Some Sensei (Monk archetype) and Ninja questions

[DrakeRoberts]

I am planning a Sensei character who will likely splash ninja for expanded Ki abilities. I have run into some questions as to how this works.

First, some quotes (all can be found in Ultimate Combat):

Advice class ability:

"Advice (Ex): A sensei’s advice is identical to bardic performance (using oratory), allowing him to inspire courage at 1st level, inspire competence at 3rd level, and inspire greatness at 9th level, as a bard of the sensei’s level, usable a total number of rounds per day equal to his level + his Wisdom modifier (minimum 1). This ability replaces flurry of blows, fast movement, and improved evasion."

Mystic Wisdom class ability (relevant part):

"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. ..."

Forgotten Trick ninja trick:

"Forgotten Trick (Ex): A ninja with this ability can recall one trick taught to her by her ancient masters. When she uses this ability, she selects one ninja trick (not a master trick or rogue talent) that she does not know and can use that ninja trick for a number of rounds equal to her level. She must pay any ki costs associated with the trick as normal. Using this ability expends 2 ki point from her ki pool, plus the ki cost of the trick she chooses."

Now, the questions:

1) How do I use the Mystic Wisdom ability? For example, do I do it while maintaining my advice? Do I use up both ki and a round of advice? How long does it take action wise? Examples would be very useful!

2) Does lingering performance change any of the above?

3) When using Forgotten Trick, do I activate it and the gained ability (say, Shadow Clone) at the same time (paying 3 ki for the use), or does using Forgotten Trick simply enable me to spend 2 ki to be able to use Shadow Clone (or whatever) on my next turn (for the ki cost of that ability)? What if the gained trick is always-on and ki-less (like Combat Trick)?

4) When using Forgotten Trick with Mystic Wisdom: Can it be used to give someone a Combat Trick for 2 ki? If I want to use it for something like Shadow Clone, do I pay 3 and the other PC gets cloned, or do they get the ability to make clones of themselves (and thus must have their own ki pool to benefit)?

Obviously 3 and 4 (and 1 and 2 to a lesser extent) are tied into one another closely. Examples are extremely welcome. I'm mostly interested in the capabilities (what I can/can't grant), the resources used (ki points and advice rounds), and the actions needed (what steps are combined into a single action, which will require multiple actions (standard/standard, or standard/move), likewise which require actions/resources not only on my part but also on the benefactor of my Mystic Wisdom.

Thank You!

[DrakeRoberts]

Anyone have any ideas?

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

DrakeRoberts wrote:

1) How do I use the Mystic Wisdom ability? For example, do I do it while maintaining my advice? Do I use up both ki and a round of advice? How long does it take action wise? Examples would be very useful!

To grant an ally a particular ki ability, you spend ki and whatever action you would spend if you were using it on yourself, plus you spend a round of advice for whatever action cost that has for you. E.g. if your advice costs a move action at your level and the ki ability costs a swift action you must spend one of each. Most ki abilities are swift actions, so this rarely yields impossibilities.

Since this constitutes "starting new advice" (as in "starting a new bardic performance") you cannot do it while maintaining ongoing advice, unless you have some ability that lets you do two performances/advices at once.

DrakeRoberts wrote:

2) Does lingering performance change any of the above?

No, because even with lingering performance starting a new "performance" ends the old one immediately.

DrakeRoberts wrote:

3) When using Forgotten Trick, do I activate it and the gained ability (say, Shadow Clone) at the same time (paying 3 ki for the use),[...]

Yes.

DrakeRoberts wrote:

4) When using Forgotten Trick with Mystic Wisdom: [...]

Mystic Wisdom only works with sensei class abilities, Forgotten Trick only works with ninja tricks, so you can't use them together.

[DrakeRoberts]

Fuzzy Wuzzy,

Your response to 4 seems to contradict much of what I've seen on the forums.

Also, what happens if your Advice and Ki abilities are both standard actions? Can you just not do it? Can you use the ability over the course of two rounds?

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Now that I do a search, I can find a dispute or two over using ninja abilities with mystic wisdom, but nothing conclusive. I'm sticking by my reading of "class abilities" as "this class' abilities," just as "level" means "level in this class." If you've found an argument that actually had a resolution (to the contrary), gimme a link and I'll look into it.

