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Every inquisitor I've seen has been a primarily martial weapon build (usually THW but I've seen 1 archer) that also happens to have a bunch of self buff spells and neat special abilities that also end up being self buffing.
I Know the inquisitor doesn't have as many spells as full primary caster. But the inquisitor does have a few offensive spells that I happen to like. The Piercing judgment will help get past SR.
Has anyone ever tried am inquisitor that is build primarily to be an offensive caster and the martial capabilities are just a backup for when he doesn't have spells to burn?
Just wondering if it is reasonably possible.
I haven't played an Inquisitor myself, but I feel like their spell list is mostly buffs and support without a lot of "offesnive" spells. Especially when considering how many good buff spells there are on their spell list its hard to fill a spell known slot with spells that are going to have lacking save DCs.
I mean...I guess you could build an Inquisitor like you would a full divine caster and be a competent offensive caster, but then why wouldn't you play a full divine caster. Clerics and Oracles both offer stronger spell lists with more offensive options (at higher levels) IIRC.
The way I see it the Inquisitor is a martial with good backup casting to help him through tough situations.
Clerics and Oracles are full casters with the ability to fall back on martial skills when they don't want to waste spell slots or have nothing better to do.
The inquisitor simply does not have enough offensive spells to make this a viable build. The only 1st level spell they have that does more than 1d6 points of damage is Ear-Piercing Scream which still only does a maximum of 5d6 to a single target at level 10. The best 2nd level offensive spell they have is Blistering Invective and the ability to demoralize everyone in a 30’ radius is more important than the 1d10 damage. Starting at 3rd level you get some decent damaging spells but usually only one per spell level. Considering that Inquisitors gain new spell levels every 3 levels instead of every 2 this means puts them even further behind. Having to wait till 7th level to get Searing Light when the cleric got it at 5th makes it even worse.
Since an inquisitor also gets a limited number of spells know this makes it even harder. The inquisitor’s spell list does not offer enough versatility of offense spells to be able to deal with different types of foes. Many of their direct damage spells deal fire damage, and the indirect spells are usually limited to certain targets.
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I mean...I guess you could build an Inquisitor like you would a full divine caster and be a competent offensive caster, but then why wouldn't you play a full divine caster. Clerics and Oracles both offer stronger spell lists with more offensive options (at higher levels) IIRC.
Because he wants to do it as an inquisitor and doesn't want to do what he feels as trite, overdone or expected?
When I see these types of questions that is what I imagine the op is thinking- I know I could be wrong but still.
I have a super awesome tank who does so via delivering a crap ton of debuffs through melee attacks and saves. He can debuff/tank up to 3 targets per round and two that are adjacent. There are several hurdles and conditions to his tanking style, but when it works, it works well.
I know that I could just play a wizard with persistent spell and debuff -everybody- or summon monsters who could tank for me. So why didn't I just play a wizard? Well, it is a role playing game. I did not have am interest in playing the role of a wizard. I wanted a monk who could control the enemy and tank. It didn't matter that other, possibly better options existed. Those options are the standard, overdone, boring. I wanted something different so I made it.
When I see posts like the OP's, I default to this line of thinking. I personally think a casting inquisitor is an intriguing concept and would like to see a fleshed out build and how good it is, and then if we could optimize it.
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casting inquisitor been done, it's nothing too special really:
Assuming 15 point buy:
Human Spellbreaker 1
Str 10
Dex 9
Con 14
Int 14
Wis 16 +2 racial =18
Cha 7
feats: Improved Initiative, Lightning reflexes (your reflex save is atrocious) or get Boon companion.
Domain: feather subdomain, gain an animal companion or dragon subdomain if you want to eventually have a dragon breath. Trade subdomain is a possibility too if you want to be a nightcrawler kind of character, teleporting around the battlefield.
Spells: Litany of Sloth and Forbid action are decent 1st level spells and would usually shut up any enemies failing their saves. The new acg spell Animal general purpose training, could potentially make your animal companion more flexible if you have the feather subdomain.
You essentially just trying to get your wis dc as high possible and disable opponents on the battlefield.
Which magic school to choose later on? it depends really, evocation can protect you against a lot of damage but transmutation and necromancy tends to be the big arcane school of save or die kind of spells.
Because he wants to do it as an inquisitor and doesn't want to do what he feels as trite, overdone or expected? ...I mean...I guess you could build an Inquisitor like you would a full divine caster and be a competent offensive caster, but then why wouldn't you play a full divine caster. Clerics and Oracles both offer stronger spell lists with more offensive options (at higher levels) IIRC.
