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"Mystic Wisdom (Su)
At 6th level, a sensei may use his advice ability when spending points from his ki pool to activate a class ability (using the normal actions required for each) in order to have that ability affect one ally within 30 feet rather than the sensei himself. At 12th level, a sensei may affect all allies within 30 feet rather than himself (spending points from his ki pool only once, not once for each target).
At 12th level, a sensei may instead spend 1 point from his ki pool (as a swift action) while using advice to provide a single ally within 30 feet with evasion, fast movement, high jump, purity of body, or slow fall. At 18th level, a sensei may spend 2 points to grant one of the abilities listed above to all allies within 30 feet, or diamond body, diamond soul, or improved evasion to a single ally within 30 feet. These abilities function at the sensei’s level and last 1 round.
This ability replaces the bonus feats at 6th, 12th, and 18th level."
Let's say I were a Qinggong Sensei Monk.
If I swapped out High Jump, Purity of Body, and Slow Fall for let's say... True Strike, Power Attack, and Bark Skin.
1.)Does this this mean that I may spend 1 ki point to grant my allies one of these abilities instead?
2.)At level 18, would I be able to spend 2 ki points to grant all of my allies those abilities?
3.)Also at level 18, if I swapped out Diamond Soul and Diamond Body for something, would I be able to use the newly swapped qinggong ability to give to one single ally?
Not instead. As well as. If True Strike, Power Attack and Bark Skin are class abilities (which is what quingong makes them), then by the 6th level part of mystic wisdom, they can be handed out to an ally (or many at level 12).
At 12th level, sensei can additionally provide his ally with evasion, fast movement, high jump, purity of body, or slow fall, even if he doesn't have those abilities himself. Same for the 18th level abilities.
That's rules as written. Though GM could countermand it.
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"Mystic Wisdom (Su)
At 6th level, a sensei may use his advice ability when spending points from his ki pool to activate a class ability (using the normal actions required for each) in order to have that ability affect one ally within 30 feet rather than the sensei himself. At 12th level, a sensei may affect all allies within 30 feet rather than himself (spending points from his ki pool only once, not once for each target).
1. As to this ability capstone, you would be giving True Strike, Power Attack, or Barkskin to your ally instead of yourself, so while you wouldn't benefit from the True Strike, Power Attack, or Barkskin (whichever you decided to give to another player) your ally certainly would thank you for it!
At 12th level, a sensei may instead spend 1 point from his ki pool (as a swift action) while using advice to provide a single ally within 30 feet with evasion, fast movement, high jump, purity of body, or slow fall. At 18th level, a sensei may spend 2 points to grant one of the abilities listed above to all allies within 30 feet, or diamond body, diamond soul, or improved evasion to a single ally within 30 feet. These abilities function at the sensei’s level and last 1 round.
And this is just frosting on the cake. While waiting until 12th and 18th levels for this stuff might seem a long time, it'd still be well worth the wait in my book.
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I agree Daniel. I was thinking if I died I might make a Sensei/Bard hybrid or something.(haven't thought this out at all yet Lulz) Just a full support character that buffs everyone like crazy.
Or I could make yet another monk/druid... and go full heals and buffs and defense to make sure he's safe at all times :3
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Indeed. However, giving everyone True strike on their next attack... every turn for as many as I can... that's a guaranteed Magus or Fighter hit that will absolutely decimate. Magus' hit SO HARD.
I think I'll look into ways to successfully combine Monk/Bard. Are there any other really good support classes aside from Bard/Druid?
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Yep, pretty broken. True Striking for daaaaays Lol.
If you have days worth of ki points. And given that the text says, " These abilities function at the sensei’s level and last 1 round." I would interpret this to mean that all benefits last one round, even spell-like abilities that would otherwise have a longer duration. So you can keep giving your allies true strike every round, but you have to spend the ki points every round to do it.
I don't see that as broken. Given a monk may also want to save his ki points for something else, it is a resource that can be easily limited, even if you do everything you can to max out your pool.
Sensei doesn't say anything about granting powers other than those listed.
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Yep, pretty broken. True Striking for daaaaays Lol.
If you have days worth of ki points. And given that the text says, " These abilities function at the sensei’s level and last 1 round." I would interpret this to mean that all benefits last one round, even spell-like abilities that would otherwise have a longer duration. So you can keep giving your allies true strike every round, but you have to spend the ki points every round to do it.
