Ok, so if you pick up the Extra Rage, or Extra Ki feats, you get a few more uses/day of these things, but they really touch nothing else at all and are a constantly static boon (ie: any character that picks them up currently receives X and only X amount, period).
This ... just strikes me as odd for some reason. It feels like 3.x's old Toughness feat, really (yes, more mileage, but design principal here people - not the absolute mechanic). The Toughness feat of PF is FAR superior and it makes the feat worthy of the investment because it continues to give back over the life of the character (ie: +1 hp/level always). Maybe you shrug at it, but that's like getting a +2 Con bonus for the price of one feat (sure - only HP's, but still).
Now, here's my thought, why not just make this small adjustment to the Extra X feats of adding the X value + the relevant ability bonus as well for each purchase? I mean, for rage it would be 6+con bonus each time the feat was taken (making this a very solid pick for any barbarian even once - 6 is already actually pretty good anyway, so maybe moderate it down a bit? 4+ Con mod?). Seems a smaller change to me, but still very useful. Ki is even worse granting only a single Ki point at every other level is harsh. Devoting a feat to this grants you ... all of 2 ki points, and that just sucks (ie: back to 3.x's original draft on Toughness). If that was moderated with 2+ Wis mod, certainly more of an investment right there.
As it stands, there's not that much to differentiate the classes that use these features amongst themselves beyond the 1st level, 1-time application of the ability bonuses ... I'd like to see those stats continue to have some meaning somewhere/somehow.
So ... how bad would/could this mess things up?
If you want it to mirror Toughness, don't tie it to a stat, but rather to level. Have "Extra Rage" give two additional rounds of rage per level. Have "Extra Performance" give an extra round per level of bardic music. I think this might make them slightly more attractive, but (with the Bard I am playing right now) I've yet to run out of daily uses, so I feel like I've wasted the feat.
I thougth those feats, Extra Rage and Extra Performance, where intended for multiclassing characters.
On the other hand, Extra Lay On Hands an Extra Ki are, under my experience, very useful since those are abilities are more scarce and you would like tou use them every round.
Humbly,
Yawar
I'm not 100% sold on any particular mechanic just yet for making this happen, so any suggestions/alternatives are welcome.
On the Toughness thing - it was mostly to look as how feats kind of changed in basic design approach from version to version of rules, and as a rough comparison for where to start in adjusting the other two feats (though the Performance one should work into this as well).
I like the idea of making it tie to level progression ... somehow.
I just knee-jerk at barbarians going from +2 rounds/level to a jump of +4/level suddenly ... it's huge! (net gain of +40 rounds of rage I think over 20-levels!!!) The other thing is that it doesn't reflect the ability modifier (thus providing less differentiation between characters if taken - something I'd like to see brought into the design, honestly).
Toughness scales because hitpoints don't. You need more of them to scale with level, so the feat needs to provide more to remain competitive at higher levels.
Extra X feats don't scale, because the abilities they increase already do. Rage gets better the more barbarian levels you have. A higher level rage (powers, increased str/con), or channel energy (1d6/2 levels), or bardic song (inspire courage +1-4), are all better than a lower level one.
This means, those same 2 extra uses are better at higher levels than at lower levels already. Two uses of 20th level Rage is worth more than two uses of 1st level Rage.
3 hitpoints is always just 3 hitpoints. That's why there's a difference.
Ok - thanks.
It would seem that making it "level dependent" is a poor choice, then.
How about ability mods adding? Seems to be the direction I'll be heading then.
Toughness scales because hitpoints don't. You need more of them to scale with level, so the feat needs to provide more to remain competitive at higher levels.
Extra X feats don't scale, because the abilities they increase already do. Rage gets better the more barbarian levels you have. A higher level rage (powers, increased str/con), or channel energy (1d6/2 levels), or bardic song (inspire courage +1-4), are all better than a lower level one.
This means, those same 2 extra uses are better at higher levels than at lower levels already. Two uses of 20th level Rage is worth more than two uses of 1st level Rage.3 hitpoints is always just 3 hitpoints. That's why there's a difference.
Ki points don't quite scale in the same way though. The abilities of other classes increase per unit spent (such as rage/song uses rounds only, channels are always per use). Monks have to spend more points to get more uses. One ki point will always only get you a +4 to AC, or a +20 acrobatics. To use the later abilities you need to use more ki points, whereas other classes still use only one unit.
I would personally consider houseruling the feat to increase ki pool to 3/4 level+wisdom. At level 20 it would only give you 5 more ki points.
Yeah, I had forgotten about the Ki points. That's a good one to compare to Toughness, since it works nearly the same as hitpoints (you need more to get more benefit).
Regarding having it based on a stat.. you could do that. Although we are sometimes dealing with such low numbers (two extra uses and 6 extra rounds), it might skew things a lot to add it in as a flat bonus.