Vow of Poverty
The “Vow of Poverty” feat from the Book of Exalted Deeds makes it feasible to play a character without magic items or equipment. In theory, at least - unless you’re a monk or cleric, you actually rely quite heavily on one or more items, such as a wizard’s spellbook. In this article I’m going to try and explain the best way to handle these characters who don’t use equipment.
There’s a general consensus among the online Dungeons & Dragons community that the Book of Exalted Deeds (BoED) was, for the most part, an underwhelming addition to the game. In my own opinion, it had some very usable material but much of the content felt like the book had been created as an overly exact counterpart to the much better Book of Vile Darkness (BoVD). Where BoVD invented poisons, BoED copied them but called them “ravages” because only evil people poison. Where BoVD statted up some fantastic demon princes, devil lords and beautifully lethal monsters, BoED gave us furries and naked people.
Among BoED’s better content was the occasionally controversial Vow of Poverty. The idea is that by sacrificing magic items or expensive gear of any kind, your character gains numerous inherent abilities to compensate.
Is it broken?
Several DMs have prohibited Vow of Poverty due to the massive amounts of abilities granted by a single feat, which include damage reduction, armor class bonuses and even several free feats. At very least it’s far more powerful than any other feat, and gives more abilities than even some character classes. This raises the question, is it inherently broken?
The answer is no - at least, not too badly. We take it for granted, but the amount of power characters usually gain from equipment and magic items is astounding. At twentieth level, your character has the equivalent of 760,000 gp in magic items. Less than one third of that will get you +6 to every single ability score. Throw in a suit of +5 heavy fortification armor, a +5 vorpal sword, +5 animated shield and a Tome to put your Strength up permanently by five points, and you’re still about 35k under budget. Consider also the potions, helpful ability-granting items, high-powered weapons and various armour/weapon enhancements you can own. Don’t take magic items for granted - this is what you’re giving up with Vow of Poverty.
So how do I use it with my class?
Barbarian: The first and most important thing you give up as an ascetic barbarian is armor. It’s not such a big loss since you don’t have heavy armor proficiency so you only lose up to breastplate, and by level 3 your VoP armor bonus matches that - higher, if you had a particularly high Dexterity. Losing shield use is irrelevant as long as your fighting style is two-handed, two-weapon or ranged. You’re definitely going to miss martial weapons, so you can go two-handed with a spear (1d8 x3) or two-weapon style with a quarterstaff (1d6/1d6) - in any case you’re basically limit to heavy sticks and pointy sticks. If your DM allows variants you can play a ranged barbarian who uses the Rapid Reload feat with a light crossbow - permissible, because you can carry simple weapons.
Bard: A bard is relatively easy to make Vow of Poverty, perhaps as a wandering preacher or orator whose speeches and hymns inspire the populace. A bard who sings rather than plays an instrument, relies on no items at all. He only loses the use of light armour, which the VoP armor bonus makes up for from level 1, and it’s not too much of a step down for him to use simple weapons. There’s a particularly fitting Divine Bard variant, if your DM allows.
Cleric: Technically, a cleric who has taken a Vow of Poverty can’t even own a holy symbol, which prevents him from turning undead or even using a sizeable number of his own spells. It’s a ridiculous situation that even the official FAQ can’t solve (between you and me, I think Andy Collins won’t admit it when something flat-out won’t work). Fortunately, some clever thinking gets around this limitation. Your cleric might have a holy symbol tattooed on his hand as a permanent symbol of faith, or he might have whittled one himself out of wood or stone. The lack of heavy armour and shields is a big loss until later levels when your armor bonus improves, but spells like greater magic vestment can mitigate this to some extent.
Druid: The druid fits Vow of Poverty extremely well - almost too well. One particularly powerful character build sees a high level druid walk around all day in the form of a Celestial Triceratops thanks to the Exalted Wild Shape feat, casting spells even in triceratops form with the Natural Spell Feat. A druid relies very little on armour and weapons.
Fighter: The fighter is hit hard by Vow of Poverty because he typically relies so heavily on full plate armor and either shields or greatswords. The best solution to this is to avoid playing a “heavy” fighter, instead going the two-weapon fighter route with a quarterstaff and putting a higher ability score into Dexterity.
