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Alright, I have a attempted to make Vow of Poverty actually useful. As a variant (described below) this can be used to make tier 4 and 5 classes more useful by reducing their dependence on items.
The Feat:
[spoiler] Vow of Poverty [General] You have given up the pursuit of worldly goods, for personal, ascetic, or charitable reasons. In exchange you gain insight about the multiverse and access to your inner power. Prerequisites: You must give away all worldly goods save what is necessary for your survival and your trade. Benefits: You gain the following benefits depending on your ECL, as indicated on the table below.
Spoiler
Force Armor (Su): At 1st level you gain a +4 armor bonus to AC. This bonus increases to +5 at 3rd level, and increases by +1 every three levels thereafter. This bonus does not apply to touch attacks, but does apply to incorporeal touch attacks. Deflection (Su): At 2nd level you gain a +2 deflection bonus to AC. This bonus increases to +3 at 6th level, and by an additional +1 every 6 levels thereafter. Natural Armor (Ex): At 3rd level you gain a +2 enhancement bonus to natural armor. This bonus increases by +1 at 6th level and every 3 levels thereafter, to a maximum of +5 at 12th level. Endure Elements (Ex): At 3rd level you become immune to the effects of being in a hot or cold environment. You can exist comfortably in conditions between -50 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit without having to make Fortitude saves (as described int the Dungeon Master's Guide). Empowered Strike (Su): At 4th level you gain a +1 enhancement bonus on all attack and damage rolls. In effect, any weapon you wield functions as a +1 magic weapon, and can overcome the damage reduction of a creature as though it were a magic weapon. This enhancement increases by +1 at 8th level and every 4 levels thereafter. At 10th level any weapon you wield is also considered to have your alignment, so for example if you were Chaotic Good you would ignore damage reduction x/good and x/chaotic. At 7th level, and again every 4 levels thereafter, choose one of the following magic weapon special abilities to apply to any weapon you wield: Bane, Defending, Flaming, Frost, Ghost Touch, Keen, Ki Focus, Merciful, Mighty Cleaving, Spell Storing, Shock, Throwing, Thundering, Vicious. Ability Score Enhancement (Ex): At 4th level you gain a +2 enhancement bonus to one ability score. At 8th level and every four levels thereafter you gain a +2 enhancement bonus to an additional ability score, and each previous ability's enhancement increases by +2. Resistance (Ex): At 4th level you gain a +1 resistance bonus to saving throws. This bonus increases by +1 at 8th level and every 4 levels thereafter. Sustenance (Ex): At 5th level you no longer need to eat or drink. Bonus Feats: At 5th, 7th, 11th, 13th, 17th, and 19th levels you gain a bonus feat. You must meet all prerequisites for the feat.
Flight (Su): At 6th level you gain a fly speed equal to your base land speed with average maneuverability. At 12th level this increases to double your base land speed with good maneuverability, and at 18th level it increases again to triple your base land speed with perfect maneuverability. Fortification (Ex): Starting at 7th level, when you are affected by a sneak attack or critical hit you have a chance to negate the effect and take normal damage, depending on level: 7th: 25% 11th: 50% 15th: 75% 19th: 100%. Mind Shielding (Ex): At 8th level you become immune to detect thoughts, discern lies, and any attempt to discern your alignment. Damage Reduction (Su): You gain damage reduction 5/magic at 10th level. At 15th level this increases to 5/magic and silver (if you are lawful), or 5/magic and cold iron (if you are chaotic), or 5/magic and adamantine (if you are neutral). At 20th level this increases to 10/epic and silver (if you are lawful), or 10/epic and cold iron (if you are chaotic), or 10/epic and adamantine (if you are neutral). Energy Resistance (Ex): At 10th level you gain resistance 5 against acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic energy. This increases to resistance 10 at 15th level and resistance 15 at 20th level. Spell Resistance (Su): Starting at 11th level you gain spell resistance equal to your ECL + 10. Greater Sustenance (Ex): At 12th level you no longer need to breath. Freedom of Movement (Ex): Starting at 14th level you can act as if continually under the effect of a freedom of movement spell. Regeneration (Ex): Starting at 17th level you heal 1 point of damage per level every hour rather than every day. (This ability cannot be aided by the Heal skill.) Nonlethal damage heals at a rate of 1 point of damage per level every 5 minutes. True Seeing (Su): At 18th level you gain a continuous true seeing ability, as the spell. Perfection: At 20th level you transcend mortal limits. You become an outsider, gaining the outsider type with appropriate alignment subtypes and the native subtype (though you do not need to eat, sleep, or breath).
