Vow of Poverty and Level Adjustment

[Veldrane]

I'm about to play a Weretiger charachter (natural lycanthrope, so that I retain my alignment), and I'll take Vow of Poverty at level 1.
The text about Vow of Povery (BoED, page 29) says "A character who swears a Vow of Poverty and takes the appropriate feats [...] cannot own magic items but he gains certain spiritual benefits that can help outweigh the lack of those items. These benefits depend on his Character Level".
Now, the best definition of "Character Level" is in the Savage Species and states: "When a creature's description refers to character level, add any class level it has to the base creature' HD to determine the Character Level. This is not the same as Effective Character Level which alse includes level adjustment. The creature's base save and base attack bonuses are based on its character level. [...]"
So , my +3 LA for the lycanthrope template is sort of a burden, due to the fact that, by the rules as they stand now, I am given abilities from the VoP feat later than another creature with the same ECL but no LA.
When I was showing the new character to my gaming group, they pointed me out that maybe that "Character Level" means "Effective Character Level". I looked again in the SS and found:
Effective Character Level (ECL): A creature's efective character level is the sum of its level adjustment (LA), Hit Dice and class levels. Use character level for all game functions except awarding experience, determining starting equipment and determining how much experience the character needs to gain a level. All three of those functions use Effective Character Level instead" (Emphasis mine).

So, when creating a new character, the starting equipment depends on his ECL. That is obviously true also when determining character wealth by level and so on.
Vow of Poverty is/should be an option that gives the chance -at the cost of spending two feats and renouncing to all kinds of magic items- to play a character who gets partial compensation for that renounce in form of various abilities.
Now, if the VoP feat was written to compensate with increasing by level abilities the loss of magic items (that, of course, increase by level as well), why this should be true only to non LA characters?
I mean, taking it to the extreme, a +19 LA, 1 HD Character gets the character wealth of a 20th level character (760.000 gp), while, if the same character wanted to burn two feats and take VoP, gets only the first level abilities?
Ok, this is pushing it a little, but that is the mechanic; I mean, a +x LA character who wants to take VoP should get shafted in terms of equipment (or equipment-substituting-abilities) just because he choose VoP instead of Magic Items & Gold (where he would be on par with his comrades)?

I know what the rules say, and I'll probably ask my DM to houserule it, but, before, I'd like to know what is the consensus on the topic is..

Any comment will be appreciated

 

[Piratecat]

Vow of Poverty is arguably overpowered - very overpowered. As a DM, I'd keep it at actual character level.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Dang it, I don't have my books with me! Somebody should do a wealth check on vow of poverty to see how it stacks against magical items the character could possibly have at those levels. I'd do it, but no books for a few days. I'd find this very interesting. I'd say it should put you slightly above the curve to be balanced, since its completely non-customizable as I recall.

 

[Veldrane]

Vow of Poverty is arguably overpowered - very overpowered. As a DM, I'd keep it at actual character level.

Pirate, I respect your opinion, but I don't think it covers the point. If you think VoP to be overpowered, it's not that non-LA characters will exploit it less just because for LA characters it isn't as effective as it was (probably?) meant to be.
I mean, VoP balance judgement ranges so much [from "overpowered" to "useless in a standard wealth setting -where you can use all kinds of magic items- to most characters at low levels, to all at mid-to-high levels"] that I don't want to start a debate about its power level.
Mine was mostly a mechanic issue.

 

[ThirdWizard]

This is sort of like the Leadership question. I allow LA to count toward Leadership, even though it says character level, as a house rule. I think it's important for a LA +X character to be treated like a LA +0 character in most regards. They're already missing out on feats.

 

[Veldrane]

This is sort of like the Leadership question. I allow LA to count toward Leadership, even though it says character level, as a house rule. I think it's important for a LA +X character to be treated like a LA +0 character in most regards. They're already missing out on feats.

My point is that what the Vow of Poverty substitutes, equipment, is calculated (level by level) considering the ECL instead of the simple Character Level.
That's why I probably would consider this a smaller house rule comparing to the leadership's one (about which I could agree, to a certain degree).

 

[Jeff Wilder]

IMO, level-dependent feat benefits are closely analogous to things like familiar progression. You should use character level, not ECL.


Jeff

 

[Veldrane]

IMO, level-dependent feat benefits are closely analogous to things like familiar progression. You should use character level, not ECL.
Jeff

More than a feat-benefit, IMO, it's a new game mechanic written to substitute equipment by level with new abilities that roughly compare, and equipment by level is based on ECL, isn't it?
I mean, it's acquired via feat 'cause they choose that way, but saying that is a "level-dependent feat benefit" more than it is an equipment substitute is kinda pushing it, obviously IMO

Maybe my initial post was too long and I wasn't able to explain myself clearly. Let's try this (let out the fact that a vampire is almost always chaotic evil please, it's just to show the mechanic, any LA template would do):

• A Vampire (+8 LA) Fighter 4 (ECL 12) gets money and equipment of a 12th level character.
• The same Vampire (+8 LA) Fighter 4 (ECL 12), if he decides to blow two feats to acquire Vow of Poverty, he gets the gold and equipment subsitutes of a 4th level character.

That's not because of the LA template inherent cost in HD, saves, Bab, skills etc, 'cause gold and equipment are not penalized. They are when you take VoP because equipment and VoP abilities, who should, in the spirit of the rules, substitute each other to a certain degree -given that VoP abilities are never really on par with the proper magic items value, and that's not a problem- are based upon different thing. Equipment and gold on ECL, VoP abilities on CL, that, for LA races/templates, is lower and can be sensibly so.
That is my point, and obvioulsy, given that equipment is rightly based on ECL, I think VoP should be so too.

Thanks for contributing so far

 

[Jeff Wilder]

More than a feat-benefit, IMO, it's a new game mechanic written to substitute equipment by level with new abilities that roughly compare, and equipment by level is based on ECL, isn't it?

I think you make a very strong argument. You convinced me.

(BTW, I haven't read BoED yet -- it's still sitting on my shelf -- but this sounds like an issue that should easily have been anticipated. I hope I don't find the book to be as shoddily thought-out as this oversight might indicate.)


Jeff

 

[Stalker0]

Personally I don't find the feat overpowered. I recently went ahead and made a monk ascetic of 9th level (I figured, who would get more benefit from it then a monk?) Its very nice, but I've seen better with magic items. At least its much better than the forsaker

But hey, if you want to take races with level adjustments, you gots to pay the piper, I have no problem with the feats being weaker for +LA races.