Had an interesting idea, I would like to see Paizo follow up on, but doubt it will be, and worried it would be WAY to powerful.
What if VMC was turned into a series of feat trees. The player could "Stop" the VMC at any time, could rearrange the levels (but not the order) they could get the abilities. Finally they could get more than one track.
Basic idea is that each feat would have a prereq of the level you normally can get it (based on VMC), and the previous class ability (so theoretically you could also get it from the core class or any class that shares the ability)
Would this be a OP change to the system?
The rules on VMC classes are extraordinarily silly, and ought to be ignored.
As things stand, they cost way too many feats, unless you're a fighter. Sure, they could be houseruled into something decent enough to want to take, but multiclassing or even class-dipping are sub-optimal in PF to begin with, and VMC doubly moreso.
Best thing to do is choose a hybrid class, if you want to do stuff from both base classes.
Kind of the problem I was addressing. This would allow for more customization and to allow the player to choose "how deep" they go. For instance my current character would love to be able to use this to just get the Bard first ability (does not care about the rest, but Bardic knowledge would rock for him).
I like the idea, and had a similar thought when I saw the VMC system. I would use it in a game if there was interest, but I'm not a great barometer of whether something is "op". :P
If you're worried if it's OP, just use the guidelines that are somewhere in the CRB (can't remember where).
If this option is something that everyone would take, it's too powerful. If it's something that no one would take, it's underpowered.
Basically it could work, but it'll require a pretty delicate balancing act. If the first or second feat in the tree is super amazing then everyone and their dogs are going to shell out for that/those feats.
A good example, the Magus VMC: Every Barbarian/Fighter/whatever is going to take the first in the tree & get an Arcane Pool enhancement to their weapon (scaling bonus to hit/damage that ends up at +5/+5). It's already pretty amazing on a fighter/ranger build (coz they get bonus feats to make up for it). The only real drawback to it is that it's going to cost you 5 feats in the long-run.
Short answer: It COULD be a great idea but you'd have to be very careful about balancing the early feats.
I see your point, but other than Magus and Barbarian I don't think any have that much power to be abused. Honestly I don't think the Magus is even THAT OP, but could be "toned down" some (+1/6 levels, secondary at 12). Probably the same on number of rounds of rage from barbarian, maybe all of them should take the -2 class level that some have
I wish the variant multiclass system worked like this as it reminded me of 4th Edition's multiclass feats. However, all of the MVCs would have to be reevaluated as some of the options are too strong for a feat.
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Agreed with MrCharisma.
Also, because of the big differences in power levels between VMCs, this wouldn't work as a "quick fix" for all of them. If you've got a specific VMC in mind it might work just fine, but to fix all of them you'd really need to rebalance them on a case-by-case basis.
One tool you could use to balance the feats is to make them scale based on how many feats in the chain you have. The magus for example could get one feat to add a +1 bonus with Arcane Pool, and then an additional +1 for every additional Magus VMC feat.
Kind of the problem I was addressing. This would allow for more customization and to allow the player to choose "how deep" they go. For instance my current character would love to be able to use this to just get the Bard first ability (does not care about the rest, but Bardic knowledge would rock for him).
Bardic Knowledge at full character level also sounds like too much for a single feat, so I'd probably cut the bonus granted unless you picked up additional feats in the chain. Actually, with the Bard VMC I'd probably turn it into a "Lore" and "Performance" chain with limited Bardic Knowledge available at level 3 (perhaps +1 on all Knowledge skills and ability to make Knowledge checks untrained), and Lore Master + full Bardic Knowledge at level 7.