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The ol' power up scene. In anime, it can take several episodes. We'll make it a little quicker but still far from instant. This is sort of analogue to Dragonball or Rock Lee. You can flavor it as you wish, whether tapping into an inner reserve, or removing the restrictions your mind places on your body to prevent you from ripping your muscles. You access the benefits of Rage, at cost. Balancing this is going to be interesting, because on one hand this is half of what makes the barbarian, on the other hand you do it worse than them (perhaps so much worse that it's not really worth it. I think only stage 1 has any attraction in the current iteration). The names are tentative as they are bland.
Stage 1
Prerequisites: Ki Pool
As a standard action, by spending 1 ki, you can enter a Rage as a Barbarian. This rage lasts for 5 rounds, then you are fatigued for 1 minute.
Stage 2
Prerequisites: Ki Pool, Stage 1, Level 11
As a standard action, while in Stage 1, you can spend 1 ki to increase the effects to that of a Greater Rage. This rage lasts for 10 rounds. Afterwards you are exhausted for 1 minute. You can enter Stage 1 as a move action now.
Stage 3
Prerequisites: Ki Pool, Stage 1, Stage 2, Level 19 (No feats at level 20)
As a standard action, while in Stage 2, you can spend 1 ki to increase the effects to that of a Mighty Rage. This rage lasts for 15 rounds. Afterwards you are exhausted for 1 minute and must make a Fortitude Save DC 30 or be reduced to -1 HP (if your HP is higher). You can enter Stage 1 as a swift action now, and Stage 2 as a move action.
Nice idea, but as you said, it needs some work. I'd say scrap teh idea of Rage entirely and give them something unique and Monk-ish.
You want Rock Lee?
SPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!
Extra attacks, a Dimensional Dervish-esque ability, pseudo-pounce, those are the things that emulate Rock Lee, not Rage. Especially if you're going to impart Fatigue, Exhaustion and eventually near-death after spending these Feats to gain something a Barbarian can do free (and I'm leery of Feats that emulate core class features anyway). Also I think it's funny that the way the prereqs work you can have a frothing Rage Ninja as well. =p
So maybe it'd be better used as something like:
Push The Limit
Prerequisites: 6 levels in a class with a Ki Pool
As a Standard Action, by spending 1 Ki, you can push the limits of your body to the utmost. Your speed with all movement forms increases by 30 feet. In addition, you gain an extra Move action per round. These benefits lasts for 5 rounds, and afterwards you are Fatigued for 1 minute.
Break The Limit
Prerequisites: Push The Limit, 11 levels in a class with a Ki Pool
As a Standard Action, while using Push The Limit, you can spend 1 ki to exceed the normal limits of your body. When using the Charge action you no longer need to move in a straight line. You may make a Full Attack Action at the end of a charge, and gain one additional attack at your full attack bonus when you do so. These benefits lasts for 10 rounds, and afterwards you are Exhausted for 1 minute, and Fatigued for 1d4 minutes thereafter. In addition, your Ki Pool is disabled for 10 minutes, or until you are the target of Heal or Regenerate.
Special: You may enter Push The Limit as a Move action instead of a Standard.
Power At A Price
Prerequisites: Push The Limit, Break The Limit 19 levels in a class with a Ki Pool
As a Standard Action while using Break The Limit, you can spend 1 ki to push your body to its absolute peak, though at a high cost. Your base speed increases by 60 feet and you may make two additional attacks at the end of a Charge. This replaces the extra speed and extra attack supplied by Push The Limit And Break The Limit. These benefits last for
In addition, you may use Quivering Palm without using any of your daily limits of the ability, or Assasinate without any of the usual limitations (round of study, valid Sneak Attack target, etc.) while Power At A Price is active.
Afterwards you are Exhausted for 10 minutes and Fatigued for 2d4 minutes thereafter and must make a DC 30 Fortitude save or drop to -1 HP. Additionally, your Ki Pool is disabled until the next time you rest and regain Ki, or are the target of Heal or Regenerate.
Special: You may enter Push The Limit as a Swift action, and Break The Limit as a Move action.
High reward, but high penalties at higher levels as well.
If you were going for Rock Lee the consequence should be ability damage not a conditional effect. Just saying.
Ability damage is a bit long lasting for a Feat investment. Fatigue and Exhaustion impart Str/Dex penalties which is close enough for our purposes.
Besides, as Guy shows later, with more training opening the Gates isn't quite so hard on your body. He's just really tired after going up to 4 and even 5 Gates, which is beyond the point Rock Lee was getting f&*+ed up almost beyond repair by it.
Think Rynjin is heading in the right direction here, the benefits look really promising, especially for the monk. My main issue with these suggestions would be that they're slightly flawed in the same manner as many of the official PC options are, their cost/benefit-balance being off. A few slightly over-the-top statements may perhaps illustrate what these suggestions fail to consider IMO:
1. If a PC would, hypothetically, do the exact same thing to defeat her enemies (same damage etc.) during every one of her turns in combat, the overall benefit provided by her first turn would be at least twice the benefit provided by her second turn, and often four times that of her third turn etc.