Table:
Special: You may only own what you can carry, and only what is necessary to your survival (including clothing, food, and shelter), or to your trade. For example, a fighter may own a weapon, a thief thieves' tools, a wizard a spellbook, or a bard an instrument. At any rate you can never own more than 100 GP worth of items, and none of your possessions can be masterwork or magical in nature. If you are good aligned then any surplus wealth must be donated to the poor, if you are evil aligned you must destroy it in a sacrifice to a dark god or archfiend, and if you are neutral you may choose either option. If you gain a reward, such as treasure, while working/adventuring alone or in a party, you must donate/destroy your share of the reward as soon as is reasonable or lose all benefits of this feat until you do. If you use any masterwork or magical items then you lose the benefits of this feat until you make an atonement, though you can have others use magic items to your benefit without losing the benefits of this feat. Special: A wizard who takes this feat may give up her scribe scroll and summon familiar class abilities in order to forgo the use of a spellbook. All her spells are instead stored within her own mind. She must learn spells normally, and may not pay for the privilege of scribing new spells, but now learns a greater number of free spells per level, and all the spells she knew when she takes this feat remain among her spells known. If she takes this feat at first level she knows 6 + Int modifier spells at first level. Moreover the wizard gains 4 spells at each new wizard level rather than 2, starting with the level she takes this feat.
Summary of Changes:
Spoiler
May be any alignment.
Does not require sacred vow.
You may own some items.
Fewer bonus feats, but may be any feats.
Bonuses increased (for example, you now get +5 to natural armor by 12th level and a +5 deflection bonus by 18th level).
Fortification starting at 7th level.
Spell Resistance starting at 11th level.
You now get weapon enchantments.
All bonuses are based on ECL (not sure if this was the case before).
Capstone ability that makes you an outsider.
That's about it. It is made into a much more attractive option for those who either like the flavor or (like me) hate dealing with magic items. For nonspellcasters it might actually be more powerful, at least for nonspellcasters that don't have UMD or some similar ability.
Analysis:
Spoiler
At 20th level the feats effective gp value is a little over 1,000,000 gp, depending on how you add things up. Many of the options however are subpar, so it is actually much lower, and there is no versatility. This is made up for by what are effectively 5 bonus feats (6 - the feat spent to gain these benefits). This is very powerful. Also several of the effects function in an anti-magic field when magic items do not, and a character with Vow of Poverty cannot lose these benefits to, say, thieves. I think all in all this works well, and it can also solve the problem with martial classes being too reliant on items (see variant below).
Variant:
Spoiler
To make martial classes more useful, give all tier 4, 5, and 6 classes this feat as a bonus feat, but take away the restrictions. They can have as many items as they want and they can have magic items. In other words they get all the benefits, but aren't actually taking a vow of poverty. They lose this feat if they multiclass as a spellcaster or martial adept.
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Alright finished editing. What does everyone think? Like it? Don't like it? Balanced? Too weak? Too powerful? Don't care? I need to know! It is vital for the salvation of the whole... okay, ignore that last part.
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I'll try to come up with better wording, but mind you that is the exact wording from BoED, and that version also forbids you to own/use magic items. Edit: I've changed it to functions as.
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I'm missing the "loss of benefits" disclaimer if the vow is broken.
how about:
- must collect his share of the loot
- ECL penalty** = (Wealth[gp] * Time owned[weeks])/(1000 * Level)
=> a fifth level character has 1 week time to get rid of 5000 gp worth of loot
** for the purpose of calculating benefits from this feat
Good point. I fixed it. I just have it read "If you gain a reward, such as treasure, while working/adventuring alone or in a party, you must donate/destroy your share of the reward as soon as is reasonable or lose all benefits of this feat until you do."
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But that cuts out the possibility of a villain throwing gold at you and thereby ruining all features of this feat!
A DM who did that should be forever barred from DMing. Seriously, I've had DMs like that, who liked to torture the players. It was actually kind of fun, but still.
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But that cuts out the possibility of a villain throwing gold at you and thereby ruining all features of this feat!
it also ruins the boost to the entire group by simply refusing to take your share
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drolyt
Good point. I fixed it. I just have it read "If you gain a reward, such as treasure, while working/adventuring alone or in a party, you must donate/destroy your share of the reward as soon as is reasonable or lose all benefits of this feat until you do."
ok for the simplicity
but adding a time limit and gradually decreasing the benefits makes a good slightly evil hook for role playing.
it also ruins the boost to the entire group by simply refusing to take your share
ok for the simplicity
but adding a time limit and gradually decreasing the benefits makes a good slightly evil hook for role playing.
I actually liked that idea, I just think its too complicated.
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Making the progression based on ECL instead of level is a good choice. most effects don't include LA when scaling, but a character with LA doesn't get less gold when the party splits loot -- he shouldn't get less benefit from VoP for waiving his gold either.
Making the progression based on ECL instead of level is a good choice. most effects don't include LA when scaling, but a character with LA doesn't get less gold when the party splits loot -- he shouldn't get less benefit from VoP for waiving his gold either.
Yeah, I always thought it was weird how few effects scaled by ECL. I guess WotC really only threw in level adjustment as an afterthought though. This feet should be particularly potent for high LA races due to the bonus feats, which should help with the fact that high LA races tend to play very poorly.
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Special: You may only own what you can carry, and only what is necessary to your survival (including clothing, food, and shelter), or to your trade. For example, a fighter may own a weapon, a thief thieves' tools, a wizard a spellbook, or a bard an instrument. At any rate you can never own more than 100 GP worth of items, and none of your possessions can be masterwork or magical in nature.