I don't see that as broken. Given a monk may also want to save his ki points for something else, it is a resource that can be easily limited, even if you do everything you can to max out your pool.
Or perhaps I could just take Extra Ki 8 or 9 times as a Feat... since it stacks... and then combine that with Vows to further increase my Ki Pool...
So Yes, a huge ki pool is possible!
Sensei doesn't say anything about granting powers other than those listed.
It implies it:
At 6th level, a sensei may use his advice ability when spending points from his ki pool to activate a class ability (using the normal actions required for each) in order to have that ability affect one ally within 30 feet rather than the sensei himself. At 12th level, a sensei may affect all allies within 30 feet rather than himself (spending points from his ki pool only once, not once for each target).
There is no list for 6th level - only that it must be a class ability activated by Ki (and substituted Ki powers using Qingong should qualify). So at the very least, by RAW you could swap Ki powers using Qingong monk and then grant them to individuals using your Ki.
That said, also by RAW the 12th level expansion on Mystic Wisdom appears to be limited to only specific Ki powers. Whether that's intentional or not, I am not certain.
It looks like you could grant anything that costs ki, plus anything on those lists. It looks okay to me.
Maybe it's a good thing that sensei is impossible to qualify for?
Maybe it's a good thing that sensei is impossible to qualify for?
'splain please. It's an archetype; there's nothing to qualify for in the first place.
Maybe it's a good thing that sensei is impossible to qualify for?'splain please. It's an archetype; there's nothing to qualify for in the first place.
Maybe he is talking about the fact that it trades out the bonus feat at 12th level, but there is no bonus feat there? I don't know if that is a typo on the d20pfsrd but it was the only odd thing I noticed.
It's nowhere near broken. +20 to another's the first attack for a standard action is practically not much different from +5. It's useful sometimes, but usually, that's not worth a standard action. So I'd say it's not even good. It's green at best.
The table seems to resolve that issue, it has 6, 14, and 18 feats being lost for the Sensei.
Do you mean the d20pfsrd.com table? That's not official, and I don't know of any official errata or answered FAQ that covers the sensei. They could have fixed it when I wasn't looking, of course.
Good, not broken. Senseis are supposed to be buffers.
As such, they are second rate to full casters and bards. The ability is hardly broken compared to some of the buffs a caster - even a 2/3 caster - can pull at this level.
Yep, pretty broken. True Striking for daaaaays Lol.
If you have days worth of ki points. And given that the text says, " These abilities function at the sensei’s level and last 1 round." I would interpret this to mean that all benefits last one round, even spell-like abilities that would otherwise have a longer duration. So you can keep giving your allies true strike every round, but you have to spend the ki points every round to do it.
I don't see that as broken. Given a monk may also want to save his ki points for something else, it is a resource that can be easily limited, even if you do everything you can to max out your pool.
Or perhaps I could just take Extra Ki 8 or 9 times as a Feat... since it stacks... and then combine that with Vows to further increase my Ki Pool...
So Yes, a huge ki pool is possible!
I didn't say it wasn't possible. Note my own comment, bolded.
If you've taken Extra Ki "8 or 9" times, that means you are at minimum a 15th level character who has no feats except Extra Ki, Improved Unarmed Strike and 2 monk bonus feats (because you are a sensei), which is a somewhat limited list of feats. Adequate, certainly, to play. How effective a monk build that would be, I'd really have to see it in action. If you have actual experience playing this build, I'd love to hear the actual results you've gotten.
Otherwise, my speculation is, given the tradeoffs?
No, still not broken. Especially since it means you've basically designed your character to stand around doing nothing but buffing your allies for most fights, one round at a time. Remember you also need ki points to use its normal benefits as well (get extra attacks, improve AC, add speed, use wholeness of body, use high jump, (if you don't give them up) etc.) and always need 1 point in your pool to use ki strike.
Let's see... let's say you've got a 15th level monk. No normal feats but Extra Ki. Let's assume you have a Wisdom of 20, including item bonuses, for a Wisdom Bonus of +5. You have 5 ki points from Wisdom, 7 from your level, and 16 from Extra Ki. 29 ki points total. That's a lot, absolutely. Will probably last you several combats.
