Vow of Poverty isn't a problem as long as he hasn't taken any equipment yet. It has no alignment requirements, only poverty requirements. Everything else can be regained through an atonement. RAW, as long as the character hasn't broken the specifics of the vow, no magical equipment, money, armor, or weapons beyond mundane simple weapons, he still has all effects. If the character has, the feat it lost and he can't replace it, RAW.
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Tomb of Horrors, Alignment Change and Gender Bending....*sigh*
- Thread starter Brace Cormaeril
- Start date
Herzog
Adventurer
Interesting.
It's an Exalted Feat, but you don't seem to loose Exalted Feats simply by gaining an evil alignment (you must actually perform an evil act), although you won't be able to aquire them if your alignment isn't Good.
About the retraining:
I'm not too sure about that. The VoP text is:
1. There is no way to replace the feat, not even with retraining.
2. You cannot replace the feat once you have lost the benefits.
Both seem equally valid.
Normally, I'd enforce 1, since you don't want your players to abuse exalted feats (especially feats like vow of poverty)
However, in case of a forced changed alignment, I'd allow 2 as long as the replacement is taken before any actual evil act, assuming the character wants 'roll with the changes'.
Avoiding abuse of exalted feats is one thing. But there is no excuse for screwing over a character for good roleplay.
It's an Exalted Feat, but you don't seem to loose Exalted Feats simply by gaining an evil alignment (you must actually perform an evil act), although you won't be able to aquire them if your alignment isn't Good.
About the retraining:
I'm not too sure about that. The VoP text is:
I can read that two ways:
1. There is no way to replace the feat, not even with retraining.
2. You cannot replace the feat once you have lost the benefits.
Both seem equally valid.
Normally, I'd enforce 1, since you don't want your players to abuse exalted feats (especially feats like vow of poverty)
However, in case of a forced changed alignment, I'd allow 2 as long as the replacement is taken before any actual evil act, assuming the character wants 'roll with the changes'.
Avoiding abuse of exalted feats is one thing. But there is no excuse for screwing over a character for good roleplay.
Jack Simth
First Post
I can't remember *where* unfortunately, but there's a note about using negative levels instead if a player refuses to conform to an alignment change - which, considering an evil character would want to keep all their power, makes sense, no?
Alternately:
If the character is not permitted to actually break the vows / perform evil acts, the character simply stops qualifying for the feats, and loses them that way - but they're not broken, so if you can get the character restored "in time", you're fine.
Alternately:
If the character is not permitted to actually break the vows / perform evil acts, the character simply stops qualifying for the feats, and loses them that way - but they're not broken, so if you can get the character restored "in time", you're fine.
CAFargo
First Post
My (slightly rude) solution is simple: don't be a dick! (I really hope your the DM, cause this is designed for the DM to fix it.) On the other hand, pretend to be using the RAW.
Give the players a chance to stop the dungeon regen (a magic orb, etc) that they can get by fighting a few more monsters and finding it. Then, allow them to find a tunnel so that they can get out to get an atonement. Of course, make sure the characters don't know this! Make sure you seem to follow the RAW.
Give the players a chance to stop the dungeon regen (a magic orb, etc) that they can get by fighting a few more monsters and finding it. Then, allow them to find a tunnel so that they can get out to get an atonement. Of course, make sure the characters don't know this! Make sure you seem to follow the RAW.
Man in the Funny Hat
Hero
Forced, random change of gender or alignment can ONLY be interpreted as a direct, PURE ROLEPLAYING challenge by the adventure designer to the player. It has crap-all to do with anything else about the game. If your character changes gender then (in 3E at least) it has no functional impact upon your characters actions. It's strictly a challenge to then roleplay the character as a person of a different gender. If your character changes alignment it's a different story - but only if the character has alignment restrictions from his class or gear that remain unchanged. Aside from that there is little functional mechanical change if any. It's just a challenge (even greater than gender I'd say) to then roleplay from that point given the instant, new alignment.
Now, whether he thought about it or not (generally not) the DM has tacitly agreed to present this ROLEPLAYING challenge to the player. This is a sudden and DRASTIC slap in the face to however the game may have been proceeding to this point. What it comes down to is that the PLAYER DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS. They player created the character he CREATED, NOT the character that has suddenly been FORCED upon him regardless of what similarities this new one has to the old one. Players need not and MUST NOT be FORCED to live with this. It is entirely possible that the player is not up to the challenge or simply doesn't want to ACCEPT the challenge.
Any DM who insists that a player accept and play out this roleplaying challenge is a jerk. There's just no other way of putting it. It is the PLAYERS choice to accept this challenge and the DM's OBLIGATION to allow the player the relatively painless opportunity to reverse this kind of change. It is NO different - NONE - than if the DM tore your character sheet out of your hands, handed you a sheet for a character of an entirely different class, race, gear, etc. and said, "You WILL now play this character instead whether you want to or not."
In such modules these things are never PRESENTED that way of course. They're just amusing little slaps to the players - but like any excessive practical joke or even a simple pie-in-the-face it STOPS being funny when it STARTS being YOU. Frequently I've found that players would even prefer to have a character permanently killed than to be FORCED to such an ignominious end as it so easily destroys ALL desire to continue to play that character. Why wouldn't it since it is NOT the character you created, played and built up over time?
What needs to happen then is that you need to present these roleplaying facts-of-life to the DM. If the player is willing to accept the challenge then by gods the DM had better have some suitable rewards coming to the player eventually for playing through it. If the player is NOT willing to accept the challenge, however, then the DM should provide some means of smoothly resuming the characters former incarnation with a minimum of fuss and bother.
