Hello All,
I have a player who is playing a 1st lvl inquisitor. He has never played one, nor have I ever GMed one. He is an experienced player, though he is having a challenging time finding his groove with the class.
Any experienced Inquisitors out there who could offer advice on their approach to playing the class in general, and specifically playing the class at the low levels?
Thanks in advance!
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The inquisitor can be an excellent class.
I'm not sure exactly what advice your looking for, as in all things pathfinder each class can be built in many different ways but I'll try my best using experience from my PFS Inquisitor who is lvl 6.
Combat:
A ranged inquisitor becomes powerful at lvl 5 when he can bane all his arrows. However he essentially loses his solo tactics ability and teamwork feats since they focus primarily on melee combat. He should choose either the Spellbreaker or Preacher archetypes. For domains the destruction can help with damage.
A melee inquisitor(mine was an orc with falchion) operates similar to a rogue in that he greatly benefits from flank. He will also probably spend a round buffing before entering the fray. Heavy Armor Prof. is a must either through normal feat gain or dipping into fighter. For domains most pick travel because of added mobility.
In either case my favorite domain is the animal(feather). Gaining an animal companion at lvl 4, then using boon animal companion feat at lvl 5, greatly increases your action economy and grants a flanking partner. The concept is instead of a passive druid, you are the avenger who actively seeks to slay those opposed with nature.
Non-Combat:
The inquisitor primarily functions as a monster identifier. He should pick up all knowledge skills and identify his foes at the start of each combat. Please work with the GM to use the knowledge skill correctly when identifying. It is a free action with DC 10+monster CR. Success means he learns the creatures name and type(some GMs don't give type but if you know a creatures name and what it looks like don't you think you'd know it's type?). For every 5 after he can ask one question. The vagueness of those questions is up to the GM. Most allow a questions like "what are his special attacks", "does he have any weaknesses", "any resistances, ect. But using identify wrong can severely inhibit the inquisitor since his most powerful ability, bane, relies on identifying.
Aside from that, he should focus on sense motive. He will be a huge thorn in the GM's side should his villains try to pull any bluffs. It's hugely rewarding to thwart a villains bluff since PCs rarely invenst in sense motive.
I personally don't view the inquisitor as a skill monkey. He gains so many skill points because they should be thrown into knowledges. You should avoid the trying to replace the party's rogue.
Spells:
The inquisitor has access to great buffing spells. If you have a cleric, then he should focus more on utility spells and self-buffing spells while your cleric does the healing and party buffs. If you don't have any cleric, then he should acquire buff spells and use CLW wands to heal the party OUTSIDE of combat.Don't try to be an offensive spellcaster or an in-combat healer. The class is not made for this.
Leveling up:
The inquisitor scales in plateau fashion. At lvls 5, 8, 12, and 16 he'll spike in offensive power then stay relatively the same. I don't feel he's weak at any level.
Hello All,
I have a player who is playing a 1st lvl inquisitor. He has never played one, nor have I ever GMed one. He is an experienced player, though he is having a challenging time finding his groove with the class.
Any experienced Inquisitors out there who could offer advice on their approach to playing the class in general, and specifically playing the class at the low levels?
Thanks in advance!
I have always had a generic idea when I choose a class, at the least.
Does he want to be in melee, handle social encounters, etc?If he does not know what he wants to do then that might be an issue.
Thanks for the thoughts. This will at least open up some directions for consideration.
I view the Inquisitor as an inverted Bard. Instead of buffing the party, you buff yourself. Outside of that, play like it like a bard. Pick a couple things to be good at (range, melee, skills, or spells) and let the others atrophy. Remember you are the agent of your deity; through you their will is done.
I've played an Inquisitor to level 9. My views on the class is that it is a very MAD class if you want to it all. When you first make an Inquisitor decide if you want to focus on casting or combat.
For combat you have two options melee or ranged. I'd avoid ranged unless you plan to mult-class enough to Point Blank master and snap shot. That way you your solo tactic/teamwork feats aren't wasted. So melee or ranged you want focus on you physical stats and put your Wisdom to 12 with intentions of putting stat boosts into Wisdom. Your Wisdom will rise to the right level to keep you casting all the way up to 6th level.
