I think an Inquisitor with the Cloak of Mirrors and Carsomyr would put up a great fight until late levels.
People need to realize that the vast majority of damage from a F/M comes from physical attacks, not spells. Unless we're talking BG1 levels, spells are almost always inferior in damage output, and far less reliable.
As for Carsomyr, it depends how you define the setting. In the vanilla game Carsomyr is certainly available ridiculously early, and there are few gear pieces of comparable power that you can get equally early. One that springs to mind though is Celestial Fury - Paladins have great saves, but at lower levels they *will* fail some of them, allowing for at least partial stun-locking from an Improved Hasted F/M.
I think that at lower levels things just become more random. Failed saves or to-hit rolls have a much larger impact than later on. The basic premise of the strategy remains, though: outmatch the Inquisitor's dispelling capabilities with defensive spells. There is no I-Win-Button with Time Stop, so you'd have to slug it out; Improved Haste does a *lot* there.
If you go even lower in levels you reach a point where the F/M basically just gambles on an a failed save. Land a Sleep or Emotion and it's pretty much over, Blind also does nasty things.
I think you can see the pattern here: the Inquisitor simply has too few tools to work with. Without HLAs especially, all they can do is pop True Sight and Dispel, and attack. Compared to the mage spellbook, I think it's not hard to see that you can easily construct situations that are if not instant wins then at least very difficult for an Inquisitor to overcome.
I wouldn't exclude the possibility of certain level breakpoints where things are more even, I haven't actually checked all the levels. But I have a feeling that Carsomyr (and similar equipment) have a non-trivial impact, and are hard to place in terms of "appropriate level".
Interesting the comments earlier about the F/M actually winning in a straight melee fight (if the Inquisitor needs to guard against using HLAs). Although with hindsight I probably shouldn't be too surprised - the THAC0 for both is probably low enough to nearly always hit the opponent no matter what they are using. And the F/M's extra attack through grandmastery will likely outweigh the small amount of additional hp the Inquisitor has.
Although I'd be interested to see the maths. The Inquisitor should be able to about -10 AC (full plate +3, 4 dex bonus, 1 AC cloak, 1 AC helm and Ring of Gaxx. The 13F/M has a base THAC0 of 7. With to hit bonuses of say +3 from strength, +5 from weapon and +4 from grandmastery thats a THAC0 of -5. So he's still going to miss 25% of the time. I would have thought that would outweigh the 0.5 extra attack/round.
I think that at lower levels things just become more random. Failed saves or to-hit rolls have a much larger impact than later on. The basic premise of the strategy remains, though: outmatch the Inquisitor's dispelling capabilities with defensive spells. There is no I-Win-Button with Time Stop, so you'd have to slug it out; Improved Haste does a *lot* there.
If you go even lower in levels you reach a point where the F/M basically just gambles on an a failed save. Land a Sleep or Emotion and it's pretty much over, Blind also does nasty things.
With a 13F>?M it can't really go below 13F>14M. Otherwise the F/M doesn't have his fighter abilities back and the Inquisitor will slaughter him other than, as you say, the F/M getting lucky with saving throws.
Also I think that if the F/M is too low level for timestop, then there's very little stopping the Inquisitor from using his HLAs. As you mention, spell damage alone just isn't high enough to make it worth using spells.
I think it probably depends on the cast time of PfMW. If the F/M can get it down to instant casting then he can wait for the Inquisitor to use GWW, then PfMW. By the time the Inquisitor can dispel it (next round), the F/M has probably pretty much won the fight. But if PfMW can't be reduced to instant cast then I don't see the F/M casting it successfully through 10 attacks/round.
The Fighter / Mage probably has more than 0.5 extra attacks - I think everyone assumed the Inquisitor would be using Carsomyr, so the F/M dual wielding has one attack extra. Assuming that second weapon is Belm means another additional attack. There's also Haste, Improved Haste, Tenser's etc and any kit bonuses from the F part of the F/M.
With a 13F>?M it can't really go below 13F>14M. Otherwise the F/M doesn't have his fighter abilities back and the Inquisitor will slaughter him other than, as you say, the F/M getting lucky with saving throws.
F13 was the original premise (and I very much believe that F9 is better anyway), but I'm talking about different ones; a F7/M8 vs. Inq13 for example, or some other combination like it. Obviously you'd assume regained levels in any case, though.
I think it probably depends on the cast time of PfMW. If the F/M can get it down to instant casting then he can wait for the Inquisitor to use GWW, then PfMW. By the time the Inquisitor can dispel it (next round), the F/M has probably pretty much won the fight. But if PfMW can't be reduced to instant cast then I don't see the F/M casting it successfully through 10 attacks/round.
