So I'm playing a dwarf with the following stats:
Str 14
Dex 16
Con 18
Int 10
Wis 24
Cha 6
We have generous stats in our campaign, to say the least. Anyway, I'm currently a Zen Archer Monk 3/Inquisitor 1 with the conversion inquisition. I mostly wanted to take a level of inquisitor so I could be more sociable. (My dwarf is the nephew of a dwarven king and something of a diplomat, so I needed some crunch to support the role!)
But now I don't know where to go from here. Do I continue taking Monk levels? Or Inquisitor levels? Both?
Level 2: Wisdom to Initiative
Level 3+: Teamwork feats, like Enfilading Fire are actually quite good for an Inquisitor.
Level 5: Bane is a terrific class feature for archers
Level 11: Stalwart; evasion for the other saves! With a ring of evasion, being a dwarf with steel soul and glory of old, shrug off most everything!
Generally, Judgments get stronger, get some spellcasting to go with fantastic Wis score.
Level 4: Ki Pool
Level 6: Improved Precise Shot and Weapon Specialization as bonus feats
Level 8: Another attack on flurry of blows
Level 9: AoOs with bow
Level 10: Improved Critical as a bonus feat and Perfect Strike becomes roll 3 dice, take best result.
Generally, more Ki, Perfect Strike uses, scaling AC
Any thoughts? Preferences? Both fit my character concept well enough, so now I'm just mulling over the crunch.
I'm building something similar. Dhampir Kinslayer / Zen Archer. 4-5 levels of Monk for your feats and flavor, taking Manyshot and Rapid Shot as his free feats. Wisdom to attack rolls and AC is nice. Since the Wisdom to attack doesn't have a flurry or armor restriction, you can potentially use armor and forget Flurry since you won't have the Monk levels to keep it up (that's what Manyshot and Rapid Shot are for). You also gain on-demand bonuses to damage, attack (ha, like you'll need it), and several other bonuses via Judgment. I would suggest picking up spells that buff you or your allies and let your bow do the rest. Nabbing the trait that raises your caster level by +2 (up to a max of your total HD) would be superb for your Inquisitor side. Shared Judgment is a grand spell. Cure spells can be gotten via wand. Grab Barkskin via Qinggong if you're worried about AC.
Other than Flurry and Wisdom to AC, which only gets better if your stats outweigh potential armor growth, you lose nothing by being armored, so picking up a suit of chainmail is good.
Wisdom to attack takes a while to come online if you are jumping around with the multiclass. I'd like to say you can rely on it once you have it, but a +2 to Dex isn't a bad idea. You have to figure out when you NEED that to-hit bonus.
This kind of build makes the character dependant on Strength and Wisdom, ignoring Cha and Int. Con is always good to have. Dex can't be dumped since you still need it to hit for a little while, but you don't need to buy a high score like you would any other not Zen Archer build.
For you though, you have to decide what you want most from your dwarf. Do you want to pump feats (Zen Archer gains so many feats), or do you want more toys?
ZAM 3/Inquisitor 1 is hella legit. The Conversion Inquisition is my particular favorite.
I'd suggest you get a single extra level in Inquisitor for wis-to-init and Detect Alignment- two abilities which are great for in and out-of-combat usefulness.
From then on, ZAM all the way. If the campaign heads to a high level, as said above, bailing out at ZAM 8 for something else (fighter?) is worthwhile.
I imagine that continuing for inqusitor is also an option. Spells are handy and you work well off wisdom. Sure, you have less feats but I imagine you can make a nice switch hitter with that character. It´s more of a jack of all trades compared to a zen archer, but can also work.
P.S.: This is some very low charisma for a diplomat, even as a dwarf. He looks more like the security guy :P .
I think the two Inquisitor dip stopping points that you should consider are level 2 for the initiative boost & level 5 for bane! All the other things you get are gravy & nice to get for dipping but these are the dip gems IMO. More than that you are weakening what a Zen Archer can do. It is a great pure all the way class archtype. Great to stick with it the whole way with no problems. I think you should let your character decide which way you should go.
Also what Inquisitor archtype might you take if any?
What domain/inquisition? I know you chose one already but you wanna get the most bang for your buck for the levels you dip into vs. what you are losing or delaying.
For example.
I have a Tengu Zen Archer 9 and have been thinking about Inquisitor. However I wanna take it after level 10 when Perfect Strike gets 3 dice + a free feat!
11th level is Trick Shot. Cool but not awesome.
12th level is what I want! Abundant Step
At 12th level or higher, a monk can slip magically between spaces, as if using the spell dimension door. Using this ability is a move action that consumes 2 points from his ki pool. His caster level for this effect is equal to his monk level. He cannot take other creatures with him when he uses this ability.
THIS IS AWESOME!!!
Then he is flurrying 5 attacks, 6 by spending a Ki point though I will probably be choosing unarmed damage more often! I would probably go to level 2 in Inquisitor. RP has led me to think about dipping. And then maybe to level 5 if I think it would help & depending where the character is going RP wise. Though for me that is Bane at level 17. How helpful would that be by then?
As for you. You have to be ok with not getting certain abilities in Zen Archer or at least holding off on them.
My character would not get to the 6 or 7 flurry attacks progression perhaps, but Monk's Robe certainly helps make up for a few things I would be losing.
Check out this thread if you have not already. It is very helpful.
Zen and the Art of Monk Maintenance.
I don't really think going to 2nd in Inquisitor is all that worth it,
you are delaying Monk abilities/favored class and bonus Feats, which frees up a regular Feat for Improved Init if you want.
I would say either all Zen Archer, a 1 level Inquisitor dip, or maybe a 1 level Zen Archer dip with the rest Inquisitor.
