damage) since it doesn't set things on fire.

Milskidasith
2010-08-13, 04:31 PM
Jseah, stop strawmanning me. I never suggested you create an entirely new monastery if there aren't any in the setting just to create swordsages. I just said that the swordsage could come from the exact same monastery as the monk. If there are no monasteries, period, then he could come from the exact same place monks come from in that setting.

true_shinken
2010-08-13, 04:32 PM
I can see not wanting the exact same fluff if it is very, very, very specific and exactly the same as the mechanical effects, but general things such as "Lived in a monastery" or "Hits pressure points for fun and profit" don't need to have only one mechanic to them.

Ozy mentioned time and time again it's just a matter of his opinion. I don't understand why you so constantly have to try and change that.
Guy likes the rules to be consistent because he sees them as modelling the game's world. I agree with him. You don't. That's fine.


I just said that the swordsage could come from the exact same monastery as the monk.
Wait, what? That really does not make sense. You really think it's halfway consistent that two characters created in the same monastery, learning the same techniques from the same masters... end up with two vastly different arrays of abilities?
If monks and swordsages represented two different schools of martial arts, then that's not a problem. Monk of school X versus monk of school Y has been done time and time again, after all. But two characters from the same school with radically different styles right of the bat... that's hard to swallow.

Starbuck_II
2010-08-13, 05:04 PM
Wait, what? That really does not make sense. You really think it's halfway consistent that two characters created in the same monastery, learning the same techniques from the same masters... end up with two vastly different arrays of abilities?

Yes, I do.
Same way to children under same parents even up vastly different.

true_shinken
2010-08-13, 05:09 PM
Yes, I do.
Same way to children under same parents even up vastly different.

Surely you jest. Personality and techniques are completly different matters.
If someone teaches you to kick but somehow you learn how to teleport... well, that does not sound very consistent to me.

Boci
2010-08-13, 05:25 PM
Surely you jest. Personality and techniques are completly different matters.
If someone teaches you to kick but somehow you learn how to teleport... well, that does not sound very consistent to me.

Yeah, the monk in question is pretty clever. Yeah yeah, just a bad example. But seriously, in a real world there are differences in the fighting styles of people who do the same martial art. Now factor in mystic spiritual energies...I can sorta understand thnking its not possible, but to me it seems reasonable.

Milskidasith
2010-08-13, 05:46 PM
Surely you jest. Personality and techniques are completly different matters.
If someone teaches you to kick but somehow you learn how to teleport... well, that does not sound very consistent to me.

Except monks also learn how to teleport.

To be less pedantic: A monastery teaches you how to use unarmed strikes really well, and gives you a few esoteric supernatural abilities.

That describes both monks and unarmed swordsages. It doesn't make any sense to me to not let them come from the same place. Not everybody taught the same way fights exactly the same, and unarmed swordsages and monks are so similar in fluff and general capabilities, it's not like I'm having swordmasters come from wizarding schools or sorcerers learn their abilities from underwater basketweaving classes.

true_shinken
2010-08-13, 05:48 PM
Yeah, the monk in question is pretty clever. Yeah yeah, just a bad example. But seriously, in a real world there are differences in the fighting styles of people who do the same martial art. Now factor in mystic spiritual energies...I can sorta understand thnking its not possible, but to me it seems reasonable.

A martial arts style usually has plenty of schools. Each of said schools usually teaches different techniques; sometimes you see advanced students 'branching out' from the school initial technique set by adding from other schools or developing his own techniques - but that's not what you'd expect from a 1st-level character fresh out of the monastery.
'Mystic spiritual energies' are still channeled/harnessed/whatever following the school's methods, so I believe it is still the same.
I agree with you, it's just a bad example. Saying your character comes from a different monastery is a lot more reasonable, after all.



To be less pedantic: A monastery teaches you how to use unarmed strikes really well, and gives you a few esoteric supernatural abilities.

So, you mean if I enroll in a roda de capoeira, I could eventually learn the Dim Mak? :smallbiggrin:
What I mean is that the class monk represent a set, distintict fighting style. The swordsage class represents a (significantly broader and different) other fighting style. I mean, you could have, I don't know, unarmed swordsages and normal swordsages coming from the same school. But monks and swordsages? That's just too weird, really. Two students, with the exact same XP, ability scores and even the same feat choices would end up fighting vastly differently. That's what Ozy meant, really - your refluffing, in this case, makes the whole monastery thing look wonky.
Well, if you had a monastery that taught a lot of different styles, I could see it happening, actually. That was not what you intended, though.

