Building my friend's first PFS character (also first character ever) - She wants a ranged Investigator


Advice

Scarab Sages

So I got my friend into PFS, she likes it but wasn't a fan of the Psychic pregen she played at her first game (all undead and constructs). So I went over every class with here and she really likes the look of the Investigator, but she wants it to use a bow because the other character she's gonna try before level 2 is a reach cleric (if she doesn't like that then a reach investigator won't be very fun either).

Anyhow, I figure the only way for that not to suck is to take a level in fighter and then go into investigator. This is what I've come up with, let me know if I'm way off for making this not suck in combat.

Race:Human

Str:14 Dex:16 Con:12 Int:17 Wis:10 Cha:7

Lvl 1:Fighter(1) - Feats: P.B. Shot; Precise Shot; Weapon Focus (Composite Longbow)
Lvl 2:Empiricist Investigator(1)
Lvl 3:Empiricist Investigator(2) - Feat: Focused Shot
Lvl 4:Empiricist Investigator(3) - Talent: Quick Study; Attribute: Int
Lvl 5:Empiricist Investigator(4) - Feat: Ranged Study
Lvl 6:Empiricist Investigator(5) - Talent: (Expanded Inspiration OR Mutagen)
Lvl 7:Empiricist Investigator(6) - Feat: Deadly Aim

With the BaB of an investigator, even bumped by the fighter level, I don't think Full Attacks will be her thing. Because Studied Target only applies on the first hit, it lead me to further thinking that a single shot is probably better for her. She's always going to be in charging range so Heavy Armor might be worth it.

Anyhow, how does this look? I know the first 2 levels will be a little dull, but after that does it look viable for when the party face/skill monkey needs to fight?

Silver Crusade

Studied Combat applies to all attacks, not just the first. You may be thinking of Studied Strike.


The build looks good, but where are you getting that Studied Combat only works on the first hit? It applies to all attack and damage rolls. Also, why would she want to be within Charge range? There is no range limitation on Studied Combat either.

If you are thinking Studied Strike only applying on the first attack, then you would be correct, but that really isn't that big of a deal. You use up all your rounds of Studied Combat first and then only when you're on your last round do you even use Studied Strike. Hopefully that helps, but everything else looks okay.

Scarab Sages

Ranged Study has a range limit of 30' I figured that stacking with Point Blank Shot would be a good idea.

And PCScipio, you are right I was thinking of Studied Strike. She has a habit of liking classes I've never even looked at, so I had to learn the class and come up with that build all last night. There might be more things I'm missing.

Now that I'm clear on how Studied Combat works, I'll have to do a DPS comparison between Focused Shot/Deadly Aim and Rapidshot/Clustered Shots because she just got a lot more accurate than I thought.


by going ranged wont they be sacrificing a majority of their damage from sneak attack?

Sovereign Court

As someone who intensely enjoys playing an investigator...

I would hesitate to recommend it as a first character. The class is a bit finicky with buffs, alchemy and such. But you do need to use those things and use them well, to be worth a damn.

Ranged investigators, I'm even less convinced about. It's a very high build price you're paying for relatively meager damage. If you want to play a "skilled archer", you're much better off using a ranger, slayer or zen archer monk. It's just not something investigators do all that well.

Finally, although the Quick Study talent doesn't explicitly require a minimum level, I think it's hinky to take it before you actually gain the Studied Combat class feature.

Scarab Sages

Lady-J: They don't actually get sneak attack they have a different buff (studied combat)

Ascalaphus: Yeah, it is a bit hinky. I could easily swap that if my VC says it's off. Also, yeah I totally agree with you. Originally we were thinking knifemaster URogue, but something about the Investigator description tickled her fancy. It was more "how to do an investigator that's different enough from what she's tried" than the "skilled archer" thing.

I mostly went with this because she's also gonna test drive a reach-cleric and I wanted her to try different combat styles before we lock her in. From what I'm seeing reach looks like a great way for an investigator to go. The other reason I wrote this up is because we got serious melee bloat at PFS around here, even the wizards have a few Lucerne Hammers and 18 STR.

Honestly, she's gonna try the lvl 2 version and if she likes the skills more than combat I'll find a cookie-cutter reach build that doesn't suck and if she likes the single-shot archery more i'll make her a kineticist.

