Blood Throne: Inquisitor in Depth

Posted on by Reecius

Hey everyone, Reecius here again with another in-depth article in the ongoing series. This time we will go over the Inquisitor in depth!

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We have previously covered the following classes:

Martial Characters:

Skill Classes:

Arcane Classes:

  • To read the Dread Mage in depth article, click here.

For a project update before we dive in: as stated in the last General Update we are getting close to pre-production for the Core Box and Ghorgantus Expansion, just in the editing stages at this point and making sure everything is ready for manufacturing. Also, I will be at Adepticon at the end of the month. If anyone will be there and wants to say hi, let me know! We will not have a booth this time but I will have free time as I will be meeting with other industry professionals to promote and discuss the future of Blood Throne.

The Inquisitor! 

The Inquisitor is a class I’ve been especially eager to explore in this article series because, at first, it was one of the most challenging to define—and therefore to create—for Blood Throne. Unlike other archetypes that have a more established identity, the Inquisitor in RPGs and CRPGs tends to be all over the place in terms of abilities and role. They can fight, but not as well as a true warrior. They sometimes have options for limited magic, sometimes healing capabilities, and often serve as investigators or interrogators. In my opinion, there isn’t a single definitive Inquisitor archetype to draw from, which made designing this class both a challenge and an opportunity.

To solve this, I went back to square one and asked: What is an Inquisitor, both historically and in fantasy settings? Historically, Inquisitors were agents of religious institutions, tasked with investigating heresy, interrogating suspects, and passing judgment—often carrying out grim duties such as extracting confessions and executing the accused, sometimes by burning. To put it lightly, it was not a pleasant chapter in history.

In fantasy, the role is just as varied. In Dragon Age, the Inquisitor is whatever the player wants them to be, broadly defined as someone combating demonic or supernatural threats. In Pathfinder, they’re more of a jack-of-all-trades investigator. Meanwhile, in Warhammer 40K, Inquisitors are judge, jury, and executioner on a massive scale, wielding near-limitless authority in their war against mankind’s enemies. The only real through line across all these interpretations is that they are seekers of hidden threats, often supernatural, and wield great power in combating them.

For Blood Throne, we decided to merge these concepts while leaning heavily into the historical version—what I see as a fanatical investigator of a religious order. Our Inquisitor is not a traditional warrior but rather a schemer and enforcer, possessing immense authority to act on their own initiative. They specialize in identifying and neutralizing specific, highly dangerous opponents by cutting off their access to Zenithae, the source of superhuman abilities and magic.

This led to the idea of the Inquisitor as the game’s primary counter class. When designing the class system for Blood Throne, I knew it was crucial to include a limited number of heroes capable of shutting down enemy special abilities. This serves two purposes: it helps with game balance by ensuring that the most powerful abilities always carry some risk, and—as any longtime tabletop gamer knows—counter abilities are one of the most frustrating yet valuable mechanics in any game!

That said, counter mechanics must be handled carefully. If a class dedicated to stopping others becomes too dominant, it can create an unfun experience where players feel unable to execute their strategies. With this in mind, both factions in the Core Box and Hero Expansion include one dedicated counter specialist—the Inquisitor in the Core Box and the Demon Hunter in the Hero Expansion. Additionally, some other classes, like the Warlord (which we covered previously), have access to secondary counter abilities focused on countering Physical special abilities. Likewise, there are heroes who specialize in countering Metaphysical special abilities such as the Transmuter class in the Hero Expansion, ensuring players always have options for disrupting enemy strategies—just not so many that they can shut down everything at once.

Because of their ability to neutralize enemy powers, specialist counter classes like the Inquisitor are exceptionally strong. In playtesting, experienced players quickly identified them as top targets, often prioritizing them over neutralizing even healers in PvP games.

With that introduction out of the way, let’s dive into what makes the Inquisitor such a compelling and powerful class!

You Shall Not Pass!

Counters are the Inquisitor’s specialty. As a Reactive Action, they can deny both monster and hero Special Actions, which is devastating because the action is not only canceled but also wasted—and since nearly all Special Actions in Blood Throne can only be attempted once per turn, this can completely shut down an opponent’s strategy. Additionally, the Inquisitor is one of the few classes capable of removing powerful, game-long buffs and debuffs—called Blessings and Curses, respectively—making them a critical tool for disrupting enemy momentum.

