War of Immortals: Old Friends and New Faces

Splitting the "Inquisitor" into both Ranger and Rogue options feels really smart. I'm a little apprehensive about how well this Bloodrager will come together, but excited to see it!

I hope it's pick a tradition, personally! Magus is already weirdly limited to arcane.

I hope so too! We need more melee-martial hybrids for other traditions, imo.

Inquisitor should have been an investigator archetype :(

And those who came up with and support the idea of renaming it better not read up on real-life paladins :facepalm:

At least they could have been left to optional-sanctification deities. Like, you know, Pharasma.

I would definitely appreciate it if Bloodrager still have Sorcerer Bloodline support. Aside from opening them up to all 4 spell lists, Bloodrager is as much Sorcerer's gishing option as it is Barbarians. Sorcerer Bloodlines are such a neat concept that can apply to so much, it really should have more open support for accessing, at least in limited capacity (think about how many Alchemical Archetypes are made without making Alchemist MC useless). Cutting that out for Spell Vampire is...goofy. It feels like the team put a lot of focus on justifying the name over the reason why Barbarians need such an option...

Also confirming the reason why you downgraded the Inquisitor title is...not smart? At least the way the asterisk is worded, it feels a little backhanded after already providing a fairly clever reason why Vindicator took the spot.

Inquisitor should have been an investigator archetype :(

Don't forget we are actually getting a Divine Investigator CA in the following month in Divine Mysteries: the Palatine Detective. No need to cry here.

Inquisitor should have been an investigator archetype :(

And those who came up with and support the idea of renaming it better not read up on real-life paladins :facepalm:

At least they could have been left to optional-sanctification deities. Like, you know, Pharasma.

Paladins are not in the game anymore, you're late to the party

And those who came up with and support the idea of renaming it better not read up on real-life paladins :facepalm:

As of the remaster, PF2 doesn't have paladins, either.

Bravi! Can’t wait to see the other class archetypes.

CyberMephit wrote:

Inquisitor should have been an investigator archetype :(

Don't forget we are actually getting a Divine Investigator CA in the following month in Divine Mysteries: the Palatine Detective. No need to cry here.

Ah yes, the investigator vindicator. An indicator if you will

Ah yes, the investigator vindicator. An indicator if you will

Ah yes, the vigilante viking vindicator inventor. The vigvivinvenkingtor—dragged off stage

CyberMephit wrote:

And those who came up with and support the idea of renaming it better not read up on real-life paladins :facepalm:

As of the remaster, PF2 doesn't have paladins, either.

I'm...unironically mad it took me two months for me to realize you guys did that...

Kind of does justify my point that the asterisk text there is showing your hands too much.

Michael Sayre wrote:

CyberMephit wrote:

And those who came up with and support the idea of renaming it better not read up on real-life paladins :facepalm:

As of the remaster, PF2 doesn't have paladins, either.

I'm...unironically mad it took me two months for me to realize you guys did that...

Kind of does justify my point that the asterisk text there is showing your hands too much.

I would hazard a guess that moving away from paladin was to divorce from D&D-isms primarily and that this aspect is a happy accident. Where divorcing from associations with the people who destroyed the history of the Mayans, the Meshika(Aztec), and probably more cultures on Turtle Island(North America), is just good sense

It is nice to see the return of some familiar faces.

I hope Imrijka and Sadim get some spotlight time in the Adventure paths.

CyberMephit wrote:

And those who came up with and support the idea of renaming it better not read up on real-life paladins :facepalm:

As of the remaster, PF2 doesn't have paladins, either.

Nonsense. My remastered Paladin (PFS, remade from a pre-remaster Paladin) still introduces himself as a Paladin, still sees himself as a Paladin even if his identity card says Champion :-)

Michael Sayre wrote:

CyberMephit wrote:

And those who came up with and support the idea of renaming it better not read up on real-life paladins :facepalm:

As of the remaster, PF2 doesn't have paladins, either.

