Fixing VoP.

[AstralFire]

Possible with a bigger selection of Exalted Feats that don't suck?

e.g. Wings of Glory [Exalted]
Just walking on water is for lamers.
Prerequisites: Sacred Vow, Vow of Poverty, Stigmata, Nimbus of Light
Benefit: You may use a standard action to grow wings of light, and gain a flight speed of 60 ft (good). These wings are a Supernatural effect, and shed light as the Daylight spell, possessing a caster level equal to your character level. Any effect which dispels or suppresses Daylight has an identical effect on your wings of glory, which are functionally similar to a third-level spell. If this light is removed or suppressed by any means, then you cease flight and begin to float to the ground as if under the effects of a Feather Fall spell. You may fly for a maximum of 10 minutes per hour.

[Lev]

Possible with a bigger selection of Exalted Feats that don't suck?

e.g. Wings of Glory [Exalted]
Just walking on water is for lamers.
Prerequisites: Sacred Vow, Vow of Poverty, Stigmata, Nimbus of Light
Benefit: You gain a flight speed of 60 ft. Maneuverability is, of course, good. Seriously. When flying, you grow wings which shed light as the Daylight spell. If this light is suppressed by any means, then you cease flight and begin to float to the ground as if under the effects of a Feather Fall spell.

You don't fix VoP by further unbalancing character choice options. The problem with VoP is that it can be used by classes who already compensate for not having the ability to use the magical items in the first place.
If you wanted to balance VoP you'd make it so VoP doesn't stack with the rules that intentionally accomplish the same thing.

But I do like that feat, I'd change it so it had to have at least a standard action to start it as a (Su), limited times per day, and you need to maintain concentration to keep using it for 5m/level tops.

[AstralFire]

The thread is 'fix VoP'

The thread is not 'fix stupid classes I don't allow without nerfing anyway, and Incarnum, because I'm too lazy to learn how that works/spend the money on a book for it.'

:P

[Zergrusheddie]

Well, a Druid with items is still better than a Druid with VoP. And Monks are utterly screwed by VoP sadly. VoP is difficult to balance because there are a lot of things that demand items in order to survive. DR is one of them. Also, it is very difficult to explain why a VoP character would be venturing into a dungeon with a load of loot frenzied people...

It's a decent feat idea. It means that a level 2 spell doesn't punk a level 20 non-caster with VoP.

[Lev]

The thread is 'fix VoP'

The thread is not 'fix stupid classes I don't allow without nerfing anyway, and Incarnum, because I'm too lazy to learn how that works/spend the money on a book for it.'

:P

<3 [Link Removed by Lev]

[AstralFire]

My interest is purely in the idea of making VoP an interesting option, one that actually grants abilities widely associated with being holy. Every single Tier 1 and half of the Tier 2s I ban or nerf considerably, same for T6 and half of Tier 5. VoP's issues there are not VoP's issues; they are an artifact of D&D's particularly strained conceit of balance.

<3

1) Delete that, it's illegal and not allowed here.
2) I've read through Incarnum before enough to know that it bores me, not interested, not going to deal with it.

[Gnorman]

That's a bad idea, Lev. I'd remove that link post-haste.

[Boci]

So can the daylight spell be dispelled to end the flying? If so what is the CL? Character level?

[AstralFire]

Changes made to opening feat. Danke.

[Lev]

That's a bad idea, Lev. I'd remove that link post-haste.

Understood, thank you.
I've always been on the side of sampling a product before buying it, no insult intended.

[The Mentalist]

Maybe give VOP the Winged or Half Celestial templates at a given level (7-9?) it would give them wings, reasonably handy.

But yes. I think with more good Exalted feats it's doable.

[AstralFire]

Understood, thank you.
I've always been on the side of sampling a product before buying it, no insult intended.

Understandable. It's just not something that adds to the game for me; I have taken a look before, and didn't find the concept interesting, which immediately sinks any interest in the mechanics.

