vow of peace and atonement

[fujisempai]

So one of my players is a monk that has taken the vow of peace and has started to attempt grappling during the 1st 2 turns of combat. I'm unsure as to whether you are actually able to grapple when fighting defensively.

also does taking the vow of peace require that he only deal nonlethal damage?

In the event that the vow is broken an atonement is needed in order to be able to use his ki pool again. I was wondering if it would still cost him the 2500gp if since he doesn't worship any specific deity.

[Drejk]

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Combat maneuvers are attack rolls, so you must roll for concealment and take any other penalties that would normally apply to an attack roll.

And

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A creature can also add any circumstance, deflection, dodge, insight, luck, morale, profane, and sacred bonuses to AC to its CMD.

Fighting defensively bestows -4 penalty to attack rolls thus bestowing -4 penalty to combat maneuvers and grants +2 dodge bonus to AC thus increasing the CMD as well.

It is debatable if fighting defensively is possible while attempting to grapple by RAW, however, because fighting defensively is described as option available when taking Standard Attack action or Full Attack actions and initiating and maintaining a grapple is neither.

The vow of peace does not require the character to resort only to nonlethal damage as long as the monk did not initiated combat and fought defensively for two rounds. Still, it is very good option to for such monk to keep in character.

Using grapple to constrain opponent is certainly in the line of the vow - it is even specifically states that many monks who take this vow specialize in grappling. Certainly there was no voluntary breaking the spirit of the vow. At worst there was confusion about the exact combat mechanics rules.

[fujisempai]

yeah i wasn't sure about the mechanics of the rules. I'm a first time gm and none of us really have much experience. my question about the atonement wasn't for the grappling, but more for a just in case he forgets kinda thing.

[Kazaan]

Well, first, there's a subtle difference between Fight Defensively as a Standard Action and Fight Defensively as a Full-Round Action.

PRD wrote:

Fighting Defensively as a Standard Action: You can choose to fight defensively when attacking. If you do so, you take a –4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC until the start of your next turn.

...
Fighting Defensively as a Full-Round Action: You can choose to fight defensively when taking a full-attack action. If you do so, you take a –4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC for until the start your next turn.

As a full-round action, it specifies that you must be performing the Full-Attack action which is a specific full-round action. This means that you can't combine Fight Defensively with full-round actions that aren't full-attack, such as Iaijutsu Strike, Charge, or Spell Combat. By contrast, as a Standard Action, it only calls out "when attacking" which is a much more lenient requirement and involves any standard action that involves an attack. For example, standard Attack actions, standard Use Feat actions such as Cleave, standard Use Special Ability actions such as Two-Weapon Warrior's Doublestrike, the Grapple action, etc. In fact, the vow itself calls out that takers of the vow often specialize in grapples. So it is entirely possible to Fight Defensively while performing a Grapple maneuver and, since the maneuver check is a kind of attack roll, it suffers the -4 penalty.

Regarding Atonement, the 2500 gold cost is associated with the type of atonement and not necessarily with a deity as even a Paladin or Druid who has no particular deity can be nailed for violating their respective "code" (honor and chivalry for the Paladin, reverence of nature for the Druid, etc). Adherence to a particular deity may add additional codes of conduct to a player, but that's its own separate thing and even Clerics who follow Domain rather than Deity are beholden to a lose set of codes associated with that domain. Monk Vows, in essence, enforce a code of conduct upon the Monk which is equitable to losing a class power due to violation of a code. This particular code involves 4 principal tenants: 1) Don't strike first. 2) Total Defense or Fight Defensively for at least the first 2 rounds. 3) Always make available the chance to surrender. 4) Never intentionally kill. The first two are easy, straight-forward, and mechanically based. The third part is a bit more "iffy" and a bad GM can potentially abuse it via metagaming, having all enemies encountered suddenly aware that this Monk has Goku syndrome and will let you go if you say you're sorry and promise not to PSYCH *violence*" and a particularly jaded player may find it harder and harder to fulfill that part. The last one is more straight-forward; deliberately kill. If you're defending yourself or someone else and are trying to beat them into unconsciousness with non-lethal damage, but get an extremely lucky double max damage crit that hurls them clear through Unconscious and straight to Dead, it wasn't deliberate. That happened to me in the second campaign I played, though partially because my GM ignored negative HP for enemies and put them straight to dead at 0 HP and I did enough non-lethal spillover damage to a kid with a a single hit to take them from bruised but conscious to outright dead. In this case, you haven't even violated your vow because it wasn't deliberate; you were defending yourself and they died despite all your efforts to the contrary. But if they're down on the ground unconscious, and the player "finishes" them, that's deliberate and grounds for failure of the vow and a 2500gp atonement. You can fluff the cost as offering expensive incense and offerings to the soul of the departed, your local widow's fund, the orphanage to repair all that ever so frequent fire damage, whatever.

[Drejk]

As far as I can tell, grappling and fighting defensively are not allowed by strict reading of the rules but I don't think it would be especially game breaking to allow such option for grappler.

Also note that vow of peace wording is bit strict and requires application of common (or uncommon as it might be) sense to judge what is in the spirit of the vow and what not. For example if read strictly and literally it does not allow for running away in the first two rounds because Run and Withdraw actions cannot be taken with Total Defense action nor while fighting defensively (because the later is option available only while taking attack actions) while common sense says that deciding to prevent fight by disengaging from attacker is perfectly within the spirit of the vow. I would say that any action that tries to prevent fight (as opposed to end fight) shouldn't be treated as breach of the vow. Of course it requires careful judgment of action with less obvious results.

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my question about the atonement wasn't for the grappling, but more for a just in case he forgets kinda thing.

The 2,500 gp cost is for divine casters that lost their powers due to angering their own deities. I think that Restore Class option of atonement would be more suitable, despite the reference to alignment in that paragraph, so the total cost would be much lower and the spell could be cast by any willing Cleric whose deity is not opposed to the general ideals of monks or peace. Cleric of aggressive war deity might refuse to help restore vow of peace, while cleric of more cultured war deity may agree. Some chaotic cults might be unwilling to help restore lawful monk while others, mostly Chaotic Good might be willing to help him because they might respect desire for peace or redemption.

[Drejk]

Kazaan wrote:

As a full-round action, it specifies that you must be performing the Full-Attack action which is a specific full-round action. This means that you can't combine Fight Defensively with full-round actions that aren't full-attack, such as Iaijutsu Strike, Charge, or Spell Combat. By contrast, as a Standard Action, it only calls out "when attacking" which is a much more lenient requirement and involves any standard action that involves an attack.

The part you quoted is a specific option of an Attack standard action so it is still debatable if it can apply on any attack or only to "Attack" action (which would not cover Cleave, Doublestrike or Grapple).

It would be the GM's decision to allow it or not; in PFS games I would expect answer to be "no".

[Kazaan]

The part I quoted is also a specific part of the Full-Attack action, but it still felt the need to specify Full-Attack. Everywhere else, where the Attack action is required, it's called out specifically. So the absence of 'when taking an Attack action' is conspicuous. Melee Attacks, Ranged Attacks, Critical Hits, etc. are all described under the Attack action but those have applications beyond, so the argument that Fight Defensively is strictly limited to the Attack action because it's listed under it is facetious at best.