While they are competent in melee combat, it is not their primary strength. Instead, their power lies in disrupting enemy plans, so it’s often best to keep them protected and let them control the battlefield from a safer position.

Equipment Restrictions

The Inquisitor has minimal equipment restrictions, allowing for a high degree of customization. While they are subject to standard Skill Archetype limitations—preventing them from using the heaviest armor, shields, and weapons—they can be built in a variety of ways to suit your playstyle as they have no additional restrictions. Since their Class Ability is a Reactive Action, meaning it is used during another model’s activation, the Inquisitor remains free to spend their own actions on attacking, moving, securing objectives, and more. This means if you want to, you can spec them to be very effective in combat, however, keep in mind what their role is. You don’t want to skimp too much on putting stat points into their core competency of countering Special Actions. That is the problem with these types of classes though, you often feel stretched thin with their stat points!

You can outfit them with medium armor, a medium shield, and a hand weapon to make them more durable, or opt for light or cloth armor with a ranged weapon to keep them at a distance while harassing enemy units. Personally, I like equipping mine with a setup similar to Inquisitor Kalth from the Core Box—wielding both a melee and ranged weapon for versatility across different combat scenarios. Ultimately, the choice comes down to how you want your Inquisitor to function within your party.

Class Ability

Inquisitorial Training is the Inquisitor’s Class Ability, and as mentioned above, it’s a game-changer. If an opposing model uses a Special Action within Medium Range and Line of Sight, the Inquisitor may—once per activation—attempt to deny it by making a Denial Action against an Action Threshold (AT) of 4 Block Dice.

As a refresher, when an Action is rolled against an AT of X Block Dice, it means the roll is made against a fixed difficulty rather than the Defensive Modifier of a target model, as is the case with most other actions. When making this roll, the Inquisitor’s player always adds four defensive modifier dice to their dice pool, as specified on the card.

This is THE ability that defines the Inquisitor—and the reason your opponents will hate them! At level 4, it can be upgraded to gain +1 square range with Reaching Denial, which is deceptively strong. Many Special Actions can also gain +1 square range, specifically to be used from outside of denial range, so this upgrade acts as a counter to the counter! Muahaha! (You should use a diabolical laugh whenever you do something tricksy with the Inquisitor, your opponents will love it!),

At level 6, Skilled Denial further enhances the ability by allowing the Inquisitor to treat swirl results as hits on the Action Dice, significantly increasing their chances of successfully denying an enemy’s action.

At level 8 you get two fantastic choices:

  • Endless Denial: Allows the Inquisitor to attempt to deny a second Special Action per turn at the cost of losing one of their own Actions.
  • Punishing Denial: Whenever the Inquisitor successfully denies a Special Action that targeted the Inquisitor, they deal 3 Raw Dice of damage to the opposing model.

Inquisitorial Training is simply a game-winning ability. However, positioning is everything. Since the Inquisitor must be both in range and in line of sight to use their denial ability, savvy opponents will use terrain, smoke effects, and strategic positioning to block sightlines and force the Inquisitor to choose their targets carefully. They can’t be everywhere at once, so knowing where and when to position them is crucial to maximizing their impact.

As an important aside, there is a level 7 General Feat, meaning it is available to all classes, called Zenithae Feedback. When a Model with this feat has a skill denied, the denying model takes 2 Raw Dice of damage. If those denial abilities have been getting you down, this Feat gives you the chance to exact retribution on those dang Inquisitors!

Primary Skill Tree

As if I haven’t hammered this point enough, the Inquisitor’s main focus is in denying other models their agency to act as they please. 

At level 1 the Inquisitor gains access to Strip Curse. This Class Skill allows the Inquisitor to remove a Curse from an allied model. Curses are game long debuffs that can be brutally debilitating. This is one of the few ways to actually remove a Curse and as such is an extremely useful ability to have on hand.

