Vow of Poverty for a mage

[Chronologist]

So, how do you give a spellcaster Vow of Poverty (or something similar) and keep it in balance? They don't need weapons or armor, but the lack of defensive items and staves drastically reduces their strength. So, here's my idea.

Charity (Character Option)
Prerequisite: 1st level
Benefit: You choose to give all, or most, of your wealth to those in need. You gain a number of benefits: At 2nd level and every even level, you gain a bonus feat of your choice. At 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level, you gain a +1 untyped bonus to an attribute of your choice. At 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th level, you gain a +1 stacking bonus to attack, damage, saves, skill checks, and armor class. At 3rd, 7th, 11th, 15th, and 19th level, you gain 1 stacking point of Fast Healing.

The feats give the caster more versatility with their magic, and the untyped stat bonuses keep them approximately in line with the best enhancement bonus available at their level. The attack and damage help some spells, especially rays, the saves bonus is decent, the armor class helps out their Mage Armor, and the skill bonus shows their reliance on their own abilities.

The fast healing sounds powerful, but compare it to the healing granted from the Millennial Chainmail (fast healing 3 at level 7 at the cost of 9,000 go and a feat, plus sweet chainmail).

Thoughts?

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

So, how do you give a spellcaster Vow of Poverty (or something similar) and keep it in balance? They don't need weapons or armor, but the lack of defensive items and staves drastically reduces their strength. So, here's my idea.

Thoughts?

Of course, these are my personal opinions.

Charity (Character Option)
Prerequisite: 1st level
Benefit: You choose to give all, or most, of your wealth to those in need. You gain a number of benefits:
At 2nd level and every even level, you gain a bonus feat of your choice.

These are too vague. How much is 'most?' 51%? 75% 99%? And simply stating you get a 'bonus feat' means that at 2nd level, I'm taking some ridiculously high-prereq feat that would make me awesome. I'd say rewrite this to give an actual percentage amount of money and whether or not you have to meet the prereqs for the feats you take. Either that or make it a list like the Fighter bonus feats that you get to choose from. Also, if they want to KEEP the benefits they get, they have to KEEP giving away money. At least, that's how I would write it. The prerequisite for this. 1st level? Does that mean you can't take it later on and you can ONLY take it at 1st level?

At 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level, you gain a +1 untyped bonus to an attribute of your choice.

Does this stack with the ability score bonus a character already gets at 4th, 8th, etc? If so, then for me, it's too much, unless I'm playing a super-super powered campaign.

At 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th level, you gain a +1 stacking bonus to attack, damage, saves, skill checks, and armor class.

Personally, I would limit this to two of those five attributes, like 'attack and damage' or 'saves and armor' class, but not all five.

At 3rd, 7th, 11th, 15th, and 19th level, you gain 1 stacking point of Fast Healing.

This I don't mind so much.

 

[Chronologist]

The wealth loss is 100%. Sorry about the vague wording. However, I would stipulate that the character can maintain mundane equipment (non-masterwork) equal to 100 GP per character level, representing basic tools of the trade, holy symbols, food rations, and travel expenses. None of the equipment can be magical or even masterwork.

The character option is conditional that you give away all of your wealth (past living expenses as listed above) and take a share of the loot, if you violate this, you lose the benefits of this character option until you rebalance the books, so to speak. That, or the Dm can just flat-out take it away from you.

The attribute bonuses are not that big. The stat bonuses will give +6 at level 12, by which point a Wizard will have a Headband of Int +6. Past that, Tomes become available as well. So, a Wizard with a +5 tome, +6 headband and +5 attributes put into int will have +16 to int. This feat gives +10 divided among stats. It's not overpowered at all. In fact, without the +6 Int item the Wizard is just as good as the Charity character. Plus, they can get bonuses to WAY more attributes. It doesn't compare.

+2 to 2 of the five would be alright, though I might chance the damage bonus to +2 per and the skill bonus to +2 per, since they are less powerful.

