[PFS] Investigator Help


Advice

Grand Lodge

I am playing a 5th level investigator (empiricist), with 1 level of swashbuckler (inspired blade). While I shiner out of combat (crazy high knowledge, plenty of skills), my combat performance is lackluster. Even when I use Studied Combat, my damage is only 1d6+7 with my +1 rapier (+1 weapon enchantment, +4 DEX, +2 S/C). A confirmed critical hit nets only 2d6+12. One option I have now is Cat's Grace for another +2.

Click on the character name above for build details.

Can anyone suggest ways to improve my damage output?

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber

What are you expecting in terms of damage?

You look pretty solid for now, and once you start using inspiration for Studied Strike, you can be adding several d6s to your damage rolls.


You don't seem to have taken Fencing Grace so how are you getting Dex to Damage?

Silver Crusade

Take Alchemist Discovery (Mutagen) for a +4 alchemical bonus to Dex.

Grand Lodge

Gisher wrote:
You don't seem to have taken Fencing Grace so how are you getting Dex to Damage?

I do have Fencing Grace. I forgot to list it in the build.


Grumiō Grumiōnis wrote:
Gisher wrote:
You don't seem to have taken Fencing Grace so how are you getting Dex to Damage?
I do have Fencing Grace. I forgot to list it in the build.

That's good. If you were using Agile I was going to suggest swift to FG to afford buying another +1 enhancement.


With fencing grace on this build I like you want to buff your self like crazy. This goes into high level gear but here is goes.

Mutagen for a +2, reduce person - an additional +2 to hit and no change in damage, cat's grace/belt, Deliquescent Gloves, Bane Balbric, and alchemical allocation heroism.

Even two thirds of these should make you the most accurate person on the team. If you did not dump strength take power attack you can handle the minus no problem.

Inspired weapon weapon and combat inspiration will give you some burst damage. If it's a hard fight inspired strike each turn using a point to restudy (as suggested above)

More radical option.

Multiclass again into Urban Barbarian or Unchained Barbarian

- Consider drunken brute so you can use potions better.

- Get a furious weapon.

Urban Barbarians have better AC. Unchained Have better will saves, and hit points. Both net more damage and accuracy and a better way of dealing with DR.

You wont notice much of a drop in your skills only 2 points. But you will lag in you "casting" but alchemical allocation helps with that a bit.

Grand Lodge

KingOfAnything wrote:

What are you expecting in terms of damage?

You look pretty solid for now, and once you start using inspiration for Studied Strike, you can be adding several d6s to your damage rolls.

MORE!

Unfortunately, I tend to compare myself to the fighter and barbarian n the group.

"Compare and despair."
- Stuart Smalley


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I play a similar investigator (no multiclassing) as an NPC in the Giantslayer campaign I'm running. There's not a ton you can do with dex to damage simply because the weapons aren't that powerful. The fact that you critical more often, however, adds to your DPR though it's bursty so you might not notice without tracking it. Improved critical adds even more, and combat inspiration with studied combat ensures that you're hitting at least as often as a full BAB character, probably more.

Anyway, with quick study and studied strike you'll be able to add your (essentially) sneak attack damage once every round (only 1d6 at 5th level, goes up at 6th). You should also take sickening offensive (or similar) for the debuff later.

The utility of an investigator in combat is all of the spells he can add to himself to do things other players can't. He's also a skills monkey that combats better than most other 3/4 BAB classes once you take into account all of his spells and talents. They aren't killing like a ranger archer or a full BAB martial, but they are still doing their fair share both in combat and out.

I know it's too late, but I tend to shy away from multi-classing with hybrids. They already have what you need, and even a 1-level dip puts them behind what they could be capable of with their own abilities. Just sayin...

EDIT: fixed a typo. Also, don't compare your character with a fighter or a barbarian - that's not the proper comparison.


mutagen, barkskin, heroism along with studied combat are the investigator's combat buffs.

Also you're fighting one handed with no power attack and comparing yourself to what I assume are two handed weapon uses with power attack.

Power attack alone is giving them 6 damage a hit.
two handing is giving them probably between 2-3 damage from str and another 2-3 damage from better weapon damage.

Dex builds don't match str builds in damage. Swash is the only one that kinda can because it's getting a lot of free damage to compensate for it's fighting style.