Nonsense. My remastered Paladin still introduces himself as a Paladin, still sees himself as a Paladin even if his identity card says Champion :-)

And Shazam still calls himself Captain Marvel :)

I am super excited for this version of Bloodragers. While I always would have loved the magical sorcerer hybrids... I think something like that would have deserved its own class. This archetype I think expands the concepts of barbarians and gives them a really flavorful magic option that comes directly from a fun lore concept!

I really like the sound of the Avenger and Vindicator, and I will be curious as to how they eventually play out. It's great to see old friends.

Damn, all of these sound wicked. I'm especially happy for my good friend who's favorite 1e class is Inquisitor, both the vindicator and avenger sound right up his alley. And bloodrager sounds perfect; can cast spells while raging and get to add damage to them?! Sign me up.

Would anyone remind me (if it's been teased already) what other class archetypes are to come in this book?

With Imrijka's color change, does that mean that *all* vindicators of Pharasma have that color scheme? Since it was canonized by Wes that her outfit was the standard uniform of Pharasmin vindicators?

Paladins are not in the game anymore, you're late to the party

Wow...

Damn, all of these sound wicked. I'm especially happy for my good friend who's favorite 1e class is Inquisitor, both the vindicator and avenger sound right up his alley. And bloodrager sounds perfect; can cast spells while raging and get to add damage to them?! Sign me up.

Would anyone remind me (if it's been teased already) what other class archetypes are to come in this book?

It's 5 Archetypes total in WoI, with the remaining two being Warrior of Legend (Fighter CA where you get to be Achilles, Achilles' Heel and all) and Sneaschel (unknown).

Divine Mysteries have 2 more known, Battle Herald Cleric and Palatine Detective Investigator.

If I had to give my 2c about the inquisitor rename, I agree with the people here that think its a little weird because it really is. Taking the explanations on this post of "negative historical connotations" and "an intent to provide players with a more heroic title" seem really weird when we have tons of classes and archetypes that have negative historical connotations or non-heroic titles. Just from the classes alone we have barbarians which was a racial slur used in medieval times, witches which is a word most people immediately associate with the women that were executed with the excuse of them having magic powers, an arguably others like sorcerer, wizard, or thaumaturge which are often used in reference to those who practice satanic rituals and similar stuff (i.e Alester Crowley and his followers). If we include archetypes we have stuff like assassin (which is IMO a much worse thing than an inquisitor really) or pirate (because despite what media tells you pirates were actually heinous people) and I'm likely missing some obvious ones.

Does this mean I would want for these classes and archetypes to receive a rename? No, because I'm a firm believer that words themselves aren't good or evil but rather the context in which they are used it what gives them that connotation. Words like "barbarian" lost their original meaning over time because nowadays nobody thinks of what the Greeks used to think when they used the word. Inquistor is IMO in a similar situation though not obviously not in the same scope as barbarian which is a more common term to see used in fantasy nowadays, so I'm curious what exactly makes "inquisitor" worse than "assassin" here?

Edit: I was also surprised that champion wasn't renamed back to paladin in PC2.

Don't forget we are actually getting a Divine Investigator CA in the following month in Divine Mysteries: the Palatine Detective. No need to cry here.

I did forget about it. But is Palatine detective divine? From the name I thought it'd be occult. Has it been previewed yet?

"...only vindicators of evil deities are called inquisitors."

And since evil deities don't exist anymore.... Heh....

a Matanji orc who is part of a tradition of orcish demon-slayers who drink the blood of shadow demons to gain magical power.

Wait...shadow demons didn't get the OGL axe??? Interesting.

I think when you're trying to argue that "wizard"--being linked to Alastor Crowley--is as dodgy as "inquisitor"--a word entirely tied in a religious context to a set of infamous genocide projects that left a permanent mark on the Jewish people, among other groups--you are officially reaching for the flipping stars.

