The power of ki lies latent within all things, flowing through mind, body, and spirit alike and able to be seen and harnessed by those with the focus, devotion, and dedication to master themselves and achieve perfect unity and balance. The game describes ki only in terms of the mystic powers manifested by the monk and ninja, and The Way of Ki contains a wealth of options for increasing the variety and flavor of what these classes can do through their mastery of meditative practice and transcendental contemplation. The power of ki, however, is universal, available to anyone with the focus, desire, and discipline to master it, and The Way of Ki allows characters of every class to unleash this power, adding it to or infusing it within their normal class abilities. Unlock the great mysteries and transcend the natural into the sublime. The game touches on these secrets only briefly, in the context of the mystic powers manifested by the monk and ninja. If ki truly represents the extension of the self into communion with the universe and its hidden flows, however, its secrets should be possible for anyone to master with the proper instruction and dedication. By exploring The Way of Ki, now they can!
Inside this 23-page product (21 pages in portrait orientation) you will find 22 general feats, from Composure and Ki Meditation to Sap Ki and Yogic Levitation. For the martially inclined, there are an additional 21 combat feats, including Hadouken, Mighty Kiai, Shattering Strike, and Unyielding Stance. For masters of the mystic arts, there are 16 magical feats including Graceful Calm, Perfected Creation, and Unbounded Conversion. Besides these 59 feats are notes for integrating ki and its use with every class in the game, including vows of discipline and their impact on ki, with special attention paid to expanded options for the the monk, ninja, and samurai.
Designed by Jason Nelson with the Legendary Games design team of Clinton Boomer, Matt Goodall, Jim Groves, Rob Lazzaretti, Neil Spicer, Russ Taylor, Greg Vaughan, Timothy Wickham, and Clark Peterson, with fabulous art by Frank Hessefort, The Way of Ki is jam-packed with the kind of amazing rules content you have come to expect from us. Who better to provide you with innovative new rules concepts for your Adventure Path campaign or homebrew than the very writers of not only those adventures but also the hardback rulebooks for the game itself? Answer: no one. Legendary Games' Adventure Path Plug-Ins supplement and enrich your campaign experience, offering adventures and supporting products that incorporate and expanding upon unique concepts, themes, and rules subsystems introduced in the Adventure Paths while filling in the background characters, items, and locations that make those adventures come alive in delightful (and often dangerous) detail. Legendary Games comb ines stellar writing talent with innovative layout and product design and top-notch artistic values that we think will bring you back again and again.
Download includes TWO files: a full color version AND a stripped black and white version for easy printing, both versions hyperlinked internally and to online Pathfinder resources for easy interactive reference. Available in our legendary landscape orientation for easy electronic viewing on tablets, laptops, and smartphones, as well as traditional portrait layout, whichever best suits your needs as a gamer.
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Way of Ki is a relatively small pdf but it packs a major punch. The basics is that it adds a bunch of ki feats that spend ki to perform different things ranging from mundane bonuses to Street Fighter level stunts. The Monk can take them in place of bonus feats but there are alternate rules for allowing other classes to take them because there is a feat that grants a ki pool for those without one and even ki feats that add to spellcasting. Because Ki is such a limited resource I wound up making all the ki feats grant one ki point in addition to their own abilities but even without it the product gives a lot of things for ki to do, some of the chains give monks the kind of edge that they really need making this product essential for breathing more life and flavor to monks in your game or bringing ki to the forefront of campaigns where ki is important. This little pdf has a lot going for it without any hiccups or glitches so I'm giving it 5 stars and declaring it almost mandatory for games with monks. At this point I cannot make a monk without these feats.
Great selection of feats that make Ki viable for everyone
This pdf is 23 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page intro to AP plug-ins, 1 page SRD, 1 page author bios, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 16 pages of content, so let’s take a look!
