Rogue with Vow of Poverty

[Phasics]

Anyone ever atempted to play such a charcter ?


Now the iconic robin hood springs to mind but thats just boring.

In my mind more intersting opporunites exist such as stealing gold and equipment from not only the public but also your fellow party members when you see poor people in the street, sneaking off undected and then sneaking back without anyone the wiser. You are the parties involentary hand of giving, and other players often find themselves.......
PC:"I take out some gold to pay for my new +1 sword"
DM: "you find your purse is emtpy "
PC: "DAMMIT NOT AGAIN !"

or better yet
DM: "and the battle begins"
PC: "I activate my gold amulet of protection"
DM: "you find the amulet is no longer around your neck"
PC: "OMFG come here rogue ! YOUR GONNA DIE FIRST !"
DM: "while atempting to draw your sword you find only an emtpy scabbard"
PC: "NNRAGHHHHHH"

Even more fun would be trying to keep what your doing a secret from the rest of the group, although in RL they would know what your doing if there worth thier salt in RP they'll have to keep playing as if they dont know unless you get caught. Unless of course you start passing notes to the DM hehehe.

would make an excellent NPC is nothing else

 

[Crothian]

Anyone ever atempted to play such a charcter ?

Not like you describe. I'd find it annoying and at best I'd need a damn good reason to keep your character in the group. Of course that wouldn't matter muchg because we'd be dead since you stole the weapons we were going to defend outselves with.

 

[AuraSeer]

would make an excellent NPC is nothing else

I'll go with "nothing else." Stealing from other party members is a good way to derail a campaign, and a great way to make people angry IRL. The "I was just playing my character" excuse does not work with my group.

 

[ph34r]

Stealing from your party members hurts you just as much as them in the long run. Doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.

 

[Thunderfoot]

A rogue with a vow of poverty is a great idea. What you described is not what you advertised. A vow of poverty means you cannot collect wealth; stealing from others to give to someone else is charitable, but has nothing to do with a vow of poverty.
I wouldn't allow you to play this character as described. Your first mistake is thinking that a rogue means thief - if you wanted a character with a rogue sub-type and one that could fit the giving to the needy character hook, play a disillusioned noble that is heavy in "political" skills (diplomacy, sense motive, bluff, etc.). Or perhaps a former merchant that uses appraisal and such to garner greater wages on retrieved items from dungeons to further relieve the burden of the needy. But outright theft from the party is a good way to end up naked and bound being dragged through a dungeon as monster bait (seen it done, I'm not kidding.)

 

[Sound of Azure]

As others above have stated, stealing from other party members tends to be a very bad idea. In most cases, it breaks the social contract and can promote mistrust and resentment with the group (both RL and in-game).

Certainly not something an Exalted-type character wants to do.

Taking the idea of a VOP Rogue, though...

I had the pleasure of getting to know this one fellow a couple of years ago. I met him playing chess in a park one day, and he invited me to play. I wasn't very good, but he encouraged me a lot. I found out later that day that he was a homeless guy, and feeling bad for him I gave him some change before I had to head home. He accepted the money, but he also gave much of it to some other people in the park, who'd been gathering there. He said they needed it more.

This guy, he was very kind and generous. Life had just given him a poor hand in recent times. I observed him standing up for others (he certainly knew how to sneak attack! ), as well as defusing violence and conflict. He also showed me to many places I didn't know about in my new city, and illuminated a lot of local history and flavour. I also got to meet a number of other great and wise people because of that man. I still remember him fondly, though I've since moved away from the area.

If I were to make a VOP Rogue, it'd be like my old friend. I'd recommend reading the first couple of chapters carefully in the Book of Exalted Deeds before starting on your PC. Playing an exalted character is tough, and I think you could have a lot of fun with such a canny, wise, and generous character that your fellow players can love too.
Good luck!

 

[Greylock]

To sum up:

Player vs. party is bad. Very bad. Don't do it.

I hope someone out there I know sees this.

 

[Fieari]

If you want to play stealing from other characters, play Paranoia. If you play a communist, you might even get to play the very character you refer to above!

And yet, somehow, I see the Paranoia character as having a longer potential lifespan than the D&D version...

 

[Terwox]

A rogue with vow of poverty is cool. Robbing the party is not, very few people would have fun playing with a character like this in the party. I know I would not.

 

[Phasics]

heh I agree my interpretation was probably a bit simplistic and unresearched, borderline poor humor

But in all seriousness my idea for a rogue with VOP is a rogue who was initall a very greedy little hoarder of much wealth who end up changing his ways give away all his possesions but is not quite satisfied. He sees wealth in all forms to be unbalencing and seeks a balence initally resorting to stealing and donating to spread the wealth but eveuntally learns more ingenious methods of persusaion are required to achive his goals. Perhaps Vow of Poverty is not the correct calling of such a charcter as evuntaully I could see this charcter inciting revolutions, topoling govenments and even installing his own puppet government to achive his ends.

Guess I'll just have to wait for my copy of exalted deeds to arrive as I'm just working off 3rd hand info at the moment. Any who got the book got any alternatives on such a charcter