Inquisitor Build Help


Advice


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So I decided to play a half-orc Inquisitor of Gorum, but I'm having a hard time deciding just how to build it. This is what I have so far:

Bael, Half-orc Inquisitor of Gorum 9 (heretic archetype)

Str 22 (base 16, +2 racial +2 level +2 magic)
Con 14
Dex 14
Int 12
Wis 16 (base 14 +2 magic
Cha 8

Feats: Power Attack, Weapon focus (falchion), Dazzling Display
Intimidating Prowess, Cornugon Smash, Precise Strike, Outflank, Paired Opportunists

Skills: Intimidate, Perception, Sense Motive, Stealth, Survival, Diplomacy 1/2, Bluff 1/2, Knowledge Nature/Religion 1/2,

HP: 66 (Max 1st, average +1 each level)

Abilities: Inquisition (Heresy), Judgement, Stern Gaze, Lore of Escape, Hide Tracks, Solo Tactics, Detect Alignment, Bane, Discern Lies, Second Judgement

Darkvision 60 ft, Intimidating, Orc Blood, Weapon Familiarity, Orc Ferocity

Favored Class: Inquisitor, bonus going to Intimidate

Items: Belt of Strength +2, Headband of Wisdom +2, Cloak of Resistance +2, Amulet of Natural Armor +2, +2 Falchion, +1 Adamantine Breastplate, lesser metamagic rod of extend, Mwk Composite Longbow (+6 Mighty),
various mundane equipment

Saves: Fort +11, Ref +7, Will +12
AC: 21, DR 2/-
BAB +6/+1

Attack: +2 Falchion +15/+10, 2d4+11 (+13/+8 with PA for 2d4+17) 18-20/x2 crit.

Spells known:
1st: True Strike, Wrath, Divine Favor, Shield of Faith, Bless
2nd: Weapon of Awe, Bloodhound, Flames of the Faithful, Invisibility
3rd: Keen Edge, Righteous Vigor, Heroism, Cure Serious Wounds

What I'm a bit iffy on is the feat selection. Yes, I have a ridiculous Intimidate (+28 right now), but pretty much every single feat is invested in making the most of it, and I feel a bit like a one-trick pony. Is having that kind of Intimidate really worth it, or should I use my feats/favored class bonus for other things, like heavier armor or more HP? Or should I raise my Int a bit, take Combat Expertise/Gang Up and try to make the most of the Teamwork feats?

Basic build guidelines are: 25 point buy, average WBL for level 9 (44k), Core and APG all allowed, other books situationally if I can make a good argument for them.


What level are you taking this character to ? being a semi one trick pony at 9th isn't so bad if you spend the next 11 levels branching out into other areas. but if you've got slow XP progression are are only headed to say 12th then that will warrant different advice


It's a Kingmaker game, so I figure we've got another 4-5 levels at least. The rest of the party consists of: Half-orc Barbarian, Half-elf Arcane Archer, Human Mystic Theurge, Human Fighter/Alchemist (poisoned crossbow bolts), and Human Eldritch Knight.


SunsetPsychosis wrote:
It's a Kingmaker game, so I figure we've got another 4-5 levels at least. The rest of the party consists of: Half-orc Barbarian, Half-elf Arcane Archer, Human Mystic Theurge, Human Fighter/Alchemist (poisoned crossbow bolts), and Human Eldritch Knight.

I believe kingmaker will easily reach 17+ for a 6 man party and depending on your GM may go to 20th.

Based on the rest of your party I would not be concerned with being a one trick pony at 9th it certainly won't cause any problems. you've got high STR and decent WIS so you'll always have a decent contribution to combat even not using your intimidate skills.

I'm actually playing kingmaker and we've just hit 10th we actually have an intimidate bard monkey who is still enjoying herself with the crazy intimidate checks.

You intimidate trick is pretty much final in that form so I'd instead close the book you've got a decent build as is and start looking at adding some versatility over the next few levels, take some time and read through you spell list I notice you have alot of self help spells and while there nice every round spent buffing yourself is a round your not contributing to the fight. have a look for some more situationally useful spells.

e.g. Terrible remorse, will save/rnd or attack self, take creature out of the fight until they make a will save.

Don't always look for ways to change your build to make it better sometimes the best thing to do is simply look at what else you can get out of the build without changing it, that you simply haven't realised


One of my biggest concerns when it come to combat is that I'm one of the few frontliners, but one of the squishiest members of the party. Our Barbarian can easily hit 140+ hp while raging and still rock a high AC and massive damage. Our Arcane Archer can drop damn near anything with a full attack of flaming arrows. The Theurge has excellent battlefield control, the Eldritch Knight tends to play skirmisher. I get to...stand there and look scary? I focused my spell list on making me better in combat, but a few more situational spells might be useful. Solo Tactics is helpful, but if anything decides it wants to kill me, I can't take a hit very well.


SunsetPsychosis wrote:
One of my biggest concerns when it come to combat is that I'm one of the few frontliners, but one of the squishiest members of the party. Our Barbarian can easily hit 140+ hp while raging and still rock a high AC and massive damage. Our Arcane Archer can drop damn near anything with a full attack of flaming arrows. The Theurge has excellent battlefield control, the Eldritch Knight tends to play skirmisher. I get to...stand there and look scary? I focused my spell list on making me better in combat, but a few more situational spells might be useful. Solo Tactics is helpful, but if anything decides it wants to kill me, I can't take a hit very well.

Well just on the spells again except for heroism half are 1min/level and the other half are less than 1 minute meaning unless your able to sneak up on encounters or the GM is kind enough to give you 2-3 rounds for preparation those spells have to be cast inside combat, meaning your doing even less.

