Pathfinder without magic items

[sdream]

I'm in a virtual tabletop weekly game with another player who is playing an armored and shielded mace wielder.

However, this other character distrusts magic and refuses to use magic items.

We are only level 2 so this is not a big deal so far, but does pathfinder have any options at all (even if they aren't quite as good) for a heavily armored weapon user to mitigate the lack of magical armor and weapons?

Something like the old 3.5 vow of poverty that gave "like-magic" bonuses to normal weapons...

Or something like forsaker/betrayer I read about once that destroys magic items for bonuses...

Or some kind of ancestral weapon or weapon bond that creates a better weapon without outsider magics....

[Psyren]

Pathfinder, like D&D, really assumes you'll have the use of magic items. Even the PF version of Vow of Poverty, which is a monk-only archetype, allows you to keep and use one magic item as well as benefit from consumables. The 3.5 version of course provides permanent buffs that approximate the effects of magic items; though it doesn't do perfectly at this, the concept that simply leaving the character without any static magic would be suicide at mid-high levels is still there.

The best solution would probably be to adapt 3.5's VoP into Pathfinder, and strengthen the benefits to make it truly viable. One suggestion I saw on these forums that I really liked, was to allow the bonus feats to be Incarnum feats as well as Exalted ones, using the connection that Incarnum comes from the Positive Energy Plane.

If you don't want to do that, the best way I can think of to maintain balance would be alternate forms of treasure that fit with this characters concept. For example, I mentioned consumables; say, instead of finding a magic ring, this character could find a bowl of magic fruit, each of which provides a different buff or other effect when eaten. Or he/his items could become possessed by spirits of some kind, granting him item-like buffs but with unique drawbacks or conditions.

Finally, if you want a strictly RAW suggestion, the DM could have him visit a magical location - DMG2 has rules for magic locations as treasure. These would provide various, typically year-long buffs that would allow him to shore up his defenses/utility without having actual magic items in his slots.