Rogue Bonus Feats: Not so dumb.

[Essence]

So your 10th level Elven Rogue is a monster who has a bonus feat. That's a monster bonus feat at that point.

As the Guest pointed out, there's no such thing as a Monster Bonus Feat. Your statement is not only wrong, it's meaningless in game terms.

Sometimes a creature has one or more bonus feats, marked with a superscript B.

This sentence states outright that the feats the rest of the paragraph refers to are the feats marked with a superscript B in the creature descriptions. As the referenced paragraph goes on to say, these are pre-specified feats, and cannot be changed, even when customizing the monsters.

Feats gained from the 10th level of Rogue are not prespecified, are not marked with a superscript B, and can be changed when customizing a monster.

Therefore, the paragraph mentioned above specifically does not apply, and the exemption from prerequisites is irrelevant to feats gained through the Rogue special ability.

[Username17]

Exactly, the game does not distinguish between monster bonus feats and player bonus feats. The guest was claiming that it did, which is madness. The quote you are trying to refute was a sarcastic refutation of the splitting between monster and non-monster.

If "bonus feats" needed prereqs by default, the War Domain wouldn't work. Since the War Domain does work, we can feel safe in the assertion that indeed bonus feats do not, by default, require prereqs.

That's really the start and end of the argument. All the semantics you want to throw around don't mean dick because the game would not function if it worked any other way.

-Username17

[User3]

WAR DOMAIN
Granted Power: Free Martial Weapon Proficiency with deity�fs favored weapon (if necessary) and Weapon Focus with the deity�fs favored weapon.

It's not a bonus feat.

And The_Hanged_Man was claiming that madness, not me.

[User3]

There's a difference between a preselected bonus feat provided by a class feature (such as the Courtier granting Iron Will), and a selectable bonus feat provided by a class feature (such as the one granted by the 5th level of Wizard.)

If a feat is named in a class feature, the prereqs do not apply; gaining the feat is a part of the class no matter what the character is doing at the time.

Similarly, if the feat is selectable, the prereqs do apply, because the class doesn't gain this feat, it gains a Bonus Feat -- which inherently require you to have the prerequisites.

If you pay attention, everything works this way. Monster Bonus Feats are preselected, and don't require the prereqs. Ranger Bonus Feats are preselected, and don't require the prereqs. Fighter bonus feats aren't, and they do. Wizard bonus feats aren't, and they do.

Essentially, any time the game forces a specific feat on you, it doesn't require that you build your character so that you've happened to acquire the prereqs earlier -- because forcing you to take Dodge before you're allowed to gain level X is a butt.
Any time the game allows you to choose your own feat, it requires you to have the prerequisites -- because allowing you to choose feats without having the prerequisites destroys game balance (allowing Rogues to choose feats like Lingering Strike at 10th level).



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Natasha
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[Josh_Kablack]

Sign me up with the Count here.

I don't think that Frank's reading is the one that the designers intended. However I do think that Frank's reading is the only one fully supported by current rules text.

Furthermore, and this is wacky, I think the the idea of needing prerequisites to select a feat is a horrible piece of game design that has metagame consistancy issues. You should be able to select whatever feats your greedy little heart desires, and prerequisite fulfillment needs to be determined solely at usetime. Tjecking for prerequisite satisfaction at advancement time and again at usetime does not provide any additional measure of balance over merely tjecking at usetime, and tjecking for prerequisite satisfaction at advancement forces DMs to assign hard-and-fast timeframes to level advancement. And yet the whole advance-by-level thing is supposed to be abstraction-for-convienience of a gradual learning curve. Needing to know how temporary buffs interact with feat selection during that process damages the illusion of the game there.

Furthermore, the current rules for feats give significant additional latitude in feat selection to pregenerated high level characters over organic high level characters. Your Str 10 Druid can't take power attack, but he could use it while wildshaped if he could. But it only takes a line of backstory to claim that she sold her Belt of Strength +6 after she took her 12th level feat.

[Username17]

Oh snap! Let's take a look at the 3.5 Monster Manual, page 148, shall we? Oh, what's that? It's a half-fiend Cleric. It has the War Domain. It has Weapon Focus: Morningstar. As a bonus feat. A monstrous bonus feat.

Weapon Focus (morningstar)B
...
Deity: Erythnul. Domains: Evil (cast evil spells at +1 caster level) and War (Weapon Focus bonus feat)

Who was right? Time for me to do my "I was totally right" dance.

-Username17

[Zherog]

1086327294[/unixtime]]Sign me up with the Count here.

I don't think that Frank's reading is the one that the designers intended. However I do think that Frank's reading is the only one fully supported by current rules text.

What Bunny Boy said about sums it up for me...

edit: and thanks to d. da guest for the link, and to Frank for the bump.

[Essence]

/me bows to Franks total rightness.