Vow of Poverty Monk?

[KarlMarx]

I was wondering if anyone has any insight as to how well using VoP would work to balance out a monk without homebrew (my DM is not a fan of most homebrews as I'm by far the most experienced player in his campaigns and I regularly break them when I try to play more powerful classes, let alone when I use homebrew).

Insofar as I see it, a Human could get VoP at 1st level and immediately benefit from the AC boost. Thus, your AC works out at low levels to be 10+Dex+Wis+4(Exalted bonus). With, say Dex 16 and Wis 14, this works out to 19 AC at 1st level, improving over time from Exalted bonus. Should be enough to stand on the front lines when you need to, as even though your HP isn't great you wouldn't have any real chance of being hit at low levels.

And since I'd be playing a monk in a campaign with a DM who doesn't cut me much rules slack, the inability to acquire magic items that work well for me suddenly becomes an asset, as I have no reason to compromise VoP benefits.

So, is there a catch that I'm not seeing here? The only thing I can think of is not having full BAB, which definitely sucks, but via combat maneuvers like grappling I feel like I'd still be effective if not amazing. Besides, I could do a little skillmonkeying on the side, something my group isn't that great at coordinating.

Finally, the campaigns with this DM generally start at 3rd level and rarely go higher than 6th. I'd probably try to end up going Monk 4/Fighter 2 for bonus feats and higher BAB.

[JNAProductions]

If you don't get any magic items, yes, VoP kicks patoot.

But if you can get magic items, even if you're under WBL, it sucks. Hard.

Also, find out how strict your DM is gonna be with it. Because, RAW, you can't open doors without losing VoP.

[ayvango]

VoP monk could not fly.

[JNAProductions]

VoP monk could not fly.

If you aren't getting any magic items anyway, it's not that big a deal. Especially if you end by 6th level.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

VoP monk could not fly.You could always go with dragonborn of Bahamut for that. Or get a soulmeld to pseudo-fly.

It's too bad VoP doesn't give options. It takes away a LOT of options and boosts some numbers, but the fact that it doesn't give any options in return (and screws you over on dumb stuff, like opening doors, entering buildings, reading signs, and even looking at public artworks like statues) means that VoP is an awful thing for any character, but especially monks. After all, monks absolutely require magic items (or equivalents) to get more options than "run, hide, or perform a flurry of misses."

Monks don't natively have options. VoP takes what options monks can get through magic items and doesn't grant any in return. VoP is not good for monks.

[JNAProductions]

Wait-OP, I'm confused. Do you normally get magic items? Because if you do, DO NOT TAKE VOW OF POVERTY. Because Monks, by default, have no reason to not use them, and many reasons to use them.

[ayvango]

If you aren't getting any magic items anyway, it's not that big a deal. Especially if you end by 6th level.
Use magic item creation feats and transference ritual/spell

[Malroth]

Monk is a sub par class unless significant effort is put towards optimizing it. A very large portion of optimizing away the monks weaknesses is gear selection, which under Vow of Poverty is completely non existant. If you're simply vastly under geared, dipping Artificer to make your own is usually a far better solution than vow of poverty.

[Goaty14]

Use magic item creation feats and transference ritual/spell

What? You can't craft magic items without GP (unless you sub 1XP for every 5 GP, but then you're spewing XP too fast :smallyuk:) and you can't have GP with VoP. Additionally, you need caster levels to take magic item creation feats.

[Hecuba]

I'm assuming your looking for a low level melee character & aren't looking for maneuver user (which is generally more mechanically powerful, but also increases complexity). This seems like you're looking at an internet low-op play space.

You're probably better with Monk 2/Fighter 4 than Monk 4/Fighter 2: with VoP covering granting the magic weapon effect at 4, it's big difference is the fast moment - which is quite simply not worth the extra feat.

You could drop Monk entirely - unless you are rolling stats and just happened to manage 14+ wisdom on top of the STR and CON that you will want, WIS to AC on be as big of a deal as the exalted AC bonus. Absent such a wuss bonus to throw around, a Fighter will generally pursuing an Monk at unarmed combat.

If you are rolling stats and ended up with middling or better bonuses to spare, you might also consider monk 2/paladin 2/Fighter 2 - Divine Grace is quite powerful at this level if you have even a modest charisma bonus.

[SangoProduction]

To not beat a dead horse, and just summarize all the points:
VoP sucks because the numbers they give are outstripped by similar magic items, which you could afford at the level you get the numbers.
VoP also sucks because it gives nothing but numbers (even if they were actually substantial). You still can't fly. You can't teleport. You can't see invisible, or read thoughts. You can't do anything you couldn't already do.

Monk is bad because its damage only begins to rival existing weapons so late in the game, that unarmed strikes are irrelevant. (This can be fixed with substantial magic items, and a few prestige classes.)

Monk also doesn't have the BAB of a fighter, who could just slap on a gauntlet (which comes free with heavy armor, which gives more AC than your AC bonus), and punch things without weird rules (like how unarmed strikes are simultaneously natural and manufactured). And he can go ahead and enchant them as actual items instead of having to go to a 3.0 book for an overpriced way to enchant your unarmed strikes.

[Hecuba]

Monk is a sub par class unless significant effort is put towards optimizing it. A very large portion of optimizing away the monks weaknesses is gear selection, which under Vow of Poverty is completely non existant. If you're simply vastly under geared, dipping Artificer to make your own is usually a far better solution than vow of poverty.

I'm kind of assuming that they are deliberately looking at a straight forward, low op melee character. If artificer, sorcerer, druid, etc is under consideration they will obviously do better. I'm assuming, though, that if they are suggesting Monk/Fighter that they don't want a caster.

I'm also assuming that "the inability to acquire magic items that work well for me" means random, stingy, drop-only gear.

If you are looking at a non-ToB martial artist in a very low-wealth, very low-wealth campaign both Monk and VoP can have their place. Monk 2 is a respectable dip (and 4 an OK do, except for the fact it overlaps with VOP), and some tables do legitimately operate on random drop-only gear- in which case VoP is potentially both an increase in power and in reliability of build execution without specific drops.

Edit: but yeah - if you would otherwise be able to get at least some meaningful gear, VoP will be a loss. And playing a melee at all for such a campaign is more of a handicap than playing a caster. I'm just assuming that that is understood in the premise.

[Gruftzwerg]

It all boils down to how much access you have to magic items on a regular base in your campaigns?

If your campaigns only last about lvl6 your regular wealth balance would be max 13.000g at the end.
There ain't much what you can get for that lil gold for the monk.
Monks Belt or Necklace of Natural Weapons are to expensive at that point. So VOP could be an option.

But imho, you are better off with a more optimized non pure monk build.

If ToB is allowed, have a look at the unarmed Swordsage variant.

Another option would be the Fighter route with feating everything you need.

Since you start at lvl3 you could start with "monk 1 / fighter 2" and proceed as fighter for more feats.

As 3rd lvl feat pick Superior Unarmed Strike and @6th lvl Improved Natural Attacks. This results into 2d6 unarmed strike dmg.

Build high Str, pick Power Attack & Leap Attack for some charge dmg. You need to delay your 4th fighter lvl to character lvl 6 (dip Barb or rogue 1) to get LA as bonus feat, while getting INA with the regular feat.

If you can afford it, get yourself Sandals of the Tiger's Leap for double charge (and quadruple Power Attack) dmg with unarmed strikes.

At last buy a few Anklet of Translocation. They are cheap and give you 2x short range teleport for tactical movement to get into charge positions.

If you don't expect to get these items, go for VOP.

[Pleh]

A lot of the opinions thus far have been aimed at any idea of VoP Monk, as if under no circumstances can it be a good choice.

Here's my counterpoint. The problem you are describing is that you are consistently breaking an inexperienced DM's game. In the spirit of fair play, you seem to be looking for low optimization, just enough power to stay consistently useful, not enough to keep breaking things.

VoP monk seems to fit that bill, but if you're going high level, think carefully about where you're going to prestige, because this low op strategy might dip lower on the power scale than you'd find acceptable as the party gets above 6th to 9th level.

Bottom line, I've seen a couple VoP monks in my games. They work just fine if the DM isn't being too aggressive with employing various monster tactics. It's a fun shtick to play with, but mostly because you seem to want to limit your power level without totally nerfing yourself.

If you dip Fighter, I'd say build into tripping so you can do some battlefield control.

[Caelestion]

It's too bad VoP doesn't give options. It takes away a LOT of options and boosts some numbers, but the fact that it doesn't give any options in return (and screws you over on dumb stuff, like opening doors, entering buildings, reading signs, and even looking at public artworks like statues) means that VoP is an awful thing for any character, but especially monks. After all, monks absolutely require magic items (or equivalents) to get more options than "run, hide, or perform a flurry of misses."

I know that this is the Internet and thus hyperbolic outrage is the done thing, but from where on earth are you getting those daft ideas?

[Jormengand]

I know that this is the Internet and thus hyperbolic outrage is the done thing, but from where on earth are you getting those daft ideas?

Because then, by a stupid-RAW definition that no-one has ever actually used in a game ever, you would be "Using" those items.

The correct response to this is "Everything is a simple weapon if you try hard enough, and VoP characters can use them as much as they like".



To answer the question: if you're not likely to get enough magic items, VoP is fine. If you are, VoP's monetary value is technically higher than that of the items you'd get, but it's not usually worth it at mid- to high-levels. At level 1 it is positively, defininitely worth it for a monk (and probably worth it for most classes). It starts to fall off around 5th- to 10th-level depending on optimisation and allied caster friendliness.

[Caelestion]

Given that "any material possessions" is the qualifier in that feat, the obvious answer would be, "do you possess that sign?"

[Jormengand]

Given that "any material possessions" is the qualifier in that feat, the obvious answer would be, "do you possess that sign?"

But the argument (which, don't get me wrong, is silly) is that you can't use anyone's material possessions, not just your own (and you're not allowed to own any either). Of course in the Iron Chief Optimisation challenge I used it with shadowsmith because the possessions that creates aren't material (etherial creatures, incidentally, probably have little problem with the vow of poverty) and came first in that round and eleventh overall ever, so it goes to show that there are some fun ways of mitigating the horrific problems of VoP and turning the benefits a lot in your favour.

[DMVerdandi]

Snip

Alright, OP, As everyone has said here, VOP is universally NOT WORTH IT. Magic items are good. Magic items are FANTASTIC, actually, and many of them help you monk harder than you could without magic items. Good example? Monk's belt. Increase to your monk stuff by 5 levels at least.


Do you really want to be an awesome "monk"? Try druid on for size.
Monk 1/ Druid 19 (Druidic Avenger/Huntsman ACF).

What the druid Alternate class features/variants do is trade in usual druid fare of Wild shape and Animal companion [Which are VERY GOOD], and instead gives you
>Monk movement speed and AC bonus
>Barbarian +10 to movement
>Rage
>Favored enemy, tracking/Swift tracking
>Oh yeah...DRUID CASTING

Now, the good thing about all of this is, it does de-power the druid down quite a bit, which really helps some people sleep at night, and since you aren't necessarily turning into a bear, it allows you to play with druid spells without necessarily having that whole jungle king thing going on.


How do you flavor this to match with monk? EASY. Taoism. Daoism is all about elemental/internal alchemy and being one with nature. It is one of the big 3 religions in china [if that's your guy's flavor], along with buddhism and confucianism, and taoism is also the inspiration for MANY martial arts styles in china.

It's all about the spell combos for this one too. Druid has some AWESOME spells. Even at low level. I was looking at Blood Frenzy for example. Having rage, this is essentially "extra rage:the spell" for you.
Throwing this and body of the sun on, and charge attacking is beastly.
While the higher level druid spells kind of peter out, no one said you can't fill those slots with spells with metamagic (ayeeee).

