[3.5] Vow of Poverty.

[Yael]

Is Vow of Poverty (Book of Exalted Deeds really broken?
I mean, you could buff a character with lots of restrictions like a monk.

I've been told that VoP is broken because of the early play. Also applies at higher levels, maybe in a low-level campaign?

[questionmark693]

You just opened a can of worms you didn't want to open here in the playground :smallwink: simple answer is thus: VoP is restrictive, and the bonuses it gives you don't equal what you would get with proper wbl.

EDIT: Also, the playground kind of hates monks :smalltongue:

[Rubik]

Monks are, quite possibly, THE worst class to toss Vow of Poverty on, as they're one of the most item-dependent classes in the game, and Vow of Poverty doesn't give any of the things that mundane characters need, such as flight, miss chances, and utility items.

[Matticussama]

The system is built expecting players to have access to a certain amount of wealth. Monsters are built expecting you to have magical weapons, armor, and other items that boost your combat capabilities. The bonuses from VoP does not match what the system expects you to be capable of doing, thus leaving you significantly under-powered over time. It doesn't matter so much at low levels, but by mid-levels a significant gap forms between the players with a +2 or +3 sword and the player with VoP.

That being said, if your character concept really benefits from the concept of Vow of Poverty, talk to your DM about improving it. Or take it with a powerful class that can take the hit to their power and still pull their weight, like a Druid or Sorcerer.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

If you play D&D like it's one of the older Final Fantasy games, where a character can be good with just raw stats and zero versatility, then it's not bad but it's no better than standard WBL (except in the earliest levels).

If your DM uses opponents with any sort of tricks whatsoever (Beholderkin, spring attackers, ranged attacks, crowd controls, etc.), and/or includes noncombat challenges, then such a character is going to be downright useless. Granted another character (Wizard, Cleric, Druid) could go out of their way to buff and support such a character, but then your character is just riding on that one's coattails.

Simply put, VoP is not worthwhile for any actual D&D game unless it's run and played like a video game with bland encounters lacking any semblance of tactics. The same goes for the Monk class, it's pretty useless unless an opponent intentionally stands still and lets himself get beat up, and VoP doesn't make it any better.

[WhatBigTeeth]

Is Vow of Poverty (Book of Exalted Deeds really broken?
No.

Next thread!

[ArcturusV]

Well, low level, it's not too big a hit. High level it MIGHT not be that big a hit depending on class. But rather than Monk, I'd look towards Druid, Sorcerer, possibly Bard if your Performance Choice is something like Singing or Oratory.

The problems, as stated, is that the bonuses generally aren't equatable to WBL. Though I sometimes wonder at the stress that things like Flight is given. That's kinda campaign dependent and high levels don't really require it so much as "Oh, that's nice".

Perhaps a bigger problem with it? There's just a lack of Exalted Feats. If you're a spellcaster like I mentioned above, you're going to run out of relevant feats real, real fast. Monks at least get more feats that actually do something. But even then things like Sanctify Ki Strike isn't exactly a huge boost.

If you can get a DM to allow you to make up feats, a la Spellcasters making up spells... that might make it suddenly more worthwhile. But otherwise you end up with something like Nymph's Kiss, Nimbus of Light, Touch of Golden Ice... and start to run out of good feat choices. Maybe take one of the crappy ones like Knight of the Stars if you need it for PrCs.

[eggynack]

Well, to be technically accurate the feat is broken. It's just broken in the terrible truenamerish way rather than the game winning planar shepardish way. You just don't get enough. The abilities are kinda static and not at all what an adventurer needs to cope with a variety of things, and the free feats dry up quality wise ridiculously quickly. The only class who could theoretically benefit is a druid, and that's only true if you happen to not have access to the items that let you use wealth by level while wildshaped. I don't know why a game would have access to the BoED and not the MIC, but there ya go. Monks aren't druids, and therefore do not benefit from VoP, even in limited book situations. If the DM just doesn't give out magic items ever, then the feat is theoretically useful, but that just seems obvious.