Silver Crusade

A strength based longspear Investigator is indeed very good.

Sovereign Court

Longspear investigators work very well. They're the showcase for "you don't have to choose between skills and combat". They do reach PCs much more easily than clerics actually.

If melee bloat is a thing, really consider one of the archer chassis I mentioned; they have a base 4-6 skill points with a good set of class skills.


studied strike
At 4th level, an investigator can choose to make a studied strike against the target of his studied combat as a free action, upon successfully hitting his studied target with a melee attack, to deal additional damage. The damage is 1d6 at 4th level, and increases by 1d6 for every 2 levels thereafter (to a maximum of 9d6 at 20th level). The damage of studied strike is precision damage and is not multiplied on a critical hit; creatures that are immune to sneak attacks are also immune to studied strike.

If the investigator's attack used a weapon that deals nonlethal damage (like a sap, whip, or an unarmed strike), he may choose to have the additional damage from studied strike be nonlethal damage instead of lethal damage. If the investigator chose to make an attack with a lethal weapon instead deal nonlethal damage (with the usual –4 penalty), the studied strike damage may also deal nonlethal damage.

The investigator must be able to see the target well enough to pick out a vital spot and must be able to reach such a spot. An investigator cannot use studied strike against a creature with concealment.

one of their main class features which requires melee attacks instead of denying dex to ac

Scarab Sages

Ranged study let's them do that on ranged attacks up to 30' away.

anyhow, if the longspear build is the way to go, what kind of stat-spread should we be looking at? I always have a lot of trouble with MAD classes.


I like 17 str, 14 dex, 12 con, 16 int, 10 Wis, 7 cha

Between empiricist and student of philosophy, you are still quite social


Don't know how helpful it is, but I'm pretty sure a level dip into Zen Archer lets you flurry with a bow. Pretty much saves the need of grabbing manyshot or rapid shot and helping out full attacks. It won't progress quickly, but studied target should help the hits. Plus you get the same amount of bonus feats with better saves. And Perfect Strike, which is great. Max out acrobatics to escape threatened areas.


Zen archer fob essentially gives rapid shot free, but precludes ever getting many shot. So better off at first, bit weaker at lvl 9-11.

I think the fighter dip works well enough if you want to do bow investigator, though I'd out rapid shot at three instead of focused shot


To be clear, ranged study only has a range limit for studied strike. It doesn't limit you on studied combat.

I would be very tempted to use a shortbow, so you can benefit from the inspired weapon quality. You lose some range and a point of damage, but you can be more accurate more often and eventually will do a lot more damage.

Scarab Sages

So, I had a crazy idea hit me. since Investigators have terrible armor, how about a Dex-Reach one? takes a little longer for feats but an elven branched spear could make things interesting.


Angel Hunter D wrote:
So, I had a crazy idea hit me. since Investigators have terrible armor, how about a Dex-Reach one? takes a little longer for feats but an elven branched spear could make things interesting.

if she doesn't mind dipping into unchained rogue 3 levels would get her dex to hit and 1.5x dex to damage so she would only need the feat if she isn't playing elf or half elf

Scarab Sages

Definitly half elf, but I'm not so sure she'd like dipping for that long. Investigators take a while to Rev up as is.


Angel Hunter D wrote:
Definitly half elf, but I'm not so sure she'd like dipping for that long. Investigators take a while to Rev up as is.

investigator is half rogue any way and its rogue talent that it gets could nab it someting she was looking at spending an investigator talent on plus if your looking at getting dex to damage it is either really difficult/situational or really expensive and unchained rogue is really the cheapest and easiest way to get it and is the only way to get 1.5x dex with 2h weapons


This could be painful but there are special techniques for what you wish to do...

You can dump CHA and WIS. Empiricist helps with illusion saves, feats and traits can help boost the will save.

I would say you probably want at least a 14 DEX. With combat reflexes that's 3 AoO's. Fighter dip for armor to make early levels more survivable. Shame Lore Warden is Light Armor only... You could spend a feat but IMO probably not worth it.

You'll want to get STR to at least a 16 if you can, get as high an INT as possible and anything left over going to CON.

