Inquisitor Underappreciated in IWD?
BelgarathMTH
Member Posts: 5,653
Hi, I had been following the standard advice to take an undead hunter for my paladin in IWD, because, "Inquisitor's powers are not helpful against IWD mages, who rarely use illusions and rarely cast protections."
However, on my current run, I decided to try bucking the standard advice and to make my pally an inquisitor, and, you know what? He has saved the lives of everyone in my party several times with his inquisitor's Dispel Magic.
This is because of how IWD loves to spam Hold Person spells. My inquisitor himself is immune, and often all the other members of my party get Held. (I use four-person parties, where the other three are cleric, thief, and arcane caster.)
What I don't often see discussed is that the inquisitor's Dispel does not only reliably remove enemy caster protections in a single round segment, but that it also removes hostile spells from party members. I am finding that extremely useful, and really nice to have.
Any paladin already has good Thac0, so the undead hunter's plus three to hit undead is really nice, but I don't think it has the life-saving potential that the inquisitor has with his Dispel, and the extra Thac0 against undead is probably overkill in most undead fighting situations.
Also, I've heard that there are some mages in the game who do cast Stoneskin at least, so, my inquisitor can also get rid of that in an instant.
I think inquisitors are a little better in IWD than a lot of people think.
However, on my current run, I decided to try bucking the standard advice and to make my pally an inquisitor, and, you know what? He has saved the lives of everyone in my party several times with his inquisitor's Dispel Magic.
This is because of how IWD loves to spam Hold Person spells. My inquisitor himself is immune, and often all the other members of my party get Held. (I use four-person parties, where the other three are cleric, thief, and arcane caster.)
What I don't often see discussed is that the inquisitor's Dispel does not only reliably remove enemy caster protections in a single round segment, but that it also removes hostile spells from party members. I am finding that extremely useful, and really nice to have.
Any paladin already has good Thac0, so the undead hunter's plus three to hit undead is really nice, but I don't think it has the life-saving potential that the inquisitor has with his Dispel, and the extra Thac0 against undead is probably overkill in most undead fighting situations.
Also, I've heard that there are some mages in the game who do cast Stoneskin at least, so, my inquisitor can also get rid of that in an instant.
I think inquisitors are a little better in IWD than a lot of people think.
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Comments
Also, I'm not a huge believer in buffs. I don't like the temporary nature of them, and the random dice-rolling nature of them. I'll take an "old reliable" power any day over a buff.
Protection from Evil 10', Death Ward, and Chaotic Commands are buffs I believe in, and, in BG:SoA, I hesitate to use Keldorn's special power, because I know how dangerous it can be to be without those three buffs. But, hey, IWD is a different game, and Hold Person on most of your party is a TPK.
I don't like Haste because of the fatigue factor. I'd rather cast Slow on the enemies.
And, I've never been a huge fan of stats increases through buffs. They're nice, but most of the time they're total overkill, and they take magical resources away from life-saving "Defense Against the Dark Arts."
[quote] I've never been a huge fan of stats increases through buffs. They're nice, but most of the time they're total overkill, and they take magical resources away from life-saving "Defense Against the Dark Arts."[/video]
One Translation I'm hearing: "I'd rather not cast stoneskin on my mage. I'd rather he just get hit and hope my heal goes off before he dies."
Another: "I'd rather not cast deathward. I'd rather use Resurection spells... please don't interrupt my casting or you're a poopyhead!"
Much like condoms, eating healthy or ignoring Bill O'Reilly: prevention is the best cure.
Also if your party mage or sorcerer is getting hit and needing Stoneskin to survive, you're not doing it right.
Random dice-rolling? "Old reliable" power?
If anything, buffs like 'Stoneskin' or 'Mirror Images' *reduce* the random dice-rolling nature of the game. Always getting hit on a natural 20 even if it's a squirrel? Seriously?
And while it might be temporary in theory, 'Stoneskin' practically lasts forever.
What exactly do you mean by "stat increases"? Do you mean ability scores or stuff like saving throws, thac0, etc. too?
Btw.: If you haste your party and then dispel it before the duration runs out do you still get fatigued? Could be a neat trick to make 'Haste' more useful again.
Concerning 'Haste' vs 'Slow': Why not both? ;D
Of course, if you simply played it differently, then you'd find that several if not all Paladin kits are in fact better than the Inquisitor in IWD.
Mages are not only rare in IWD, they're also fairly weak (no SCS either) and absolutely trivial to interrupt. If you let them cast Hold Person, you're already doing it wrong ;P Also, buffs are considerably more powerful in IWD than in BG2, particularly the cleric ones. Stacking lots of awesome buffs on your party is a common thing in IWD, and losing them to a poorly placed Inquisitor dispel can be quite detrimental to your efficiency.