A few people have been asking me for help with characters lately. For the various build concepts/roles/capabilities that they have asked for, I almost always find an inquisitor is one of the better options. Especially when the person says they want to be able to do at least a few different things fairly well.
The only ones that it hasn't have been a simple to run basic weapon heavy damage dealer (I love the inquisitor, but I don't think many will claim it is anywhere near 'simple to run') and the primary offensive caster.
Then I got to thinking... Well they do have a few good offensive spells. They are much easier to keep alive than a sorc or wizard. Hmm...
Sanctified Slayer is a good option for this. Studied Target applies to save DCs of class abilities, and spells are class abilities.
Oooo... That did not occur to me. I will have to look into that this weekend.
A caster Inquisitor is certainly possible, but he is not going to be good as an offensive caster. The inquisitors spell list is full of utility and buff spell, not offensive spells. The few low level offensives spells the inquisitor gets don’t scale well as you level up. Cause Fear for example is a good spell at 1st level, but is useless at 10th. For a cleric this is not a problem because he simply memorizes another spell after Cause Fear is no longer useful. The inquisitor does not have that option, he only knows a certain amount of spells period. True he can swap out spells starting at 5th, but he can only do that for a limited number of spells. If he takes too many spells that do not scale he ends up with many useless spells.
Forbid action only works for 1 round so your 10th level inquisitor spent your round and one of your spells to prevent a single target from performing a specific action. Nothing in the spell prevents him from performing another action. In the right circumstance this can be very useful, but compare that to Wizard casting charm person, or magic missile and you realize how weak it is. So you tell the BBEG not to attack and instead he summons up a monster, or activates a defense.
If you're high level, I'd say to go for Spell Perfection (blade barrier) then start piling on the metamagic feats. I don't see to many other offensive spells on their list that can be used similarly though.
I mean...I guess you could build an Inquisitor like you would a full divine caster and be a competent offensive caster, but then why wouldn't you play a full divine caster. Clerics and Oracles both offer stronger spell lists with more offensive options (at higher levels) IIRC.
Because he wants to do it as an inquisitor and doesn't want to do what he feels as trite, overdone or expected?
When I see these types of questions that is what I imagine the op is thinking- I know I could be wrong but still.
I have a super awesome tank who does so via delivering a crap ton of debuffs through melee attacks and saves. He can debuff/tank up to 3 targets per round and two that are adjacent. There are several hurdles and conditions to his tanking style, but when it works, it works well.
I know that I could just play a wizard with persistent spell and debuff -everybody- or summon monsters who could tank for me. So why didn't I just play a wizard? Well, it is a role playing game. I did not have am interest in playing the role of a wizard. I wanted a monk who could control the enemy and tank. It didn't matter that other, possibly better options existed. Those options are the standard, overdone, boring. I wanted something different so I made it.
When I see posts like the OP's, I default to this line of thinking. I personally think a casting inquisitor is an intriguing concept and would like to see a fleshed out build and how good it is, and then if we could optimize it.
Firstly, and I may be reading a tone that does not exist, but your vehemence is not necessary.
Secondly, Inquisitor (as a class) is not a concept. You could play the same basic concept with the Inquisitor, Cleric, or Oracle classes. Some have better mechanical packages for accomplishing these various things. I'm not telling him not to play a offensive divine caster with some back-up melee capacity. That is a concept, and a fun one at that. What I am telling him however, is that mechanically the Inquisitor is ill suited to be primarily an offensive caster for the group. They are martial combatants with support casting increasing that potential, and a wee bit of opportunity for offense with it.
Rather than saddling a class with something that it's not good at, choose a concept and then find things that support it. If the goal is to be different we can attempt to optimize an offensive Inquisitor, but I don't think his goal is an offensive Inquisitor. But rather the goal is an offensive caster with some back up martial might.
I’ve seen an inquisitor use Spiritual Weapon to good effect by applying Bane and offensive judgements to it. That's a combination unique to the inquisitor.
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@Claxon, you were right. No tone existed. You were not making your query as though 'only the best options should be chosen'. It did, however, echo some of that sentiment and I definitely wanted to address it since the op mentioned making a casting based inquisitor. In my opinion, there is a certain level of common sense and things that are usually obvious. So when someone asks a question I give their intelligence the benefit of the doubt and don't do investigative questioning on their real motives and what they really want to play and suggest things that end up being completely unrelated or tangientally so. You know. You have seen this here, I am sure. Not that you made an unrelated suggestion. I am only speaking in generalities.