This pdf is all about harnessing the powers of Ki and thus, we begin this pdf with a discussion on the nature of Ki and how varying classes use Ki. Among the suggestions are ways to redesign the samurai to utilize Ki as well for other classes – the suggestion is both elegant and neat: By taking one of the vows that correspond with respective far eastern virtues, characters can get access to ki-points. Beyond that, there’s also the option to utilize the new Ki-meditation-feat, which grants the character taking it access to one point of ki that also grants +2 to one skill chosen each time at meditation while it is not expended. Furthermore, the feat allows a character to expend said point for a +4 bonus on the skill aligned with the respective use of Ki Meditation. As such, the approach is somewhat similar, though different from Heroes of the Jade Oath’s usage of ch’i, but not to an extent that would make both takes on the concept incompatible. In fact, with minimal work on the side of the DM, they can be combined, which is neat indeed.
After these basics, we are introduced to a variety of different ki-feats: Body Control allows you to partially mitigate negative environmental conditions based on heat and cold as long as you still have ki-points in your reserve. Also rather cool: The feat allows you to hold your breath longer by expending ki-points. “Composure” is crafted along similar design-lines – as long as you have at least one point of ki in your reserve, you are harder to read via e.g. sense motive. The feats also allows you to spend ki to drastically increase the DC of sense motive versus you and use ki to mitigate fear-based conditions by spending one point per step to be mitigated and even avoid fear-based death effects à la phantasmal killer by spending 5 points of ki. Endow Ki is one of the most interesting feats in this pdf, allowing you to temporarily transfer ki to allies and granting them access to one of your ki-feats. Ki fuel allows you to burn physical attributes in 2-point increments to gain ki points.
Two of the more complex feats are plain genius: A new item-class is introduced via ki crystals, which essentially allow you to store ki points in crystals. If you think that monks will now carry those by the pounds, rest assured that tapping into them becomes progressively difficult. The second feat that allows for a sharing of power would be the option to inscribe Ki Tattoos: These allow the bearer access to one of your ki-feat abilities with a constant effect as if the user always had at least 1 point of ki. Interesting and thanks to the limitations still an option I’d consider balanced.
Ki Agility and Balance are the way to go for agile combatants: Granting bonuses to acrobatics and allowing for the option to grant bonuses to acrobatics and ref-saves by expending a point of ki and granting +1 AC to dodge and keep dex when using acrobatics as well as the option to spend ki to make an acrobatics-check to negate being dropped prone, they can be combined for additional fun. Ki Cloak is a must-have for stealth-based characters, allowing you to not only enhance your stealth, but grant you concealment and total concealment via spending ki-points.
For characters truly into ki-feats, Ki Focus allows you to increase numerical values of your ki-feats a limited amount of times per day, while ki insight increases your sense motive and allows for the expenditure of ki for a massive bonus to the skill or a bonus to will-saves. Ki Resiliency is an interesting option as well, allowing you to spend ki to get 1d6 x number of ki-feats you possess temporary hitpoints. Ki sprint enhances your base speed and allows you to spend ki when charging or running to add even 30 ft. bursts to your movement. Mental Feedback allows you to counter mind-influencing effects with non-lethal damage depending on the amount of ki you expend, whereas Mind over body allows you to delay the onset of select negative conditions. Perfected Performance allows bards to enhance their performances with ki. Sap Ki allows the character to negate other nearby ki-feats and drains ki from foes that successfully hit you. Sense Ki allows you to better perceive living creatures and allows you to temporarily gain blindsense limited to living beings. Swift Recovery is all about faster healing from regular and ability point damage and allows you to use ki to heal more ability damage or directly use ki to heal ability damage.
Strength of will is a feat I’m not comfortable with: It allows you to spend ki to change fort or ref-saves to will-saves and even with the ki-cost, for my conservative tastes this goes a bit too far. Really iconic and the last one of the general ki feats, the Yogic levitation allows you to levitate for quite a while as well as feather fall. VERY cool! After this, we’re off to the second chapter, which details ki-feats that also count as combat-feats. Sticking to maximum usability-guidelines, base-classes like barbarians, rangers etc. also get short paragraphs that allow them to e.g. take a feat from this chapter in place of their rage powers, mercies, combat style feats etc. – commendable!
