Vow of Poverty: Power Analysis

[Pax]

No, I'm saying that being unable to ever have anything but what is listed on the table is worth a discount, and a pretty huge one, actually. There is no way, that you can spend your resources in any way other than what has been laid out before you. Selling and getting new gear isn't even required, that's just a bonus.

And IMO that's irrelevant - you choose to play an ascetic, or you choose not to.

Now, it would be fair to mention, that it is simply impossible to get a +8 enhancement bonus otherwise, since it caps at +6, but then you just need to find something else (like an inherent bonus), which can be used to cover the missing +2 for a comparison of the approximate item value you get with the VoP.

That is not a valid assertation, I'm afraid - with the advent of stacking bonusses, you CANNOT simply break up a bonus to price it more-cheaply that way. Doing so sidesteps the built-in costs of single large bonusses.

It is completely irrelevant how much a character would have to pay for a +8 enhancement bonus (which, BTW, would be 64k per the DMG, it just doesn't exist ),

And by the DMG, the VoP doesn't exist - it's called "loking to all available sorces to see how WOTC would price such an item if it did exist". As it turns out, they've done precisely that.

And they priced it at 640,000gp.

As I said... hypothetically, and that is only possible, if the ascetic can cast Wish (or Miracle I guess), and there is a HUGE XP cost involved to get there.

No, it's also possible if the character came into "grace" late in life - grew up incredibly wealthy, adventured as a wealth-monger for years ... and then had some sort of epihpany or the like, maybe a vision that convinced him to forsake material wealth.

In fact, the figure how is likely the best historical example of a vow of Poverty character who did (supposedly) have supernatural powers would be Saint Fancis of Assisi. He did grow up wealthy, he did spend much of his life as a spend-it-like-money wastrel, and he did claim to have been converted to asceticism due to a vision from God.

Besides, it's actually impossible to cast 5 Wishes in a row pre-epic, since it costs more XP than you'll ever have available in the necessary time frame of 5 rounds,

not so; the rules specifically allow you to defer levelling up, if you are saving your XP to cast a specific spell or make a specific magic item - like, say, that Tome of Clear Thought (+5).

Anyways, we are talking about items here, not class abilities. Classes are balanced already (more or less).

No, wer've diverged intothe realities of pricing items based on the type of bonus granted, as an example of why you must pricethe +8 enhancement as a single bonus, not breaking it up into multiple +'s.

If you only compare equipment, which is what the VoP abilities emulate, there is no way to go beyond +8 for the ascetic, but anyone else can go to +11, using only those resources. And everyone can do that, not just sorcerers!

And any late-in-life ascetic, or any ascetic sorceror, or an ascetic who can convince a fellow party member to cast the wish spells FOR them, can have a +13.

Which only the ascetic can get, without going to epic levels, and using only Inherent and Enhancement bonusses.

Right. I'd actually assume, that the player does know that already. There is no need to tell. See, I only play with reasonable persons, not people who would use their money on tomes and then pick up VoP. These people can play somewhere else.

Depending on backstory, I might do that sort of thing. Would I spend all the pre-Vow wealth on tomes and manuals? Of course not. But 10% to 20% wouldn't be at all unreasonable, and more MIGHT be warranted, depending on how dependant the character was on that attribute (Sorcerors and Charisma, for example).

That's not what I am talking about.

And this situation will never happen in a game, anyways. So, frankly, who cares.

Never? Really?

I GM a bunch of 3E newbies (and one veteran player), and until last night, one of them - my g/f, with whom I live - didn't know about the Vow at all. Most of the players haven't opened the BoED - or anything except the PHB - despite my attempts to help them find PrC's that fit their vision of what they wanted to become, so as to begin aiming for a target from first level.

So ... never say "never". It's entirely possible, for example, that the groups Druid might decide, later in "life", to try out the BoED and the Vow of Poverty.

Not necessarily. While it's pretty obvious whether a weapon is sundered or not (after all, if it's lying on the ground in pieces....), the line of what constitutes vow breaking can be quite blurred. (Just see the recent threads arguing over what a player can and cannot keep under this vow.) A DM could interpret things one way, and the player could wind up disagreeing with his interpretation.

And a responsible, fair, and above all mature GM would permit (perhaps even encourage) the player to say "OH, well then, if I'd known that OOC, i wouldn't have DONE that" - and no voiding of the Vow occurs. Unless the GM is, of course, seeking to unfairly railroad the player out of their character concept.