At level 4, the Inquisitor gains See the Unseen. This is another incredibly useful ability to have in your deck. The Hidden and Invisible status effects are extremely powerful, allowing opposing models to move around the board being untargetable outside of Short Range (roughly 4 squares). This Class Skill does not require LoS to use (or it would be pretty terrible obviously, lol) and allows the Inquisitor to remove either of those statuses. Some classes like the Rogue–who is one of the biggest threats to the Inquisitor–heavily rely on not being seen. Likewise, the Arcane Trickster from the Hero Expansion can cast Invisibility on other models, making them much more difficult to deal with. This skill allows the Inquisitor’s party to bypass these powerful defenses.

At level 6 Reflect Skill becomes available. This Class Skill is an absolute doozy. It allows the Inquisitor to bounce a Special Action back at the model that used it on them! In PvE where the monsters do not take things like that into consideration, it is brutally effective and funny as heck to use. In PvP, where a human player will likely not want to have their fireball fly back to hit their wizard in the face, they often will simply opt to either not use a Special Action on the Inquisitor or try and bait you into using it by peppering them with less scary abilities. Either way, the very presence of this card in your Hero Deck will force your opponent to think about how to handle it. As this is such a powerful skill, it is limited to once per game.

Secondary Skill Tree

The Inquisitor’s secondary skill tree is debuffing. So not only do they block the enemy’s best abilities, they make them weaker to boot!

At level 1 the Inquisitor gains access to Strip Blessing. Much like Strip Curse, this allows you to remove powerful game long buffs from opposing models. As with Curses, Blessings are difficult to remove as not many models have ways to do this, further making the Inquisitor an invaluable party member.

At level 2, you gain access to Jabberwock Dander! This ability not only deals a modest amount of damage (imagine it as a Batman-like custom bomb the Inquisitor carries on their utility belt and throws at enemies) but it gives the target the debilitating Confused status. While a model is Confused, they may not use any Special Actions. This is brutal for some classes like magic users which are reliant on their spells to contribute to the game. While martial monsters or classes can simply fall back on punching you, losing access to their suite of skills is also very game changing. Again, an incredibly useful skill to have.

At level 10 the Inquisitor gains their Ultimate and this one is truly table-flip inducing! Mind Worm Venom is a once per game skill, as are all Ultimate skills, and if successful allows the Inquisitor to choose one of the Target Model’s Special Abilities and make it unusable for the rest of the game. Absolutely devastating!

Tertiary Skill Tree

To polish off this impressive array of skillsets, the Inquisitor has striking as their tertiary skill tree, allowing them to use their own actions to contribute to actually defeating enemies instead of just frustrating their ability to do what they want.

At level 1 the Inquisitor gains access to the excellent Burning Judgement skill. This modifies a Melee Attack Action to in addition to normal damage also set the Target Model on fire! We felt this was not only fitting to the class, but also helps to increase their DPS. As classes like the Inquisitor often have to spread their stat points around to do everything they need to, they will frequently be lacking in offensive punch. This skill enables them to consistently deal a solid amount of Raw Damage which as a reminder, ignores damage reduction. As a side note, this Class Skill is why Inquisitor Kalth is depicted with a flaming whip in the art!

At level 8 they gain access to the very powerful Banish skill. Banish is one of a very few number of one shot, one kill skills in the game. For obvious reasons we limited the amount of these a party could draw on, and they are always once per game abilities. This version of it may only target summoned models, such as the Shaman’s War Bear. Summons are a big part of the game and very commonly used as they are essentially expendable party members. As the focus of the card is so specific, you will not always choose it. But, as you build your Hero Deck each mission, if you see you will be facing summons in a game, this is clearly a great card to put in your deck.

Feats

The Inquisitor has two tracks in their Class Feat selections. They can either continue to double down on their ability to stop Special Actions or they can increase their own power. As a quick refresher, at every level a Hero may select one of the available feat choices. The choice is permanent. At odd levels through 9 you have General Feats to choose, available to all classes, and at even levels 2 through 8, you have class specific choices.

At level 2 you may select either Soul Disruption, increasing your Denial stat (used in most of the Inquisitor’s skills) or you may select Slayer of the Blessed, giving you an Advantage each time you target an opposing model with a buff on them. Advantages are used to manipulate the dice, increasing the odds you are successful and to get critical hits as well.