Feats to grab, not in order.
1. Superior unarmed attack
2.Practiced Spellcaster [Necessary]
3.Any reserve feat that does damage [Summon elemental is probably the best, but you have to be like...level 8 to get it. Fiery burst.]
4.Extend Spell
5.Persistent spell
6.Quicken Spell
7.Smiting spell
8.Maybe Craft wands?
9.Intuitive attack

All of that, and you get FANTASTIC buffs from spells, can still wear magic items, ESPECIALLY monk's robe, Can still craft magic items, Can get favored enemy bonuses, Can rage, can RUN REALLY FAST, can punch pretty awesome...Heck, Superior unarmed attack stacked with Monk's belt has your AC at + 4 monk levels, and your unarmed damage at +9.


OR, You can sacrifice your ability to own any property, for a bunch of extra feats, and albeit, Good bonuses, when stacking all the bonuses you can get from the variant druid, it's not that great at all.

[Jormengand]

Alright, OP, As everyone has said here, VOP is universally NOT WORTH IT.

That is, for a variety of reasons, something that a sizable number of people have not said.


Do you really want to be an awesome "monk"? Try druid on for size.
Monk 1/ Druid 19 (Druidic Avenger/Huntsman ACF).

Druid 19 in a 6-level monk build. Classy, and exactly what I expected from the playground.

[lord_khaine]

I was wondering if anyone has any insight as to how well using VoP would work to balance out a monk without homebrew (my DM is not a fan of most homebrews as I'm by far the most experienced player in his campaigns and I regularly break them when I try to play more powerful classes, let alone when I use homebrew).

Insofar as I see it, a Human could get VoP at 1st level and immediately benefit from the AC boost. Thus, your AC works out at low levels to be 10+Dex+Wis+4(Exalted bonus). With, say Dex 16 and Wis 14, this works out to 19 AC at 1st level, improving over time from Exalted bonus. Should be enough to stand on the front lines when you need to, as even though your HP isn't great you wouldn't have any real chance of being hit at low levels.

And since I'd be playing a monk in a campaign with a DM who doesn't cut me much rules slack, the inability to acquire magic items that work well for me suddenly becomes an asset, as I have no reason to compromise VoP benefits.

So, is there a catch that I'm not seeing here? The only thing I can think of is not having full BAB, which definitely sucks, but via combat maneuvers like grappling I feel like I'd still be effective if not amazing. Besides, I could do a little skillmonkeying on the side, something my group isn't that great at coordinating.

Finally, the campaigns with this DM generally start at 3rd level and rarely go higher than 6th. I'd probably try to end up going Monk 4/Fighter 2 for bonus feats and higher BAB.

Well.. actually i think this sounds perfectly viable, though im not even certain that its worth it for those 2 fighter levels. Monk 6 gives a bonus feat. And 10 feet of additional movement. As well as decreases the flurry penalty. So at that point you might as well stay pure Monk.

And dont listen to the repeated bad advice about VoP. Its something that does apply to some specific cases, and gets parroted a lot like a universal truth. And yes, if your in the type of games where flight is a requirement to engage, or you mainly fight spellcasters, then its also likely true.

But its unlikely to affect anyone who comes here and asks for advice. And number-wise your getting a lot of really useful things from VoP. Just normally a +4 armor item is 16k, thats a massive chunck of the budget.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

And dont listen to the repeated bad advice about VoP.I haven't seen much of anyone telling him to take VoP.

[Jormengand]

I haven't seen much of anyone telling him to take VoP.

Ah yes, the old "Pretend someone meant the opposite of what they meant" gag. That one definitely didn't go out of fashion ages ago.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Ah yes, the old "Pretend someone meant the opposite of what they meant" gag. That one definitely didn't go out of fashion ages ago."Don't take a feat that objectively makes you worse in many ways except in these very limited circumstances" isn't really bad advice.

[KarlMarx]

I'm kind of assuming that they are deliberately looking at a straight forward, low op melee character. If artificer, sorcerer, druid, etc is under consideration they will obviously do better. I'm assuming, though, that if they are suggesting Monk/Fighter that they don't want a caster.

I'm also assuming that "the inability to acquire magic items that work well for me" means random, stingy, drop-only gear.

If you are looking at a non-ToB martial artist in a very low-wealth, very low-wealth campaign both Monk and VoP can have their place. Monk 2 is a respectable dip (and 4 an OK do, except for the fact it overlaps with VOP), and some tables do legitimately operate on random drop-only gear- in which case VoP is potentially both an increase in power and in reliability of build execution without specific drops.

Edit: but yeah - if you would otherwise be able to get at least some meaningful gear, VoP will be a loss. And playing a melee at all for such a campaign is more of a handicap than playing a caster. I'm just assuming that that is understood in the premise.

Both of those assumptions are true. As previously stated, I regularly do things with higher-tier classes that are...disapproved of, if not outright banned. My mentality is generally that, given my starting premises, I will optimize much more than my fellow players and give the DM headaches. It actually got to the point (albeit in a 5e campaign) where I was pumping out more melee damage than the rest of the party combined as well as doing battlefield control better than our primary caster. So generally since then, I've tried to limit my starting options and optimize within that range.

As for magic items, we generally do only get them via random drop, and like 60% of them are weapons or armor and 15% are useless. Of the remaining 25%, at least 20% are just a straight numerical bonus that doesn't grant any new options. There isn't any reason why I couldn't craft magic items, but the rest of the table generally doesn't and I don't think any of them would take kindly to me opening up a whole new plane of optimization. Plus, we often use no-XP rules to simplify the math, which means that how item crafting might work is a grey area I don't want to go into. Given that up to 10 people will play at the table occasionally, I think that this soft ban on most magic items is how the DM balances out the party somewhat.

Also, as for Pleh's suggestion that I go tripper, would tripping or grappling work better overall? I agree that combat maneuvers will be the best route for this build, but am uncertain as to whether tripping will work better than grappling.

Edit: also note that we rarely have to fly to fight even after reaching 5th level and gaining access to fly. It's simply too much hassle to enable everyone to do so.

[King of Nowhere]

Well.. actually i think this sounds perfectly viable, though im not even certain that its worth it for those 2 fighter levels. Monk 6 gives a bonus feat. And 10 feet of additional movement. As well as decreases the flurry penalty. So at that point you might as well stay pure Monk.

And dont listen to the repeated bad advice about VoP. Its something that does apply to some specific cases, and gets parroted a lot like a universal truth. And yes, if your in the type of games where flight is a requirement to engage, or you mainly fight spellcasters, then its also likely true.

But its unlikely to affect anyone who comes here and asks for advice. And number-wise your getting a lot of really useful things from VoP. Just normally a +4 armor item is 16k, thats a massive chunck of the budget.

I agree, if your DM is not handing out cartloads of magical treasure at every encounter, and if you can kindly ask your party wizard for a fly spell when you need one, then there aren't any significant drawbacks with VOP. And a monk focusing on battlefield control - trip, grapple, stun, a bit of tanking and survivability - is what I'm currently playing (though not with VOP), and it's very fun. Addded benefit that you do something pretty different from the rest of the party, so you run no risk of overshadowing/being overshadowed. A barbarian will always deal more damage than you. A caster will always have more tricks than you. Your tricks will still be something that can complement them pretty well.

[Hecuba]

Well.. actually i think this sounds perfectly viable, though im not even certain that its worth it for those 2 fighter levels. Monk 6 gives a bonus feat. And 10 feet of additional movement. As well as decreases the flurry penalty. So at that point you might as well stay pure Monk.

If you're making good use of the 10' feet, you're not using flurry. And vise versa. 6 could be worth it if you are specifically looking to focus on a schick supported by one of the UA fighting styles, but it's otherwise not a great option in a build this compressed.

You'd generally be better off using the fighter levels to grab some of the feats Gruftzwerg discussed above. And, as noted above, 2 is a better break point than 4 if VoP is in play.

[KarlMarx]

Why is Monk 2/Fighter 4 better than Monk 4/Fighter 2?

Your BAB doesn't change (+5 either way). Nor does your FoB attack bonus (base +3 either way). You get 1 extra bonus feat from fighter, but already have a total of 11 feats, though of limited variation. In addition, you get a net boost of 2 hp. Doesn't seem like a very good tradeoff for the net +1 damage of Monk 3 and the increased saves/skill potential.

[Caelestion]

"Don't take a feat that objectively makes you worse in many ways except in these very limited circumstances" isn't really bad advice.

Given that it's unlikely to progress beyond 6th-level, I don't see that any of the usual upper-level issues are going to affect him.

[Jormengand]

"Don't take a feat that objectively makes you worse in many ways except in these very limited circumstances" isn't really bad advice.

I mean, good thing they're in those very limited circumstances - low level, doesn't use martial weapons, doesn't use armour. Or did you think he was going to miss his twelve and a half gold's worth of gear?

[KarlMarx]

I would expect to maybe have 4th level WBL by 6th level. The DM is not known for handing out much magic equipment, and because our attendance fluctuates heavily, it tends not to be enough for the party.

[AnimeTheCat]

An incarnate or totemist meshes very very well with vow of poverty and can easily fit the "monk" image. It would take some of the weak points between 1 and 6 and sure them up for you. Even just a dip in one of the two could get you the ability to be more effective in a slightly broader spectrum of circumstances than pure monk.

If magic of incarnum is unavailable, pure monk will still be fun. If the optimization shoe fits your group, wear it.

[lord_khaine]

I mean, good thing they're in those very limited circumstances - low level, doesn't use martial weapons, doesn't use armour. Or did you think he was going to miss his twelve and a half gold's worth of gear?

Yeah.. that is what i meant about "VOP" is bad being repeated without considering what circumstances it did and did not apply to. Like.. if a part never faces flying enemies because a DM dislike 3d battles, then its irrellevant that VOP blocks you from getting a flight item. Or any of the other "must have" things.

And it does seem to get ignored that At level 6 the VOP bonues adds up to something like 44k of magic item, and a bonus feat, at a level where normal WBL is 13k.

With a DM's thats normally stinging VOP can be what saves a monk from not even being able to stand up to front rank combat.


If you're making good use of the 10' feet, you're not using flurry. And vise versa. 6 could be worth it if you are specifically looking to focus on a schick supported by one of the UA fighting styles, but it's otherwise not a great option in a build this compressed.

Omg thats a weird argument.. turning around.. then it means both when you need to be swift and mobile, and when you need to punch people a lot. Then you have something to make good use of.

[Gruftzwerg]

Why is Monk 2/Fighter 4 better than Monk 4/Fighter 2?

Your BAB doesn't change (+5 either way). Nor does your FoB attack bonus (base +3 either way). You get 1 extra bonus feat from fighter, but already have a total of 11 feats, though of limited variation. In addition, you get a net boost of 2 hp. Doesn't seem like a very good tradeoff for the net +1 damage of Monk 3 and the increased saves/skill potential.

Fighter 4 also gives access to weapon specialization. While not overhelming, for low lvl campaigns still a decent feat to consider imho.

Sure the differences aren't that great and you would still be fine if you go the other way.

Only when you want to max out the optimization as in my example above in my first post:

Leap Attack (8ranks jump) and Imp. Natural Attacks (+4BAB) have high requirements. You need to take both at lvl6 if you want them in a build like this.

[DMVerdandi]

That is, for a variety of reasons, something that a sizable number of people have not said.




If you don't get any magic items, yes, VoP kicks patoot.

But if you can get magic items, even if you're under WBL, it sucks. Hard.

Also, find out how strict your DM is gonna be with it. Because, RAW, you can't open doors without losing VoP.




