Made long post, managed to press F5, FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU!
Trying again ...
Other then people hating Pathfinder in general
That would probably be it, the min/max community in general has a real hatred for pazio and a lot of the pathfinder community.
GitP or the Pazio boards would likley be a better source of advice but they are not really known for their skill at optimising...
Not so much needing advice as reading thoughts on the class. Looking at the opinions of others, and wasting more time reading. Just wondering why there's so little about them here. Even tho people arent especially fond of Pathfinder, there are several threads on other PF-classes.
I havent been at the Pazio boards. Might go take a look, if for nothing else then humoring myself with fanboys-posts.
The inquisitor won't ever 'suck' compared to full casters any more than any other 2/3 casters will. I think part of the reason that there's little attention to them (aside from the fact that most people here don't like PF) is that they were released in the same book as the Alchemist and the Summoner, two really good classes, and so got ignored somewhat. An Inquisitor doesn't need much to make them viable either, they're pretty solidly built and there aren't many tricks you can do with their class features. (Unlike combining alchemist archetypes, discoveries and spells to create miniature skin golems, inta-death injections, absolutely abominable melee pounce builds; or dicking about with eidolons)
Inquisitor - take a decent melee tactic and build for it and use your class features as bonuses. They're pretty solid at intimidation tactics (e.g. take the Cornugon Smash feat)
Planning on doing Cornugon Smash. Other then that, its selfish self-buffing, Improved Critical and Bleeding Critical with a Rapier (thats the plan, but those feats are far away yet, so who knows what happens. Might even go for the Falcata). Other then that, its flanking focus from teamwork feats, as we have a summoner druid that should help me get the flanking benefit most of the time.
Ive taken a look at the Alchemist, and even thos its a bit whacky, it could be some fun. Imo, they could have spent a little more time writing the thing. Some stuff didnt make sense, and were put in just to get some mechanics in order, without it making any sense at all. But but, it wasnt my cup of tea for now
From the
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1389.0 Tier-list Alchemist is considered same tier as Inquisitor. Not that it says a lot, but ...
The main "problems" with Inquisitor are:
1) They're presented as an archer class, yet in practice are TERRIBLE for it.
2) The religious fluff, domain, HD, saves, BAB, and proficiencies make them look VERY similar to clerics. Except...they get gimped casting and half the domains and none of the domain spells/slots. So, the question becomes, "why ever play one over a cleric?" Which is a valid question to ask of many classes since cleric is so godly (heh, pun), but Inquisitor suffers for being so darn similar.
It's not a bad class by any means. Melee and/or intimidating, it can do pretty well for itself, and there are a few gems in the spell list.
Hmm, what made you think of them as an archer class other then the picture of them holding a bow? Ive always had a mental image of Inquisitors as melee. Brutes of faith doing the dirty work the clerics doesnt always want to do themself etc.
Yes, very much a cleric-clone in some parts, but more focus on combat (with bane and judgement, as well as teamwork feats) was my thought. When we needed a BigStupidFighter (the other two in the party beeing a lazy witch and a summoner druid), it seemed a nice class to get cleric buffs along with some more melee-buffs for tanking.
In the last campain (3.5) I was a Cleric/Ordained Champion/Bone Knight/Paragnostic Apostle, and I LOVED the toon. Mixing up a weird combo that fit my character was awsome, but with the limited selection of Prestige Classes, and extreme restrictions from my DM (only one trait, no drawbacks, occupation to be considered by him, Core Rulebook with some stuff from Advanced Players Guide allowed, no Ultimate Combat, no Ultimate Magic (at least not yet) etc) made me look at Inquisitor instead of the regular Cleric.
The campain wont ever even get close to lvl 20, so the endgame, GOD-spells etc wont come into play. Cause of that, the Inquisitor seemed a nice choice to go with the others. The druid will probably optimize, but the witch was a waste of space in the beginning at least. Doing Burning Hands, Healing Hex and a crossbow that never once hit as she didnt have Precise Shot wasnt very useful. Not Slumber Hex, Sleep, Color Spray or anything interesting, and she healed the druid that was standing behind his animal compain with a reach weapon rather then me tanking in the front. But, enough rant about dead-weight witches
So, in the end, a question. If you look at a campain that might go to lvl 12 or so. Would the Inquisitor maybe be considered T2 for that part? The cleric buffs, spontanious casting with increased spells from Human FCB, and good tanking skills made the toon rather nice at the beginning.
Not that it matters. Having a T3 while the rest of the party is T1 makes me able to optimize/do whatever I want without the DM complaining about me beeing overpowered (hopefully, tho he has already favoured the witch, which is his girlfriend, with better magic gear, while demanding almost 50% more gold for the druids gear, out of no other reason then she not knowing her toon, thus needing much better stuff then she could usually get). (Ok, second attempt to stop ranting about dead-weight witches
) Anyways, its better to play with a whacky group, then not play at all.