Monk: The monk is perhaps the best class for Vow of Poverty, or at least it’s the one class most people associate with non-reliance on equipment. Absolutely no changes need to be made.
Paladin: A paladin’s special mount doesn’t count as property, making him the only mounted combatant who can use Vow of Poverty. However, he has all of the drawbacks of the fighter and cleric, since he can’t own armor, shields, martial weapons or (without some creativity) a holy symbol. You might take the opportunity to offset your lower armor class by making the longspear your primary weapon in order to have greater reach, while specialising almost entirely in mounted combat using the longspear. Alternatively you can go two-weapon with the quarterstaff or ranged with the crossbow, as described in the barbarian section. In that case, you may be more effective by playing a ranger with favoured enemies such as Outsider (evil) and Undead.
Ranger: Light armour and no shields means you’re not missing much in the way of defence, but the ranger’s combat style typically relies heavily on weapons. The simple solution to this is to wield a quarterstaff if you’ve picked two-weapon combat as your style, or a light crossbow with the Rapid Reload feat if you’ve chosen archery - crossbows are simple weapons, so you’re allowed one. A drawback of archery style is that you don’t get to make use of the free Manyshot feat. Outsider (evil) and Undead are likely to be your first favoured enemies.
Rogue: The rogue is in the same boat as the ranger, above. The +4 armor bonus at level 1 is as good as chain shirt armour but with none of the armor check penalty to Move Silently. Since you want to play the rogue as a two-weapon fighter to get as many sneak attacks as possible, a quarterstaff is your best weapon.
Sorcerer: The sorcerer relies on no items in particular, and the +4 armor bonus granted by Vow of Poverty at first level means that he doesn’t have to spend a valuable “spells known” slot on Mage Armor. You are permitted a spell component pouch, but remember not to take any spells with a costly material requirement, since you’ll either waste a lot of XP casting them or never use them at all (a waste of a “spells known” slot). Remember also that you can’t use a scroll, wand or staff.
Wizard: Similar to the sorcerer, with one notable exception. By the standard rules, a wizard is impossible to play since he requires an expensive spell book. Having the group’s fighter technically own your spellbook is almost a ridiculous a situation as the cleric who whittles his holy symbol out of a bar of soap each morning. Again, this is where some creative thinking comes to the rescue. Simply have the wizard keep his spellbook in the form of tattoes on his body. This means you need to think long and hard on which spells you want, since you don’t have the luxury of keeping a main spellbook separate to your travelling spellbook. The inability to use scrolls is a notable drawback to the wizard, since a good wizard always keeps a stock of scrolls for emergencies. The easiest solution may be to play a sorcerer instead!
Psionic classes: With the exception of psychic warrior, none of the basic psionic classes really rely on items. If playing a psion, you may need to check with your DM before he will let you take a psicrystal, since it might be construed as equipment. The psychic warrior may be slightly weaker if he can only use simple weapons; as usual, specialising in two-weapon combat is the way to offset this limit.
Prestige classes: Take care before planning to enter any prestige classes which may require specific equipment or gold. Guildmage, for example, has an entry fee in gold pieces and requires the character to carry an expensive token at all times. Vassal of Bahamut requires specific armour, and a duelist is a lot weaker if you can’t wield a rapier. (In a related anecdote, I’ve been in a game where one player decided to play a duelist who dual-wielded longswords, which is about as effective as a monk who tries to wield a greatclub.)
Summary
In short, vow of poverty can
December 6th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
First of all, your opening paragraph is pure bullshit. Sorry, but it’s the truth. I mean,you even admit later on that the druid is the best class, but then say that the monk may be too? Monks are only associated with VoP because of flavor, and because of idiots who quite frankly can’t figure out how the rules work. It’s a popular opinion that’s WRONG.
Monks DO use items. If anything, they are one of the most item dependent classes - a monk needs MORE gold worth of items to be able to do the same thing that a fighter can do. Now, you can claim that the VoP solves many of these issues, but really, it doesn’t. Sure, you don’t have to buy stat-boosters, amulet of mighty fist, and bracers of armor. You save cash there. But you have no ranged attacks, and no ability to fly on your own, ever. That’s right. If a manticore, a simple, basic manticore comes along, you are worthless. The VoP monk is a one-trick pony who’s abilities are too weak, and stats too low to even do what he’s supposed to be good at.