If someone says, 'help me make an offensive casting rogue' I think, this will be fun and how many posts until someone misses the point and suggests they play an actual spellcasting class?
But please take no offense. None was intended (though my tact skill check may have failed).
Insofar as concepts go, I know that logically a character class name or character name doesn't actually mean or define anything mechanically. You can even strip names away from everything in the game and just label crap as 'class 001' and 'ability-001453'. All that matters is the mechanical function when it comes down to measurable results. But the flip side is that people do like meaningful labels, they so have attachments to concepts as presented and as they wish them to be, and they do want to play an actual ninja class and not a vivisectionist alchemist because hey- the name.
There is always some level of compromise and adherance depending on the player. The same level and type of phenomenon can be seen in peoples views about dipping. I love and hate it finding that more often than not it is unrealistic and pure munchkin power gaming. But I absolutely love it for the occasional concepts it helps create and for the very thing I decry from time to time the mechanical munchkiny power gaming advantage I can squeeze out of it. :)
In short (and in this case I was right but not necessarily in all cases would I be) when the op says he wants to make a casting inquisitor, I assume he actually wants to play an inquisitor, not an oracle or cleric because those are super obvious choices and he didn't choose those. I assume he knows about at least one of those two primary casting classes already because he was smart enough to sign up for the forums so he probably read the crb along the way. I assume he actually has a rudimentary understanding of how the class works and even if misguided in goal, he still wants this. I surmise, based on these evidences, that he is trying to make something at least a little different. Granted, that is a lot of assumptions and you know what they say about them. But I can't assume they don't know this stuff either. I would personally be insulted if people treated me like I didn't know what I was doing unless I told them 'hey, I don't really know what I'm doing'. As is the case when I try to dance. Unfortunately, no one helps because they realize it is a hopeless case and I am left to humiliate myself until the music is over or security or the dj ask me to stop.
Am I making any sense or just rambling? Or a bit of both?
A little of A and B. I understand you point, I just don't think it appropriate to dismiss advice like "consider another class" and I like to make as few assumptions as possible.
His question was "It is possible?" and the general answer is "No, not really". But rather than just saying that I wanted to provide an alternative that can provide a similar feel to an Inquisitor but can accomplish the general goal well.
The problem the Inquisitor has is that he just don't have enough of the right kinds of spells on his spell list to be effective at this role.
Sorry, but that is not legal. Spiritual Weapon disallows any modification of the weapon.
I refer you to this thread, in which I posed that very question and was overruled based on a FAQ.
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As you mentioned the piercing judgement helping to get past SR, likely if you need to punch through SR the arsenal the inquisitor has for offensive spells seems rather lacking.
I could see a caster focused inquisitor to do some buffing/debuffing, but the class itself seems to be designed more towards melee first, then ranged, with casting to round out your decisions.
I guess my next question would be which spells do you like which wanted you to try and focus on being more of a caster first? As well as, what class features does the inquisitor have that wants you to play one over say a cleric or oracle as mentioned earlier (both of which can possess comparable melee/ranged abilities but with far more variety and access to spellcasting).
Hopefully there's enough between those questions to possibly find other options as an inquisitor or even another class/archetype and satisfying the same needs.
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I refer you to this thread, in which I posed that very question and was overruled based on a FAQ.Sorry, but that is not legal. Spiritual Weapon disallows any modification of the weapon.
Ok, that is interesting. I posted to the other thread, but that seems to make spiritual weapon a great spell for warpriests.
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...As well as, what class features does the inquisitor have that wants you to play one over say a cleric or oracle as mentioned earlier (both of which can possess comparable melee/ranged abilities but with far more variety and access to spellcasting).
Hopefully there's enough between those questions to possibly find other options as an inquisitor or even another class/archetype and satisfying the same needs.
Pretty sure you missed the point (and the op's recent post). The goal is not about making a typical caster at all. No other class has anything to do with the purpose of the question. The class features that are inspiring him are the combination of 6th level casting and everything else that makes it an inquisitor. It's the very obvious seeming issue that the class does not seem to be designed as a primary caster but has a good spell list and plenty of spells that he wants to see if he can make it function as one.
This is not, in any way, some secret desire to actually play a full caster that does everything a full caster does. This has nothing to do with typical optimization. This has everything to do with 'Hey, here is a strange idea and underused concept-I wonder if it can work'. So he is asking for suggestion to make it work.
If it helps to clarify:
example- title: Optimized martial wizard?
Content: I want to make a wizard who only fights in melee. Is this possible? I am really leaning toward divination as my specialty and using divination spells to aid me in combat if that can be done.
Suggestions?