Pretty sure PfMW has cast time 1 from the get-go; not that it matters, any setup including Carsomyr would by definition have to include Amulet of Power and Robe of Vecna, too. There are no alternatives to even consider for the mage, an easy choice.
Although I'd be interested to see the maths. The Inquisitor should be able to about -10 AC (full plate +3, 4 dex bonus, 1 AC cloak, 1 AC helm and Ring of Gaxx. The 13F/M has a base THAC0 of 7. With to hit bonuses of say +3 from strength, +5 from weapon and +4 from grandmastery thats a THAC0 of -5. So he's still going to miss 25% of the time. I would have thought that would outweigh the 0.5 extra attack/round.
When I did my calcs earlier, I used the weapon loadout given in the OP (leaving aside the absurdity of the F/M only having Equalizer and Daystar while the Inquisitor has Carsomyr +6). Assuming each combatant has a 19 STR...
(Warning, excessive math ahead)
Inquisitor:
Carsomyr has a base damage of 1d12+6, or 12.5 average damage. The Inquisitor gets +7 for 19 STR, +2 for specialization, bringing it up to 21.5. His THAC0 is so good he can auto-hit the F/M, but he can still critical miss, which brings expected damage down by 5% to 20.425. Two handed style gives the Inquisitor a 10% chance to crit for double damage, bringing average damage up by 4.3 to 24.725. He has 2.5 attacks per round, so on average he'll do 61.81 damage per round to the F/M
Note: for the purposes of this calculation, I'm assuming a -6 AC for the Inquisitor (Full Plate +3, 18 Dex) and no miscellaneous THAC0 boosters for the F/M. Yes, the Inquisitor could stack a little more AC through miscellaneous items; the F/M could gain additional THAC0 in the same fashion. The more items we add into the equation, though, the more we have to argue about what a reasonable set looks like, so I'm trying to go minimal. I don't want to get into an argument over how many Rings of Gaxx are floating around and who gets them. I assume the F/M has the Robe of Vecna for tactical purposes since the Inquisitor gets a class-defining artifact, which cedes any possibility of having an AC good enough to put the Inquisitor back on the die.
Fighter/Mage:
THAC0: The F/M has base THAC0 7, +3 from a 19 STR, +3 for Grandmastery, +3 for Equalizer, for a total of -2. This means the F/M hits on a roll of 3 or better, or a 90% hit chance with the main hand.
Equalizer deals 1d8+6 damage to Lawful Good opponents, for an average damage of 10.5. The F/M gets +7 from STR, +5 from Grandmastery, for 22.5. The F/M's 90% hit chance drops that back down to 20.25, and his potential crit damage adds 2.25 for 22.45. Daystar deals 1d8+2 for 6.5, plus 12 for STR and Grandmastery for 18.5, plus 6 from Equalizer (as the alignment bonus bleeds over to all attacks) for 24.5. Adjusting for crit and a 75% hit chance (-2 THAC0 for off hand, -1 for only being +1) give us 20.825. The F/M gets 3 attacks with the main weapon thanks to Grandmastery, and one attack with the off hand, giving an expected damage per round of 81.575. So the F/M outdamages the Inquisitor by about 20 points per round, which more than compensates for the Inquisitor's meager hit point advantage.
Alternate:
Now, you might argue that Equalizer is a cheesy weapon to pick for the F/M, both because of its glitchy implementation and because it capitalizes on the Paladin's extreme argument. So let's consider a different pair of weapons the F/M could reasonably acquire by the time the Inquisitor has Carsomyr +6: Angurvadal +5 and The Answerer. To forestall complaints that The Answerer is tailored to a fight against the Inquisitor, we're going to ignore its special properties. Those properties don't mean much in a fight where the F/M is already in auto-hit territory and plans on casting buff spells instead of direct attacks anyway (A speed weapon would be more optimized, but let's ignore that for sake of demonstration).
Angurvadal gives the F/M a 22 STR and is a +5 weapon, so his THAC0 is -5, enough to only miss on a 1. THAC0 with The Answerer will be -2 for a 90% hit chance.
Angurvadal = 1d8+5+1d4+1+10 (STR)+5 = 28 avg. damage Adjusted for crit and miss chance: 29.4
The Answerer = 1d8+4+10+5 = 23.5 avg. damage Adjusted for crit and miss chance: 23.5 (missing 10% of the time with a 5% chance for double damage balances out)
Expected damage per round: 111.7
There are three one handed weapons that would do even more damage than Angurvadal, and a speed weapon would also result in higher damage.
