Several more house-rules, this time related to feats...
1) Wave away the redundant prerequisites for a feat tree. If a feat requires A and B, and A requires B, remove B from the feat's prerequisites. For instance, Cleave requires Power Attack and Str 13+, and Power Attack requires Str 13+; from now on, Cleave requires only Power Attack.
2) Consider virtual feats as real for prerequisites. If a monk can act as if he had TWF for short periods of time, he should be able to take TWRend, which would be active only in the periods of time he's considered to have TWF.
I heard someone say, "Fluffy."
I do not like Feat trees. I would rather see Feat ranks. I do not know how practical that would be, just my thoughts on the subject.
Feat Ranks?
Do you mean like a feat point system??
http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/featpointsystem.html
Convert this to pathfinder and we're good.
Interesting, but no. I meant ranks as in one Feat, but you gain added utility with additional ranks.
Like... Power Attack I, Power Attack II, Power Attack III, each one giving more?
Interesting. However, that's a whole can of worms (another one, that is).
Hmm.. I think he means added utility.
So you have a Feat called "Powerful Strikes".
Rank 1 (one feat slot) gives the current Power Attack function.
Rank 2 (another feat slot) gives the Cleave option.
Rank 3 (etc) gives the Greater Cleave option.
etc
The only problem I see is that Power Attack gives more than Cleave. It splits into other things, like Improved Bullrush or Improved Overrun, etc.
And while there is a case where those should be their own ranked feats, there's other trees that give wildly differing abilities (Mounted Combat, TWF and Archery all have various feats that are concurrently wanted.. so which gets applied first?).
My thoughts on the OP.
I don't think the first suggestion will change anything much except perhaps reduce space written in the book. And even that, only slightly... it might save ink (most/all? prerequisite entries are one line anyways).
If you lose your Strength 13 minimum, you lose access to Power Attack, which means you lose access to Cleave regardless if it needed Strength 13 or not.
The second suggestion makes sense to me. It gives a slight edge to those that gain these kinds of feats, however I'm not seeing Rangers or Monks as being called "overpowered" that it'll tip any scales in my books.