Align Ki is the first feat I’d consider boring, since it allows you to align your unarmed strikes – been there, done that and all too often. Anticipatory Advance allows you to substitute wis for dex to AC with regards to AoOs, even combine them versus a creature and add wis on counterattacks versus said foe. Flowing Stance would be the defensive AoO-feat to the offensive anticipatory advance. Disruptive Ki allows you to deal 1 point of damage to all physical attributes via your ki. Evade Charge increases your AC versus charges and allows you to punish foes charging you with attacks, whereas felling strike allows you to increase your tripping efficiency and shattering strike does some analogue for sundering. You can also use Focused Strikes to get wis-mod to atk and damage for a round, but at the cost of 1 round of ki-feat-power suspension – interesting when combined with offensive and defensive attacks and great to make combat more fluid.
It should also be noted that there’s a rather extensive Kiai-feat tree that goes beyond the 3 standard-improved-greater versions of the feat: Starting as a powerful scream, the feat-tree allows for additional sonic damage etc. at higher feats and even stagger, stun etc. foes. Very cool! Rapid Recovery allows you to regain limited hp when reduced to 0 or below HP and Ki Rush can make you sprint with a 90 degree-turn and move through allied squares and difficult terrain. With heightened precision, you may reroll 1s of sneak attacks and also have better chances of getting past precision-damage negating powers like fortifications. On the bad side, we have Ki Touch, which is imho BROKEN: It lets you spend ki to resolve your attack as a touc attack and can be combined with e.g. Vital Strike. On the awesome-side, there now is a rather complex and cool Hadouken-feat that not only increases the power of your crits, it also has a nice synergy with the djinn-styles and allows you to use the iconic blasts
The final chapter of the pdf makes ki useful for casting classes and allows for options of all the casting paizo-classes to substitute some of their powers for ki-feats. The feats herein allow you to increase DCs of your spells, spell-like abilities and spell-triggering abilities, help maintaining concentration when defensively casting or casting within swarms, substitute ki for metamagic-level-increase, hit foes as AoOs with low-level spells and even bloodline abilities, hexes etc., hasten item creation by using ki and also modify touchspells via metamagic to work as potential reflexive AoO-casts. Prepared casters may spend ki to spontaneously convert a spell into another one and spontaneous casters may now use ki to cast metamagic spells without increasing their casting time. You may also transcend language barriers with language-dependant effects and implants spells in your subconscious that target yourself, even working when dazed, feebleminded etc. – rather cool.
What’s not so cool is that two feats go imho beyond what I’d consider a feasible power-level: Recapture energy allows you to spent ½ spell-level ki points to regain a spell you just cast as a standard action, retaining spellslots and spells you would have otherwise expended. While this one just rubs my conservative tastes the wrong way, the second feels a bit more problematic: Destructive Force allows you to reroll 1 die of damage per damaging die you roll as part of your spell – per se ok. What’s not so cool is the fact that for 1 poit of ki, you may reroll ALL damaging dice of a spell. Even with the caveat of only influencing damage and not ability damage etc., this feels a bit strong. Again, though, the feat is not strong enough to be considered truly broken.
The pdf concludes with a massive 2-page table of the new ki-feats introduced in this pdf.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, though not as perfect as other Legendary Games-products: I e.g. noticed a prerequisite called “Wist”, which should read wis, but the glitch remains solitary and does not impede one’s enjoyment of the pdf. Layout adheres to legendary games’ 2-column landscape standard and is presented in the drop-dead gorgeous, stellar standard used for the jade Regent AP-plug-ins. I can’t comment on the portrait-version of the pdf since I don’t own it and don’t buy pdfs twice. The original full color artworks by Frank Hessefort are beautiful as well and up to the highest standards. The pdf comes in two versions, one being more printer-friendly than the other and both are extensively bookmarked with nested bookmarks.