If you go with caster, you won't be just a caster. Go for the caster/skill monkey and focus on Wisdom, Int, and Chr for stats. Wisdom for high save, Chr for UMD, and int for skills. Use your judgements for defense and go use ranged weapons for bane and there are couple good teamwork feats for castings spells like +2 to over SR and +4 to concentration.
That the mechanics from my experience. As for how to play an Inquisitor that can be done so many way, talk to the GM about it. Really depends on your diety.
|
The guided weapon enchantment is an Inquisitor's best friend. If it is disallowed, grab a terrain domain for channel, and take channel smite and guided hand. You could also go for one of the animal domains and get a familiar, the take adept channel to take channel smite then guided hand. In the end, the more you can do with your wisdom, the better.
So would it be worth it to splash a Level of fighter in to get all armor and all martial weapons? Not to mention the extra feat and the ability to take better feats at first level.
|
So would it be worth it to splash a Level of fighter in to get all armor and all martial weapons? Not to mention the extra feat and the ability to take better feats at first level.
Personally? I'd say no. Heavy armor Proficiency is a Feat away, you already have ranged weapons plus that of your deity (potentially very good) and Inqisitorts gain a bunch of cool stuff as they level.
And I disagree completely that they're MAD at all. You can (with, say, the Conversion Inqisition) get by with only Wisdom and whatever stat you attack with, plus maybe a little Con. That's less MAD than anything but Wizard.
What they aren't is real controllers. Their spells should be focused on self-buffing and a bit of support healing, not save-based stuff. Even if they focus on those, they can't get enough of them per day to do the job real well, so having a few isn't a bad idea, but they shouldn't be the basis of your character.
Grab a deity you like. Get rapport with the clergy so that you have a ready supply of potions, scrolls and the like. Kill enemys of the church in your deitys name. You are something like a Paladin, maybe not with the same "you have to be nice" touch, but with great power comes great responsibility. You may interrogate people you may lie you may even cheat, but IF you do, play him that he knew he did something wrong, against the tenents of his faith and he atones for it.
This is such a wonderful roleplaying opportunity. Please dont waste it.
And for the battle way. I think an inquisitor is the first guy with cold iron, silver, blunt, slashing weapons, holy water and acid in his pocket, the guy who lets his friends occupy the enemy and then just kills it.
|
|
And I disagree completely that they're MAD at all.
Deadmanwalking is correct. The only way the Inquisitor becomes MAD is when someone tries to turn them into an "everything" character. Just like any other class he should choose a specific combat and non-combat role then build to support those two things.
As for multi-classing with fighter, a great way to get around this with a melee character is playing an orc. They gain proficiency with the falchion so just pick up heavy armor prof. at 1st level and you're golden. Another way would be to pick a god and use their favored weapon.
Dwarves and elves also make good melee inquisitors because of their racial weapon profecencies. A dwarven war ax, or urgosh can really hurt in an inquisitors hands and the elven curve blade is pretty nice too.
Personally Ive only played one inquisitor who was a half orc and follower of Pharasma. The falchion was an amazing weapon and with the Justice inquisition our Fighter and cleric of Gorum were terrors in melee.
What I learned from that game was you really want to find a niche and stick to it. For me, I found my niche was buffing our melee heavy group with inquisitions during combat and spells before it. For skills I found it more effective to be the groups face with high social skills backed by a few knowledges but that game was mostly undead focused too. I didnt need a ton of knowledge skills but other games will
i played a 3.pp 25 point human inquisitor before. worshipped Zon Kuthon, took the spiked chain (3.5 version) and exploited the reach to deal massive damage with AoOs. UM and UC weren't released yet, let alone in beta. but my information wouldn't quite be accurate because after 4 levels of being undergeared, we became Triple WBL by level 8. and most of the smaller encounters were merged to make bigger ones, which encouraged the use of nova. we didn't quite have time to actually heal in between said fights. so most of us had to nova, but at least our buffs were still up. instead of getting four normal encounters, we would get 6-7 encounters per day merged into groups of 2-3.
essentially, the fights were longer and we had fewer. because they were merged.
|
|
I agree on the feat choice, just not when. At 1st Level, you can't afford heavy armor anyway. Pick it up at 3rd or 5th, basically after you have the money to make it usable.
My reasoning is you don't have a BAB of 1 so you don't qualify for much else. But you're right you will have to wait a bit to use it but at 3rd I'd rather grab Power Attack. At lower levels (well all really lol) Two-Handed Power Attack is devastating.