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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 2065318" data-attributes="member: 3051">Yes.  At every level, you pick the next tier in one of the six paths, stat permitting.  So, a level 20 Monk will have the 5 "common" levels for 1-5, and 15 of the remaining 30 at 6-20.  It's actually more limited than it looks; very few players will have more than one stat at 17+, so the tier 4 and 5 abilities will be rare; the PHB Monk has several of these.  A character made with 28-point buy will run out of things to take at level 14-17 unless he takes one of the two Path-assisting feats: Path Generalist, which reduces the stat limits of all paths by 1 (to 10/12/14/16/18), or Path Specialist, which reduces a single path by 3 (to 8/10/12/14/16).This was written before the PsiHB was overhauled.  Effectively, it was supposed to be a semi-drawback; yes, you can use Psionic Feats, but you don't get any powers, and you're now very vulnerable to psionic attack modes (and you detect as inherently psionic, and so on).  So you could toss this whole Psionic thing out entirely if it doesn't fit with your flavor.In my experience this isn't needed.  MAYBE bump the switch time to a full-round action, but not more than that.  The reason is, the first Ki Mode is a simple +1, and there are only four Ki Power increments (Hand 2, Hand 4, Body 4, Foot 5), so it's practically impossible to ever get them up to a +4, and only a Hand can really get them to a +3.  Likewise, there are only 4 extra Ki Modes available, two of which are Hand.  So, unless you keep STR really high, you'll only ever have at most 3 modes equivalent to +3 weapons, one of which will be a pure Enhancement bonus.The Mode concept was to simulate the "Golf Bag o' Weapons" that the Fighter types get to use, so it's important to have things like Flaming or Lawful available as needed when you suddenly confront a Troll or something.  If a player can switch weapons quickly in these situations, why not the Monk?  Since it's practically impossible to make these modes equivalent to strongly-enchanted weapons, it's not really unbalanced.And remember, Quick Ki can only be used a few times a day (CHA mod), so it's not really broken.  It's not nearly as good as Quick Draw for that.----Anyway, example time.  I've got a combat-heavy character, Kai Mhalloc-Tos, a Half-Elven Monk 16 (cohort to my main character, a Psion).  She maxxed out the Hand path, and only took the first 3 ranks of the Body and Soul paths.  So, she's got 5 Ki modes, all equivalent to +3 weapons: a +3, a +1 Flaming Spell-Storing, a Shocking Lawful, and two others that use custom enhancements.  If she had taken any levels in other paths, she'd have fewer modes available.  And while she has Quick Ki, it's only usable twice per day.  She doesn't have any spell-like abilities, spell resistance, or Native Outsider status; to get these would cost most of the Ki abilities, and while this isn't a terrible thing it doesn't fit with the character concept.</blockquote>

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