[Frosty]

Well, a Druid or Fist of the Forest might benefit a lot from it. I mean, your gear melds with you when you Wildshape, so a VoP feat can only *help* when you're in Wildshape, which is most of the day or all day in higher levels.

[eggynack]

Well, a Druid or Fist of the Forest might benefit a lot from it. I mean, your gear melds with you when you Wildshape, so a VoP feat can only *help* when you're in Wildshape, which is most of the day or all day in higher levels.
As I alluded to above, this is only true if you for some reason have access to Vow of Poverty, but don't have access to wilding clasps. That kind of book access acts in a manner that's pretty much the opposite of what I'd expect, given that the Magic Item Compendium is wonderful and the Book of Exalted Deeds is often wonky and broken. Still, if this somehow describes your book access, and you're not able to have your party members put your items on you after you've wildshaped, then VoP is alright in that crazy corner case.

[Slipperychicken]

The problems, as stated, is that the bonuses generally aren't equatable to WBL. Though I sometimes wonder at the stress that things like Flight is given. That's kinda campaign dependent and high levels don't really require it so much as "Oh, that's nice".

>Encounter bear.
>Bear rushes up to attack
>I fly 20ft out of its reach.
>Bear can't do anything about it and roars impotently
>I leisurely fire arrows or throw rocks or piss on it until the bear crumples up dead.
>I win.

Feel free to replace "bear" with "melee fighter", "Tarrasque", or "half the monster manual" and you're good. It's just one more way to screw melee, and it works pretty reliably if any of your encounters take place outside or in rooms with tall ceilings. Even once your DM wises up and starts giving everyone fancy shmancy Composite bows, it's maybe 1d8+4 for a melee character.

[Arundel]

You just opened a can of worms you didn't want to open here in the playground :smallwink: simple answer is thus: VoP is restrictive, and the bonuses it gives you don't equal what you would get with proper wbl.

EDIT: Also, the playground kind of hates monks :smalltongue:

This isn't entirely fair. We don't hate these things, we are just very keenly aware of how objectively terrible they are compared to other options. The playground serves a purpose much akin to an ancient library. We absorb, catalogue, and index knowledge of the ways in which the world can be seen to work. When someone comes for advice we try to make sure that they understand all the options that they have available.

Are monks terrible? yes
Is VoP underwhelming? yes
Is a VoP monk laughably screwed in a long campaign? yes

Was one of my favorite characters I ever played a VoP monk? You bet

[eggynack]

Well, I might not be able to speak for the playground as a whole, but I definitely hate monks. There's a long and rambling spiel about it, but the gist is that they're a betrayal to their concept. There's a promise intrinsic to the monk that you'll be able to punch stuff to death with a high level of effectiveness, and the class just breaks that promise in a whole bunch of ways. I dislike VoP quite a bit too, but to a lesser extent. That feat similarly promises that the player will gain some sort of massive power in exchange for the versatility of items, and it doesn't deliver at all. The whole feat is poorly designed, and is in no way worth the trade off. I don't hate it quite as much because it's just about the only option for an itemless character, and it's much further out of the way than the monk.

[TuggyNE]

Monks and VoP both have an odd characteristic: they give you stuff that could be bought for GP much more cheaply, or that isn't really essential, or that doesn't quite do what you need, and they charge a steep price for this (class levels for one, WBL for the other). When you combine them, you have a really unfortunate inability to fix the holes in either with the stuff you'd normally have left over (WBL for one, class features/spells for the other).


The playground serves a purpose much akin to an ancient library. We absorb, catalogue, and index knowledge of the ways in which the world can be seen to work. When someone comes for advice we try to make sure that they understand all the options that they have available.

Tangentially: please don't burn us down. :smallwink:

[Miranius]

To make a long story short: the less usable items are available for your character, the more viable VoP becomes.

For a regular PC with a world of attainable magical goods: no, decked out with standard +X items he comes out SLIGHTLY ahead, plus there are many "tool" magic items he can use.