The SOLE exception to all of the above is if there was AMPLE warning about these kinds of possibilities (and we're not just talking about cryptic riddles the player never saw or a statement like, "Gosh, you'd better make THIS save!"), the player made a CHOICE to accept the risks, and now is faced with living with the consequences of taking that risk.
Aside from all that I'd have to know a LOT more about the character, the party, and the game events from character creation to present to be able to meaningfully suggest how the player might deal with it IF he chose to.
I really REALLY despise screwing with PC's this way. Even though I once engaged in this kind of crap myself I find it difficult to be sympathetic in ANY way to any DM who allows it.
Now, whether he thought about it or not (generally not) the DM has tacitly agreed to present this ROLEPLAYING challenge to the player. This is a sudden and DRASTIC slap in the face to however the game may have been proceeding to this point. What it comes down to is that the PLAYER DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS. They player created the character he CREATED, NOT the character that has suddenly been FORCED upon him regardless of what similarities this new one has to the old one. Players need not and MUST NOT be FORCED to live with this. It is entirely possible that the player is not up to the challenge or simply doesn't want to ACCEPT the challenge.
Any DM who insists that a player accept and play out this roleplaying challenge is a jerk. There's just no other way of putting it. It is the PLAYERS choice to accept this challenge and the DM's OBLIGATION to allow the player the relatively painless opportunity to reverse this kind of change. It is NO different - NONE - than if the DM tore your character sheet out of your hands, handed you a sheet for a character of an entirely different class, race, gear, etc. and said, "You WILL now play this character instead whether you want to or not."
In such modules these things are never PRESENTED that way of course. They're just amusing little slaps to the players - but like any excessive practical joke or even a simple pie-in-the-face it STOPS being funny when it STARTS being YOU. Frequently I've found that players would even prefer to have a character permanently killed than to be FORCED to such an ignominious end as it so easily destroys ALL desire to continue to play that character. Why wouldn't it since it is NOT the character you created, played and built up over time?
What needs to happen then is that you need to present these roleplaying facts-of-life to the DM. If the player is willing to accept the challenge then by gods the DM had better have some suitable rewards coming to the player eventually for playing through it. If the player is NOT willing to accept the challenge, however, then the DM should provide some means of smoothly resuming the characters former incarnation with a minimum of fuss and bother.
The SOLE exception to all of the above is if there was AMPLE warning about these kinds of possibilities (and we're not just talking about cryptic riddles the player never saw or a statement like, "Gosh, you'd better make THIS save!"), the player made a CHOICE to accept the risks, and now is faced with living with the consequences of taking that risk.
Aside from all that I'd have to know a LOT more about the character, the party, and the game events from character creation to present to be able to meaningfully suggest how the player might deal with it IF he chose to.
I really REALLY despise screwing with PC's this way. Even though I once engaged in this kind of crap myself I find it difficult to be sympathetic in ANY way to any DM who allows it.
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Jack Simth
First Post
Oh, also (spoiler):
Two more trips through the door will solve his problems ... painfully.
Herobizkit
Adventurer
It is my understanding that the Tomb of Horrors was designed specifically to mess with players and is virtually unwinnable on purpose. The fun was in HOW you died, and how often...
Jack Simth
First Post
The original, yes. The 3.5 revision? Not quite so much, especially if you're building the character towards the module's weaknesses (it is, fundamentally, a one-trick pony with variations... and a handful of other things, but it's about 95% the same trick over and over... which can be foiled, quite easily, in 3.5).
As the DM, if one of my players was having such a hard time with his character, I would sit down with the player and discuss this. D&D is a game, if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong!
Ask the player if he can enjoy his character the way it is as is. If not:
Would he rather have a chance at repairing or roll a new character.
Then as a DM you add a little something to the dungeon. If the players want the repair option maybe: make another room not far beyond the gateway that bears the remains of a 2 people with their loot, including a scroll of atonement. The characters are a paladin and a cleric and the cleric has a stabwound through his heart. Later on they find more corpses (a rogue and a wizard) with their loot killed by something out of the dungeon. Among it a journal describing their paladin changing alignment and the cleric wanting to cast atonement but the paladin stabbed him through the heart at the last moment and attacked the rest of the party who had to kill him in the following struggle. Or something else (maybe your party can summon an extraplanar creature to help (an archon perhaps, they have cleric casing if I recall correctly).
If the player would rather roll a new one well then give him some lovely personal time where an evil something grants him powers and promisses more if he kills the remaining party followed by an epic showdown between him and the rest of the party. Then just treat it as if he died in a trap. In tomb of horrors people die.
Ask the player if he can enjoy his character the way it is as is. If not:
Would he rather have a chance at repairing or roll a new character.
Then as a DM you add a little something to the dungeon. If the players want the repair option maybe: make another room not far beyond the gateway that bears the remains of a 2 people with their loot, including a scroll of atonement. The characters are a paladin and a cleric and the cleric has a stabwound through his heart. Later on they find more corpses (a rogue and a wizard) with their loot killed by something out of the dungeon. Among it a journal describing their paladin changing alignment and the cleric wanting to cast atonement but the paladin stabbed him through the heart at the last moment and attacked the rest of the party who had to kill him in the following struggle. Or something else (maybe your party can summon an extraplanar creature to help (an archon perhaps, they have cleric casing if I recall correctly).
If the player would rather roll a new one well then give him some lovely personal time where an evil something grants him powers and promisses more if he kills the remaining party followed by an epic showdown between him and the rest of the party. Then just treat it as if he died in a trap. In tomb of horrors people die.
