Vow of Poverty: Power Analysis

[Pax]

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"

What's the difference between a 5K material component to cast a spell, and a 5K magic item to activate oneof your powers?

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.)

3.5e DR rather requires a warrior to have a couple secondary weapons. Even if it's "Thorg wields his +5 True-silver, Sure-Striking, Ghost Touch Adamantine Greatsword almost all the time, but he keeps a simple +1 Ghost Touch, Sure Striking Cold Iron Greatsword in his packs, just in case he runs into something with a lot of [DR ??/cold iron]".

The first sword, FWIW, is a +8-priced weapon, and presupposes access to both Ghostwalk and the Players Guide to Faerun. It'll go through DR ?/silver, ?/magic, ?/adamantine, and ?/(alignment).
But not DR ?/cold iron ... hence the backup weapon, which prices out to +3 (and handles DR ?/(alignment), ?/magic, and ?/cold iron).

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"

I never said at range. If, however, while sneaking INTO the encampment, the Forsaker notes that ne can put a torch to a case of scrolls, or smack a rack of potions with a hammer ... why not givehim the benefit of having destroyed the appropriate value of magic items?

Granted, his comrades MIGHT be annoyed with him ... if he does it all the time. But if he does it only when expecting to face a BBEG-type encounter, they'd probably be a bit more forgiving.

At the least, if and when he sunders the BBEG's weapon, well, if it's magic ... there you go. Failing an armed BBEG, he can grapple him, rip off somethign magic-itme-looking, and wreck THAT (and hope it's magical, ofc).

 

[Thanee]

@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.

I'm pretty sure, that you can get all those benefits with the resources you have available (roughly). You just have to do it in a more efficient way than grabbing an epic +8 to one ability score item or buying all items without slots. It already has been shown somewhere on this thread IIRC, that the cost comes fairly close, actually.

What you do not get is the "cannot be taken away" property of these abilities, and you also do not get the "cannot be changed in any way" property. These two balance each other pretty well, I think, also considering the additional cost of two feats.

Bye
Thanee

 

[rushlight]

Many seem to be forgetting that one of the major factors with a Vow of Poverty (or nearly anything in the BoED) is the *roleplaying* aspect. It's integral. Essential.

I'd be interested in the background story of a man who has devoted his life to giving everything he has and obtains to others without question - and at the same time has the urge to destroy many of the things he should be giving away to gain personal power. That's a guy who will soon lose his Exalted status.

You can't seperate the roleplaying from those abilities. If you do, you've destroyed the balance of the entire book.

 

[Zimri]

What's the difference between a 5K material component to cast a spell, and a 5K magic item to activate oneof your powers?

I never said at range. If, however, while sneaking INTO the encampment, the Forsaker notes that ne can put a torch to a case of scrolls, or smack a rack of potions with a hammer ... why not givehim the benefit of having destroyed the appropriate value of magic items?

Granted, his comrades MIGHT be annoyed with him ... if he does it all the time. But if he does it only when expecting to face a BBEG-type encounter, they'd probably be a bit more forgiving.

5k and other expensive components are likely kept around because the party benefits from the spells cast directly. If I am carrying around a magic item worth 5k odds are I AM USING IT so no you can't take it to destroy. and I am not becoming anyones packmule. My characters travel light even when they are not ascetic I am still almost always a monk or rogue.

Barring the fact that you aren't really sneaking if you are traversing through an enemy camp with a torch lit breaking boxes of potions as you go and lighting up the cooks recipe scrolls.

If the party can't carry things or have extra things around for the ascetic to use they can't carry around things for him to destroy. The ascetic's share is supposed to be donated to charity. The only way I would let the party sacrifice their share of magic items is if they did it every night and every item they were not using. EVERYONE (except the forsakers/ascetics) gets to have an item in each slot (1 set of armor 1 weapon 2 if you dualwield/two weapon fight no saving "special on occassion" weapons) I would allow the sacrifice to "carry over" days as long as the gp value lasted because odds are they aren't going to build up a huge stash everyday.

 

[Li Shenron]

What you do not get is the "cannot be taken away" property of these abilities, and you also do not get the "cannot be changed in any way" property. These two balance each other pretty well, I think, also considering the additional cost of two feats.

I used to think that VoP was very similar to Eschew Materials, whose benefit is to let you "forget" about the spell components, and therefore helps mostly in specific circumstances (such as when you are grappled, if someone steals your pouch or if it is damaged somehow).