Maybe give VOP the Winged or Half Celestial templates at a given level (7-9?) it would give them wings, reasonably handy.

But yes. I think with more good Exalted feats it's doable.

That's kind of a forced thing. Not everyone should be granted flight automatically, esp. with permanent wings - there's a wide variety of things that could conceivably be covered.

[Flickerdart]

Perhaps extend the benefits of the feat to a Paladin's mount?

[AstralFire]

Refresh my memory as I am not looking at my copy of BoED; is there anything glaring that would come up as a mistake if you made a feat that let mounts and animal companions benefit from your exalted feats? Removed from the issue of Druid Animal Companions being too strong; I'm thinking about the Ranger here.

[Boci]

Refresh my memory as I am not looking at my copy of BoED; is there anything glaring that would come up as a mistake if you made a feat that let mounts and animal companions benefit from your exalted feats? Removed from the issue of Druid Animal Companions being too strong; I'm thinking about the Ranger here.

Looking over the feats available:
Stigmata could be problematic if the PC expects his animal companion to take the con damage.
You should specify that it does not work in reverse, you cannot get a template meant for your animal companion.

[Tavar]

For vow of poverty, why not this fix. Seems to address most of the issues, while not giving players too much.

[Lycanthromancer]

VoP needs to be fixed quite a lot, including easing restrictions a bit (you can own nothing that costs more than 1 gp, except for class features that are worth money, such as spellbooks, which can be upgraded with 1 XP for every 5 gp they would otherwise cost; you can carry magic items without penalty, though not with the intent of using them for your own benefit; you may use magic items on another's behalf, such as feeding a healing potion to an ally, or using a scroll of heal on another; likewise, you can utilize magical items in times of dire need, such as to protect an innocent from certain doom, but only when other avenues of dealing with the situation have been explored and failed). It also needs some way to get the feat back if you've been forced to break the vow.

I wouldn't mind having the following exalted feat:

PURIFIED SOUL [Exalted, Incarnum]
Your soul exudes purity, and you have learned to shape this pure energy outside of your own body.
Prerequisites: Con 13, Sacred Vow, Vow of Poverty
Benefits: You may take any [incarnum] feat that you qualify for, as well as any of the general feats listed in Table 3-3: Feats on page 36 of Magic of Incarnum (except for Necrocarnum Acolyte, which is forbidden) as exalted feats granted by Vow of Poverty.

In addition, once per day, you can invest essentia into this feat. For every 2 essentia you invest, you gain 1 point of exalted essentia that is indistinguishable from normal essentia, except it can be invested in another [incarnum] feat of your choice without remaining invested for the full 24 hours. In other words, exalted essentia treat [incarnum] feats (other than Purified Soul) as soulmelds for the purposes of investing, uninvesting, and reinvesting them throughout the day. Once the amount of essentia invested in this feat is chosen, it cannot be altered and remains invested for 24 hours.

You gain 1 point of essentia.

[Jack_Simth]

You don't fix VoP by further unbalancing character choice options. The problem with VoP is that it can be used by classes who already compensate for not having the ability to use the magical items in the first place.
If you wanted to balance VoP you'd make it so VoP doesn't stack with the rules that intentionally accomplish the same thing.

It doesn't. Endure Elements doesn't stack with the spell of the same name; Exalted Strike is an Enhancement bonus (and so doesn't stack with Greater Magic Weapon or Greater Magic Fang); Sustenance doesn't stack with Create Food and Water; Deflection doesn't stack with Shield of Faith; Natural Armor doesn't stack with the Barkskin spell; Mind Shielding doesn't stack with Nondetection, Mind Blank, or Undetectable Alignment; Damage Reduction doesn't stack with the spells that produce it (Such as Righteous Might); and so on. I'm kinda curious what you're looking at?

While you need to look carefully at balancing the feats for it, making feats to help with situations where certain abilities are necessary and normally come from equipment equipment (Silver, Cold Iron, or Adamantine DR; flying opponents; Plot Weapons; et cetera) is pretty much necessary for noncasters to make good use of the Vow of Poverty - and such feats are lacking in the existing ruleset.

