Master of Many Styles problem

[CAHaugen]

So, I've run into a bit of a snag and I'd like an answer.

MoMS grants you the use of Style Feats, and you do not need to meet the prerequisites 2nd- and 3rd-tier Feats, however you must still meet the prerequisites for the 1st-tier Feats.

That is, once you've qualified for the initial one in the Feat Tree, you're golden for the rest.

My issue is that since it replaces the Monk's Bonus Feats at 1st, 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, & 18th Level, a snag happens.

At 1st and 2nd Level you really do not qualify for anything. Unless you are a Human and dumping additional Feats into your build that you may not actually want, you can't take a single one.

The only ones available at these early stages are:

Crane Style, only if you take Dodge as a Bonus Feat
Panther Style, only if you take Combat Reflexes as a Bonus feat
Snapping Turtle Style, without the need of a Bonus Feat

But what if I don't want any of these? Am I forced to take something I really do not want? I have no plans on taking Dodge or Combat Reflexes, so this means the rules force me to take Snapping Turtle Style, and I have no plans on following through with the STS Tree, so why should I lose 1/6th of my Style Feats due to a broken game mechanic?

I know it comes down to House Rules, but the issue remains. Many of these Style Feats offer the use of it without an additional Feat already in place, however it's at the cost of +3 Ranks in some Skill. Several of which are not even Class Skills.

Since you can't have more Ranks then Levels, this means that to qualify for the majority of these Styles, you must be at minimum 3rd Level, dumping Ranks into something you may not even desire. Now that you've lost your Ranks, you can't even take a Style until 6th Level since that'd be the next one where it's available at. So now you have 1st and 2nd Level clustered with stuff you may not want, finally at 6th you get something you actually enjoy, and now you only get 10th, 14th, & 18th left to optimize your character.

That's a serious problem; Being forced into a corner with things you don't want, waiting until nearly half of your ECL to get something you like, and losing so much potential when you only have three options left, which are strewn out over the next eight Levels.

Has anyone else run into this horrible mechanic before?

I was really wanting to look into the following:

Boar Style: The Bleed Damage is just to worth it.
Djinni 1, 2, & 3: Surrounding myself in a field of electricity and zapping all adjacent foes in a single strike that deals both my Unarmed and Elemental Fist? That's just friggen awesome!
Dragon 1 & 2: The whole difficult terrain thing could come in handy, but the real gem is in Ferocity where it states: "A monk with this feat can use Elemental Fist as if he were a monk of the four winds.".

Looking at the Monk of Four Winds, it states:

"At 5th level, and every five levels thereafter, the monk increases the damage of his Elemental Fist by 1d6 (2d6 at 5th level, 3d6 at 10th level, and so on)."

But because of this crappy Skill Rank thing, and because of this crappy forced-Feat issue, I have no choice but to take Styles I do not want.

Are there any errata involving these rules? Is it possible to crunch out the Ranks ahead of time to prevent this stupid system from breaking down? Or, more likely, are we allowed to simply "not choose" a Style until we later meet the prerequisites?

What I mean is, simply not take one at 1st and 2nd Level, and later on at say 3rd or even 6th Level when you're good and ready with your Ranks you "fill in" those previous ones that you left vacant?

I know Fighters can "retrain" Feats later on. Can Monks do that too? Honestly the idea of "retraining" has always been stupid to me too. Yeah, sure maybe Weapon Focus sounded great at the time but now it's crap. Well if you took the time to build your character, you may have seen that you didn't actually need it in the first place, so you SHOULD be able to negate it until later use.

Thoughts on this?

[CAHaugen]

I feel an acceptable errata involving the Ranks issue is that you CAN take these Styles early, but for each Rank you are lacking, you take a -1 Penalty on the action you are attempting to preform.

So at 1st Level you can take Boar Style. However, you won't have +3 Intimidate Ranks yet. At most, you can have +1. So when you attempt to use Boar Style, you take a Penalty on your strike equal to your missing Ranks.

+0 Ranks = -3 Attack.
+1 Ranks = -2 Attack.
+2 Ranks = -1 Attack.
+3 Ranks = No Penalty.

Does this seem like a fair system? It's a pretty heavy one, in my opinion. Being a 1st Level Monk with a BAB +0, taking a -3 Attack? Ouch.

[prototype00]

You are mistaken. You don't have to meet the prerequisite of the first feat in the style tree either.

prototype00

[Deadkitten]

Bonus Feat: At 1st level, 2nd level, and every four levels thereafter, a master of many styles may select a bonus style feat or the Elemental Fist feat. He does not have to meet the prerequisites of that feat, except the Elemental Fist feat. Alternatively, a master of many styles may choose a feat in that style’s feat path (such as Earth Child Topple) as one of these bonus feats if he already has the appropriate style feat (such as Earth Child Style). The master of many styles does not need to meet any other prerequisite of the feat in the style’s feat path. This ability replaces a monk’s standard bonus feats.

Ditto

[Rynjin]

You don't need to meet any of the prereqs, except for the Elemental Fist Feat.

While that part is somewhat ambiguous (does that mean you need to meet the prereqs for Elemental Fist, or that you need Elemental Fist to take the ones with that as a prereq?), there is nothing there preventing you from taking the first Feat in a Style's path.

[CAHaugen]

Deadkitten wrote:

"Alternatively, a master of many styles may choose a feat in that style’s feat path (such as Earth Child Topple) as one of these bonus feats if he already has the appropriate style feat (such as Earth Child Style). The master of many styles does not need to meet any other prerequisite of the feat in the style’s feat path."

I guess I misunderstood this. I thought it meant that so long as you meet the prerequisites for the first Style Feat, such as Earth Style Child, you are good for the rest.

Well that certainly makes things a lot simplier. Thanks everybody.

I had tried finding the answer on Google, and multiple forums came up about the same issue, people believing that you must meet prerequisites for the 1st-tier Style Feat. That's the whole reason I posted this question; Couldn't find a direct answer online.