This is the crunchiest pdf released by Legendary Games so far and it is up to the quality I’ve come to expect from the all-star team of Legendary Games – the crunch is solid, innovative and interesting, making ki feasible for all classes as well as greatly enhancing your options, often with rules that, beyond immediate benefits, result via their implications in more dynamic combats. While a few of the feats herein are a tad bit off regarding balance for my conservative tastes, overall, this collection of feats is definitely one I’d recommend you check out. While personally, I prefer the way ki is aligned and possibly assigned to chakras in Heroes of the Jade Oath as well as its notion of a focus over the “as long as you have 1 point remaining…”, both collections of feats can be used to complement each other and I’ll probably just take the feats herein and modify them along these guidelines to make them fit better with the ch’i-feats, but that in the end is personal design preference more than any valid point of criticism.
That out of the way, while some of the feats herein feel slightly less inspired than others, the overall quality of the content herein should still be considered at top-brass level and thus, I’ll settle for a final verdict of 5 stars, only omitting my seal of approval due to the fact that I would have liked more unique abilities à la Hadouken, the yogi-levitating etc. Still, a great collection of complex feats.
Endzeitgeist out.
This is just what I wanted to have! And now I have it!
Let me introduce myself. I'm known as The Xiao here at Paizo forums, but I have been an abid player since 2nd Ed. D&D and a passionate advocate of all things Eastern. I really enjoyed the old (1ed) Oriental Adventures and The Complete Ninja's Handbook, plus Dragon Fist and all 3rd and 3.5 Ed. Monk stuff. I was really eager to see the then new (3.5) Ninja class with it's ki powers, but was dismayed at the execution.
Since the 1ed OA there have been Ki powers (and martial arts), but their implementation were really rudimentary. The closest things to a GOOD Ki implementation in 3/3.5 Ed., or D&D for that matter, was a book called Beyond Monks, which used the amount of Stunning Fists as your Ki gauge, and made a chain of feats to use that reserve.
Fast forward to Pathfinder... The new Monk has a Ki pool! It may be old news by now, but well, it is a vast improvement from all the old versions. The core rules have very limited ways to use that reserve, and only the Monk could have it... Until "The Way of the Ki".
Not taking into account expansions to the Core Rules, TWoK is, as the authors put it, an addition to what is already there. Ways to acquire Ki with all characters, ways to use ki as a kind of mystical power that helps in non-combative ways, ways to help it destroy your foes, and even ways to use it to improve your spellcasting! The full numbers are:
-22 General Ki feats for all characters.
-21 Combat Ki feats, tailored to the warrior classes
-16 Magic Kifeats, excellent for all kind of spellcasters
The General Ki feats run the gamut from the meta-ki feats (feats that interact with ki, like sensing, sharing, improving, draining etc.) to the yogi/wu-xia tropes you would expect from the cultivation of internal energy, like resist extreme weather or levitate.
The Combat Ki feats cover all type of combat buffs and debuffs you would expect from ki users inspired by wu-xia, fighting games, comics, manga/anime and "historic" records, like being immovable, heal yourself, focus your mind on an attack, reading your opponent or breaking stuff. There are also some like the Kiai feat tree, which is a fundamental part in some real-world martial arts (the Kiai, not the feats, which is basically shouting with all your... guts). Being able to shout in combat with mechanical benefits is just so cool. Speaking of cool, the best feat ever in any incarnation of D&D: THE FREAKING HADOUKEN! If you ever wanted to impersonate a character from any fighting game, this is your best chance!
The last part, Magic Ki feats, let you focus your spell to be more precise, damaging, effective etc. Exactly what the old ki powers from 1Ed did, or should have done. Also, some of them give you some legendary martial arts abilities, like using your powers unconsciously or speaking with any creature.
