I'm looking for some advice for my dwarf inquisitor. It's for PFS play. If you have any feat, trait, or spell suggestions, please only use CRB, APG, ARG, UC, UM, and UE for sources. Those are all the books I have.
Thank you in advance.
Hrothgar Firebeard
Dwarf Inquisitor of Cayden Cailean
STR 16
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 15
CHA 8
SKILLS:
Diplomacy, Intimidate, Know(religion), Perception, Sense Motive, Survival
FEATS:
Steel Soul
TRAITS:
Glory of Old
Deft Dodger
SPELLS:
0th - Acid Splash, Detect Magic, Guidance, Resistance
1st - Magic Weapon, Shield of Faith
I plan on maxing out Intimidate, Perception, and Sense Motive. Then putting the rest of my skill points mainly in Knowledges, with a few spent here and there in other skills that it's good to have at least one rank in.
I could really use some guidance on where to go with my feats. I knew I wanted Steel Soul + Glory of Old to get +5 to all saves vs magic. I'm not sure if I should drop STR and raise DEX and go with Weapon Finesse, since I am using a rapier.
I will probably choose mostly buff and utility spells.
Any suggestions for improvements or direction on where to go from here?
I would probably drop down your STR and increase your WIS. A STR 14, DEX, 14, CON 16, INT 10, WIS 16, CHA 8 will work out better. Inquisitors get a lot of mileage from WIS so it boosting it is fairly important.
You don’t get many spells so chose them carefully. Magic Weapon and resistance are not all that useful. Light or Stabilize are better than Resistance. Protection from evil is better than Shield of faith because it will stop a lot of mental based spells. True strike is also better than magic weapon. Choose spells that will be useful not only at first level but also higher level.
A good feat for inquisitors is improved monster lore. This feat basically gives you 2.5 skill points per level. With it you don’t need to spend a lot of skill points to be able to identify the monsters weaknesses.
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I agree that those spells aren't very useful. Cure Light Wounds you will probably want on spells known. It improves with level, unlike wands, making you a bit better.
I would recommend Steel Soul at level 1. At this level, spell DCs aren't to high, but saves aren't either. AND colorspray is good a killing 1st level PCs*.
I agree on a slightly higher wisdom on this, it applies to initiative, knowledge checks, spells, and a bunch of other stuff.
*I have lost 3-4 PFS characters to colorspray, so I'm a bit paranoid about saves, especially will.
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Hrothgar Firebeard
Dwarf Inquisitor of Cayden CaileanSTR 16
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 15
CHA 8
The only thing I suggest here is a higher Con. You don't need more then a 14 Wis as spells is not your main thing. Yes they get other uses out of Wis how every you can get a item to increase it with out wasting points in the stat buy.
My recommendation : Str 16 Dex 14 Con 16 Int 10 Wis 14 Cha 6SKILLS:
Diplomacy, Intimidate, Know(religion), Perception, Sense Motive, Survival
I plan on maxing out Intimidate, Perception, and Sense Motive. Then putting the rest of my skill points mainly in Knowledges, with a few spent here and there in other skills that it's good to have at least one rank in.
This is good but with PFSP. You will get a lot of mileage out of Diplomacy. That's all I can add.
FEATS:
Steel SoulTRAITS:
Glory of Old
Deft Dodger
I could really use some guidance on where to go with my feats. I knew I wanted Steel Soul + Glory of Old to get +5 to all saves vs magic. I'm not sure if I should drop STR and raise DEX and go with Weapon Finesse, since I am using a rapier.
Weapon Familiarity: Dwarves are proficient with battleaxes, heavy picks, and warhammers, and treat any weapon with the word “dwarven” in its name as a martial weapon. Just take a Heavy Pick, or Warhammer. That's my recommendation.
I recommend the following feet progression.1: Improved Initiative
3: Power Attack
5: Furious Focus
7: Steel Soul
9: Extended Bane
11: Improved Critical
Domain : Travel
Edit : I would replace Deft Dodger for Zest for Battle.
First of all, you should always take advice about dwarves from someone named Axebeard!!! :-D
Anyways, If you are really pumping up Intimidate, maybe consider the Bludgeoner and Enforcer combo of feats. Wield a warhammer, and do non-lethal bludgeoning damage and get a free Intimidate check from Enforcer.
Then you can capture your foes by knocking them out and interrogate them later.
The Travel Domain boost to speed counters one of the dwarf's main weaknesses. The main reason my dwarf magus has a level of barbarian.
i know level dipping is often frowned upon, but think about possibly taking a fighter level at 1 or 2... it sets back your limited casting, and delays bane, but you get proficiency with all armor (which is awesome for dwarves) and martial weapons- which for a dwarf includes the waraxe and longhammer; plus you get a bonus feat which never hurts.
And if you take your first level in fighter, you get a couple more hit points and can take that Fighter-only trait that gives a +1 trait bonus to AC when wearing Medium or Heavy Armor. Defender of the Society.
I have adjusted his stats to be STR 14 DEX 14 CON 16 INT 10 WIS 16 CHA 8
I didn't want to dump CHA too low because I do want to use CHA based skills and dwarves are already fighting that -2 penalty. It does suck to only have +2 to hit at level 1 however, which was my main reason for increasing STR in the first place.
I will swap Shield of Faith for Protection from Evil since they provide the same bonus to AC and Protection from Evil also protects against summons and evil spells.
I did not choose Cure Light Wounds because casting the spell isn't THAT much better than just using a wand. I will pick up Cure Moderate Wounds et al when I attain those levels.
I picked Magic Weapon with the idea to swap it out at level 5. Sometimes you really need to have a magic weapon at low levels.
Other than CLW is there something better that I should choose?
The reason I chose the Rapier is because Inquisitors can get a lot of static bonuses to damage and thus benefit greatly from a high crit chance. I also planned on using the Outflank / Paired Opportunists combo.
I have him using Rapier and buckler wearing medium armor.
I chose the Travel domain. It really seemed to be the best choice, especially for a dwarf.
I do like the idea of picking up a level of Fighter at first level, switching to the Longhammer, heavy armor, and boulder helmet and then picking Defender of the Society for my 2nd trait. But I kind of wanted to stay straight Inquisitor because I've never played one before.
Improved Monster Lore does look very good.
If I just take Heavy Armor Proficiency, I would wait until level 3 to take it at the earliest. A level 1 character cannot afford any of the heavy armors and it seems silly to waste my only feat on something I can't use yet.
What about a stat array of:
STR 15
DEX 14
CON 16
INT 10
WIS 15
CHA 8
I could use my first to attribute bonuses to even out STR and WIS.
That looks good. You're not casting spells with Save DCs, so a relatively low Wisdom isn't hurting you there. Just as long as you have a 16 Wisdom by the time you can cast 6th level spells, you'll be able to cast 6th level spells.
Maybe consider scimitar instead of rapier? Or is rapier the favored weapon? A Strength-based rapier will surprise some foes. :-)
Rapier is favored weapon of Cayden Cailean.
I considered scimitar, but Sarenrae's domain powers leave a lot to be desired for an inquisitor.
Plus a good who favors loot, drinking, and wenching seems more up a dwarf's alley.
Another reason for a higher STR is armor is heavy.
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Major warning bells are going off in my head right now: NO MELEE FIGHTER should have a strength BELOW 16. If your main goal in combat is to smack somebody with something and do damage, 16 is the absolute minimum you need to generally be effective. (Don't bother with Finesse unless you have something like Sneak Attack majorly boosting damage.)
If you want to be very effective in combat, I would start with a level of fighter, then go inquisitor, with a stat block like this (20 point buy):
STR 16
DEX 12
CON 16
INT 10
WIS 15
CHA 8
That way you can take Power Attack and Steel Soul at first level, Cornugon Smash at third, and get full plate and martial weapons. You'd want to two-hand an axe or dwarven *blank*, and you wouldn't need a Dex higher than 12. You'd have a ton of HP, and would make an excellent front-line fighter.
If you're OK with being less good at combat and want to be more of a classic Inquisitor-type, I'd do this:
STR 16
DEX 14
CON 12
INT 10
WIS 16
CHA 8
Use medium armor, a shield, and a rapier. You'll still have solid defenses, but with a higher wisdom for spellcasting and whatnot, and no delayed level progression. You can take feats that focus on boosting your Inquisitor abilities like Early Judgment and Improved Monster Lore. Your damage will pale in comparison to the other build, but you get Bane earlier, and occasionally you'll crit for some pretty good damage. Also, there's some wiggle room in this point buy - you could lower one of Cha, Int, or Con by 2 to boost another by 2 if you wanted, say, more skill points or more HP instead of +5% chance of social skills working. Note, however, that with this build you won't be as sturdy as the top build, and enemies might start just walking past you to get to the squishier targets.
Oh, and a word on spell selection: It depends on the campaign, but typically I never count on being able to get off more than 1 buff before I start swinging at things. Thus, you might want to consider picking one buff - either Magic Weapon or Shield of Faith - and using your other spell slot on something that lets you do something you normally couldn't. I'm a fan of stuff like Disguise Self, Command, and Hide From Undead; things that open up new possible routes of action. Oh, and Bless is a fantastic buff at first level, since it helps everyone in your party.
Anyway, good luck! Don't worry about it too much - as long as you keep Str at or above 16 and have at least one spell you're always OK with casting, it's fairly hard to go wrong with an Inquisitor.