Vow of Poverty: Power Analysis

[CRGreathouse]

Next, the person kept increasing the costs of magic items by +100% with the theory that the effects don't take up item slots. That's fine if the character can keep the abilities gained from VoP and then add on more items - but it's the Vow of freakin' Poverty. Those item slots are lost - so why should you double the gold costs for those abilities?

The analysis compares the abilities to a well-equipped character, but doesn't let the theoretic character use a slot more than once. For example, it uses 2 rings, an amulet, a cloak, and more -- really, most of the slots are used. (I'd have to look back at it to see exactly how many.)

Be careful before leveling major criticisms like this. I don't like the analysis too much myself, but this is one of its better points -- certainly not a flaw.

 

[Thanee]

ForceUser, you are right with the monk, there are a lot more useful feats, as there are plenty monk-related exalted feats. With other classes it's more like picking up a feat for the sole reason, that you get it for free, once you got the first few of them, which are actually decent.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Pax]

Bah, the person who did that fudged numerous times and artifically inflated the costs.

Not true, and your words below are a gross misrepresentation of the analysis ... which, by the by, was posted by ME.

For example, they priced all the feats at 10,000 gp. Anyone who actually plays a VoP will quickly (and by that I mean after the third feat or so) run out of useful Exalted feats.

Irrelevant. I referenced the Arms and Equipment Guide, which advised 10,000gp as an appropriate cost for an item which granted a feat that had NO other prerequisite feats. Many exalted feats DO have other exalted feats as prerequisites; those would be worth +5,000 for every such prerequisite. But predicting which feats someone might take would be impossible, so a flat rate of 10K per sounded appropriate.

I'm not the one who made up those costs, btw, WOTC is.

In the game I DM, I allowed a player the VoP - and he was 20th level. He had two or three feats that were useful, the rest were like "+1 to a roll once a day" (worse than a luckstone - and that's a cheap item!) or "20ft nimbus of light" (woo - you glow) or feats that he took, but never really used. 10k per is outright ludicrus.

Many of those feats are prerequisites for *nice* prestige classes, mind.

And Nimbus of Light leads to other feats, later on - some in products OTHER than the BoED, by the way ... there are new exalted feats in Player's Guide to Faerun, one of which relies on nimbus of light; I forget the name of it atm, but it's a pretty good one, damages all undead that get too close IIRC.

Next, the person kept increasing the costs of magic items by +100% with the theory that the effects don't take up item slots.

Bzzzt. I added them all up as if they were slotted items, and that was ALREADY about 150% of what a non-Ascetic would be able to have. I then pointed out that technically they could be doubled - but not because of body-slot issues, but because the benefits couldn't be taken away by destroying the items[/i]. Mordenkainen's disjunction? Momentary flicker. Sunder? Nothing to sunder.

That drove the effective value up to more than triple the expected wealth value for a 20th level character.

In short, the person who wrote this rubbish 1) has no ability to accurately judge the balance of the feat, and 2) obviously has never used it or allowed it's use, and last 3) had a clear opinion before staging his slanted view.

Not to mention: (4) you obviously didn't read the whole thing, (5) had your OWN opinion, and (6) your reading comprehension leaves much to be desired.

I've played using the VoP. I've DMed a game with a 20th level VoP. It's not unbalanced - it's not even that good. The player who took it only lasted about 15 sessions before he got tired of having only a set list of abilities, and no chance for switching abilities based on the current threat.

High magic campaign, low magic campaign, or what? The VoP will of course fail to measure up in such a game.

He also really missed the fun of finding treasure and playing with new magical toys. In fact, the VoP made him usually less useful in combat, since the other players could optimize themselves for the enemy at hand, while he was stuck with the same "items".

What'd you do, give them so much wealth they could have entire duplicate equipment sets? Even at 20th level, you can't have outlays of gear sufficient to cover EVERY situation, and be able to tailor your abilities specific to ANY enemy you might run into ...

At least I tested this feature before pronouncing my opinion on it.

As did I. Assumptions are not wise things to make.