At level 4 you may choose between Reaching Denial, increasing the range of Inquisitorial Training, or Unrelenting, which allows you a free Denial Action against a Curse which targets the Inquisitor. This is very handy to simply discourage anyone from using one of these powerful debuffs on you, and in PvE where the Monsters will attempt to Curse you despite this, gives you increased defense.

At level 6, you may take Skilled Denial, increasing your odds when using Inquisitorial Training, or Blessed Bane, which grants you an Advantage against a Target Model with a buff. Note, this does stack with Slayer of the Blessed, allowing you to build an Inquisitor that loves to see buffed models as they become increasingly effective against them!

Finally at level 8, you may opt to either be able to potentially use Inquisitorial Training a second time per Activation at the cost of being Stunned (losing an Action on your next turn) or Punishing Denial which deals damage to an Opposing Model every time the Inquisitor denies a Special Action that targets them. If you take all of the “don’t you dare try and use special actions on me” abilities available to the Inquisitor they become nigh-invulnerable to Special Actions, relegating your opponent to attacking them with mundane actions!

Playing Inquisitor Kalth

Inquisitor Kalth was absolutely a blast to write as a character. He is unequivocally a villain but somehow is the leader of the heroes in the core box. How you may ask yourself, how is this possible? Every single one of the other heroes has a reason to hate him, yet they follow him in this most important of quests.

Katlh is an Inquisitor of the Immortal Host, the secret police of Lord Akrithil and each personally responsible for the apprehension, torture and often execution of countless Kith. To the Inquisitors they see themselves as performing a vital role in maintaining order through eliminating apostates and heretics. To the common people of Cheol they are terrifying symbols of the Immortal Host’s oppression. 

When faced with an existential threat as that seen in Belphegore and his attempt to replace Akrithil as the God Tyrant of Cheol, it was seen as better to make a deal with the devil you know than risk being under the thumb of one even worse.

Kalth’s vast knowledge of the workings of the Immortal Host, and his connections to every other faction of Cheol via his spy networks and incessant meddling in their affairs means he is arguably one of the most influential mortals in the world. Further, Kalth is a true believer in Akrithil’s divine right to rule. The fact that he is currently absent matters not to Kalth, any who seek to replace his master are his enemies, regardless of any previous allegiances. Kalth is able to direct the forces of The Last Accord better than any other with his insider knowledge and so he has managed to do the impossible: unifying desperate forces to a common cause.

When writing him, the team and I knew he would be a compelling character: a villain you love to hate. We modeled his personality off of Dr. Doom: brilliant, ruthless, dangerous but also guided by an internal code of ethics which may not make sense to others, but does to him.

On the tabletop, Kalth is a powerhouse not in that he deals tons of damage, he doesn’t, but in his ability to influence the flow of the game. He is built to be a mid-field hero, not on the front lines, but also not hanging back too far. 

He has solid defensive stats with an Evasion of 4, Fortitude of 3 and Will of 4 meaning he will be missed by actions on occasion. He also sports a very solid Damage Reduction of 2 with his Medium Armor, meaning he tanks quite a bit of Damage Dice. 15 HP isn’t great but not bad either. On the whole, he has no major defensive weaknesses, being competent in all of them.

Offensively he comes with a Whip and Hand Crossbow. While neither weapon is particularly powerful, they give him tremendous flexibility in attacking at multiple range bands and both weapons have the Accurate keyword meaning they count swirls as hits, increasing their odds to hit. His whip has reach, the only light hand weapon to do so, allowing him to engage foes from longer range than they can hit him back, using his Burning Judgement Class Skill to set them on fire and deal damage over time. With Accuracy 3 and Denial 4, he is reliable in doing the things he wants to do and a Power of 2 means his less potent weapons can reliably chip away at enemies over time.

His Hand Crossbow likewise allows him to shoot targets at Medium Range to add DPS, and in a pinch, as it has the Pistol keyword, he can shoot it in melee. This typically comes up if he parried with his Whip, meaning he cannot attack with it, or already used his Whip to set someone on fire then shoots them with his second Action with the more powerful Hand Crossbow.

