Character Problem

[Greenfield]

Well, from the group feedback I've gotten so far,the other DMs/Players like the guy himself. He's a strong roleplayer, which is always nice to have.

His character, on the other hand, is a bit on the power-gamerish side for us.

Now to be fair, he had no idea what relative power level we were playing with, so it's not surprising that he missed the mark on that.

As for the character itself...

The True Necromancer PRC has some specific prerequisites. Alignment can be any non-good, has to be able to cast Summon Undead II as a Divine spell, and Control Undead as an Arcane spell. Must have Rebuke Undead and access to the Death domain. A few Knowledge requirements, and the feat Spell Focus: Necromancy.

Rebuke Undead and the Death domain are both characteristics of a Cleric of an Evil deity. The Vow of Poverty and the associated Exalted feats require that a person be of Good alignment.

So, to play the alignment gymnast on his behalf, let's presume that he reached True Necromancer, then underwent an epiphany and went Good. Atonement or something similar.

As soon as his Alignment goes Good, he loses his Cleric abilities, since he's more than one notch away from his deity on the Good/Evil scale. If I were the DM running that, I'd require that he renounce his evil ways as part of the Atonement. That means no more True Necromancer. But I wasn't the DM, that happened in creation story, so we'll give it to him for the moment.

Even given that, as soon as his Alignment goes Good, he loses his Cleric abilities, since he's more than one notch away from his deity on the Good/Evil scale.

He would only start to get Exalted feats after he took the Vow. That perk of the Vow is not retroactive. So he'd have to lose pretty much all of those Feats.

Next is the level requirement... Summon Undead II is a second level spell, so Cleric 3 would give him that.

Command Undead is Wiz/Sorc 7, so he'd have to be Wiz 13 or Sorcerer 14.

Add in the True Necromancer level and he's a minimum 17th level character, 18th if he went the Sorcerer route. (BTW: He went the Sorcerer route). Add in the two level bump for Half Vampire and we're talking about 19th or 20th. (Savage Progression isn't applicable for an inherited template, and if he wanted to buy off the ECL adjustments we'd have to dock him the appropruate EXP off his starting amount.)

His character is supposedly 12th level. So he's about 6 levels short of where he'd have to be to have that build, 8 when you look at the ECL.

Then there's the nonsense about him swinging a Lucern hammer of Adamantine and Dark Metal, while under a Vow of Poverty.

I think I have to cast Dispel BS on his character and ask him to start over. What he has isn't in the same time zone as legal.

A few mistakes, like thinking Masterworked was allowed under the Vow, those we could overlook. He's way beyond that though.

 

[Ryujin]

The Book of Exalted Deeds is 3.5. You're probably thinking of its sister splat, the Book of Vile Darkness, which is 3.0. That said, 3.0 stuff can explicitly be grandfathered into 3.5 if it hasn't been updated in 3.5, but it's still up to the DM.

Thanks for the correction. I thought it was the other way around.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

His character is supposedly 12th level. So he's about 6 levels short of where he'd have to be to have that build, 8 when you look at the ECL.

Shenanigans! If this guy isn't blatantly cheating, this must be his first time playing a ttrpg. (Not just D&D 3.x; any ttrpg.) Or he has the math skills of a 2nd grader. When someone says "Our campaign is 12th level," you don't show up out of the blue with anything higher-level than that.

Honestly, the VoP shouldn't be an issue; at the lowest levels, it provides a few more benefits than WBL. But it quickly evens out, and then falls behind WBL at later levels. If the group is at ~12th level, he's losing more than he's gaining.

And the lucern hammer is hardly game-breaking. But he's clearly playing fast and loose with the rules, and dollars to donuts, he knows it. Telling him to respec his character to, ya know, follow the rules and table standards would be the very mildest of my responses. I'd consider booting him immediately; and if the other players don't mind him cheating, they can invite him back when they take the DM chair.

 

[Greenfield]

I have some stupid on my face right about now. The difference between Command Undead and Control Undead is about 5 levels. His character doesn't need to be 20th level, or 18th level or anything like that. 4 levels of Sorcerer and 3 levels of Cleric will do it. Add the True Necromancer level and two levels for ECL and he's well under the limit.

