Our DM was absent tonight so I got to do a good old hack and slash run for the rest of the players which had a stupid plot about ninjas stealing the princess and bringing her to their dragon dojo of fiery doom. Awesome stuff, that. I did stuff pretty much by the book aside from a single weapon change back to 3.5 for an NPC, otherwise the encounters were done by the guidelines.
The party consisted of a human inquisitor, a human cavalier of the order of the cockatrice and an elven alchemist, the player who was going to be an oracle didn't show up. The party was all first level.
The character creation went smoothly for the cavalier and the alchemist. The cavalier had plenty of choices for the regular melee types and had enough to choose from and so did the alchemist. Lots of feat options and fun orders for them to choose. The inquisitor had a bit of trouble. For a combat heavy class, most of the feats he wanted to get required a base attack bonus of +1, so the choice came down between a ranged style or two weapon fighting. He had read up on the class and noticed that the bane ability he would get later on only worked for a single weapon, which put him off a little bit. The option to treat all of your weapons as having the bane ability for the duration would be cool, although balance issues might occur. He went with a crossbow, mostly for aesthetic reasons, and chose point blank shot and rapid reload. That wasn't the big trouble, the big trouble came with domains. Most of the domains had nothing attractive about them except for two very un-inquisitive ones; trickery and travel. Even though a lot of the domains might be good for clerics, most of them have little value for the inquisitor especially since he can't get the domain spells. In munchkin fashion, he went with the travel domain. The cavalier went for good old sword and board and the alchemist went with throwing weapons and a longspear.
After meeting the king of clicheland, they venture off to find the dojo and as they enter the courtyard, the perceptive inquisitor sees some rustling in the trees. The alchemist lobs a bomb in it blowing up a stealthed ninja. Out bursts a gang of rather incompetent ninjas (unoptimized level 1 rogues since the party's still level one) wielding pretty much every ninja weapon I could think off. The cavalier got his chance to shine there as the racked up ninja after ninja on his lance with a skyrocketing kill count. The inquisitor did pretty good, but the alchemist had some crummy rolls and wasted most of his bombs for the day on pretty much nothing. After beating a miniboss with a 3.5 spiked chain (swing the chain, swing the chain) they rested up and headed down into a secret passageway which led to an underground secret dojo of untold perils.
The inquisitor took the role of the scout here and stealthed through scouting for jerks in need of judgment. He managed to discover some silly traps, but I was surprised to see that disable device wasn't a class skill of the inquisitor. That didn't prove to be a problem since the alchemist took care of it, though. After defeating another group of ninjas, the inquisitor uses his cure light wound spell to heal himself and the inquisitor while the alchemist heals himself, it was a bit difficult without a dedicated healer, but in a single level the alchemist will be able to share his goodness via infusion so it's nothing to worry about.
Next up they faced some sort of fighter/sorcerer samurai miniboss which lobbed spells at them from a distance as they had to traverse through a hallway full of firebreathing statues. The cavalier issues his challenge which is frankly really unimpressive at level one, but they manage to beat him and make it to the final boss which was a third level monk. The conservative inquisitor finally issues his judgment and the party proceed to tear him to shreds. The inquisitor really shined in this battle and the judgment worked wonders. The cavalier and alchemist did so-so, even though the alchemist popped his mutagen.
My thoughts after this session were the following:
- The classes played out very well. Everyone felt as if they had plenty of options and contributed in a number of ways. These classes, despite being meant for advanced players, were actually quite beginner friendly.
- The cavalier's tactician ability seems really meh at lower levels. Spending a standard action once a day to grant a minor bonus to your allies is something he never did and I can't really blame him. The challenge ability also seemed a bit lacking, but I guess that will change in a few levels. +1 damage for a -2 AC against other enemies doesn't really seem too good.
- The alchemist was great. He had plenty of options, bombs and throwing weapons, a lot of useful skills, his mutagen and extracts. There is really no criticism I have for this class at first level.
- The inquisitor played out well, but character creation was kinda messy. Choosing feats was a bit hard, but things worked out in the end. I think adding disable device to his class skills could be a good idea though, since he will often take the role of the party rogue. I'd also like it if the bane ability affected both weapons the inquisitor wields if he's dual wielding, since it might encourage them to do other styles than ranged ones which seem to be the best by far as is. The biggest problem in character creation are the domains, I feel like they should be replaced by something else entirely.
That's it, I guess. We're loving the classes so far and look forward to see them in the guide!
Without knowing the diety your inquisitor took it will be hard to say specifically for that one, but there are actually quite a bit of good domains.
War, its designed to work with all your attacks and give you a few options.
Trickery, since you try to get what you need by any means necessary its great for subtlety and information gathering.
Sun if your diety is about fighting undead.
Strength, another great one if your going with melee weapons.
Runes, fun if you want to make crude traps for creatures. They become more effective later on when you can add additional spells to the blast runes.
Nobility is good if your planning on being a leader, which is what an inquisitor is. He isn't one to follow a group around like a lackey.
Magic, lets throw my greatsword at my enemies several times / day instead of having to use a ranged weapon. You also gain several ways to dispel or defend against magic.
Luck is alright, it could be applied to melee or ranged combat types.
Liberation is good for roleplaying, hey my god wants me to get my job done and allows me to ignore the effects of others trying to stop me. The spells are all decent as well.
Law is great if you plan on fighting the powers of chaos.
Knowledge is another great one for roleplaying, and is usefull in keeping with the flavor of the inquisitor. You learn more tools to extract information.
Good is great if you plan on fighting the powers of evil.
Glory, yay another way to fight the undead.
Fire is great if you want additional ways to burn your foes.
Yeah, i don't care to continue but you should be able to see my point by now. There are ALOT of domains that are effective in their own way. Just find one that either works for your combat style or roleplaying concept.
Oh, and i almost didn't even read this thread because of the name.
You seem to be missing the fact that the inquisitor doesn't get the spells granted by the domain, only the abilities.
A lot of these abilities are standard actions that grant some sort of ability for one round. I didn't particularly care for them on the cleric and I like it less on the inquisitor, since he is less about party support and more about direct combat. Most of the abilities don't do much for the inquisitor, and some do nothing at all, like the level 1 Sun domain ability. Sun themed inquisitors sound pretty good until you realize that you don't get anything by choosing that domain until level 8. The domains that are any good at all are pretty hard to fit the theme of an inquisitor. I WILL SMITE THEE IN THE NAME OF TRAVEL, SCUM! I know the domain abilities get better at level 8, but until then most of it's just junk.
Also, the thread name is great!
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You seem to be missing the fact that the inquisitor doesn't get the spells granted by the domain, only the abilities.
A lot of these abilities are standard actions that grant some sort of ability for one round. I didn't particularly care for them on the cleric and I like it less on the inquisitor, since he is less about party support and more about direct combat. Most of the abilities don't do much for the inquisitor, and some do nothing at all, like the level 1 Sun domain ability. Sun themed inquisitors sound pretty good until you realize that you don't get anything by choosing that domain until level 8. The domains that are any good at all are pretty hard to fit the theme of an inquisitor. I WILL SMITE THEE IN THE NAME OF TRAVEL, SCUM! I know the domain abilities get better at level 8, but until then most of it's just junk.
Also, the thread name is great!
I play an Inquisitor and the Magic Domain has been working pretty great for me. I can use my mace as a melee and ranged weapon doubling its effectiveness.
I could see some of the domains being less effective, but honestly each deity gets like 3-4 so I am sure you can find something useful in one of them.