Monks don't natively have options. VoP takes what options monks can get through magic items and doesn't grant any in return. VoP is not good for monks.


Wait-OP, I'm confused. Do you normally get magic items? Because if you do, DO NOT TAKE VOW OF POVERTY. Because Monks, by default, have no reason to not use them, and many reasons to use them.


Monk is a sub par class unless significant effort is put towards optimizing it. A very large portion of optimizing away the monks weaknesses is gear selection, which under Vow of Poverty is completely non existant. If you're simply vastly under geared, dipping Artificer to make your own is usually a far better solution than vow of poverty.


*cough,cough*. Outside of "preface: It only works in a game with no magic items", the majority of posters have already said it's sub-optimal for what it's worth, and conventional wisdom says so as well.




Druid 19 in a 6-level monk build. Classy, and exactly what I expected from the playground.
Yeah, I missed that part admittedly, but even monk 1/Druid 5 is still better.
Monk 1/Druid 1 is better in the 2nd level.

Evasion vs Rage, favored enemy, fast movement +10, track, 1st level spells, the ability to use magic items[even if it's just a scroll or two] and continuing Wis>AC



Druid bans metal armor, so he's still getting restrictions, but is also getting superior benefits for what it is, and truthfully more options. That growth continues for five levels without fail, and while VOP makes you rather tanky, one could say the exact same thing for many of the Variant's class features (Oh and spells).



Yeah, everyone doesn't necessarily want to play codzilla, but most of the druid flavor [all that fluffy love], is replaced with the variant/acf, and almost all of the monk powers that you get from playing straight through the levels is replaced rather quickly


Monk as we know monks pretty badly.
Meanwhile, with this, you get yourself a pretty dope wuxia mountain sage, capable of using incredible senjutsu powers of natural awareness to make himself stronger, assist his allies, move fast, become aware of his enemies, and knows their biology and psychology enough to increase his martial arts to defeat them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xian_(Taoism)

[King of Nowhere]

Evasion vs Rage, favored enemy, fast movement +10, track, 1st level spells, the ability to use magic items[even if it's just a scroll or two] and continuing Wis>AC


wait, I'm so confused. I thought those first four were class features of barbarians and rangers? I'm not familiar with ACF choosing, but I assume you'd have to give up on something to get all those stuff anyway

[KarlMarx]

wait, I'm so confused. I thought those first four were class features of barbarians and rangers? I'm not familiar with ACF choosing, but I assume you'd have to give up on something to get all those stuff anyway

You give up your animal companion in exchange for a bunch of features.

However, I'd like to avoid spellcasting...too many opportunities for me to go overly nuts with it without intending to.

[DMVerdandi]

wait, I'm so confused. I thought those first four were class features of barbarians and rangers? I'm not familiar with ACF choosing, but I assume you'd have to give up on something to get all those stuff anyway

They are. So Alternate class features and Variant classes are a bit of modularity in 3.5, not unlike archetypes in Pathfinder. They allow you to trade one set of abilities or class features for another.


For the druid, two of those that I used were:

Druidic Avenger: For trading in Wild shape, you get Rage, Barbarian's fast movement, and later Tireless rage.
For that also deduct -4 for wild empathy and lose spontaneous "summon nature's ally"

and Huntsman, which you trade in animal companion and armor proficiency for: Track, Monk wis to ac, monk speed bonus, and Favored enemy.


In a normal game it is considered WAY weaker than a normal druid, seeing as Wild shape has boundless applications, and Animal companion gives you a second whole party member that you can buff to high heaven, and send in to absolutely destroy things. When you consider the fact that the animal companion can also learn feats, receive spells, and can have awesome bonuses based on species [Like pounce or rage or multi-attack], those trade-ins aren't considered worth it...

EXCEPT when you want to play less of a shapeshifty- pet controling kind of a druid. And since OP is more on the monk side of things, being able to turn into an octopus isn't really meshing with the flavor, but if he is considering building a more flavorful martial artist, it works very well, and is one of the few ways one can have a "monk" that rages as well.


The two classes simply have awesome synergy, but only really when it is not monk dominant.



You give up your animal companion in exchange for a bunch of features.

However, I'd like to avoid spellcasting...too many opportunities for me to go overly nuts with it without intending to.
Hardly, my guy.

Level 1 Spells like
-Magic Fang
-Snake's swiftness
-Claws of the bear

Are completely tame. Use those to merely buff yourself and contribute in combat in more varied ways. You can leave utility spells to any other spell casters, not to step on their toes and use yours simply to be really good at fighting.

Of course there are also spells that help with skills like Jump, Swim, Climb walls, and Camouflage.


The druid list is fantastic, but it's not like... Sorcerer/wizard list fantastic.

[Jormengand]

The tl;dr here is that VoP tends to give you better benefits than the items you're giving up at the low levels you're playing at, and also that the playground is incapable of handling the fact that you want to play a monk and would rather you play a totemist or a druid. Quite frankly, I'm amazed we haven't had an unarmed swordsage yet. Despite protestations to the contrary, not "Everyone" has told you not to take VoP under any circumstances, and the simple reason why is that it's leagues better than the twelve and a half - twelve and a half - gold pieces worth of items you could be getting at level 1, and stays better for long enough for the game to end by the time you'd rather have had the money. If you're expecting WBL 4 at level 6, and never to get past level 6, take vow of poverty. Take it and don't look back.

[Caelestion]

Yeah, I missed that part admittedly, but even monk 1/Druid 5 is still better. Monk 1/Druid 1 is better in the 2nd level.

Which might be useful advice if he had said he wanted to play a druid with unarmed fighting.

[King of Nowhere]

In a normal game it is considered WAY weaker than a normal druid, seeing as Wild shape has boundless applications, and Animal companion gives you a second whole party member that you can buff to high heaven, and send in to absolutely destroy things. When you consider the fact that the animal companion can also learn feats, receive spells, and can have awesome bonuses based on species [Like pounce or rage or multi-attack], those trade-ins aren't considered worth it...

EXCEPT when you want to play less of a shapeshifty- pet controling kind of a druid. And since OP is more on the monk side of things, being able to turn into an octopus isn't really meshing with the flavor, but if he is considering building a more flavorful martial artist, it works very well, and is one of the few ways one can have a "monk" that rages as well.



Meh. Of course it's a weaker alternative, as regular druid is a tier 1 class and a druid hitting things loses flexibility. But it's still enough more powerful than monk that one may wonder what's the point of being a monk in the first place. They may as well have buffed the monk. Heck, if you keep trading one class feature for the other, a druid may give up all of its spellcasting and get everything all martials get, combined. It just feel cheap to take the class with possibly more features than any for the sole purpose of trading those features and end up with a different class, only vastly improved.

[KarlMarx]

Precisely what Jormengand said.

I'm not looking to play a T1 class, even while then shooting myself in the foot with ACFs. At the end of the day, the Druid variants are still full caster. We always end up with at least 3 others, often including a straight druid, and if I play poorly, I become superfluous; if I play well, I overshadow them.

I'm looking for something that lets me bring new stuff to the table without doing that. Monk focusing on battlefield control might fit that bill pretty well given the context.

I'm aware that what I'm doing with the monk isn't powerful per se. The question is whether VoP will, in the low-gear environment, provide enough to let me do that, long enough for blaster wizards and poorly-optimized fighters to finish off enemies.

[Jormengand]

Vow of Poverty won't make up for the fact that monk sucks, but honestly if no-one's doing anything cleverer than weapon and shield fighter and 1d6/level sorcerer you're probably going to be fine.

[eggynack]

The tl;dr here is that VoP tends to give you better benefits than the items you're giving up at the low levels you're playing at, and also that the playground is incapable of handling the fact that you want to play a monk and would rather you play a totemist or a druid. Quite frankly, I'm amazed we haven't had an unarmed swordsage yet. Despite protestations to the contrary, not "Everyone" has told you not to take VoP under any circumstances, and the simple reason why is that it's leagues better than the twelve and a half - twelve and a half - gold pieces worth of items you could be getting at level 1, and stays better for long enough for the game to end by the time you'd rather have had the money. If you're expecting WBL 4 at level 6, and never to get past level 6, take vow of poverty. Take it and don't look back.
Vow of poverty actually probably leaves you worse off at first level too. The first level benefits of VoP are +4 AC and a bonus exalted feat. The first level costs are 12.5 GP and two regular feats. And racial choice, if there's a better one for a monk. And I suppose we can add a +2 to diplomacy to the pro column. Even assuming a regular feat is equivalent to an exalted feat, we're still basically using a feat for +4 AC. Not the worst deal in the entire world, but I have to think that a monk can do better. But, of course, a regular feat isn't equivalent to an exalted feat. I'm not monk expert guy, so I don't know the perfect normal monk feat and perfect exalted monk feat in order to get a great estimate on the lost value, but there has to be lost value here, right? The best monk feat probably isn't exalted, even if monk exalted options start out pretty solid.

If you look at only the gold cost, sure, the first level VoP monk comes out ahead. By a decent margin too, because +4 AC is way more value than you can buy with that little gold, no matter how you optimize. But there are other costs at play here, and they render the first level comparison pretty slanted against VoP, least as far as I can tell. So, if we're looking at this from an optimization perspective, and using the benefits at first level to counterbalance a decline at later levels (I suspect that second level is more tilted towards VoP, actually, though the actual gold total combined with the two normal for two exalted feat trade may still make non-VoP better), then I strongly disagree with the claim that you should take VoP and never look back.

[Jormengand]

Vow of poverty actually probably leaves you worse off at first level too. The first level benefits of VoP are +4 AC and a bonus exalted feat. The first level costs are 12.5 GP and two regular feats. And racial choice, if there's a better one for a monk. And I suppose we can add a +2 to diplomacy to the pro column. Even assuming a regular feat is equivalent to an exalted feat, we're still basically using a feat for +4 AC. Not the worst deal in the entire world, but I have to think that a monk can do better. But, of course, a regular feat isn't equivalent to an exalted feat. I'm not monk expert guy, so I don't know the perfect normal monk feat and perfect exalted monk feat in order to get a great estimate on the lost value, but there has to be lost value here, right? The best monk feat probably isn't exalted, even if monk exalted options start out pretty solid.

If you look at only the gold cost, sure, the first level VoP monk comes out ahead. By a decent margin too, because +4 AC is way more value than you can buy with that little gold, no matter how you optimize. But there are other costs at play here, and they render the first level comparison pretty slanted against VoP, least as far as I can tell. So, if we're looking at this from an optimization perspective, and using the benefits at first level to counterbalance a decline at later levels (I suspect that second level is more tilted towards VoP, actually, though the actual gold total combined with the two normal for two exalted feat trade may still make non-VoP better), then I strongly disagree with the claim that you should take VoP and never look back.

+4 AC is better than any feat will ever give you short of cheating and counting light armour proficiency as giving you +4 AC, which isn't an option as a monk anyway. When your primary shtick is not dying, +4 AC and getting your feat tax back (not that "+2 to the best skill in the game" is an awful tax) is probably better than anything else you could be doing with your time.

(As for "Best monk feat is probably not exalted," touch of golden ice. Though I would actually wait until level 2 for ToGI and take Nymph's Kiss at first because it's best to take it as early as possible, and it's also so good that it's probably a mistake.)

[Hecuba]

Omg thats a weird argument.. turning around.. then it means both when you need to be swift and mobile, and when you need to punch people a lot. Then you have something to make good use of.
The choice between full attacks and mobility is one that affects all melee, throughout the entire game. Unless you can work pounce into the build, there is no avoiding that.

And it's not a trivial choice: different feats have different value, depending on which route you go.