The original iconic's outfit was literally a reference to a comedy skit about the Spanish Inquisition, the project that killed upwards of 150,000 people. The class was designed as a morally dubious religious agent rooting out heretics against their god, which is exactly what the Spanish Inquisition professed to be about. It was not subtle. It was not even a little bit subtle.

If you think a reference to the Spanish Inquisition is nothing to worry about, that it's not disruptive to the flavor of an alignment-neutral archetype, that's fine. But pretending it's not an extremely on-the-nose reference to specific historical events? Pretending "Inquisitor" is some sort of generic term like "barbarian" and "witch"?

I don't say this lightly--I feel like I am embarrassing myself by trying to humor this argument. You know it's not on the same level.

You may have a valid point for all I know. We aren't going to find it if this is how we're going to talk about the issue.

Ooh, really exciting. I want more gish options. So far the Thaumaturge has been the closest to "is swording but also magicking" that I really like, and I don't expect to ever see more of that class.

Wow, I'm excited! And as a Jewish fan I'm glad the inquisitor's name was changed. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on this!

Quote:

a Matanji orc who is part of a tradition of orcish demon-slayers who drink the blood of shadow demons to gain magical power.

Wait...shadow demons didn't get the OGL axe??? Interesting.

Technically, they're envy demons, aka invidiaks, these days. They don't have "shadow" powers anymore either, but they do remain bodiless demons who envy the flesh of the living and seek to possess them. We'll have remastered stats for them showing up in an upcoming adventure...

Oh, also, they renamed the slayer, too, pretty obviously because "slayer sounds kind of murderous". I'm not actually saying the inquisitor change was entirely about offensiveness. I think they probably thought "inquisitor sounds kind of evil and might distract players".

Source, by the way: One of my players who didn't know the game well once played an inquisitor of Shelyn. His read on the class was that of an oppressive heel, so the joke was an extremely aggro orc Shelynite. The connotation is there.

I'm pretty sure the devs would change barbarian to berserker if they could get away with it, just because it's clearer, but it was a core class.

KoriCongo wrote:

Michael Sayre wrote:

CyberMephit wrote:

And those who came up with and support the idea of renaming it better not read up on real-life paladins :facepalm:

As of the remaster, PF2 doesn't have paladins, either.

I'm...unironically mad it took me two months for me to realize you guys did that...

Kind of does justify my point that the asterisk text there is showing your hands too much.

I would hazard a guess that moving away from paladin was to divorce from D&D-isms primarily and that this aspect is a happy accident. Where divorcing from associations with the people who destroyed the history of the Mayans, the Meshika(Aztec), and probably more cultures on Turtle Island(North America), is just good sense

Did I miss something? The Paladins were the 12 knights-companion of Charlemagne. The application of that name to characters who were more like the Knights Templar was largely an example of the anachronism stew that was Gygax's D&D game.

Oh, also, they renamed the slayer, too, pretty obviously because "slayer sounds kind of murderous". I'm not actually saying the inquisitor change was entirely about offensiveness. I think they probably thought "inquisitor sounds kind of evil and might distract players".

Source, by the way: One of my players who didn't know the game well once played an inquisitor of Shelyn. His read on the class was that of an oppressive heel, so the joke was an extremely aggro orc Shelynite. The connotation is there.

I'm pretty sure the devs would change barbarian to berserker if they could get away with it, just because it's clearer, but it was a core class.

To me, "Slayer" should be some kind of magical rogue subtype - but I'm admittedly a 90s girl and when you say "Slayer," I think Buffy.

KoriCongo wrote:

Don't forget we are actually getting a Divine Investigator CA in the following month in Divine Mysteries: the Palatine Detective. No need to cry here.

I did forget about it. But is Palatine detective divine? From the name I thought it'd be occult. Has it been previewed yet?

https://youtu.be/qDIIJXXCXPU?t=2952

If you think a reference to the Spanish Inquisition is nothing to worry about, that it's not disruptive to the flavor of an alignment-neutral archetype, that's fine.