20 Point Buy Example:

STR:17 (Including Racial)
DEX:14
CON:12
INT:16
WIS:9
CHA:8

Extracts can give buffs later to make it easier. It's tricky but manageable.

Sovereign Court

Between mutagen, barkskin, shield, ablative barrier, mithral armor/armor expert trait to circumvent proficiency - investigators are NOT bad at AC at all. Even the strength-based ones.


Angel Hunter D wrote:
Definitly half elf, but I'm not so sure she'd like dipping for that long. Investigators take a while to Rev up as is.

A tried and true combo is Inspired Blade swashbuckler 1/Investigator the rest. Gives you dex to damage with the rapier right from level 1. Parry and riposte works well with studied combat and you can approximate reach with either longarm or enlarge person extracts.

Otherwise I cant say im a fan of dipping with investigator. Studied combat puts you on par with a martial accuracy and every dipped level weakens that some. Plus, Inspired is a thing that makes investigators murderous. You can put that on a rapier, but not a branched spear.


Ryan Freire wrote:
Angel Hunter D wrote:
Definitly half elf, but I'm not so sure she'd like dipping for that long. Investigators take a while to Rev up as is.

A tried and true combo is Inspired Blade swashbuckler 1/Investigator the rest. Gives you dex to damage with the rapier right from level 1. Parry and riposte works well with studied combat and you can approximate reach with either longarm or enlarge person extracts.

Otherwise I cant say im a fan of dipping with investigator. Studied combat puts you on par with a martial accuracy and every dipped level weakens that some. Plus, Inspired is a thing that makes investigators murderous. You can put that on a rapier, but not a branched spear.

I don't like dips into other classes at all, but this is pretty good.

Otherwise, dips into other classes really do slow down the Investigator. Studied Combat/Strike don't really start up until level 4 (I would be very reluctant to start at level 1 as an Investigator).
Have you chosen an archetype? My fave for the Investigator is the Lamplighter from Heroes of the Street. The Initiative bonus this archetype gets just keeps snowballing! It gets rather crazy-good. Has some fun added spells, too.

Grand Lodge

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Fourshadow wrote:
Ryan Freire wrote:
Angel Hunter D wrote:
Definitly half elf, but I'm not so sure she'd like dipping for that long. Investigators take a while to Rev up as is.

A tried and true combo is Inspired Blade swashbuckler 1/Investigator the rest. Gives you dex to damage with the rapier right from level 1. Parry and riposte works well with studied combat and you can approximate reach with either longarm or enlarge person extracts.

Otherwise I cant say im a fan of dipping with investigator. Studied combat puts you on par with a martial accuracy and every dipped level weakens that some. Plus, Inspired is a thing that makes investigators murderous. You can put that on a rapier, but not a branched spear.

I don't like dips into other classes at all, but this is pretty good.

Otherwise, dips into other classes really do slow down the Investigtor. Studied Combat/Strike don't really start up until level 4 (I would be very reluctant to start at level 1 as an Investigator).
Have you chosen an archetype? My fave for the Investigator is the Lamplighter from Heroes of the Street. The Initiative bonus this archetype gets just keeps snowballing! It gets rather crazy-good. Has some fun added spells, too.

For the delay to study combat it's not as bad as you think because study kind of suck until you get quick study. Which is likely level 5 in either build. And you get to me melee competent earlier.

Three good archetypes to look at are Empiricist, Lamplighter and Psychic.

Sovereign Court

In my experience playing a longspear-strength build, the low levels aren't bad at all. With a strength of 16 and Enlarge Person extracts you're already terrifying. With Shield and Longarm even more.

Key to the build is getting Combat Reflexes. You get so many AoOs on enemies thinking they can close in on you at the beginning of combat while you're still flat-footed.

Apart from that, the difference in to-hit between a fighter and an investigator with the same strength at low levels is roughly +1. At low levels, the Strength to-hit bonus really dominates. (At high levels it's still significant, with belts, mutagen and shapechanging all increasing your strength).

Scarab Sages

Empiricist is probably how we'll build it, and thanks for pointing out armor expert and mithril, i totally missed how anyone can wear a breastplate with that.

But yeah, the dex build looks like too much work, think we'll go with strength.

