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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenjib" data-source="post: 595309" data-attributes="member: 530">LoneWolf23,So you gain an extra ability and you require prerequisites to do so?That's what feats are for.  The martial art styles in Quint. Fighter should have been feat chains, don't you think?  Every other special ability like those gained for these styles requires that you spend a feat to gain them.  How does the game system benefit from this exception here?In everything other than name, the Mongoose fighting styles are simply feats that a character can take without having to spend a feat slot.  Call them "free bonus feats" and people would complain about them more, no?  However, all you need to do is change the name for them to be free bonus feats.  The mechanics already work that way.It might get better when they release the revised edition though.Wil,I disagree.  CR is used to gauge power, not XP.  The cases you mention are all exceptional cases.Furthermore, there are a very limited number of ways in the core rules to gain extra abilities by spending XP.  Permanency, wish, and creating magic items.  These are all the forte mostly of the wizard (although other classes can create magic items, they don't get bonus feats for item creation).  Furthermore, if he wishes to increase the power levels of other characters in the party, he must personally invest the cost himself -- not the person who gains the benefit.  Therefore, if the wizard wants to increase overall party power he will fall behind other members of the party.  This is a balancing factor that discourages the wizard from overusing this ability.  Creating magic items also requires direct feat expenditure as opposed to just prerequisites that already have their own benefits.  There are no such balancing factors with the fighting styles.  In fact, there is no reason not to take as many styles as possible, so long as they compliment each other, due to the XP momentum accumulation effect I've mentioned above.What it seems like to me is that there is a small set of exceptional circumstances whereby some characters can burn XP to gain power, with built in checks to limit their use.  The fighting styles take this limited area of the rules and expand upon it.  I don't think, however, that this is an area of the game that should have been expanded upon -- especially when prestige classes and feat chains were already designed to handle this exact aspect of the game.  How does the game benefit from adding this new mechanic instead of using mechanics already in place that would do the job better?Given the choice of a fighting style mechanic that screws up the CR/EL system and a fighting style mechanic that works just as well but is integrated into the CR/EL system, the choice is a simple one for me to make.This illustrates my point.  There are a few cases where the DM needs to micromanage things outside of the CR/EL system.  Do we want more of them to have to keep track of?  Too many of them and eventually the system no longer works at all.I would point out, though, that your example above is invalid.  The DMG has standards for NPC wealth and that is accounted for in CR calculations.  The guidelines are there so you don't have the exact situation you suggest.  There are no such guidelines for fighting styles.</blockquote>

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