http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/racial-feats/magical-tail-kitsune
On the one hand. Cool. Flavorful.
On the other. Eight feats is a lot and I'm not sure the payout ends up being that high for the cost. Eight feats is a LOT after all. Like. Way a lot.
Yeah and you don't really start getting any spells that are all that interesting until you're a few feats in. Might offer some nice flavour on a build that doesn't really need feats all that much but for the most part I would probably avoid the feat completely.
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The Kitsune Compendium has some options that make it easier to pick up the feats. For example, the Nine-Tailed Mystic is an oracle or sorcerer archetype that replaces bloodline or mystery spells with the Magical Tail feats.
It doesn't help that the classes that can afford to set their feats on fire the most are the ones that find the SLAs the least useful.
A wizard can get by without a single metamagic feat(quicken will hurt, but still). Wizards do NOT need a 2/day dominate person scaling off Cha at level 15.
A rogue or archaeologist bard (anyone with rogue talents and advanced rogue talents) can get them by level 12. Rogues are useless without feats, and bards get badly hurt unless they focus on spellcasting and in that case they can have all the SLAs as spells known by then anyway so it is still kind of useless.
I made a kitsune fighter with the whole chain... He was pretty fun/interesting. He spent all his base feats on racial ones (tail x8, swift shapechange, and pounce). That slowed down his combat ability coming online some but by maybe 6th or 8th he was doing well (TWF with agile weapons). By 10th he was really solid (using vulpine pounce with piranha strike and Dex based combat). He had a pretty decent Cha so he could actually make some good use of the SLAs (by targeting people/things that he suspected had low will saves), and he had the dangerously curious trait and max ranks in UMD, so with some investing in scrolls/wands he had a lot of options not available to most fighters.
I made a kitsune fighter with the whole chain... He was pretty fun/interesting. He spent all his base feats on racial ones (tail x8, swift shapechange, and pounce). That slowed down his combat ability coming online some but by maybe 6th or 8th he was doing well (TWF with agile weapons). By 10th he was really solid (using vulpine pounce with piranha strike and Dex based combat). He had a pretty decent Cha so he could actually make some good use of the SLAs (by targeting people/things that he suspected had low will saves), and he had the dangerously curious trait and max ranks in UMD, so with some investing in scrolls/wands he had a lot of options not available to most fighters.
Fighters are one of the few that have enough spare feats to make this work while actually getting benefit from it.
Unfortunately, I suspect he would have been better off as a Dervish Dancer Bard or Skald (both of which have access to kukris).
A Skald/Bard would have access to all of the spells offered by magical tail by level 10. They would also have either pounce or pseudo pounce by level 12. This is without spending a single feat - Greater Beast Totem gives pounce for your entire team and Dance of Fury gives something comparable to pounce.
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Frankly if you are playing a very simple paladin, the magical tail feats are fine. By very simple paladin means one that uses power attack and a two handed weapon, because the paladin already gives you everything else , bonus to saves, bonus to damage, spells that buff you even more than any feats, so I can see Kitsune paladin actually getting all the tail feats, still tho, you might run into some code of conduct problems due to the way you can use the spells to manipulate people mind.
Far too costly to be useful. It's flavorful, sure.... But IMO, flavor doesn't justify poor design and grabbing this feat chain severely gimps your character.
I complety ignore it unless and will continue to do so unless it's errata'd (which it'll never be) or house-ruled (might happen) into something reasonable.
If one of my players want a 9-tailed fox with innate magic powers, they can play a Sorcerer or Bard or something like that and I'll allow him to describe hos character as having 9 tails.
Frankly if you are playing a very simple paladin, the magical tail feats are fine. By very simple paladin means one that uses power attack and a two handed weapon, because the paladin already gives you everything else , bonus to saves, bonus to damage, spells that buff you even more than any feats, so I can see Kitsune paladin actually getting all the tail feats, still tho, you might run into some code of conduct problems due to the way you can use the spells to manipulate people mind.
Unfortunately, if you don't skip on Power Attack (yay playing a str martial with a strength penalty), Realistic Likeness(which is one of the best things about playing a kitsune) and vulpine pounce(which is one of the best things for a melee martial unless you have pounce or similar from another source) then you will have the invisibility SLA by level 15. You never get confusion or dominate either, the real payoff for this 8 feat chain.
