Unearthed Arcana wrote:A 1st-level monk (regardless of character level) may select one of the fighting styles listed below. By selecting one of these fighting styles, you dictate which bonus feats you gain at 1st, 2nd, and 6th level (when a monk normally gains one of two bonus feats as listed in the Player's Handbook). In addition, you get a +2 bonus on a single skill at 1st level (in exchange for the versatility you give up by preselecting your bonus feats).
Anybody spot the fallacy?
It goes like this: as your choices of "fighting styles" goes up (there are currently a whole mess of them in Dragon Magazine, for example, and there will doubtless be more) - the "versatility" you are giving up goes down.
Or to put it another way: when you get a bonus feat, you don't get "any bonus feat", you actually just get one bonus feat, which is a specific actual feat off the list. Once chosen, it is set in stone and isn't any better or different than a bonus that was pre-selected for you (so long as it happened to be the same feat).
When you choose a Fighting Style, you actually are not giving up any versatility at all, provided that you choose the Fighting Style that comes uses the bonus feats you were going to take anyway.
Now, as we know, the monk as written is severely underpowered, so giving him a +2 bonus to some arbitrary skill at first level isn't about to break anything. Not by a long shot. But the concept that preselecting your bonus feats off a list is somehow "less versatile" than simply being handed bonus feats off the same list is absurd. In either case the number of feats off the list you get is exactly the same. Unless some of the feats are under- or overpowered, nothing has actually changed.
-Username17