Roguish Archetypes: Inquisitive 5e

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Sherlock Holmes is many things: rogue isn’t near the top of the list I tend to think of when describing his class. Still, the expert nature of rogue pairs beautifully well with the concept of an investigator, especially one seeking monsters hiding in plain sight.

The Inquisitive archetype sells itself as a monster hunter meets detective; in practice, it is fine but lacks majorly in tools to expand out how you can interface with the world and doesn’t meaningfully empower your combat skills leaving it as a flavor-only subclass with little redeeming qualities.

3rd Level: Ear for Deceit, Eye for Detail, and Insightful Fighting

Ear for Deceit gives you a great starting point for interrogation and social navigation by making the floor of your Insight checks 8 + your mods. You can stack this up with expertise to become a lie-detecting machine with a minimum result starting at 14 with a decent Intelligence score. On its own, this isn’t close to good enough, as lie detecting isn’t exactly a massive pillar of D&D. Fortunately, there are two more features to go!

Eye for Detail attaches Wisdom (Perception) checks and Intelligence (Investigation) checks to your bonus action. That’s fairly useful, specifically for detecting hidden creatures and notifying the squad. Investigation can come up in hurried moments search for something on a timer, but that’ll come up far less frequently. Combined with Ear for Deceit, I’m still unconvinced either alone is good enough to justify taking this subclass.

Insightful Fighting is what remains, and is a pretty abysmal feature to play with in practice. Sneak Attack isn’t a particularly challenging feature to turn on; if you can turn it on without Insightful Fighting, through advantage gained from hiding or Steady Aim or just by having an ally engage the target first, this feature does nothing. The core rogue class already can get Sneak Attack as a bonus action in a multitude of ways; this is overkill with no meaningful upside until SEVENTEENTH level. I have seen Insightful Fighting used dozens of times; not once did I find that player couldn’t have gotten advantage on their own or used an ally to get Sneak Attack against the chosen creature. Most rogues I see with this use it once or twice, then forget it exists and fall back to their regular rogue mechanics because they’re good enough.

With the non-feature that is Insightful Fighting and two fairly niche features, 3rd-level Inquisitive rogues are left feeling a bit underwhelmed despite getting so many words worth of abilities. Ear for Deceit is a cute ribbon. Eye for Detail is a niche improvement that can come out once or twice per adventure, sometimes even less. Insightful Fighting is another way to get Sneak Attack that is about as easy to use as the other readily available bonus actions you have, not to mention the far easier method of simply having an ally engaged with the enemy. Nothing here stands out as something to build around or play with regularly, and that will lead to you feeling like you’ve gotten three ribbon-style features and nothing particularly powerful.

9th Level: Steady Eye

Advantage on Wisdom (Perception) or Intelligence (Investigation) checks paired with Eye for Detail is cute, and does make you the default spotter. Again, this compiles well with Expertise, making it near impossible for you to miss important details. Against masses of hidden enemies, this can be handy. Most D&D adventures are running hidden enemies encounter after encounter after encounter, though, making the utility of it worse substantially.

This being the only feature you get at 9th level is just atrocious. An investigator kind of character is the first I’d expect to get tools like Detect Magic or Blindsight; uncanny abilities to see what others can’t. Instead, you just are exceptionally consistent at seeing the mundane.

13th Level: Unerring Eye

Unnerring Eye is the kind of vision I’d expect the character to get way sooner alongside some meaningful other utility or combat features. Divine Sense for illusions, deception magic, and shapechangers is a pretty neat trick and would make perfect sense to stick at 3rd level. Instead, it’s gated at 13th level by which point Detect Magic has been running circles around this on every class that can cast spells since for the entire duration of the game.

17th Level: Eye for Weakness

Eye for Weakness is way too late to matter. A bonus 3d6 for using Insightful Fighting is kind of like +3d6 Sneak Attack damage for your bonus action. It being at will makes it fine, but it won’t have the same explosive impact other rogue capstones like Thief’s extra turns have. Its at this point you can start considering using Insightful Fighting to get Sneak Attack damage, which as a 3rd level core combat feature, is way too late.

All Together

With any amount of incentive to use Insightful Fighting, I’d be a lot less down on the subclass. Mediocre mid-level features are par for the course for most rogue subclasses, but the niche 3rd level features attached to an additional way to get Sneak Attack when Sneak Attack is already so easy to turn on leaves this as an option with no teeth. If Eye for Weakness was attached to Insightful Fighting out the gate, but was only a bonus d6, and Unnering Eye came with Eye for Detail, I’d say we’re at a great starting point. Some stuff could use rearranged, and a lot more juice needs poured into this option to justify it at any table.

As is, if you want to play an Investigator, I’d stick your expertise into Perception and Investigation and pick up Detect Magic from Arcane Trickster. That’ll give you the full fantasy you want on top of spells and fun mage shenanigans.

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Rogue 5e