(yet another) Vow of Poverty and Intelligent items

[Wippit Guud]

So, how does this work...

An item is intelligent. It has it's own will. The item, of it's own volition, choosing for the character with a VoP to use it, but explicity says it is a free-willed item, and is not owned. Almost like being a cohort.

Is that allowed?

Alternately, what happens if the item has engouh Ego to take over a character with VoP?

 

[Artoomis]

So, how does this work...

An item is intelligent. It has it's own will. The item, of it's own volition, choosing for the character with a VoP to use it, but explicitly says it is a free-willed item, and is not owned. Almost like being a cohort.

Is that allowed?

Alternately, what happens if the item has enough Ego to take over a character with VoP?

Nope. Not allowed

It would be most unusual for the VoP character to even touch such a weapon, effectively denying the opportunity for the weapon to take over by never touching it.

IIRC, VoP has no provision for how to recover form an oath violation, unlike most of the other oaths where you can atone for involuntary violations.

Keeping in mind that one cannot even borrow items that violate the oath, I have to wonder how you even would touch one of these items in the first place. It should be evident that it is at least masterwork, and thus prohibited. Further, if not a simple weapon then it most certainly should be left alone.

No VoP character should even consider accepting a gift of a weapon, except in the most unusual of circumstances, like maybe to replace a broken dagger or something like that.

Having a cohort is probabaly okey, having a mount is more problematical.

 

[Wippit Guud]

Keeping in mind that one cannot even borrow items that violate the oath, I have to wonder how you even would touch one of these items in the first place. It should be evident that it is at least masterwork, and thus prohibited. Further, if not a simple weapon then it most certainly should be left alone.

"Oh ye of impovirished exaltedness.... I ask of you to go to <insert temple here> and recover <insert mythical weapn here> so that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands."

So, if he can't touch it....

 

[Artoomis]

"Oh ye of impoverished exaltedness.... I ask of you to go to <insert temple here> and recover <insert mythical weapon here> so that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands."

So, if he can't touch it....

He would not pick it up. Not with his hands, anyway. Maybe with some string or rope or something. Same as any other character, really.

Picking up strange weapons is a quick way to lose one's life, or worse.

I would not set up a situation where the VoP character was FORCED to violate his oath, though. A small advantage of having no gear is being immune to cursed/ludicrously intelligent gear.

 

[Camarath]

He would not pick it up.

I would allow characters with VoP to carry items so long as they did not actually use or own the items.

 

[Artoomis]

I would allow characters with VoP to carry items so long as they did not actually use or own the items.

Sute. Note the rest of the paragraph. Only a fool handles potentially magic weapons that are found until after they are identified. Carry them? Sure, if you must, but do not use them - not even a little bit, so that the situation of a weapon controlling a VoP character should never come up.

 

[Particle_Man]

Hmmm...I wonder if an intelligent magic item can take a VoP?

 

[Artoomis]

So what brought this up?

This smacks of an effort to duck around VoP restrictions, which should not be allowed.

 

[Eolin]

With all the VoP threads, I thought I'd ask a question about what my character is up to.

In the game (set in kalamar), we recently went to an evil burial-ground dookichey that had undead that were bothering the towns people. The place had all sorts of gems and gold -- and we took the gold. We through it into the burlap sack we carry, then gave it away.

To give it away, what we did was ... My character (a cleric) was praying in front of a town for a few days before going in. Given that he was dressed in rags, a lot of people thought he was a begger -- they'd try to give him alms. When they did that, he refused and reached into the bag to give them something in return.

Now, i reckon that this is a case where having the gold was OK, so it was only in his posession until he gave it up. Right? Or does someone disagree?

 

[Scion]

Is the character allowed to have a pet? a cohort? What about a cohort who cannot move on his own for some reason and the character has to carry him around now and then for locomotion.

The feat has intent behind it, everyone is going to draw the lines on what they think it is in different places.

Just like you are able to have other party members in the party do things for you then having an intelligent item do things for you is exactly the same.

It is perfectly well justified on either side though, which is a big problem for the rules forum

Just like I would allow someone to carry a little old ladies groceries home for her (uh oh, more than one days worth of food! burn the heritic!) there can be other exceptions. Depending on the situation this might be one, it all depends on the situation at this point.