Perhaps you should ask yourself what do you want your role to be in the party ? do you really need to be a frontliner ? If you are a frontliner then perhaps you need to sacrifice damage for a shield to get your AC up, 21 vs CR10's is going to get you killed.

Perhaps you'd make a better buffer/debuffer. make that barbairan nigh invincible and make your enemies weak.

here's another spell for you, hold person , pretty basic spell will take a threat out of the fight.

you can still wade into combat so long as you don't spend too long on the frontline there's less risk of your poor AC being exposed.

Become the swiff army knife of combat filling gaps as they appear

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Just a thought but inquisitors make great Hellknights ;-)The Hellknight works very well with the intimidation game and would add some versatility while giving you a bump in AC.


That was one of the reasons I was iffy about the whole one-trick pony Intimidate focus, as that particular usage of intimidate is almost entirely combat-based. Being able to render multiple enemies shaken is good and all, but my other options are limited. If I abandoned that chain, I'd free up feats and such to make me better out of combat and focus more on my skills and class features, and just let the barbarian have his fun when it's time to kill things. I wouldn't be a total slouch in combat, with the benefits of Judgements and an occasional buff. If I dropped Intimidating Prowess, Dazzling Display, Cornugon Smash, and the favored class bonus, I'd lose 10 points of Intimidate, knocking me down to a +18, which is still generally sufficient for out-of-combat bullying of NPCs. I'd be able to pick up something like Toughness, Keen Scent, and perhaps heavy armor proficiency.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Getting +2 to hit and 2d6 from bane, +1d6 for flames of the faithful, +1d6 and +4 attack for flanking (teamwork feats), plus judgments, makes an inquisitor no slouch in combat.

Monster lore helps allot to know which judgements to use.

I like the inquisitors ability to adapt depending on what he is facing. Gaining bonuses for attacks, damage, saves, caster level checks, AC, resistances, fast healing, etc as needed

Outside of combat he has abilities like discern lies and detect alignment and bonuses to sense motive and intimidate along with tracking.

Overall it has been one of my favorite classes to play.


I considered splashing a level of ranger or fighter for the martial weapon proficiencies, making switching to sword-and-board mode more viable. Unfortunately once I get Stalwart, heavy armor isn't an option, though Mithral Full Plate does well, even if it's a bit pricey. With the way all the powers scale off level, though, inquisitor doesn't strike me as a class you do much dipping in. With the AC judgement, and Shield of Faith, my AC shouldn't be TOO horrid, and hopefully enemies will be more likely to focus on the big ugly barbarian with the greatsword instead. One more level and I'll get access to Righteous Might, which is an excellent combat buff. So a combat round might go: Swift action activate judgement, standard action buff, move into flanking. The next round: Swift action Bane, full attack.

Dark Archive

grap a few archery feats. Deadly aim at least, but point blank shot, rapid shot, and many shot all could get the bane hit/damage and other goodies


For a half-orc Inquisitor of Gorum with a 14 Dex, melee is pretty much the best way to go. Especially given the melee requirements of my teamwork feats. The party already has two archers and a wizard, I get to be one of the ones in there mixing it up. I just want to do it without sucking and/or dying.


SunsetPsychosis wrote:
For a half-orc Inquisitor of Gorum with a 14 Dex, melee is pretty much the best way to go. Especially given the melee requirements of my teamwork feats. The party already has two archers and a wizard, I get to be one of the ones in there mixing it up. I just want to do it without sucking and/or dying.

are you 100% sold on inquisitor or are you open to other classes ?


My current character is a half-orc Rogue (Thug, Scout)/Ranger (Skirmisher, Infiltrator) multiclass who also has an Intimidate focus. It's a somewhat interesting and at least adequately effective character, but he's far too specialized into either Intimidating the crap out of everything or slaughtering humans (Favored Enemy Human +4, Human Bane falchion.) If I couldn't scare it or it wasn't human, I wasn't doing jack.

My biggest problem with him (beyond the lack of flexibility) is from a roleplay perspective. Due to character background, I've had to metagame things and act out of character to avoid betraying the party. (He's a CN bounty hunter, and the enemy flat offered me big chunks of gold for killing the party). So I'm looking to reroll something that can justify a bit more party loyalty. The other ideas I've bounced around are Dwarf Drunken Monk, Human melee Druid, or Half-orc Barbarian/Oracle/Rage Prophet.


SunsetPsychosis wrote:

My current character is a half-orc Rogue (Thug, Scout)/Ranger (Skirmisher, Infiltrator) multiclass who also has an Intimidate focus. It's a somewhat interesting and at least adequately effective character, but he's far too specialized into either Intimidating the crap out of everything or slaughtering humans (Favored Enemy Human +4, Human Bane falchion.) If I couldn't scare it or it wasn't human, I wasn't doing jack.

My biggest problem with him (beyond the lack of flexibility) is from a roleplay perspective. Due to character background, I've had to metagame things and act out of character to avoid betraying the party. (He's a CN bounty hunter, and the enemy flat offered me big chunks of gold for killing the party). So I'm looking to reroll something that can justify a bit more party loyalty. The other ideas I've bounced around are Dwarf Drunken Monk, Human melee Druid, or Half-orc Barbarian/Oracle/Rage Prophet.

honestly as much as you can pickup a vibe from someone on the forums I get the feeling you'd be happier in another class.

melee druid or rage prophet are both fun and effective and offer a reasonable amount of versatility

if you want to have some syngery then melee alchemist is a great option since you can share mutagens and extract with the other alch in the group. plus you can kit alchemist for shapeshifting with polymorph spells of which you get alot.

alch melee is alot of fun and very beastly and can handle the front line with multiple sources of natural armor, can even rock heavy armor if you spend the feats, no to mention that new artype that swaps bombs for sneak attack

Check out Master Chymist if you haven't already

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