My only caveat with this product, and its follow-up, is the size. It is really short (not counting covers, bios, aknowledgments, tables, index blah blah, only just 14 pages of cold, hard mechanics) and includes only feats. I think including archetypes, spells, items or even a new yogi/inkyo like class would have made this product force me to hack Paizo's website to add 6 stars! It is THAT good!
All in all, if you are interested in anything ki related for your eastern-flavoured (not necessarily themed) campaign, this is worth its megabytes in gold pieces.
First off, the production value in this book is fantastic. All of the art work is top level stuff and the writing is consistently good. Some of my favorites, both for flavor and for crunch:
Ki Balance: Dodge with a cherry on top. It gives a +1 dodge bonus, but also allows you to spend a ki point to avoid being tripped or knocked prone. Handy!
Ki Insight: +2 Sense Motive and use a ki point to boost a will save or opposed check. Good synergy with the Snake Style feat if you are going unarmed.
Align Ki: A great way to give your weapon an impromptu Axiomatic / Anarchic / Holy / Unholy kick!
Kiai Feat tree: Fantastic flavor. A tree of shouts that can deafen, stagger, push foes back, deal damage or boost specific rolls. I want this just so my ninja can run around shouting "Fus Ro Dah!
All in all, a good way to improve the options for your Ninja. And if you have forgotten trick it opens a door to some very interesting possibilities.
If I do I'll buy it tomorrow. Two such neutral opinions simply cannot be ignored.
Neil Spicer
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut
In all honesty, I think folks who enjoy the idea of putting a bit of martial artistry into every type of combat-capable character (and not just monks, ninja, and samurai) will find this supplement useful. Jason even had the foresight to make sure less combat-capable characters (including spellcasters) would find something useful among the more meditative options. The Way of Ki is a fun rules add-on for just about any game. Not just those that feature Eastern-style tropes.
How does Hadouken interact with Efreeti (Marid, Djinni, etc) Style; would the player add twice their Wisdom bonus to the elemental damage?
Really enjoy the product so far, great work!
Jason Nelson
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
agnelcow wrote:
How does Hadouken interact with Efreeti (Marid, Djinni, etc) Style; would the player add twice their Wisdom bonus to the elemental damage?
Yep, although the Hadouken Wisdom damage bonus is a special add-on only with a crit, whereas Efreeti/etc. Style applies on any Elemental Fist attack. Hadouken does other fun stuff, though!
agnelcow wrote:
Really enjoy the product so far, great work!
Glad you're enjoying it, and we'd love to see some reviews from folks who are checking out the product. If you think it's aces, a positive word from you might encourage someone else to check it out and pick up a copy and share the happy with you!
Question on the Ki tattoo feat, the wording in the second paragraph is a little bit stilted- saying you gain the effects of a ki feat as if you always had one ki point then a new uncapitalized sentence saying you can use the feat for one less ki point and then another uncapitalized sentence that just states "always had one ki point in his pool". As it stands, that is incredibly confusing. Does it allow you permanent access as if you had one ki point and allow you to use one less point once per day if applicable?
Also of note- this was in the portrait version of the pdf.
Jason Nelson
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
Chaosvariable wrote:
Question on the Ki tattoo feat, the wording in the second paragraph is a little bit stilted- saying you gain the effects of a ki feat as if you always had one ki point then a new uncapitalized sentence saying you can use the feat for one less ki point and then another uncapitalized sentence that just states "always had one ki point in his pool". As it stands, that is incredibly confusing. Does it allow you permanent access as if you had one ki point and allow you to use one less point once per day if applicable?
Also of note- this was in the portrait version of the pdf.
Loved this product so far. The Kiai line of feats looks incredibly fun, and my Dragon Synthesist will likely need to pick them up!
