Feat Prerequisites - A General Doubt

[Suikadon]

I have been getting confused as of late by the way the prerequisites of feats are written.

For instance, the feat Pummeling Style has the following prerequisites:

Pummeling Style

Prerequisites: Improved Unarmed Strike; base attack
bonus +6, brawler's flurry class feature, or flurry of
blows class feature.

The way I understood it, Improved Unarmed Strike is a must for this feat, then you need just one of the following three (BAB +6, brawler's flurry or flurry of blows) to gain the feat. That would mean that a character of the monk or brawler classes would be able to get this as soon as they get their respective class abilities, provided they have Improved Unarmed Strike, and regardless of their BAB. Is that correct?


Another example, the Chokehold feat:


Chokehold

Prerequisites: Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed
Strike, base attack bonus +6 or monk level 5th.

No semicolon here, so I interpret this as meaning: you must have Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed Strike, and EITHER BAB + 6 or monk level 5th.


Speaking in a more general manner, does the "or" when it appears in a feat's prerequisites refer only to the previous prerequisite, or to all the previous prerequisites separated by comas?

To illustrate with an imaginary example feat:

Feat
Prerequisites: (1), (2) or (3)


Do I need to have (1) + EITHER (2) or (3)?

Or do I need to have only one of the three: (1) or (2) or (3)?

[The Random NPC]

I have been getting confused as of late by the way the prerequisites of feats are written.

For instance, the feat Pummeling Style has the following prerequisites:

Pummeling Style

Prerequisites: Improved Unarmed Strike; base attack
bonus +6, brawler's flurry class feature, or flurry of
blows class feature.

The way I understood it, Improved Unarmed Strike is a must for this feat, then you need just one of the following three (BAB +6, brawler's flurry or flurry of blows) to gain the feat. That would mean that a character of the monk or brawler classes would be able to get this as soon as they get their respective class abilities, provided they have Improved Unarmed Strike, and regardless of their BAB. Is that correct?

This is correct.


Another example, the Chokehold feat:


Chokehold

Prerequisites: Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed
Strike, base attack bonus +6 or monk level 5th.

No semicolon here, so I interpret this as meaning: you must have Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed Strike, and EITHER BAB + 6 or monk level 5th.


Speaking in a more general manner, does the "or" when it appears in a feat's prerequisites refer only to the previous prerequisite, or to all the previous prerequisites separated by comas?

To illustrate with an imaginary example feat:

Feat
Prerequisites: (1), (2) or (3)


Do I need to have (1) + EITHER (2) or (3)?

Or do I need to have only one of the three: (1) or (2) or (3)?

I'm not entirely sure, but I believe the second one is correct.

[OldTrees1]

Ouch. Does this author follow the Oxford Comma or not?
A prerequisite list ending in ", or X" has each "," or ", or" mean "or"
A prerequisite list ending in ", Y or X" has each "," mean "and" but the "or" means "or"

So
Prerequisites: (1), (2) or (3)
means
You need to have (1) + EITHER (2) or (3)?

However author fallibility is probable enough not to trust this as RAI, and it relies on a linguistic rule that is still debated, and common language usage varies on it even if the linguists all agreed.

[grarrrg]

Chokehold

Prerequisites: Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed
Strike, base attack bonus +6 or monk level 5th.

I interpret this as meaning: you must have Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed Strike, and EITHER BAB + 6 or monk level 5th.

That is likely the correct interpretation.


Speaking in a more general manner, does the "or" when it appears in a feat's prerequisites refer only to the previous prerequisite, or to all the previous prerequisites separated by comas?

It partially depends on the author/editor of that particular feat/whatever.

There is enough inconsistent wording across abilities that there either is no set way to write them, or the guidelines on writing them are very loose.

[Psyren]

Do I need to have (1) + EITHER (2) or (3)?

Or do I need to have only one of the three: (1) or (2) or (3)?

It's the first one. Basically they wanted to make sure monks could get this stuff on time despite not having full BAB, but even monks still need the various feat prereqs.

[Suikadon]

Thanks for the replies, that clears up the doubts I had regarding feats with multiple prerequisites.