I imagine that continuing for inqusitor is also an option. Spells are handy and you work well off wisdom. Sure, you have less feats but I imagine you can make a nice switch hitter with that character. It´s more of a jack of all trades compared to a zen archer, but can also work.
P.S.: This is some very low charisma for a diplomat, even as a dwarf. He looks more like the security guy :P .
To be honest, my character initially was designed to be the security guy. However, I made the mistake of developing my character. And by that, I mean mercilessly stealing from The Hobbit. He's supposed to be Kili. After I made that decision, I asked my GM if I could be the nephew of the dwarven king. (Kili is the nephew of Thorin) It being a homebrew campaign, my GM gladly obliged and proceeded to make a story arc revolving around my character. At that point, I concluded my Charisma was about to be more of a liability than I had bargained for.
...and thus I departed from pure ZAM-ness for 1 level of Inquisitor, for the Conversion inquisition and other punchy perks.
I was thinking about playing a zen archer / inquisitor a few months ago for a 9th level game; I never decided whether to stop at 2 Zen Archer levels or 3. Your Wisdom is so much higher than your Dex that you'd have wanted to stay for three levels anyway, enough to get Zen Archery.
I'd say that if you can wrangle the feats together to do archery while continuing as an inquisitor, go for that. I thought it was a fun combination (and potentially overpowered) before, and since I've been playing in a game with an inquisitor recently -- one who isn't even bow-focused but still is incredibly effective with a repeating crossbow -- I'm only more convinced.
Well, when it comes to agility, an inquisitor has access to the travel domain, which at lvl 8 means minor teleportation as a move action. Ignoring difficult terrain can be handy as well. Well, not the case here I guess, but the option exists.
FYI, there's plenty of Inquisitor Archetypes that do stuff like allowing WIS for social skills,
so you don't need to waste the Domain slot on an Inquisition to accomplish that.
I am building this character right now as well and here's what I've done so far. While I haven't taken my first level of Inquisitor yet, it is certainly my intention to do so for all the reasons listed here. I do intend to go to Inq 2 and then decided later if I want to push it to 5.
Right now I am ZAM 3/Serene Barbarian 2. Serene Barbarian is a 3rd party Archetype, so that might rule it out for you altogether, but I liked it a lot for my character. There is the alignment issue, but I actually had the author of the archetype answer the question in a thread that he believes this class should have a chaotic restriction instead of a lawful restriction (though it doesn't say so). That being said, I was 'forced' to go Aasimar with the Enlightened Warrior trait to make it work (not that Aasimar is anything to sneeze at). Serenity, as opposed to Rage, gives you +4 DEX and WIS. This grants you only the +2 to attack and not damage as rage, but it does grant you +2 to all saves and for the ZAM, +4 to AC. I took a second level to get the Scent Rage Power. Pheromone arrows grant those with the Scent ability +2/+2 on creatures marked with one. Barbarian also has full BAB, d12 HD, and +10 speed, all nice to have.
I am also very heavily flirting with one level of Empyreal Sorcerer simply for the Gravity Bow spell. I know it could be gotten with wands, but I don't want to fuss with pulling out a wand and putting it away if I need the spell quickly. I'm already spending a round to use it if I can't see the fight coming. The reason Gravity Bow is important to me is that I managed to talk my DM into giving me the 3.5 Greatbow. It's damage is 1d10 so the next size jump for it is 2d8 with Gravity Bow... sweet. For the second spell you can add Mage Armor if you wanna be closer to the action or Magic Weapon if you're worried about the loss of 1 to your BAB. You can also go Tattooed for the familiar with +4 to Initiative. With that plus Cunning Initiative, it's unlikely that you'll not go first. Throw in 4 Cantrips and it's not a bad 1 level dip.
For the Inquisitor, I am planning on the Conversion Inquisition as well and was also planning on the Infiltrator archetype to double dip WIS to my social skills, but I'm second guessing Infiltrator now since Monster Lore is looking better all the time.
You could get really crazy and look at Psionic Marksman, but then it's starting to look more like a Gestalt build.
Incidentally, our DM has just started making us all Mythic one-by-one. For my first tier I took Climbing Master and since I've already got a speed of 50, I'm now climbing at 50 as well. My next tier I'll take Impossible Speed which will add 30... to both. I think I'll like being Spiderman.
To answer your actual question... if you're sticking with ZAM and Inqisitor, I'd go ZAM 4 next for Ki, then Inq 2 for bonus to Init, then back to ZAM until 8. After that you just need to decide how badly you want Bane and decide from there.
FYI, there's plenty of Inquisitor Archetypes that do stuff like allowing WIS for social skills,
so you don't need to waste the Domain slot on an Inquisition to accomplish that.
I'm not sure it's much of a waste as the Domains are pretty nerfed for Inquisitors anyway.
So I'm playing a dwarf with the following stats:
Str 14
Dex 16
Con 18
Int 10
Wis 24
Cha 6We have generous stats in our campaign, to say the least.
I'll say! Was it just a huge point buy or were you given bonus points to use?
FYI, there's plenty of Inquisitor Archetypes that do stuff like allowing WIS for social skills,
so you don't need to waste the Domain slot on an Inquisition to accomplish that.
I suppose I should mention that I adore Monster Lore as well. Our GM is especially generous to people with good knowledge checks; bleeding out details on DR, resistances, immunity, their saving throws... The way the campaign has gone thus far, knowledge checks can almost be better than perception checks.
I'll say! Was it just a huge point buy or were you given bonus points to use?
Something of a huge point buy. That Wis bonus does include a Headband of Wis +2.