I am running the Tyrant's Grasp AP and I have a player who is stretching my adaptability and acceptance of her character build.
The PC initially created an Inquistor (Witch Hunter archetype) of Gorum. Not exactly Gorum's focus, but her backstory let me justify this, to an extent. I still had issues with her basic disregard for how poorly Gorum and the archetype fit, but I was willing to be understanding and give her time to round out the character. That did not work out.
Without discussing it with me, she opted for an Inquisition over a Domain, and chose the Spell Killer Inquisition. This gave her a very powerful build from the jump.
In my opinion, the inquisitor is a hunter of enemies and heretics of the faith, and Gorum has little to no interest in hunting down spellcasters, per se. Cowards and those who avoid or object to battle or who pervert the 'purity' of battle makes FAR more sense.
In addition, as a spell caster herself, in a party that is made up of spell casters (bloodrager, oracle, paladin, wizard, inquisitor) she could not justify her lack of focus on the other party members (or herself) as a caster, either in-game via RP or in discussions with me outside of gaming sessions.
She is combat focused (makes sense for Gorum) and her RP adheres to a worshipper of Gorum, but her abilities and build do not reflect this.
I could have worked with her, but a review of her character sheet at 5th level revealed she had given herself extra feats (two, one combat and one extra teamwork), super nice (and expensive, unaffordable) starting gear, and extra bonuses to stats (initiative, attack and damage, AC) which she could not explain, except as 'an accident'.
Rather than drop the inquisition (my only request) for either an appropriate one, or an appropriate Domain, the player completely abandoned the Inquisitor class and rebuilt as a fighter to keep the Gorum-related combat feats they'd chosen (after reducing them to the correct # of feats).
She declared the Inquisitor archetype/class weak and ineffectual without the Spell Killer inquisition.
I'm staunchly against retraining, but I am trying to be adaptable here, so I am letting the player simply switch out her levels to facilitate this update.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to moderate this person? I feel like abandoning the class bc you lost access to your RP-inaccurate, non-GM Approved ability is petty and in poor taste. However, its my first time GMing the player and I don't want to alienate them. Had they not been so egregiously built, I might have been able to come around, however with no effort on her part to justify this with RP and backstory development I just decided she couldn't have that Inquisition.
lol... look, explain it is a Game and your job is to keep things reasonably fair. Other players at this point know something is up but don't have the details until you announced that inquisitor was ineffective. 2 feats and extra stuff is beyond a simple mistake. At this point you need to bring in a new balanced PC with 90% WBL or Retrain this one taking (just numbers) 3 months game time and 5000gp. Likely the party will advance half a level while you are retraining.
I'd hate to see you go but I have allowed you to create this situation. We both knew better, but no biggie, it is a Game and we are here for a story and adventure.
This time I'll help you create an awesome PC that is legal and fits the campaign so we can all have fun.
Let's avoid clerical or divine classes as they come with storyline strings attached where you have to follow those extra guidelines. Just my opinion but fighter, rogue, unch rogue, ninja, and swashbuckler seem a good fit for how you want to play. What do you think?
--You seem to be here, so check the PC build and wealth, rename it, get her to agree and carry on as a new PC--
Let everyone know you can help when the new level gain comes around and you'll check everyone's build at 6th & 7th.
GM wise their PC gets a bad dream where their deity lays out their unacceptable behaviour and a path to redemption, then an alignment infraction, can not prepare any new divine spells, lose any SU abilities, need to write an apology to their deity, get a cleric of their faith and +1 level to cast Atonement on them costing 1250gp (or more).
In future when a PC does something that could be an alignment/obedience/vow infraction tell them before they do it. Some people need obvious & clear choices.
Personally, I do not see the problem with the archetype and the deity. I can easily see a follower of Gorum regarding most arcane casters as cowards. Usually, they do not use weapons and armor and have little to no skill in combat. They also often use enchantments and illusion in battle which Gorum might consider cheating. Even if this is not the main focus of Gorum’s religion it is not incompatible with his teachings. Religions often have multiple sects with different ideas. Gorum is Chaotic Neutral and if the idea generates conflict and battle, he is probably ok with it.
The Witch Hunter archetype specifies they focus on hunting down arcane casters, especially witches. They do not have any problems with divine casters. So, the character not focusing on the divine casters is not a problem. The Bloodrager may be an arcane caster but is still a warrior, so him getting a free pass is fine. The only party member that the character might have problems with would be the wizard.
In all honesty I think your forcing the character to drop the inquisition is uncalled for and overreacting. You are justified in making sure the character is legal, so removing the extra feats and stats are perfectly acceptable.
