Fighter and Monk Bonus Feats

[Malthruin]

I'm working on a Monk for a new game and I couldn't find a ruling regarding how certain Feats interact in terms of progression. At first level of Fighter I took Improved Unarmed Strike as the Bonus Feat. Once I took the first level in Monk, he gained Improved Unarmed Strike once again as a Bonus Feat. The question is this: does this fizzle out and become nothing at all, or does it push it into the Superior Unarmed Strike Feat in a fashion similar to Evasion/Improved Evasion for Rogues?

[grarrrg]

Duplicate feature that does nothing.
It only upgrades if either ability said it upgrades (which neither do).

You can potentially retrain one, or trade it for an alternate feature, but as is the second does nothing.

[ViperMagnum357]

I'm working on a Monk for a new game and I couldn't find a ruling regarding how certain Feats interact in terms of progression. At first level of Fighter I took Improved Unarmed Strike as the Bonus Feat. Once I took the first level in Monk, he gained Improved Unarmed Strike once again as a Bonus Feat. The question is this: does this fizzle out and become nothing at all, or does it push it into the Superior Unarmed Strike Feat in a fashion similar to Evasion/Improved Evasion for Rogues?

Fizzles unless specified otherwise. See if you can swap out your Fighter bonus feat for something else.

[tyckspoon]

If not otherwise specified, you simply have two copies of Improved Unarmed Strike. Since Improved Unarmed Strike is not a feat that can normally be taken twice and does not have rules for what happens when you try, this means you have at least one wasted feat. You'll either want to explore retraining options (PHB2 rules or get a Psychic Reformation used on you to allow reselecting feats), see if there's an alternate class feature you could take for Monk that would skip that IUS, or just avoid selecting the feat with your Fighter Bonus; until you take Monk or something else that increases your unarmed strike damage you can do about as well just using a Spiked Gauntlet or similar weapon that allows your unarmed strike to count as 'armed'. There's no reason not to use an unarmed weapon until you actually take Monk and have to deal with the restrictions on what weapons allow you to use Flurry and/or increased unarmed damage.

[Necroticplague]

I'm working on a Monk for a new game and I couldn't find a ruling regarding how certain Feats interact in terms of progression. At first level of Fighter I took Improved Unarmed Strike as the Bonus Feat. Once I took the first level in Monk, he gained Improved Unarmed Strike once again as a Bonus Feat. The question is this: does this fizzle out and become nothing at all, or does it push it into the Superior Unarmed Strike Feat in a fashion similar to Evasion/Improved Evasion for Rogues?

It means you gain Improved Unarmed Strike a second time. This has no real benefit, due to the default rules about feats, but your still have it.

Feat Name [Type Of Feat]
Prerequisite

A minimum ability score, another feat or feats, a minimum base attack bonus, a minimum number of ranks in one or more skills, or a class level that a character must have in order to acquire this feat. This entry is absent if a feat has no prerequisite. A feat may have more than one prerequisite.
Benefit

What the feat enables the character ("you" in the feat description) to do. If a character has the same feat more than once, its benefits do not stack unless indicated otherwise in the description.

In general, having a feat twice is the same as having it once.

I'd recommend a nice DCFS.