Hence my earlier assessment: If the two trade blows, the F/M comes out ahead. The Inquisitor must use an ability to try to gain the advantage. As soon as he does, he creates an opening for the F/M to use an instant cast spell either for temporary immunity (PfMW) or leisurely re-positioning for a Time Stop (Imp. Invis/Mislead).
@Kaigen: Thanks for the calculations! Not sure why you'd go with sub-optimal weapons in the original scenario, but it's still a very valid point. Napkin math with the best weapon setup (FoA+5/Belm) has numbers even more ridiculous, a good 20% higher than your setup.
One thing, though: you seem to be forgetting that we're dealing with a dual-class here. Now, it wasn't explicitly mentioned, but there is no reason for a F13/M20 not to be a Kensai - which means even *more* physical damage and even better THAC0 and AC.
Either way, I think this whole line of argument is overkill anyway: you are already blasting the Inquisitor so far into oblivion archaeologists are still putting the pieces back together.
Hence my earlier assessment: If the two trade blows, the F/M comes out ahead. The Inquisitor must use an ability to try to gain the advantage. As soon as he does, he creates an opening for the F/M to use an instant cast spell either for temporary immunity (PfMW) or leisurely re-positioning for a Time Stop (Imp. Invis/Mislead).
Thanks for the calculations. Certainly the OP's weapon selections are very odd. To be honest, if both combatants were sensible then they would either be using FoA +5 with belm/kundane or DoA offhand. The Inquisitor could make an exception if he wanted to risk using GWW, but as you say that's pretty much opening the door to oblivion.
I would mention out that the AC issue is actually fairly important. With the -6 AC of your scenario the F/M can only just hit the Inquisitor every time. So anything the Inquisitor can do to boost his AC will have a fairly significant impact.
On the other hand the Inquisitor's THAC0 is so much lower that the F/M can't possibly get enough AC to matter.
I would mention out that the AC issue is actually fairly important. With the -6 AC of your scenario the F/M can only just hit the Inquisitor every time. So anything the Inquisitor can do to boost his AC will have a fairly significant impact.
On the other hand the Inquisitor's THAC0 is so much lower that the F/M can't possibly get enough AC to matter.
Here's the thing: If you add a +1 AC helm, the F/M adds Helm of Balduran. If you add a +1 AC item that will actually stack with the magical armor (Cloak of the Sewers? I'm blanking on any other options), the F/M adds Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise. If you're going to pull out the Ring of Gaxx, the F/M might as well main-hand Crom Faeyr and call it a day. Or you can go @Lord_Tansheron's route and use the Kensai kit to make THAC0 a moot point. At the levels we're talking about, AC just isn't that significant of a defense for anybody. Even if you could eke out 2 points of relative advantage in the AC vs. THAC0 race, it would only reduce the F/M's expected damage by 10%, which reduces but does not eliminate the damage gap.
I went with the OP's weapons because A) Item selection is always contentious and it's hard to imagine anyone objecting to those choices on an availability front, and handicapping the F/M with those weapons serves to illustrate the gap in melee capability nicely. As an added bonus, it also demonstrates just how big of a difference Grandmastery and dual-wielding makes to damage output and why two-handed weapons are so far behind in that category. Of course, we're looking at a highly specialized scenario which, ironically, undercuts the value of Carsomyr's secondary effects.
Comments
As for Carsomyr, it depends how you define the setting. In the vanilla game Carsomyr is certainly available ridiculously early, and there are few gear pieces of comparable power that you can get equally early. One that springs to mind though is Celestial Fury - Paladins have great saves, but at lower levels they *will* fail some of them, allowing for at least partial stun-locking from an Improved Hasted F/M.
I think that at lower levels things just become more random. Failed saves or to-hit rolls have a much larger impact than later on. The basic premise of the strategy remains, though: outmatch the Inquisitor's dispelling capabilities with defensive spells. There is no I-Win-Button with Time Stop, so you'd have to slug it out; Improved Haste does a *lot* there.
If you go even lower in levels you reach a point where the F/M basically just gambles on an a failed save. Land a Sleep or Emotion and it's pretty much over, Blind also does nasty things.
I think you can see the pattern here: the Inquisitor simply has too few tools to work with. Without HLAs especially, all they can do is pop True Sight and Dispel, and attack. Compared to the mage spellbook, I think it's not hard to see that you can easily construct situations that are if not instant wins then at least very difficult for an Inquisitor to overcome.
I wouldn't exclude the possibility of certain level breakpoints where things are more even, I haven't actually checked all the levels. But I have a feeling that Carsomyr (and similar equipment) have a non-trivial impact, and are hard to place in terms of "appropriate level".
