So, the Sensei's Mystic Wisdom ability reads
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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. [...]
These abilities function at the sensei’s level and last 1 round.
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Okay, so the Sensei can use his advice ability to activate his ki abilities on another team member. Let's read the Advice Ability again:
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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).
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Now, there are certain rules that apply to bardic performances and therefore also to the Sensei's Advice ability:
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Bardic Performance
[...]
Starting a bardic performance is a standard action, but it can be maintained each round as a free action. Changing a bardic performance from one effect to another requires the bard to stop the previous performance and start a new one as a standard action. A bardic performance cannot be disrupted, but it ends immediately if the bard is killed, paralyzed, stunned, knocked unconscious, or otherwise prevented from taking a free action to maintain it each round. A bard cannot have more than one bardic performance in effect at one time.
At 7th level, a bard can start a bardic performance as a move action instead of a standard action. At 13th level, a bard can start a bardic performance as a swift action.[...]
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So, let's assume we have a 12th-level Sensei who started to inspire courage the previous round and now wants to use his Mystic Wisdom ability to throw both the party's Paladin and Fighter into the fray via his Abundant Step class feature (activation is a move action). He also wants to use his ki pool ability to give the two a +4 Dodge bonus to AC (activation is a swift action).
Now how does he do that?
1) He spends 3 ki points and spends a move and a swift action to teleport and grant the AC Bonus within one round. He still has his remaining standard action and continues to inspire courage while also using his Mystic Wisdom ability.
2) He needs to stop inspiring courage and converts his standard action into a move action, so that he can use his advice ability to use Abundant step on his teammates, which, again, requires a move action to activate. He now spent 2 move actions on his turn and has one swift action left. Which he can't use to give his Dodge Bonus to his teammates, because doing so would require him to spend another move action (that he doesn't have) to start a new performance.
3) The Sensei doesn't even need to have his Advice ability active in order to activate Mystic Wisdom. Instead, the Ability would rather be read in the following way:
"At 6th level, a sensei may spend one use of his advice ability when spending points from his ki pool to activate a class ability"
So you just take your normal actions to activate the Dodge bonus and the Abundant Step ability (move & swift), spend 3 ki points and 2 uses of your Advice ability and you're absolutely fine. You are unable to inspire courage, competence, or greatness at the same time, though.
Which of these 3 interpretations would you prefer? Or is there a possibility that i have forgotten to mention here? Write your opinion in the comments!
Also, since the Advice Ability "is identical to bardic performance", would a Sensei qualify for feats that require the "bardic performance" Class Feature as a prerequisite, such as the Extra Performance feat?
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I'm on my phone and it's too much of a hassle to find the thread, but in short, yes, the advice ability allows you to take feats that require bardic performance or a specific performance spelled out by the advice ability (such as inspire courage, but not fascinate) as a prereq. It is as the bardic performance ability, and therefore IS the bardic performance ability, for all intents and purposes.
The way i read it, you have to be using your advice ability to give others the no powers when expending ki, not that you have to expend uses of advice in addition to ki to use that feature.
Long post on the subject from SKR, who AFAIK was definitive at the time. Probably the thread Syries is thinking of. My favorite excerpt:
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. If you line up Daffy Duck, Donald Duck, Duckman, and Howard the Duck, from a game standpoint it makes sense that a +1 duck-bane arrow is going to do +2d6 damage in addition to normal arrow damage if you shoot any of them, because they're all ducks. And if you shot that arrow at "Duckie" from Pretty in Pink, it wouldn't get any bonus damage, because he isn't a duck. And you should be able to see why those first four are ducks and the last one isn't.
Thanks a lot for the replies. That really cleared it up for me!