Power Attack, for example, has a more pressing drawback on a full attack build because it will cause you to miss on iteratives. The weapon focus line is of limited value for standard attack melee because you'll likely hit on the one attack at full BAB either way and the flat damage addition will apply only once.

That doesn't mean that the movement and flurry improvement can't both be useful to the same character.

But it does mean that they should not be assessed as 2 always applicable combat abilities when comparing to other build options. In most cases, they will come to one usually applicable tool and one someone's applicable tool.

[eggynack]

+4 AC is better than any feat will ever give you short of cheating and counting light armour proficiency as giving you +4 AC, which isn't an option as a monk anyway. When your primary shtick is not dying, +4 AC and getting your feat tax back (not that "+2 to the best skill in the game" is an awful tax) is probably better than anything else you could be doing with your time.
It's the best AC bonus you can get on a feat by a decent margin. That doesn't necessarily make it the best option. I'd really prefer something that actually lets you do something.


(As for "Best monk feat is probably not exalted," touch of golden ice.)
It's a good feat. I'm just somewhat doubtful it's the best option out there, considering the crazy breadth of options available in 3.5. If this is really as good as it gets for a monk, it's possible I've been somehow overestimating the class.

[DMVerdandi]

You give up your animal companion in exchange for a bunch of features.

However, I'd like to avoid spellcasting...too many opportunities for me to go overly nuts with it without intending to.


Meh. Of course it's a weaker alternative, as regular druid is a tier 1 class and a druid hitting things loses flexibility. But it's still enough more powerful than monk that one may wonder what's the point of being a monk in the first place. They may as well have buffed the monk. Heck, if you keep trading one class feature for the other, a druid may give up all of its spellcasting and get everything all martials get, combined. It just feel cheap to take the class with possibly more features than any for the sole purpose of trading those features and end up with a different class, only vastly improved.

What IS the point of being a monk? That's the question you should ask. Is it flavor, or for mechanics? Flavor is mutable. And if it's for mechanics, monk has a diminished return past the first level. It's heavily front loaded, and each level you take in it kind of makes you worse at what it advertises. I am not the first, nor the last that has realized this.

There are maybe 3 types of monk players.

1. The player who realizes the multitude of flaws, and is optimizing his head off just for the sheer challenge of making it work long term.

2.The player that doesn't realize monk has those flaws, and plays it because he likes the idea of monks

3.The dipper.


And to go further, they SHOULD have buffed the monk. You are correct. But they didn't, so we make piecemeal improvements by doing things like multi-classing.




Precisely.

I'm not looking to play a T1 class, even while then shooting myself in the foot with ACFs. At the end of the day, the Druid variants are still full caster. We always end up with at least 3 others, often including a straight druid, and if I play poorly, I become superfluous; if I play well, I overshadow them.

I'm looking for something that lets me bring new stuff to the table without doing that. Monk focusing on battlefield control fits that bill pretty well.

I'm aware that what I'm doing with the monk isn't powerful per se. The question is whether VoP will, in the low-gear environment, provide enough to let me do that, long enough for blaster wizards and poorly-optimized fighters to finish off enemies.


How does a monk focus on battlefield control? He's got medium BAB, so combat maneuvers are less likely to succeed; He's got flurry which makes that even worse and forces him to stand in place to do it, and until level 4 is hitting with less unarmed damage than a longsword. What is the new stuff you are bringing to the table exactly?

By level 6, it DOES give you ac comparable to full plate, and lets say you have... 18 wis, 16 Dex for a +4/+3/+1 bonus to ac.
So, 25 AC is pretty good for being in clothes, but the further you are from those scores, the more your AC drops. If you end up dumping wis, or dex, for strength and constitution [which isn't... A BAD choice per say] you would top out at 17 AC, which is one less than full plate.


So, you are hitting for less AND hitting less than a fighter with an absolutely normal two handed weapon, and you are at risk of having less AC than a fighter with completely normal heavy armor. Then there is the range superiority that a fighter at that level can have, with reach weapons, and bows.
Then there is the fact that fighter could very well take superior unarmed attack and improved unarmed attack, and then enchant his gauntlets and do comparable, if not better damage, and hit more often. Yes, he isn't going to be able to move as fast, but he hits harder, and has less ability scores to worry about.


But this is your choice, naturally. Your dice, your game. Do what makes you happy. Personally, I wouldn't make that choice, but I'm not the one at the table. VOP is good for ac, if you have high scores in Wisdom and Dexterity. And AC is the only real benefit I see.

[Hecuba]

I'm aware that what I'm doing with the monk isn't powerful per se. The question is whether VoP will, in the low-gear environment, provide enough to let me do that, long enough for blaster wizards and poorly-optimized fighters to finish off enemies.

Yes. Given the character level, optimization level, and WBL constraints you seem to be playing with VoP will hold up about as well as Monk otherwise would. The gear equivalency should cover the constrained gear you are describing, and the feat loss from prerecs should be offset by the fighter do you are describing.

I would still recommend Monk 2 instead of Monk 4. Or failing that, Monk 6 instead of Monk 4. 4 it's an poor choice for a breakpoint when VoP is already replicating Ki strike magic for you. And for melee BFC, there are some nice fighter feats to be had that work well with the martial atrust flavor).

As an aside, it sounds like you are looking at trip-focused bfc: is that accurate? If so, you might consider some of the following:
Passive Way (UA ACF)
Curling Wave Strike (Storm feat)
Knockdown (S&F feat)
Defensive Throw (Cw feat)

You won't be able to for all of them in this build, but they can each give a bit more oomph to a trip build at low levels.

[KarlMarx]

How does a monk focus on battlefield control? He's got medium BAB, so combat maneuvers are less likely to succeed; He's got flurry which makes that even worse and forces him to stand in place to do it, and until level 4 is hitting with less unarmed damage than a longsword. What is the new stuff you are bringing to the table exactly?


Yes, tripping and grappling might be adversely impacted. But at level 6 with fighter dip, BAB is only 1 less than fighter, i.e. full fighter is only 5% more likely to succeed on trip/grapple. I'm not hugely worried about past level 6.

And, with Monk, you bring other things to the table. Stunning Fist is an option, albeit not a stellar one. And the fact that 1) you're getting a ton of bonus Exalted feats and 2) you're using unarmed combat anyway opens up Touch of Golden Ice.

So, which is better...Longsword attack that's 5% more likely to hit and does on average +1 damage...

Or unarmed strike that can force saves against Golden Ice when fighting Evil creatures? Even a small chance of taking (on average) 4 Dex damage--making your next attack 10% more likely to hit--more than outweighs the benefits of the longsword.

Edit: making everyone's next attack 10% more likely to hit.

[King of Nowhere]

Precisely what Jormengand said.

I'm not looking to play a T1 class, even while then shooting myself in the foot with ACFs. At the end of the day, the Druid variants are still full caster. We always end up with at least 3 others, often including a straight druid, and if I play poorly, I become superfluous; if I play well, I overshadow them.

I'm looking for something that lets me bring new stuff to the table without doing that. Monk focusing on battlefield control might fit that bill pretty well given the context.

I'm aware that what I'm doing with the monk isn't powerful per se. The question is whether VoP will, in the low-gear environment, provide enough to let me do that, long enough for blaster wizards and poorly-optimized fighters to finish off enemies.

This is pretty close to my experience, because my party has relatively low loot (actually, by sheer value we are a bit above wbl, but since it was generated randomly most of what we have is useless junk). And so far I'm level 6, and if I had taken a VOP I'd have better stats overall. And as I said, the trip/grapple/stun build is fun. Go for it.


What IS the point of being a monk? That's the question you should ask. Is it flavor, or for mechanics? Flavor is mutable. And if it's for mechanics, monk has a diminished return past the first level. It's heavily front loaded, and each level you take in it kind of makes you worse at what it advertises. I am not the first, nor the last that has realized this.

There are maybe 3 types of monk players.

1. The player who realizes the multitude of flaws, and is optimizing his head off just for the sheer challenge of making it work long term.

2.The player that doesn't realize monk has those flaws, and plays it because he likes the idea of monks

3.The dipper.


And to go further, they SHOULD have buffed the monk. You are correct. But they didn't, so we make piecemeal improvements by doing things like multi-classing.

May I offer you another option?
4. The player that does realize monk has those flaws, and plays it because he likes the idea of monks. Without dipping because he absolutely wants some of the stuff that comes at higher levels. I considered dipping, a lot of times, but since I want to play an anti mage and we're not too high in optimization, I just can't let myself give up movement speed (useful to actually reach the pesky wizard) and spell resistance.


How does a monk focus on battlefield control? He's got medium BAB, so combat maneuvers are less likely to succeed; He's got flurry which makes that even worse and forces him to stand in place to do it, and until level 4 is hitting with less unarmed damage than a longsword. What is the new stuff you are bringing to the table exactly?

So, you are hitting for less AND hitting less than a fighter with an absolutely normal two handed weapon, and you are at risk of having less AC than a fighter with completely normal heavy armor. Then there is the range superiority that a fighter at that level can have, with reach weapons, and bows.
Then there is the fact that fighter could very well take superior unarmed attack and improved unarmed attack, and then enchant his gauntlets and do comparable, if not better damage, and hit more often. Yes, he isn't going to be able to move as fast, but he hits harder, and has less ability scores to worry about.


At level 6 a monk loses 2 BAB compared to a fighter, so the penalty to grapple isn't huge (EDIT: and tripping doesn't use BAB, which many people here seem to be forgetting). And he gets the capacity to make stunning attack and full unarmed damage during the grapple. But ok, a fighter dipping in monk gets almost the same thing, except his unarmed damage won't scale (the gauntles argument is flawed: unless there are waays to enchant gauntlets that I miss, a monk can - should - get something to improve his unarmed damage and he'll far outpower a fighter with enchanted gauntlets).
A monk can also use his stunning attack far more often than a fighter dipping in monk, so that's another thing in the monk's favor (especially relevant at low level when you don't have many uses).
A monk can fully get reach if he wants to play like that. You can hold a spiked chain and use it for ranged attacks of opportunity, while making regular unarmed attacks with your feet (the rules state a monk can make unarmed attacks even with his hands full). Though I don't like the option because it look ridiculous.
A monk has good saving throws that a fighter just misses. Sure, a fighter can probably do the battlefield control better than you if he so chooses, but a wizard with a hideous laughter will disable him for a whole fight. Much less likely to work on a monk. Same goes for a plethora of other effects. In fact, one of our common strategies is, I jump in the middle of the action to draw fire, and the wizard casts AOE spells centered on me, trusting that I'll survive them better than the enemies. It would not work if I were a fighter.
Then there is also the fast movement, which may not be so impressive, but it's pretty useful for mobility. As a monk you can tumble and jump past the mooks to get the enemy boss behind them, which you cannot do as a fighter.

Basically, a monk is a jack of all trades. Of course he's pretty ineffective because he does nothing really that well, and of course if you specialize in a build you can do anything of those, with another classes, better than the monk. But if you like doing passably well all those things, and you doon't want to sacrifice any of them, and you accept the cost of it, and a highly mobile trip/stun machine with a good survivability is exactly the character you had in mind, then the monk is not really that bad.

Plus, the monk does cool stuff. It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, as long as you look really cool doing it (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0392.html).:smallwink: If I use a combination of jumps and tumble to get to the top of a building, it doesn't matter if the wizard can get there faster and more safely with fly, my way is cooler.

[Malroth]

How about a whirling frenzy barbarian with 2 weapon fighting and a spiked gauntlet?

[Troacctid]

Vow of Poverty would honestly be a pretty good option if it weren't for the feat tax to get it and the general dearth of good Exalted feats. I think it would be worth one feat; I don't think it's worth two.