Aside from the fact that yes, it is fine to reference the Spanish Inquisition and all its warts, not every class fantasy has to be positive. It isn't exactly a good thing to be a Rogue or Witch, in terms of base class names. They know it, hence why they bring attention to the fact that Inquisitors still exist and now are literally evil (also I think the switch from Red to Blue is to help make sure she isn't treated like the joke anymore).

Again, the asterisk text was a really bad idea to post, especially right after providing an adequate explanation for a change. Everyone knew the exact reason why Vindicator replaced Inquisitor, it just didn't need to be said outloud because it is just creating conflict and shows some hypocrisy on part of what fantasies are "Valid Tabletop Representations" to sell and market.

I don't really understand why the explanation would create any controversy. It's pretty clear, right?

Our intent is to provide our players with a more heroic title for a class mechanic that we know appeals to a large portion of our audience.

It's like I said above: The class mechanic appeals to a wider range of players, so they didn't want the mechanic to be named something that connotes a specific sinister flavor.

I think we're in agreement on this overall! The change is good because it makes the class more accessible.

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Oh, also, they renamed the slayer, too, pretty obviously because "slayer sounds kind of murderous". I'm not actually saying the inquisitor change was entirely about offensiveness. I think they probably thought "inquisitor sounds kind of evil and might distract players".

Source, by the way: One of my players who didn't know the game well once played an inquisitor of Shelyn. His read on the class was that of an oppressive heel, so the joke was an extremely aggro orc Shelynite. The connotation is there.

I'm pretty sure the devs would change barbarian to berserker if they could get away with it, just because it's clearer, but it was a core class.

To me, "Slayer" should be some kind of magical rogue subtype - but I'm admittedly a 90s girl and when you say "Slayer," I think Buffy.

Buffy is just the only fighter in a party of envoys, thaumaturges and a couple casters. Her apparent superpowers are really just that extra +2 to-hit.

Bit meh on the Vindicator name change. I preferred Inquisitor, but wasn't particularly married to it either. What makes me scratch my head is why Ranger was chosen to make it a class archetype for. I've always counted Inquisitor among the divine classes, and so feel it'd be a better fit for Cleric or Champion, or some other as of yet unreleased divine striker. Or, if we had to go purely martial, surely Investigator makes more sense for the flavour of the class?

Besides that, a bit worried about Bloodrager. Obviously I haven't seen the mechanics, but with Paizo's tendencies to make fantasies that don't easily fit into the system's balance feels awful to play (prime examples being most of the Undead archetypes), I'm not very optimistic about a Barbarian that can cast spells. But we'll have to see. The iconic looks cool.

I don't really understand why the explanation would create any controversy. It's pretty clear, right?

Quote:

Our intent is to provide our players with a more heroic title for a class mechanic that we know appeals to a large portion of our audience.

It's like I said above: The class mechanic appeals to a wider range of players, so they didn't want the mechanic to be named something that connotes a specific sinister flavor.

Then what about assassin? Not to mention some that aren't necesarily negative but that can be associated to misrepresenting IRL cultures like magus (a magus is a priest in zoroastrianism, so a "magus" would be closer to a cleric than a magical swordmsan). But regardless of that, I feel that if the whole reason is because "it has negative connotations" then you can find negative connotations about pretty much anything in existance, so I'm curious why inquisitor in particular is so horrid to some when there's equally as bad examples in the games already. Btw, I'm not asking for a rename either. Vindicator is as good as a name to represent the thematic niche the archetype has (though I liked avenger a bit more for inquisitor since it reminds me of the 4e avenger class too) but I find curious that people focus solely on the inquisitor in this kind of discussions when there's other examples of names that also have negative connotations.

As a side note, if inquisitor is the name used for evil vindicators, what is the name for good vindicators? If I had to use a religious term I guess "vicar" would be fine enough?