Kalth starts with a respectable 3 Class Skills but as he levels up you will likely want to invest in gear and Feat options that give him more skills as each of the Inquisitor’s choices are so strong.

As a Sathanian, Kalth automatically gets the very useful Heritage Skill, Diabolic luck. This skill allows you to either add an Advantage to yourself, or remove one from an opponent after either you declare an action or they declare an action which targets the Sathanian. As has been explained, Advantages are typically the only way of modifying the dice during a game and are very powerful ways to shift the odds in your favor. This Heritage Skill means you have a powerful way to increase the odds of you doing what you want to do, or prevent an opponent from doing the same.

As an aside, the Deh’San, or Godborn as they are more commonly referred to, are Kith which began to appear after the Deh’Va were sent to Cheol to restore order by the Overgods. The Deh’Va are minor gods, and each is responsible for one geographic area of the world. The Godborn are mortals which share part of the appearance and nature of their Deh’Va, and each is unique to their faction. How they come to appear in the population, and how they are perceived by others varies from culture to culture. The Sathanians are mortal children of Ha’Sathan and unique to the Immortal Host. They are often seen as being tied to the forces of destruction which in addition to their fearsome appearance causes them to be feared by most. This is distressing to some Sathanians, but Kalth has always enjoyed the effect his lineage has had on others.

You have to be careful with Kalth though as due to his powers being so influential in a game, particularly in PvP, he will be a high priority target. Keeping him safely behind the frontline warriors, but close enough to be able to use his abilities is the key to using him well. A solid defensive buff for him goes a long way. Don’t be afraid to get stuck in and set opponents on fire, but try to do so in such a way that he cannot be hit back. Once playtesters got the hang of using him, he quickly became one of the most frequently chosen heroes, just be careful not to use him in a side quest and potentially have him injured, unable to participate in the more difficult plot quests.

As another aside, Kalth is the Party Leader. When making a party, you select one Hero to be the Party Leader, giving them two powerful bonuses. For one, they get a stat Boost Point, meaning that while most heroes have 7 stat points and 1 Boost Point, the Party Leader will have 1 more Boost Point, for a total of 9 stat points. Further, they do not become Exhausted, meaning if they play two missions in a row, they do not have to take a turn off to rest as do all other heroes. This is extremely useful. 

When making a custom Party, you want to think long and hard about which hero will be your Party Leader not only for the better stats but for a higher probability of being available for a mission when you need them most. It can be tempting to pick your favorite class but often a strong utility class can be the more strategic choice such as the Priest or the Alchemist.

Playing against Kalth is always a tough game. Having your best Special Actions shut down screws up all your plans! An obvious solution is to simply take him out as quickly as possibly but that is easier said than done. The Ranger is fantastic for this as he does a ton of damage at Long Range. The Rogue is also great for assassinating a character like this but be wary, the Inquisitor can strip the Rogue’s stealth with See the Unseen. Any melee character that can get to grips with him will beat him to a pulp in short order, but getting there is often a challenge. Any hero that can move through other models is great for this such as the Barbarian, Warlock, Monk or Rogue.

A strategy that works well is to split your party up, coming in from multiple angles. As the Inquisitor has to see a hero to stop their abilities, if you can get behind them they are very vulnerable. As mentioned, Kalth wants to not be in head-to-head melee as all he has to block damage outside of his armor is a single Parry with his whip, which also stops him from using Burning Judgement. 

Likewise, using lower value Special Abilities first to try and bait him into blocking a power before your best abilities can be useful. Remember, until level 8 they may only attempt to stop one Special Ability per Activation. Finally, if you can hit him with the confused Status Effect, you totally shut down his ability to use any of his tricks! This is bad for any class but Kalth especially feels the pain from this, being relegated to just attacking with his relatively low damage weapons.

Lastly, if all this denial action has you intimidated, do not fret! For the low price of 2 Gold, you can purchase a Denial Scroll from the Merchant. This handy item allows any Hero to attempt to deny a Metaphysical action once per game. This can be extremely useful to put on a Hero with a decent Denial stat to give the pesky Inquisitor a taste of their own medicine!

Thanks for reading, and hang in there as we get the core box ready for production!

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