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Doesn't quite work as stated.
First off, Dervish Dance requires 2 ranks in a skill, and is thus unavailable at 1st level. Second, you can't use a buckler and Dervish Dance.
Still, since you're starting at 12th, you can rearrange things, drop the buckler, and do okay, I suppose.
In terms of doing it better...yeah, crossbows are kinda sub-par. You might indeed be better off going with a longbow. Also, why the 17 base Dex? It's not spectacularly useful to you over a 16.
EDIT: Oh, yeah! Don't forget the Boon Companion feat for Animal Companion enhancement purposes. Being your full level for Animal Companion stat purposes is quite cool.
Your animal companion is not necessarily a bad idea. It gives you a flanking buddy and your teamwork feats can work well with it even if you don't have a rogue or beatstick in the group to take advantage of it. However a couple things are necessary to point out.
1. The reason the switch hitter works for rangers is because their damage comes solely from strength. They swing big heavy two handers and fire big heavy bows.
2. The second reason the switch hitter works for rangers is feats, which the ranger gets plenty of.
Thus you're going to want a way higher strength then 8. You want a 14 minimum. Thankfully this means you can get a fairly decent dex and possibly even up your con.
At lvl 12 you're very likely packing some good stat boosting items to deal with the MAD. You also have your spells and bane weapons to make extensive use of so having super high stats to hit aren't terribly necessary. So go for blunt force trauma. Between your animal companion, your judgements, buffs, and raw power you should be dealing respectable damage. By taking a bow and swinging around a two hander you allow yourself the luxury of taking relatively few feats for maximum hate.
I tend not to play with traits in my games so I didn't include them. However if you want to spare yourself a feat Heirloom Weapon(Bastard Sword) is completely viable long as you keep up with it (your father was a paladin). This allows you some flexibility in your feats and lets you snatch power attack or deadly aim much earlier.
Hope this gives you a better idea. I'm totally in love with inquisitors by the way.
Here's how I'd rearrange things.
Diety: Erastil (You never specified but this one has the domain plus the favored weapon you'll want.)
Str: 18 (14 base +2 Race, +2 Level)
Dex: 14
Con: 13
Int: 10
Wis: 15 (+1 Level)
Cha: 10
1: Point Blank Shot
1: Rapid Shot
3: Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Bastard Sword)
5: Boon Companion
7: Deadly Aim
9: Power Attack
11: Vital Strike
TW: Outflank
TW: Swap Places
TW: Precise Strike
TW: Duck and Cover
You can pump out tons of hate here. With the bastard sword you get the options that previously weren't available to you with the composite longbow you get better damage. Don't forget to make use of your spells for buffs and make use of your bane ability whenever applicable. Power Attack and Deadly Aim are late additions and you can probably get away with boon companion later if you want one or the other of those feats earlier. Spell buffs are going to be your friend here so make sure you get to be the beneficiary to as many as possible.
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What Tark said except i would pick up half orc race with the racial falchion proficiency from APG. Them change his 3rd feat for prescise shot and change vital strike for manyshot.
You try to keep firing your bow as much as you can and then go two hander. Your next feats would be following the improved critical path for melee.
I would also dump the cha atribute at least to 8 and try to go up with con and/or wis.
You never said you had to be human but if you absolutly need to there is a trait from orcs of golarion which let you look like a regular human but be half orc. That could be a trauma from your past thst keep haunting you adult life, it opens some nice fluff ideas...
Good luck
What's "switch hitter" supposed to mean?
What's "switch hitter" supposed to mean?
A character that specializes in ranged and melee combat. Essentially they fire their bow as long as possible until the enemy gets in charging distance and then they get in there and swing a big heavy object to finish the bad guys off. Meant to be a versatile build that keeps up in damage with other specialists but lacking some of their tricks. I personally don't believe in precise shot in such a build since by the time it matters you'll have closed to melee anyway.
Fighters and Rangers with their array of feats can do this with incredible ease. After that Paladins, Bards, Magi, and inquisitor's can also do it but as you can see they are rather feat starved for it so it's a bit easier for them to specialize.
