Advanced Options -Inquisitor’s Judgements

By Thilo Graf

This pdf from Super Genius Games is 8 pages long, 2/3 of a page front cover, 1 page SRD &editorial, leaving 6 1/3 pages of content for the new tools for the Inquisitor, so let’s check them out.

After a short discussion on the nature of the rather interesting Inquisitor base-class, we are introduced to a central question that needs to be answered prior to integrating the new material: Seeing there are not that many judgments in the core rules of the APG, a new mechanic needs to be introduced to clarify how access to more judgments is handled. In a concise discussion, several options along their pros and cons are presented, with the easiest alternative being restricting any Inquisitor to 9 judgments and the most complex being a suggestion to have judgments earned in game by association with different orders in a given campaign setting.

15 new judgments await the perusal of inquisitors, from minor bonuses to reach and movement rates to improved capabilities with regards to certain combat manoeuvres and the ability to make weapons feature a quality to bypass certain kinds of DR, a nice and balanced roster of abilities is presented. The true stars of this pdf, though, are the 7 greater judgments: Those of you following my reviews know that I’m always excited about iconic abilities and the greater judgments deliver: The ability to see invisible foes via blazing eyes, the power to banish summoned creatures to sickening and weakening strikes, the offensive judgments rock. The defensive ones are also quite cool, enabling you to play the deadly, unstoppable driven inquisitor via regeneration and SR – all the while balancing these at times powerful abilities within the rules. Great work!

The pdf does not stop there, though, as it delivers the alternate Inquisitor-class of the Justicar, a judgment-focused variant sans spell-casting. The Justicar gets d10, 6+Int skills, full BAB, good fort and will saves. The class feels balanced and interesting, though personally I’d prefer the spell-casting variant. I still think the class offers a cool alternative for many campaigns.

Finally, we get 7 new feats: Executioner lets you sacrifice a judgments use for a single strike with additional damage, the ability to use judgments more often per day, a feat to learn an additional judgment (depending on how you manage the acquisition of new judgments, this is necessary), a focus on a single judgment (+5 levels with regards to that judgment), the ability to make a judgment that last up to 15 minutes. My favourite one, though, would be Jury, which lets an ally benefit from your judgment. One of the feats, though, felt potentially problematic to me: Judgments Surge is rather strong, as it lets you use an additional judgment simultaneously. I’m not entirely sure whether I’d allow this feat, as my instinct yells that this might make for a certain power-boost.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the 3-column standard and the artwork is stock-art and ok. The pdf has no bookmarks. The new judgments presented herein feel balanced and add a nice plethora of abilities to the Inquisitor’s repertoire, the Justicar is nice. The Greater Judgments and the new feats, though, are what really shone for me and offer the abilities I love to see for the class, as it enhances the unique feel of the class. The Judgments per se and the one feat I didn’t like left a bit of a stale taste in my mouth and would necessitate some playtesting/extensive math for me prior to allowing it in my campaign. Thus, due to a lack of true gripes and only minor problems, my final verdict for this instalment of advanced options will be 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5.

Endzeitgeist out.

Advanced Options – Witch’s Hexes is available from: