Silence and Peace may be strictly incompatible, at least if you ever face enemies in combat. Poverty gives you a lot because it cripples you, especially in combination with Celibacy or Cleanliness (without items you need buffs, if you can't hit undead with unarmed strikes you need a weapon).
Maybe dropping Peace and Poverty would leave you with a viable character. You'll want to invest in UMD so that you can use scrolls/wands in place of potions & friendly buffs. It'd be a pain though.
Someday, I might try this for a challenge run.
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With level+2 auto bonus progression, would having all the monk vows be remotely viable?
Vows increase ki at:
+1 level (poverty)
+1/3 level (chains)
+1/5 level (celibacy)
+1/5 level (cleanliness)
+1/5 level (peace)
+1/5 level (truth)
+1/6 level (fasting)
+1/6 level (silence)Taking all the vows would give about 2 and 7/15 ki points a level- a bit less than 3 per level after including the regular 1/2 level increases. This would be in exchange for Still Mind (+2 vs enchantments), and the monk vow problems. Is it worth it? If not, which vows would be best to drop?
As of the second printing of Ultimate Magic and its .pdf, Vow of Silence was increased to +1/1 level. The thread is located here: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qxm2?Monk-Vow-of-Silence-Discrepency. As of yet and to the best of my knowledge no developer has reversed this. Just something to consider.
Vow of Celibacy means you cannot allow anyone to touch you. This prevents spells that require you to be touched. This is probably not worth taking
Vow of chains means you have a constant -1 to hit and AC again probably not worth taking.
Vow of cleanliness looks to be fine although this does mean you cannot use your unarmed damage vs undead. In an undead heavy campaign this may not be worth it, but otherwise is ok.
Vow of fasting means no potions so if you take celibacy at the same time healing will be a major problem. Even if you use Ki to heal HP you have no way to get condition removal spells.
Vow of peace is going to be hard if you want to do damage, but is a crippling vow.
Vow of poverty with auto bonus progression is almost too good to be true. This is one you should take for sure. An extra KI point per level is worth more than the magic items you give up. You are still allowed one magic item even with vow of poverty.
Vows of silence and truth are also good choices that don’t really cost you that much.
To summarize I would go defiantly go for the vows of poverty, truth and silence. As long as the campaign is not focused on undead cleanliness would also be worth taking. Fasting is another one that you could probably get by with, but if you do take it do not take celibacy. Celibacy is probably not a good idea anyways. I would avoid vow of chains in any case.
The vow of peace should work with almost any style feat chain. There may be a few styles that are a little too aggressive but there are plenty of defensive styles out there. Crane style is defiantly a good choice for vow of peace, but hardly the only one. Panther style is all about responding to attacks of opportunities. Snapping Turtle is also a very defensive style that focuses on grappling. Grappling style would also be another good style. Dragon style is probably a poor choice, but using it would not necessarily break the vow. You can fight defensively with any style; crane style merely lessens the penalties for doing so.
Are you using the unchained monk, or the standard monk? The unchained monk has a lot of things to spend his Ki on. One of my favorites is Wind Jump. By the time you qualify for it your movement is pretty good so it allows you to snatch those pesky flying spell casters out of the sky. Barkskin is always a good option. And if you have nothing else getting an extra attack every round is pretty good.
Vow of Poverty is a tool for using the Automatic Progression Rules only, and even then I would only attempt to use it in a Sensei build.
Truth and Cleanliness, (and possibly Silence to go with the Truth) are the only three that are really going to allow you to operate at full bore; work with your GM to enable some version of gauntlets that allow you to use your full Unarmed damage, and keep those handy. Fasting removes one thing, but not too much, so it's a viable fourth.
Chains can have an even bigger impact; if you lose the chains, you have to take up a Medium load, which means you lose a lot more than just -1 to your attack and AC, since you lose any Monk ability, such as the AC bonus or Speed, such encumbrance takes away.
Poverty means No Magic Items EVER.
Fasting and celibacy removes both types of healing (or other potion/spell potential), though if you only take one (I suggest Fasting) then you can accept spell boosting. (Potions beyond level 1 spells are a money sink, after all.)
Vow of Peace really does keep you from stopping Bad Guys; it is, bar none, the most Lawful Stupid thing I've seen. Since you can't ever strike first, nothing prevents The Antipaladin from shrugging and killing every peasant you're NOT protecting with your body - and even then, you have to fight defensively / use full defense for the first two rounds, which eliminates the ability to prevent other major atrocities.
Poverty lets you have one item beyond basic subsistence; if you want that to be anything other than a weapon you can't take cleanliness.
Peace has no out clause if your enemy attacks someone else. Collective self-defence is not mentioned.
Cleanliness can attack things just not filthy, diseased, or undead. He can also not touch dead things, but since they don’t attack that is not a problem. Looting dead bodies will be a problem, but since he will already have a vow of poverty that is not really his problem.
Vow of poverty is normally a crippling vow, but My Self stated they are using the auto bonus progression with the level +2. This is usually used in a campaign with no magic items so not being able to use magic items is a problem. Since he is not going to get magic items and monks don’t really need much other equipment he might as well get the +1 Ki per level.
The wording of the vow of peace is that you cannot throw the first punch of a combat, not that you can only attack if attacked. The antipaladin attacking a villager has started the combat. Since a monk can use either lethal or non-lethal damage with his unarmed attacks avoiding killing is fairly easy. Nothing says that the monk has to prevent someone else from killing so even someone else in the party can kill the opponent. While this vow is very limiting it is not total crippling.
The panther parry probably does not count as striking the first blow in combat, but I would check with your GM first. Think of the old west and the first person attacking. If someone drew a weapon on you, you were able to shot them and it was considered self-defense.