It sounds like there's been some poor communication on both sides, but I have to agree with Stranger's assessment.
What race is the PC? I'm not very familiar with the archetypes in question, but inquisitors do pick up several bonus teamwork feats, as well as whatever might be gained from race. By the same token, were the various extra bonuses coming from her Judgement class features? It could be that these were honest mistakes if she missed the part about Judgement being a modular feature with limited uses per day. That does seem a far stretch, but if this player is inexperienced, it is possible.
The spellkiller inquisition also gives Disruptive as a bonus feat even though they do not meet the prerequisites. They also add both DEX and WIS to initiative once they reach 2nd level. In addition to getting multiple teamwork feats as bonus feats, they can change their latest teamwork feat a number of times per day equal to their WIS bonus. This means they have access to pretty much any teamwork feat they qualify for. Judgements could explain the combat bonus. If the person is using something like Hero Lab, they may have simply checked to many boxes and forgot to uncheck those they were no longer using.
Inquisitor is one of the most complex classes with tons of options. I would suggest reviewing the character again after reviewing all the features of both the archetype and inquisition.
This post is kinda weird. I feel like we're missing some subtext or pre-existing relationships among the group.
The title is "help me help my player" but the post is about the GM's frustrations. More like "help my player see things my way." And it seems the GM is more annoyed by the fact that the player took a particular inquisition the GM doesn't like than the extra feats, money, and stats. Not to say it's all on the GM. At least from this telling it seems like the player isn't going to abide by the GM's wishes on how the campaign will run. Normally this would be a "how do I kick this player out without offending" post, but it's not. All of which gives the impression there is more going on.
Anyway here's some options:
1) Take a breath and reset.
Talk with ALL the players together at or preferably before the next actual play session. Discuss what the campaign is going to be about and what kind of characters (mechanically and temperamentally) are a good fit for the campaign. Let anyone switch who wants to. Work out the characters together as a group. Then you as the GM can audit the mechanics of each if you suspect mistakes.
2) Don't fight what you don't need to fight.
If the player is going to make a new, completely legal character, let her. There's no reason to continue to debate whether Spellkiller is a good fit for the inquisitor. Or to berate her about her wanting to change. Let it wash over you and integrate the new character as if the previous did not exist. Unless she keeps changing, or refusing to play nice with others. In which case...
3) Sometimes you have to say goodbye.
Don't let this player make you miserable, or the rest of the group miserable. If everything is an argument, you do need to say "This is not the group for you."
As for the Gorumite Spellkiller:
Personally, I'm fine with the inquisition. Despite the name there's nothing about "we hate all arcane casters and want to kill them all" in the text. The inquisition is about being more effective when you DO get into a fight with one. (The name is good advertising to make casters more fearful!) There are martial feats and archetypes that give bonuses when fighting enemies equipped with certain weapons - like a longsword. That doesn't mean people with those abilities set out to kill everyone who owns a longsword. Since inquisitors, like all Gorumites, love a battle, I could easily see a young inquisitor deciding that challenging enemies capable of putting a fireball in your face is the pinnacle of bravery and therefore getting an inquisition to help with that calling.
I'm less happy with the archetype, actually. But only barely. Most of it could fit into the same theme of challenging arcane casters as long as you play down the particular focus on witches. The Spell Scent ability doesn't really fit that great with an inquisitor of Gorum of any stripe, thought I don't see it as a dealbreaker.
From what I have read on Gorum he did not really care about causes as long as it resulted in battle. I believe he would even support both sides of a war just to encourage more violence. I could see a young barbarian whose family was slaughter by witches declaring a war on witches. Gorum would probably be more than happy to support this. If the campaign was set in Golarion it would make sense for the character to be from an area in or near Irrisen and have the White Witches be the ones that killed his family.
Inquisitors are not clerics are supposed to be given more freedom in their actions. To become an ex-inquisitor requires the character to become corrupt or change to a prohibited alignment. The rules do not really define what corruption is, so that is pretty much up to the GM. I do not see that Gorum would consider attacking arcane caster (or really anyone else for that matter) as being corrupt.
This actually sounds like kind of a cool character to play.
Just a brief addition on Gorum vs spellcasters:
The advanced benefit of Gorum's Swordsmanship (Divine Fighting Technique) is specifically useful against spellcasters only.
So theoretically, a vital strike build on a Witch Hunter Inquisitor with the spell killer inquisition is definitely on point for a Gorumite that wants to put those battlefield-control casters in their place.