Also, important to note:
https://i.imgur.com/m43cH2P.png
So your money isn't getting thrown out into the void—the temples you donate it to can offer free spellcasting services. That's not trivial for a Monk; get yourself Enlarge Person + Permanency and it's honestly probably better than most magic items you could buy with that kind of money.

[KarlMarx]

The feat tax, in my opinion, is paid off by the bonus exalted feats.

ToGI and Nymph's Kiss are both nice, and they alone pay off the 2 feat investment. The bonus exalted feats after that aren't doing much for you, but they are still a net bonus.

Edit: also, can flight et al be permanencied? If so, it seems to me that a lot of "options" lost to no magic item rules can be opened back up.

[eggynack]

The feat tax, in my opinion, is paid off by the bonus exalted feats.

ToGI and Nymph's Kiss are both nice, and they alone pay off the 2 feat investment. The bonus exalted feats after that aren't doing much for you, but they are still a net bonus.
They don't pay it off, is the thing. Unless you're going to argue that touch and kiss are literally the best and second best monk feats in the game, you're facing a downgrade here. And, in the case of kiss, it feels like a pretty severe downgrade, given that you're not increasing your combat ability. They 100% don't pay it off at first level, given that you're spending two feats and getting one. The bonus feats after that point are a net bonus on your feat costs, but now you're contending with real things that gold can do.

When I consider this problem on druids, I like to think of it in terms of effective feat value, which is a measure of how many good non-exalted feats it would take to equal these exalted feats. Could be a useful mode of analysis here as well. I put it in these druid terms because druids, the class with more or less the best exalted feats in the game, gets like 4-5 EFV (and that is, I suspect, the first time I've used that as an initialism) lifetime from VoP. I suspect that monk gets a lower number, and that's lifetime. If you stop at level six, it's entirely possible that you only go a bit above breaking even, and maybe don't even hit that bar. It's not a great situation.

I'm not trying to stop anyone from going VoP here. But, if you're going to take it, you should know it's not all that good, and that's putting it lightly. The stuff it offers is frequently super uninteresting, which is a huge problem when the costs are this high. I mean, you're getting all excited over this bonus to AC. 19 AC is good at first level, but it's not exactly insane.

[Jormengand]

They don't pay it off, is the thing. Unless you're going to argue that touch and kiss are literally the best and second best monk feats in the game, you're facing a downgrade here.

You keep on doing this weird thing of assuming that +4 AC isn't ~6 times as good as a feat and you don't get anything apart from your feats back from VoP.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

You keep on doing this weird thing of assuming that +4 AC isn't ~6 times as good as a feat and you don't get anything apart from your feats back from VoP.As a clarification, it's ~6 times as good as one of the worst feats in the game. And you lose all the goodness that WBL will ever give you (which might not be a huge loss, but usually very much is, especially since you can take other feats to ensure you have access to wealth regardless). And the fact that Vow of Poverty forces you to act like a greedy, sociopathic jerk who is more than willing to let people (even the entire world) die, else you lose your special (and extremely selfish) snowflake status.

[Jormengand]

And the fact that Vow of Poverty forces you to act like a greedy, sociopathic jerk who is more than willing to let people (even the entire world) die, else you lose your special (and extremely selfish) snowflake status.

It...

Requires you to donate wealth to good-aligned religious institutions, the poor, and the destitute.

Seriously, the door meme was one thing, but...

[MaxiDuRaritry]

It...

Requires you to donate wealth to good-aligned religious institutions, the poor, and the destitute.

Seriously, the door meme was one thing, but...So tell me, if you are a monk and have Vow of Poverty and you are the last man standing, with the rest of your party unconscious and bleeding out in the middle of the woods, and you have a bag-full of magical potions of cure light wounds, how long would it take for you to train a nearby raccoon to give your party members the potions so they won't die so you can save them and still keep your vow?

[Jormengand]

So tell me, if you are a monk and have Vow of Poverty and you are the last man standing, with the rest of your party unconscious and bleeding out in the middle of the woods, and you have a bag-full of magical potions of cure light wounds, how long would it take for you to train a nearby raccoon to give your party members the potions so they won't die so you can keep your vow?

If we're being that RAW-pedantic? I drown them and they wake up staggered and drink the potions themselves.

IIRC it specifically mentions using potions as an exception anyway, and again, you're taking the RAW-anal reading of "Opening doors is using them! Feeding other people is using the food/drink/potion! LOOKING AT ART IS USING IT!" which, repeat after me, no-one else uses in a real game.

[Troacctid]

Your AC is still lower than it would be if you just wore armor, so, like, meh?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

IIRC it specifically mentions using potions as an exception anyway, and again, you're taking the RAW-anal reading of "Opening doors is using them! Feeding other people is using the food/drink/potion! LOOKING AT ART IS USING IT!" which, repeat after me, no-one else uses in a real game.The example says others can use the potion on you. They hold it while you drink it. You cannot use a magic item on someone else without breaking your vow. You can't even use bandages to prevent someone from bleeding out without breaking it. If you use any item at all, in any way whatsoever, and that item is not on the explicit list of items you can use, you break the vow.

Sure, houserules are a thing, but them's houserules.

[Jormengand]

Your AC is still lower than it would be if you just wore armor, so, like, meh?

Yeah, but you have the relatively major advantage that you're not wearing a 50 lb slab of metal while you're trying to make skill checks.


Sure, houserules are a thing, but them's houserules.

I drown them back to 0 hit points in a nearby river and they drink the potions themselves.

[Troacctid]

Yeah, but you have the relatively major advantage that you're not wearing a 50 lb slab of metal while you're trying to make skill checks.
... Meh. 😴

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I drown them back to 0 hit points in a nearby river and they drink the potions themselves.I could have sworn I said "forest," and not "river." Was there a river? Did I forget, somehow? I guess I couldn't see the water for the trees again. :smallsigh:

[Jormengand]

I could have sworn I said "forest," and not "river." Was there a river? Did I forget, somehow? I guess I couldn't see the water for the trees again. :smallsigh:

Ignoring that forests do sometimes have rivers in them, the point is that no-one, no-one, actually uses these blatantly stupid RAW rulings of "You can't look at statues but you can heal people by drowning them" in real games. I'm not even sure that the Tippyverse, whose defining feature is using the rules as they are and seeing what comes of it, uses RAW that stupidly. You're free to play it that way, but I highly, highly doubt it's relevant to the OP in the slightest, which tells me that you didn't come here to help, only to whip out your massive hate-boner for VoP. You've done that. You can stop now.

[eggynack]

You keep on doing this weird thing of assuming that +4 AC isn't ~6 times as good as a feat and you don't get anything apart from your feats back from VoP.
It's six times as good as an awful feat. Really unimpressive. I'd much rather have something like improved trip, or knock-down, or combat reflexes. Something that lets you do something. And I'm not "assuming" that you don't get anything apart from feats. You asserted that VoP is good at early levels, and then tapers off, but doesn't taper off fast enough to represent an aggregate disadvantage. You kept calling specific attention to level one, by noting that losing starting gold isn't a big deal. I was, and am, contesting that exact claim, that VoP is good early on. And guess what you get at first and second level? Literally nothing but feats and that AC bonus. If you want to cede the point that the early levels are super great, and instead take the position that the peak of the feat is level three or four, then go right ahead, but otherwise I think it's fair to hang out in your argumentative position.

Also, as you keep pointing out, this game isn't going much past six. Leaving aside AC and feats, which are both clearly within my claims, you get endure elements, sustenance, and exalted strike +1. If the feat only granted the first two, I'd feel safe saying you don't get anything but your feats back in this level range (along with the AC, which I'm clearly identifying as a factor). So, worst case scenario, I've assumed away a +1 on attack and damage rolls. Really not a big deal, even if it is a factor in evaluation.


Yeah, but you have the relatively major advantage that you're not wearing a 50 lb slab of metal while you're trying to make skill checks.
Infiniting Troacctid on this one. Mehs into the infinite distance.

[Jormengand]

I just don't think that a +4 bonus to not dying without ruining your ability to make skill checks is at all mediocre. If there were a feat that gave a +4 bonus to AC, would you really never take it?

I mean, to be clear, of course monks are bad. But I still think that given that you are a monk in this case, VoP is fine, honestly.

[ericgrau]

On average a +4 to AC provides about the same benefit as a 40% miss chance: hit on 10 sides of the d20 becomes hit on 6 sides of the d20. So it's nothing to sneeze at. The bigger issue is that he's going from lousy AC to normal AC, rather than normal to good. But if he's stuck with monk anyway, ok, cool.



Also, as for Pleh's suggestion that I go tripper, would tripping or grappling work better overall? I agree that combat maneuvers will be the best route for this build, but am uncertain as to whether tripping will work better than grappling.
Both if possible. But that might be a bit feat intense.

Grapple is nice for neutralizing an enemy (most have pitiful grapple damage and/or attack at a -4) while still contributing half normal damage yourself (monk unarmed strike damage times medium BAB). It's also great with a party rogue who will get sneak attack. Or a hard hitting melee ally who will like the denied dex AC. Or if your DM likes to use small numbers of enemies so it's more worth it to neutralize before killing.

If you expect everything to be land-bound then tripping might be better. TWF is great for more attacks. Later you can add the snap kick feat. Since trips are touch attacks the attack penalty isn't as bad. And the bonus attack from improved trip is against -4 AC. Plus unlike TWF, snap kick works with a standard action attack. If for some reason you can't trip then you might not want to eat the -4 penalty.

Either way beg the party caster for enlarge persons whenever a dungeon starts, if possible. During a fight is too much to ask though.

Stunning fist is a highly under-rated feat. It is difficult to land and so a minor effect. But it is a small effect on top of your normal damage. That's pretty swanky. The same way a 1d6 weapon is sucky, but +1d6 damage on a weapon isn't sucky. It's all about the +. I'd still make wis your 3rd stat to avoid hurting yourself at all for it. Use your bonus attack from a successful trip to try to stun. If you go grappling then you may want to skip it.

With all those attacks, some way to move and full attack might be nice if it's not too cheesy for your DM.

[eggynack]

I just don't think that a +4 bonus to not dying without ruining your ability to make skill checks is at all mediocre. If there were a feat that gave a +4 bonus to AC, would you really never take it?
Maybe rarely? Strikes me as a middle of the road filler feat for when you lack cool things to do. Might not be the case for monks, but most melee builds I put together do not want for things to do with their feats. As I implied earlier, the main way I could be wrong on this one is if feat options for monks are real bad.


I mean, to be clear, of course monks are bad. But I still think that given that you are a monk in this case, VoP is fine, honestly.
This may well be one of the contexts in which it is most fine, but, even here, it seems like something of a downgrade.

[Jormengand]

Maybe rarely? Strikes me as a middle of the road filler feat for when you lack cool things to do. Might not be the case for monks, but most melee builds I put together do not want for things to do with their feats. As I implied earlier, the main way I could be wrong on this one is if feat options for monks are real bad.

This may well be one of the contexts in which it is most fine, but, even here, it seems like something of a downgrade.

I mean, honestly, monks get a lot of the feats that they might reasonably want anyway and VoP itself gives you two more which are generally useful (Nymph's is a +1 on all saves against spells and a bunch of skill points and a bonus to charisma-based checks, little of which screams "Monk" but all of which is generally nice to have in your back pocket; ToGI is everything is poison which is kinda nice) and a bunch of others which are all right (when I won IC with a VoP build I remember running out of useful stuff to do later in the build rather than earlier). In general, though, a no-questions-asked +4 to AC is something that I'd happily take as a feat on any character that wasn't clawing for more chances to take feats.

[Troacctid]

Honestly, even on a Monk, at low levels, I'd probably rather have DR 4/magic from Shape Soulmeld than +4 AC from Vow of Poverty.

