The Monk Ki Spell Feat Tree and the "Ki Spells" Prerequisite

[Zin-Suddu]

Hello, folks. This is a question that came up in a build recently, and I'd like to see what y'all think. This is a simplified version of the original logic, which used a more complex sequence of downtime retrainings.

From what I've seen, all of the monk feats which grant ki spells (and focus points) have "ki spells" as a prerequisite except for the first level ones; which implies that the only entry points into that tree (so far) are Ki Strike and Ki Rush. Assuming that's true, consider a monk that picks, for example, Ki Rush for their first level feat, then Wholeness of Body at fourth level and Abundant Step at sixth level. Both Abundant Step and Wholeness of Body have "Ki Spells" as a prerequisite, but they each grant ki spells by themselves, so could our hypothetical monk retrain out of Ki Rush and leave Wholeness of Body and Abundant Step in a sort of "prerequisite Gordian Knot" state where one feat grants the prerequisite of the other? Would they stop working for lack of prerequisites instead? What if the monk also trained out of Wholeness of Body, could Abundant Step satisfy its own prerequisites or would it then stop working?

[Castilliano]

If it feels like you're exploiting a loophole, then don't assume it's allowed unless your GM explicitly allows it. And please don't argue in real life about such things. Ruins the table's mood.

I'd say this falls under the banner of retraining a feat that served as a prerequisite for another feat. Yes, you're trying to swap which one serves as the prerequisite, but that's kinda a "bootstraps" trick when that one also has the same prerequisite. And a feat serving as a prerequisite for itself is plain silly. If anything that highlights how iffy the whole situation is.

[mrspaghetti]

You're explicitly not allowed to retrain into something that you wouldn't have been able to take initially, so no.

[Zin-Suddu]

Castilliano wrote:

If it feels like you're exploiting a loophole, then don't assume it's allowed unless your GM explicitly allows it. And please don't argue in real life about such things. Ruins the table's mood.

No, I'm the GM. My player wants to pick up Wholeness of Body for that "healing meditation" vibe but is otherwise uninterested in ki spells. His plan was to retrain his current first level feat into one of the prerequisite feats, then retrain his fourth level feat into Wholeness of Body, and finally retrain his first level feat back into its original selection. I did not allow that, but I said that when he gets to sixth level he can pick one of the Ki Strike or Ki Rush, then retrain his fourth level feat, then retrain his sixth level feat into either Ki Blast or Abundant Step. Quite frankly, none of these higher level feats key off specifically from one of the lower level feats, so it doesn't make his character more powerful than the other PCs.

Also, discussing builds does not, in any of my tables' experience, ruin the mood. It's part of the experience.

mrspaghetti wrote:

You're explicitly not allowed to retrain into something that you wouldn't have been able to take initially, so no.

Are you talking about Retraining requiring prerequisites be slotted into lower level slots than their successors? A good point. This would make it impossible for the sixth level feat to cover the prerequisites of the fourth level one.

[Castilliano]

My points stand no matter the doer.

I didn't say don't discuss builds. I said don't argue.
*especially if aiming to exploit a loophole

The gist of the Retraining rules is one's new build has to be valid from the ground up: no taking feats the PC didn't qualify for before and no training out of prerequisites for feats (et al). Juggling feats to get them as prerequisites for each other (or themselves) is an obvious exploit to be avoided. There's no foundation by which the PC could've gotten that build naturally, so obviously it's suspect.

But if you're the GM and you feel it's balanced, go for it.
I wouldn't.

And yes, a feat couldn't retroactively be a prerequisite as you mentioned, so that's another knock against this trickery, a decisive one in fact.