Melee Inquisitor help


Advice

Silver Crusade

Ahoy, fellow Pathfinders!

I'm putting together my first Inquisitor for an upcoming campaign, and I'd like to check in with everyone to get feedback on my build. Straightforward melee guy; the party's a bit weak in Knowledge so I'm spending a feat for Improved Monster Lore. Starting at level 5.

### The Build ###
Half-elf Inquisitor, no archetypes

Str 17 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 14 Cha 8

01 Travel Domain, Improved Monster Lore, (B) Prof. (Elven Curved Blade)
03 (T) Outflank, Power Attack
04 +1 Str [= 18]
05 Weapon Focus
06 (T) Intercept Charge
07 Furious Focus
08 +1 Str [= 19]
09 (T) Precise Strike, Combat Reflexes
11 Improved Critical
12 +1 Str [= 20]; (T) Seize the Moment
13 Divine Interference
15 (T) Coordinated Charge, Critical Focus

Skills:
[max] Diplomacy, Perception, Spellcraft;

[half] Arcana, Dungeoneering, Planes, Religion, Sense Motive;

[dip] Climb, Heal, Intimidate, Nature, Profession, Stealth, Survival, Swim

Spells:
[4th] Divine Power, Freedom of Movement, Judgment Light

[3rd] Burst of Speed, Channel Vigor, Dimensional Anchor, Heroism

[2nd] Cure Moderate Wounds, Honeyed Tongue, Invisibility, Resist Energy, Restoration (Lesser)

[1st] Bless, Cure Light Wounds, Divine Favor, Heightened Awareness, Lend Judgment, Remove Fear

[0th] Create Water, Detect Magic, Guidance, Read Magic, Sift, Stabilize

### Questions ###

(1) I'm concerned that my AC will be rather low for a melee guy, with access only to Medium armor. Is this a reasonable concern? If so, how should I address it?

(1a) Heavy Armor Proficiency (I'd probably drop Combat Reflexes?)
(1b) Swap over to Human, dip 1 level Fighter (gain heavy armor, 2 feats, +2 Fort)
(1c) Swap over to Human, dip 1 level Unchained Armored Hulk Barbarian (gain heavy armor, 1 feat, +2 Fort; probably spend on Extra Rage)
(1d) Something else?

Comment: (1b) and (1c) would also allow me to shuffle my stats some, dropping Dex to 12 and boosting Str to 18 to start, so all told I'm pretty attracted to them I guess

(2) Any great character options (spells, feats, etc) that I'm missing?

(3) Any other comments/questions/concerns?

Thanks!


(1)- does anyone else in the party have high crit range weapons? That might decide how much use you can get out of combat reflexes. If there is...then keep it, since their crit gives you an AoO. If not...then yeah, you might not get too much use out of it with your focus on the elven curved blade. You might as well get something boring but practical like dodge instead.

(2)- You might enjoy the santified slayer archetype. It trades judgment away for the slayer's studied target, sneak attack, and slayer talents.

As far as bonuses, go, it is basically a 6 of 1, 1/2 dozen of the other situation really. The difference is that judgment gets swift action use at level 1 and applies to all enemies in a fight at once, while studied target gets infinite uses but has to wait until level 7 in order to be applied to a target as a swift action (barring a sneak attack, of course).

At level 7, when done well, studied target can be used as against every enemy you face. Eats up your swift action though (which might be an issue with bane and some of the spells on your list). But it has more use throughout the day than regular judgment.

Dark Archive

(1) you AC may not be super High but there are ways to get it higher without having to dip fighter and your 1/2 elf looks like he could do well.
(2) you could drop Improved Critical because you could take the Wrath spell. Which stacks with Divine Favor and At caster level 12, will give you the benefits of Improved Critical with any weapon you are using at the time.
(3) what I found was full-attacking was a waste of time because of the Low BAB, so I went with the Vital Strike feats at +6 BAB. I would focus on one big hit, and it worked out well. At 12th level with one round of buff I was able to strike with +25 for 8d6(+1 Impact Katana)+ 31, (15-20x2 crit)
that is using the Wrath spell with Judgments of Justice and Destruction,and I have Power Attack, Judgment Surge, Furious Focus, Vital Strike, Devastating Strike for feats.


Remember, you gain access to Second Judgement at level 8. I found that defaulting to attack/AC bonuses for the two judgements was generally the best default with my inquisitor. Also remember that judgement can be changed with a swift action, so you can adjust on the fly once you know more about the encounter.