Boci
2010-08-13, 05:51 PM
A martial arts style usually has plenty of schools. Each of said schools usually teaches different techniques; sometimes you see advanced students 'branching out' from the school initial technique set by adding from other schools or developing his own techniques - but that's not what you'd expect from a 1st-level character fresh out of the monastery.
'Mystic spiritual energies' are still channeled/harnessed/whatever following the school's methods, so I believe it is still the same.
I agree with you, it's just a bad example. Saying your character comes from a different monastery is a lot more reasonable, after all.

There are people in my ju-jitsu and MMA class whose technique is different than mine. Plus if both the swordsage and the monk leave the same monestry at first level then compare them then. They are pretty similar. After that their progression may not be due to the monestries teaching, at least not entierly.

true_shinken
2010-08-13, 05:56 PM
There are people in my ju-jitsu and MMA class whose technique is different than mine. Plus if both the swordsage and the monk leave the same monestry at first level then compare them then. They are pretty similar. After that their progression may not be due to the monestries teaching, at least not entierly.

Please. You are talking about something called Mixed Martial Arts. Don't get me started on how it's not even school based to begin with.

Boci
2010-08-13, 05:58 PM
Please. You are talking about something called Mixed Martial Arts. Don't get me started on how it's not even school based to begin with.

Whose to say how rigid or fluid a monestry monk's technique is. Also, I mentioned ju-jitsu as well.

Milskidasith
2010-08-13, 05:59 PM
True, classes are mechanical abilities. What those represent is what the player decides. To some, an unarmed swordsage is a monk, to others it's a mystical swordsman, to others it is a wandering warrior, to others it's a fighter who relies on magical techniques to do things. All of those match up with the mechanics.

true_shinken
2010-08-13, 06:04 PM
True, classes are mechanical abilities. What those represent is what the player decides. To some, an unarmed swordsage is a monk, to others it's a mystical swordsman, to others it is a wandering warrior, to others it's a fighter who relies on magical techniques to do things. All of those match up with the mechanics.
That's not what we are discussing, is it?
You said 'both a monk and an unarmed swordsage could come from the same monastery'. It does seem weird.


Whose to say how rigid or fluid a monestry monk's technique is. Also, I mentioned ju-jitsu as well.
Except what you learn as jujutsu is actually Gracie family's redefinition of jujutsu. You see, that is one school of jujutsu. I myself dislike what the Gracie family did with the art - a subtle, circular way became somewhat brutal. They even cut the whole philosophy behind the original teachings. I'm more of a Jigoro Kano guy myself.
...well, that had nothing to do with the current subject. Sorry. ^^

Boci
2010-08-13, 06:07 PM
Except what you learn as jujutsu is actually Gracie family's redefinition of jujutsu. You see, that is one school of jujutsu.

And even within it people's technique varies.


I myself dislike what the Gracie family did with the art - a subtle, circular way became somewhat brutal. They even cut the whole philosophy behind the original teachings. I'm more of a Jigoro Kano guy myself.
...well, that had nothing to do with the current subject. Sorry. ^^

Subtler form of ju-jitsu with a bigger emphasis on philosophy. To me, that says Aikido, but I could be wrong.

true_shinken
2010-08-13, 06:11 PM
Subtler form of ju-jitsu with a bigger emphasis on philosophy. To me, that says Aikido, but I could be wrong.
You're about right, I guess, though I was referring to judo.
Hard to find teachers that enforce the philophy aspect on martial arts these days. The whole 'being paid to teach' thing kind of ruins it. But I digress.

Starbuck_II
2010-08-13, 07:20 PM
Surely you jest. Personality and techniques are completly different matters.
If someone teaches you to kick but somehow you learn how to teleport... well, that does not sound very consistent to me.

Both learn to teleport, but Swordsages learn faster actually.
Have you reread the monk special abilities?

true_shinken
2010-08-13, 08:02 PM
Both learn to teleport, but Swordsages learn faster actually.
Have you reread the monk special abilities?
Teleport is just an ill-chosen example... like the whole monastery thing. OK, so... one deals elemental-based damage, the other does not. The point still stands.

Boci
2010-08-13, 08:03 PM
Teleport is just an ill-chosen example... like the whole monastery thing. OK, so... one deals elemental-based damage, the other does not. The point still stands.

Nope. Firstly nothing says a swordsage will choose a desert wind maneuver, and there is an ACF for monks that allows them to deal elemental damage.

true_shinken
2010-08-13, 08:08 PM
Nope. Firstly nothing says a swordsage will choose a desert wind maneuver, and there is an ACF for monks that allows them to deal elemental damage.

But using ACFs for the monk is going into a whole 'another school' environment as well. Also, you don't have elemental damage only on desert wind - shadow hand has a few maneuvers dealing cold damage.