I am a proud owner of rogue glory, so plug with pride my friend!
You would choose 2styles to advance at lvl 3, 6, and 9; and an additional single style at lvl 12. I figure you are giving up more than its worth, but the convenience of doing two styles at the same time would be well worth it for a game you don't expect to go past lvl 10. I don't want it to be too much, but it's the best way to play test multiple styles in a shorter time for me... I guess the test would be if I am blowing past the other characters in the party then it is too much, but I want to try to trouble shoot the power of it before I get too deep in it.
I want to say I rather enjoy the idea you've presented and the entries for each style.
My question is, however, as follows:
Wouldn't these work better or be less "invasive" as "talent trees"?
For example (to clarify my meaning):
Style Path (Ex) At 2nd level, a rogue gains a style path to pursue. Each style path grants the rogue a number of new talents he may select with his rogue talent class feature. The rogue is granted a new style path at 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level. Once a rogue selects a style path, it cannot be changed.
The Blade: The rogue is adept with using light bladed weapons and may select from the following talents whenever he is normally granted a rogue talent.
Blade Talents
Evade: int mod to AC.
Duelist: add 1/2 lvl to dmg with light weapons and 1h piercing weapons
Blade Advanced Talent
Telling Blow: when a rogue confirms a crit, she adds SA dmg. If she already would get SA, she adds 1d6 on that crit.
I hope that's clear. If not, I can provide more examples.
Great suggestion, but in hopes to balance the overall class I believe the addition of the styles has a bigger effect than an altering of the rogue talents. Keep in mind, that the rogue gets the "ki pool" (for lack of better term at the moment) and talents of the ninja. The ninja alternate class features and weapon prof are now considered an archetype. Having styles contend with talents muddies the water in my opinion, and detracts from the overall power lvl of the class (which is what I am trying to address here).
Lord Twig has some excellent talent options that I also want to implement. To that end, I am sure that there are some style paths that could be relegated to talents. I suppose that is a direction I should look into with Lord Twig's blessing, and the collective suggestions tweaks and flames from the forum in general.
With that said, I think that will be the next phase of this project. I will compile notes and prep for a new thread in the near future. Thanks for the critique.