Ive been messing around with an idea for mixing sensei/ki mystic and ninja.
Essentially a seemingly harmless, unarmed old man. That’s secretly a deadly old man!
I know this probably isn’t all that optimized and “deadly” is a
Bit of a stretch. But I was looking for ideas to make it fun and at least effective.
Ki mystic/sensei for bard buffing and using ki powers on others, plus wis to hit.
Ninja for sneak attack, ki pool stacks, and vanishing trick/forgotten trick. Plus extra skills for bluff/stealth stuff.
Ive looked around but mostly just found arguments (on the internet?! Crazy...). So any tips or ideas would be great. Thinking maybe snake style but whatever works best.
Thanks!
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I have a few questions.
Are you set on playing a particular class?
Do you want Ki powers, or is this just something you think is cool?
What race where you planning on?
How are you generating ability scores?
There are good ways to get to where you want to be. However it's more about over all what your looking for.
Example: The game I'm currently playing in. The character is more of a traditional ninja. And much less of a move type ninja. So it's more about what your looking for.
I suppose the original idea was to optimize a sensei by adding ninja. A support character that can be decent in combat. I really like the idea of being a seemingly harmless old man whos practically an unarmed assassin. In fluff anyway.
Probably human but im open.
I generally roll stats but point but is helpful for theory craft.
Not a fan of the sapMaster stuff or the vigilante.
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That is a bit harder to pull of. Then you may think. As it's much more about how you play the character. And much less about how you build the character. The character I'm currently playing is not the best combat character. However he can hold his own in a fight with out to much support.
Ideally you would mix a full BAB class with a 3/4 BAB class to gain sneak attack. For example Samurai/Ninja.
My best recommendation if your going for high Str build is Slayer/Ninja.
My best recommendation if your going for a high Dex build is Monk/Unchained Rogue.
Best over all idea is to dip one level in monk. Then go in to Unchained Rogue for at most 5 levels before picking up a full BAB class.
Something else to think on. There are many support feats that can really change how effective you are as a support character.
Conduit Feats as a hole can add some really nice ability's to any character with the skill ranks to pull them off.
There are also multiple feats that affect the heal skill so you can make your self in to a effective after combat healer. For example Incredible Healer: Use the result of a heal check to determine how much you heal treating deadly wounds. With you needing Wis and it being a wis skill you can get a high skill total. I have a level 5 character with this feat that heals for 27HP by taking 10.
I have not posted full builds in a long time. They tend to be counter productive to you making a character.
Incredible healer is pretty nice. I haven’t seen that one, thanks.
I guess I was hoping to capitalize off of focusing on Wis. sensei and ki mystic can use ki to help allies. Being a “harmless old man” would mostly be fluff and roleplay. I was hoping to use ninja to get some useful abilities, a ki pool that stacks and some sneak attack. The ninja ki powers would also be usable on allies. 8 skill points/level doesn’t hurt either combined with the ki mystic ability to buff his knowledge checks.
I just wasnt sure what the optimal way to mix them would be or if there were some feats or ideas I was missing.
The old man thing is more fluff than anything. Not really part of the build aside from a decent bluff to appear harmless occasionally.
We just stopped a campaign where i was a tetori monk so I would like to stay away from maneuvers. Im not really into the sap master chain or dirty trick.
Using something like vital strike, capitalizing on sneak attack, or some type of kung fu trickery would be great for when im actually fighting.
I’ll have wisdom to hit from sensei and was thinking I would be stuck with the guided property on an AoMF to get a stat to damage. Unchained rogue could definitely be an option if meshes better with monk and the idea.
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You my be better served by not multiclassing. Sneak attack damage is nice however if your focused on Ki powers. This will be much harder to pull off. At most I would do a three level dip in to unchained rogue to regain evasion. Even then it's expensive to increases the level you need for the effects of your advice, and Ki abilities.
This is just a suggestion. If you really want a character that looks harmless but can hold there own in a fight. You my wish to look at this is a different why. Based on what I understand your looking for.
Human (small for human)
Dex>Wis>Int>Con>Cha>Str
Monk one level dip to get Bonus feat and Wis mod to AC.
Unchained Rogue three level dip evasion, Sneak attack damage and Dex to damage.
Slayer as your primary class. Gives you full BAB, extra sneak attack dice and a bonus to hit and damage.
Magus(Kensai) as your primary class. Gives you some spell casting, Int mod to AC, and Int mod to initiative.
Inquisitor as your primary class. Gives you Wis mod to initiative, divine spell casting, Domain powers and judgment.
Cavalier/Samurai as your primary class. Gives you full BAB, challenge, and cavalier Tactician / Samurai Weapon Expertise.
Human (small for human)
Wis>Dex>Con>Int>Str>Cha
Monk two level dip. Wis mod to AC, and evasion.
Cleric (Divine Strategist) Cleric level as a initiative bonus, and divine casting.
Inquisitor as your primary class. Gives you Wis mod to initiative, divine spell casting, Domain powers and judgment.
