Inquisitive Rogue Handbook: DnD 5e Subclass Guide

Introduction

If you want to be really good at noticing stuff, the Inquisitive Rogue is the way to do it. With the Inquisitive’s subclass features and the Expertise, there’s no one who could reasonably compete with the Inquisitive Rogue’s powers of perception. However, their emphasis on Insight, Investigation, and Perception is their only noteworthy feature, and over-specialization in those aspects leaves them with nothing exciting to do beyond the Rogue’s base class features.

The Inquisitive offers very little to do once you notice stuff. It would be great in a campaign that includes lots of traps, hidden doors, and people who lie to you, but, in situations not specifically tailored to the Inquisitive’s skillset, they fall back on basic Rogue class features. In combat, the Inquisitive’s only new features are Insightful Fighting and Eye for Weakness. Insightful Fighting can be replaced by having one ally who’s fighting in melee or by using the Steady Aim Optional Class Feature, and Eye for Weakness is weak compared to other subclass features at the same level.

The Inquisitive is a cool concept, but it needs something active to do once it spots things beyond Sneak Attack. As a fix: Allow the Inquisitive to ignore Disadvantage when attacking invisible foes which you have targeted with Eye for Detail, and add the Rogue’s Wisdom bonus as a damage bonus against targets affected by Insightful Fighting.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Disclaimer
• Inquisitive Rogue Features
• Inquisitive Rogue Ability Scores
• Inquisitive Rogue Races
• Inquisitive Rogue Feats
• Inquisitive Rogue Weapons
• Inquisitive Rogue Armor
• Inquisitive Rogue Multiclassing
• Example Inquisitive Rogue Build – I Really Wanted to Play the PF2 Investigator
  • Ability Scores
  • Race
  • Background
  • Skills and Tools
  • Feats
  • Levels

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.

• Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
• Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
• Green: Good options. Useful often.
• Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.

The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.

Inquisitive Rogue Features

3. Ear for Deceit: This only applies to Wisdom (Insight) check to determine if a creature is lying, and while it’s nice to have that level of insurance, it’s still only situationally useful and it’s easy to misread this and assume that it applies to Eye for Detail and Insightful Fighting.
3. Eye for Detail: Finding hidden creatures normally requires an Action to attempt, which is a serious problem if you’re ever attacked by stealthy enemies which like to hide and snipe at you from afar. Of course, in a typical party you can handle invisible enemies with magical options like Faerie Fire or Glitterdust.
3. Insightful Fighting: I hope you took Expertise with Insight, because it’s your signature feature and if you can’t reliably pass this check you’re basically back to core rogue features in combat.

   The effect lasts for a full minute so you have plenty of time to benefit without repeatedly spending your Bonus Action on the same target. Even if you lose the opposed check, you can try again the following round, and the every round after that until you succeed. Of course, if you have another ally fighting your target in melee, this gets you absolutely nothing.

   Compare this to the Steady Aim Optional Class Feature: Steady Aim is a Bonus Action, doesn’t require a check that you might fail, and grants Advantage on your attack rather than simply enabling you to use Sneak Attack. Insightful Fighting lasts for a full minute, but only if you don’t change targets.

9. Steady Eye: Combined with Eye for Detail you’re extremely reliable at spotting traps and hidden enemies, but the limitation on movement might be a problem in combat, especially if you’re built for melee. If the movement issue isn’t a problem, this makes Insightful Fighting much more reliable.
13. Unerring Eye: Wisdom isn’t an especially useful ability score for most rogues beyond skills, so it’s frustrating that this ability is Wisdom-based. The effect is extremely useful, but you’ll likely get no more than two or three uses per day, and you need to either already know that illusions are present or you need to guess.
17. Eye for Weakness: Extra damage never hurts, but it’s not very exciting and compared to other subclasses this is a pittance. Compare this to the Thief’s Thief’s Reflexes feature or the Assassin’s Death Strike feature. In a long fight, additional Sneak Attack damage may eventually outshine other options, but a typical fight lasts just 3 to 4 rounds, and you need to climb the mountain of additional damage that’s being dealt by the Arcane Trickster with bonus damage from spells like Shadow Blade, the Assassin with Assasinate, and the Thief with a second turn from Thief’s Reflexes.

Inquisitive Rogue Ability Scores

Little different from a typical Rogue. You need decent Wisdom since you’re going to rely heavily on Insight, but 14 is plenty.

Inquisitive Rogue Races

No different from a typical Rogue.

Inquisitive Rogue Feats

No different from a typical Rogue.

Inquisitive Rogue Weapons

No different from a typical Rogue.

Inquisitive Rogue Armor

No different from a typical Rogue.

Inquisitive Rogue Multiclassing

No different from a typical Rogue.

Example Inquisitive Rogue Build – I Really Wanted to Play the PF2 Investigator

We’re going to lean into the Inquisitive’s concept and focus on the Insight, Investigation, and Perception skills.