You can add onto that with vows, but as many of the vows have great cost (Still mind plus whatever their restrictions are) for earning, by 15th level, only an additional 3-5 more points, which is piddly on top of what you're already working with, really. But okay, let's assume you're obviously not planning to participate in a lot of combat, so you take the Vow of Chains, which gives you 5 more ki points, and the vow of cleanliness 'cause that's easy to follow -- total of 39. Wow.
Yes, you could give your party true strike, which costs 1 ki point, every round for almost four minutes. You would have to do little else but move. You also can only use ONE of your abilities at a time, so you could give them true strike or barkskin, to use the examples you're citing. And since you're using spell-like abilities here, they take a standard action to activate, meaning all you can otherwise do is move, and if you're in melee, you need to cast defensively or provoke an AOO, which means you constantly have to be trying to stay out of combat. This means you're doing nothing else to help at the time.
And here's the rub: as a Sensei at 15th level, you could actually be giving your allies a better buff by just spending a swift action to inspire courage or inspire greatness, at no ki cost whatsoever. While while the bonus to hit is nowhere near as good as true strike, you're giving the party a bunch of buffs at once, not one at a time. And the fact is, at 15th level, your fellow party members who are good at hitting things, they don't actually need that +20 bonus to hit; they're 15th level. That smaller bonus that inspire courage or greatness will give is all they really need, if any bonuses at all, and they immediately and simultaneously get valuable bonuses to saves and/or hit points, and getting lots of bonuses at once is better than getting one bonus that's so high, you don't really need it. And since it's a swift action, you could also be using your standard to use another one of your qinggong SLAs on yourself, or get in melee to help a partner flank, and activating advice's normal abilities don't provoke AOOs the way SLAs do. So then you realize you restricted your character advancement, maxed out a ki pool, only to realize... actually, your non ki ability might work better here.
Also, while you've got a bucket-ton of ki points, we're going to assume that you at some point might indeed spend points for more costly abilities to heal or harm as needed, which takes the total down faster than often desired, even if you've got a good couple minutes' worth of effects left.
And then compare also that while at 15th level you're spending every round casting 1st level SLAs, your party wizard and cleric are casting up to 7th level spells. You're giving the fighter a +20 bonus to hit, great, but by the time you get there, the wizard may have already blown away the mooks with delayed blast fireball while the cleric is, if not obliterating, at least severely wounding the Big Bad with destruction. Only once per day for those specific spells, but still, they've got lots of options that are quite potent that may even make your buffs moot. You can cast true strike once around for four minutes, great (if you choose not to use any of your other ki abilities). Your peers can raise the dead.
NOW: I am NOT saying this is a terrible build idea, don't do it. You can certainly get some cool effects and exploits with a qinggong sensei.
But you need to think about how long it would take to build up something to max out what is but one aspect of that build (and sacrificing a good deal to make it work in the process), and how it would compare to fellow party members at the same level. When you look at the qinggong sensei in a vacuum, you can go, wow, yeah, that's powerful. But when you're looking at the level they'd have to be to function at the power level you're describing, in the context of a full party and the kind of challenges a party of that level is going to face.... it's nothing to get too worried about.
Again, experience that dictates otherwise I would be very interested to hear about. As a GM I'd be willing to see someone try the build just to see what happened. In fact, I've built a qinggong sensei myself, but I haven't yet had the chance to play her -- but I don't expect I'd ever get her very high level to see the maximum effects of what the build might be capable of. Myself I am very much expecting to have a decent support character and not much else.
The table seems to resolve that issue, it has 6, 14, and 18 feats being lost for the Sensei.Do you mean the d20pfsrd.com table? That's not official, and I don't know of any official errata or answered FAQ that covers the sensei. They could have fixed it when I wasn't looking, of course.
There's nothing in the FAQ, and normally the official PRD reflects all up-to-date official errata.
But in the PRD, yes the sensei says it replaces the "12th level bonus feat" and the monk doesn't get a bonus feat at 12th level, but it does get one at 10th and 14th.
The d20pfsrd.com monk archetype table shows it going at 14th, yes, because the way their table is set up, it's going to have all the actual bonus feats accounted for. Interestingly, normally when that site's admins "corrects" something not officially errataed, they make a note of it, which I didn't see. And actually, the actual ability description at d20pfsrd.com has the same text the PRD does (with the 12th level feat mentioned, rather than 10th or 14th).
Has anyone ever FAQed this?