So, I've played an Inquisitor once, and it went disastrously. I'm not looking to make another 1 currently(though I'm certainly not letting this failure deter me) however I would like to know; what is the point of this class? What role/roles does it fill, and how can 1 effectively use it? This is all out of curiousity, but I appreciate any input you're willing to offer. Thank you.
see that paladin? bound by his code and unable to simply slay the evils outright? you're not him. you are a tool of divine justice, meting out punishments to heretics and sinners wherever you find them. you can do what needs to be done, that even others of your order would balk at.
you're an expert in the dangers of the world--as well as those beyond, and you can convince people to aid you without needing to butter them up.
(basically think a wis-based policeman/bounty hunter--the class is pretty much a mashup of paladin and ranger as-is).
I mean from a mechanics-standpoint. XD
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I always thought of them as divine bards that do melee. Or grey hat paladins. I think the class is clearly designed to do melee divine gish (as they only need wisdom and physical stats), much like the magus but less spell-oriented. They typically go for melee bane judgement rage inquisition style fighting because they get ridiculous damage. They also work great as a "radar" with the alignment stuff and are awesome skill/knowledge monkeys with monster lore, and rock the intimidate/sense motive checks.
monster lore and respectable skill points/level lets you play the 'pokedex' of the party, stern glare lets you play a face without having to spread into CHA, judgments are flexible all-battle buffs that are super useful, their bane ability can be set to whatever they want, amping their damage, and their spells are geared towards tracking/interrogating/manipulating/etc.
as for combat you can go melee or ranged, they're decent at either. they make for great intimidate builds too.
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Personally Having a Inquisitor in a group mean that they are a beastiary, detect radar, damage dealer. My best (while only at the time) inquisitor build was a gunslinger 4/ inquisitor 2 (don't ask). Being a level 6 in a party with a paladin, wizard, bard/sorc, rogue i was able to have more consistent damage and be able to role play face (because the bard was really newbie and wouldn't actually listen to advice) with the conversion inquisition, play minor healer, along with monster I.D. (since our wizard was actually rarely with the party in game), and of course I wasn't bound by the "paladin codes" and could smash an annoying person's face in without feeling an ounce of guilt....
Long story short They are a bit of jack of all trades, and with a few dips else were, master of a few.
Skill monkey with moderate combat ability, that's what I've always seen them as anyway. Not a big fan of the class myself.
Inquisitors are skill monkeys, AND spell monkeys. They get skill bonuses to help the party defeat enemies, and spells to hunt them down, then get info out of them. Not to mention dial-a-bane (<z0rg>my favorite<z0rg>) and judgements to boost whatever strengths or shore up what ever your current weakness is, mid combat.
They start off slow, but by 5th level, you've more than earned your place in a party.
They are hands down the most well rounded class published to date.
Inquisitors make amazing damage dealers, in my current shattered star campaign my Inquisitor/Grey Gardener is consistently one of the top damage dealers in combat, and since I'm playing him as Lawful Neutral, he's also pretty fun in the RP sequences. The point of the class to me seems like a very flexible divine caster, you'll never have the spellcasting ability of a full spellcaster, but you do get a lot of interesting tricks to set up combat in your favor.
Also lets look at art for the pathfinder iconic inquisitor here and the character from pop culture who I see as the archetype for the entire class here. Notice what they have in common? Awesome hats!!!!
They are great at dealing MASSIVE DAMAGE (thanks to bane)
Swny, you mean Grey Warden?
Swny, you mean Grey Warden?
No the Grey Gardener prestige class from paths of prestige
An inquisitor fills multiple functions. In combat they are one of the best overall monster hunters in the game. Sure paladins do more damage vs. undead and evil outsiders. Rangers are better vs. their favored enemy but not as good if the enemy is not their favored enemy. No matter what type of creature an inquisitor is fighting he has what he needs. Bane allows him to deal massive damage vs. any type of creature. His Judgments give allows him to have whatever else he needs to deal with the situation.
Out of combat they are divine skill monkeys. One thing they do better than any other class is finding out things. They get a bonus of half their level to three information gathering skills. Add the feat improved monster lore and it gets even worse. An inquisitor has all the skills needed to find and locate the weakness of any creature he is going to be fighting, and this is without magic.
Magic wise the inquisitors spells back up his abilities to uncover secrets and to deal with whatever he goes against. Spells like invisibility, and speak with dead give them access to information that is hard to match. They can further augment their combat abilities with spells if needed with spells like divine favor, and protection from evil. Accesses to healing spells mean they can are one of the most self-reliant classes around. Their limited spell selection means they will probably be using wands and scrolls for healing, but they have that option.
In reality it is easier to say what an inquisitor is not able to do than to list what they can do. Honestly there outside of blasting spells there is really not a whole lot they do not do.
Inquisitors are amazing. Play one at level 5+ and you'll just be useful no matter what situation comes up.
Skills:
I currently play an half-orc Inquisitor of Abadar. Trade Subdomain. I get:
Stern Gaze: +1/2 level to intimidate, sense motive
Track: +1/2 level to survival for tracking
Silver-tonged Haggler: +1/2 level to sense motive, diplomacy, bluff
Half-orc favorite class bonus: +1/2 level to intimidate and 6 different knowledge skills for monster identification.
That't like 6,5 skill points per level ON TOP of the 6+INT I get anyway. Makes me a great party face, monster codex and tracker. No class but bards can match that.
Combat:
Simple Strength build. Let's say level 5 (BAB 3), strength 18, power attack, precise strike and a +1 falchion.