And there's always the PGFR Exalted feat, Gift of Discernment. All theplayer has to do is add "as long as that won't break my Vow(s)" to every action, and the GM has to warn him of what WILL do so, ahead of time.

I agree that it's is far easier to destroy equipment. But honestly, how is getting an ascetic to void his vow any dirtier than causing a paladin character to lose his paladinhood (which also "invalidates" the character)?

Because while difficult, it's at least possible to atone and REGAIN one's paladinhood.

Not so with the Vow of Poverty.

the GM shouldn't set up situations where an undesireable and permanent alteration to the basic premise of a character is unavoidable, or avoidable only with the character's death, without the clear and prior consent of the player in question.

Both are characters who have to walk a very narrow and straight path. If they swerve from that path, then they lose its benefits. Players are not saints (not usually) and sometimes greed will get the better of them, whether they intend it or not.

But - you can stray from the Paladin's path, and still return to it; you can't stray from the ascetic's path and return to THAT.

A ex-VoP isn't entirely screwed anyhow. Sure he's lost the benefits of that feat, but he's still got his class abilities and what's to keep him from picking up items now? It might take him a while to accumulate decent gear (depending on his level) but the point is, he's hardly unplayable. So I would have to respectfully disagree with your point about it invalidating the character.

I never said "made unplayable", I said "invalidated".

If I sit down at your table to play, say, a burly, taciturn-but-dependable dwarven fighter ... and you then do something in the game that forces me to be a pressy, flighty elven bard ... that's not the character I sat down to play, in fact it's not even close.

If I sit down to play an ascetic, truly-holier-than-thou monk, and you subsequently arrange for me to be forced (or tricked OOC) into being a money-grubbing, greedier-than-thou monk ... that's not the character I sat down to play, either.

I think you should convert all the minuses an ascetic suffers (like a lack of customization or not being able to use consumable magic items, particularly in a jam) into

You know, people keep talking about the "lack of customisation" as if it were this huge, unbearably-tough onus to labor under.

I just don't see it. Plenty of GMs don't allow "magic item shops", you take what you find and lump it - same problems with "lack of versatility" there. Noone rails that THOSE characters should get twice or three times as much treasure to "make up for the disadvantage", now, do they?

Not that I'm seeing anyway.

As for consumable items - they CAN use potions. And to an extend, I can give you a potion-making, scroll-making, scroll-USING Ascetic spellcaster:

Blood Magus.

He doesn't OWN his "scrolls" or "potions" ... they're part ofhis body. Granted, the GP cost to craft them would be a grey area of the rules, but along the same lines as the BoED's solutions for handling expensive material components for ascetic spellcasters, there should be equitable solutions other than "haha, you can't do it. sucks to be you".

Because just adding one side but not the other and comparing just that with the listed character wealth would give you an inaccurate view of how much that feat is worth.

Fine, you do that. And if those disadvantages somehow add up to half of an entire additional 20th level character's loot, congratulations - you've brought the ascetic's abilities back down to the value of a 20th level character's appropriate array of equipment - without having doubled prices for unremovability.

Let's go through the prices again, with 20th level in mind:

• Exalted Bonus to AC, (+10); equivalent to Bracers of Armor +10 ... 100,000gp;
• Exalted Strike +5(good); indestructible, applicable to any simple weapon held at any givenmoment, so, IMO about twice as good as any single +5 weapon ... 100,000gp;
• Damage Reduction 10/evil - hard to adjudicate, VERY hard. Let's price it at 5K per point, which is cheaper than SR ... 50,000gp;
• Attribute Enhancement +8, Igive over the pricing, and call it 8x8x1K - just realise that IMO, that pricing is a GIFT ... 64,000gp;
• Attribute Enhancement +6 ... 36,000gp;
• Attribute Enhancement +4 ... 16,000gp;
• Attribute Enhancement +2 ... 4,000gp;
• Constant true sight - spell level 5 times caster level 9 times 2,000gp, times 2 for a base duration of 1 minute per level ... 180,000gp;
• No need to eat or drink - like a Clear Spindle Ioun Stone ... 4,000gp;
• No need to breathe - like an Iridescent Spindle Ioun Stone ... 18,000gp;
• Constant Freedom of Movement - like a Ring of Freedom ... 40,000gp;
• Resistance +3 - like a cloak of Resistance +3 ... 9,000gp;
• Deflection +3 - like a Ringof Protection +3 ... 18,000gp;
• Natural Armor +2 - like an Amulet of Natural Armor +2 ... 8,000gp;
• Mind Shielding - like a ring of Mind Shielding ... 8,000gp;
• Regeneration - like a Ring of Regeneration ... 90,000gp;
• ten bonus feats - here's another gift: I'll price them at HALF the recommended amount per-feat ... 50,000gp for all 10 of 'em;
• energy resistance - equal to a minor ring of universal energy resistance ... 144,000gp;