Assassin does exactly what it's meant to. Like, the powers are "assassinating people". You can argue about whether or not that's evil, but it's exactly as evil as the name implies.

But regardless of that, I feel that if the whole reason is because "it has negative connotations" then you can find negative connotations about pretty much anything in existance, so I'm curious why inquisitor in particular is so horrid to some when there's equally as bad examples in the games already.

Probably the ethnic cleansing. Pirates, assassins, and the others did bad stuff, but not ethnic cleansing. Normal murder tends to get romanticized over time, while ethnic cleansing tends to be viewed as worse and worse over time.

I dunno. Like, people love to say "you can find negative connotations anywhere", and it's sort of true, but it's also misleading.

A connotation is "an idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning." Definitively, if a lot of people associate "inquisitor" in a religious context with the Inquisitions, that word has the connotation. If nobody associates "wizard" with Crowley, it factually does not have the connotation.

So, you can? But it's not really a meaningful connotation unless a lot of people share it.

Which people do when it comes to an inquisitor. There's never really been another meaning to "inquisitor" in a religious context.

By the way, part of the reason that connotations stick around more stubbornly when genocide is involved is that people keep trying to commit genocides, often against the same groups.

EDIT: Let me say this more bluntly: You should not claim something has a connotation unless you have personally felt or met someone who felt that connotation. Do you connote "wizard" with Crowley? Has anyone here said they do? If not, it's bad faith to claim the connotation is a concern. People do have the connotation with inquisitor.

Bit meh on the Vindicator name change. I preferred Inquisitor, but wasn't particularly married to it either. What makes me scratch my head is why Ranger was chosen to make it a class archetype for. I've always counted Inquisitor among the divine classes, and so feel it'd be a better fit for Cleric or Champion, or some other as of yet unreleased divine striker. Or, if we had to go purely martial, surely Investigator makes more sense for the flavour of the class?

I thought a similar thing on my initial read of the post, but if you think about it ranger is the class that makes the most sense for an inquisitor-adjacent archetype. The PF1e inquisitor was a Wis-based divine gish with some skill monkeying that focused on tracking and dealing damage to enemies. Well, a ranger is already 3/4s of that with the only thing lacking being divine spellcasting. Rogue and investigator don't fit because they are too focused on skill monkeying (luckily because investigator would be a horrible fit for inquisitor unless the archetype got rid of of DaS or at least how it interacts with SA). Clerics are too much of a spellcaster and champions are also too much of a martial tank to be fitting of an inquisitor archetype too IMO. We don't know what the vindication edge does, but if its something that power-wise is equivalent to either flurry or precision edges it could even make the ranger an even better fit to represent the mechanics of the inquisitor claas.

Assassin does exactly what it's meant to. Like, the powers are "assassinating people". You can argue about whether or not that's evil, but it's exactly as evil as the name implies.

So we agree there's non-heroic stuff in the game that nobody seems to have a problem with?

Well. Yeah? Nobody said unheroic stuff was inherently bad, just that making vindicators sound inherently unheroic made no sense.

Our intent is to provide our players with a more heroic title for a class mechanic that we know appeals to a large portion of our audience.

To repeat what I said above, the class mechanic appeals to a wider range of players, so they didn't want the mechanic to be named something that connotes a specific sinister flavor. There are vindicators of Shelyn and Desna. You wouldn't want to make players think they're expected to play a historical-style inquisitor of Cayden Cailean. It's just not a helpful name.

Assassins, on the other hand, are an archetype you only really play if you want to play an assassin. It appeals to a less broad portion of the audience. The name communicates that this is an edgy archetype focused on poison and killing. You're literally giving your attacks the death trait later on.

Like, everyone would complain if "assassin" was what they called the rogue. Because it's too edgy for a broadly applicable character option.

I never thought of Inquisitors as always being evil.

However, I have always thought of them as being a sort of "Church Police."