Ability Scores

Fairly standard with spare points in Wisdom, followed by Intelligence.

	Base	Increased
Str	8	8
Dex	15	17
Con	14	14
Int	12	12
Wis	14	15
Cha	8	8

Race

Vedalken. If ever there were a race that fit the theme of the Inquisitive Rogue, it’s the Vedalken. We get one skill proficiency and one tool proficiency, and we get a permanent +1d4 when we use them. We’ll pick Investigation so that the +1d4 can compensate for our relatively low Intelligence compared to our Wisdom, and we’ll choose another tool.

Vedalken Dispassion also works nicely alongside the Rogue’s save proficiencies, making our mental saves very reliable, especially once we get Slippery Mind.

Background

We don’t need anything specific from our background. I would go for something that gets you either Intelligence-based or Charisma-based skills depending on your campaign. Noble is a good compromise between the two.

Skills and Tools

We’ll use our class skills to select Insight, Perception, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth. We’ll add Insight from our race. We get proficiency in Thieve’s Tools from our class and one other tool from our race.

You’ll also get more proficiencies from your background, but they won’t affect the build.

Feats

At level 4 we take Piercer to raise our Dexterity to 18 and get a reliable boost to your damage output.

At level 8 we increase Dexterity to 20.

At level 10 we take Observant and increase our Wisdom to 16.

At level 12 we take Alert.

At level 16 and 19 we have open feats. Consider Resilient and Skill Expert.

Levels

Level	Feat(s) and Features	Notes and Tactics
1	Expertise – Insight – Perception Sneak Attack +1d6 Thieves’ Cant	We’ll take Expertise in our two most important skills to set ourselves up for Insightful Fighting. Otherwise, we’re a very standard Rogue. I recommend relying primarily on ranged weapons so that you can use Steady Aim more easily, but this build works both at range and in melee.
2	Cunning Action	Without Expertise in Stealth, we won’t always be able to rely on hiding to get Advantage in order to trigger Sneak Attack. Even so, it’s our best option at this level. In the future, Cunning Action and Insightful Fighting will compete for space.
3	Subclass: Ear for Deceit Eye for Detail Insightful Fighting Sneak Attack +2d6 Steady Aim	Ear for Deceit is an early taste of Reliable Talent. Eye for Detail is helpful for countering hidden and invisible enemies. Insightful Fighting is our signature combat tactic. Ear For Deceit doesn’t apply, unfortunately, so you do still need to roll an Insight check. Fortunately, we have Expertise and passable Wisdom, plus most creatures aren’t proficient in Deception, so you should pass most of the time. Of course, if you’re fighting multiple enemies, moving Insightful Fighting presents an annoying action tax. Use Steady Aim in those cases.
4	Feat: Piercer (Dexterity 17 ->18)	Always an easy choice for Rogues.
5	Uncanny Dodge Sneak Attack +3d6	A fantastic defense.
6	Expertise – Investigation – Thieves’ Tools	More expertise. We now cover all of the Inquisitive’s favorite skills.
7	Evasion Sneak Attack +4d6	Another fantastic defense.
8	ASI: Dexterity 18 -> 20	Stay on the Fundamental Math so that you’re at least hitting the Rogue’s basic expectations of effectiveness.
9	Steady Eye Sneak Attack +5d6	We’re even better at Perception and Investigation! Remember that Advantage on a check boosts your passive check by +5, so, if you’re moving slowly, our Passive Perception is fantastic.
10	Feat: Observant (Wisdom 15 -> 16)	If you’re moving slowly, our Passive Perception and Passive Investigation are now 20 + our modifier, making it borderline impossible to miss anything hidden.
11	Reliable Talent Sneak Attack +6d6	Finally we’re almost guaranteed to succeed when using Insightful Combat. Steady Aim is still a better idea in many cases, but now we don’t need to fear rolling poorly when we do decide to use it for whatever reason. Ear for Deceit is now utterly non-functional.
12	Feat: Alert	Alert feels appropriate to the build. We’re never surprised, we never miss anything hidden, and we’ll act first in combat most of the time.
13	Unerring Eye Sneak Attack +7d6	The fact that this has a limited number of uses per day feels hilariously unnecessary. If you do somehow run out of uses, you can use Investigation to find illusions.
14	Blindsense	Now creatures can’t even avoid your notice by being invisible.
15	Slippery Mind Sneak Attack +8d6	Another mental save. Coupled with Evasion and Vedalken Dispassion, our saves are very good.
16	Feat: Any	–
17	Eye for Weakness Sneak Attack +9d6	Eye for Weakness is the first feature that we get which actually improves our effectiveness in combat and makes using Insightful Combat more appealing than Steady Aim. Use it in fights against big single enemies, and then use Steady Aim on future turns.
18	Elusive	Another great defense.
19	Feat: Any Sneak Attack +10d6	–
20	Stroke of Luck	Always great.