[Jormengand]

Honestly, even on a Monk, at low levels, I'd probably rather have DR 4/magic from Shape Soulmeld than +4 AC from Vow of Poverty.

I mean, I can think of all sorts of things I'd rather have on a monk (ditch being good, take skill focus knowledge religion, grab a sacrificial dagger...) but I don't really see "There are better things you can do in 3.5" as the point. It's 3.5. Of course there are better things you can do.

[eggynack]

I mean, I can think of all sorts of things I'd rather have on a monk (ditch being good, take skill focus knowledge religion, grab a sacrificial dagger...) but I don't really see "There are better things you can do in 3.5" as the point. It's 3.5. Of course there are better things you can do.
That there are better things you can do was always the point. In particular, that there are sufficiently many sufficiently better options for what to do with your feat slot makes this not precisely worth a feat, as it were. What other basis of comparison could there ever be?

[Jormengand]

That there are better things you can do was always the point. In particular, that there are sufficiently many sufficiently better options for what to do with your feat slot makes this not precisely worth a feat, as it were. What other basis of comparison could there ever be?

There will always be something better to do so long as the name on your character sheet isn't "Pun-pun", so I don't see how it could be the point. There are better things to do with your time than being a druid, even. That doesn't magically stop druids being worthwhile, though.

[eggynack]

There will always be something better to do so long as the name on your character sheet isn't "Pun-pun", so I don't see how it could be the point. There are better things to do with your time than being a druid, even. That doesn't magically stop druids being worthwhile, though.
Regardless of the eternal presence of better things, there is, as far as I can tell, no other way to evaluate the quality of feats. You can add some steps to the process, converting feat value into, I dunno, GP value or something, but at the end of the day the way to compare feats is to compare feats. If we are to call to task the essential question of feat assessment, then of what value is your claim that this +4 AC feat is good? You are using the same tool to call this feat good that I am using to call it rather mediocre, except I'm using feats that people actually use for the purposes of the evaluation.

And that's my main point of contention, I think. You are essentially suggesting that a feat comparison that focuses on dodge can be a particularly useful one. I don't think it can. Yes, something sufficiently better than dodge could be good, but how much better is an open question, and not one that can be answered by simply invoking a decently large multiplier and calling it good enough. You end up having to play this weird guessing game, and the measuring tool becomes wholly non-functional in the process. I'm not saying that every feat must be compared to the best possible option in the entire game, and that anything that doesn't measure up is useless. What I am saying is that feats should be directly compared to the pool of good usable options. I mentioned improved trip, and that feat is, first, definitely in that pool, and second, probably not the greatest feat of all time. We're not breaking games here. We're just looking at things that show up on good builds.

Actually, come to think of it, my handbook might be a good way to get a sense of what I mean here. Blue feats are, I'd assert, among the best in the game. They're the feats where you really don't have much better you could be doing with your time. This is not the point of comparison. Instead, anything black or above is what I'd call the pool of usable feats that show up on good builds. If a game object is as good as one of those feats, then it is worth a feat. Maybe more than a feat, if the point of comparison has a feat tax. Of course, the pool of usable monk feats will look significantly different from the pool of usable druid feats, but, end of the day, dodge is showing up in neither pool, and is thus not a good thing to compare to.

[Pleh]

Your AC is still lower than it would be if you just wore armor, so, like, meh?

We're still talking about Monk, right? Wearing armor as a monk still nukes Fast Movement, Monk AC, and FoB.

I know they weren't great to begin with, but if you throw all that out... why did you take levels of Monk? Seems like you'd be better off with Fighter.

The whole thing seems to me that the OP doesn't need more than a VOP monk. I think picking nits between low op alternatives isn't helpful.

[atemu1234]

VoP Monk suffers from the lack of magic items, but I'd argue they lose out less than, say, an equal level fighter. I haven't crunched the numbers, but that seems to be... about right? Fighters need magic weapons, after all.

[Esprit15]

VoP Monk/Paladin taking Serenity is not half bad. Add in Saint at level 6 and you’ll be nigh untouchable. Add Intuitive Attack and the only things you really need are CON and WIS, plus INT if you want some skills.

Travel Devotion works nicely as well if you go far enough to get a paladin’s turning, since your WIS should be sky high. After that, it’s a matter of what you want to dip. Fist of the Forest is nice for getting your one other high stat, CON, to AC, and advances unarmed strike, plus gives you the ability to hit incorporeal enemies. If your DM is a stickler about PA and unarmed strike, Shou Disciple lets you flurry with any weapon you are proficient with, which includes that cane that you’re permitted to walk around with.

Will you be a Wizard? No, but that wasn’t going to happen before VoP either. Will you be good at an average table with expected levels of optimization? Yeah, probably. Heck, dip into Swordsage later for the Shadow Hand’s teleportation maneuvers, or Warblade for Tiger Claw maneuvers centered around jumping. Get the last laugh at those people mocking you for being unable to reach them. Or, consider Kensai, and power up whatever weapon you end up choosing to use, while also getting the scaling bonus from VoP on any weapon that you wield.

[atemu1234]

VoP Monk/Paladin taking Serenity is not half bad. Add in Saint at level 6 and you’ll be nigh untouchable. Add Intuitive Attack and the only things you really need are CON and WIS, plus INT if you want some skills.

Travel Devotion works nicely as well if you go far enough to get a paladin’s turning, since your WIS should be sky high. After that, it’s a matter of what you want to dip. Fist of the Forest is nice for getting your one other high stat, CON, to AC, and advances unarmed strike, plus gives you the ability to hit incorporeal enemies. If your DM is a stickler about PA and unarmed strike, Shou Disciple lets you flurry with any weapon you are proficient with, which includes that cane that you’re permitted to walk around with.

Will you be a Wizard? No, but that wasn’t going to happen before VoP either. Will you be good at an average table with expected levels of optimization? Yeah, probably. Heck, dip into Swordsage later for the Shadow Hand’s teleportation maneuvers, or Warblade for Tiger Claw maneuvers centered around jumping. Get the last laugh at those people mocking you for being unable to reach them. Or, consider Kensai, and power up whatever weapon you end up choosing to use, while also getting the scaling bonus from VoP on any weapon that you wield.

I now know how I want to build my next good guy.

[lord_khaine]

VoP Monk suffers from the lack of magic items, but I'd argue they lose out less than, say, an equal level fighter. I haven't crunched the numbers, but that seems to be... about right? Fighters need magic weapons, after all.

They do not lose out from the lack of magic items. They lose some of those abilities that are important in a higher level game, like flight. Number-wise, they dont lose anything.
And this is by the way why people should read a thread instead of just reading the title. It has already been mentioned that by level 6 a VOP Monk has for around 40k gear


In general, though, a no-questions-asked +4 to AC is something that I'd happily take as a feat on any character that wasn't clawing for more chances to take feats.

Also, its in this case 4 AC +1 every 3 levels. As well as the feat returned with a choice from a more limited list.

[AnimeTheCat]

Honestly, even on a Monk, at low levels, I'd probably rather have DR 4/magic from Shape Soulmeld than +4 AC from Vow of Poverty.

Just with a quick re-read of the idea, the OP said that characters usually start at level 3 which means that, out of the box, do both (assuming Con 13).

Something I think would be fun (on either this or a standard monk) is being Azurin and taking either a level of a meldshaper class or the shape soulmeld feat. You can get quasi-magic items and your vow stuff or be a grappling, magic item using monk that shapes mantle of flame and deals +2d6 (with investment) against the enemy your grappling. That would be cool I think.

EDIT:
What soulmeld were you talking about that gives you DR 4/magic? The only one I found was Wind Cloak and that only applies to ranged attacks and it starts at DR 2/magic unless you invest essentia.

[Troacctid]

We're still talking about Monk, right? Wearing armor as a monk still nukes Fast Movement, Monk AC, and FoB.

I know they weren't great to begin with, but if you throw all that out... why did you take levels of Monk? Seems like you'd be better off with Fighter.
That's always the question with Monks in this edition, isn't it? You get an AC boost while unarmored that gives you less AC than wearing armor, a damage boost with unarmed strikes that ends up doing less damage than weapons, and an extra attack that's basically just Two-Weapon Fighting. So why are you a Monk?

[Malroth]

Exactly, compare the monk to a barbarian with two clubs, the barbarian will have more HP, hit more often, get more attacks per round, do more damage per attack, move faster and since he can wear medium armor will have a better AC than the monk.

[Pleh]

They do not lose out from the lack of magic items. They lose some of those abilities that are important in a higher level game, like flight.

Let's be fair: they lose out on self sufficient flight.

Allies can still buff them with spells and magic item charges. Carrying them isn't usually super efficient, but still legal, so maybe a flying Wild Cohort acting as a mount would be a good choice for a VoP character

[AnimeTheCat]

Exactly, compare the monk to a barbarian with two clubs, the barbarian will have more HP, hit more often, get more attacks per round, do more damage per attack, move faster and since he can wear medium armor will have a better AC than the monk.

A barbarian can either get more attacks per round or move faster in medium armor, but not both. At least, not any more so than a monk. and at level 1, a vow of poverty monk gets the same AC bonus as a chain shirt without the max dex limit or the armor check penalty, and at level 3 the VoP monk gets a breastplate without the max dex limit or the armor check penalty and further isn't limited on movement by such things either getter their full movement speed bonus. In the scenario of Barbarian vs VoP Monk, the monk will have better AC at levels 1-3 (at least), will possibly get the same or one fewer attacks per round than a charging barbarian at the cost of movement speed for the barbarian.

I believe I see your point, why play a monk... but I can see lots of reasons at a mildly optimized table why playing a monk (not even with Vow of Poverty) would be enjoyable.

[Esprit15]

I now know how I want to build my next good guy.

It’s how I built a guy for a low-OP (in that nobody was a full caster) epic game that a GM planned to run. Sad that the game never got off the ground, but the build is still sitting around. The goal was “I won’t die, and will be just annoying enough that you can’t ignore me.”

[P.F.]

Take Vow of Poverty. No, it's not better than not taking it. No, it isn't the most optimal feat possible. No, it isn't, under normal circumstances, better than using magic items. Yes, exalted feats generally blow, so getting more of them is nothing to write home about. Take it anyway.

I have played characters using VoP. I had fun. No, I wasn't the most powerful character in the party. No, I wasn't more powerful than I would have been had I not taken it. Yes, I and all my friends who have used it concluded that it's not worth it. But none of us regrets having played a character with it once or twice. And it was fun. We had fun, damn it!

So if you think it might be fun, take Vow of Poverty and run with it!

[emeraldstreak]

That's always the question with Monks in this edition, isn't it? You get an AC boost while unarmored that gives you less AC than wearing armor, a damage boost with unarmed strikes that ends up doing less damage than weapons, and an extra attack that's basically just Two-Weapon Fighting. So why are you a Monk?


Exactly, compare the monk to a barbarian with two clubs, the barbarian will have more HP, hit more often, get more attacks per round, do more damage per attack, move faster and since he can wear medium armor will have a better AC than the monk.

Early on. Eventually (meaning with lots of gold, not VoP) unarmed strike becomes a beast.

Why play a Monk? About 98% of Monk players do it for the flavor only, 3/4 of them get shafted, 1/4 play on tables so underoptimized somehow they end up more effective than their wizards.

Of the rest, 1% are specific builds using the Monk levels for a specific thing, ie my Core Coliseum champion that got to Great Renown faster than anyone before him. Technically he had enough levels in his multiclass to be considered Monk (inc. lvl 1) but for all purposes was a Gish.

Finally, 1% are played by experienced players just for the challenge of it. Like, I can bring a uberoptimized Monk to a table just to mess with people.