"Church Police" isn't someone you ever want to meet in an official capacity if you're not a member of that specific church. If the "church police" restricts its activities to internal concerns, then it's got limited appeal as a PC. If they consider their purview to include non-believers, there's a good chance they're evil.

What makes me scratch my head is why Ranger was chosen to make it a class archetype for. I've always counted Inquisitor among the divine classes, and so feel it'd be a better fit for Cleric or Champion, or some other as of yet unreleased divine striker. Or, if we had to go purely martial, surely Investigator makes more sense for the flavour of the class?

When you boil it down, the inquisitor in PF1 was "a martially-capable, skillful character with limited but useful spellcasting, potent magical abilities, and some teamwork-oriented options."

Clerics have significantly more spellcasting, less skills, and very few of their feats and abilities support the type of play that the new vindicator is looking to embody.

Champions are closer, but they have a lot of focus on heavy armor, defensive reactions, and feats that tend to be very specifically oriented either specifically towards certain causes or towards non-stealthy abilities.

So neither of those makes a very good chassis for a divine character who hunts monsters that hide among the faithful.

However, there is a class in the game that can already be described as "a martially-capable, skillful character with limited but useful spellcasting, potent magical abilities, and some teamwork-oriented options" in the form of the ranger.

The PF2 ranger and the PF1 inquisitor already have significant mechanical and conceptual overlap, so starting from that firmer foundation and replacing the "nature" elements of the ranger with "religious" elements is both much easier and more effective than trying to shove the square peg of the vindicator into the round hole of either the cleric or champion, and it means you end up with much more diversity of build available because so many of the ranger feats already touch the core concept territory that Imrijka embodies (Monster Hunter, Swift Tracker, Eerie Traces, and other ranger feats fit well within her story and the needs of her conceptual space, arguably much better than most champion or cleric feats, which means you can build a wider array of vindicators than you could if the only class feats that fit the concept were the ones coming from the class archetype and some shoe-horned-in additional feats.)

Investigator is maybe a bit of a closer fit than champion or cleric, but it lacks the magical elements that the concept is looking to incorporate and isn't as rough and tumble as the ranger, leaving it in an awkward space where it wouldn't have a very easy time trading the things it needs to utilize its feats and class features effectively while also incorporating all the other elements necessary to build a character that encompasses as much of the conceptual space of a popular character like Imrijka, the useful and parallel mechanical space between the PF1 inquisitor and a PF2 reimagining of the concept, etc.

We used ranger because it was far and away the thing closest to the core concept already in the game. It allowed for the fullest realization of Imrijka and a host of other characters in the most efficient manner to create the broadest array of fruitful concepts and builds.

So the Bloodrager's spellcasting, is that gonna be focus spells or more like the limited spellcasting seen with Magus? Or the kind archetypes give?

I would love a non-arcane-specific berserker-mage counterpart to magus. I've always wanted to play "crappy mage with a huge sword", and magus wasn't quite cutting it for me.

it means you end up with much more diversity of build available because so many of the ranger feats already touch the core concept territory that Imrijka embodies (Monster Hunter, Swift Tracker, Eerie Traces, and other ranger feats fit well within her story and the needs of her conceptual space, arguably much better than most...

Does that mean you guys consider how you would go about creating that classes iconic when making classes? That's a cool tidbit if so. Might try that if I ever try making that homebrew class I keep meaning to make.

And here I thought the Ranger choice was mostly from 1e Inquisitors starting with bow proficiencies...

I know I'm a little more aware of the Inquisitions not being just the Iberian nightmares--notably the French Inquisitions. And understanding that the term "inquisitor" MEANS "investigator". (Same root as "inquire" and "inquisitive".) Of course, the French Inquisitions were no fun for the Albigensians, despite them being much more restrained about torture (they even appropriated the right of torture to themselves as a way to keep torture from being used with any frequency at all, by appealing to papal authority! Then came Torquemada...).

I'd PROBABLY just jettison the term "inquisitor" outright, though. "Vindicator" and "vindictive" share etymology too, after all, but neither one has "inquisitor"'s Stickiness.