Wouldn't a wizard's spellbook automatically be magical in nature?
Wouldn't a wizard's spellbook automatically be magical in nature?
Yes, but then you can't play an ascetic wizard, which would be a fun character to play. It's only fair they get the only piece of gear that matters to them.
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Wouldn't a wizard's spellbook automatically be magical in nature?
How do you figure? Does it register with detect magic?
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Yes, but then you can't play an ascetic wizard, which would be a fun character to play. It's only fair they get the only piece of gear that matters to them.
How do you guys figure?
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I'm arguing that letting a Wizard have his spellbook is good, dude. Taking it away for being a magical object is silly, since it makes that archetype unplayable.
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How does a wizard pay for scribing spells? Or does it become free? Can they have multiple spellbooks? Otherwise wouldn't they be severely limited?
Um, DM's decision? You could argue that is all stuff essential to the trade. It's hard to make this stuff work for wizards. Even if you could scribe spells for free, a few spells and your spellbook is worth over the 100 GP limit. Really though, if the DM allows this feat he should be fine with bending the rules for wizards.
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I'm arguing that letting a Wizard have his spellbook is good, dude. Taking it away for being a magical object is silly, since it makes that archetype unplayable.
Yeah, but you also said yes, and I want to know why. I'm thinking it is magical if it has an aura, do spellbooks have an aura? I didn't think they did, I thought they were just ink and wood. I might be wrong.
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Yeah, but you also said yes, and I want to know why. I'm thinking it is magical if it has an aura, do spellbooks have an aura? I didn't think they did, I thought they were just ink and wood. I might be wrong.
Well, they're filled to the brim with spells of arcane power, I'd assume they're magic-ish. I really don't think it matters though, each DM will rule as they see fit on the idea.
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Well, they're filled to the brim with spells of arcane power, I'd assume they're magic-ish. I really don't think it matters though, each DM will rule as they see fit on the idea.
A DM that allows this feat but not with wizards is strange. One because there is no good reason to do so, and two because it actually decreases the wizards overall power level (most of the abilities are more useful for martial classes, you can't get things like rings of wizardry or metamagic rods). At any rate I guess its up to the individual DM, the feat as written should be fine for pretty much any other class.
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A DM that allows this feat but not with wizards is strange. One because there is no good reason to do so, and two because it actually decreases the wizards overall power level (most of the abilities are more useful for martial classes, you can't get things like rings of wizardry or metamagic rods). At any rate I guess its up to the DM, the feat as written should be fine for pretty much any other class.
I'd agree. Hell, I'd actually like to use this, and will probably steal it for testing in my current game.
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I'd agree. Hell, I'd actually like to use this, and will probably steal it for testing in my current game.
That would be cool. If you do could you report back with your findings?
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Work on my homebrew system, CRE8, is still marching slowly onwards. I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel -- an Alpha release -- in the distance now. Read my Design Goals here.
What's the reasoning behind the lack of Flight? That's often stated as one of the major problems with VoP.
Also, your table doesn't include improvements to Force Armor on it. Up to you whether it should.
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Happily. Also, I totally missed that there is no flight. What's that about?
You know, the whole time I was making this I thought I was forgetting something deathly important about why VoP wasn't very good. I'll get to fixing that. I'll also fix the table, nice catch. Thanks.
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You know, the whole time I was making this I thought I was forgetting something deathly important about why VoP wasn't very good. I'll get to fixing that. I'll also fix the table, nice catch. Thanks.
I recommend it at level 7. That's a good point to get flight, since casters already got it at 5.
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I recommend it at level 7. That's a good point to get flight, since casters already got it at 5.
I put it at 6th. That gives casters a level of breathing room. Also VoPs flight is weaker till 12th level, which is a bit more balanced. It actually becomes stronger at 18th level, but that's just for fun. Edit: Should I add some sort of ability to travel the planes?
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Just to clarify, yes, I agree with the idea that wizards should be allowed their spellbooks. Perhaps, however, VoP Wizards should be able to remember all of their own spells. A bit of concentration is required at the beginning of the day to "tune in" to the world's energy and convert them into spells. Just a thought.
Just to clarify, yes, I agree with the idea that wizards should be allowed their spellbooks. Perhaps, however, VoP Wizards should be able to remember all of their own spells. A bit of concentration is required at the beginning of the day to "tune in" to the world's energy and convert them into spells. Just a thought.
Hmm... that requires me to write extra rules just for the wizard. In my wizard redux I'm working on the spellbook is inside his head, kind of like the spirit shaman's spirit, and it's more of a focusing aid then anything. I could add in something like that.
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Just to clarify, yes, I agree with the idea that wizards should be allowed their spellbooks. Perhaps, however, VoP Wizards should be able to remember all of their own spells. A bit of concentration is required at the beginning of the day to "tune in" to the world's energy and convert them into spells. Just a thought.
Ah, well, yes, that makes sense. Perhaps give them the Eidetic Wizard (basically what you just said) alternative from Dragon #313 instead of a spellbook?
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