That totals to 771,000gp without the price-disputed +8 Enhancement Bonus being factored in.Then, even pricing the +8 bonus at only 64,000gp, we arrive at 835,000gp, quite significantly over the normal limit for a 20thlevel character. Keep in mind that I still think that pricing the feat opportunities and the +8 enhancement bonusses that low makes them an absolute gift!

And this still doesn't account for not being readily denied to the character. So, let's just put on a 50% markup on the whole schmear, because it is far more difficult to remove the benefits fothe Vow without the player's active collusion (or underhanded skulduggery on the part of a dishonest GM) ... and we arrive at an astounding 1,252,500gp. Yes, over one and a quarter million gold.

So, heck, I'll give you a 500,000gp "lack of versatility discount" - that's a half-million gold, enough to buy a suitof +5 heavy fortification armor, a +5 animated shield, a +5 vorpal greatsword, and STILL have tens of thousands of gold left over.

That brings out estimate to 752,500gp; gee, only 7,500gp below the recommended wealth for a 20th level character.

And it's only that low because of not one,not two, but three "gimme" actions - grossly undervaluing the +8 enhancement, grossly undervaluing the feat opportunities, and ridiculously overvaluing the lack of versatility.

And that entire assessment also ignores the fact that anyone who faithfully adhers to the Vow of Poverty for twenty levels is a shoe-in for acquiring the Saint template, which even the BoED self-describes as being VERY underpriced in terms of LA.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

No, actually, that's not the case. The wealth-by-level tables assume no destruction of PC equipment by the GM - as it explicitly describes in the DMG. I refer you to page 135 of that book for further reading.

It says nothing of the kind on page 135 of my DMG.

All it mentions is that the wealth level is "based" on average wealth of typical encounters. What your asserting doe not make any sense, because the DM would need to track every penny of wealth a PC spent or lost in order to make use of a simple chart.

If we want to be exceedingly literal, page 135 "proves" that wealth is never destroyed.

 

[Sephiroth no Miko]

the GM shouldn't set up situations where an undesireable and permanent alteration to the basic premise of a character is unavoidable, or avoidable only with the character's death, without the clear and prior consent of the player in question.

I'm not advocating they should. My original point is simply that it is possible to lose Vow of Poverty, using the paladin as another example of where violating a certain code can cause loss of abilities. The corollary of that is the abilities from VoP is therefore not entirely untouchable, though it is by most standard means.

If I sit down to play an ascetic, truly-holier-than-thou monk, and you subsequently arrange for me to be forced (or tricked OOC) into being a money-grubbing, greedier-than-thou monk ... that's not the character I sat down to play, either.

If you were truly playing a holier-than-thou monk, then you wouldn't lose the feat. But the fact remains that not everyone is able to stay true to a character concept. Otherwise, we wouldn't ever have to worry about paladin players losing their paladinhood.

It is entirely plausible for a fair, responsible, and mature DM to tempt a player to break a vow. If the player doesn't fall for it, fine. But that's not going to happen 100% of the time. That's all I'm saying.

You know, people keep talking about the "lack of customisation" as if it were this huge, unbearably-tough onus to labor under.

I just don't see it. Plenty of GMs don't allow "magic item shops", you take what you find and lump it - same problems with "lack of versatility" there. Noone rails that THOSE characters should get twice or three times as much treasure to "make up for the disadvantage", now, do they?

Not unbearable. But rather inconvenient. Many DMs don't allow magic shops but players can always make their own magic items with item creation feats. Players don't always get what they want, but usually they get some of what they want... otherwise, it tends to rather ruin the enjoyment of the game. I've never played in a game where the party keeps every piece of treasure they find and never exchanges it for something else more to their liking. A certain amount of trade is almost inevitable.

However, with regards to versatility, I'm not referring so much that the fighter has two sets of armor or three swords to deal with different creatures, but simply the ability to be able to make your character do stuff that you would like him to do. Want to be a fighter but be able to fly? Get wings of flying or boots of flying or a flying carpet. Or a pegasus. Or even a potion of flying if you're poor. A character can buy equipment to optimize those abilities that the player is interested in. You can build two sorcerers with very different sets of resources with 750,000 gp.

