What about Advanced Feats: The Inquisitor’s Edge? A review…

All good things must come to an end! Such is the case with the Advanced Feats PDFs, a great series of supplements for the classes introduced in the Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player’s Handbook. All written by Sigfried Trent, each has thirty new feats useful to the class covered in the specific installment, but, with very few exceptions, often useful to other classes. Each one has a very helpful overview of the class and also three builds that showcase the possibilities inherent to the class and showcase how the feats presented in the book enrich the possibilities available for said class.

I have been lucky to review all previous installments, the Alchemist, the Witch, the Summoner, the Cavalier and the Oracle. The fine folk at Open Design provided review copies for all of them and for that I am incredibly grateful. These books have been a delight to read and to use in my game. I am sure they will see much use on the months and year to come. They are available here for $3.95 each. Well worth for all the great content they provide.

But what about the last book in the series, The Inquisitor’s Edge, that is the actual topic of this post? Glad you asked!

Want to learn more? Read on…

The Inquisitor class is an odd beast. Like the other classes in the Advanced Player’s Handbook, it offer many new options and seems in some ways a more complex class that some of the ones presented in the core rulebook and the Inquisitor much more so. It is a class with martial prowess and spells; it integrates Teamwork Feats and has all sorts of options available for the player. The variety is great; take a look yourself by clicking on the link at the beginning of this paragraph. I’ll wait…

Back? Good! The Inquisitor’s Edge does a great job of covering these complexities, and focusing on the classes possibilities. I had a player run an Inquisitor briefly in my Pathfinder campaign, and it was a fun character. The mechanics fit the idea of a hunter for the church that must sometimes work outside the letter of the law to fulfill the spirit of the law. I was particularly looking forward to this installment of the Advanced Feats series because of all these new classes; this is the class I would play if I step from behind the screen.

What about the feats that makes up the majority of this book? There are some great feats in here. There are Teamwork Feats which I happen to like. Of course players don’t often invest on them in my experience, but the Inquisitor’s ability to use them is a boon and with the class’s ability to choose different ones more feats of this class open ups all sorts of new tactical possibilities for the Inquisitor. I love a Teamwork Feat called Friend and Foe which is a feat usable in social situations (skill rolls with diplomacy or intimidate) and which boils down to a good cop/bad cop routine.

There are feats designed for the Inquisitor granting extra Judgments, boosting the number of spells known, but as is the case on all other books in the Advanced Feats series, many feats will be useful for other classes. Fast Track (fewer penalties when tracking while moving) would be great for a Ranger, all the combat feats would be useful to martial characters, others like Magical Insight (which imposes penalties on enemies that have failed a saved against you) are good for casters. All in all the feat selection in this book is excellent. As always the author’s commentary in most feats is enlightening, showing the reasoning behind his decisions. I find them to be sound advice that will help anyone thinking of making his or her own feats.

The builds at the end of the book show the versatility of the class. The Bloodhound is a bounty hunter, the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing is an infiltrator and the Detective is a fantasy sleuth. The sidebars are very enlightening, from brief overviews of the historical inquisition, to some brief advice on mysteries in a fantasy milieu. The layout of the book is simple but elegant, makes great use of the decorative elements and keeps the book easy to read. I love the cover, it may not be as action packed as the one in the book dedicated to the Cavalier, but the crazy stare of the Inquisitor on the cover speaks volume about the dedication and the cost of taking up this mantle.

The book is not perfect, there are a couple of minor typos, a Teamwork Feat (Hammer and Anvil) is not properly identified as such in the description, but these are minor quibbles for and great bookend to the series. Sigfried Trent, thank you for this and the other books. You have made me a fan. I look forward to your next projects. To the folk at Open Game design I must say, I’d love a print copy collecting the complete Advanced Feats series in one book. I’d also love to see similar books for the base classes, I know there are other feat books out there, but I would love to see Mr. Trent give it a go.

To readers, if I sound a little fan-boyish, I admit it. I love my crunch for my Pathfinder RPG and this is some great stuff. I heartily recommend it!