Hey

I'm a professional game designer and wanted to share my latest third party content with you. If you're a subscriber on DDB, you can get the feat now. I first created and published the Meta-Feat, but actually there are predefined Feats available that all follow a theme.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/feats/9432-chakra

There you go. Have fun!

I dislike the feat because I think it's redundant.

The feat is substantially similar to and objectively better than the magic initiate feat. A V. Human could take this feat at first level and cast level two spells at level two instead of level three not just once a day even like magic initiate, but once per short rest. Way too abusable.

It's also more efficient and earlier spell casting than the way of the four elements gets. Both thunder wave and burning hands cost two ki points each for level one spells cast as first level spells. The ability to cast here is gained at third level. The ability to cast second level spells for the monk isn't gained until sixth level. This feat enables a monk to get that ability as early as level two.

It basically makes the low-level monk into a warlock that still has all his monk abilities.

A AV Human does not qualify for this feat at first level. It requires Ki Points, so it is a 4th Level feat.

I missed that ki point restriction. That certainly makes it less abusable, but it doesn't change fact that it's still better than magic initiate and way of the four elements.

it isn't better than magic initiate, since it requires the monk to invest his own Ki into the casting the spells, that's a solid restriction. the power level of the feat is a drastically more limited form than the Shadow Arts feature of the Way of Shadow, but you probably have seen that already. In regards to the way of the four elements, you are right that there is a situation there, on the other hand, it is a Feat and as such it means not picking up a +2 Dex, and Feats need considerable usefulness to be even viable for using them.

I have something else I want to point out.

Initially, when designing the feats, I didn't create a Meta Feat. I did this, because someone else on the forum pointed out it was preferable to do so, but you are right in one very important way: it is potentially unbalancing to pick spells without curating them. That means my initial Chakra feats were all curated to be fine with 2 ki expenditures, but when compared to the Way of the 4 Elements, we can see that most spelllike abilities are actually spell level + 1 in ki points. This is a very important consideration.

I won't remove the Chakra feat, and I fear that I can't really create a useful meta feat that somehow alleviates the problem that DMs have to be very mindful which spells they allow. However, I now put my initial designs into the moderation queue, and I feel that they are far better balanced.

For example: Dancing Lights, Faerie Fire (1st level), Disguise Self (1st level) (but both cast with 2 ki points), this is far better in terms of balancing as picking Alter Self (a 2nd level spell that is far more useful than Disguise Self).

What do you think, would that sway you?

I agree with to on the difference between your feat and magic initiate. Your feat should be somewhat "more powerful" than magic initiate because it doesn't include its own inbuilt resource for casting.

I think lowering the level of the spells will help reign in the power level. As it is written a fourth level monk would have two second level "spell slots" that recharge on a short rest (equivalent to the fourth level warlock) plus all the combat ability of a monk.

Curating the spells available with this feat I think would be good too, but I agree that it might be unfeasible to work that into the feat.

I brought this up to my DM and he said he would allow it.  That being said, I'm hesitant to commit to this feat.  It sounds pretty cool to be able to expand my 'well roundedness', but I'm looking at the spells and wonder if they are worth 2 of my current 7 or 8 Ki.  Currently, I'm looking at: 

Mirror Image,  Lesser Restoration, Enhance Ability, Shield of Faith, Bane

Cantrip: Spare the Dying or  Light

The Way of the Shadow monk has all those 2nd level spells for 2 ki each, then the cantrip at will of course. The use of those spells at 2 ki each for 2nd level is fine as that choice is made at level 3.

I feel like this undermines the elemental adept abilities, as it allows any monk to have burning hands or thunder wave and other abilities, all in all, way to abusable

the general Chakra feat right here is a placeholder for curated selections; in game we use concrete themes with considerations which powers are viable