You can't really do that with an ascetic. You're stuck with true seeing and regeneration and greater sustenance whether you want them or not. Yes, I know you can choose not to play an ascetic in that case. But why are you choosing not to play one? Precisely because you can't customize the ascetic to what you want. Hence, it is a disadvantage. How big of a disadvantage it feels might vary from player to player. I think a number of people find VoP limiting. YMMV.

As for consumable items - they CAN use potions.

If someone else says, "here, use this." An ascetic doesn't have the luxury of picking and choosing when and what he can use... he has to rely on the largesse of others. That's a disadvantage.

And to an extend, I can give you a potion-making, scroll-making, scroll-USING Ascetic spellcaster: Blood Magus.

He doesn't OWN his "scrolls" or "potions" ... they're part ofhis body. Granted, the GP cost to craft them would be a grey area of the rules, but along the same lines as the BoED's solutions for handling expensive material components for ascetic spellcasters, there should be equitable solutions other than "haha, you can't do it. sucks to be you".

They're not naturally part of his body. His body doesn't generate potions on its own. The Blood Magus put them there and in doing so he has to invest money and XP like any other item creation feat (even other characters can use them if they have the stomach). The medium is simply a little stranger than usual. If I played an ascetic and wanted to take the Brew Potion feat, is my DM obligated to come up with a an equitable solution so I may do so? No... He'd probably tell me I'd be violating my vow.

I don't really see the Blood Magus as a good example. Especially as you've said the GP cost is a grey area-- and therefore, subject to DM's fiat.

Regardless, the text explicitly states the ascetic cannot activate a scroll, wand, or staff without violating his vow. For a spellcaster, that's a pretty serious restriction. It means that they're stuck with their daily allotment of spells, unless someone is kind enough to cast a spell on their behalf. For a non-spellcaster, that's not quite so bad. But non-spellcasters have a different restriction in that they can't use martial weapons (or most ranged weapons), hampering their options in combat. Again, all these are disadvantages... some of them are so serious as to make certain classes sub-optimal in play.

So if you're going to factor in all the good things about VoP, why not the minuses? VoP abilities are all about replacing a character's standard equipment (because he can't have any). But in order to keep those abilities, the character also has to follow restrictions.

Fine, you do that. And if those disadvantages somehow add up to half of an entire additional 20th level character's loot, congratulations - you've brought the ascetic's abilities back down to the value of a 20th level character's appropriate array of equipment - without having doubled prices for unremovability.[/i]

Let's go through the prices again, with 20th level in mind:

• Exalted Bonus to AC, (+10); equivalent to Bracers of Armor +10 ... 100,000gp;

You could actually pull this off with bracers +5 and mithral buckler +4 (25,000 gp + 17,000 gp = 42,000.). Why go for the most expensive option? Players certainly aren't going to, if they can help it. And they are far more likely to find or make bracers +5 and a buckler +4 along the way than they are bracers +10. (Snipped the rest of the calculations for space).

That brings out estimate to 752,500gp; gee, only 7,500gp below the recommended wealth for a 20th level character.

And it's only that low because of not one,not two, but three "gimme" actions - grossly undervaluing the +8 enhancement, grossly undervaluing the feat opportunities, and ridiculously overvaluing the lack of versatility.

I have no good solution on pricing the +8 enhancement. Or the feats. We fit it in the best we can. Honestly, I do not find the 64,000 gp terribly unreasonable in terms of value for a +8 bonus (i.e., as if the character was wearing a +8 enhancement item). But that's a matter of opinion. I doubt I will change yours or you mine.

But the lack of versatility is not the only disadvantage to VoP. Unfortunately for you and I, disadvantages are incredibly hard to price because there are no guidelines on that sort of thing. Just as trying to determine how much the "indestructibility" of the bonuses is very hard to price as well.

And that entire assessment also ignores the fact that anyone who faithfully adhers to the Vow of Poverty for twenty levels is a shoe-in for acquiring the Saint template, which even the BoED self-describes as being VERY underpriced in terms of LA.

Perhaps. But the price of the Saint template shouldn't factor into the power-level of VoP. If the template is underpriced, slapping it onto any character will make him overpowered, regardless of whether he has PoV or not.