I was really happy to see inventive ways of allowing any class to pick up Ki feats in place of regular class abilities. I think some Ki-focused archetypes would blend nicely as a follow-up product ;)
After I've had some time to digest it a little more I'll see about posting a review, its (mostly) good stuff.
I Ki Tattoo was the only big editing error, but if you take out the extra parts that repeatedly say the same thing, it makes sense. So I'd guess that whole sentence there should read more like:
"a creature with a ki tattoo gains the constant effects of that feat as if he always had 1 point in his ki pool."
The extra parts in the pdf I would assume are from an earlier version of the feat.
Bringing this comment over to this side from my review since I'm seeing some stuff from the authors!
First off, GREAT production value. I love the look and feel of this! Second, a great number of the feats look very cool.
However, I have a few beefs. You mention ninja a few times in the product brief, saying "expanded options for the the monk, ninja, and samurai."
The problem is that nearly all of the feats assume a WIS based ki pool and character build. Ninja are CHA ki pool based, and most Ninja builds I have made and seen keep WIS at 10 or perhaps 12 in favor of bumping up CHA, DEX and STR or CON.
Specifically, most feats have Wis 13 as a requirement and base the length of effect or strength of impact on the Wisdom modifier.
It would be nice if somewhere near the front it said, "Ninjas use their Charisma score in place of Wisdom for purposes of feat requirements and for the number of rounds that effects last for all feats in this book."
Jason Nelson
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
Cheapy wrote:
Azten, one is in portrait format (2 columns and vertically oriented) and the other is landscape (3 columns and horizontally oriented).
For comparison, a lot of Super Genius Games material is landscape format, and a lot of Rite Publishing material is portrait format.
I think Legendary Games is sneakily trying to figure out which format to go ahead with in the future, based on popularity.
Oh, we're not that sneaky about it... :)
As Tim continues working out the kinks of doing two-format layout, if we can streamline the process enough we may continue to do both going forward. If in the end it proves to be an unmanageable amount of extra work to do both for every product in perpetuity, then we'll settle on the one that shows the most sales.
Vote with your dollars! It may not matter if we keep doing both, but if you've got a strong preference, let us know.
Jason Nelson
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
By the way, in reference to the review posted by "tocath," I should say it's a funny thing that happens sometimes when you are editing, that you are so sure that you put something in there that your mind just kind of slides right past it when it's not there, and it's sort of a non-obvious point so even when others are reading over your manuscript they may not catch it.
To wit: Tocath is correct; ninjas *ARE* supposed to substitute their Cha for the Wis prerequisite for all these feats. I'll go in and adjust the files when I check back on the problem with Ki Tattoo later on after work, so we should have the revised files fixed up and reposted soon.
Thanks for pointing out the oversight, and hopefully you'll be happy to re-review the product once that has been corrected.
By the way, in reference to the review posted by "tocath," I should say it's a funny thing that happens sometimes when you are editing, that you are so sure that you put something in there that your mind just kind of slides right past it when it's not there, and it's sort of a non-obvious point so even when others are reading over your manuscript they may not catch it.
To wit: Tocath is correct; ninjas *ARE* supposed to substitute their Cha for the Wis prerequisite for all these feats. I'll go in and adjust the files when I check back on the problem with Ki Tattoo later on after work, so we should have the revised files fixed up and reposted soon.
Thanks for pointing out the oversight, and hopefully you'll be happy to re-review the product once that has been corrected.
Jason,
I would love to re-review it! Thanks so much for following up so quickly!
And I would just say that it is probably more than just requirements. For example, if there is a way to word the addendum in such a way as to impact things like this as well, that would be ideal.
"You can use Ki Focus a number of times per day equal to your Wisdom bonus." or "These temporary hit points do not stack with any other temporary hit points and last for a number of hours equal to your Wisdom modifier or until expended."
"Classes that receive a ki pool that is keyed off an ability score other than Wisdom use that ability score instead of Wisdom for everything in this book, including feat prerequisites, feat abilities, etc."
Something like that would work swimmingly.