For PC`s like the druid, where there are hardly any usable items or one would need togo to great length to make them work (halfling brooch) or in a world with low wealth / accessibility of magic, YES (but keep in mind that you will restrict yourself a great deal)

[Slipperychicken]

Tangentially: please don't burn us down. :smallwink:

Try not to DDoS us, either :smalleek:

[Gavinfoxx]

Also remember, D&D, by the books, is one of the most magic-item-requiring games I know of. The game EXPECTS you to have a heinous amount of wealth, and an absolutely absurd amount of utility items. The game seriously breaks down when not played this way -- if you want to be able to open any book that contains monsters and play them as written. Vow of Poverty completely destroys this option, and when you pair something as weak as VoP with something as weak as Monk... you end up really screwed, if you are actually doing the encounters as presented in the game.


That's not to say it is impossible for a vow of poverty monk to be the most effective player character in a campaign. It's just that the way the DM would be running that campaign doesn't really resemble the rules in the books in any way.

[eggynack]

To make a long story short: the less usable items are available for your character, the more viable VoP becomes.

For a regular PC with a world of attainable magical goods: no, decked out with standard +X items he comes out SLIGHTLY ahead, plus there are many "tool" magic items he can use.

For PC`s like the druid, where there are hardly any usable items or one would need togo to great length to make them work (halfling brooch) or in a world with low wealth / accessibility of magic, YES (but keep in mind that you will restrict yourself a great deal)
On the druid thing, it's more of an and proposition than an or proposition. Basically, you need to be playing a druid in a low wealth campaign. for a non-druid in a low wealth campaign, you can probably get enough stuff to make VoP not worth it. this obviously depends on the degree to which there isn't money. If you literally just can't get magic items for some reason, then VoP is going to be pretty good.

For a druid in a game with wealth perfectly in accordance with the rules, VoP will weaken your character. It won't be the worst thing in the world, because a druid in the right hands is roughly incapable of being the worst thing in the world, but it's a step down. The only thing you need to get access to magic items in wildshape is wilding clasps, and those aren't that expensive. They run for 4000 gold apiece, which acts as a bit of a per-item tax on stuff for a druid. The trick is mostly using singular items with a high cost rather than lots of items with low cost. Using the crafting guide in the MIC to stick common enchantments onto items at cost is a good way to rack up the value on a single item. A 4000 GP tax per item isn't bad at all if you only have the one item.

[Mithril Leaf]

On most characters VoP is a -1.5 to their tier. For Gear independent classes, it's more like a -.5 to their tier. Unless you have no wealth to begin with, then it's pretty alright.

[sonofzeal]

VoP is very powerful at low level on characters who normally don't wear armor or use weapons anyway - Monks and Sorcerers in particular.

It lags seriously mid-high level on anyone whose class doesn't give things like flight, ability to fight from a range, and a generally flexible tool-kit. This pretty much just limits it to primary spellcasters, and even for them it's poor.

There ARE builds it synergizes well with. If your DM is not so hot on wearing items in Wildshape, VoP becomes a godsend for the Druid or other Wildshaper. It also synergizes well with Incarnum, which limits your use of item slots.

[Fouredged Sword]

It is very nice for when your chameleon with sacred vow (for the diplomacy bonus, you have the feat for an extra skill point per level and so are exalted anyway) gets captured and stripped of his equipment. Bam, you get the bonuses for VoP, and can drop it as soon as you get your stuff back.

Break the vow? No problem, just take it again at the end of the day to reapply it.

[Amnestic]

Break the vow? No problem, just take it again at the end of the day to reapply it.

"If you break your vow [of poverty], you immediately and irrevocably lose the benefit of this feat. You may not take another feat to replace it."

I'd argue that if "specific trumps general", an argument could be made that if you invested your Chameleon bonus feat into VoP you could never change it again. Regardless, even if you can change it, taking it once and breaking the vow means you can never get the bonuses again.

[Fouredged Sword]

Ok, fair enough reading, then be very careful not to break the feat while you have it, and trade it away after getting your gear back.

My point is that the vow feats are nice in a very selective manner, and I think a vow jumping factotum 5 / chameleon 10 would make for an interesting character.