Qinggong-derived abilities are more troublesome, since it's the same class; of course qinggong didn't exist when sensei was written. I could go either way on those.

You get mystic wisdom at 6th and your advice becomes a move action at 7th, so there's a very narrow window for concern. All the ki abilities you have by 6th are swifts... unless you traded slow fall or high jump out for a spell-like qinggong ability. In that case (when advice and ability both require standard actions) I don't think you can do it at all. Wait a level and the problem vanishes.

[Chess Pwn]

I agree with Fuzzy. I'd limit it to the class that gave you the ability.

[DrakeRoberts]

The more I look at forum threads to find these answers, the more confused I become. It seems, for example, that many people don't think that your advice rounds per day limit your mystic wisdom uses. Also, the ninja thing comes up alot without too much opposition, but I can definitely see both readings.

I hope to play this character soon, in pfs nonetheless, as I've put it off a good long time and finally bought the needed additional resource books, but at the same time I hate blindly wandering into ambiguous territory in PFS... particularly without some sort of forum consensus or precedent or what not to at least proffer a GM when sitting at the table.

[DrakeRoberts]

Chess Pwn wrote:

I agree with Fuzzy. I'd limit it to the class that gave you the ability.

I think I may be leaning this way too. I find it a bit murky since the Ki Pool class abilities from the two classes explicitly become merged. Still, I may just try to hedge my bets on this and play it safe... I don't think many local GMs would care either way, but I hate feeling like I'm cheating, even if out of ignorance, so I usually try to hobble myself when in doubt.

My other option, I suppose is to take the ninja splash anyhow since forgotten trick will still help me a lot with my having nigh-unlimited ki via drunken master; and then just asked the GM their take on it at the start of each session.

Which I guess then goes back to question 4. IF we find (or GM decides due to ambiguity) that Forgotten Trick works with Mystic Wisdom, how would it work? For that matter, even without Mystic Wisdom, how does Forgotten trick work: pay all at once and activate as part of the ninja trick activation, or 1 standard to gain the trick for 2 ki followed by another action and ki expenditure to use the gained trick?

[Chess Pwn]

haha, for PFS you have two options.
Have probably HUGE table variance if you can pass out your ninja tricks.
Play it safe and only do monk and never have an issue.

[James Risner]

Chess Pwn wrote:

I agree with Fuzzy. I'd limit it to the class that gave you the ability.

+1

DrakeRoberts wrote:

I hope to play this character soon, in pfs nonetheless

forum consensus

I'd strongly recommend not playing a contentious feature in a game where you don't know the GM is going to rule your way.

Also, forum consensus is useless when it comes to things like this. Just because there is no dissenting opinion doesn't mean that is how it is/should be/or will be ruled by a GM.

[Cevah]

Like the Paragon Surge, I think the Forgotten Trick is a standard action to allow access to something else. Using that other thing then takes an additional action. You pay the 2 ki to gain the trick, and when you use it, you pay for it as normal.

I also agree that Forgotten Trick has no interaction with Mystic Wisdom.

While you merge the ki pool (with rules for how much you get an which stat to use), you do not merge ki class abilities. You use ki from the merged pool to pay for any ki cost of any class ability (monk or ninja), and can replenish it with Drunken Master, but you cannot mix the abilities for the Mystic because it is not all the Mystic's class (i.e. monk) abilities.

Additionally, if you splash ninja 2 levels, then using the ninja class trick Vanish will only last 2 rounds, even if you have 18 levels of monk, since the tricks use the respective class level for their ability, unless otherwise stated.

/cevah

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Cevah wrote:

Like the Paragon Surge, I think the Forgotten Trick is a standard action to allow access to something else. Using that other thing then takes an additional action. You pay the 2 ki to gain the trick, and when you use it, you pay for it as normal.

After re-reading and reconsidering the text of the ability, I withdraw my prior opinion on #3 and agree with Cevah on it. (My opinions on everything else are unchanged.)

[DrakeRoberts]

There's an item to help with the 2 round problem, for myself I mean. I'm fairly convinced on the ninja tricks not working (which is very sad), but it may still be a worthwhile splash to give my own character more options as it seems that I'll have very few things I can actually pass to others with sensei (and won't be able to inspire courage simultaneously, which I had previously missed). Going from a catalog of options to hand out down to about 2 or 3 mostly situational ones is a hard blow to the character concept playability.