I can maybe buy clerics being non-item dependent. But what about druids? These are the people who fight unarmored and unarmored, AND don’t need massive items to do stuff the fighter can (like monks), so getting the VoP bonuses are usually stuff they don’t have in the first place. You say “Almost too well”, and then call monks “prehaps the best fit” ? Please - druids are the only class that can use VoP to its full power.
I dare say, however, Vow of Poverty is one of the most broken feats in the game. Not because it’s too strong - no, any character with Vow of Poverty is going to end up significantly WEAKER in a normal game. It’s broken because it removes the DM’s primary balance modifier. If your monk or fighter sucks ass in a campaign, the DM will often hand you magical items to help out (think about any ‘cool’ monks or fighters you’ve seen in groups of smart players - you’ll immediately note that this almost always happens). If the DM can’t hand you magical items… well, you’re screwed, quite frankly. There’s nothing you can do to ever catch up with the other players that may be stronger than you.
In addition, VoP breaks stories. A VoP character just can’t participate on some storylines, for no good reason. That’s lame to the extreme.
December 8th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
I like your analysis overall.
IMHO, VoP is a troublesome but attractive feat. But it only works well in a mature campaign, as does the entire exhalted angle. I wouldn’t allow it in tournament play or regular dungeon busters, only in a developed campaign storyline that deal with the kind of moral themes it tries to address.
But this isn’t the only thing like this. Skills are something that works or not in a campaign depending on how it’s run. Standard games and DM’s hand out XP based almost exclusively on kills.If you want a sneaky campaign run around rogues, then the DM will make most of the XPs from CRs for various challenges - sneaking past gaurds, cracking locks, leaving no trace, finding clues. You know, rogue stuff.
That’s a digression. My point is that VoP has it’s possibilities in the right campaign. Otherwise it’s clunky. It is NOT a feat appropriate for munchkins. I will say I happen to like it because my fantasy mind is inspired by heroes with nothing but a sword or faith, and not all gadgeted out.
December 17th, 2006 at 1:07 am
In your assessment of the wizard, I’ve also considered a type of wizard who donates all his magical stuff to the local church or a guild order who, in turn, keep it safe with others of the same in a library and equipments storage. Thus, while in town (and some campaigns for high level wizards can be done out of the one town in a day), the wizard has all the same access to spells as any other wizard. In 3.5, the feat Spell Mastery improves greatly, allowing for the wizard to master not just one but up to his or her intelligence modifier worth of spells. Thus, a highly intelligent wizard (and who isn’t, with VoP) can get up to 9 spellls memorized for one feat taken at 18th level (or more with other races, magical increases over the campaign setting if your DM allows it and etceteras). My third solution would involve one word: Permanency. The wizard can enchant himself to have spells constantly affecting him (which begs that other question of broken abilities, Time Stop, anyone?). The other DMs I’ve talked with consider this one of the most broken feats for any character with access to a sorcerer or wizard and that spell. Reconsidering, magic in 3.5 seems to be far overpowered (again, an all physical warrior merely is not well suited to combat any creature with access to magic, at the comprable level, unless augmented by magical counterparts, but that’s another question). All in all, I do like your commentary, but I still disagree by saying its capable of being used as a very broken feat in the campaigns involving skilled players to whose campaigns this feat is well suited.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
That’s interesting…I’ve played druids who have taken a vow of poverty (in one case in protest against a DM who was a little too Monty Haul for my tastes), but never thought much about it for more than that.
The real problem is that for other than druids and monks, so many depend on their equipment for bare survival. My LifeShaper Prestige Class may be a little easier to orient this way, since he’s working with (and warping) nature. A cleric with a nature diety may have the same connection however.
January 16th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
I just realised that I never finished this article. I suppose I shall leave it as it stands.
greg: That’s basically the situation, classes other than a monk and wildshaping druid require equipment and rely heavily on it. Luckily, most classes can be played equipment-light to some degree.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Recently I’ve been thinking of adding Monk levels to my Sorceress character so as to better defend herself in certain situations (say, anti-magic field); not only that, but a number of abilities given to Monks (such as becoming an Outsider at Lv20) fit perfectly with her single desire to become a “goddess”. I’ve become familiar with some of the basics of VoP due to a player who often gives it to his Monks, and being free from sleeping/eating/breathing is also perfect for emulating the gods.
