Vow of Poverty and Epic Levels

[Pax]

I'd like opinions on how Vow of Poverty will work with epic levels,

Will more Exalted feats be gained? Of course, the number of feats available will quickly be used up.

Will enhanced boses to stat continue to climb?

Exalted bonus to AC?

Natural AC?

Other bonuses? (DR)

It makes sense that they would continue - perhaps a GM might want to make the ability to do so requyire an Epic version of the feat. Here's what I have in mind, myself, for a snapshot of a 35th level characetr with that same feat:

* Vow of Poverty(35) - many abilities extended above 20th level purely by inference
AC: +15/exalted, +5/deflection, +4/natural
Saving Throws: +6/resistance
Ability Scores: +14, +12, +10, +8, +6 and +4/enhancement
Exalted Strike: +9 enhancement; Good-aligned
Endure Elements (-50F to 140F)
Greater Sustenance (no food, water, or breathing)
Mind Shielding
Damage Redution: 15/evil and epic
Slow Regeneration
True Seeing
Energy Resistance (25), Universal

My rationale behind this is as follows:

Armor Class
... the Exalted Bonus specifically states it increases by +1 per 3 levels.
... the Natural Armor bonus is +1 at 8thlevel, and +2 at 16th level. That's a easily repeated pattern ... +1 per 8 levels.
... the Deflection Bonus also exhibits a simple pattern; it's +1 at 6th level, +2 at 12th, adn +3 at 18th level. Easy enough -- +1 per 6 levels.

Saving Throws
... Resistance Bonus is +1 at 7th level, +2 at 13th level, and +3 at 17th level. This one required more thought - if you were to (intentionally) misread the +2 to occur at 12th level, that would be +1 per 5 levels; I suspect they may have moved the +2 bonus to 13th level simply because 12th level gets a LOT, already. But it's not IMO horribly unbalanced to just say "+1 at 7th level, and +1 for every 5 levels after that". Alternately, you could go 13/17//23/27//33/37, but that's far less intuitive ...

Ability scores
... These accrue at levels 7, 11, 15, and 19. Easily and clearly, one improvement every 4 levels. A GM might want to cap the bonusses at +14 (two higher than normally purchasable in item form, just as with the best pre-Epic bonus), and just allow the others to catch up. S/he may also want to say "only five bonusses total", as well, but that seems less neccessary to me.

Exalted Strike
... This improves at levels 4, 10, 14, and 17; I just continued the "10, 14, 17" pattern to give further improvements at level 20, 24, 27, 30, 34, 37, and so on (consider that another character for the same Arena game owns a Blessed +10 Berserker Spiked Chain, and a +9 enhancement doesn't seem to really be out of bounds, IMO).

Damage Reduction
... I thought this was a fairly simple extrapolation, actually. The original pattern is 10, 15, 19. It looks to me like that last step was bumped down a level, to keep from over-weighting the 20th level with "Good stuff" - so it sems an improvement "of some measure" wold be due approximately every 5 levels. So I went with:

   Level ... DR
    10       5/magic
    15       5/evil
    19       10/evil
    25       10/evil and magic
    25       15/evil and magic
    35       15/evil and epic

Energy Resistance
... first obtained at 13th level, this improves at 20thlevel. No ready pattern there, so I figured another improement every 10 levels was fair - hence, 25 at levels 30-39.

 

[htetickrt]

Both, sort of. I am proposing that taking the Half-Celestial template for the first four levels of Epic advancement is a good (optional) way to start the Epic progression of the Vow of Poverty, which would then pick up again at 25th level.

I think it fits very well with the concept of the Vow of Poverty and being Exalted, plus the stats boosts and other abilities are more-or-less in line with what you'd get from Vow of Poverty for levels 21-25.

Comments?

While I like the idea thematically, I think it is too overpowered to give as part as a natural VoP progression, unless it comes with a level adjustment or the like.

Consider a monk, who arguably gets the least benefit, thanks to his SR, immunity to disease, outsider type, DR, and immunity to poison. With this, within four levels he gets a total of +20 unnamed bonuses to all ability scores, darkvision, wings, a +1 natural armor bonus, daylight at will, and a host of useful spell-like abilities. I'm not sure that the usual VoP progression would give nearly as much, even if it included lesser fortification, mindblank, or immunity to sleep.

Not sure what to do about this, though. I do like the imagery.

 

[Artoomis]

While I like the idea thematically, I think it is too overpowered to give as part as a natural VoP progression, unless it comes with a level adjustment or the like....