Jason Nelson
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
Revised files are uploaded to Paizo but have to be processed by the staff before they go live, so expect downloadability sometime tomorrow.
P.S. A customer asked about the possibility of having Legendary Games product without the hyperlinks, to make it easier to use on smartphones without accidentally hitting the links. I had Tim go through this product and see how much trouble it would be to take out the links. Turns out that it is, of course, entirely possible to do, but the time investment to de-link and also take out the underlining seemed like more than would be feasible. We believe the links are a core functionality of our electronic product and we think they add a lot of value, so just creating products without the links isn't an option we intend to pursue.
If you are using our products on a smartphone or other smaller device where you find the links obtrusive, you could try resaving the document in Acrobat, which I believe offers you the option to strip out hyperlinks yourself. Alas if that's not the answer you were hoping for, but hopefully you will still be able to enjoy our products even with the links.
Thanks everyone for the great feedback, and keep those reviews coming, not just for The Way of Ki but for all of our products!
So, other than "no hyperlinks," are there any versions you all would like to see from LG - mobile friendly, ePub/Mobi/Lit versions, page animations? PM me with your requests and I'll see what I can do!
I only have one little quibble after giving it a quick once-over:
Ki Regeneration doesn't list a cost in Ki Points to activate.
That makes it way too powerful.
What should the cost be?
Jason Nelson
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Weren Wu Jen wrote:
Okay, just picked this up.
I only have one little quibble after giving it a quick once-over:
Ki Regeneration doesn't list a cost in Ki Points to activate.
That makes it way too powerful.
What should the cost be?
Cost to activate Ki Regeneration should be 1 ki point. For that matter, that's really the default mechanic, that activating a ki feat takes 1 ki point. In the absence of other notes to the contrary, that should be the baseline assumption. I thought I had covered all eventualities, but alas for imperfections!
Jason Nelson
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Just a quick note to our fans and a thank-you to everyone who has purchased and is enjoying The Way of Ki as it is flying off the virtual shelves:
After being available for just a week, this product has already equaled the sales of our prior best-seller's sales for the first MONTH! Thanks for making this product a hit, and we hope you keep coming back for more as we are on pace for our best sales month ever!
P.S. A customer asked about the possibility of having Legendary Games product without the hyperlinks, to make it easier to use on smartphones without accidentally hitting the links. I had Tim go through this product and see how much trouble it would be to take out the links. Turns out that it is, of course, entirely possible to do, but the time investment to de-link and also take out the underlining seemed like more than would be feasible. We believe the links are a core functionality of our electronic product and we think they add a lot of value, so just creating products without the links isn't an option we intend to pursue.
If you are using our products on a smartphone or other smaller device where you find the links obtrusive, you could try resaving the document in Acrobat, which I believe offers you the option to strip out hyperlinks yourself. Alas if that's not the answer you were hoping for, but hopefully you will still be able to enjoy our products even with the links.
That was me. I'm a little embarrassed you went to that trouble actually. I didn't mean could you guys remove the hyper linking. I was just generally asking if anyone knew how to "turn it off" in good reader.
I really like your stuff by the way (and will even more once I train my clumsy fingers a bit better). Eager for some hard copy versions.. :)
Woo hoo! Top download for the week on the Paizo webstore. Thanks, everyone.
Jason Nelson
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
Island Hopper19 wrote:
Any chance of this going to Hero's Lab, as a alternate 3rd party material?
Neil talked to someone from HeroLab at GenCon and they talked about maybe sending us a copy to look at inputting a product. I am not personally very familiar with using HeroLab, so the best I can say is that we may well try creating some HeroLab-compatible products down the road, but it's not on the front burner. Our main focus is on creating new products and we have to balance that need versus the time investment required to revise existing products into new formats. We will definitely consider it, though.
Great addition to my growing collection of 3PP books on monks. I did have a clarifying question, I'm assuming that crystals created using Imbue Ki Crystal are limited to having 1 ki point stored; is that correct?