Of course my Sorceress is Lawful Evil, so the difficulty comes in rationalizing the need to cast away her material possessions for such a path. VoP is perfect for your average Mother Theresa-type, but could it be possible for one to needlessy sacrifice such things because the desire for such power is even greater than one’s want of material goods? After all, what is a +6 Cloak of Charisma compared to being one with the universe and using your god-like abilities to sway the wills of an entire populace in believing that you are a powerful deity from beyond the planes and not just some human with funky abilities (note, a Cloak could probably help that as well, but then if they see you go months without food or water I tend to think they’d be more likely to believe you then than any Bluff or Suggestion could ever do).
Playing a Sorcerer (or Bard or Wizard, I suppose) with VoP doesn’t seem so difficult especially with the Eschew Materials Feat ability to negate the need for cheap material components, and since Sorcerers can replace old spells with new ones every even level, I can easily replace her old Focus/expensive Material-needed spells with spells that require nothing but her own, innate power.
So the biggest problem isn’t so much with physical gameplay mechanics, but merely role-playing her reasons for taking VoP in a convincing manner (especially since she did start off as a material-loving person; why the change of the heart all of a sudden, right?). After all, if VoP requires one not only to cast aside material possessions but to give back to the poor and stricken, why, she could merely be giving such gifts to her loyal worshippers!
At the moment I’m not really seeing VoP as being broken, although my knowledge is still limited; if anything, it just all depends on how one plays the character with VoP. (note, had I known anyone could use it (at first I assumed it was Monk-only), she probably would’ve had it at Lv1 instead getting it at Lv24).
November 29th, 2007 at 8:49 am
Sorry for the necro here, but in response to RJM: Since VoP is an Exalted feat, one of the additional requirements to take it is being of a good alignment (BoED, 39), so LE is right out. It also states that gaining an Exalted feat occurs as a gift from powerful good outsiders - what’s your Bluff check? ;)
Of course, there’s nothing to stop the character from acting like they took a vow of poverty without actually taking the feat (and without gaining any of the benefits, obviously) if there are rp reasons.
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:55 pm
VoP was designed to generally follow the same item based power progression of characters as layed out in the standard D20 concept. Thus when you kill monster x you get y treasure, bla bla bla. What VoP does not take into account is both low magic campaigns and the inherent vulnerability of magical items. Where magical items can be easily destroyed with a decent sunder attack, or even taken away with disarm, the benefits of VoP can not be eliminated as easily. So when comparing the numbers the feat should have been evaluated with this in mind, which it was not.
VoP is, IMHO, a broken feat which takes away a DM’s ability to balance a party by hand picking items gained and thus their benefits. It soon becomes necessary to give the rest of the party more items to keep up with the VoP character and in the view of a long time D&D fan who has seen everything from boxed set to 3,5ed, more items means less wonder which equals bad RP. VoP perpetuates the “nickle and dime store” magical item atmosphere inherent in D&D under the D20 rule set by forcing DM’s to “balance” the party with extra items for the rest of the party.
It also seems that somewhere along the line the basic idea behind feats got lost when VoP was created, that all feats should be more or less balanced against each other. I don’t see many feats out there that grant a long list of special abilities, bonus’, and extra feats, meaning VoP is far beyond the original spirit of “balanced feats”.
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:26 am
Rick: It’s rather that D&D third edition encourages DMs to stick to a certain level of magic items, and game balance is thrown out of whack if you give out too much or too little. Magic item power commensurate to their level is the player’s right, rather than the player’s reward, and that’s something that I’ve complained about before. It’s also something that is being toned down in fourth edition.
It’s inaccurate to say that VoP is unbalanced simply because it grants a long list of bonuses. It must be kept in mind that the player trades a significant amount of magic item power for his Vow of Poverty gains. While the magic item power can and will vary with luck and DM preference, it’s a core rule that it remains reasonably constant with level. So it’s partially 3e’s fault for making that rule, and partially the BoED’s fault for not realising that many DMs don’t stick to it.