It’s time to have one of the old arguments of D&D. If Vow of Poverty is totally overpowered. I believe it’s underpowered myself, but a great roleplaying tool. That being said I’ve never actually seen evidence of anyone actually ever doing any sort of comparison. Just lots of unintelligible screaming.

So I thought it might actually be a good excuse to do these comparisons. Now, I fully understand and expect that VoP will work better with some classes than others, that is why I am looking for some people to build against me. So, I am going to start with Anderill building a fighter. The most Iconic type of fighter is the Sword n Board. We are going to go level by level and analyze each step. She will build her level 1 fighter with a wealth of 200 gold, I will build a VoP fighter as close as I legally can with the minimal supplies allowed to a VoP character. We will then compare their combat stats vs the enemy suggested at the beginning of each level/challenge. I invite others that know other classes well to also step up and challenge me.

1. the ‘Elite Array’ will be used in order to assure even footing across all builds and challenges. The ‘Elite Array’ is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8.
2. You will build your sheet first, and I will follow it as closely as I am able. Only changing what is absolutely required of me by the rules of VoP.
3. No custom crafting or crafting rules may be employed as that will provide an unfair disadvantage to the VoP character.
4. Build your character with the expectation of traveling 10 days at a time without returning to town.
5. Build according to the creature/challenge put in front of you at each level.

Chosen of Shar are nihilists who seek to aid their patron in returning the world to perpetual darkness. They wait for the day when the deities will war again, Dendar will eat the sun, and the multiverse will end, plunging the multiverse in a state of twilight. It probably never occurred to any of the several that have existed over the centuries that their deity’s existence is paradoxical, and that she too will perish when the cosmos cease to be.

The Chosen of Shar is a template that can be applied to any character who worships Shar as his or her deity and is of Neutral Evil alignment. Shar is reticent to give away any part of herself, and so there are rarely more than one or two Chosen at any time. The Chosen has all racial and class abilities he (the gender usage for this post, to simplify) possessed before becoming Chosen as well as the following:

Bonus Spells (Sp): At will- darkness, bane, darkfire 5/day-cause fear, inflict moderate wounds, blindness/ deafness, vampiric touch, shadow walk 3/day-suggestion, enervation, shadow conjuration 1/day- energy drain, phantasmal killer, greater shadow evocation

Immunities (Ex): A Chosen of Shar is immune to energy drain of any kind, negative energy, and magical blindness. He or she is also immune to aging, does not age, and is effectively immortal.

Spell Resistance: Chosen of Shar have SR 15+character level against spells with the shadow and darkness descriptors. Even if the SR check succeeds, the Chosen only takes half damage from the spell.

Eyes of Night (Su): Chosen of Shar can see through any darkness, including magical darkness.

Black Fire (Su): Chosen can use Black Fire (identical to silver fire, but draws on Shadow Weave. Damage is half cold, half divine power. Deals 1 point of temporary wisdom drain if used more than 5 times per day for any purpose.)

Shadow Aura (Su): Weave spells cast within 15 ft. of the Chosen are at –1 caster level.

Shadow Army (Su): Once during her time as Chosen of Shar, the Chosen may fill a 300 square foot space with permanent darkness. All mortal creatures in the area must succeed at a Will Save (DC 25) or be slain and animate the next round as shadows under the Chosen’s control. There is no limit to the number of HD of shadows the Chosen may control with this ability. The darkness resists the dispel attempts of all mortals, and can only be removed by a deity using Alter Reality.

Bane of the Moon (Su): During the new moon, Chosen of Shar are expected to hit the Church of Selune hard. To aid them in their task, during this time they are granted the ability to use Teleport without error at will, as will as Finger of Death once per night at her own caster level.

Darkvision (Ex): The Chosen gains darkvision of 120 ft. or, if he already has darkvision, double his current darkvision distance, gaining whichever is further.

Blindsense (Ex): The Chosen has Blindsense 30 ft. at all times.

Shadow Jump (Su): A Chosen of Shar gains the ability to travel between shadows as if by means of a dimension door spell. The transport must begin and end in an area with at least some shadow. The total number of feet per day that the Chosen can jump is equal to 10 x his Constitution score. This amount can be split among many jumps, but each one, no matter how small, counts as at least a ten-foot increment.

Keys to the Kingdom (Sp): The Chosen of Shar may access the Plane of Shadow with a gate spell a number of times per day equal to the Chosen’s Charisma modifier. The save DC is Charisma-based and Caster Level equals ½ the Chosen’s HD.