I've been thinking of using ki as a way of handling Psionics in Pathfinder (as opposed to the standard sort-of-like-magic treatment). This might just fit the bill. I'll have to check it out!
@ Cthulhudrew there are a couple of 3PP books that use Psionics to handle Ki, though I've not been impressed by their approach. Check out Power of Ki, might give you some ideas.
@Lareg- Yeah, I checked out the Power of Ki, and while I liked the idea of tying ki into psionics that way (obviously, it fell within the purview of what I was already considering), it didn't quite go far enough for my tastes, and in one or two places actually went kind of askew.
Mostly, though, it was just 3.5 Psionics again, which- don't get me wrong, I think the XPH was the best handling of it in D&D thus far- is still not quite what I'm interested in.
If The Way of Ki isn't quite there, either, maybe a hybrid of them could work.
@ Cthulhudrew The Way of Ki doesn't seem like it's all that close to psionics, but it's really well done. The suggestions and feats for opening up ki to other classes seems like it could work as a good approach to psionics. I have to be honest, I really like the way Psionics Unleashed works. Prior to Pathfinder I'd only ever seen 4ed DnD, so I have little background for comparison (unless you count Shadowrun - lol).
Well, hopefully one day it can happen. But yes, main concentration on your products is paramount.
Thanks for replying.
Jason Nelson wrote:
Island Hopper19 wrote:
Any chance of this going to Hero's Lab, as a alternate 3rd party material?
Neil talked to someone from HeroLab at GenCon and they talked about maybe sending us a copy to look at inputting a product. I am not personally very familiar with using HeroLab, so the best I can say is that we may well try creating some HeroLab-compatible products down the road, but it's not on the front burner. Our main focus is on creating new products and we have to balance that need versus the time investment required to revise existing products into new formats. We will definitely consider it, though.
Jason Nelson
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
Lareg wrote:
Great addition to my growing collection of 3PP books on monks. I did have a clarifying question, I'm assuming that crystals created using Imbue Ki Crystal are limited to having 1 ki point stored; is that correct?
Yep, each one stores 1 ki point, period.
It's a battery storage system that does allow you to bank some extra ki, or potentially share it with someone else who has a ki pool, but you won't be able to just stack them up like cord wood to go mega-super-ultra-nova.
Jason Nelson
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
Cthulhudrew wrote:
@Lareg- Yeah, I checked out the Power of Ki, and while I liked the idea of tying ki into psionics that way (obviously, it fell within the purview of what I was already considering), it didn't quite go far enough for my tastes, and in one or two places actually went kind of askew.
Mostly, though, it was just 3.5 Psionics again, which- don't get me wrong, I think the XPH was the best handling of it in D&D thus far- is still not quite what I'm interested in.
If The Way of Ki isn't quite there, either, maybe a hybrid of them could work.
As to the question of things in The Way of Ki which went kind of askew for your tastes, regrets that the product didn't quite tickle your fancy. As to the whether it didn't go far enough, however, I'd invite you to check out the imminently available Meditations of the Imperial Mystics when it releases, possibly by tomorrow but at the latest by Monday. It delves more deeply into connections of ki, magic, and mysticism, including supernatural acupuncture, internalization of extreme yin and yang, linkage of mind, spirit, and fate through spirit-auras, as well as the mortification of the flesh and how ki can span the threshold of life and death.
Whether it exactly fits your appetite for psionics-type stuff, who knows? I can certainly see similarities in how you would use ki as a "third kind of magic" in the same way you'd use psionics. I'm not altogether clear on your second paragraph, as to whether you thought The Way of Ki felt like 3.5 psionics, or perhaps it was the other 3PP psi-products you saw, but I'd certainly encourage you to check out the new product and see if it might further enhance the non-traditional realms of supernatural stuff that you want to use in your campaign, whether you call them ki, psionics, or anything else.