This is what I'm thinking

Race:Half-Elf

Str:17 Dex:14 Con:12 Int:16 Wis:10 Cha:7

Lvl 1:Empiricist Investigator(1) - Feat: Combat Reflexes
Lvl 2:Empiricist Investigator(2)
Lvl 3:Empiricist Investigator(3) - Feat: Power Attack; Talent: Expanded Inspiration
Lvl 4:Empiricist Investigator(4) - Attribute: Str
Lvl 5:Empiricist Investigator(5) - Feat: Extra Talent - Quick Study; Talent: Mutagen
Lvl 6:Empiricist Investigator(6) -
Lvl 7:Empiricist Investigator(7) - Feat: Improved Initiative; Talent: Sickening Offensive

One other thought, what weapon to use? I've got 2 in mind and I'm curious what you guys think.

option 1 - Fauchard - The best spear in the game, with that sweet 18-20 crit range.

option 2 - Meteor Hammer - Cool, rare and you get +1 AC when you use it as a reach weapon. Can also cover close range so she won't need another weapon.


Grandlounge wrote:
Fourshadow wrote:
Ryan Freire wrote:
Angel Hunter D wrote:
Definitly half elf, but I'm not so sure she'd like dipping for that long. Investigators take a while to Rev up as is.

A tried and true combo is Inspired Blade swashbuckler 1/Investigator the rest. Gives you dex to damage with the rapier right from level 1. Parry and riposte works well with studied combat and you can approximate reach with either longarm or enlarge person extracts.

Otherwise I cant say im a fan of dipping with investigator. Studied combat puts you on par with a martial accuracy and every dipped level weakens that some. Plus, Inspired is a thing that makes investigators murderous. You can put that on a rapier, but not a branched spear.

I don't like dips into other classes at all, but this is pretty good.

Otherwise, dips into other classes really do slow down the Investigtor. Studied Combat/Strike don't really start up until level 4 (I would be very reluctant to start at level 1 as an Investigator).
Have you chosen an archetype? My fave for the Investigator is the Lamplighter from Heroes of the Street. The Initiative bonus this archetype gets just keeps snowballing! It gets rather crazy-good. Has some fun added spells, too.

For the delay to study combat it's not as bad as you think because study kind of suck until you get quick study. Which is likely level 5 in either build. And you get to me melee competent earlier.

Three good archetypes to look at are Empiricist, Lamplighter and Psychic.

quick study isn't as big a deal with parry and riposte though. Use the action to study, reap the benefits on your parry/riposte.


you should not be building her character for her. she should build it with your groups help.

Silver Crusade

The disadvantage of a strength Investigator is that you overshadow the other party members:)


Quote:
quick study isn't as big a deal with parry and riposte though. Use the action to study, reap the benefits on your parry/riposte.

I agree it's less important but I would still say it's pretty important to action economy.

You can't repose until you have acted because you can't use an immediate action while flatfooted. This means you always have a swift action on your first round.

So Quick Study allows you to study and move, study partial charge or study and attack in the surprise round.

It also, if there is no surprise round lets you study + charge, study + move + attack, study + drink extract + move etc.

You may also need to study mid-combat every time losing either a move or a standard (if you use your move to move). This adds up to quite the lose over a single fight. Study also helps you parry better so you want it up to reap the rewards.

Sovereign Court

Another feat you may want to pick up is Phalanx Formation. It helps immensely in avoiding cover and therefore taking more AoOs with your longspear.

Did I say longspear? I believe I did... if you're going half-elf for the Inspiration, you're going to want an Inspired Longspear after all.

I'd prioritize Phalanx Formation over stuff like Expanded Inspiration. Your skills only need to be so high to achieve a high success rate. Spending more inspiration is cute, but it's not normally needed.

Scarab Sages

oh, phalanx formation is awesome, definitely fitting that in there.

also, i finally looked at what an inspired weapon does, and sweet Desna is that good. I was actually thinking we'd go half-elf so we could get a cool weapon like a meteor hammer, but I might need to reconsider for that ability now.

and zainale, i'm building it for her to try it out, the group is PFS.

Sovereign Court

The only real reason to go half-elf as an investigator is the FCB to inspiration.