 

[Elf Witch]

Like others have said I would sit down and talk to him and explain that the character was made not following the rules. I would then help figure how to legally make a close as possible the concept he was looking for. I don't think the vow of poverty is broken if used correctly. We often use feats and things from the book of exalted deeds to make them work you have to role play a good character character I should say an above average in the goodness department.

 

[Empirate]

An important consideration concerning the "powergaming" issue: from a pure optimization standpoint, this character sucks. I mean it sucks black-hole-hard. At 12th effective character level, this PC will be a Half-Vampire Sorcerer 4/Cleric 3/True Necromancer 3. This lets him cast as a 6th level Sorcerer and a 5th level Cleric. 3rd level spells in a 12th level campaign, yay!

This doesn't even consider the pure suck he has loaded himself with to even enter True Necromancer: the Death domain isn't even useful for a necromancer, ironically; Command Undead is a very crappy spell to choose for a Sorcerer; he rebukes as a 7th level Cleric, which will affect absolutely nothing at the level he's at; Create Undead, a sort-of signature power of the TN, lets you create a Ghast, which does nothing at the level he's at; he has some MAD issues due to two needed casting stats; he has low HP for a Cleric build, and a BAB of +5 (you can count the BAB on one hand!), so no matter what his Lucern Hammer is made of, he'll never connect with an attack; and so on.

This isn't powergaming, this is simply horrible. Don't let him do it.

 

[Ryujin]

Like others have said I would sit down and talk to him and explain that the character was made not following the rules. I would then help figure how to legally make a close as possible the concept he was looking for. I don't think the vow of poverty is broken if used correctly. We often use feats and things from the book of exalted deeds to make them work you have to role play a good character character I should say an above average in the goodness department.

Hence why I only played a character with Vow of Poverty for a short while. It caused rather a lot of tension, given that my fellow party members could have best been described as mercenary b*tards.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

So, to play the alignment gymnast on his behalf, let's presume that he reached True Necromancer, then underwent an epiphany and went Good. Atonement or something similar.

It sounds like you have a good handle on the situation but creating backstory rationales to circumvent alignment restrictions would make me very wary. Obviously it's a blatant attempt to undermine the spirit of Vow of Poverty and True Necromancer and any mechanical balance that the alignment restrictions are intended to impose. But if a player is willing to go to those lengths during character creation I would be wary about how they'll interpret the rules (and spirit of the rules) at the table.

 

[Greenfield]

An important consideration concerning the "powergaming" issue: from a pure optimization standpoint, this character sucks. I mean it sucks black-hole-hard. At 12th effective character level, this PC will be a Half-Vampire Sorcerer 4/Cleric 3/True Necromancer 3. This lets him cast as a 6th level Sorcerer and a 5th level Cleric. 3rd level spells in a 12th level campaign, yay!

This doesn't even consider the pure suck he has loaded himself with to even enter True Necromancer: the Death domain isn't even useful for a necromancer, ironically; Command Undead is a very crappy spell to choose for a Sorcerer; he rebukes as a 7th level Cleric, which will affect absolutely nothing at the level he's at; Create Undead, a sort-of signature power of the TN, lets you create a Ghast, which does nothing at the level he's at; he has some MAD issues due to two needed casting stats; he has low HP for a Cleric build, and a BAB of +5 (you can count the BAB on one hand!), so no matter what his Lucern Hammer is made of, he'll never connect with an attack; and so on.

This isn't powergaming, this is simply horrible. Don't let him do it.

Well, he's a Sorcerer with a Charisma of 26 at 12th level, and an AC of 32. That's several points higher than anyone else in the party.

I'm going to do an audit on the character to see what he can actually do (as opposed to what he's tried to do so far).

But whether he's overpowered or underpowered, I suspect that in the end he'll end up making a new character. This one isn't legal.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

But I wasn't the DM, that happened in creation story, so we'll give it to him for the moment.

Hang on a sec. By the reasoning there, it looks like you guys allow any character created to hang out "for the moment" while you chat about how to deal with it. Is this correct? If so, you should probably work on it since allowing a character in the door is only going to cause more problems if you kick him out of the house so to speak.

Since you have multiple DMs, you guys really need to come together and review the characters before they come into the game. Does the character even have a proper sheet to review?

Also, none of your other players have a 32 AC, even at 12? What are your other characters and defenses? Given the attack bonuses most monsters have at that level, 32 should almost be expected.