[ericgrau]

Early on. Eventually (meaning with lots of gold, not VoP) unarmed strike becomes a beast.
Nope, by then the barbarian has magic weapons. If the monk optimizes unarmed strike heavily, then the barbarian is an ubercharger.

The advantage of unarmed strikes & flurry is the higher grapple damage and/or more trip attempts. To match the grapple damage the barbarian would have to specialize in it, still have fewer attempts to grapple/trip, and hurt his non-grapple damage. So a monk that grapples and/or trips and/or stuns on top of damage, he has an advantage overall. Stunning is not as big as the other two, yeah, but it may be done simultaneously and every little bit helps.

You could probably optimize it more with items yeah. But the OP has the problem of over-optimizing so oh-well. May as well VOP it.

[Esprit15]

Take Vow of Poverty. No, it's not better than not taking it. No, it isn't the most optimal feat possible. No, it isn't, under normal circumstances, better than using magic items. Yes, exalted feats generally blow, so getting more of them is nothing to write home about. Take it anyway.

I have played characters using VoP. I had fun. No, I wasn't the most powerful character in the party. No, I wasn't more powerful than I would have been had I not taken it. Yes, I and all my friends who have used it concluded that it's not worth it. But none of us regrets having played a character with it once or twice. And it was fun. We had fun, damn it!

So if you think it might be fun, take Vow of Poverty and run with it!

Ultimately, this. Don’t ask whether Vow of Poverty is worth it. Outside of niche builds and cheesing certain classes or rules, it isn’t.

It’s thematic, though.

It’s fun.

It makes a classic archetype playable. Not optimal, but playable.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Nope, by then the barbarian has magic weapons. If the monk optimizes unarmed strike heavily, then the barbarian is an ubercharger.

The advantage of unarmed strikes & flurry is the higher grapple damage and/or more trip attempts. To match the grapple damage the barbarian would have to specialize in it, still have fewer attempts to grapple/trip, and sacrifice his non-grapple damage. So a monk that grapples and/or trips and/or stuns (not as big as the other two, but every little bit helps), he has an advantage overall.

You could probably optimize it more with items yeah. But the OP has the problem of over-optimizing so oh-well. May as well VOP it.Actually, the main benefit of the monk's unarmed strike is that it counts as a manufactured weapon, allowing you to hit it with things like Ancestral Relic, augmenting the everliving crap out of it via magic, which does some oddball things, if you do it right.

[ericgrau]

Actually, the main benefit of the monk's unarmed strike is that it counts as a manufactured weapon, allowing you to hit it with things like Ancestral Relic, augmenting the everliving crap out of it via magic, which does some oddball things, if you do it right.

Am I reading the feat wrong, or wouldn't you have to have your father's arm grafted on to your body for this to work?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Am I reading the feat wrong, or wouldn't you have to have your father's arm grafted on to your body for this to work?If you didn't get your body from your ancestors, how did you get it?

I guess you could've gotten someone else's body away from them. So that's a thing.

[casb1965]

VoP Monk suffers from the lack of magic items, but I'd argue they lose out less than, say, an equal level fighter. I haven't crunched the numbers, but that seems to be... about right? Fighters need magic weapons, after all.

Taking VoP GIVES you:
+1 Magic weapon at level 4 and increase it by +1 at 10, 14, 17 and 20.

+1 Armour increases every 3 levels
+1 deflection bonus every 6
+1 Natural armour at 8 and 16

Sustenance at 5 so no need to eat that poisoned food
Endure elements at 3 so no burning or freezing at high and low temperatures.

and my favourite at 7, 11 , 15 and 19 +2 to a stat of your choice adding a new stat at each bump giving you a +8/+6+/4+2 increase to your chosen stats. Throw the 1st increase in to WIS and thats an extra +1 AC at 7, 11, 15 and 20

Sanctify Ki strike, Holy Ki strike and Sanctify Natural attack for +2d4+2d6 against Evil creatures.

Magic weapons and armour start to look unneccesary at that point.

[noob]

Yes but you do not get all the mandatory immunities: you only get some of the needed immunities.
You also do not get flight.
You also do not get some cool magic stuff like that item that allowed to be polymorphed permanently(and which was super cheap) Or the starmantle cloack(immunity to weapon attacks if you have enough levels in monk)

[casb1965]

Yes but you do not get all the mandatory immunities: you only get some of the needed immunities.
You also do not get flight.
You also do not get some cool magic stuff like that item that allowed to be polymorphed permanently(and which was super cheap) Or the starmantle cloack(immunity to weapon attacks if you have enough levels in monk)

Yes, there's always something you don't get whatever route you take but this is just some of what VoP "gives" you, not "you have to buy x magic item" to get. I didn't put down the +5 resistance to acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic energy at 11th level that goes up to +15 at level 20, Or the DR/5 magic, DR/5 evil and DR/10 evil you get at various levels, or at 12th level you no longer need to breathe to survive.

Tally up the cost of all the magic items you need to cover all the bonuses VoP gives you and I'm not sure you're better off with the GP or not.

[noob]

I do not care about not needing to breath when the evil wizard can mind control me to make me kill my allies.(which he can if I have wow of poverty)
And I do not care about getting lots of armor and dr if I can be nearly be immune to magical and non magical weapons(one chance on 400 to be hit if you take a single level dip in cleric or one chance on 20 to be hit(both considering the opponent automatically hits your monk ca)).

[emeraldstreak]

Nope, by then the barbarian has magic weapons. If the monk optimizes unarmed strike heavily, then the barbarian is an ubercharger.

Once I looked at the top ubercharger builds and improved them by adding Monk. Monk things like Oversized Scorpion Kama become the absolute foundation of the numbers brought to bear by these uberchargers.

Meanwhile, Barbarian is an afterthought to them, used only for Frenzied Berserker and pounce qualification, if that, because there are others ways to go about these (as far as I remember giantitp's own top ubercharger doesn't bother with Barbarian at all). None of them are Chaotic either.

[lord_khaine]

Yes but you do not get all the mandatory immunities: you only get some of the needed immunities.
You also do not get flight.
You also do not get some cool magic stuff like that item that allowed to be polymorphed permanently(and which was super cheap) Or the starmantle cloack(immunity to weapon attacks if you have enough levels in monk)

There are no such thing as mandatory immunities. Or if there is, your welcome to provide a page number reference. Until then its just recomended immunities.
Flight is only important if you face a lot of flying things.
Starmantle cloak only provides you with immunity to non-magical weapons. And its -insanely- expensive. At 132.000 gold few will ever reach the level where they can afford it.


I do not care about not needing to breath when the evil wizard can mind control me to make me kill my allies.(which he can if I have wow of poverty)
And I do not care about getting lots of armor and dr if I can be nearly be immune to magical and non magical weapons(one chance on 400 to be hit if you take a single level dip in cleric or one chance on 20 to be hit(both considering the opponent automatically hits your monk ca)).

Not having a VOP does sadly not make you immune to mind control. Else there would not be any mind control magic around. The Evil Wizard can certainly also mind control you if you dont have VOP.
And its a rather bold statement about only getting hit in a 1/400 chance, considering you were wrong about the starmantle cloak. (Its immunity to non-magical attacks)

[casb1965]

I do not care about not needing to breath when the evil wizard can mind control me to make me kill my allies.(which he can if I have wow of poverty)
And I do not care about getting lots of armor and dr if I can be nearly be immune to magical and non magical weapons(one chance on 400 to be hit if you take a single level dip in cleric or one chance on 20 to be hit(both considering the opponent automatically hits your monk ca)).

Likewise that Evil Wizard's mind control is irrelevant if you've already succumbed to the poisonous gas earlier on.

[noob]

There are no such thing as mandatory immunities. Or if there is, your welcome to provide a page number reference. Until then its just recomended immunities.
Flight is only important if you face a lot of flying things.
Starmantle cloak only provides you with immunity to non-magical weapons. And its -insanely- expensive. At 132.000 gold few will ever reach the level where they can afford it.



Not having a VOP does sadly not make you immune to mind control. Else there would not be any mind control magic around. The Evil Wizard can certainly also mind control you if you dont have VOP.
And its a rather bold statement about only getting hit in a 1/400 chance, considering you were wrong about the starmantle cloak. (Its immunity to non-magical attacks)

Do not forget monks gets evasion so when he can save for half he can negate the damage on a successful save.(which is why I told one chance on 400 to be hit if you have the pride domain)
Since starmantle allows to get a reflex save for half damage(against a constant 15 which you will succeed on everything but a 1 if you have correct saves) against magic weapons then you can use evasion on those magic weapons.(I told it worked if you had enough monk levels so I guessed you would read fully the spell And the monk)
And not having vop allows you to get magical items which gives mind blank.
Most of the times poisonous gases are not a problem because if you were not immune to poison in the first place you would have died a long time ago(from all the poisonous rogues and floors made of poison and poison traps that poisons you with traps).
The main defenses I get for not dying all the times with my gm are the following: mind blank(mind control is so much annoying),immunity to poison(seriously there is murdering poisons everywhere) and death-ward(due to death spells)(we still get grappled to death now but at least the fights does not lasts less than one turn)
If you are a lone monk for getting all that you are going to need magic items.
While if you are a wizard or a cleric you can get all that without magic items.
But here we are speaking of a wow of poverty monk so we should compare it to a monk and not to a wow of poverty cleric(among the characters that lose the less from wow of poverty: they can grab worldly focus and use most of their spells normally) nor to a regular wizard.

[Caelestion]

And how is that cheese relevant in a thread about a 6th level monk in a low-op campaign?

[noob]

And how is that cheese relevant in a thread about a 6th level monk in a low-op campaign?

They are as much relevant to the discussion as the powers wow of peace gives at level 11 and 12.

[Caelestion]

So, not at all then?

[noob]

So, not at all then?
Exactly.
It was a thread derail.

[AnimeTheCat]

I was wondering if anyone has any insight as to how well using VoP would work to balance out a monk without homebrew (my DM is not a fan of most homebrews as I'm by far the most experienced player in his campaigns and I regularly break them when I try to play more powerful classes, let alone when I use homebrew).

Insofar as I see it, a Human could get VoP at 1st level and immediately benefit from the AC boost. Thus, your AC works out at low levels to be 10+Dex+Wis+4(Exalted bonus). With, say Dex 16 and Wis 14, this works out to 19 AC at 1st level, improving over time from Exalted bonus. Should be enough to stand on the front lines when you need to, as even though your HP isn't great you wouldn't have any real chance of being hit at low levels.

And since I'd be playing a monk in a campaign with a DM who doesn't cut me much rules slack, the inability to acquire magic items that work well for me suddenly becomes an asset, as I have no reason to compromise VoP benefits.

So, is there a catch that I'm not seeing here? The only thing I can think of is not having full BAB, which definitely sucks, but via combat maneuvers like grappling I feel like I'd still be effective if not amazing. Besides, I could do a little skillmonkeying on the side, something my group isn't that great at coordinating.

Finally, the campaigns with this DM generally start at 3rd level and rarely go higher than 6th. I'd probably try to end up going Monk 4/Fighter 2 for bonus feats and higher BAB.

Ok, with a little more time/research I think you could probably stand to go a little further with the vows and it would benefit you greatly. I know there is a lot of animosity to Vow of Non-Violence and Vow of Peace, but I read them over and I think you can easily take both of them for even greater benefit to your survivability.

