Two quick questions about Bane and Inquisitor

[Santana]

Bane: A bane weapon excels against certain foes. Against a designated foe, the weapon's enhancement bonus is +2 better than its actual bonus. It also deals an extra 2d6 points of damage against the foe.

1. Does the +2 enhancement bonus give +2 to attack and damage against that enemy (like a Greatsword going to a +2 Greatsword) or is it just there for overcoming DR?

2. How do Inquisitors typically handle choosing which creature type to use Bane on? Is a Knowledge check/Detect Alignment necessary? If I'm fighting a Dragon, Fey, Animal, Undead etc. wouldn't it be fairly obvious what I'm fighting simply based on looking at the creature and thus avoiding the necessity of a check to choose the right type for Bane?

[frostdracul]

1: yes it treats a +1 weapon as a +3 for the duration including damage/attack rolls (DR depends on how your gm wants to calculate the bonus since it's not actually a +3 weapon it's just acting as one)

2: your character could make the assume, ya know a skeleton is obviously undead, but some animals or aberrations may look like other things so the only way to "in character" know for sure would be a knowledge roll....but a giant lizard with wings and red scales is probably the dragon you've been hunting.

[Matthias]

1. yes it adds +2 hit/dmg
2. This part should be obvious to the character unless the GM wants to state that you have never seen creatures of type X, and in that case it would be a knowledge roll (Arcane, Nature, Planes, Dungeoneering) using the inquisitor ability monster lore. Also if it doesn't work you can swift action change what your bane works against so keep swingin.

[Morgen]

It's effectively giving a weapon the Bane weapon enchantment, which applies to attack and damage rolls against that particular type of creature.

A knowledge check is traditionally what you'd need to know, though some obvious things like humans, elves, dragons and the like are likely to be guessed correctly. However if your fighting outsiders, it could be a chaotic, lawful, good or evil outsider.