So planning for our next campaign, my brother wants to play a Monk who takes the Vow of Poverty. While the name is self-explanatory, it had me become curious as to what that all entails.
Reviewing the text:
The monk taking a vow of poverty must never own more than six possessions—a simple set of clothing, a pair of sandals or shoes, a bowl, a sack, a blanket, and any one other item. Five of these items must be of plain and simple make, though one can be of some value (often an heirloom of great personal significance to the monk). The monk can never keep more money or wealth on his person than he needs to feed, bathe, and shelter himself for 1 week in modest accommodations. He cannot borrow or carry wealth or items worth more than 50 gp that belong to others. He is allowed to accept and use curative potions (or similar magical items where the item is consumed and is valueless thereafter) from other creatures.
It appears he gets access to 5 of the mundane living items, cash just to pay for his sustenance, consumables if they are given to him to use, and one item of choice. He actually wants a Masterwork Potion Belt as his item of choice so that he can simply pop potions whenever he needs to. In exchange, he gets a Ki Point for every Monk level he possesses. That is the real reason he wants to take this vow, and become a pure hand-to-hand combatant, meaning he is emphatic on the constant usage of Ki.
So here are my questions/concerns:
1. Should he really get a Masterwork Potion Belt as his one special item? It's a great starting item, though I'm honestly thinking he should have an Amulet of Mighty Fists in place of it. Maybe I could convince the GM to let it function as both that and a Belt of Physical Perfection or something to that effect?
2. What archetypes would be recommended for playing such a character? I reviewed the Qinggong Monk, but I don't see the usefulness behind that archetype that everybody seems so keen about.
3. Are there any other Vows he might consider to amp up his Ki Points even further?
4. What kind of feats should he get? Skills? And what other ways can he bypass DR with his unarmed strikes, since that will be his biggest problem in the higher levels?
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The potion belt is useless, as he cannot actually carry potions... he has to accept them from other creatures.
Qinggong is useful because the SLAs are much more useful than some of the abilities you replace. Barkskin is going to be vital with no items, and Scorching Ray is good for when you need a ranged option or can't safely hit something.
Pummeling Style from the ACG will help with DR, it's an improved clustered shot for unarmed strikes.
Well the one item is potentially in conflict with the phrase about only enough wealth to feed himself for a week. Some GMs might rule that means nothing magical. However, I would allow it myself. That said, I think you are right that an AOMF will serve him better in the long run than a potion belt since his teammates can always feed him the potions if need be.
2. I would definitely add the Qinggong Archetype at the very least. The thing about the Qinggong is it lets you trade out those abilities which are not so great, or very situational and replace them with good stuff. The first, and obvious example being to trade out Slow Fall for Barkskin. Add to the fact that he's going to have a whole lot of ki and even a lot of the spells start looking good. Restoration for instance, etc. You may not be taking stuff at every level, but certainly there's some good stuff in there.
Ordinarily I would say Drunken Monk is good for added ki, but that might be harder to pull off with the Vow of Poverty. You might get away with the party giving him "consumables" in the form of alcohol, but it would certainly be pushing it a tad.
Hungry Ghost, iirc, can also add a bunch of ki as well.
3. Vow of Truth is a pretty easy one to maintain. You don't get a ton of ki for it, but it likely fits well with the theme of the character, plus it really only means he gives up Bluff which he is not likely to be good at anyway.
4. Feats are always a personal choice imho, but if he's going unarmed, he will want to take a look at the Dragon Style feats (at least the first two anyway -- though only if he doesn't sacrifice strength). Potentially Weapon Finesse as well if he is a bit starved for ability points (lets him use Dex for to-hit and thus can sacrifice Str since it will be hard for him to buff his stats later). There's also the obvious of Weapon Focus (Unarmed). Dodge never hurts and Improved Grapple is a great one for the bonus feats. After that, a lot depends on personal preference. Btw, the other archetype he can consider is Master of Many Styles which will allow him to combine combat styles.
As for skills, Perception and Sense Motive are pretty obvious since he'll likely have a good Wis. Stealth is always good too and acrobatics can potentially help him get into position to help his party. Again though, skills are really a matter of personal style and preference.
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If your game isn't going above 4th level, then he'll probably do fine. If it's going any higher level than that, he will quickly discover that everything hits his low AC and he rarely hits anything with his low attack bonus. Part of pathfinder's scaling counts bonuses from magic items. By level 8 other martial characters will have something like a +2 weapon and a +4 stat item, giving them a 4 higher to hit and damage. They'll probably also have 4 higher AC from items.
So first order of business is to make sure he knows exactly how much of a penalty he is giving himself.
Second is to decide as the GM how you wish to deal with the extra money. If you have say four players, you give them enough loot per level to match the wealth by level table. Except instead of dividing it 4 ways, now they divide it by 3 and end up with 33% more money than you intended, thereby furthering the disparity between the poor monk and the rest of the players.
I don't see anything saying the one item of some value can't change. He can start out with the belt and later find an amulet. He just has to give up the belt in order to keep the amulet.
All of the vows give extra Ki, none other are as crippling as the vow of poverty. I'd recommend taking on any of the other ones over the vow of poverty.
Monks do get the ability to bypass certain DR as they level up. If you're still worried about it, tiger style is kind of like cluster shot for unarmed. DR won't be his biggest problem though, not being able to hit will be.
I have made theorycraft builds for something similar and my suggestion is qingong sensei, maybe adding in the contemplative archetype as well for even more ki (dwarf only bjt dwarves are awesome for monk). stack vows; i would avoid the one that makes it so you cant get touched because no touch spells is awful. Get the necklace of ki serenity iirc, or maybe its a ring but it reduces the cost of ki powers by 1 to a minimum of 1. For quingong pick whatevrr support stuff that would be best for your party as you will be able to hand it out with sensei... or you could just be a blaster which is amusing as a monk. not necessarily optimal but cool and functional. Iirc i had something like 30 some ki including contemplative ki at around level 12ish which meant like 30 dragos breathe a day hypothetically if you want that route.