Now, personally, I think inspiration is overrated. It's nice, but people obsess about it as if it's the defining class feature. It's not. The prime class features are, in order:

1) Alchemy. You have the best self-buff of them all. Just don't get roped into thinking you should be picking up Infusion to share them. You don't have the amount of extract slots for that. Leave buffing to bards and clerics.
2) Studied combat. This gives you a 5/4 BAB to-hit rate and damage increases.
3) Mutagen. +4 to strength and an AC increase that stacks with Barkskin.

It's entirely doable for an investigator to keep pace with barbarians in melee. You can just rely on your 6+int skill points, Empiricist trickery to do almost all mental skills that matter on Int, and almost complete list of class skills to be an excellent skill monkey. Inspiration is really just an afterthought.

I'm not saying Inspiration is bad, but it's overvalued compared to your important class features. And the Inspired Combat thing only starts rocking at level 9, which is way too late for PFS to make it your big deal.

I guess the best race would be humans (+2 Str, +2 Int) or wayang (+2 dex, +2 int, -2 wis). Any other race that gives a bonus to strength and no penalty to Int or Con is also plausible. But don't obsess about racial abilities because Monstrous Physique will turn you into a gargoyle with claw/claw/bite/gore, darkvision and flight.


Ascalaphus wrote:

The only real reason to go half-elf as an investigator is the FCB to inspiration.

Now, personally, I think inspiration is overrated. It's nice, but people obsess about it as if it's the defining class feature. It's not. The prime class features are, in order:

1) Alchemy. You have the best self-buff of them all. Just don't get roped into thinking you should be picking up Infusion to share them. You don't have the amount of extract slots for that. Leave buffing to bards and clerics.
2) Studied combat. This gives you a 5/4 BAB to-hit rate and damage increases.
3) Mutagen. +4 to strength and an AC increase that stacks with Barkskin.

It's entirely doable for an investigator to keep pace with barbarians in melee. You can just rely on your 6+int skill points, Empiricist trickery to do almost all mental skills that matter on Int, and almost complete list of class skills to be an excellent skill monkey. Inspiration is really just an afterthought.

I guess the best race would be humans (+2 Str, +2 Int) or wayang (+2 dex, +2 int, -2 wis). Any other race that gives a bonus to strength and no penalty to Int or Con is also plausible. But don't obsess about racial abilities because Monstrous Physique will turn you into a gargoyle with claw/claw/bite/gore, darkvision and flight.

At first, I made a Human Lamplighter due to the extra feat. However, Horror Adventures and that Starchild Alternate racial trait allowed me to do what I wanted and get that Half-Elf FCB! +1 (for every 4 levels) to Inspiration on skills one can use Inspiration on?! Nice. That is better than the talent that bumps Inspiration to d8!

And thank you for de-emphasizing "infusion". I see many like it and just see other things I would rather do with my build.
Alchemy (which is one reason I am hesitant to use Psychic archetype), Studied Combat and Mutagen should definitely be the focus of the Investigator.


Ascalaphus wrote:
I'm not saying Inspiration is bad, but it's overvalued compared to your important class features. And the Inspired Combat thing only starts rocking at level 9, which is way too late for PFS to make it your big deal.

Inspired weapon should be affordable by around level 5, and should make combat inspiration affordable anytime it's needed. While the inspiration cost may seem high, you have to remember that it is only used after your d20 roll, so it is almost never wasted and almost always used to convert a miss to a hit. It's basically a 3.5 bonus to hit, before adding any modifiers, such as half elf fcb, to the roll.

And yes at level 9, the damage boost from Combat Inspiration + Inspired weapon becomes big enough, to tempt you to waste inspiration on attacks that were going to hit anyway. But by that level, you have more of a wealth of points to waste.

Sovereign Court

I dunno, a +2 weapon at level 5? That's stretching resources rather thin. You're looking at a base of 8K, but might also want it made out of adamantine (+3K) because both robot Hardness, golems with DR/Adamantine and wizards with Stoneskin addiction are frequent in PFS.