I suppose the authors calculated those benefits from VoP with a method, which would be nice to see once and for all, to come up with the same value of expected gear level by level. I don't think they intended the feat to give a benefit equivalent to a money discount, and I am rather sure that if they showed their calculation, the result could be even less.

The thing gets blurry instead when you add the bonus exalted feats...
First of all because IIRC how many feats you get depends on the level at which you get VoP (you get all the other benefit retroactively) and this is quite unusual. Perhaps the reason is that until you don't get VoP you can benefit from equipment (including tomes)?
Second because it doesn't sound right that a feat grants bonus feats... :\ it may be balanced but it just doesn't convince me
Third because those exalted feats are very few to choose from, many are very weak with a couple of exceptions which are instead too good.
The result is that the whole thing is complicated...

IMHO if VoP didn't give bonus feats, the benefit of being free from the risk of losing your gear or have it stolen/sundered/whatever was already worth the feat, like it is with Eschew Material. Bonus feats were not necessary, however IIRC WotC said that those feats were intended to make up for the lack of versatility... mah :\

 

[Zimri]

IIRC WotC said that those feats were intended to make up for the lack of versatility... mah :\

And they don't do that well. As a monk Ascetic who is supposed to be battling demons, devils, fiends, et al no feat grants me a way around dr/cold iron or DR/silver. I may write a feat or two to try and get around that limitation but it is a fairly big one. I can get around slashing DR if I take a couple levels of a PRC from the draconomicon. but as far as I know nothing gets me through piercing until perhaps epic level.

 

[Scion]

I played a vop character up through quite a few levels and I can safely tell you that the inability to switch out items is a big hit.

For the most part I was always behind in some/most things. The rest of the part was at or below standard wealth but they were constantly able to rise to challenges in a more immediate fashion than I was. They tended to have higher AC's (especially starting out), were able to garner intersting abilities to use, and could scrounge around for what they needed to make challenges easier.

I was a human so picked up vop at first level, gaining the extra feat right away. It was nice, but straight from the get go people had equal my ac or better, especially since I had planned ahead (looked through the feats available0 and determined that I needed to have a high cha along with several other stats to be able to even 'get' exalted feats.

In any sort of comparison I think that treating the items as the most favorable slot is best. Sure they are harder to take away (which mainly only happens in extreme circumstance or useing a certain spell that should not exist anyway) but they also cannot be switched up to become more favorable. Along with certain things coming pretty late (if you really try for it you can have that all important stat booster or high ac early on, but not so the vop character).

Also, it does take 2 feats to get into it in the first place. Those two feats are mostly pretty worthless (+2 diplomacy helps for some builds though, but for mine I was still at least 5 points behind in any diplomacy checks compared with another party member even with my diplomacy maxed out) so that should come off of the total price.

Along with their being problems with pricing them all at 10k. Not all feats are created equal. How much is a toughness feat worth? clearly not 10k and I would go so far as to say it is actually on par or better than several of the exalted feats. The 10k is a recomendation, not a hard and fast rule.

We can go back and forth with how to create this or that item to duplicate the effects but generally I think the price comes just under or just over depending on how you count.

It doesnt matter though, the incredibly high price of not being able to switch up your gear is a major limiting factor and it is a hit that would make me think having even +50% of normal gear equivalency as being just fine.

 

[brehobit]

Some quick comments:

• I do agree that pricing the items as unslotted is off. The character doesn't have any slots.
• I think the biggest problem with VoP is that it works well for some characters (monk, druid, prob. sorc.) and very poorly for others (wizard, fighter).
• The lack of feat choices also starts to be annoying.

Personally would consider allowing a modified VoP for a fighter which allowed the character to use a single non-magical weapon. (I might even allow a masterwork weapon or the ancestral weapon) and a bit of simple armor (probably anything shy of plate but not masterwork) and a horse (even a war horse). Sort of the poor wandering knight. Of course I'd remove a lot of the VoP benifits.

For the wizard, making PHB feat which lets you learn spells without a spell book (forgot the name) an exalted feat might make wizard more viable.

 

[Scion]

how about an exalted feat that allows you to prepare any [good] spell you know (in spell book, whatever the wording is) without needing your spell book? (along with all of the weird pay as you go spells) That would fit right in, be decent and low and high levels, and might even be worth a feat to get

 

[Zimri]

Scion did you use point-buy for your VoP. I rolled well and had a monk so wisdom and dex were highest, add in intuitive strike and I was fairly set. I would have focused on the same 2 stats in a point-buy scenario as both apply to AC but yes needing a third stat at or above 15 can be cumbersome with point-buy or unfavourable die rolls.