EDIT:
Lets take a look at a one handed barb. 18 str +4 when raging at lv5 has a +10 to hit for 1d6 + 11 using power attack and a +1 weapon.
you're at +10 for 1d6 + 7 using studied combat and a +1 weapon. 4 damage is just the power attack damage and that his accuracy is that good is BAB's fault. If you had mutagen going that puts you to +12 for 1d6+9 damage.
But you should see, your damage isn't really lagging behind a comparable barbs damage (only -4 damage) it's that your fighting style is 1d6(greatsword instead of rapier)+3(the .5 of str)+2(power attack) = ~8 damage worse than the style the barb is doing.

Your strength is that your AC should be getting sky high with large dex, mithral chain, buckler, and barkskin. That should be 21 AC with no money spent. Mutagen boosts that by 4 to 25 AC before money spent. That means you're easily OVER the "Good tank" AC of 20+level since with 4000gp spent you'd be up to 28AC.

Your best option might be to retrain your combat reflexes out for extra talent for mutagen. it'll give you +2 accuracy, damage and +4 AC.


taks wrote:

...

I know it's too late, but I tend to shy away from multi-classing with hybrids. They already have what you need, and even a 1-level dip puts them behind what they could be capable of with their own abilities. Just sayin...

I generally agree with this. There is a reason it is the prevailing wisdom. But, I think it should contain this caveat, "if you want to play a martial character but want more versatility in and out of combat and a level dip or two gets your charter to comparable DPR to a dedicated martial but you still get utility casting, broader more interesting class features, and potentially better save then go for it." You just have to know your not playing an optimised casting class your playing a Fighter with a cool bag of tricks.

To the OP remember once you have Keen (get access earlier) or Improved crit (is better) you should be criting once a round so with parry repose you are actually taking an extra attack per round that you have to factor into damage. If you use long arm and combat reflexes there will be more attacks you have to consider.


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i went strength based with my empiricist but really its the same in the end. your damage will be bursty and derived mostly from Combat Inspiration on an Inspired weapon. What i will say though is that you could end up with the most accurate attacks in the group. Studied combat plus 3/4 BAB ends up with something like 5/4 BAB accuracy and you can add buffs/inspiration on top of that.

i think at level 10, with a +1 inspired rapier, Swift action Studied Combat and one point of inspiration burned i am at around +21 / 1D6+24

its not the best but i pretty much always hit and if i want to burn through points i can burn through enemies about just as quickly. those numbers get better with extracts too by the way. It just takes levels to come on line since so many things depend on level locks or scaling.


my lv5 strigator was a bab 3 + str 4 + mutagen 2 + studied combat 2 + weapon 1 + heroism 2 from potion and alchemical allocation - power attack 1 = +13 to hit for
1d8+ str 6 + mutagen 3 + studied combat 2 + weapon 1 + power attack 3 = 1d8+15 ~ 19.5.
compared to +10 for 2d6+16 ~ 23 that the barb was doing with power attack I felt quite good at damage.


Chess Pwn wrote:

my lv5 strigator was a bab 3 + str 4 + mutagen 2 + studied combat 2 + weapon 1 + heroism 2 from potion and alchemical allocation - power attack 1 = +13 to hit for

1d8+ str 6 + mutagen 3 + studied combat 2 + weapon 1 + power attack 3 = 1d8+15 ~ 19.5.
compared to +10 for 2d6+16 ~ 23 that the barb was doing with power attack I felt quite good at damage.

To add to this the higher the AC of the opponent the more the calculations favours accuracy over damage. So the average damage against high AC, often higher CR targets, equalises the damage further.


yeah, a good rough conversion is 1 accuracy is the same as 2 damage for DPR.


taks wrote:

I know it's too late, but I tend to shy away from multi-classing with hybrids. They already have what you need, and even a 1-level dip puts them behind what they could be capable of with their own abilities. Just sayin...

Inspired blade investigator is probably one of the only exceptions to that rule of thumb. It works exceedingly well together, especially with the empiricist archetype. Dex to damage at level 1 and by mid level studied combat + parry/riposte makes you a demon in combat.

My advice is stick with it, you'll either catch up around level 9 or end up taking infusion to polymorph barbarians into pouncing 5 attack creatures.


Yeah I think the best advice here is don't compare yourself to the Barbarian. You should be an absolute monster with skill points & you have 6th level casting (extracts). If you ARE keeping up with the full-BAB Martials then your game is probably getting unbalanced.

There's a lot of good advice for improving your damage here, but even if all you do is provide a flanking bonus for your meatier friends you're still contributing.

A good question would be: "How does the party tend to do in combat?" (and since this is for PFS there's probably a bit of variation there)

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