Default assumtion on bonus feat prerequisites

[zook1shoe]

Can do... Where were we...

oh yeah, I think we have found many instances where the Fighter doesn't ignore prereqs for their bonus feats.

Topic Solved

[kitep]

until you find a written rule that says all (or at least the fighter's) bonus feats ignore prereqs, the general rule mentioned before must kick in.

Actually, the PHB explicitly say fighters MUST meet the prereqs

Bonus Feats: At 1st level, a fighter gets a bonus
combat-oriented feat in addition to the feat that
any 1st-level character gets and the bonus feat
granted to a human character. The fighter
gains an additional bonus feat at 2nd level
and every two fighter levels thereafter
(4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 14th, 16th,
18th, and 20th). These bonus feats
must be drawn from the feats noted as fighter bonus
feats on Table 5–1: Feats (page 90). A fighter must still
meet all prerequisites for a bonus feat, including ability
score and base attack bonus minimums. (See Chapter 5:
Feats for descriptions of feats and their prerequisites.)

[deadkitten]

From what I can gather from the various classes that grant bonus  feats, there are some that say you ignore prerequisites and others that say that you can ignore them. Unfortunately, not all bonus feats have language that defines weather you have to meet prerequisites for them or not, and I do not think bonus feat is a universal term for all of D&D classes with its own language as to how bonus feats work. Each class approaches them differently. The best RAW answer to this that I have seen is the quoted lines from the Player's Handbook on meeting prerequisites for feats, but I feel that that line was intended for feats gained through leveling and not all feats. If you uses that as the basis for all classes then it is not a universally fair interpretation. It seems to me that when it comes to bonus feats themselves, the DM has to decide how they work and go from there. But that's just cause I find what little RAW evidence there is somewhat flimsy. But that's just my opinion on the matter.

Bonus feats that fail to say that you have to meet or ignore prerequisites are definitely irritating when you get into a RAW discussion.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Yeah,
Martial Monk + Dragonwrought Kobold + DoubleChezburger = Epic feats at level 1 sans the pre-reqs.
And no it's stupid.
Now-a-days you have to face the wrath of SorO too (and that's just the DwK part).

Way More Cheese?
Throw in the Might Makes Right feat, Epic Leadership feat, Cause Disease gets you Festering Anger, and a LE Paladin casts 1/day Lesser Restoration, or the Mind Over Body psi feat.  You get a 1hd DvR 19 angry kobold.  It probably deserves to need an SDA to maintain each cheesy use of cheese.

[LordBlades]

Bonus feats that fail to say that you have to meet or ignore prerequisites are definitely irritating when you get into a RAW discussion.

They're irrritating when you get in a RAI&common sense discussion too. Some cases were obviously intended to have prerequisites (like martial monk) while others were obviously intended to ignore them (like War domain and 'grants feat x' items), but others fail straight in the gray area.

The specific issue that spawned my question for example wads the ECS bard ACF which allowed you to swap new types of music for some feats, without sayong whether you need prerequisites or not.

[Kethrian]

The way I've ended up interpreting bonus feats that don't declare either way is if something gives you a specific feat, you get it and can ignore prereqs, but if it gives you a choice, you have to meet any prereqs it has to pick it.  I based it on the tendencies I've seen for the stuff that does have declarations, where it seems most of the time (possibly all) whenever a specific feat is granted as a bonus, you get it regardless of prerequisites, while usually when there's a choice, you have to meet the prereqs to take any given one.  Of course, if someone shows numbers that would skew it in a different direction ...