CLASSifieds: Apostle (PFRPG) PDF
To most people, when you mention the Inquisitor, they’ll give you the nitty gritty of what it is, but mechanically, deep down, it fills the “Divine Bard” kind of role. The Apostle takes that one further… and is actually a divine bard, with singing hymns and prayers with all of the bells and whistles.
I haven’t read any of the Shadows over Vathak setting, so I’m just going to assume any of the setting specific stuff is just setting neutral, so there isn’t any alignment restriction for them and that all of the True God stuff would be fitting, it would have been nice to have a conversion guide.
CLASSifieds: The Apostle is a 14 page PDF with a One page cover and a One page credits, leaving 12 pages of content. It includes info about the Apostle Class, an Archetype for it, Some spells for the Inquisitor/Apostle class, and 3 feats for the class. The art ranges from Full color, to black and white. There are various typographical errors about, namely leaving some info in about spontaneously casting (from the cleric I’m guessing), but those seem more par for the course instead of anything at this point.
The Apostle is a D8 HD, Half Caster (from Wisdom) with a good Fort and Will save. He is proficient with all Martial and Simple Weapons, Light Armor, Medium armor and shields. He only gets 2 (!) skill points, plus int mod per level. His starting gold isn’t listed, but I’m assuming it’d be the same as the Inquisitors. It seems a little silly for them to start with so few skill points, but I digress. They aren’t going to be having int, so don’t expect them to fill the skill monkey role at all.
For the Hymn feature of the class, it’s basically the same as bardic performance, except with a divine flair, Some of them mimicking bard abilities such as Inspire Competence, or doing such things like improving healing. All of these abilities seem reasonable and not overpowered, and would be nice buffs to have in the party. He gets 3+ CHA mod uses per day, and adding an additional usage per level.
The other unique feature of the Apostle is the Prayers. They are essentially a different set of spells, with different usages per day, being able to choose from them. He’s able to give himself DR with some for a single attack, AC bonuses for hours at times, to CHA to damage. Some of the later prayers give Stone Skin style effects, or even the ability to raise dead with them. Being able to have more choices is always nice, and you can prepare them like clerics prepare their spells.
Segueing nicely from their pseudo spellcasting, comes their actual spellcasting. They cast using the Inquisitor list, using Wisdom as their main casting stat. They also get domains, though it’s a little unclear on what domains are available to them, since there is the fluff from the Shadow’s over Vathak. They get domain spells and domain abilities as a cleric, which is pretty interesting as well. The fact that they cast from wisdom and all of their other class features are based on charisma feels almost like an error, but people DO use Multi Ability Score Dependant as a balancer so…
It’s capstone while flavorful, is that they get a Oracles Final Revelation, nothing too special, but kind of boring all things considered.
The Archetype for it is the Doomsayer, being the one that instead of getting the crowds riled up, instead looks to incite them and put fear into their hearts. Kind of a cool archetype, with the mechanics all fitting in fairly well.
The spells they added are all pretty interesting, giving the abilities to spread rumors, or even add madness to your channeling energy for evil clerics. Flavorful and not mechanically overpowered, but you can see yourself using them in situations.
Finally this PDF ends with 3 feats for Apostles, being able to give a +2 bonus to allies once per day for one round (Yawn), Reducing DR e for a number of rounds equal to half your apostle level (Kind of nice) once per day, and the ability to treat your weapons and good aligned.
Really this class is interesting, as it has some interesting potential power, but suffers from horrible, horrible MAD. The party role it could fufill is the same as the bard, the support caster, however if you’re planning to be the skill monkey, look elsewhere. A few of the fixes could be easily applied, and maybe a small supplement to help import this class to other settings could be helpful, too.
3.25 stars out of 5, rounded down to 3 for the purpose of the review.