I am not entirely certain what we're debating here. I agree with you that VoP is not underpowered and that yes, the price of an ascetic's abilities do exceed that of a 20th-level character's equipment when simply taken by themselves. I was merely trying to point out that one shouldn't disassociate the abilities with the restrictions the feat imposes. It's a bit like saying, "here's 2 million dollars!" without noting that you can only spend it on this, that, and this. But I'm sure you already know that so I'll not belabor the issue.

 

[Numion]

So Pax, would you say that a person that has a +8 STR belt at 640KGP and another person with 640KGP worth of stuff are roughly equal equipment-wise, and thus balanced?

... I didn't think so. Just because Epic book wrote the price as such doesn't mean it's actually worth that in other equipment.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I don't like VoP because some of those abilities are just outright encounter destroyers with no way to get rid of the abilities. The Ring of freedom of Movement and True Sight abilities that can't be dispelled make illusion/disguise magic and grappling a joke. At least with magic items you can dispel their abilities, but not with VoP. Make sure you don't send a shapechanger up against a VoP guy or he is finished. Those huge grappling creatures have no chance against a VoP monk. Those monk tactics where you run up on the sorcerer and grapple him, don't even bother against a VoP sorcerer.

How much would an item like a Ring of Freedom of Movement or an item that grants constantly active True Seeing that can't be dispelled be worth?

Is it really balanced and fair when all the other players can have their items and spells dispelled, while the VoP player's abilities can't be dispelled save by an Anti-magic field which affects the caster of that field as well? That is a huge, huge advantage.

VoP is very powerful. It is more of a roleplaying feat IMO than a feat that any sane DM should allow a munchkin to use. Any player of a monk had to be salivating when they saw that feat. It is the ultimate monk munchkin feat. I am definitely wary about allowing it in a game I run. It limits the means I have to defeat the players because everything granted by the feat cannot be dispelled, taken away, sundered or disrupted in nearly any way save by use of an Anti-magic field or somehow coercing the player into using a magic item.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

That totals to 771,000gp without the price-disputed +8 Enhancement Bonus being factored in.Then, even pricing the +8 bonus at only 64,000gp, we arrive at 835,000gp, quite significantly over the normal limit for a 20thlevel character. Keep in mind that I still think that pricing the feat opportunities and the +8 enhancement bonusses that low makes them an absolute gift!

I would agree with you on the feats. I would tack on 75k to bring our sum total to 910,000 gp.

That seems pretty reasonable to me as a substitute for the 760,000 gp in wealth more flexibly distributed.

IME a set grabbag of abilities/items is generally not as valuable as a reasonable assortment built up along a theme. If we naively count abilities, a low-mid level Paladin is a mile better than a Fighter; it does not work out that way in actual play. I have seen have a dozen "My GAWD the Monk is too powerful!" threads based on the same faulty logic.

The keystone here is Truesight and Regeneration which weigh in at about 30% of total value. They are good abilities but I cannot see ever one of my characters purposefully choosing to shell out 270,000 gp to have them. I suppose the VoP character desperately needs them precisely because he has nada for equipment to fall back on. Seems to me rather like giving a starving child with two nickels in his pocket a Porsche so he can drive to the grocery store -- it is not necessary the giant favor that raw numbers chalk it out to be.

If I throw in any modest fudge factor because some of those big ticket items are not so valuable to my particular character, we are right on target. I can see how VoP might be a good deal for some characters, but that is the nature of the game. I simply do not see that the numbers show things are way out of whack either direction.

 

[Zimri]

Celtavian and Pax (I only signal you two out because it has been a while since i read the whole thread and can't recall anyone else as vehemently anti-VoP as you two).

You seem to be just glossing over the fact that (and I'll use my case since I know it) My VoP monk who is SUPPOSED to be fighting big bad evil things from other planes and what not WILL NEVER be able to penetrate a DR that has a metal as one of it's components. Oh sure I can over come all the good DR in the blinking multiverse but stick a metal type or piercing on it and I am out of luck. A situation easily rectified by less than 10k gold that will forever be beyond me.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

You raise some good points, Celtavian.

Certainly a DM should think carefully before allowing VoP in their campaign because of the encounter destroying nature of a couple abilities.

I would note that the VoP PC has a few glaring weaknesses:

(1) Mobility: No Cape of the Mountebank, Winged Boots, Potion of Flying. Being stuck groundbound is a deathwish in quite a few non-rare middling or higher level encounters.

(2) Too little healing: Regeneration is not a substitute for throwing a few potions down your throat when the clock is ticking.