2. Battles tend to be won or lost well within 3 turns (as in: "we all know where this is going"), and after that the fight is merely about quite insignificant resource management (or has turned into a desperate flight).
3. Temporary penalties that screw with a PC after combat is over has, generally speaking, no or only marginal impact on anything in 99% of all in-game situations, usually regardless of how harsh those penalties may be.
Using these statements as a rough guideline, I think currently these feats' main costs (move/standard action (+feat slots)) are well above their benefits. I'm even afraid their "fake benefits" in combat (ie after initiative has been rolled) would primarily serve as noob traps. And if only used just before entering combat, meaning only in those cases when the PC would be able to decide the timing of violence, they'd instead be too situational IMO. To actually be viable options in combat, I believe their action economy needs to be improved significantly. As is, their benefits are about comparable to the stances in Path of War (well made ToB-style PF classes by Dreamscarred Press) available at roughly the same levels, except those stances are entered as swift actions, last for as long as the PC is conscious, and have zero penalties. And when also considering that the poor monk and the rather weak ninja are the classes with the most to gain from these feats, I'd consider offering them at earlier levels (especially "Power At A Price") and only requiring a move, swift and finally free action to initiate ALL of them. Also, I think the penalties afterwards could be simplified, perhaps to "Afterwards you are Exhausted for 10 minutes and Fatigued for 5 minutes." I'd save anything more complex than that for the details/situations where the rules are more likely to really matter.
what if a HP threshold served as a trigger?
That's always a bad idea. Any class ability that depends on being closer to death to work is bad. Think of the barbarian variant in 3.5 that worked that way. Most of the time the free rage would trigger you'd already be dead.
Yes. There are stories that do that. Mechanically it's a bad thing to base an ability on.
Monks can already do speed, you can put Ki into +20ft, or an extra attack. Though that gives me another idea.
Ki Melding
Prerequisites: Ki Pool, BAB +6
Benefit: Whenever you use a ki power as a swift action, you may activate another different ki power as part of that swift action, so long as that ki power would normally be used as a swift action. Reduce the ki cost by 1.
I was considering this as two feats, one to let you use two swift ki powers same round, another to let you use the second one for free so long as you are paying for the first (and assuming both cost 1 ki individually). But I went with prereq that would put the monk/ninja into mid levels to access it.
I also like your Monk pounce idea though, which is pretty cool.
This made me think about how to build a Claymore. But then, that's more or less just a frenzied berserker with some mix of beast and dragon totems, eh?
Think Rynjin is heading in the right direction here, the benefits look really promising, especially for the monk. My main issue with these suggestions would be that they're slightly flawed in the same manner as many of the official PC options are, their cost/benefit-balance being off. A few slightly over-the-top statements may perhaps illustrate what these suggestions fail to consider IMO:
1. If a PC would, hypothetically, do the exact same thing to defeat her enemies (same damage etc.) during every one of her turns in combat, the overall benefit provided by her first turn would be at least twice the benefit provided by her second turn, and often four times that of her third turn etc.
2. Battles tend to be won or lost well within 3 turns (as in: "we all know where this is going"), and after that the fight is merely about quite insignificant resource management (or has turned into a desperate flight).
3. Temporary penalties that screw with a PC after combat is over has, generally speaking, no or only marginal impact on anything in 99% of all in-game situations, usually regardless of how harsh those penalties may be.Using these statements as a rough guideline, I think currently these feats' main costs (move/standard action (+feat slots)) are well above their benefits. I'm even afraid their "fake benefits" in combat (ie after initiative has been rolled) would primarily serve as noob traps. And if only used just before entering combat, meaning only in those cases when the PC would be able to decide the timing of violence, they'd instead be too situational IMO. To actually be viable options in combat, I believe their action economy needs to be improved significantly. As is, their benefits are about comparable to the stances in Path of War (well made ToB-style PF classes by Dreamscarred Press) available at roughly the same levels, except those stances are entered as swift actions, last for as long as the PC is conscious, and have zero penalties. And when also considering that the poor monk and...
I haven't really been paying attention to Path of War. I decided to err on the side of caution since it's easier to overcompensate than under-compensate with these sorts of abilities. I think activating as a Swift from the get-go is a bit much, however. At least for something you get starting at 6th level (remember, a Barbarian only gets Pounce at 10th).
Perhaps a Move to start, going to Swift (plus Move for Break) and then finally Free (Swift for Break, Move for PaaP) would be better.
Using a Move to start actually makes it better than a Swift, sort of. It doesn't technically eat into your Action economy at all (since it gives a free Move as a replacement).
Definitely needs some work, just my spitballing idea.