I was reminded while reading a thread earlier of how annoying the prerequisites are for many feats. Take Improved Trip for example. You can pick up Combat Expertise via Lore Warden without needing the Int 13 requirement, or can skip both CE and the Int by grabbing IT via Maneuver Master, but then you're still left without the ability to pick up further feats, because each successive feat still requires each of the earlier feats' prerequisites(IT for the Lore Warden; Greater Trip or anything else that requires IT for the Maneuver Master). This seems counter-intuitive.
Obviously, if you're playing PFS you're screwed, but for home games, how do you handle this at your tables? I'd be inclined to allow feats to drop prerequisites for their prerequisites.
To illustrate:
Combat Expertise requires Int 13.
Improved Trip requires Combat Expertise; and no longer needs Int 13--if you got the feat the normal way, and your Int drops below 13, CE turns off, which in turn disables IT, otherwise, you're safe from stat damage disabling your feat chain.
Greater Trip requires Improved Trip; and no longer needs Int 13 or Combat Expertise.
Felling Smash would require Improved Trip and Power Attack; and no longer needs Int 13, Str 13 or Combat Expertise.
If you acquire the feats in the normal way, nothing changes, but if you have special class abilities that let you skirt prerequisites you don't find yourself out of luck down the line when you want to pick up one of the additional feats with a standard feat slot, only to find you can't because it still requires the prerequisites you skipped initially.
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Well, obviously, if it's your home game you can do what you want.
But presumably the rules were written the way they are in order to expressly prohibit what you are trying to do; if a feat is described as requiring as a prerequisite something that you would (normally) have had to have in order to accquire an earlier feat in the chain that must, presumbably, be there to take care of situations where normal prerequisites have been skipped.
you raise an interesting point, though: are the prerequisites intended to be met when the feat is accquired, or when it is used? I've always assumed the former; if you've learned Combat Expertise, and then suffer ability damage so your INT drops below 13, you don't lose the abilities of the feat unless the feat description explicitly mentions this.
From the Feats section of the PRD:
Prerequisites
Some feats have prerequisites. Your character must have the indicated ability score, class feature, feat, skill, base attack bonus, or other quality designated in order to select or use that feat. A character can gain a feat at the same level at which he gains the prerequisite.
A character can't use a feat if he loses a prerequisite, but he does not lose the feat itself. If, at a later time, he regains the lost prerequisite, he immediately regains full use of the feat that prerequisite enables.
So if your ability score drops below the requirement to use a feat you lose access to that feat and all the feats that have it as a prerequisite, in turn.
My question is specifically: How does all of you feel about things like Lorewarden, Maneuver Master, Master of Many Styles, Ranger bonus feats, and many other class and archetype abilities can get you onto a feat path and then leave you hanging partway down that path because their initial skirting of the prerequisites for the lower tier feats in a chain doesn't translate up the chain?
One of the benefits of being a Ranger, for instance, is being able to ignore high stat requirements for things like Two-Weapon Fighting, but if you want to use a feat that works off of TWF and isn't on the ranger's bonus feat lists, or you multiclass/prestige out of ranger, or just want to pick up a feat sooner than at your next bonus feat opportunity, that benefit is erased, because you still need that high Dex or whatever to pick up those other feats.
Ability damage doesn't reduce your score, it just applies penalties to related checks and rolls.
Diseases, poisons, spells, and other abilities can all deal damage directly to your ability scores. This damage does not actually reduce an ability, but it does apply a penalty to the skills and statistics that are based on that ability.
Your feats are safe until something hits you with ability drain, which is thankfully much more rare. :)
Ability damage doesn't reduce your score, it just applies penalties to related checks and rolls.
Diseases, poisons, spells, and other abilities can all deal damage directly to your ability scores. This damage does not actually reduce an ability, but it does apply a penalty to the skills and statistics that are based on that ability.Your feats are safe until something hits you with ability drain, which is thankfully much more rare. :)
Fair point, but this is a side issue, and not what I really want to discuss here (I'm guilty of engaging in the minor derailment as well).