I'm glad you're fine with the fast healing, a lot of people on the boards find fast healing too strong, but I find it fine. It does little in combat and only saves you one Vigor wands out of combat.

Thanks Skred, anyone else have a comment?

 

[DumbPaladin]

Your topic says "for a mage". How is a spellbook not wealth, or magical? How would a wizard be able to be a wizard with no spellbook?

 

[Wycen]

Are you trying to invent a new power called Vow of Poverty, or are you attempting to modify the Vow of Poverty from the Book of Exalted Deeds?

 

[Chronologist]

DumbPaladin, the character can keep 100 gp in expenses per character level, more than enough for a Wizard to have his spellbook. They could learn new spells from other spellbooks and research, just not scrolls, since they have material value and spellbooks do not. Also, this option is more suited towards the Psionics Unleashed classes like Psion and Wilder and towards Sorcerers. I'm playing (basically) a Psion in a campaign, and I'm adapting the Vow to suit what the character needs.

Wycen, I'm modifying the Vow from BoED. Less a feat, more of a character option, this version can be taken by any character upon creation, and they gain all of the benefits retroactively. Taking it after character creation would be subject to GM approval. Point is, Vow of Poverty is all but worthless to a pure caster, with most of the benefits being armor class boosts, damage reduction, spell-like abilities they can replicate with their own spellcasting, and exalted feats that don't really help their character at all.

It gives casters exactly what they need - more feats, better defenses/skill check/attack rolls, and a ready supply of healing that won't run out of charges.

 

[Wycen]

My initial post was longer but then I realized I might be confused about vow of poverty and that other abomination, the vow of nonviolence/peace. You did answer another question, you are the player, but I guess my reason for asking the question is somewhat moot since you are just interested in poverty. I ran a game with a vow of poverty/peace character and I do not think I'd do it again.

Anyway, have you looked at Monte Cook's Book of Hallowed Might? He has feats in there, (and I see you are more interested in maybe a template from your answer to DumbPaladin) called Oaths or Vows and I remember them being open enough that you could colloborate with the DM to make a place for them in the game. And I don't ever recall flame wars about how they worked, versus the Vow of Poverty, etc.

 

[Chronologist]

My friend has the Book of Hallowed Might, and the feats in there are not that great. Vow of Poverty gives you 1/2 your level as a bonus to most charisma-based skill checks and to Sense Motive, but it also allows you to own one piece of magical equipment per 2 levels, plus some spending gold. That's not what I'm looking for.

I'm not really interested in a template, since my character's race is key to the character concept, I really just want something that keeps me in line with other equipped spellcasters without exceeding them. The problem with Vow of Poverty as it is, is that the Exalted Feats can get really powerful, and the overall bonuses are fairly ridiculous.

If anything, what I really want my character to have a sort of mass-party buff, like Bardic Music. Our group is mostly rogues and wizards, with no tanks, and I'm the only dedicated healer. I figure a bard-like ability would compensate for my own lack of items, namely, by granting everyone small benefits to most of their actions.

 

[alientude]

A couple problems you may not have thought of:

1) What about spells with significant material costs, such as Stoneskin?

2) Any spell a wizard wants to add to his spellbook other than the 2 at every level up costs money to write. This will very quickly eat through the 100g/character level they're allowed to have.

 

[Chronologist]

Alientude, first of all, welcome to the forum! It's always nice to see a new face, metaphorically speaking.

1) The character is a Psion, and there are very few spells with material components for psychic characters (besides I think Reality Revision). On the other hand, well, too bad. You have no wealth, so you have no expensive spell components. I guess you'll simply have to make due.

2) Again, Psion, so no problems with that. Besides, a wizard can cannibalize spells from another wizard's spellbook, and I have yet to play in a game where the DM never let the wizard player find spellbooks every once in a while. I suppose, though, you could rule thta the wizard can scribe scrolls to her spellbook, just not cast them from the scroll, and it would not consume her GP limit.