Is Vow of Poverty broken?

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yep, that's what I'm saying. I'm about 90% sure that there's at least one Druid spell where mistletoe is the component. Don't remember what it is, though. (And, to be honest, I don't even know if it was 3.0 or 3.5.

Well, I took a look. Of the Druid spells in 3.5 with M components that are not DF: Fire Seeds requires acorns or holly berries; Fire Seeds requires 25gp of gold dust; Ironwood requires shaped wood; Jump requires a grashopper leg; Longstrider a pinch of dirt; Move Earth requires a bag of mixed dirt; Spider Climb requires eating both a live spider and bitumen; Stoneskin requires granite and 250gp of diamond dust; Sympathy requires 1500gp of crushed pearls and a drop of honey; True Seeing requires 250gp of an ointment made of fat, mushrooms and saffron; Unhallow (yes, I know its an evil spell, but I'm including it for completeness) requires herbs & oils of 1000gp, +1000gp/spell level of spell linked to the base spell.

Oddly enough, Hallow, not only requires the same herbs & oils, but unlike its evil counterpart, requires a divine focus.

The spell you're thinking of may be a 3.0 spell.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

No, not at all. A sorceror or wizard with VoP is too powerful.

A wizard with VoP isn't allowed to own a spellbook. A sorcerer might indeed have an advantage.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

By the raw, a wizard cannot gain much benefit from vop as it narfs his class abilities...

Grr... nerf! It's nerf! Like the toy. A nerf sword does less damage than a steel sword, hence the analogy.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Continuing the chain of thought from post #110:

Modeling any of the Apostles in D20 would require the VoP, yet they were the ones who set up the structures of the early Christian church, including the rites and rituals that spells like Atonement were based on, and performed such acts that spells like Bless and Tongues were based on.

And yet VoP RAW would prevent them from doing just those things...

 

[Moon-Lancer]

i feel sad for anyone that reads vop and applys raw to it. You have more problems then just vop.

 

[Dimwhit]

i feel sad for anyone that reads vop and applys raw to it. You have more problems then just vop.

Wait for it...

 

[Dinkeldog]

Moon-Lancer, I know you're new here, so I'm going to leave just a warning.

In the future, please refrain from blanket statements like that. One of the things we enjoy at ENWorld is a level of civility that is not served by stirring up a raw vs. non-raw political camp debate.

 

[Elric]

Is VoP overpowered in a campaign where you have a normal amount of wealth that you get to spend relatively freely? In general, no. Rystil has this right- the freedom to choose your magic items is worth a lot. That said, this won't always be the case.

It's threads like this that make me think that the D&D Rules Forum creates more problems than it solves at times. Mutants and Masterminds (2nd edition) has a great Rule Number One: The first, and most important, rule of Mutants and Masterminds is: Do whatever is the most fun for your game.

People have different preferences about things like this so it's often best if they do things in different ways. If you can't figure out how Grapple works, I assume this forum is great. If you want to know how VoP works and everything turns into an endless ego battle played out through D&D rules- not so great.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's threads like this that make me think that the D&D Rules Forum creates more problems than it solves at times.

Nah...it may get heated, but it does get people thinking! Especially about the way they phrase things. This is important not just for understanding this game's rules, but any game's rules-or any kind of conceptually dense text for that matter.

Discussions like this help not only gamers, but the game designers out there (pro and would-bes).

My first year of law school, I was taking Criminal Law with a professor who had helped on (what was at the time) the most recent revision of Tx Penal law. He was discussing a particular one when a hand in the class shot up...

A young lady who was ESL (english as a second language) was confused by the law and asked how you could apply it in a particular case. He told her how. She then pointed out that the language of the law didn't permit what the prof was saying.

He stopped. Looked. Read. Thought.

The language of the law was seemingly very specific, but it had a second, contradictory interpretation due to a little sloppy drafting and the inherent sloppiness of English that makes it so hard for non-natives to learn.

He said he'd point out the problem to his fellow drafters, and shortly after he did, the law's language was tightened up.

 

[amethal]

Rangers can use quarterstaffs or slings to get by as normal with their combat styles.

Dammit, now you've got me wanting to play a vow of poverty Ranger.

Living off the land, getting by on nature's bounty, helping the honest folk of remote communities - and smiting the bad guys with his trademark quarterstaff.

Couldn't you have waited until after payday before making me want the BoED?