Meanwhile...magus variants for the other three traditions. Optionally with their own conflux styles. Stat. Your pick on prepared or spontaneous spells. Hunter is obviously up for the primal variant.

The only time anyone here should mention Inquisition, is when nobody is expecting the Spanish Inquisition.

Michael Sayre wrote:

it means you end up with much more diversity of build available because so many of the ranger feats already touch the core concept territory that Imrijka embodies (Monster Hunter, Swift Tracker, Eerie Traces, and other ranger feats fit well within her story and the needs of her conceptual space, arguably much better than most...

Does that mean you guys consider how you would go about creating that classes iconic when making classes? That's a cool tidbit if so. Might try that if I ever try making that homebrew class I keep meaning to make.

It's varied a bit over the years depending on the specific team and circumstances at play, but for pretty much all of my time designing at Paizo, concepting and executing the iconics has been a big part of our process.

The relationship between the design team and our artists has really grown and flourished over the last several years, and with the coordination of our Director of Visual Design, Sonja Morris, that's led to us getting to work much more closely with and provide more of our insights to the artists who bring our ideas to life, getting art that really fully embodies the fundamental ideas behind our classes and character options.

For characters like Droven, Nhalmika, Samo, and Nahoa, we knew who they were and who they'd become visually before the classes were through development, so that allowed us to sync those classes and those characters together very tightly. When you can look at an iconic and instantly have a good idea of what it does and how it does it, the class itself is likely to see more play, the books sell better, and you see more widespread adoption of the surrounding ideas.

With the vindicator, our process was a little different but ultimately had the same needs and solutions. Ask 5 people what the PF1 inquisitor was, you'll get 5 different answers, and 3 of them will be about the mechanics of the class rather than its concepts. It was a class that was very "of its system" in that it kind of had the mechanics that supported the book it appeared in and it carved a place in the game based on how it was different from the other content in the space, but things get a lot more nebulous when you try to take that idea out of the framework it was born in.

"It's a 2/3rds caster" okay, that means nothing in PF2.

"It was teamwork based" except it wasn't; it got teamwork feats but then its core concept was built around ignoring all the teamwork elements and just using your allies as trigger engines. But, it's useful to know that that's an element of the idea people want more of.

"It's the stealthy arm of the faith, the 'rogue' to the champion's fighter." Okay, that's starting to get somewhere!

So then we look at Imrijka. She's a very popular character and she's got comic books and backstory that really paint a cool and distinct picture, so when we consider how to realize Imrijka, we also start seeing how to conceptualize the most broadly agreed upon version of what the character idea she represents is, from a mechanical perspective. She also conveniently embodies the mechanical elevator pitch of "a martially-capable, skillful character with limited but useful magic and some teamwork-oriented options" in a way that puts a useful coat of cinema on the description.

I know I'm a little more aware of the Inquisitions not being just the Iberian nightmares--notably the French Inquisitions. And understanding that the term "inquisitor" MEANS "investigator". (Same root as "inquire" and "inquisitive".) Of course, the French Inquisitions were no fun for the Albigensians, despite them being much more restrained about torture (they even appropriated the right of torture to themselves as a way to keep torture from being used with any frequency at all, by appealing to papal authority! Then came Torquemada...).

Yeah, like, "inquisitor" has other meanings, but in the context of a religious servant, everyone knows why that word was chosen.

We used ranger because it was far and away the thing closest to the core concept already in the game. It allowed for the fullest realization of Imrijka and a host of other characters in the most efficient manner to create the broadest array of fruitful concepts and builds.

I'll admit that my money was on y'all using the Thaumaturge as the base, restricting the class to picking up a holy symbol or deity weapon and possibly getting more divine specific item abilities. The reasons given for picking the ranger instead make a lot of sense, so I'm sold on that choice. It's just not the one I originally would have guessed before seeing those reasons.