As for the code of conduct problems, the only real stickler could be Dominate Person. To be honest, even that could be a boon. Instead of the party having to trick the paladin into leaving the prisoner alone for a bit of torture, they can ask the paladin to just make the prisoner tell them what they want to know. Doing so doesn't violate the paladin code.
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If one of my players want a 9-tailed fox with innate magic powers, they can play a Sorcerer or Bard or something like that and I'll allow him to describe hos character as having 9 tails.
Appropriate house rule: kitsune spellcasters have a number of tails matching the highest level spell they can cast.
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As the guy who wrote the Kitsune Compendium, here are my thoughts on the Magical Tail feats:
A) They're REALLY powerful for what they do. The only other race has options that give them as many spell-like abilities as a kitsune can get with this feat is the drow, and those feats are MUCH less diverse than those granted by Magical Tail.
B) Because of how feats work in Pathfinder, the feats are difficult to budget into your build, which is unfortunate. However, fighters, warpriests, and brawlers all make excellent use of Magical Tail because of their comparatively higher-number of feats. Just imagine being a martial master fighter who picks up all of the Magical Tail feats with his feats, takes all of the required feats with his standard feats, and uses martial flexibility to fill in the gaps ....
C) I don't like the idea of "spell level access = more tails" because it undercuts the idea that nine-tailed kitsune are rare. They should be. Since nine-tailed kitsune aren't even mentioned as being a thing in any of their racial descriptions (but white-furred kitsune ARE, which also comes from Japanese mythology), that leads me to believe that polytailed kitsune are rare enough that they're seen as being myths / stories among kitsune, let along other races.
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I don't think they are powerful... They cost 8 feats, after all. Any power they have is undermined by the huge cost. Most SLAs obtained are not even very good and there are many other feat choices that are more powerful... Even for classes with lots of bonus feats (and most of those classes have little to no use for Cha).
You have a point with the "multi-tailed Kitsunes should be rare", but I don't mind having one of my players be the rare one... Nor do I see any reason why they should be any rarer than, say, a dragon-blooded Kitsune. How rare they are is just a matter of preference.
I don't think they are powerful... They cost 8 feats, after all. Any power they have is undermined by the huge cost. Most SLAs obtained are not even very good and there are many other feat choices that are more powerful...
I invite you to compare them to other feats that grant spell-like abilities. 2/day going up to 5th-level spells is basically unheard of. As I mentioned, the only feats that come close are the drow noble feats, which allow you to take a few 1st-2nd level spells and make them constant effects.
Even for classes with lots of bonus feats (and most of those classes have little to no use for Cha).
Between demorlaize, Antagonize, and feint, fighters can find plenty of use for a good Charisma score. A race with a Charisma bonus should be able to find use for Charisma.
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The drow line does give you two 3rd level SLAs (1/day Dispel Magic and at-will Deeper Darkness), and don't underestimate the value of constant Detect Magic. The drow feats are also not "less diverse" than Magical Tail. Bards, sorcerers, and wizards get everything in the Magical Tail line, while the drow line mixes spells from the cleric (eg Divine Favour), druid (Faerie Fire), and sorc/wiz lists (Suggestion).
Magical Tail eventually gives you more than the drow line, but I don't think it's a big enough improvement to be worth an extra 3 feats - especially since the drow line is questionably worth 5 feats as is. Magical Tail doesn't give you access to 4th or 5th level SLA until 6 levels after the wizard gets those same spells, which takes the shine off them.
Between demorlaize, Antagonize, and feint, fighters can find plenty of use for a good Charisma score. A race with a Charisma bonus should be able to find use for Charisma.
These options require extra feats, which we are already short on. They also require skill points, which are also in short supply for these classes.
Note also that Kitsune, having 4 points of difference between Str and Dex, are much more effective with a Dex build. This takes more feats than a strength build, whether you're going with a melee finesse build or with an archer. This compounds your feat problem.
Finally, fighters and brawlers do not fit the concept of a nine-tailed kitsune as one with particularly strong magical powers. The inability for a full casting class to find feat space for Magical Tail is a weakness of the line - and one that I appreciate the Kitsune Compendium fixing.