First round of combat activate Judgement Justice (+2 Attack) and cast Divine Favor (+1 attack/+1 damage).
Second round: Activate Bane (+2 attack/+2d2+2 damage) and hit them. Hard.
+1 Falchion +12 (2d4+13+2d6, 18-20/x2), +1d6 when flanking.
Add Outflank at level 6 and you get another +2 attack on flanked targets and an additional attacks when your flank buddy crits.
You need a round to get going and your damage is not quite as good as a barbarian's but as an inquisitor, you can be by far the most damaging 3/4 BAB class.
Utility/Versatility:
All 4 detect alignments as SLA (no components!) at will. Discern Lies SLA as immediate action. Access to most of the important healing spells (though they do come late) including restoration (which druids and most witches lack) and a whole lot of utility spells like invisibility, bloodhound, silence, tongues. And most of the cleric's best personal buffs on top of some party buffs, heroism and a bunch of great defensive spells.
The only things the Inquisitor lacks are fly/air walk and some form of teleportation. And the travel domain takes care of the latter with dimensional hop.
I really like the Inquisitor.
The judgement ability of Inquisitors is really useful and easily makes up for their lack of full BAB. If you want to use it to enhance your attack bonus the judgement basically puts you in full BAB position. On the other hand, you can use it for a lot of other things too; sometimes you don't need the to-hit bonus. The versatility is key here. You can swap which bonus you get mid-judgement if you need it. You can get extra damage, AC, fast healing, DR, energy resistance, and so on. The fact that you can just pick something according to the situation makes the judgements shine. Once you hit 8th level you can have multiple judgements going at once, which is pretty awesome since the judgements scale by level.
The spells are nice but like the Bard you have very few spells per day compared to most caster classes, and are a spontaneous caster so you only know so many. So you save your spells for where they really count and mostly work with your combat abilities.
Peet
Inquisitors are incredibly powerful. In one game I'm the hardest hitting melee dealer, have the highest AC, party healer, party buffer party face as well as a skill monkey.
The big thing about the Inquisitor is his ability to work in any situation, being able to do damage regardless of your opponent or switch you judgements on the fly lets you close gaps in your party easily.
Being able to spontaneously cast your spells means you'll always have the right spell at hand too.
At level 5 with power attack, judgement surge: destruction, precise strike and 18 strength you'll be doing:
Weapon 1d6?
Strength +4
Power attack +2
Judgement+ +6
Bane +2d6+2
Precise Stri +1d6
=4d6+14 damage
This ignores the fact you can buff yourself to godly levels using spells.
At level 5 with power attack, judgement surge: destruction, precise strike and 18 strength you'll be doing:
Weapon 1d6?
Strength +4
Power attack +2
Judgement+ +6
Bane +2d6+2
Precise Stri +1d6=4d6+14 damage
Where do you get Destruction +6 from? Even with judegment surge it should be "only" +3 or do I miss something?
Favoured class bonus maybe?
Favoured class bonus maybe?
I can't find any other than the dwarf's bonus that would affect Judgment strength. And even that only adds +1/2 level. Result would be level 5 + 2,5 favored class bonus + 3 surge = 10. That's still "only" +4 damage.
They are basically divine Bards that, instead of buffing the team, buff themselves and mostly ignore the team.
So, I've played an Inquisitor once, and it went disastrously. I'm not looking to make another 1 currently(though I'm certainly not letting this failure deter me) however I would like to know; what is the point of this class? What role/roles does it fill, and how can 1 effectively use it? This is all out of curiousity, but I appreciate any input you're willing to offer. Thank you.
I regard any class as a combination of particular factors that make up a suite of skills a person might have. Does a god, or a church, care whether their worshipper/priest is a cleric, oracle, paladin, ranger, or inquisitor (or even an adept)? No. All are blessed with a fraction of divine power, all could equally be a devout worshipper outside the church hierarchy, or a devoted priest within it. It really doesn't matter so far as I can see.
In the case of the inquisitor I can see some working as "witch-finders" for more lawful churches, or just being "concerned citizens" in less well organised churches.
So the Inquisitor is a skills-heavy divine caster with a sideline in judgements against their god's code. So what roles can the inquisitor fill, depending on how you build them?
Self-buffing fighter
Buffer/debuffer
Scout (very good at this)
Face (pretty good at this)
Healer (with the right spells/wands)
Overall I have found them to be a very flexible class that you can make what you want of. Mainly, though, they seem oriented toward scouting and buffing/debuffing.
Melee is hard for them.
I don't think that melee is hard for inquisitors. They have a decent number of long-lasting buffs like greater magic weapon, magic vestment, heroism, stoneskin. Those combined with their swift action buffs, power attack and teamwork feats are more than enough to be great at melee, without ever casting a single spell in combat. And since letting the enemy close in is usually preferably to walk up to him, getting one buff off in the first round of combat should be possible most of the time.
The best thing about them is their big number of buffs that don't care for the type of weapon you use. Only Power Attack and the Strength bonus get better with a 2handed weapon, everything else is static, no matter what fighting style you prefer. An Inquisitor can get pretty high AC with armor + shield (both with magic vestment), maybe shield of faith and the AC judgment. All that while still having more offensive power than pretty much any other 3/4 BAB class, even if they wield a 2handed weapon.
Yeah, it was at early levels; level 1 starting off. None of the others players explained the mechanics to me, so I was trying to duel-wield crossbows... The main reason it went poorly is because I never bloody hit anything, and when I did hit I did no damage lol.
But anyways, thanks guys, I really see the Inquisitor in a new light now; never knew it was capable in so many roles. I'll be looking into playing 1 soon. ;3