[Telonius]

It does give some shiny stuff early on. But besides some of the problems already mentioned (not giving stuff melee needs, etc), one of the biggest early draws - those loads of bonus feats - starts running out of steam very, very quickly.

There are 43 Exalted feats. *As a Monk*, you qualify for 22 of them:
Exalted Spell Resistance (if you have 15 CHA)
Favored of the Companions
Fist of the Heavens
Gift of Faith
Intuitive Attack
Knight of Stars
Nimbus of Light
(->Holy Radiance)
(->Stigmata)
Nymph's Kiss
Quell the Profane (if you meet the prereqs)
Vow of Abstinence
...Chastity
...Nonviolence
...Peace
...Obedience
...Purity
Sanctify Ki Strike
(->)Holy Ki Strike
Servant of the Heavens
Touch of Golden Ice
Words of Creation (if you have 15 CHA)

Some of those preclude others; Servant of the Heavens means no Knight of Stars or Favored of the Companions. Nymph's Kiss likely means no Vow of Chastity. So a total of 19 usable feats. For a Monk, the ones that you'll probably be most interested in are Intuitive Attack, Touch of Golden Ice, Fist of the Heavens, Sanctify Ki Strike, and Holy Ki Strike. (Note that the Ki Strikes require 15 CHA - meaning you're even more MAD than a regular Monk, which is saying something). Nymph's Kiss is a generally good feat, so we'll add that to the list. So six somewhat-useful feats.

The others are extremely situational, not really applicable, give a bonus too minor to be of much account, are actively harmful to the character (Vow of Purity makes fighting undead annoying, Stigmata means you're damaging yourself), or don't actually do anything (Vow of Abstinence is infamous for this - if you're ever in a situation where the benefit would be useful, you've already broken the vow and lost the benefit).

So after level 12 or so, you've run out of the good stuff. In an unfortunate coincidence, it's also around here that it becomes very obvious that the non-VoP classes are really pulling away in terms of power.

[Amnestic]

Ok, fair enough reading, then be very careful not to break the feat while you have it, and trade it away after getting your gear back.

My point is that the vow feats are nice in a very selective manner, and I think a vow jumping factotum 5 / chameleon 10 would make for an interesting character.

I wouldn't consider abusing such vows appropriate conduct for an Exalted Good character. A Vow isn't a Vow if you drop it at the top of the hat. That's why it's called a 'Vow'. As a DM I'd put a stop to those shenanigans real fast, even if the feats themselves don't prevent it.

[eggynack]

I think the real question for floating feat vow of poverty is, what do you do if you find your items by the end of the day? Like, you pick that feat, thinking that it'll be days or weeks before you find your items, and then you walk a ways forward and find out that a low level bandit camp had stolen them, but now the bandits are dead to a monster, and your items are sitting right there in a pile. Are you compelled by your feat to collect all the items and give them to charity, or are you allowed to sleep a short distance from your items so you can collect them the next day or what? It seems like a pretty easy way for the DM to screw with you.

[Telonius]

I think the real question for floating feat vow of poverty is, what do you do if you find your items by the end of the day? Like, you pick that feat, thinking that it'll be days or weeks before you find your items, and then you walk a ways forward and find out that a low level bandit camp had stolen them, but now the bandits are dead to a monster, and your items are sitting right there in a pile. Are you compelled by your feat to collect all the items and give them to charity, or are you allowed to sleep a short distance from your items so you can collect them the next day or what? It seems like a pretty easy way for the DM to screw with you.

If you have a DM who might screw with you like that, it's really not a good idea to take any of the Vows. In that case, you either get somebody else to carry it back, or carry it back yourself. It should never come down to, "Welp, if those orphans want to use the gold, they'd better come here to the Pit of Despair and get it themselves."

[Slipperychicken]

Well, I might not be able to speak for the playground as a whole, but I definitely hate monks.

I just think it's incredibly stupid for the game to say "You want to be good at punching things? Here, have a tranquil zen warrior. Oh, you wanted to play a different concept, like an amoral drunken brawler? Well you can just shove right off then, you're not playing right and we won't stand for that."

