Can you own arms and armor if you've taken a vow of poverty?

Can you own arms and armor if you've taken a vow of poverty?

Yes

Depends on the vow of poverty.

.... Not sure why you would take a vow that requires that you take advantage of the kindness of strangers with nothing given in return.

Yes. Just as monks can own clothing and the means to make coffee or beer or whatever they use to pay for their food, the vow of poverty means you take on a lifestyle of minimum functional wealth. Assuming it's common for monks to travel and fight (instead of staying at a monastery) then it should make sense for them to carry simple non-decorative tools for protection and labor (arms and armor).

Assigning spiritual value to humility and asceticism and stuff like that. I mean, you don't expect religion to be consistently and entirely about practicality, do you?

A few things.

1. vowing to be poor doesn't mean you can't make your own way, you just give away all the extra stuff you don't need aside from providing for your bare survival.

2. if you DO take charity, it's not generally seen as taking advantage of someone so much as it is offering another person the opportunity to do a good work and redeem themselves in the eyes of God or whatever. Also, just because you TAKE charity doesn't mean you ASK for it. It's probably more spiritually beneficial for the charitable person if you don't ask, anyways.

the knights Templar took vows of poverty.

Poor bastard doesn't even have a swordbearer.

Most priests went armed during the 17th century.

A vow of poverty doesn't mean you live in the dirt and on the charity of others. It means living off of only what you need, and giving the rest to those who don't have what they need.

Basically, it's about living frugally. Monks of the Church still had money to buy things they could not make themselves (such as specific meats and other food goods, as well as clothing or tools) but you were expected to live off of as much of what you could produce yourself as possible, and give everything else either to the Church itself (to be used to expand and grow the church and its programs) or to the community at large.

Ugh, the pure savagery

Things can be given in return. Buddhist monks tend to help out around the town with public works type things, for example.

and the major benefit it provides is giving a sect of people with a lot of power (in the olden days and to a certain extent today) a view from the place of a poor man, rather than just having another king sitting on a golden throne feeding golden bagels to his golden retriever. Priests who take vows of humility do so because they want to be able to support the peasantry by having the viewpoint of a peasant while still holding a good amount of political clout. They're trying to avoid becoming a corrupt asshole. Which is admirable, and I wish more priests today had to take proper vows of poverty, especially in America.

Sell your cloak and buy a sword, user.

To say nothing of fuckin' politicians.
>I am so rich I could literally buy and sell the ass of any individual who's ever attended my rallies
>lol vote for me, I'm the champion of the working man

In 3.5, the rules are rather explicit, so I'm going to completely ignore the feat "Vow of Poverty" for what an actual vow of poverty would mean if it didn't mean playing semantic games with the party loot for an AC bonus.

A vow of poverty means you have no "possessions".

Tools are an extension of your work, so you can carry arms and armor that you use.

You carry your needs, and for an adventurer, that typically means a couple of tools, your weapons, prayer equipment and a bedroll. Magic items necessary for your tasks may be carried and used, but should not be retained: If you are hunting a werewolf, of course you need a silvered sword, but you have no need of one after the quest is over, so you return it to the shrine, donate it to your order, or grant it to a worthy bearer.

Everything you carry should be a need; If you don't need it, it belongs to the community, church or your deity. You must relinquish it at the earliest reasonable opportunity: It may take you 3 months to reach the shrine to give up the sword, but you are just as correct if not more to give it up to a monster hunter you meet on the road.

A simple rule of thumb is if you carry enough coin to need a purse, you should gift it into someone's empty hands or a good cause's coffers

An interesting caveat for RP; never fear pickpockets: You carry nothing irreplaceable. As the old koan goes, if bandits leave you with nothing, lament you could not give them the full moon.

This kind of thing was precisely the subject of many years of intense philosophical discussion during the middle ages. If you have taken a vow of poverty, there is a strong argument to be made that you may be the temporary custodian of rather significant wealth. A piously impoverished holy warrior may well have possession and stewardship over any number of valuable items (arms and armor, a fine warhorse, food) without "owning" them. Strictly speaking, a D&D paladin's armor is less of a problem in regards to a vow of poverty than his iron rations. The iron rations are not under his temporary stewardship; they are expended/ruined by his use of them and as such he has a difficult task in justifying his non-ownership of them.

>buy most utilitarian, ugly ass sword and armor possible.
yeah

>As the old koan goes, if bandits leave you with nothing, lament you could not give them the full moon.
Turn around?

Fuck this thread makes me want to play a monk

Too bad they're awful in PF and 5e and my group refuses to learn anything else

Turn the other cheek.

Every now and then I get a little bit lonely, 'cause you're never coming 'round