VOP and Perminant magical effects

[Jashwood]

VOP allows you to enter at any level and gain the benifits of all previous levels automatically (with the exception of the exaulted feats and most of them suck anyway). Thus I was toying around with the idea of a character who comes to see the folly in his ways and gives away his worldly goods later in his adventuring career.

What I was wondering is, if this character has a perminant magical effect (like from a manual of gainful exercise) he would retain that... and then gain the other benifits of VOP on top of it. Afterall... it's already a part of him.

Are there any other perminant magical effects that might be exploited before giving up on worldly goods?

[ArcturusV]

Permanent things, yeah. Not like you would lose the effects of say, Wish granted Stats just because. Or Polymorphed forms if you used massive Polymorph cheese (Though if you were doing that VoP should hardly be a concern).

Though expect a DM to get kinda ticked if you turn all your WBL into things like Magical Tattoos, inherent bonuses, grafts, etc, and then try to go into VoP for full WBL and VOP benefits.

[Psyren]

Are there any other perminant magical effects that might be exploited before giving up on worldly goods?

Magical locations give you a buff that lasts for a whole year. They have a gp value so they can be assigned as treasure, but they aren't items and so don't violate your vow.

Incarnum is very useful - soulmelds have lots of utility and last indefinitely, but are also not items and so don't violate your vow.

Vestiges don't violate your vow either. (Well, if you fall under your influence they might try to force you to do something naughty, but you can ignore them if you're willing to eat a few stacking penalties instead.)

[Story]

Soulmelds and vestiges are class features (though you can dip with a feat), not items. It's just like ToB maneuvers or spells.

As for magical locations, Complete Scoundrel has several that give a permanent bonus. They mostly give weak feats for 2-6k, but the feats are useful for meeting prereqs.

[Fyermind]

Permanent spell effects don't violate your vow nor do other non-item effects such as Iron will from that hole prison thing. I am very interested in grafts though.

[Story]

Grafts don't count as items. They're pretty much a permanent part of your body.

[Suddo]

The problem is that you want to take VoP as soon as possible if I remember correctly. I could be completely wrong though.

[Karnith]

The problem is that you want to take VoP as soon as possible if I remember correctly. I could be completely wrong though.
Well, in theory you would want it as soon as possible to get as many of the exalted bonus feats as you can. Honestly, though, there aren't a lot of great exalted feats, so it's not a huge deal to take VoP a little later.

[Firest Kathon]

One thing to consider is the types of bonuses granted. Many things give an enhancement bonus, which may or may not stack with the bonuses granted by VoP (I don't know the feat, so I can't tell).

[paigeoliver]

That is to maximize the number of bonus exalted feats you get and to maximize the bonus skill points if you take Nymph's kiss. However you almost have to specially build a very strange character even to take all 11 that you are granted over your 20 level career and even then a good 1/3rd to 1/2 of the ones you took would be near worthless. A lot of character types could jump in at 15th or even 18th level and still get the 2 or 3 that would actually matter for their character.

There are 43 exalted feats total and you have already take 2 of those when you start (Sacred Vow, Vow of Poverty.

Many are basically class specific.

Druid 3
Sorceror 1
Paladin 4
Cleric 2
Monk 3
Ranger 1
Barbarian 1
Rogue 1

Some are not class specific, but are of no use to most characters or have prereq's most characters won't meet. There are 6 of these.
Intuitive attack
Quell the Profane
Holy Subdual requires subduing strike and doesn't actually do anything that subduing strike doesn't already do. This was either a case of the author not understanding the rules or 3.0/3.5 differences.
Ranged Smite evil is specific to ranged paladin builds and vop characters can only carry a single simple weapon. Better be a sling I guess.
Exalted spell resistance requires spell resistance.
Exalted smite is class specific and duplicates an effect VOP already gives you.

6 are more vows, these either give relatively worthless bonuses or totally mess up your character.

Two are basically worthless to a VOP character.

Consecrate spell trigger and purify spell trigger involve magic items, which you can't have.

Favored of the Companions, Knight of Stars and Servant of the heavens are all mutually exclusive choices (and near worthless).




The problem is that you want to take VoP as soon as possible if I remember correctly. I could be completely wrong though.

[Story]

The ability bonuses are Enhancement, meaning that they don't stack with Headband of Intellect or the like (which you can't use anyway) but they do stack with Wishes/Tomes (which you can).

[Jashwood]

I considered grafts. But the problem with most grafts is their evil. Which even if they aren't technically disallowed continuing to use an evil item (or getting one in the first place) is a real easy way for your DM to gank your Exaulted status.

I'll look more carefully at the Complete Scoundrel to see if I can find thos perminant bonus feat items. That sounds interesting. Any idea if there are magic tattoos (kind of like Red Wizard's of Thay/not the psionic kind that fade). A dip in Tattooed monk isn't such a bad idea, but I'd rather keep my BAB high.

Any spells: Wish and Polymorph come to mind that you can keep the effects of after giving away worldly goods?

[Story]

Construct grafts aren't evil AFAIK.