[Bakeru]

I just think it's incredibly stupid for the game to say "You want to be good at punching things? Here, have a tranquil zen warrior. Oh, you wanted to play a different concept, like an amoral drunken brawler? Well you can just shove right off then, you're not playing right and we won't stand for that."And then attempt to turn around halfway, stumble, and make a tranquil drunken zen brawler prestige class.

[eggynack]

If you have a DM who might screw with you like that, it's really not a good idea to take any of the Vows. In that case, you either get somebody else to carry it back, or carry it back yourself. It should never come down to, "Welp, if those orphans want to use the gold, they'd better come here to the Pit of Despair and get it themselves."
It doesn't necessarily have to be the DM screwing with you. You could have merely overestimated the amount of time it'd take to find your items. Maybe the DM's original plan was for you to find the items in a couple of hours, and he didn't feel the need to change that plan for your feat change. I don't mean that the DM is screwing with the character by misinterpreting the feat. I'm saying that if this ability combination should be interpreted in the manner I'm claiming, i.e you have to run to a local orphanage to deposit your wealth by level if you have it, then the DM could screw with the character by having the kobold who stole your gold have a change of heart.

By my interpretation, once you find the items, they're either your wealth or they're not your wealth. If it is your wealth, then you're under an obligation to surrender that wealth in a manner befitting a character with vow of poverty whether it's you carrying the money or not. He could get out of it by trying to donate the stuff really slowly, but that just seems crazy. If it's not your wealth, then you shouldn't be allowed to lay claim to it the following day. I don't think you can see a pile of your money in the forest and say, "Eh, I'll pick that up later when I don't have Vow of Poverty. The local orphans can wait that long." It's possible that there's a way around this, the main one being to only use the floating Vow of Poverty trick when you're sure you won't be able to find your items by the next day, but the interpretation I've presented is a fair one.

[Fouredged Sword]

Well, let's gather this wealth up to donate to yon orphanage... Just let me sit here for a min or 15 to catch my breath... Hun.. Why was I donating that stuff? All I need to do is not sleep with hookers...

[Slipperychicken]

And then attempt to turn around halfway, stumble, and make a tranquil drunken zen brawler prestige class.

And even then make unarmed combat worthless.

There must be someone at WotC with a fetish for zen martial artists. The fact that every unarmed option in the game seems to drag you bodily toward the Monk class and its incredibly-specific fluff, as though there's some sacred edict that they be the only characters able to use their bodies as weapons.

[eggynack]

Well, let's gather this wealth up to donate to yon orphanage... Just let me sit here for a min or 15 to catch my breath... Hun.. Why was I donating that stuff? All I need to do is not sleep with hookers...
As I noted, donating all of your money but doing it really slowly is certainly an option. Maybe you take a long nap to get yourself prepared to do good deeds. It feels a bit like solving cheese problems with cheese solutions though. You're not just some regular good guy, driven to make the world a better place. You're an exalted good guy who has vowed to be free from money. I think that if you can give away all of your stuff by day's end, then you probably should give away all of your stuff by day's end.

[Chronos]

I'll partially dissent here. Vow of Poverty is not, itself, weak. It's an incredibly powerful feat, arguably the most powerful non-epic feat in the game. The problem is just that its prerequisite sucks even more than that. If you look at Vow of Poverty and say "Wow, that's powerful, I'm going to get rid of all of my loot so I can get that sweet power", you're doing it wrong. The reason the feat exists is that there are some players who want to play an impoverished character, for its own sake. Without VoP, doing that will cripple you so badly that the game is just plain completely unplayable. With VoP, you can play an impoverished character who just sort of sucks a bit compared to most possibilities, but is still playable if you're careful and don't get too ambitious.

[eggynack]

That is likely a true thing. The limited number of usable exalted feats compared to Vow of Poverty feat slots is still pretty sucktastic though. It's a part of the feat that just doesn't work, separate from the crazy imbalance of the trade off.