(3) Classic "Bat Belt" utility stuff: Potion of Invisibility. Cloak of Elvenkind. Poison antidote. Potion of Blur, Cloak of Displacement, or Fortification armor in case you are hunted by Rogues/Assassins. Haversack, Bag of Holding. etc. No odd items to give your pokemount/companion some survivibility.

None of these weaknesses are impossible or even difficult to overcome with excellent teamwork. Just be careful about assuming teamwork will always cover your backside. I would emphasis that any character that does not carry a Potion of Fly, Potion of Invis, and Potion of Blur once you reach middle levels is flirting with death IMO.

 

[Pax]

You could actually pull this off with bracers +5 and mithral buckler +4 (25,000 gp + 17,000 gp = 42,000.).

No, you can't pull it off that way - because you're breaking the bonus into two seperate bonusses, and that's not how pricing magical abilities is done.

An ascetic Sorceror or Wizard could cast Shield, and still get the +4 shield bonus (for a total bonus to AC of +14 betweenthe two). Someone wearing the bracers-and-buckler combination you suggest wouldn't get any benefit from a Shield spell, because he would already have a shield bonus better than that granted by the spell.

That is why issues of bonus stacking is important. And that is why pricing the Exalted bonus as Bracers of Armor is the fair and balanced approach. As for using the most expensive bonus - not hardly; THAT would have been 250,000gp - the DMG lists "Armor bonus (other)" as costing bonus^2 times 2,500gp, were the Bracers are only bonus^2 times 1,000gp.

However, the functionality of the Exalted bonus is identical to the Armor bonus provided by the Bracers, so it seemed entirely fair to assess the price by the same formula.

And it's really beginning to irritate me, that people insist on breaking up stuff that way.

A single +10 bonus, to anything, from anything, is only appropriately priced if it is calculated based on being a single bonus of a single type - and that's due in no small part to the fact that the pricing formula for bonus-granting items all include the phrase bonus squared.

Of course [(5x5) + (4x4) + 1] is less than [10x10].

Let's ask this: would YOU allow someone to make a pair of,say, Bracers of Armor +8 (DMG list price is 64,000gp) ... and claim that it should only cost as much as Bracers +4 and a Mithril Buckler +3 (net price roughly 26,000gp) ... ?

Of course not!

So why do people INSIST on counting up the value of the ascetic's (various) benefits that way ... ?!?!? Single bonus is single bonus, not "any two convenient (and conveniently smaller) bonusses that add up to the same final number".

So Pax, would you say that a person that has a +8 STR belt at 640KGP and another person with 640KGP worth of stuff are roughly equal equipment-wise, and thus balanced?

... I didn't think so. Just because Epic book wrote the price as such doesn't mean it's actually worth that in other equipment.

Speaking in terms of House Rules only? No; I charge "only" double for what I call first tier epic (anything from DMG highest +1 to DMG highest x2), triple for the next "tier", and so on.

But that's still 128,000gp, which is still more than the 64,000 I actually did count (and which STILL gave a sum nearly twice as much as standard for a 20th level character).

however, we're not talkignhouse rules here; we're talking "as published", and as published ... yes, I am compelled to say that a Belt of Epic Strength (+8) is indeed worth 640,000gp. Because that's what the ELH says it costs, and without entering House Rules Country, if you want to measure the cost to buy a published item ... it's "by the book or bust". *shrug*

 

[Pax]

That seems pretty reasonable to me as a substitute for the 760,000 gp in wealth more flexibly distributed.

But that's without factoring in the "unless I'm cooperative and/or screw up playing my character, you can't take these away form me short of an antimagic field" benefit fo the Vow's effects.

If we naively count abilities, a low-mid level Paladin is a mile better than a Fighter; it does not work out that way in actual play. I have seen have a dozen "My GAWD the Monk is too powerful!" threads based on the same faulty logic.

However, the Vow's abilities are in addition to class abilities; they are instead of magic items and most mundane equipment. Thus, adding up the price you'd have to pay as a non-ascetic to get the same suite of abilities is entirely appropriate, and IMO not naive at all.

I suppose the VoP character desperately needs them precisely because he has nada for equipment to fall back on.

You'd never want true sight ...?!?!?

SURELY, you jest! Negate ALL invisibility, magical and mundane darkness, nonphysical concealment, and illusions ... ALL illusions? Automatically "see" through every Shadow Evocation/Conjuration ever thrown your way?

And you'd never want it ...?!?!?

... um ... wow ...