If you take the vows, the most common thing I see is that "those vows are bad because they force your allies to play in a certain way." while that's technically true, it only applies to helpless or defenseless foes. This means that you need to discuss with your party that the foes that a wizard targets with sleep or color spray shouldn't be killed outright. Target the foes that haven't been incapacitated. After the surviving foes are taken care of, make them swear an oath of non-interference. When the enemies break the vow, you lose nothing by allowing the party to kill them. The oath that your party can swear to you is optional, but could be interesting for role playing (IMO). You can still do non-lethal damage so all of your punches are having the same effect. There is no difference between dealing 1d6 lethal damage and 1d6 nonlethal damage ultimatey because the goal is to knock the enemy unconscious anyway and both do that without fail. Enemies that are immune to non-lethal damage (undead and constructs) are not targets of your vows and you will not lose anything by dealing lethal damage to them.

If you do this, couple it with Passive Way monk for tripping. You can move and trip in your first round. Then, if the enemy tries to get up don't take your attack of opportunity, wait for them to leave your threatened area and then trip them again. Next turn, flurry them while they're down (all with non-lethal damage). At level 3, you should be able to hit a prone target with flurry. For your third level feat, take improved grapple and have options. Move in, trip your foe. Attack of opportunity as they stand up, grapple them. your turn, free action end the grapple, flurry OR continue the grapple and subdue them. Alternatively, if you would prefer to have Vow of Non-Violence give you a +4 stunning fist DC, you can stick with standard monk and pick up Improved Trip on your own or at level 6.

Vow of Non-Violence and Vow of Peace add +2 Natural Armor, +2 Deflection, and +2 Sacred Bonuses to AC that stack with Vow of Poverty (the line of text in the feat description say that the bonuses from vow of Poverty increase by 2 if you have both feats), a calm emotions aura, a weapon shattering aura (no limited to non-magical weapons), and +4 to non-lethal DCs. That would give you (with 16 dex and 14 wis) a 26 AC (10+3 Dex+2 Wis+7 Sacred+2 Natural+2 Deflection).

I think it would be fun personally.

EDIT:
I forgot about the Vow on Peace saying "If you knock a foe unconcious you must take them prisoner", just make them swear the oath of non-interference and let them go. It doesn't say you have to keep them prisoner until they're redeemed, just that you can't kill them and you have to take them prisoner.

[noob]

If you like being exalted and do not like enemies going back after you disposed of them with non lethal damage then you might try building a redeeming station.(but you can not use the money you loot for that since wow of poverty makes you send the money in an organisation that is going to use it to torture people but which will convince you it is for helping them)

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If you like being exalted and do not like enemies going back after you disposed of them with non lethal damage then you might try building a redeeming station.(but you can not use the money you loot for that since wow of poverty makes you send the money in an organisation that is going to use it to torture people but which will convince you it is for helping them)Boost Diplomacy and turn the church into your fanatic cult. They will build whatever you want for you and will use it according to your express desires.

[AnimeTheCat]

Boost Diplomacy and turn the church into your fanatic cult. They will build whatever you want for you and will use it according to your express desires.

I mean... with a +2 perfection bonus from sacred vow and a +4 sacred bonus from vow of peace, you're already on your way to a very nice diplomacy bonus without even investing any skill points.

[noob]

I mean... with a +2 perfection bonus from sacred vow and a +4 sacred bonus from vow of peace, you're already on your way to a very nice diplomacy bonus without even investing any skill points.

You are going to miss magic items of + diplomacy but that does not prevents making a functional diplomacy build.(and you can get people to cast boost spells on you for fixing that lack if you are good enough at diplomacy)

[AnimeTheCat]

You are going to miss magic items of + diplomacy but that does not prevents making a functional diplomacy build.(and you can get people to cast boost spells on you for fixing that lack if you are good enough at diplomacy)

Shape soulmeld feat as an azurin for silvertongue mask? gets you +4, just the feat without being azurin gets you a +2, the same as a masterwork tool.

[noob]

Shape soulmeld feat as an azurin for silvertongue mask? gets you +4, just the feat without being azurin gets you a +2, the same as a masterwork tool.
Stacking bonuses is the way to go.
But still finding a npc caster willing to cast boost spells on you is a very good idea.

[Esprit15]

Stacking bonuses is the way to go.
But still finding a npc caster willing to cast boost spells on you is a very good idea.

Heck, your party can boost you as well.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Heck, your party can boost you as well.This is the answer to pretty much everything with a mundane VoP character. "My party can expend resources to help me to do it!" Instead of, you know, having the character himself being able to.

It really is quite sad.

[Vaern]

Your mileage may vary as a VoP monk. I've got one in my current group, who also got away with taking the Saint template which offers a few bonus abilities and some really nice immunities that seem kind of broken for a +2 level adjustment. Sometimes his performance is lackluster, sometimes he seems completely broken.
Our campaign is basically a long-running quest to track down a particular devil who's been plaguing the region, and the monk has equipped himself with an array of abilities that are especially effective against undead and evil outsiders. When fighting a wizard who has traded away his soul for power and became a lich, he practically beat the lich down with his hands tied behind his back. When ambushed by the devil's fiendish minions, he practically dominates them on his own. Against common humanoid opponents, animals, elementals, and the like, though, he doesn't do much more than you'd expect of an average unoptimized character.

What you expect you'll be doing or fighting against within a particular game largely determines what is or isn't viable. We had no idea what we were going to be up against when we first started and thus had no idea what to build towards. By the time he lost his previous character, though, we had determined that our big bad guy was a devil. He decided to build a character specifically to teabag a devil to death, and monks in particular can deal their full unarmed strike damage with any part of their body.

Also mind that a VoP character generally donates his portion of the treasure to his church, and the church will not be ungrateful. The section on tithes and offerings - just before the section on voluntary poverty in BoED - mentions that the church may provide spells and services free of charge to frequent donors. You may not be able to stock up on gear with VoP, but you can still make use of the church to cash in on your share of the loot.

[AnimeTheCat]

This is the answer to pretty much everything with a mundane VoP character. "My party can expend resources to help me to do it!" Instead of, you know, having the character himself being able to.

It really is quite sad.

The thing is, the game is balanced around a party of 4 who are working together... A character built around a number of things other than buffing asking for buffs is not sad in the slightest.

A druid can't cast Eagle's Spledor, but can use Wild Empathy. Is it sad if the druid asks for a party cleric or wizard to cast eagles splendor on him/her when he/she wants to use wild empathy on a magic beast with an int score or 1 or 2? If that's what you consider sad, I consider it sad that you're so wrapped up in what each individual character can do that you can't see the simple application of teamwork...


Also mind that a VoP character generally donates his portion of the treasure to his church, and the church will not be ungrateful. The section on tithes and offerings - just before the section on voluntary poverty in BoED - mentions that the church may provide spells and services free of charge to frequent donors. You may not be able to stock up on gear with VoP, but you can still make use of the church to cash in on your share of the loot.

I agree with this point. Even when looking at it from a non-mechanical perspective (like the examples and notes in Tithes and Offerings), if the Vow of Poverty Character and his/her party took down a band of orcs that were terrorizing a village and the took the mundane weapons and armor and gave them to the poor and defenseless to help protect themselves, those poor/weak commoners could one day serve to help the character in terms of manpower and other services in thanks. For example, if the village hears that the party is trying to reconstruct a keep near the village, those who were helped or assisted by the character may offer their services in reconstructing said keep. It's possible.

[Esprit15]

The thing is, the game is balanced around a party of 4 who are working together... A character built around a number of things other than buffing asking for buffs is not sad in the slightest.

A druid can't cast Eagle's Spledor, but can use Wild Empathy. Is it sad if the druid asks for a party cleric or wizard to cast eagles splendor on him/her when he/she wants to use wild empathy on a magic beast with an int score or 1 or 2? If that's what you consider sad, I consider it sad that you're so wrapped up in what each individual character can do that you can't see the simple application of teamwork...



I agree with this point. Even when looking at it from a non-mechanical perspective (like the examples and notes in Tithes and Offerings), if the Vow of Poverty Character and his/her party took down a band of orcs that were terrorizing a village and the took the mundane weapons and armor and gave them to the poor and defenseless to help protect themselves, those poor/weak commoners could one day serve to help the character in terms of manpower and other services in thanks. For example, if the village hears that the party is trying to reconstruct a keep near the village, those who were helped or assisted by the character may offer their services in reconstructing said keep. It's possible.

Exactly my point. DnD is a team game. Any primary caster I’ve made, after their personal buffs and a spell or two for battles, has tended toward buffing the party. As it turns out, when your friends don’t die and can contribute more because of you, you’re still contributing.

Also, people always overlook that aspect of churches helping out VoP characters, especially in ways besides items. Manpower, healing, and maybe even resurrections if the church is truly indebted, are all reasonable rewards for service.

Really, the feat works best when the DM and player are on the same page about what to expect from each other.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

It's fine for a party to rely on each other in their adventures. That's the whole point of having an adventuring party, after all. But it's not kosher for one character to rely on draining the party's resources just to remain somewhat functional, without providing anything in return.

Why would a group of essentially Special Ops troops that risk their lives daily on high stakes gambles bring along a resource drain that only increases their chances of dying horribly?

[Gruftzwerg]

Actually, the main benefit of the monk's unarmed strike is that it counts as a manufactured weapon, allowing you to hit it with things like Ancestral Relic, augmenting the everliving crap out of it via magic, which does some oddball things, if you do it right.



A monk’s unarmed strike is treated both as a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons.

While you may treat it like a manufactured weapon, it doesn't get the ability to count as "item".
Cause Ancrestral Relic requires:

Choose an item you own.

Your unarmed strikes are not an item sadly. And I dunno if you "own" em, there are a part of you.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

While you may treat it like a manufactured weapon, it doesn't get the ability to count as "item".
Cause Ancrestral Relic requires:


Your unarmed strikes are not an item sadly. And I dunno if you "own" em, there are a part of you.Grafts are items that are part of your body. Slaves are commodities that you can buy and sell. Intelligent magic items and golems are both items that yet have bodies. There's really not an exclusionary definition of "item," and certainly not one that excludes your body as being one. If it said "object," sure, but even then, there are ways around it. Like using the metamorphosis power to turn yourself into one. Granted, not in any way a VoP monk could actually use, but still.

Plus, manufactured weapons are items, pretty much by the definitions of the words. Making this distinction is like saying to treat yourself like a tree and then not treating yourself as a plant.

[Gruftzwerg]

Grafts are items that are part of your body. Slaves are commodities that you can buy and sell. Intelligent magic items and golems are both items that yet have bodies. There's really not an exclusionary definition of "item," and certainly not one that excludes your body as being one. If it said "object," sure, but even then, there are ways around it. Like using the metamorphosis power to turn yourself into one. Granted, not in any way a VoP monk could actually use, but still.

Plus, manufactured weapons are items, pretty much by the definitions of the words. Making this distinction is like saying to treat yourself like a tree and then not treating yourself as a plant.

Graft become a part of your body yeah, but they are not part of your natural body. And you wouldn't count your own fist as items either. Slaves are not a part of your body and thus a bad example, but they may be treated like objects in the society, but they aren't object by the definition of 3.5.

While manufactured weapons are items, your unarmed strikes aren't even a manufactured weapon. There is a difference in counting as a manufactured weapon and being one.
Your unarmed strikes only count as manufactured weapon and not as items therefore.


spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons.

Ancestral Relic targets "items", not manufactured weapons (while a real manufactured weapon is also an item), and thus the "counting effect" doesn't help here at all.

[Caelestion]

Plus, manufactured weapons are items, pretty much by the definitions of the words. Making this distinction is like saying to treat yourself like a tree and then not treating yourself as a plant.

Given that you have a totally bonkers opinion on how VoP works, I'm not really surprised to see you claiming that a monk can use his own fists as ancestral relics.

[ericgrau]

If you didn't get your body from your ancestors, how did you get it?
Optimizers do funny things with the English language.