Vow of Poverty: Power Analysis

[Endur]

Yes, I agree regarding the Vow of Poverty.

And, if anything, the Vow of Poverty is worth more. I think the feats are underpriced if you are playing a Monk. The Monk can get a lot of very good feats out of the Exalted Deeds book.

On the other hand, non-monk classes tend to suffer on the exalted feat list.

Best Vow of Poverty characters seem to be Monks, Sorcerors, and Druids.

 

[jasamcarl]

I disagree. I belieev that the balance assumption that the game makes is that a character will normally have developed his portfolio of magic items over time, so the 20th level character doesn't normally have a flat 760,000gp worth of stuff (or whatever), but he has whatever he had at 19th level + an x00,000gp worth of additional equipment.

There are terrible balance problems which appear when a DM allows a player to create a PC at 14th level with carte blanche to spend the appropriate gp value for that character level - because he could use all the cash to obtain things optimised for his own level, including more high-value items. An adventurer who has worked his way up from 1st level will, of necessity, have had many lower-value items forming a portion of his wealth.

Of course a DM -could- allow a PC to cash in everything and purchase a whole new bunch of stuff at the next level if he wants to, nothing to stop that. But I don't think that is the baseline assumed in the game.

Cheers

I was referring to level by level purchases, not lump sums. Even with purchases spread out over time, the pc without VoP has more flexibility to optmize.

I don't buy the straight gp analysis for the reasons already stated. There are just too many ways to 'waste' the by level gp wealth of a pc or npc. I want to see specific character builds with VoP and a side by side comparison of the utility of one pc to the party versus the other. That is really the only way to prove which is more powerful.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

TOTAL VALUE: 1,071,124
This compared to 760,000, the standard starting wealth for level 20. The VoP character winds up with 311,124 more in value by my calculations.

I do buy this analysis at all.

A grabbag of interesting abilities is never as potent as a incrementally built up theme. If you just tally abilities, the Paladin and Monk would be the most potent classes in the game at any level; real play demonstrates that they are both very weak at low levels.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Looking at the analysis, I'm convinced. No VoP in my game.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I talked about it with another DM last night and we had similar thoughts about it. Both of us agreed that the feats put it over the top. I believe the feats were added to make up for the lack of flexibility offered by the Vow, but there are simply too many. As my friend put it, a Fighter would gain a feat every single level. Now, sans the feats (or with less), the VoP looks balanced to us.

Personally, I wouldn't play one. Having a character so totally inflexible as to not be able to adapt to any situation brought before him and completely relying on other party memebers for utilitary abilities (flying, healing, etc) is not the character I would play. I still refuse to pay specialist wizards for this reason, and this is very much in the saime vein.

My fellow DM said he would find it an interesting character, and if I find myself DMing a new game in the future, he might take in. In that case, we'd probably lower the bonus feats and playtest like that. I don't think it would be too powerful. We're talking a character who can't even carry around potions here. And costly spell components are right out (as is a spell book).

All in all, I think it needs some minor tweaking with the bonus feats and it would be a fine feat/template. The lack of flexibility would make up for the apparent imbalance of wealth/level.

Lastly, this analysys takes a 20th level character build as it's only comparison point, and while it may be valid, that doesn't constitute enough of my game for it to offer any relevant information on the feat to me personally. So the comparison is useless in this case.

 

[frankthedm]

One of the large problems with the VOP is that the taker of the feat is still expected to take a normal share of the treasure to donate to the needy IIR, and this will likely rub the party the wrong way.

 

[James McMurray]

Who here has actualy used the feat in their game? Of those who have, did you see any problems with it?

The character in my Epic game has only been with the party for two sessions, so we don't have enough evidence currently to say either way if its overpowered. But here's what I've seen so far:

The party is currently going through the Bloodstone Trilogy (their just about to go into the mines). In the first session he joind the party and they fought a large battle with some hired Mag mercenaries on their side againt a bandit army and their epic leaders.

The monk in question spent most of his time fighting an advanced orpse Gatherer. He managed to do quite a bit of damage, but didn't outshine the other characters in either offense or defense.

The next session had the party attacking the bandits at their army camp. Again they used Maug mercenaries to keep the army busy and only faced the epic leaders. The monk dropped in the first real round of combat due to an assassin's death attack. Being the only member of the party without heavy fortification really ruined his day.

So far there haven't been any real problems.

Anyoe have any first hand experiences with the feat? The only other account of the feat that I've read about involves an entire party using it, and they apparently just narrowly escaped starvation in the desert because they couldn't own anything to carry all their food on.

 

[James McMurray]

One of the large problems with the VOP is that the taker of the feat is still expected to take a normal share of the treasure to donate to the needy IIR, and this will likely rub the party the wrong way.

This hasn't been a problem in our game. They wouldn't begrudge him his share if he wanted to keep the money and gear, so why should they begrudge his donating it to charity? Besides, since he doesn't really care what he gets, he can take his share from items that the party wouldn't use anyway.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

This hasn't been a problem in our game. They wouldn't begrudge him his share if he wanted to keep the money and gear, so why should they begrudge his donating it to charity? Besides, since he doesn't really care what he gets, he can take his share from items that the party wouldn't use anyway.

The thing is, if the monk had taken his fair share of the items to use, then the rest of the party might still see benefit from them. i.e. A Carpet of Flying or a Mirror of Mental Prowess, or whatever. But the VoP character gives away all items, including those that a standard character would keep that would benefit the party as a whole. His entire gp value is focused on his combat ability. By extension, the rest of the party is going to have to expend more of their gp value towards utility items for the party. Items the VoP character will still get to benefit from.

 

[James McMurray]

Like I said, he takes stuff the party doesn't want to use. If they find a carpet of flying and want to be able to use it, they just don't give it to him. They instead give him the wand someone can't use, and the weapon nobody cares about. Things the party would have just had to sell for half value anyway. Instead they give it to the VoP guy and save themselves some hassle.

If they didn't have a VoP guy in the party, they'd sell the gear for half, get less total value, and therefore smaller shares.