What's "switch hitter" supposed to mean?A character that specializes in ranged and melee combat. Essentially they fire their bow as long as possible until the enemy gets in charging distance and then they get in there and swing a big heavy object to finish the bad guys off.
Weird name, I wonder how that came about.
Weird name, I wonder how that came about.
It refers to the idea of a ranger with the archery combat style, but who focuses entirely on melee.
So, basically they will be picking up enough free archery feats to be 'good enough' at range, while devoting all but one of their regular feats (they want to pick up Deadly Aim) on (2H) melee focused abilities.
The advantage of this build is that you don't have to fulfill any of the prereqs for the archery feats, so you can (almost) dump-stat your dexterity and instead focus on strength.
I think the idea was born when it was shown how a completely archery-focused ranger, using a greatsword, was doing better in melee than the dual-wield focused ranger.
Of course, with feats such as Point-Blank Master, the Switch Hitter may see a decline in popularity. I think the main point of the build is that it's very iconic and cool to do well enough at both.
Edit: No doubt the name comes from how, once melee is on the table, they'll switch weapons and hit you over the head with a greatsword. :)
Inspired by a Vampire hunter with an 8 str? Noy buying that one.
Although the crossbow is thematically correct.
Dervish dance wouldn't be a feat or fighting style he would have either.
Inquisitor is good for Van Helsing as an intellectual that blended in religion. But you should focus on melee with ranged secondary.
Low Str and Low Int isn't a Van Helsing clone.
I assume you mean the Van Helsing from that awful Stephen Sommers movie rather than the old man from the novel Dracula. Because for the original Van Helsing I would suggest Expert and be sure to take Skill Focus in Heal. He is, afterall, a very talented physician.
Lets see, first lets consider at 12th level, whenever an inquisitor uses her bane ability, the amount of bonus damage dealt by the weapon against creatures of the selected type increases to 4d6. It would be wonderfull if you could use bane on 2 weapons but lets not consider it for this discussion.
First I would choose the heavy repeating crossbow, you are can already use it, and you can bypass the reload feat, you could also carry 2 of them.
So feats point blank shot, precise shot, rapid shot. So with these feats you could shoot 2 bolts at your full bab -1 if within 30ft with precise shot. If you have 2 select judgements up it would be +2to hit +4 dam. Targeting a person with bane would yeild +4to hit +4dam +4d6. If you used the second level spell flames of the faithful. +4to hit + 4dam +4d6 +1d6 fire +flaming burst. Of course lets not forget the base 1d10.
If you wanted to be a switch hitter, I would definately lower your dex a little. At some point you will want improved precise shot, which needs 19 dex.
Lets not forget quick draw. So at this point 3 unspent feats.
Your primary weapon, if you want to keep your dex high I would grab weapon finesse and go with and elf and use the elven curved blade.
Domains, not to sure about if the animal companion is great or not. Solo play it would be great.
For a 12 level inquisitor I would be sure to have haste or a weapon of speed.
Lets see, first lets consider at 12th level, whenever an inquisitor uses her bane ability, the amount of bonus damage dealt by the weapon against creatures of the selected type increases to 4d6. It would be wonderfull if you could use bane on 2 weapons but lets not consider it for this discussion.
First I would choose the heavy repeating crossbow, you are can already use it, and you can bypass the reload feat, you could also carry 2 of them.
So feats point blank shot, precise shot, rapid shot. So with these feats you could shoot 2 bolts at your full bab -1 if within 30ft with precise shot. If you have 2 select judgements up it would be +2to hit +4 dam. Targeting a person with bane would yeild +4to hit +4dam +4d6. If you used the second level spell flames of the faithful. +4to hit + 4dam +4d6 +1d6 fire +flaming burst. Of course lets not forget the base 1d10.
If you wanted to be a switch hitter, I would definately lower your dex a little. At some point you will want improved precise shot, which needs 19 dex.
