Vile Poverty

That's along the lines of a working title, by the way.

I seem to recall a thread here (in House Rules) a while back, that somehow ended up including a discussion of a vile (i.e., evil) equivalent to the Vow of Poverty.

Anyway, I'd like to implement it, and I'm wondering if there are problems that anyone can foresee with this.

Any advice will be most welcome, cheers.


Right, so my basic initial plan is to replace each exalted/good component with its vile/evil counterpart. In other ways, it'll be identical to the standard Vow of Poverty (from the Book of Exalted Deeds, by WotC). Very simple approach, but I can't think of a better one offhand.


- Instead of bonus exalted feats, yep: bonus vile feats. Maybe other feats that have alignment: evil as a prereq, too.

- Rather than Exalted Strike, something like Vile Strike (name not important at this stage) that progresses identically, with evil-aligned damage-dealing at 10th, of course.

- Damage Reduction: the same, but /evil at higher levels. Natch.


Gee, that's it then. Everything else stays as is.



Thoughts?

I don't wquite understand why evil gods would benefit characters who do not take what they want... but if you have a reason, everything else looks good.

Easy. A follower of a beastal and savage CE god that despises all civilization (Malar?), who kills with spears hardened with fire (if he even uses fire!) and wears nothing but the rough hides of creatures he has slaughtered himself.

Or a 'communist-style' LE god -- everything in the world belongs to the church, to even think otherwise is blasphemy. The followers duty is to take all things from all others (by any means possible) and hand it over it to the church, retaining nothing for himself -- on pain of death and eternal torture.

Mind you, a formian (or a HIVE of formians) with such a feat would be terrifying... but that is also a problem with VoP as well.

wuyanei - Both examples you give are not too far from some of the ideas I've had for using it in my own setting. I also might end up broadening its uptake more, to encompass those from other faiths, races, cultures, classes and ethical (NE?) persuasions. . . without letting it spiral out of control, or even be accessible to too many initiates. It will always be for a select few, as it - and its righteous reflection - should be (IMO).

Great minds, I see.

Please do share with us when you are done!

mmmmmmmmmmmm . . . . . vile . . . . . . .

actually, my players LE Monk wants the Vow of Poverty badly, so I am interested to see what consensus will come of "Vile Poverty" as it is.

Ale and Whores!!

I think that an evil vow of poverty should work something like this:

Step 1. Get as much money as you can in as short an amount of time as you can. Lie, cheat, steal, whatever.

Step 2. Blow it all on ale, whores, nose candy, and other vile debaucheries.

Step 3. Realize you're flat broke and go back to step 1.

It's all about mindless self-gratification. Screw tithes. To hell with moderation. Grab all you can and spend/snort/drink it all before first light.

Actually, I agree with Django on this one. I just don't buy it. A Vow of Poverty is meant to strengthen you; evil doesn't do the whole inner strength thing. You'd be more likely to take "Vow of Debauchery" - to consume everything you can get your hands on as quickly as possible. A person with Vow of Debauchery can never retain any items beyond (Vow of Poverty) beyond (X period of time) at which point they go on an insane spree of lies, sex, drinking and blood.

In exchange, once the Debauchery is complete (and so long as they maintain their obligation to get totally effed up at every possible opportunity) they receive bonuses in line with Vow of Poverty. Yes, Debauchery can get you diseased, cause permanent liver damage and generally ruin other people's lives. No, you don't care about the three women you just got pregant. If you didn't do more damage to the bar than the money you paid out, you didn't do it right. You didn't beat her, she fell down the steps.

THEN you beat her.

But that's evil.

wuyanei said:

Easy. A follower of a beastal and savage CE god that despises all civilization (Malar?), who kills with spears hardened with fire (if he even uses fire!) and wears nothing but the rough hides of creatures he has slaughtered himself.

Or a 'communist-style' LE god -- everything in the world belongs to the church, to even think otherwise is blasphemy. The followers duty is to take all things from all others (by any means possible) and hand it over it to the church, retaining nothing for himself -- on pain of death and eternal torture.

Click to expand...

I like those ideas.

Heh! Well, Thia Halmades that sounds very much like what a Neutral Evil version of VoP migh be like! Evil to the core indeed.

However, not all evil is like that, and not all evil gods promote evil for its own sake. In the 3rd ed. Core group, Grumush (sp. the Orc god), teaches strength, conquest and genocide of everything not-orc; Hextor commands his followers to persue military glory and temporal power, regardless of the pain it cause the 'sheeple'; Venca (sp) cares only about developing his own personal magical powers -- his followers also generally have their own agendas, and just find following him more convenient than other gods; Malar, on the other claw, just enjoys the thrill of killing things. This is just to name a few of the 'standard' evil gods.

Some evil gods do value discipline, others demand hefty sacrifice from their followers, and still others just plain hate anything not-them, which for a barbaric god might mean anything more advanced than early stone age. This is one of the reasons Evil always devours itself -- it is too varied, and each has no compunctions against destroying the others.

Anyways, as long as a follower acts strongly to advance the god's goals, there is no reason that even an evil god will not grant him some gifts so as to better persue the gods cause.

Just to point out that not all evil equals greed, debauchery or even lust for power. In D&D, as in the real world, there can be many shades of evil indeed.