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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Anax" data-source="post: 2658678" data-attributes="member: 19868">Well, it depends on how you play it.My character acquired the Vow of Poverty through a story arc where she had a very troubling mental breakdown.  While on the one hand, the followers of Zuoken believe that one should achieve perfection of mind and body, they do give training in exotic weapons styles and the like.  Still, using weapons doesn't seem appropriate for someone who's seeking personal perfection.  In addition, my character is a halfling, and she was very much stuck on the thought that she needed her special tools to succeed.Well, the way I saw it, I could only imagine her either coming to a point where she gave up this fear that was holding her back, or gave into it completely and began grasping for power in any way she could.  So, I talked it over with the DM, and we worked out a story arc in which she started down that slide to the path of evil, but ended up realizing the danger before it was too late.In order to protect herself from temptation, she made a vow to give up all of her material wealth.  In fact, she used fire to destroy everything but her clothing that night.  She then spent the entire next level with no items and no vow of poverty benefits.At the end of that time, she began to see the seeds of new power.  Not power granted by the gods, but power granted by the faith she had recovered in herself.  She had cast off her possessions, and while things were tough at times, she survived, and did good.  Now, she finds an inner strength from her commitment to good and to self-perfection.  While Zuoken and Xan Yae are neutral, she believes that they understand this commitment to good as being a form of reaching towards perfection: Ann is essentially good, and to give up on that would be to deny what she is.So, these powers are not granted by the gods, but by her service of good, and her belief in her own strength.  And it is not the gods that would strip her of her powers, but her own self-doubt.If she were ever to give in to the temptation to use artifice to supplement her own powers, however, it would be an indication of her failure.  She would lose the powers that her insight has given her... and, I believe, become fairly rapidly the dark image of what she is now: trying forever to regain what she has lost, having forgotten that it is only by forsaking her desire that she was able to achieve so much.Mechanically, this model suggests that the exalted bonus feats that Ann has taken have generally been less flashy.  I do expect that she will end up being able to glow with a holy radiance, but that's about it.  And that's at level 18, if I recall right (if we don't end the campaign before then.)  Her bonuses to attributes went first into charisma, then wisdom, then constitution.  Dexterity is likely next, but strength is not an option: she is pursuing her own form of perfection... it is the belief that she was not strong enough that got her into trouble.  Now, she realizes that she need not be strong at all.Anyway: I think this shows that VoP can be done in an appropriate role-playing way.  It's certainly been an interesting voyage for my character, who almost descended into madness, and now finds herself sometimes adrift in a world where even the forces of good are frequently willing to do great evil in the name of survival.  (Our best guess is that the head of the Irongate secret-service analogue is lawful evil.  At best he might be lawful neutral.  He pretty much always acts in the best interest of Irongate--but his tactics, while highly effective, are troubling.)I do think that big things like VoP work better when they're tied in with a complex storyline--and preferably an in-play storyline and not a backstory.  This makes the whole effect much more tangible, and not just a switch you've turned on for your character.  In the future, I suspect I'll aim for this approach with all prestige classes for my characters as well.</blockquote>

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