In an attempt to offer constructive other options...
The Inquisitor. A class with an unclear focus. When I hear "Inquisitor" I think Warhammer 40k/Fading Suns zealots who police the church itself. But the class is about 50% Slayer (as in Buffy The Vampire), which with bane, track, etc. has more of a hunter/slayer kind of feel. But then it has a 25% pally/cleric kind of angle with the spells. Holy Slayer? And then there's the tactical feats... Ooo, I know, Crusader!
Inquisitor has a much more investigation/root out heresy in the faithful kind of vibe to it. I propose "Crusader" if you're serious about the church angle or "Holy Slayer" if you're not and want them to be more of a Batman/Buffy/Van Helsing type loner as the class name. You don't want to step on "inquisitor" because that is a separate iconic kind of character that a different class would probably fill better.
Then there's the "judgement" problem, where they're mostly not the kind of bring-down-on-your-enemies kind of thing you think of when you think "judgement." All of these affect and empower the inquisitor and not harm a target. If you want more religiony words, ones that come to mind for these holy powers are "imbue," "inspiration," or even "justification" (more inwardly focused than judgement). If more slayery, I'd think "fortification" maybe. Or you can go more lyrical with "Avenger's Gift" kinds of things.
Ok thats a lot to chew on i think I'll have to post more than one reply. First on the topic of Judgements I'm not sure i mind the name, but i do see the point about the, afecting the caster and not the target. So maybe rename them Convictions,(Divine) Sanctions, Dogmas, or Doctrines.
Anybody else notice that the Round 3 classes are both lifted straight from the opening scene of the execrable movie "Van Helsing"?
Avenger focus or Avenger gift sound's good
I have no problem with the name of the class, but i agree that Judgments should be renamed. Personally i lean towards "Convictions"
I like Convictions too, good suggestion.
And they want fluff feedback, so here's some fluff feedback. No sense us deciding "it's too late." Not saying don't publish the class, just saying run a search and replace. Not hard.
Personally I think they're both fine as is. The Inquisitor's role can certainly be that of 'church police'; the class certainly has the skills (Bluff, Diplomacy, Know: Religion, Sense Motive) to sleuth around for corrupt priests and such. On the other hand, he has a broad enough focus that he can go out and bring down some of the church's outward enemies (or perhaps wayward adventuring clerics!)
At any rate, 'Crusader' does not do it for me. If you consider that as 'guy who goes out and kills the s&++ out of guys in the name of a god', we've got two (three if you count that one Order for Cavaliers) base classes who can already fill that pretty easy (namely Cleric and Paladin). Sure, the Paladin's tied to LG, but the APG is supposed to give enough variants to spread him out.
As for Judgement, I'm satisfied that you pass judgement and then carry out that judgement by empowering yourself with abilities x, y, and z (if you're high enough level, anyway).
So tl;dr version, if we're putting things to vote here I like it as it is. Your mileage may vary.
Conviction is an interesting idea... and I shall mull it over.
Folks can drop the class name change discussion. Inquisitor is not going anywhere.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
OK, if the name has to stick then how about migrating the class to really be more of an inquisitor? It's clearly more than half pure Slayer right now. I think it's easy to see how the class is overloaded with two different concepts. I'd eliminate some of that focus and go for some more stuff one might reasonably associate with an inquisition.
Remove Bane, Track, and Monster Hunter; save them for a real Slayer class to come later. Increase use of the judgements/convictions to compensate, double the number of uses. (In fact, coming up with lesser and greater convictions wouldn't be bad.)
Add an Intimidate and Sense Motive buff. Add stuff that would actually help with rooting out heresy and/or monsters - detecting possession or shapeshifters, evil, lies... More investigatey kinds of things. More powerful than the Church Inquisitor 3.5 class but along the same lines, maybe comboed with Sacred Exorcist in terms of casting out evil.
This provides better distinction between this class and the paladin, too - the paladin is about whacking on physical foes, the inquisitor is on the soft skills side of the cleric and deals with rooting out the truth, casting out evil spirits, etc.
Conviction is an interesting idea... and I shall mull it over.
Folks can drop the class name change discussion. Inquisitor is not going anywhere.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Conviction really is an excellent idea for the Inquisitor. The flavor fits perfectly: "By the strength of my convictions, I--" {insert whatever magical effect you need here}. It covers all the self-affecting Judgments and even do reasonably well for the enemy-affecting ones as well.
The name Inquisitor is fine. It has an old pedigree and this class fits the flavor well.
Invoking conviction's leaves me cold really. I can not say I like that at all. Judgments seems a better fit the class concept better to me
Convictions sound good. Maybe Faith - drawing upon the shield or sword of your unwavering faith in your god and your cause, you advance upon your foe, determined to extract the truth - or his life. Whichever comes first.
Conviction is an interesting idea... and I shall mull it over.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Yeah!
OK, if the name has to stick then how about migrating the class to really be more of an inquisitor? It's clearly more than half pure Slayer right now. I think it's easy to see how the class is overloaded with two different concepts. I'd eliminate some of that focus and go for some more stuff one might reasonably associate with an inquisition.
Actually it seems to me that the multiple possible focus's are intentional,inline with paizo increased customisation meme, and awesome for us players. Yup, the Inquistor as is can be built into a self buffing slayer type melee fighter, or a bearded detective of the supernatural like the original van helsing from bram stokers novel, or medieval witch hunter, or any of a variety of other concepts, and thats awesome. That said i really hope they bring out a non-casting class variant in some other book.
Folks can drop the class name change discussion. Inquisitor is not going anywhere.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
how about oracle?
just kidding!!
Just change the class name to Van Hellsing, The Class /sarcasm
I like convictions... I think that is a good name ... put me down for that