Why do't ninjas get ki feats like grit feats (..signature deed)?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


How come there are no specific ki feats like there are specific grit feats. Something like signature deed is definitely needed.
, why can some dirty tech user have better self-control and less waste than someone that can control their spirit?


Well for one, ninjas and monks have their ki pools scale with their levels. Both have 1/2 their level+some mental stat.

Gunslingers only have their mental stat. Sure, they have a couple of ways of getting it back, but it still pales in comparison (especially against a hungry ghost monk, or any monk with ki leech).

If you are going to try bring some kind of flavor justifications, then my answer would be that, as seen with the development of guns in magic-dead land of Alkenstar, necessity is the mother of invention. High level gunslingers develop ways to conserve their 'grit' because they have so little of it.


Just because 2 archetypes (for monk) get ki is irrelevant. Getting grit back for kills and crits is FAR more than 1/2 level - check your math!

If necessity is the mother of invention its more likely weak classes would learn tricks not a top DPR class.


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insaneogeddon wrote:

Just because 2 archetypes (for monk) get ki is irrelevant. Getting grit back for kills and crits is FAR more than 1/2 level - check your math!

If necessity is the mother of invention its more likely weak classes would learn tricks not a top DPR class.

Yeah, that trick is to multiclass to a high DPR class. It is what commoners do, and they are the ones with the greatest necessity (since they are the weakest).

Anyway, some of the things you can accomplish with ki are inherently more powerful than most deeds. If you took something like signature deed, you could get invisibility, see invisibility, disguise self, or mirror image at will, darkvision any time they want, flurry of stars all the time, or pass through walls as if they are incorporeal.

So overall, it is a balance issue. The most gunslingers use it for is to hit touch beyond their first ranged increment or to get a rather nice boost in damage. What you are suggesting could completely overturn entire scenarios because the spells they are based off of were meant to only be used occasionally at a noticeable cost.

Even with the ones that can be permanencied were meant to be balanced against dispel magic (A 3rd level spell for everyone with magic...besides druids).

Contributor

The problem with this question is that the OP is really asking, "Why can't I take a feat that allows me to reduce the ki cost of my vanishing step / ki attack to 1 point so I can use them all the time?"

The simple answer is that the ki pool mechanic was never designed with the idea of reducing the cost of ki point abilities in mind. Many of the grit abilities were balanced with the assumption that your character might have access to Signature Deed, so a fair number of deeds specifically call out that they can't have their grit cost reduced. Adding a feat like Signature Deed for ki users would be mind blowingly powerful if you picked one of the aforementioned options.


Though said ki abilities could just get the 'no, you can't reduce this' text.

Contributor

Zhayne wrote:
Though said ki abilities could just get the 'no, you can't reduce this' text.

I guess you could add a rewrite of the monk, all of its archetypes, and the ninja to one of the dozens of Pathfinder Unchained wish lists if you really wanted to.


If you're looking for ways to reduce ki cost on a ninja, there are a (very) few magic items that do it. At least one of them can reduce the cost of a 2 or 3 point ki trick. I always figured it was pretty much only useful for ninjas that use forgotten trick regularly, but you can take a look at it.


Do tell what are these items named.

As for claims of ninja 'power' if they had such a feat as signature deed - tis to laugh,

a ring of invis does invis at will,

pearls of power are cheap enough to have maguses mirror imaging or frigid touching all day

drunken or hungry ghost or ki leech monks with quigong archetype get infinite spell abilities

or a human gunslinger (buccaneer) doing a targeted confusion at will as a swift action with a scaling DC indefinitely.

In fact that one change would actually make ninjas from 'MEH such a pitty, sooo cool' to 'what the hell, sucky BUT, I will play one'!

.. Just as some monk archetypes did that for the monk.


insaneogeddon wrote:

Do tell what are these items named.

As for claims of ninja 'power' if they had such a feat as signature deed - tis to laugh,

a ring of invis does invis at will,

pearls of power are cheap enough to have maguses mirror imaging or frigid touching all day

drunken or hungry ghost or ki leech monks with quigong archetype get infinite spell abilities

or a human gunslinger (buccaneer) doing a targeted confusion at will as a swift action with a scaling DC indefinitely.

In fact that one change would actually make ninjas from 'MEH such a pitty, sooo cool' to 'what the hell, sucky BUT, I will play one'!

.. Just as some monk archetypes did that for the monk.

Yeah, but rings can be sundered and supressed with dispel magic. All that a 0 ki invisibility would need was the next turn.

Oh, and the item he was talking about was most likely the The Ring of Ki Mastery. Unfortunately, that has a clause where it reduces the ki expense to a minimum of 1. So no, nothing free. Mostly just something that lets Qinggong monks spam cool things like blasting spells more often.

But there are other items that just give you back ki which are more common. Here are the links to the Ki Mat and the Amulet of Hidden Strength. Interestingly, one is slotless, and the other can be just put on and used for the ki before going back to your normal neckslot item. Technically, the mat has no limit on the number of ki points it can give back (well 24 since it takes an hour), but realistically you could likely use it at least once per day while the party does things like preparing spells or setting up camps/lunch, etc, etc. So that means about an extra 3 ki a day.


Ring of invisibility requires a standard action to activate. Doesn't really compare to Vanishing Trick.


insaneogeddon wrote:


In fact that one change would actually make ninjas from 'MEH such a pitty, sooo cool' to 'what the hell, sucky BUT, I will play one'!

.. Just as some monk archetypes did that for the monk.

I also want to say- That is already the point of ninjas. They are basically a very expansive archetype for rogues. Everything new they bring to the table was meant to do exactly that- take the a core concept, and then improve upon it with some neat tricks so people would want to play it.

Invisibility at all (and as a swift action), even a few times a day, allows a ninja to get in sneak attack damage without the need for flanking support (giving an option that can solve one of the main complaints of rogues). And they even threw the ki pool at you 2 levels earlier than everyone else (as far as I am aware) to bribe people with that trick. And heck, it can be upgraded to Greater Invisibility once you get advanced tricks (which means minutes/level, and thus it means 1 ki/fight at a point where you probably have 7 ki before items are added in)

Sorry if it doesn't live up to your standards....


lemeres wrote:

Invisibility at all (and as a swift action), even a few times a day, allows a ninja to get in sneak attack damage without the need for flanking support (giving an option that can solve one of the main complaints of rogues). And they even threw the ki pool at you 2 levels earlier than everyone else (as far as I am aware) to bribe people with that trick. And heck, it can be upgraded to Greater Invisibility once you get advanced tricks (which means minutes/level, and thus it means 1 ki/fight at a point where you probably have 7 ki before items are added in)

Sorry if it doesn't live up to your standards....

Correction: Invisible Blade gives Greater Invisibility for 1 round per level, not one minute per. It references Vanishing Trick as what it modifies by the effect of greater invisibility, but that does not change the duration to the spell's duration.

Still, at 10+ rounds for 1 ki, that should last a fight.

/cevah

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