C) I don't like the idea of "spell level access = more tails" because it undercuts the idea that nine-tailed kitsune are rare. They should be. Since nine-tailed kitsune aren't even mentioned as being a thing in any of their racial descriptions (but white-furred kitsune ARE, which also comes from Japanese mythology), that leads me to believe that polytailed kitsune are rare enough that they're seen as being myths / stories among kitsune, let along other races.
Level 17+ kitsune full casters are common in your games? My current campaign world has maybe 2-4 people in it at a time capable of casting 9th level spells - you go a couple generations between one of those high level spellcasters being a nine-tailed kitsune.
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C) I don't like the idea of "spell level access = more tails" because it undercuts the idea that nine-tailed kitsune are rare. They should be. Since nine-tailed kitsune aren't even mentioned as being a thing in any of their racial descriptions (but white-furred kitsune ARE, which also comes from Japanese mythology), that leads me to believe that polytailed kitsune are rare enough that they're seen as being myths / stories among kitsune, let along other races.
I can understand that. I guess my aversion to the magical tail feat line (and why I often give the tails to a character for free) is because while the individual abilities sound powerful it is pretty much impossible for a character to get them at an early enough level that they are meaningful.
Actually, my real aversion is that in my opinion a nine tailed kitsune should be *frightening*. It should be an event to run into one. In actuality, in almost every instance, the players would be relieved to run into a nine tailed kitsune because it means he spent his feats unwisely! The idea that a nine-tailed kitsune sorcerer is inherently weaker than any other kitsune sorcerer blows my mind, but unfortunately that is the way things are. So... I just give them their tails for free for flavor sake so they have a chance to go with a real character build.
I play a kitsune sorceror in one game. Like many others, I looked at it and went "oooooh....oh...ah..."
The idea is fun, but it's just not good enough unless you follow it all the way to the end and forget all about things like, ooh, further boosting enchantment, say.
Plus I don't like the idea of having no flexibility further in the game. I mean, if we go somewhere I don't expect to or come across a certain sort of enemy frequently or it makes charcter / story sense to specialise in certain schools then I'd be annoyed if I had my hands tied by having to continue with tails.
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I honestly find that the sorcerer/oracle archetype Nine-Tailed Mystic handles it well, giving up the bonus spells from bloodline or mystery to gain the Fox Tail feats. There is also the Shaman archetype Jiuweihu whic gives the added benefit of having a 'Star Jewel' familiar which takes after the legend of kitsunes having a jewel which is the source of their power.
Lastly there is the feat Nine-Tailed Inheritor: The kitsune is a wellspring of magical energy that manifests as additional tails. The kitsune gains Magical Tail as a bonus feat at 1st level. In addition, he adds Magical Tail to all class lists of bonus feats as initial feat choices for those lists, including all ranger combat styles and all sorcerer bloodlines. For example, a monk can select Magical Tail when he gains his first bonus feat at 1st level while a ranger can select it when he gains his first combat style feat at 2nd level. Additionally, the kitsune treats Magical Tail as all types of feats (except teamwork) when determining which feats he can select with a class's bonus feats feature. A kitsune with this racial trait cannot select Magical Tail as a class bonus feat and as a feat from character advancement during the same level. This racial trait replaces natural weapons.
More I think even without the archetype the full line of the feats could be more then worth it.
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I invite you to compare them to other feats that grant spell-like abilities. 2/day going up to 5th-level spells is basically unheard of. As I mentioned, the only feats that come close are the drow noble feats, which allow you to take a few 1st-2nd level spells and make them constant effects.
That's becauze most (if not all) SLA feats are pretty crappy, not because Magic Tail is powerful. 8 feats is a huge investment even for Fighters, and take waaaaay too long to matter. It could have been a cool option but its insane cost completely offsets its benefits and weakens any character that decides to go for it.
I Between demorlaize, Antagonize, and feint, fighters can find plenty of use for a good Charisma score. A race with a Charisma bonus should be able to find use for Charisma.
Feints is not very good, as it require considerable investment just to be mediocre at best... And all Intimidate-related options can rely on Str instead... Admitedly, it costs a feat, but that's usua a lesser investment than 4+ attribute points, specially for classes with lots of bonus feats.