Also done from my phone so please forgive capitalization and puncthation errors as well as the lack of citations and more indepth ideas.
If third party is at all an option, I like the idea of mixing monk with a Soulknife (Deadly Fist). It'll let him enhance his unarmed attacks without the use of items, and snagging the Focused Offense bladeskill would allow him to focus on a Wis build, which would further augment a ki-based character.
The potion belt is useless, as he cannot actually carry potions... he has to accept them from other creatures.
Qinggong is useful because the SLAs are much more useful than some of the abilities you replace. Barkskin is going to be vital with no items, and Scorching Ray is good for when you need a ranged option or can't safely hit something.
Pummeling Style from the ACG will help with DR, it's an improved clustered shot for unarmed strikes.
I took that clause to mean he doesn't buy consumables for himself, but he accepts them if given to him. I don't think that clause means he has to take them right away if he doesn't want or need to. But I suppose it's GM FIAT territory.
I never actually read what the Monk all gets, so you're probably right. They have so many features it becomes difficult to keep track of them all. And he's really bad at keeping track of things, since he plays a Ranger in our current game and he never knows how to add things up right, so it's probably for the best.
I don't have the ACG yet; GM won't be getting it until some time in early September, so I don't even know what it exactly does, the D20 site doesn't have it in detail, and the SRD doesn't have the ACG out online yet.
One of the major weaknesses of the Core Monk is that a lot of its class features sound cool on paper, but are really "meh" in application. Slow Fall might come up a couple times over the course of a campaign for example (perhaps a bit more often for a Vow of Poverty Monk, but even then it won't be a regular thing). High Jump sounds awesome until you realize that the Monk should have a pretty awesome Acrobatics check to begin with and again, its unlikely to come up all that often. Wholeness of Body, again, self healing is nice and all, but the amount it heals is pretty minimal when you consider the ki cost involved. The list pretty much goes on and on.
The only thing you have to be careful of is that if you add in another archetype on top of Qinggong, you can't a) trade out an ability you lose with through the second archetype and b) abilities you gain through the other archetype cannot be subbed out for Qinggong abilities. The real beauty of Qinggong though is that you only trade out that which you choose to, unlike the other archetypes which are set in stone regarding what you lose and what you get.
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Here is the loophole to the vow of poverty monk in pathfinder. If the monk has an item crafter in the party, you can stack as many magical effects on that one item as you can afford. You can have an amulet of mighty fists, resistance 5, natural. Armor, ect... As long as someone else pays for the upgrades.
Or you could need no weapons or anything:
MONK OF THE EMPTY HAND.
It needs no weapons, armour, anything. Leave your one item to get a Traveller's any-tool. You now have everything you need.
Here is the loophole to the vow of poverty monk in pathfinder. If the monk has an item crafter in the party, you can stack as many magical effects on that one item as you can afford. You can have an amulet of mighty fists, resistance 5, natural. Armor, ect... As long as someone else pays for the upgrades.
Interesting note.
Is there a way by feats for him to get Dexterity to Attack and Damage for his Unarmed Strikes? I'm asking for his attribute allocation, since he might just simply be able to dump Strength completely and just pump Dexterity and Wisdom.
What about a race? He could be human, the Bonus feat would be nice. The FCB grants 1/4 Ki a pop. He could also dump Int a tad since he still gets a Skill Point per level thanks to Human. And the +2 could go to his Strength, or amp up his Dexterity or Wisdom.
Maybe Garuda-Blooded Aasimar? The +2 Dexterity and Wisdom are awesome, the See Invisibility SLA is nice, Acrobatics and Fly as Skill Bonuses are good, though he can't dump Intelligence some if that's the case. With Scion of Humanity, he can still obtain the Human FCB of 1/4 Ki.
Any other ideas?
And here's what I think he'll take for his attribute allocation, assuming 20 point buy and pre-racials:
Strength 16
Dexterity 14
Constitution 10
Intelligence 10
Wisdom 14
Charisma 7
If he goes Human, he can dump Intelligence to 8 and bump up his Con a tad, he gets 3 (actually 4) feats, and still gets a +2 he can put somewhere. If he goes Aasimar, his Dexterity and Wisdom can be 16, still gets 2 (actually 3) feats, and other neat utility features, though he can't dump Intelligence.
Here's the attribute allocation if he can get a reliable Dex to Attack and Damage for his unarmed strikes, same point buy and pre-racials:
Strength 7
Dexterity 18
Constitution 11
Intelligence 10
Wisdom 16
Charisma 7
Same concepts as above, but he gets 3 more AC from Wisdom and Dexterity, and a touch more Constitution. He can also snatch a net increase to attack and damage rolls as well.
Thoughts?
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Is there a way by feats for him to get Dexterity to Attack and Damage for his Unarmed Strikes? I'm asking for his attribute allocation, since he might just simply be able to dump Strength completely and just pump Dexterity and Wisdom.
An Agile Amulet of might fists is still the only way for unarmed strikes. The dex to damage feats are tied to one-handed slashing weapons (dervish dance or slashing grace).
However... that gives me an idea. Inner Sea gods has an interesting item that is tied to Irori: The Perfectionist Shavtoosh. This is a length of cloth that can be worn as a sash or belt, but also functions as a +1 whip.
Since this is a home game, the GM might allow you to combine belt enchantments with it.
And since a whip is a one handed finesse-able weapon, you can use slashing grace with it without dipping swashbuckler.