As for judgement vs studied target, it really depends on campaign. If you are regularly facing 4-5 encounter days, sanctified slayer might be best. If you usually only face 1-3 difficult encounters a day, youll have plenty of uses of judgement.

Finally, heavy armor is a mixed bag on the inquisitor. Stalwart requires medium or less armor, and while mithril heavy armor gets around that, you still have the movement reduction which can hurt melee. Ive generally found that a breastplate + judgement was more than enough.


Calth wrote:
Finally, heavy armor is a mixed bag on the inquisitor. Stalwart requires medium or less armor, and while mithril heavy armor gets around that, you still have the movement reduction which can hurt melee. Ive generally found that a breastplate + judgement was more than enough.

Well, he does have the travel domain. So at most, he would be reduced to 'normal'.


You can't take outflank at level 3, you need a BAB of +4 and the Inquisitor must meet per-requisites for teamwork feats.

Silver Crusade

All good advice, thanks!

voska66 wrote:
You can't take outflank at level 3, you need a BAB of +4 and the Inquisitor must meet per-requisites for teamwork feats.

Ah, I *knew* there was some reason I had it listed for the later level before I swapped them ...

lemeres wrote:
You might enjoy the santified slayer archetype. It trades judgment away for the slayer's studied target, sneak attack, and slayer talents.

I'd forgot about that one. It's tempting. Definite pros and cons here. Studied Target is more my style than Judgment, but I've never played an Inquisitor before so I'll probably avoid the archetype for now just to explore the class on its own terms.

Calth wrote:
Remember, you gain access to Second Judgement at level 8. I found that defaulting to attack/AC bonuses for the two judgements was generally the best default with my inquisitor. Also remember that judgement can be changed with a swift action, so you can adjust on the fly once you know more about the encounter.

That's fair. I wasn't thinking about that at all.

Calth wrote:
Heavy armor is a mixed bag on the inquisitor. Stalwart requires medium or less armor, and while mithril heavy armor gets around that, you still have the movement reduction which can hurt melee.
lemeres wrote:
does anyone else in the party have high crit range weapons? That might decide how much use you can get out of combat reflexes. If there is...then keep it, since their crit gives you an AoO. If not...then yeah, you might not get too much use out of it with your focus on the elven curved blade. You might as well get something boring but practical like dodge instead.

All good points. I was thinking I might have to grab Mithral Full Plate eventually to get Stalwart back online, but I guess in comparison, Heavy Armor Prof. only nets me +1 AC v. Dodge, so if I look at it that way it doesn't seem super worth it. And I probably won't end up using Combat Reflexes enough to justify it.

===========

So all told, I think I'll stick with straight non-archetype Inquisitor and drop Combat Reflexes for Dodge.

===========

Str 17 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 14 Cha 8

01 Travel Domain, Improved Monster Lore, (B) Prof. (Elven Curved Blade)
02 —
03 (T) Intercept Charge, Power Attack
04 +1 Str [= 18]
05 Weapon Focus
06 (T) Outflank
07 Furious Focus
08 +1 Str [= 19]
09 (T) Precise Strike, Dodge
10 —
11 Improved Critical
12 +1 Str [= 20]; (T) Seize the Moment
13 Divine Interference
14 —
15 (T) Coordinated Charge, Critical Focus


Stoneskin is an amazing spell if you can fit it. I'd also suggest Keen Edge to replace Improved Critical if you want to trade a spell known for another feat.


I advice against using Wrath as it doesn't stack with Heroism. Also, by the time it grants Improved Critical, you can just as well use Keen Edge which easily lasts a whole dungeon at that level.

I'd just take heavy armor proficiency early on. Stalwart comes late and by that time you should be able to get mithril armor. Even if not, Fort and Will are your strong saves, you have decent Con and Wis and your knowledge skills should tell you when you need those saves so you can use judgment to boost them. Attacks that have a Fort/Will save with reduced effect are somewhat rare anyway. And more often than not, that reduced effect is negligible.

Heavy Armor also allows you to reduce your Dex to 13 (not lower, you need 13 for precise strike), freeing up two points you could invest somewhere else.

I'm a big fan of Half-Orc Inquisitors. You get falchion proficiency for free (which is only 0.5 point of avarage damage below the ECB), Sacred Tattoo improves your saves and the Favored Class Bonus effectively grants about 3.5 skill points per level. You can get a ridiculous intimidate bonus which works well with Cornugon Smash.

Also, you probably won't need Furious Focus. Your attack bonus is decent anyway, and you can significantly increase it with judgment, bane, buff spells and outflank. You really shouldn't miss often, especially not with your first attack.

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