I personally went for Bane (Evil Outsider) as my +2 enchant, because together with the adamantine that gets me through the majority of DR you run into. Without Combat Inspiration, I think Inspired weapons lag far behind the +2 enhancement, +2d6 damage and DR penetration that Bane gets you against evil outsiders. This is based of course on the high frequency with which we run into those, but I don't think they're going out of style yet.

Sovereign Court

Fourshadow wrote:

And thank you for de-emphasizing "infusion". I see many like it and just see other things I would rather do with my build.

Alchemy (which is one reason I am hesitant to use Psychic archetype), Studied Combat and Mutagen should definitely be the focus of the Investigator.

Whenever I see someone talking about an investigator as a buffer I cringe. Yes, they can do that, but they're not cost-efficient at it. Your buffs are all single-target. You'll never be as good as it as a bard or cleric, and you're spending all your resources on it. Instead of being a supersonic killing machine you're going to be a lame bard.


I may have missed it while skimming posts a bit, but how is the Inspired Blade Swashbuckler getting DEX to damage at 1st level with a Rapier? I see they get Weapon Finesse (which gives DEX bonus to attacks) and Weapon Focus, but I see nowhere that gives them DEX to damage.

What am I missing? Because that is an unbelievable 1 level dip for a DEX based character.


the feat, fencing grace, which requires weapon finesse and weapon focus. So that class means anyone can dex to damage at lv1.


I have found that once I have expanded inspiration I would rather use inspiration on saves. I have I find making it good in combat to costly.


I am fond of half-elf investigators for several reasons. I like to either go ham on perception with the skill focus or, for some builds, use ancestral arms. For melee investigators, a fauchard or another polearm better than the longspear can be worth it.

Sovereign Court

Ancestral Arms gets better if you're not wild about Combat Inspiration/Inspired weapons. Which are nice but by no means mandatory. And then the fauchard gets interesting indeed.

Scarab Sages

UPDATE: For anyone curious, I went over her options and she decided that the following were pretty cool. This build also did pretty good in some modules

Ancestral Arms - Meteor Hammer. (she adores that weapon, thinks it's way cooler than a fauchard. also made her the designated skeleton smasher, which came in handy)
Expanded Inspiration (she likes being the whole party :P)
Phalanx Formation (she likes to stand behind the fighter and chug Long Arm extracts)

Sovereign Court

It works fine with Meteor Hammer, but make sure she remembers that Phalanx Formation works on reach weapons only. It wouldn't work if you happen to have natural reach but a non-reach weapon (such as Longarm/Enlarge Person + natural weapon).

Scarab Sages

She knows it only works with reach weapons, all she has is her meteor hammer anyhow. I'm actually a little jealous, seeing how well it plays - I made a Bloodrager to be her bodyguard but I think she'll end up guarding me at this rate.

Sovereign Court

Well, by level 4-6 a proper investigator's AC will be running ahead of a bloodrager's..


I am currently preparing natural attacking (1 level dip into draconic urban bloodrager) dexterity based investigator. Core ingredients: Weapon finnesse (dexterity to hit), Piranha Strike (swaping to hit bonuses from studied combat to damage bonuses), agile amulet of mighty fists (dexterity to damage) and adding new natural attacks (polymorph effects or amulet of rat fang and helm of mammoth lord). Quick draw feat and quick draw shield to increase AC outside his turn, mithral kikko armor.


I've been sketching on an investigator myself that's quite similar to what Angel Hunter D is going for.

Investigator(Empiricist)
Half-Elf - Ancestral Arms: Meteor Hammer
Traits: Bruising Intellect, Elven Reflexes, Armor Expert, Meticulous
Str 14+2, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 16, Wis 10, Cha 7 (15 points)
1: Combat Reflexes
3: Phalanx Formation, Mutagen
4: Str+1
5: Combat Expertise(Or Power attack), Quick Study
7: Improved Trip(Or extra talent: Infusion), Sickening Offensive
8: Str +1
9: Greater Trip(Or extra talent: Combine Extract), Combat Inspiration

I'm currently debating how worthwhile it is to go with trip since those are three feats that could be spent on very impactful things like Power Attack, Combine Extracts or Infusion and you don't actually need the trip feats to trip.

Dark Archive

Going archery has many options. Fighter (obviously), ranger, slayer. If you can manage a decent wis, sohei or zen archer monk are the best.

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