Disclaimer: this is NOT a post concerning power gaming or munchkin players. This is a post exploring the feasibility of using one class’ full abilities. Also, I find the class fascinating.
I am currently playing a 1 barbarian / 6 inquisitor in a home game. We rolled for stats and I rolled quite well. Plus, I’m using a house-ruled race. So, my character works quite well.
I noticed however that the inquisitor seems to have a basic design flaw. If made using a 15- or 20-point buy (or rolling poorly) the multiple ability dependability (all but cha) limits fully using its combat abilities. The class requires several high stats that just aren’t possible with a point buy or an unlucky roll. The class has two non-spell combat components—judgment and bane weapon. The former works fine (maybe even too good) while bane works great IF the proper bane is used. Arguably, especially in a living Pathfinder game, an inquisitor can only apply bane after a successful knowledge check. This is were things get ugly.
Inquisitors identify monsters based on int, wis, and skill ranks. As this is an essential roll every combat, the six knowledge skills used to know what your fighting should be nearly maxed out. But, the class gets six points per level with one extra from favored class. This leaves very little room for other important class skills such as survival, sense motive, and intimidate (let alone stealth or perception). The sheer volume of skills needed forces players to compromise their character’s skills, leaving the possibility that the inquisitor, is in fact, not that great at identifying monsters or deficient in other areas—bad news for a skill based class like this. Knowledge: Local also presents a thorny problem. This is neither a class skill nor does wis add to identifying monsters. As such, inquisitors are inexplicably poor at applying the correct bane property to humanoids while making awful giant hunters. This appears to be an error of omission rather than intentional.
I think they should have just created one monster lore knowledge skill. While this is definitely a very powerful skill, the current system makes no sense as it penalizes non-specific monster hunters (as opposed to characters that hunt only the undead or aberrations or the like). Furthermore, rangers instinctively get their favored enemy bonus even if most rangers couldn’t identify their favor enemy to save their (or their group’s) life.
Perhaps the most salient design flaw is that the inquisitor is an amalgam of two unrelated concepts—the Catholic Inquisition (the iconic character even wears red) and the Hugh Jackman-style Van Helsing steam punk monster hunter (the iconic character even has his hat). This requires the class to have a great intimidate and sense motive, impeccable understanding of orthodox cannon, detect lie as an immediate action, and a battery of language dependant spells. But, the class also needs to be a gadget-driven knight errant who sneaks through the night ridding the world of evil, using knowledge and reason to defeat their foes, hence the tracking and bane abilities.
Any thoughts? Am I off base? Why did the class make it through so much play testing with such a basic flaw?
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Why do you mean it does not work ???
Thanks to my efforts and the occasional help of a few fellow pathfinders, plenty of evil oppressors and traitors to the cause were recently stopped.
I call for HUGE success ! Freedom rules ! Down with tyrants !
(yeah some of your points are good, yet you can't have everything, and so far it's not been a real problem). I invested heavily in Cha, since I also took Sociable for my feat.
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The inquisitor gets medium armour, and thus does not require particularily high dexterity unless focusing on raged combat.
The inquisitor has a D8 HD, respectable and no abilities rely on constitution- never a dump stat, but 12-14 is sufficient.
The inquisitor doesn't necessarily need to have a high strength- indeed his ranged weaponry usually outclasses his melee weaponry choice, depending on race and favoured enemy.
The inquisitor has little to no use for charisma. Hes not here to make friends.
The inquisitor needs good wisdom, but not necessarily to the extent that clerics need it- most of their spells are buffs or non-DC dependent so high wisdom is only really good for the bonus spells.
High intelligence is a luxury for the inquisitor. 10 is perfectly good, with 6+Int skill points per level.
I submit to you Morghrim Maestros, dwarven inquisitor of Shelyn who has been extremely useful in and outside of combat. He was made on a 20 point buy build.
Quite frankly, I think your well off base and should play the Inquisitor with a standard race on a 15 or 20 point buy before ranting about a basic flaw. I think the Inquisitor was the best thing to come out of the APG.
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Perhaps the most salient design flaw is that the inquisitor is an amalgam of two unrelated concepts—the Catholic Inquisition (the iconic character even wears red) and the Hugh Jackman-style Van Helsing steam punk monster hunter (the iconic character even has his hat).
Just to pick nits, the Inquisitors (as well as Van Helsing, Vampire Hunter D, Warhammer's Witch Hunters and pretty much any rapier & flintlock/handcrossbow wielding character who wears a puritan style clothes and hat) are based in no small way, on REH's Solomon Kane.
Ontopic, however. The class is most definitely MAD. I don't know I'll have a chance to play or GM one before our group gets around to Carrion Crown, but I am looking forward to it.
As far a the Bane weapon property goes I would say that you will only need to identify what the creature is [fairly low DC] and not everything about it, meaning you can spread those skill points around and not max them out.
If however you want to have excellent knowledges through all the types of monster I think that is a personal character choice and will therefore, quite rightly, lead to you having less to spend elsewhere.
To answer your question: Yes, the inquisitor works. He works very well.
Dependency on multiple stats is not a problem with the inquisitor, it's a problem with D&D.
Any class that relies on 3 or more stats is at a major disadvantage with a 15 or even 20 point point-buy system. The ranger is similar to the inquisitor in the sense that he is severely impaired without a ton of points to spend (especially archers) - he needs Str for damage, Dex to hit, Con to survive, Int for knowledge skills, Wis for spells and Cha to handle animals.
Aragorn the ranger would be far too expensive for a 20 point point-buy system. So would Van Richten the inquisitor. If you're stuck with 15 points, you're simply better off as a rogue or a wizard : p
At least Paizo made some headway and cut down on the paladin's MADness.
You should also be happy that you get 6 + Int skill points per level. Only the rogue gets more, and only the bard and ranger get that many. Generally, the weaker the class, the more skill points it gets - and the inquisitor is not as weak as the rogue.
The inquisitor gets all knowledge skills as a class skill and adds one of his secondary stats as bonus to them, so your int claim is fairly off base. With 1 rank and a 14 wis, you can identify a weakness of up to a CR 6 monster without issue, and that is assuming you are spending most of your time fighting unfamiliar foes. They don't need more than a mediocre dex or con, though those are always nice. I place much higher importance on Cha personally, than any of them since it bennefits many of their skills. Something like:
Str 16
Dex 14
Con 12
Int 10
Wis 15
Cha 10
should work fine for 20 point buy. 15, drop the dex 2 and int or cha 2. Swap the wisdom and charisma and you have a standard melee bard build, and it is less dependant on high stats than a druid.