Abilities: The Chosen gains a +8 enhancement to his Intelligence score and a +2 to Charisma.

LA +4

I don’t have a lot to say here, you should just read it!

Eilistraee and her Faith
This is published by a friend and is a good read.

A Plundergeist is a type of undead, that results when a Kender is wrongfully executed for a theft it was not involved in. This type of undead becomes bound to a location of it’s choosing. That location it has chosen becomes the center of its proverbial world. This location can be an individual it has a strong emotional bond to in life, resulting in its bound location becoming mobile.

A Plundergeist is an incorporeal undead. A Plundergeist still has all of the abilities of the gear it wore at the moment of its death, for the magic of those items were drawn into itself rendering the original items powerless husks.

A Plundergeist will antagonize or attack lawful humanoids on sight, seeking revenge for its wrongful death. Its initial strategy tends to be to land three (non-lethal) attacks then flee. If it is damaged it will instead begin doing lethal damage for three attacks, then back off. If its target continues to push the fight, the Plundergeist will resume fighting with the intention of killing.

Each time a Plundergeist lands an attack, it automatically steals a number of coins equal to the damage it has done. If the target has no coins to steal, then on a successful attack that deals damage the Plundergeist may automatically, as a free action, make a sleight of hand check to steal another item from the target.

Items the Plundergeist have stolen are not on the plundergeist, ever. The item successfully stolen from the Plundergeist are immediately transported back to its bound location. Items given to the Plundergeist are also so transported.

If a Plundergeist is destroyed by having it’s HP reduced to zero, it will immediately appear at its bound location. This ability to prevent its own destruction may be used only once in a year. If the Plundergeist is destroyed again before this year of recovery, its destruction is permanent.

A Plundergeist is treated as being a rogue of a level equal to its total hit die before it’s death, regardless of what it’s original class(es) were. This includes all the benefits of such rogue level and it’s class abilities.

This was a homebrew that was approved some time ago, but it got lost in the mess or my poor organization, leading me to never actually posting it until now.

When outside of combat, a trained healer may attempt to manually aid a wound in healing, allowing them to maximize the healing spell at no cost. This may only be done outside of combat. It requires a skill check based off the heal skill at the following DCs based on spells. If the skill check fails the heal spell still goes off normally with rolled damage.

CLW: DC15
CMW: DC25
CSW: DC35
CCW: DC45

Mass spells require you to have one extra ‘nurse’ for each patient that can also pass an assisted version of the same check.

Alright so we have a new rule going into play here. All three DMs are in favor of it, there is no disgareement at all. So I am making this post so the players can discuss it a bit, maybe give some input. I am most likely going to put it officially into effect in the middle of next week at which time it will get migrated to an actual page in the homebrew section.

This first round of homebrew is for Performance themed dieties, because of course it is.

If performances fall into the portfolio of your deity you may make a performance check paired with a knowledge religion check as a religious act once per day in an attempt to appeal to your deity. The lowest of the two rolls is the deciding factor in this attempt, similar to how disadvantage works. This roll is then compared to the sacrificial rewards table found on page 27 of the Book of Vile Darkness.

One can bypass the disadvantage element by making a ritual sacrifice in place of the knowledge religion check. The sacrifice may come in what ever form is of interest and appeals to the deity in question and should have a value of roughly (10*perfroemr’s level) in GP. For deities that favor beauty of sorts this may be incesnts or perfumes being burnt. For that that favor the hunt this could mean meats or hides.

If this gains traction among the players this is likely to mean more of these homebrew are going to come up relating to methods and interests of other deities.

In my Land of M’kal game I am using custom legacy items for my players. Rules on those are here.
1. A Legacy item may be awarded to you from your family line.
2. You must have a story to go with your legacy item to suggest why it has sentimental value for you.
3. Your legacy item does not level with you. It levels when the GM says it does. This will often be tied to quests and deeds.
4. The table below will tell you the maximum value of your item at each level. This is the maximum completed value at that level, not cumulative.
5. Once a magic is added to the item it cannot be removed or replaced. That +1 jump you put on will always be there unless you up it to +2. You can’t swap it for +1 dance, or remove it at all.
6. Use standard enchanting/crafting rules for these. Ignore epic crafting rules completely.

Examples of Legacy items that have been used so far;
Morticia’s Hand Crossbow:
The weapon came engraved with a poem that spoke of how teaching people of pain is also an act of love.
Every sneak attack the weapon gained 10xp per point of damage done. It levels up at the same rate as a PC does, and as it levels up it’s MAX value according to the table above.