a certain member of my party (who shall remain nameless) has really been bugging me to allow him to take a vow of poverty. since I have enough history with this feat and am fully knowledgeable of what can happen with it in the hands of a player lacking the maturity to roleplay it as it should be played; I am a little worried he will take this to far and screw up the campaign for my other players.
so I told him "if you are serious about taking the vow of poverty, you are going to have to watch the way you play because if I catch anything that is deemed "unlawul" I'll give you a warning if you get 3 in one game....you are no longer allowed to have that feat" but I'll be a little flexible so if he walks by a homeless person after I point them out, I'll let that slide but if they are intimidating someone/something or purposely acting like a power mongering ***hole...that's a strike
now with that said I told him to write out a moral code for his character that I'd look over, make changes or additions if needed and ultimately make my verdict on whether or not he would work with a vow of poverty.
here is what we've worked out so far:
1. 1st law: I may not strike critically lest a comrade is struck critically by a foe so this is pretty self explanatory, if during combat he rolls a natural 20 and confirms the critical, it will be negated if one of his teammates hasn't been stuck by one in the past week, which he needs to keep track of
2. 2nd law: should I act against one of the laws within my moral code, one of my abilites granted by my vow is subject to removal for a time dictated by my DM this one really surprised me because I wouldn't expect him to actually choose this restriction given his somewhat rebellious, powerhungry nature.
3. 3rd law: my needs are secondary in the eyes of my party, lest my life be in danger so basically he said that if he is having a problem or is in danger while someone else is, he will help them out until they are considered "alright or out of danger" then he will deal with his own troubles.
I can already see the troubles that this particular law he gave himself, will bring but we'll negotiate something if any complex situations arise where he'd have to break this law
4. 4th law: I must ask my deity to forgive any action that isn't of my or my teammates alignment this is where he started getting cheesy, so if he or any good aligned character does something that is to be expected of an evil character such as, but limited to: torturing an enemy, refusal to help those in need or theft of any kind
he atones for these by spending an hour he would normally be spending asleep atoning(meditating), during this time he asks for his deity's forgiveness for these heinous actions. each hour of sleep he loses, I treat as 1 round of being fatigued in battle, if he uses all his hours of sleep to atonement, he may not participate in battle for that day, but I am critical on other players on what I deem against their alignments and if it seems that they are doing these on purpose I'll ignore their actions.
5. 5th law: I may not kill anything, lest it's alignment be my exact opposite another interesting one on his part that may end up causing him a lot of unnecessary frustration, because he cannot kill anything that isn't CE aligned, this is subject to change
more to come when he tells me, then I'll make any needed changes
This is a really good way to deal with the Vow. That's all I've got.
This is a really good way to deal with the Vow. That's all I've got.
thanks! it's becoming very long winded though....
This is going to make me sound like a complete idiot, but what exactly is Vow of Poverty?
it is a very controversial feat from the book of exalted deeds
This is going to make me sound like a complete idiot, but what exactly is Vow of Poverty?
It's a feat from the Book of Exalted Deeds, Shiny. It's known to cause all sorts of problems in the realm of abuse as you get all sorts of abilities over time to compensate for your lack of possessions. It takes up nearly a page on its own to explain, but suffice it to say monks with this ability can be truly heinous, though I've heard of some druids that got scary too.