Now I would hope you could gather that I don't want to play a fighter and sure as heck know that a martial wizard is frowned upon. Regardless, any suggestions that deviate from the concept will largely be unhelpful since suggesting, in this case, playing a fighter or playing a magus is just going to be wasted posts, wasted reading and wasted time I want a diviner wizard and I want to melee with him. 9th level casting is only relevant if along the way I have good tools to melee with or if they directly improve my melee capabilities.
Tangentially related suggestions like Sorceror with a bloodline that is close to concept and the dragon disciple PRC are more useful than being told the obvious: wizards are better off as full casters casting spells to do what wizards normally do.
I hope I helped shed a little light on this. All the poster wants is to see how to make an offensive casting heavy inquisitor. The existence of other classes that can do it better or other class features that aren't suited for casting are utterly irrelevant. Therefor, investigative questioning and fact finding motives is only going to delay the objectice which is to have your probably very interesting take on an unorthidox character idea. :)
PS. If you felt an unpleasant tone was present in my post just imagine I used a Batman voice and was grabbing you by the shirt collar and slamming you against dark alley walls and garbage bins. Now tell me where to find the Joker!
This is mostly a thought experiment. I will not have the opportunity to play the proposed build in the very near future at a home game. Though if the concept is good enough, I might make it my 5th PFS character.
While I do specialize a build to a certain extent I almost never specialize to the extent proposed by many people on these boards. Whenever I see in actual play someone run one of the super specialized builds, they seem to spend a bunch of time in social encounters or combats with virtually nothing to contribute. They look bored and/or frustrated. I hate that. I want to nearly always have something meaningful that I can contribute to almost any given situation. I try to make sure every build has at least 2 significant things it can contribute in most any combat and at least 2 things it can contribute out of combat. Most of the people that ask me to make a build for them seem to want the same things. (Otherwise I assume they ask someone else.)
Recent examples include:
1) Sneaky enough to be a scout with enough skills left to be useful in non-combat situation. But must be able to hang in a fight. It's a game with magic, of course I want spells.
2) I want to be a mix of caster and weapons but I don't like screwing around with the spell books and all the prepared caster crap.
3) A group of Tieflings that function great together and is really into the teamwork feats.
Etc...
I very commonly hear:
Must have pretty good skills
Not as squishy as a wizard
No spell books
Don't like prepared casters
Don't want charisma casting, I'm tired of being the party face
Good enough with weapons to be a secondary martial
Very often with the multiple competing requirements I get (or impose on myself), inquisitor is usually one of the top choices for making the build.
It has started to become something of a joke amongst my friends. "What about... Inquisitor!" No, we don't all play inquisitors. When I give them 2 or 3 choices that will fit their concept or perceived party role, inquisitor is almost always one of the choices.
It is not a charisma caster. (Many people seem to dislike those.)
It is a spontaneous caster. (Much preferred by a wide margin.)
Medium BaB, Medium HD, decent weapons, attack goodies on the order of smite even if not quite so good.
Pretty high skill points.
Bonuses to certain skills to stretch your skill points even further.
Teamwork bonus feats, help promote working with the group.
Damn site less squishy than wizards and sorcerers which many people seem to have trouble keeping alive.
No dead levels where it doesn't function or is boring.
All in all it seems to do most of what people want to do.
In making various build designs and concepts one of the few that inquisitor didn't seem to fit into was the offensive caster. Since they are primarily a martial or skill monkey, wisdom is never high enough to make use of the offensive spells.
But I started wondering, what if it was. Instead of a sorc that needs to add feats, skills, dips, etc... to his build just for survival. (Things which are then not being used for offense.) What if I took a class like this that already has things for survival and really focused everything else on the casting?
Even if I max wisdom for casting, the inquisitor still has enough hp, AC, weapons, and other stuff to be a backup martial when casting won't work or isn't a worthwhile option.
Is an inquisitor that focuses almost exclusively on casting in approximately the same effectiveness range as a sorc that has to spend some of his focus on making sure he stays alive?
I'm not sure. My first thought was: no. But my second thought was: well maybe.
Very few of my ideas have actually been at all original. So I asked here to see if it had already been done, investigated, tried, dropped, loved, or reviled. If it has, then that saves me a bunch of time considering it. If not, then it would appear to be one of my few original ideas - wondrously needing investigation.
So far it would appear that most people haven't really considered it but don't think it is worth the effort. A few people have seen one and thought it was rather meh. An even smaller number of people think it is a good idea.
So I will probably try to put one together at a few different levels and compare it to some more typical caster builds and see what it look like.