Is Vow of Poverty broken?

[Moon-Lancer]

in most situations, atonment wouldent work on someone who dident truely are not in remose... at least i think so...?

anway vop is a hard line to walk. It would be nice for a dm to allow atonments for vop. It would make me feel alot safer playing vop. My guess is, in that situation of enevatable world distruction, a vop charicter might minipulate a downed charicter to use the artifact, insted of himself.

Much like Genie in disneys Aladin?

 

[Cheiromancer]

I like Rystil Arden's example.

I think it illustrates that VoP is indeed broken; not necessarily in the sense that it is overpowered, but that whoever balanced it left no margin for error. Even a campaign where there are no alignment dilemmas and no one has any doubts about what a paladin should do- even such a campaign could run into trouble with VoP.

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[Conaill]

Simply put, IMHO, if the Ascetic is put in a situation of VoP vs World destruction, he should not lose the benefits of his VoP because he chose the greater good.

I would rephrase that:

The player should not be punished because his VoP character chose the greater good.

This leaves open the possibility of the PC making a true sacrifice for the greater good. Otherwise, you may as well say "the DM should never kill a PC because he chose the greater good". How the player is rewarded for his roleplaying is up to the DM. Reinstatement of VoP powers after saving the world is one option. Letting him keep his VoP powers is another (although perhaps less inetersting from a pure Rp perspective). Making up for the loss fo VoP powers through other benefits would be acceptable as well.

As long as the player doesn't come away from the experience thinking "well that sucked... next time I'm following the RAW instead of roleplaying my character's beliefs accurately"...

 

[Artoomis]

I would rephrase that:

The player should not be punished because his VoP character chose the greater good.

This leaves open the possibility of the PC making a true sacrifice for the greater good. Otherwise, you may as well say "the DM should never kill a PC because he chose the greater good". How the player is rewarded for his roleplaying is up to the DM. Reinstatement of VoP powers after saving the world is one option. Letting him keep his VoP powers is another (although perhaps less inetersting from a pure Rp perspective). Making up for the loss fo VoP powers through other benefits would be acceptable as well.

As long as the player doesn't come away from the experience thinking "well that sucked... next time I'm following the RAW instead of roleplaying my character's beliefs accurately"...

Exactly.

Seems to me I said exactly this quite some number of posts ago!

 

[Conaill]

Exactly.

Seems to me I said exactly this quite some number of posts ago!

Well, not *exactly* the same. Besides, great truths deserve to be repeated.


Meanwhile, I still don't have an answer to the eminently practical question I asked earlier:

How is the VoP character supposed to donate his share of the proceeds of the adventure, if he isn't even allowed to carry the loot out of the dungeon in the first place?

In a more extreme example: What if he is the only survivor of a near-TPK... is he allowed to gather his former companion's belongings and return them to their families or donate them to charity? Or is he obliged to leave all that wealth where it lies, no matter who it might benefit?

How about carrying an evil artifact to its place of destruction? In this case he never intends to use it, he may not even be able to use it, or using it may only harm rather than benefit him. But there's no doubt it's actually in his posession...

If the RAW void the VoP under these circumstances, what would be a good houserule to deal with them? Especially for the "carrying his share of the loot to be donated" situation, which is bound to come up in most campaigns.


PS: I don't have the VoP in front of me, so if someone knows of a way around these situations within the RAW, please do pipe up!

 

[Dimwhit]

How is the VoP character supposed to donate his share of the proceeds of the adventure, if he isn't even allowed to carry the loot out of the dungeon in the first place?

A question: where does it say a VoP character isn't allowed to carry stuff? The wording is "you may not own or use any material possessions, except..." Doesn't say you can't carry loot that is going to be donated. Doesn't say you can't carry a companion's gold if he's incapacitated. You just can own stuff or use it. With that wording, you could carry the party artifact strapped to your back, but if you ever use it or claim/assume ownership of it, then you've broken your vow.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Actually, the real wording is: "You may carry and use..."

Once again, another indication that the VoP is poorly written.

RAW, an Ascetic cannot carry an incapacitated person to safety, or a deceased person to a proper burial.

I'll stick to my looser version of the VoP, thank you- call it HR if you will- that conforms to the spirtit, if not the letter, of the VoP by allowing things like divine foci and dead people to be carried without penalty.

 

[Aus_Snow]

*snip*

Dannyalcatraz, why did you have to go doing that?

. . . making sense, that is.

IT'S NOT IN THE RAW!!!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Its that damn law degree...I keep looking for "drafter's intent," reading between the lines, etc. :\

 

[Rystil Arden]

If the RAW void the VoP under these circumstances, what would be a good houserule to deal with them? Especially for the "carrying his share of the loot to be donated" situation, which is bound to come up in most campaigns.

I would say that the most fair way to houserule it is that the VoP character is only allowed to carry objects of value in his sack if anything that enters in his sack is considered to not exist until it gets to charity (or its destination if it is something else). That means if he is going to donate the healing potions of his part of the share to charity and he puts it in his bag and everyone in the party is about to die without those potions, he still cannot use those potions without breaking the vow. Same goes for if they find a magic sword and give it to the VoP character to donate and then the fighter's sword is sundered the next fight--he cannot lend it to the fighter for the next battle.