Lets not forget quick draw. So at this point 3 unspent feats.
Your primary weapon, if you want to keep your dex high I would grab weapon finesse and go with and elf and use the elven curved blade.
Domains, not to sure about if the animal companion is great or not. Solo play it would be great.
For a 12 level inquisitor I would be sure to have haste or a weapon of speed.
Van Helsing wasnt an elf, and you'd loose a feat to pick up curved blade anyway, so it's basically spending a feat. Then there is losing the skill point for human.
I would just use a scimitar (well depending on your god of choice I guess)
Lots of fun would be getting permission from the DM to swap out repeating xbow (an EWP) for pistol (an EWP) and take amateur gunslinger and maybe sped some open feats to be better with the gun (would be a little fun)
Yeah hadnt thought about the feats that way, just thinking weapon finesse and elven curved blade. Lets see boon companion Dragonne.
Hmm... inquisitor gunslinger would be tough. I guess use a rifle touch ac and bane. If bane effected 2 weapons revolvers would rock.
Yeah carring he would definately be approaching a medium load with a crossbow and a weapon.
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I'm trying to figure out how a character with an 8 strength can carry all this gear without running into carry capacity issues.
He has a pack mule?
Seriously though,
I'm inclined to agree with Pendagast about the focus being to heavily on ranged to be a "Van Helsing" character, but if you want to go that route anyway and decide to stick with the animal companion I'd suggest taking the Fur subdomain for the speed boosting granted power. +20ft for a round 6 times a day is damn handy for a ranged character, and speak with animals doesn't really fit the concept anyway.
The inquisitor is obviously a ranged character from it's weapon selection, which is retarded, really. I think they should have written it as a 'ranger' style where you pick a "weapons package".
DnD/Pathfinder have this obsession by either gimping a class on weapons (monk, inquisitor) or giving them every weapon under the sun for no reason (cavalier, paladin, barbarian)
Thematically, a Vanilla Fighter, Vanilla Magus, etc make sense for "all melee weapons" most full BABs do not.
but that is neither here nor there.
IF I were Dming I would allow an swap out of existing WPs for ones of the same class (simple for simple, martial for martial, exotic for exotic) just to 'shake things' up in character design for things like the inquisitor.
'Van Helsing' from the movie with "wolverine" (hugh jackman) playing Van Helsing, he was clearly a switch hitter with a repeating xbow and some star knives and maybe a dagger for back up.
If I really wanted to make THAT character, I would give him 5 levels of inquisitor, 7 levels of alchemist and then go into master chymist (so i could transform into a 'werewolf') would be a blast.
If you want to play classic 'Dr. Van Helsing' some people are saying he was a "physician" , yes it's true but all educated men of the time period being written about were "Drs". He also became a reknown vampire hunter/monster lorist.
So thematically, Inquisitor with a good Int and some skill points in "Profession" would be quite fine.
The Dr. Van Helsing would have had a pistol, however as firearms were semi common during his era.
If you just want to make a PC "based" on the Hugh Jackman Van Helsing, Switch hitter with the repeating (not double) xbow is the way to go. Inquisitor is the right class too (although the transforming master chymist would be alot of fun)
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The inquisitor is obviously a ranged character from it's weapon selection, which is retarded, really. I think they should have written it as a 'ranger' style where you pick a "weapons package".
I guess my two weapon fighting inquisitor has to hold his head in shame?
The class has a ton of melee friendly bonus feats in the form of teamwork feats. All of which work for any weapon in hand and make for a great two weapon fighting build. The judgments work fine on melee weapons as does bane.
The shifting nature of the inquisitor's bonus damage makes them ideal for 'switch hitting' type characters. I've seen it work well using a variety of melee weapons, often racial weapons but sometimes with just daggers.
The inquisitor is obviously a ranged character from it's weapon selection, which is retarded, really. I think they should have written it as a 'ranger' style where you pick a "weapons package".I guess my two weapon fighting inquisitor has to hold his head in shame?