Naturally, if you enjoy Inquisitors personally then there is nothing wrong with that; nor if you want to play in a way that makes them more useful, i.e. letting enemy mages' casts go off etc. That however does not make Inquisitor any less "underappreciated" - they still, in principle, are worse than most other Paladin kits. You're basically just rigging things in their favor, but that of course is a personal preference and needs to be clearly understood as such :P
Myself I am mixed kind of player. I prefer to play what I like, which includes paladins. However, I also have most of PG-ing knowledge and use it to some extent, mostly in character creation. That's why I really like threads like this one, they give me new ideas for parties.
@BelgarathMTH, thanks for sharing. You put Inquisitor back on roster list for me =]
Furthermore, if you're not talking about character optimisation then what the hell *are* you talking about as it certainly isn't role playing?
It's a simple assessment that doesn't conflict with your perception of the kit. The kit is good. It just stops developing. Unlike the other paladin kits who get all the best cleric spells without the restricted weapon selection.
With true seeing being next to useless you're trading you're entire suite of cleric spells (that come earlier and go to higher level in IWD) for 1 single ability. Sure, dispel is great and it makes inquisitor an amazing kit in bg2 but that's a lot to give up in IWD when there are so many other ways to accomplish the same thing (blackguard -> throwing dagger -> poison weapon for example).
I just thing paladins are more fun in IWD because of their spells. Just like clerics and Druids are so much fun because they aren't eclipsed by mage combat mechanics.
Ymmv.
Imagine if you were running a company and you said to your boss: we can save about 20,000 a day if we do this.
Do you think your boss would be like: you're just trying to powergame our assets! No! If he's smart, he might listen to you, because that's how you win!
Do you look at scientists who do research and go "Stop trying hard to use logic and let us have fun... or else!"
I believe a few guys tried that when they challenged Geocentrism. They were lauded, if I want to put it lightly. So stop telling those with research to stop sharing data. It belittles those who've taken time out of their day to help you and in turn comes off as a tad mean.
What actually bothers me is how so many people agree with your anti-progress and condescending idea of "go away educators!"
It's not nice to be treated like crap because I want to help optimize people in a game.
To mark against your name,
He writes – not that you won or lost –
But how you played the Game." ....Grantland Rice
Playing around with different strategies and sub-optimal conditions where the consequence of a disaster is "reload" is what makes this fun.
You can't kill enemies with Dispel Magic.
You'll still need to hit them with swords and spells to reduce their HP to 0. And buffs make those things (mostly the sword part) more effective.
And Emotion spells, the Prayer spells (which a Paladin can cast), Improved Haste all improve damage by a non random set amount and improve the hit chance, making hit rolls less prone to a missing due to low rolls. The only random part here is the hit roll, which you'll already be relying on (and more since you deal less damage) anyway.
If anything Buffs make the game less random by reducing the amount of rolls (or in the case of Improved Haste, increasing the amount of rolls you make per unit time) needed to reduce enemy HP to 0. Because the topic is about why the Inquisitor is underappreciated. It's underappreciated because it's a sucky Fighter with Immunities that are easily taken care of by items and spells (Free Action, which a Paladin can still cast on himself) and Dispel Magic, which again a Paladin can cast too and unlike in BG2 the number of Magic protections to get rid off in this game is woefully miniscule and really can just be ignored by piling up huge amounts of damage and attacks (again thanks to buffs) and it's not hard to make your party mostly immune to whatever nasty status effects enemies can deal.
If the topic was titled "Hey the Inquisitor can still do stuff" there's nothing to rip apart there. The Inquisitor can do stuff and that's indisputable. Or "If the generic Paladin and other Paladin kits didn't exist, then the Inquistor would be the best Paladin" Or "With enough party and playstyle gimping, the Inquisitor can be good"
But why the Inquisitor is underappreciated? Obviously anything that tries to put up the Inquisitor is going to get ripped apart because it is a bad kit (negatives vastly outweigh the positives) in the context of the game.
The fact that you've found a style of play that let's you appreciate the kit more is only evidence for others if they share your style of play. The fact that some individuals do and others don't is just the nature of the game.
I'd definitely promote the idea of trying the other paladin kits at higher levels to properly contextualise the weaknesses of the Inquisitor kit.
First trying HoF mode, wonders of sneak attacks and now inquisitors in IWDEE. Yay to unpopular opinions and small things.
As about the Dispel Magic ability, I've got to say in my party a bard, being generally at much higher level than the rest of the group, successfully dispelled any nasty effects there were to be dispelled.
That'd be like well this character/class/build is the worst but if you take away all the other characters/classes/builds then it'd be the best. That isn't an unpopular opinion at all. If anything it goes hand in hand with how much that character/class/build sucks relative to everything else.