But I do like that feat, I'd change it so it had to have at least a standard action to start it as a (Su), limited times per day, and you need to maintain concentration to keep using it for 5m/level tops.

If it requires continuous concentration, it's kinda pointless, as it means that you can't fly up and hit the flying bad guy with an Unarmed Strike (as Concentration requires a standard action each round).

[Stycotl]

i think that vop is perfectly playable with a good selection of homebrew exalted feats. i generally allow players to homebrew exalted feats that are very specialized to their individual vop characters, in order to make sure that they get something worthwhile.

here are two of my own exalted feats:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94571

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78632

pretty specialized, but i have found them to be handy.

[Runestar]

The thread is 'fix VoP'

The thread is not 'fix stupid classes I don't allow without nerfing anyway, and Incarnum, because I'm too lazy to learn how that works/spend the money on a book for it.'

:P

And further clarification, fix means to rebalance a feat which is otherwise too weak, not tone it down as it is deemed to be too powerful.

[balistafreak]

You could go with the incredibly silly "sort-of-kind-of vague text trumps blatantly obvious table" reading.

The sentence goes something like (from memory) "At 1st level you get a bonus exalted feat, and another bonus feat at 2nd level and every even level afterwards". You claim that the part of the written line that says "and another bonus feat" is not referring to "a bonus exalted feat". You do have to take one Exalted feat at first level, but that one Exalted feat is often at least somewhat useful. (It's when you have three or more that they start getting pointless.)

In this way you end up with a boatload of feats. By 6th level you're +1 generic feat (in addition to the extra Exalted feat) over a non VoP in addition to all of the VoP benefits, and it only gets better from there. It shifts character optimization from "make the most of my WBL" to "make the most of my feats". Incarnum have even more of a field day with VoP, Psionics do pretty good as well, and even martial types who are normally slaves to their equipment can start getting somewhere with that many bonus feats. No really, with enough Sourcebooks feats are almost on the level of WBL, with the benefit of never being able to be stripped away.

Even with this incredibly stupid reading, money and items are still more breakable in the long run, though.

[Prodan]

I've always through of fixing VoP by allowing it to provide the benefits of up to X gp of magical items, where X is a fraction of the WBL the player would normally have.

[Fortuna]

I've always through of fixing VoP by allowing it to provide the benefits of up to X gp of magical items, where X is a fraction of the WBL the player would normally have.

I'm not sure how well that would work, simply because you still get necessities later than anyone else.

[Prodan]

I'm not sure how well that would work, simply because you still get necessities later than anyone else.

Depends on what the fraction is.

[Lev]

I'm kinda curious what you're looking at?

If it requires continuous concentration, it's kinda pointless, as it means that you can't fly up and hit the flying bad guy with an Unarmed Strike (as Concentration requires a standard action each round).

I'm looking at a Gith-Z monk with maxed wis and dex going for apostle of peace which allows magic items as long as they further boost AC.
That's more than 40AC btw.

The point would be you get to fly around at will as a feat.

[Tavar]

Unlimited fly is good because it aids in combat maneuverability. Your version doesn't.

[Optimator]

Meh, I never found VoP that bad. I never pictured it as a way to make your character good, but playable at all within the poverty-prone ascetic framework. Better Exalted feats would be the biggest improvement I can think of though--great place to work.

[Lev]

Unlimited fly is good because it aids in combat maneuverability. Your version doesn't.

My version is worth a feat.

[SilveryCord]

But it doesn't solve the issue with VoP that they're trying to fix, which is that the Vow makes you completely impotent against flying enemies.

[Runestar]

But it doesn't solve the issue with VoP that they're trying to fix, which is that the Vow makes you completely impotent against flying enemies.

I guess the other solution would be to bribe your party wizard to cast fly on you when the need arises. Not every solution has to be provided by the individual players themselves. They are allowed to work as a team and help shore up one another's shortcomings, you know.