What are the best "Gatekeeping" feats to take for use with the Chameleons Floating Bonus Feat?

Question

Context:

So my old group finished our last short campaign and I'm in the process of doing character planning - this time I'm leaning towards a Chameleon. Either a Human Chameleon or a Changeling Chameleon. Right now I'm curious about what would be the best feats or class features that lead to feat or PRC class unlocks that can be aquired through the use of a Chameleons Bonus class features.

For example - If a person picks up the "Jack of All Trades" feat, this would allow the character to use any skill untrained, pick up Skill Focus through the bonus feat and reconfigure their boon to get up to a +4 to +6 to a specific profession, knowledge or crafting check - or higher if it also matches up with an ability focus skill check.

So the question is what are the best feats to pick up as we go to unlock other feats or features that might be available out there? Or what feats would be best used to emulate to gain access to other prestige classes? (Considering we only need to meet the prerequesits to qualify for the 1st level of the PRC?)

For clarity - What I am asking is what hard feat selections would best serve pre-requisites for bonus floating feat selections?

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Quick Reminder on on rules text:

You can't use any abilities gained from your aptitude focus, ability boon, or mimic class feature abilities to qualify for a feat, prestige class, or other option. You can use your bonus feat to qualify for such options, but if you change the feat, you suffer the normal drawbacks for no longer meeting a prerequisite or requirement.

Bonus Feat (Ex): At 2nd level, you gain a bonus feat. You must meet the prerequisites for this feat. At the start of each day, you can choose to change your bonus feat to any other feat for which you meet the prerequisites

Answer 1

Any prestige class feat taxes

In the case of a prestige class, “the normal drawbacks for no longer meeting a prerequisite or requirement” are none after you have taken the 1st level. So any time you can enter a prestige class you want while not having to keep a feat you don’t want is a big win. Attempting to list all the prestige classes out there with obnoxious feat taxes is far too large an endeavor for a Stack answer, but there are a lot of them.

Feats

Unlike prestige classes, you need to meet a feat’s requirements in order to use it, so losing a requirement for a feat is a lot more painful. The most common optimization tricks for chameleon revolve around feats that provide some persistent benefit even after the feat is gone. For example, a chameleon dip is often recommended to warlocks, who can swap in any item creation feat to use with their imbue item ability on down days, and then swap in Extra Invocation while adventuring.

And prior to gaining imbue item, swapping Extra Invocation to get the dead walk on down days and another invocation on adventuring days works similarly, which sort of leads us to a broader idea. Feats like Extra Invocation, Extra Spell, Martial Study, etc., where you choose one option among many, are nice choices in general because you can change your choice each day. And the item creation trick—while definitely better for warlocks (and artificers though they rarely need it)—works for other spellcasters too.

The only other floating feat I know of is the revenant blade’s

The revenant blade from Player’s Guide to Eberron gets a floating feat from its ancestral guidance feature, but from a very limited list,¹ and it explicitly bars you from using it to qualify for anything else.

1. _{Alertness, Blind-Fight, Combat Expertise, Dodge, Great Cleave, Improved Critical (Valenar double scimitar), Improved Sunder, Improved Trip, Power Attack, Skill Focus (Knowledge [history]), Spring Attack, Stealthy, or Weapon Specialization (Valenar double scimitar). The class requires Weapon Focus (Valenar double scimitar) to enter, so that explains Weapon Specialization, but Great Cleave being on there without Cleave is very odd.}

Answer 2

Crafting feats can be a good choice, if your campaign is friendly to crafting.

With their floating feat slot and highly flexible spell access, Chameleons can make excellent item crafters. However, there are a number of cool options that require either "any other item creation feat" or a specific item creation feat, and you can't pick these with your floating feat unless you already have the prerequisites.

Floating feat options that require other crafting feats include:

• Sanctify Relic (Complete Divine, p. 84), which unlocks crafting options based on divine magic that aren't otherwise available; requires any one crafting feat.
• Various cost reduction feats like Extraordinary Artisan (Eberron Campaign Setting, p. 53), Legendary Artisan (Eberron Campaign Setting, p. 56), or Magical Artisan (Player's Guide to Faerun, p. 41), which will make your crafting more efficient; mostly require any one crafting feat.
• Attune Magical Weapon (Eberron Campaign Setting, p. 50), which is an underwhelming feat but vaguely okay as something to use your floating feat on when you're not crafting; requires Craft Magic Arms and Armor.
• Portal Master (Player's Guide to Faerun, p. 42), which makes crafting portals cheaper and lets you attempt to "stabilize" damaged portals; requires Craft Wondrous Item.
• Improved Flight Item (Sharn: City of Towers, p. 157), which lets you craft items of flying that work way better, but only within Sharn. This is cool if your campaign is going to be spending lots of time in Sharn, but also so specific that you would normally never spend a feat on it, so a perfect use case for Chameleon's floating feat. Requires Craft Wondrous Item.
• Craft Construct (Monster Manual, p. 303), which can be extremely cool but is normally very expensive in terms of feats; requires both Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Craft Wondrous Item.

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Obviously, these are only good choices if your campaign is friendly to crafting in general, meaning you have access to materials, money, and downtime to spend on crafting. It's fairly common for these conditions not to apply (e.g., in action-packed campaigns where you're on a time limit, or where all the other players want to get to kicking in more doors and you'll interfere with other people's fun if you spend all your time crafting). So, make sure you're in the right kind of campaign before choosing these options.