The class has a ton of melee friendly bonus feats in the form of teamwork feats. All of which work for any weapon in hand and make for a great two weapon fighting build. The judgments work fine on melee weapons as does bane.
The shifting nature of the inquisitor's bonus damage makes them ideal for 'switch hitting' type characters. I've seen it work well using a variety of melee weapons, often racial weapons but sometimes with just daggers.
+1
Getting appropriate weapons isn't difficult. If you really need that proficiency in martial weapons nothing stops you from taking a single level of Ranger. You lose next to nothing by it. A single level of spell casting for +1 Bab, a good boost to saves, more hp, favored enemy, etc.
It does have tons of good melee stuff just in domains. Teamwork feats add tons more.
noim saying their inital weapons selection is biff.
There is always racial weapons or burning a feat to get a good weapon or maybe which diety your choose...
When making an inquisitor you have a huge amount for character customization. A single aspect that holds them back is bane appling to a single weapon.
So as a hybrid class which direction do you want to take, focus on ranged or melee. In melee one or 2 handed weapon? Then there is their Domain. Then spells, a small selection of very useful spells. As a human Inquisitor you can choose the favored option from the APG to gain an additional spell lower than your max.
If you know what group you are going to be adventuring with you can choose to fill a spot that may be lacking.
Ranged Inquisitors are great though they still suffer from lower BAB for feats like improved precise shot, as well many teamwork feats are mainly melee focused.
So if you choose melee, you have simple weapons so what type of style are you going to try and use, I think the predominant builds are, dazziling display, Power Attack, and Whirlwind.
I have an inquisitor in society, and when I created him I realized that as I played him, each group would have a different compilation. So I chose spring attack whirlwind attack, the main reason is the shields bonus to AC. So far I have throughly enjoyed playing him.
I still like the idea of a two weapon fighting inquisitor using a bashing shield. Or the more perverse using 2 repeating crossbows, one with flaming the other shocking etc...
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My current Inquisitor has to be a switch hitter...given our healer and tank dropped from the game. We are only level four but, 5th is a big level for me as I need to decided on how I'm going to use Bane.
I started out as a ranged character who was the back up healer and skill monkey. Now, I'm the only healer and I'm the likely the tank. So my spell selection is sort of dedicated to the party. I do use the human favored class option to select my personal spells. My team work feats are pretty much set to coordinate with the rogue and monk in the party. Other than that, it's selective uses of judements and range abilities to protect our sorceress and not get taken out in combat myself.
My current build
1st: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot
2nd: N/A
3rd: Two Weapon Fighting (using sleight of hand for a poor man's quickdraw), Lookout that is switched to Precise Striker for my Teamwork Feat
4th: N/A
5th: Rapid Shot or Combat Reflexes
I know it's not optimized, but this game doesn't exactly need it. I've also been playing a versitile role in our group. The sorceress is a blaster and has a few utility spells. The Monk is somewhat of a battlefield controller, but is still needs some work. The rogue plays well, pretty much a sniper and flanker.
Though I think very much of the Hugh Jackman Van Helsing when playing an Inquisitor. If the barbarian and Cleric hadn't dropped...I'd likely really focused on the repeating crossbow. As it stands I have a heavy crossbow, two hand crossbows, a rapier and shortsword, and a lot of knives. In combat I'm somewhat akin to castlevania or devil may cry...at least that's how the GM put's it.
Little update on my PFS Inquisitor.
inq 6 fighter 1
I think I have 3 stats that are 16 now
Whirlwind chain. Boon Companion Roc.
Mithiril Full Plate+1 mithiril shield +1
Ac is around 30 ish.
20% of the time I heal.
60% of the time I tank.
I usually do decent damage with bane. If I get some whirlwinds in it makes me look good. People out damage me, but I stil do about 11-20 damage if bane is up. I like to spring attack.
Expeditous retreat is probably my most common spell aside from heals.
I often try to draw AOO's from enemies with ac around 34 for mobility, I still sometimes feel safe.