 

[danielinthewolvesden]

10 feats!?! I tried to do up a VoP Monk. Now remember- monks usually have CHA as a dump stat. OK- now go ahead and find more than 5 useful feats. Yeah- some of the feats lead to something else- but they are worthless on their own- heck "nimbus of light" is a everburning torch!

I agree- those figures were seriously fudged- why have the costs double for slotless items? The VoP PC cares nought for slots.

I call BS.

Look- Vop was there so that PC's who wanted to try the "poor" thing could do it (or maybe for those "low magic" campaigns with cheap, control freak DM's). I wrote a couple up, and was suprised how low-powered they were.

Now, true- if you do weird rules-breaking things like VoP-kensai or VoP- Forsaker- then you get weird results.

 

[danielinthewolvesden]

OK, then Pax/Trachmyr: Where & when is the original WotC post?

 

[Pax]

10 feats!?! I tried to do up a VoP Monk. Now remember- monks usually have CHA as a dump stat. OK- now go ahead and find more than 5 useful feats. Yeah- some of the feats lead to something else- but they are worthless on their own- heck "nimbus of light" is a everburning torch!

Charisma-as-dump is irrelevant; if you, the player, choose to construct a grosslyinadequate, needlessly-handicapped character ... that's your choice. But it doesn't mean everyone will make the same choice.

I agree- those figures were seriously fudged- why have the costs double for slotless items? The VoP PC cares nought for slots.

It doesn't matterif the ascetic cares for slotless/unslotted/whatever. what matters is, how much would it cost a non-ascetic to get the exact same bonusses/abilities/etc, if they did so through the purchase ofmagic items.

Thus, the DMG-standard doubling of price for an unslotted item isappropriate - if for no other reason, than to represent the absolute indestructibility of said benefits/items, and the inability of them to be taken away, at all, short of an antimagic field.

I call BS.

Call it all BS you want; but unless you can provide an alternate analysys, your declaration carries no real weight, sorry to say.

And as it turns out, the Vow of Poverty, on the right character, can remain viable even into early epic play. Granted, I extrapolated a few bonusses - but it was a very few. Another point or two of the Exalted bonus to AC, a point of natural armor, and IIRC, that was about it. Character's name, BTW, is Demetian - see my SIG for a link to the game in question.

And this character was facing equal-ECL people with 2,100,000gp of equipment, and never felt he was disadvantaged for the lack of magicitems. Not once!

Heck, it's the best character I've ever had ... I'mnot missing the magic items one whit. And unlike a classic RPG campaign, in an arena, power is everything.

Look- Vop was there so that PC's who wanted to try the "poor" thing could do it (or maybe for those "low magic" campaigns with cheap, control freak DM's). I wrote a couple up, and was suprised how low-powered they were.

Then you built them extremely poorly. A properly-built VoP character is fully comparable to a non-VoP character.

I have found that, in general, the VoP is quite nicely balanced, despite my own first impression to the contrary ... and will never again have a problem with someone taking this feat in any game I ran, provided the resulting character would still "mesh" with the party and the campaign setting/theme/etc.

Now, true- if you do weird rules-breaking things like VoP-kensai or VoP- Forsaker- then you get weird results.

Neither of those combinations breaks any rules, simply for being made.

 

[Zimri]

Neither of those combinations breaks any rules, simply for being made.

Actually they do.

How is a forsaker destroying magic items he doesn't own unless the DM is being nice and sending in enemies wearing the appropriate armor/sword/shield to get sundered once per day (in which case said DM has issues) Anything else certainly isn't "donating" his share to charity, and stealing the share that isn't yours from the party to destroy it certainly isn't exalted. Of course the DM could have a lot of "irredeemable" magic objects that are outright evil but again a world with that many (one per day of the appropriate gp value) is ludicrous.

Kensai VoP monk ? I have had a long running debate with an author of the BOED regarding his thinking that my characters fists are possessions and therefore making them magical breaks the vow. So while I agree with you regarding the Kensai WOTC custserv, and co author of BOED Darrin Drader think we are both wrong.

 

[Thanee]

It doesn't matterif the ascetic cares for slotless/unslotted/whatever. what matters is, how much would it cost a non-ascetic to get the exact same bonusses/abilities/etc, if they did so through the purchase ofmagic items.

