Inquisition Domain - Grim Hollow Cleric Subclass Review
Grim Hollow is a set of books by Ghostfire Gaming, with three core books: a Campaign guide, Monster Grimoire, and Players Guide. The supplements focus on the dark aspects of fantasy, providing a grim dark setting, with the player’s guide providing a range of new backgrounds, races, subclasses, and spells. The player’s guide and campaign both also contain rules for transformations, giving players the option to become Vampires, Werewolves, or Primordials, among others.
Today I’ll be focusing on the Inquisition Domain Cleric, but you can see more subclass reviews here, including the Eldritch Domain Cleric and Highway Rider Rogue.
Cleric Divine Domain: Inquisition Domain
Clerics who choose the Inquisition Domain seek out other magic users, especially arcane casters such as wizards and sorcerers, either killing them or forming truces where necessary. Clerics of the Inquisition Domain follow deities who believe that only divine magic is pure and fit for use, rejecting other forms of magic as tainted.
Domain spells:
1st Level: Detect Magic, Identify
3rd Level: See Invisibility, Silence
5th Level: Dispel Magic, Remove Curse
7th Level: Arcane Eye, Locate Creature
9th Level: Creation, Hallow
For the most part, these spells all help the cleric detect or counter other spellcasters and magical effects. Detect Magic and Locate Creature can be used by the Cleric to find magic users, while Silence, Dispel Magic, and Remove Curse allow them to counter them magic users effectively. Creation is the only spell that feels out of place to me here.
Level 1:
Bonus Proficiencies: You gain proficiency with Martial Weapons and Heavy Armour.
This is a common trait across many Clerics. Some of the other features of the Cleric tie in well with using weapons, so the martial weapons proficiency synergises well with these. Heavy armour is always useful for upping your AC.
Witch Hunter’s Strike: When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can deal an additional 1d8 force damage. This increase to 2d8 force damage if the creature is concentrating on a spell. If a creature fails its concentration save as a result of this damage, you gain temporary hit points equal to the extra force damage dealt by this attack. The amount of damage dealt increase at level 14, to 2d8 force damage, or 3d8 if the creature is concentrating on a spell.
This feature can be used a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier, regaining expended uses when you finish a long rest.
To me, this feature puts the Inquisition Cleric into a similar position to the War Cleric, in that they want to get close to the enemy. It’s limited by your Wisdom modifier, like the War Cleric’s War Priest ability, but Clerics want to have a high Wisdom anyway. As this ability stacks with your Divine Strike, this can potentially allow you to deal a lot of damage to one creature on your turn. The temporary hit points are also a really good boost, meaning you can negate damage you’ll take for being on the front line, although this part of the feature will only be useful if you come fight lots of spellcasters. Another benefit of this is the force damage, as it’s not a damage type usually dealt by clerics.
Level 2:
Channel Divinity: Spell Shield: As a bonus action, you present your holy symbol and choose a creature within 30 feet (including yourself). The creature gains temporary hit points equal to 1d10 + your Cleric level. While a creature has temporary hit points from this feature, it has resistance to damage from spells and advantage on saving throws against spells. Any remaining temporary hit points are lost after 1 hour.
This seems like a great ability; whilst the temporary hit points aren’t high, the damage resistance against spells is really strong. The advantage on saving throws can also be really useful – combined with the resistance, spells that deal half damage on a failed save, are now dealing a quarter of the damage. It also protects you from other spells, such as Hold Person or Charm Person, that have other effects. Unlike many other Channel Divinities, it doesn’t use your Action, only your Bonus Action, freeing you up to attack or cast a spell on your turn. Where it falls down is against weapon-based creatures – the temporary hit points won’t last long against creatures that aren’t casting spells, and it offers no other advantages.
Level 6:
Rebuke Invoker: As a reaction, when a creature you can see within 60 feet casts a spell, you can force it to make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, it takes force damage equal to 1d8 per level of the spell slots expended + your Wisdom modifier. Cantrips count as first level spells for this ability. This feature can be used a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier, regaining expended uses when you finish a long rest.
I really like this feature. As you progress through a campaign, this will scale with the power of your enemies, as they cast spells at higher levels. It’s a fun alternative to counterspell too, which clerics don’t have access to – allowing you to harm enemy spellcasters on their turn. However, Rebuke Invoker has no benefit against creatures that don’t use spells, so in a low magic campaign, this may feel like a wasted ability. Like the Witch Hunter’s Strike feature, it’s limited by your Wisdom modifier, but you should be able to make full use of it. It also means, unlike Counterspell, you aren’t using your spell slots to do this damage, which is especially beneficial at lower levels when you’re more limited in spell slots.
Level 8:
Divine Strike: Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 force damage. At 14th level, this increases to 2d8 force damage.
This is a fairly common feature to many clerics, although this deals force damage, which is not a common damage type among clerics. Additionally, this feature does stack with the Witch Hunter’s Strike feature, allowing you to deal 2d8 force damage from level 8, or 4d8 damage from level 14, with an additional d8 force damage if the creature is concentrating on a spell.
Level 17:
Supernal Safeguard: When using your Spell Shield feature, you choose a number of creatures up to your Wisdom modifier to be affected instead of only one.
This is a huge buff to your Channel Divinity, allowing you to protect most of, if not all, of the party (as a level 17 Cleric you should have a high Wisdom). This gives your party a lot more protection from spells, but also gives you a large pool of temporary hit points between the party. A level 17 Life Cleric restores a similar number of hit points for their Channel Divinity, but Spell Shield uses your bonus action instead of the action require for Preserve Life.
Although not the strongest feat, the mage slayer feat ties in nicely with this class, both narratively and in terms of ability. It gives creatures disadvantage on concentration saving throws when you damage them, which synergises well with Witch Hunter’s Strike.
Overall, I love the theme of the Inquisition Domain; a group of Clerics dedicated to managing or destroying arcane spellcasters leads to an interesting narrative, and gives a few ideas for various backstories and character traits. I think the Inquisition Domain is incredibly strong in a high magic campaign, and the theme is exciting. However, if you don’t often fight spellcasters, or are in a low magic campaign, a lot of the features of the subclass become void, and you essentially gain the Domain spells and Divine Strike. This could make the cleric feel rather bland, and make the player wish they chosen Knowledge or War Domain instead. As I’ve stated, I love the theme of this subclass, but before picking it I would take with the DM during session zero about how likely we are to fight magic users.
Grim Hollow is property of Ghostfire Gaming, no copyright infringement is intended.
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Happy gaming!
Chris