Is Vow of Poverty broken?

A player wants to be a Paladin/Monk (taking the monastic training feat in Eberron which allows you to multiclass with one other class as a monk). He wants to take Vow of Poverty. I've never seen it in use but, looking at it, it doesn't look that powerful in some areas and overpowered in others. How does it balance out? Is it broken?

If you give out wealth at or above the standard wealth guidelines in such a way that the player can convert all the wealth into useful bonuses like the ones the vow provides, the vow will be underpowered. Otherwise, it is potentially overpowered. For example, a Monk/Paladin would be very happy with stat boost items for every stat except Int. With VoP, he's going to be harshly limited on which stats can be boosted, since it doesn't give very many stat boosts. However, if you weren't going to give him those stat boosters or the money to buy them anyways, then it is no longer a weakness.

Basically, you can see the VoP as a preset purchase plan for magic items that costs two feats and causes a bunch of other inconveniences, and in that sense, it isn't so strong compared to standard wealth.

Plus if the Vow is ever broken, you lose the benefits and get NOTHING to replace them with.

Another thing- check out how many Exalted Feats VoP grants the PC. After you do that, examine how many of those feats your PC can actually use. There is probably a gap- your PC will probably be granted more feats than he or she can use.

Granted, the PC in question is a multiclassing monk, and the bulk of the Exalted feats are optimized for that class- but even in that case, its almost like riding a railroad.

AND since the PC is already taking another feat at 1st level in order to be able to multiclass as a Paladin/Monk, the PC will lose the first bonus Exalted feat- essentially taking a penalty before getting the benefit- and will have to put off any traditional feats for several levels.

Not that there will be as many feats for the PC to use anyway- since you can only use simple weapons and no armor, your feat selection will avoid most of the nasty fighting feats out there.

I think VoP is balanced for a Monk, and becomes unbalanced when it's used with non-Monk classes.

Dannyalcatraz said:

Plus if the Vow is ever broken, you lose the benefits and get NOTHING to replace them with.

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Exactly. That's one of the "bunch of other inconveniences"

Mistwell said:

I think VoP is balanced for a Monk, and becomes unbalanced when it's used with non-Monk classes.

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Unbalanced on the weak side I would suspect, right?

As Rystil said, it is balanced based on the average wealth/magic per character level as defined by WOTC. In a low magic campaign/world, it is going to be overpowered and you may want to scale it for the level of magic items in your setting.

In order to make balance it in these instances you could try to add up the value of the VOP benefits (ie. stst boost squared x 1000; AC bonus squared x 1000; weapon enhancement bonus squared x 200; etc) and compoare it to the "average" wealth by level in your setting and adjust to make it roughly even.

The feat itself gives some interesting options for roleplaying and may add a cool dynamic to the group. The VOP character definately should still get there "share" of loot (says so in the description), but they will choose give it away to others (read non-PC). This keeps the other characters balacned in reference to the VOP character and can make for some interesting interactions.

VOP charcter, "sorry, I know you guys want all of this cool stuff, but I'm going to take my part and give it to the local orphanage. Yes I know little Billy really wants a toy horse, but he is just going to have to settle for full plate +2"

VOP charcter, "sorry, I know you guys want all of this cool stuff, but I'm going to take my part and give it to the local orphanage. Yes I know little Billy really wants a toy horse, but he is just going to have to settle for full plate +2"

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Nah..not like that! He'd probably donate the stuff for fundraiser auctions and raffles.

"The next item is a pristine Apparatus of Kwalish, only 2 previous owners, one of whom is our own beloved Brother Makkim DeWitt..."

Dannyalcatraz said:

Nah..not like that! He'd probably donate the stuff for fundraiser auctions and raffles.

"The next item is a pristine Apparatus of Kwalish, only 2 previous owners, one of whom is our own beloved Brother Makkim DeWitt..."

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Yup. The up-side for the other players is that they can give the VoP character the magic items that are most useless for their value, since he doesn't care if he can use it since he's just going to sell it.

Mistwell said:

I think VoP is balanced for a Monk, and becomes unbalanced when it's used with non-Monk classes.

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Just for fun, I made a VOP barbarian once, 12th level I think (gotta love hero forge). The character was half-orc and weilded a great club (I think this should fit the requirements of the class, it is just a big log after all). Think big friendly lug with a great big stick, loved kids (not just to eat) and didn't care about stuff. It seemed balanced enough.

Most classes can make it work; fighter or ranger may be a stretch, but I don't think it would be terrible to allow a single non-simple (maybe bow or longsword), non-magical family heirloom weapon to included.