Still think you are (a bit) on the wrong track there. Trying to exactly duplicate the benefits isn't immensely useful. Trying to duplicate the effect in the most cost efficient way (that is using slots (why leave them free, anyways?) and stacking of different bonus types).

And, of course, the duplicating is totally neglecting the biggest benefit of the non-ascetic, that he does not have to duplicate them!

I have found that, in general, the VoP is quite nicely balanced, despite my own first impression to the contrary ...

Tho, you seem to have seen that by now.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Pax]

Actually they do.

How is a forsaker destroying magic items he doesn't own unless the DM is being nice and sending in enemies wearing the appropriate armor/sword/shield to get sundered once per day (in which case said DM has issues)

Simply having levels of Forsaker does not break any rules.

Granted, due to the Vow, the Ascetic Forsaker probably won't get to use the benefits for BEING a forsaker very often - generally, I'd expect them to lose many of those benefits until they manage to sunder the BBEG's weapon, or something similar.

Note, too - nothing says the Forsaker has to OWN the item(s) he destroys. Eliminating enemy supplies and materiel which theparty couldnot easily extract from it's current location, would neither be an evil act, nor would it void their vow.

And what's more ... that presumes the DM doesn't allow the Ascetic Forsaker to ask their comrades-in-arms for magic items to destroy - much the same way an ascetic spellcastr can ask for expensive material components, potentially valued in the tens of thousands of gold each day. Personally, I see no problem with the forsaker begging for "extra potions, scrolls, and minor trinkets" forhis morning ritual of destruction - no moreso, indeed, than the ascetic wizard begging his friends for e.g. 1,500gp of powdered ruby to prepare a single forcecage for each day. The BoED explicitly allows for the wizard to do just that, in fact.

Kensai VoP monk ? I have had a long running debate with an author of the BOED regarding his thinking that my characters fists are possessions and therefore making them magical breaks the vow.

Still, simply having levels of Kensai doesn't break a rule. And, even using Darrin's own logic (as stated elsewhere on ENWorld, in fact), if you are not a monk, you can imbue your fists or natural weapons without voiding the Vow. Plus, you never said a monk/kensai before. Just "kensai".

So your Half-Dragon Barbarian ascetic can imbue his claws or his bite just fine, and never void the Vow. As long as, of course, he avoids the Monk class lik the plague.

And even then. Simply don't imbue your monk unarmed attacks - yes, that makes gaining levels of Kensai not a very smart choice, but simply doing so doesn't break any rule(s). ^_^

@Thanee:
The fact that I feelthe Vow is balanced, does not override the fact that a non-ascetic couldn't hope to copy the benefits using magic items, due to the effective cost of buying those benefits in magic item form.

 

[Zimri]

Note, too - nothing says the Forsaker has to OWN the item(s) he destroys. Eliminating enemy supplies and materiel which theparty couldnot easily extract from it's current location, would neither be an evil act, nor would it void their vow.

And what's more ... that presumes the DM doesn't allow the Ascetic Forsaker to ask their comrades-in-arms for magic items to destroy - much the same way an ascetic spellcastr can ask for expensive material components, potentially valued in the tens of thousands of gold each day. Personally, I see no problem with the forsaker begging for "extra potions, scrolls, and minor trinkets" forhis morning ritual of destruction - no moreso, indeed, than the ascetic wizard begging his friends for e.g. 1,500gp of powdered ruby to prepare a single forcecage for each day. The BoED explicitly allows for the wizard to do just that, in fact.

Dagnabbit PAX you are making me do something I never wanted to. Find fault with VoP.

I see a difference between begging components for spells (also hitching a ride on a mount, sleeping in the inn etcetera, heck even with a 5k diamond for resurrection) and "please keep those magic items around so that I might destroy some small measure of them daily" or "Say mister fighter man might I destroy your extra magical sword please" ( I also have an issue with a fighter carrying around more than 2 weapons I like my characters and my party rather "lean" as it were hewards handy haversack and most bags of holdings have dimensional limitations on what you can shove in.)

Regarding your first quoted point I find it rather hard to buy "ummm yeah I destroy the enemies magical items in their encampment at range as part of my morning ritual"

Somethings even I won't do.