Although I'd be interested to see the maths. The Inquisitor should be able to about -10 AC (full plate +3, 4 dex bonus, 1 AC cloak, 1 AC helm and Ring of Gaxx. The 13F/M has a base THAC0 of 7. With to hit bonuses of say +3 from strength, +5 from weapon and +4 from grandmastery thats a THAC0 of -5. So he's still going to miss 25% of the time. I would have thought that would outweigh the 0.5 extra attack/round. With a 13F>?M it can't really go below 13F>14M. Otherwise the F/M doesn't have his fighter abilities back and the Inquisitor will slaughter him other than, as you say, the F/M getting lucky with saving throws.
Also I think that if the F/M is too low level for timestop, then there's very little stopping the Inquisitor from using his HLAs. As you mention, spell damage alone just isn't high enough to make it worth using spells.
I think it probably depends on the cast time of PfMW. If the F/M can get it down to instant casting then he can wait for the Inquisitor to use GWW, then PfMW. By the time the Inquisitor can dispel it (next round), the F/M has probably pretty much won the fight. But if PfMW can't be reduced to instant cast then I don't see the F/M casting it successfully through 10 attacks/round.
(Warning, excessive math ahead)
Inquisitor:
Note: for the purposes of this calculation, I'm assuming a -6 AC for the Inquisitor (Full Plate +3, 18 Dex) and no miscellaneous THAC0 boosters for the F/M. Yes, the Inquisitor could stack a little more AC through miscellaneous items; the F/M could gain additional THAC0 in the same fashion. The more items we add into the equation, though, the more we have to argue about what a reasonable set looks like, so I'm trying to go minimal. I don't want to get into an argument over how many Rings of Gaxx are floating around and who gets them. I assume the F/M has the Robe of Vecna for tactical purposes since the Inquisitor gets a class-defining artifact, which cedes any possibility of having an AC good enough to put the Inquisitor back on the die.
Fighter/Mage:
Equalizer deals 1d8+6 damage to Lawful Good opponents, for an average damage of 10.5. The F/M gets +7 from STR, +5 from Grandmastery, for 22.5. The F/M's 90% hit chance drops that back down to 20.25, and his potential crit damage adds 2.25 for 22.45. Daystar deals 1d8+2 for 6.5, plus 12 for STR and Grandmastery for 18.5, plus 6 from Equalizer (as the alignment bonus bleeds over to all attacks) for 24.5. Adjusting for crit and a 75% hit chance (-2 THAC0 for off hand, -1 for only being +1) give us 20.825. The F/M gets 3 attacks with the main weapon thanks to Grandmastery, and one attack with the off hand, giving an expected damage per round of 81.575. So the F/M outdamages the Inquisitor by about 20 points per round, which more than compensates for the Inquisitor's meager hit point advantage.
Alternate:
Angurvadal gives the F/M a 22 STR and is a +5 weapon, so his THAC0 is -5, enough to only miss on a 1. THAC0 with The Answerer will be -2 for a 90% hit chance.
Angurvadal = 1d8+5+1d4+1+10 (STR)+5 = 28 avg. damage
Adjusted for crit and miss chance: 29.4
The Answerer = 1d8+4+10+5 = 23.5 avg. damage
Adjusted for crit and miss chance: 23.5 (missing 10% of the time with a 5% chance for double damage balances out)
Expected damage per round: 111.7
There are three one handed weapons that would do even more damage than Angurvadal, and a speed weapon would also result in higher damage.
Hence my earlier assessment: If the two trade blows, the F/M comes out ahead. The Inquisitor must use an ability to try to gain the advantage. As soon as he does, he creates an opening for the F/M to use an instant cast spell either for temporary immunity (PfMW) or leisurely re-positioning for a Time Stop (Imp. Invis/Mislead).
One thing, though: you seem to be forgetting that we're dealing with a dual-class here. Now, it wasn't explicitly mentioned, but there is no reason for a F13/M20 not to be a Kensai - which means even *more* physical damage and even better THAC0 and AC.
Either way, I think this whole line of argument is overkill anyway: you are already blasting the Inquisitor so far into oblivion archaeologists are still putting the pieces back together.
I would mention out that the AC issue is actually fairly important. With the -6 AC of your scenario the F/M can only just hit the Inquisitor every time. So anything the Inquisitor can do to boost his AC will have a fairly significant impact.
On the other hand the Inquisitor's THAC0 is so much lower that the F/M can't possibly get enough AC to matter.
I went with the OP's weapons because A) Item selection is always contentious and it's hard to imagine anyone objecting to those choices on an availability front, and
That being said, the Inquisitor is clearly at a disadvantage even with powerful items.
But come on, he's not a TOTAL pushover :P