It sounds like you don’t think much of ki mystic/sensei.
I guess a better question then would be for optimal dips to take advantage of or help with the wisdom focus. Or just something that would work well with that archetype combination.
Sacred fist warpriest would get me FoB back and access to divine wands.
Original idea was to take advantage of the ninja ki pool stacking and the tricks.
Linorm and mantis style seem to be good for high wis builds but im still leaning towards snake style if I go for any style feats.
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It's not that I don't think much of it. It's more getting it to work during play. Over all you would be much better off not splitting your class if you go Sensei. Playing a none subclass monk would help you in this case. As Sensei dose lose much of the combat ability's of the monk class.
Monk (sansei)/Ninja
Just reread the Ninja class and how it interacts with Ki. It dose not work as I though. So it will works better. So you would need the tactical awareness to do sneak attacks to inflict any significant damage. That also means you lose the ability to fight in a straight up battle. So you lose the unassuming badass quality you asked for. If you went with Monk with out a archtype or with one of the follow Martial Artist, Monk of the Mantis, Qinggong Monk all help your over all combat ability. The problem is Advice is a great ability and dose give you bonus to hit and damage but you lose flurry of blows.
Monk (Monk of the Mantis)/Ninja would be my top recommendation.
You will run in to trouble trying to run styles and Advice. As some one that has played quite a few bards. I never got style feats because of action economy dose not realy favor it over starting performance. It's one of the things it looks nice on paper but dose not really work in practice.
Advice (Ex): A sensei’s advice is identical to bardic performance (using oratory)
Starting a bardic performance is a standard action, but it can be maintained each round as a free action.
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.
Style Feat.
As a swift action, you can enter the stance employed by the fighting style a style feat embodies.
Linorm Has a big problem. <After a creature makes a melee attack against you, you can choose to add your Wisdom bonus to the damage from your unarmed strikes against that creature, rather than your Strength bonus.> You need them to attack you for it to be effective. That means it will not go off very often as until it dose your not a threat.
Mantis Style is much better and worth the feat investment. With that however there are many things out right immune to stunning fist. So it really depends on what game your playing in. I just ran a game where stunning fist would have been next to useless as most of the monsters where undead. I let the players know this in advance.
what are you after with taking Monk with Ninja or Ninja with Monk?
Are you going for a unarmed fighter who can get a little Sneak Attack in? Or to give you an unarmed option for your Sneak Attack?
Diluting your sneak attack with Monk levels is counter-productive as the base damage you do isn't worth the trade off (so you do 1d6 or 1d8 instead of 1d3, assuming you still want to fight unarmed, you're trading off 1-3d6 of sneak attack for that) not to mention slower access to some of the very flavorful ninja tricks.
Now if you want to be an unarmed fighter that has some ninja-esque tricks, I'd recommend dipping Unchained Rogue as the trade off in unarmed damage progression, is made up by the benefits you get from UnRogue (take Brute, so that your sneak attacks sicken ie, Atemi strikes), pair that with Debilitating Injury and you are giving someone -6 to attack you (-4 for the rest of your party) and then can add Dex to damage, Weapon Finesse for free plus you can take a few ninja tricks for flavor.
Add Kirin Style and Strike to have that old experienced master vibe going. Reskin Battle Cry for sage advice from the wisened master, or just practice up on some tactics and give good practical advice at the table to form your team into a cohesive whole.
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I had a lot of fun with a similar character. She was a Sensei Ki Mystic Qinggong Monk of the Lotus with Sacred Huntsmaster Inquisitor of Irori to the mix for wisdom to init and then for DPR.
Where the character lacked direct damage. taking a companion and leveling them with the Animal Ally feat made the build ridiculous.
I focused on grappling with the character while the companion did damage, but using wisdom for combat maneuvers opens a lot of options to explore.
Im not seeing the issue in action economy between performance and styles. Performances start as a standard and persist as a free action. Styles start as a swift. None of those action types effect the others.
I was working on the character/personality side of a
Sensei/ki mystic. Thats where the idea of playing him as an unassuming old man came from. A scholar or servant even. Buffing the party with performance and ki powers. Ki mystic for knowledge skills and bonuses to them. And giving rerolls.
Adding ninja was to get some etra damage, access to vanishing trick and others, extra skills and because the levles stack with monk for a wis based ki pool. Plus it seemed to fit with being sneaky and bluffing for the unassuming thing.
With that idea added in I sort of shifted the concept a bit to where the character hides behind the unassuming wise old scholar routine and is actually more cold and professional.
So it seems I’m stuck between two concepts:
Figuring out a way to optimize a sensei/ki mystic which is being at least implied to be not a good idea. Possibly with unchained rogue instead of ninja.
Or dropping the buffing/support side and dipping a more martial focused monk archetype and focusing on FoB/style chain and going into a more martial class. Whatever could function unarmed and unarmored. Magus maybe although im reluctant to mix in casting.