Perhaps you didn't notice:

No increase in Hit Dice, base attack bonus, base saving throw bonuses, skill points, ability point increases or feats with level (as normal for ECLs).

It is ECL +4. That's why it takes 4 "levels" to get template. During those 4 "levels" you get no feats, attack bonuses, ability bonuses, etc. except those that come from Half-Celestial. No VoP or monk ability increases for those four levels.

What I am saying is that picking up the Half-Celestial template in place of levels 21-24 of Monk and Vow of Poverty is a possible natural next step for a VoP character. It would be ludicrously overpowered if you got other feats, etc. at the same time. That would be "double-dipping," kind of along the same lines as allowing a character with the "Forsaker" prestige class to also take the Vow of Poverty and then stacking all the benefits together.

I hope that's a bit easier to understand.

 

[htetickrt]

Perhaps you didn't notice:

What I am saying is that picking up the Half-Celestial template in place of levels 21-24 of Monk and Vow of Poverty is a possible natural next step for a VoP character. It would be ludicrously overpowered if you got other feats, etc. at the same time. That would be "double-dipping," kind of along the same lines as allowing a character with the "Forsaker" prestige class to also take the Vow of Poverty and then stacking all the benefits together.

I hope that's a bit easier to understand.

Ah, I had thought that when you said it was a VoP progression, that was all it was. This makes more sense, thanks.

As for comments, I guess I'm still not sure how this would be part of a normal VoP progression. Would all VoP takers have to skip the next four levels of class advancement in order to continue? Or would this just be an option?

Maybe instead there could be one or more exalted epic feats to pick up pieces of the template. Or an epic feat that begins to turn you half-celestial, with an XP cost to take you the rest of the way there.

Otherwise, I'm not sure why you couldn't just suggest your half-celestial progression as your next four class levels, and continue with the VoP progressions as normal.

 

[Artoomis]

Ah, I had thought that when you said it was a VoP progression, that was all it was. This makes more sense, thanks.

As for comments, I guess I'm still not sure how this would be part of a normal VoP progression. Would all VoP takers have to skip the next four levels of class advancement in order to continue? Or would this just be an option?

Maybe instead there could be one or more exalted epic feats to pick up pieces of the template. Or an epic feat that begins to turn you half-celestial, with an XP cost to take you the rest of the way there.

Otherwise, I'm not sure why you couldn't just suggest your half-celestial progression as your next four class levels, and continue with the VoP progressions as normal.

The last paragraph of yours is indeed what I am suggesting. I must have done a really lousy job of making that clear.

I am suggesting that, for a VoP character, it is quite natural to take the half-celestial template as your first four epic levels, and I wanted opinions on that idea.

The idea of having Epic Exalted feats used for picking up some parts of the half-celestial template is a good one, though.

 

[Pax]

... personally, as a GM, I'd just say "take the savage progression". ^_^ ECL != levels, so they wouldn't recursively feed into the VoP that way.

 

[htetickrt]

The last paragraph of yours is indeed what I am suggesting. I must have done a really lousy job of making that clear.

I am suggesting that, for a VoP character, it is quite natural to take the half-celestial template as your first four epic levels, and I wanted opinions on that idea.

The idea of having Epic Exalted feats used for picking up some parts of the half-celestial template is a good one, though.

Sorry, I was confused by the thread. You had posted another one asking questions about your character, so I assumed that this one was an alternative VoP progression.

With regard to the half-celestial progression, I both like the idea, and agree with Pax as to its implementation.

 

[Artoomis]

... personally, as a GM, I'd just say "take the savage progression". ^_^ ECL != levels, so they wouldn't recursively feed into the VoP that way.

That's exactly what I am talking about. There is no defined "savage progression" for the half-celestial, but the half-fiend was presented on the WotC site with a note stating to extrapolate the half-celestial from the half-fiend. It was easy enough to do.

It just looks like such a natural progression for a VoP character to take the half-celestial savage progression as the first four epic levels. I wanted to run the concept by this august body to get comments.

htetickrt is correct that a monk gets the least benefit form doing this as he already has several of the half-celestial benefits. The one progression that will probably be hurt the most is spell resistence, but taking some feats can offset that - at the significant cost of using up feats.

 

[Artoomis]

Sorry, I was confused by the thread. You had posted another one asking questions about your character, so I assumed that this one was an alternative VoP progression.

With regard to the half-celestial progression, I both like the idea, and agree with Pax as to its implementation.

Well, it is a "sort of" alternate progression of VoP. More like a logical next step when reaching 20th level, I suppose.

When though of that way, it might be allowed even in a campaign that would not usually allow ECL characters in the first place.