D&D 3E/3.5 Coming back to D&D after 15 years.... Vow of poverty problems (3.5)

[NuSair]

I am reading the books as I can. It's quite an undertaking. I spend the first week or so working on the story and world building. I prefer to build my own worlds and use things like modules and existing material as supplements.

There are a number of old modules I want to get my hands on that I really like the content to add.

In response- a character would never willingly- that seems to take the choice out of the characters hands. And especially for role play reasons, I think there should be good and bad that come from it and hard choices to be made. I'll need to find sometime to sit down and read that book in whole.

 

[NuSair]

Remember that VoP only comes with Exalted status--gooder than a Paladin. This is a substantial limit (and as far as I'm concerned an absolute reason to exclude it from PCs--the DM has to ensure there is a good path out of the situation as to do otherwise is to destroy the character.) but it's still unbalanced in a low-magic world.

It's also stupidly designed, absolutely prohibiting actions which are within the spirit of the rule and yet permitting others that to me are in violation of it.

The more I look at VoP, the more I like the idea of it, but not the implementation. Example- I could see a knight/paladin taking it and keeping his armor/shield/sword. Maybe they were his father/grandfather/mothers, ect- and he has taken the vow to atone for some of his family's past misdeeds. He gives up everything except the armor and sword (kind of reminds me of Sturm Brightblade from Dragonlance). Anyway...

 

[Loren Pechtel]

As for putting him in a position to lose it I have very mixed feelings about this. Unless you build the encounter so that he truly has a choice in what to do then you are screwing him over. He loses the feat and the feat slot. And you are using your DM power to take something away you allowed in the game in the first place.

The DM can devise the adventure so there's a good solution but what happens when the PC misses it?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

@Loren Pechtel I've always treated it as Vow of Poverty, not Vow of Stupidity. If your VoP character is making a trek across the desert on a religious pilgrimage, then there is no reason why he shouldn't be able to bring enough water to reach the next oasis despite the text saying you can only have enough for one day.

That's actually a more minor aspect of the problem.

A bigger issue: Lets say we have a cleric VoP character in an inn at the side of the road, there's nobody else anywhere around. The cleric is out of spells for the day.

A man comes up to him: My wife is very sick and won't live through the night. I know you have no spells left but I have a scroll of cure disease here. Please use it and save her!

By the rules of the VoP refusing and letting the woman die is the right course of action, yet I can't see it as anything but a great evil.

Yet the same VoP cleric could accept a potion of cure disease from someone and use it on himself without having done anything wrong.

 

[Elf Witch]

The DM can devise the adventure so there's a good solution but what happens when the PC misses it?

The DM can never guarantee that a player will figure out the clues or the right plot hooks and if that happens then it is a part of the game and on the players head. A player missing something is far different than setting up a Situation to take something away from the player. Making a player choice only save lives and lose abilities or let people die and keep abilities is hardly a choice and with exalted feats he loses no matter what he does. Letting people die when you could save them is hardly a good deed especially if it is done for selfish reasons.

I am all for a good moral dilemma in a game but it should not be a lose lose situation unless you know your players enjoy that kind of thing some don't.

 

[Grogg of the North]

That's actually a more minor aspect of the problem.

A bigger issue: Lets say we have a cleric VoP character in an inn at the side of the road, there's nobody else anywhere around. The cleric is out of spells for the day.

A man comes up to him: My wife is very sick and won't live through the night. I know you have no spells left but I have a scroll of cure disease here. Please use it and save her!

By the rules of the VoP refusing and letting the woman die is the right course of action, yet I can't see it as anything but a great evil.

Yet the same VoP cleric could accept a potion of cure disease from someone and use it on himself without having done anything wrong.

Indeed, we had that very conversation the last time I was in a group with a VoP character. Except it was more along the lines of "What do you mean I can't heal the party with a scroll if they're bleeding to death! That's stupid!"

Shortly there after, the group's munchkin was suggesting the VoP character take leadership and have all the followers arming crossbows to hand to her. Since a crossbow is a simple weapon she could have used them since there's no limit on what you can carry so long as its simple, non-magical, and non-masterwork.

 

[Grogg of the North]

The DM can never guarantee that a player will figure out the clues or the right plot hooks and if that happens then it is a part of the game and on the players head. A player missing something is far different than setting up a Situation to take something away from the player. Making a player choice only save lives and lose abilities or let people die and keep abilities is hardly a choice and with exalted feats he loses no matter what he does. Letting people die when you could save them is hardly a good deed especially if it is done for selfish reasons.

I am all for a good moral dilemma in a game but it should not be a lose lose situation unless you know your players enjoy that kind of thing some don't.

It is my sincere hope that in the next iteration of D&D they include the Kensai Oath sidebar from CW in every section that has to deal with alignment and ways to lose your abilities.

 

[Ryujin]

The more I look at VoP, the more I like the idea of it, but not the implementation. Example- I could see a knight/paladin taking it and keeping his armor/shield/sword. Maybe they were his father/grandfather/mothers, ect- and he has taken the vow to atone for some of his family's past misdeeds. He gives up everything except the armor and sword (kind of reminds me of Sturm Brightblade from Dragonlance). Anyway...

In the one campaign in which I played a VoP character the DM permitted a character concept, that was patently against the rules. I could keep one thing; the Masterwork longsword, that I had made myself. This permitted me to play a Kensai, based on Fighter and Monk, which requires the ownership of one Masterwork weapon. As a wandering itinerant swordsman, helping the poor and downtrodden with my (soon to be) legendary blade, I was still the weakest member of the party.

It's not just the rules, it's the player too.

 

[Elf Witch]

I made a few adjustments to VOP because as others have said some of the restrictions are lame. I will allow a paladin who has taken the VOP to use masterwork armor and one magical weapon as long as the rest of his wealth goes to doing good. I will allow clerics who basically the same. And where scrolls are concerned it is simple the cleric or paladin can use healing type to save other people.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I made a few adjustments to VOP because as others have said some of the restrictions are lame. I will allow a paladin who has taken the VOP to use masterwork armor and one magical weapon as long as the rest of his wealth goes to doing good. I will allow clerics who basically the same. And where scrolls are concerned it is simple the cleric or paladin can use healing type to save other people.

My take on the magic item use rules: A VoP character can freely use the property of others for the aid of others--all forms of "please use this on me" type requests are ok so long as they are compatible with Exalted status.

However, the VoP character can't accept potions or the like to use on himself.

A VoP character also does not lose his status through the "use" of a magic item whose use can't reasonably be avoided. He doesn't lose his VoP status from bringing home a luckstone (although he must dispose of it at the first good opportunity to do so) and he can even put loot (but not anything of his own) in a magical storage container.

He's also free to carry as much food and water as is necessary to reach the next place they can be obtained.

It's all rather moot to me as I would never allow an Exalted character in the first place.