Victorian era style investigator


Advice


One of our GMs is doing a Victorian era style game and the idea I have is for a psychic detective that throws returning tarot cards. Since Deadly Dealer requires Arcane Strike, which requires I cast arcane spells, is there any work around anyone can think of, other than the GM house ruling it? I don’t have the entire 20 levels planned yet, but that is his starting concept. Your help is much appreciated.


There is a work around (although it might not actually be very good)- you can qualify and use the elemental strike feat instead, based upon a rule within that feat.

Elemental strike is basically an elemental version of arcane strike (swift for +1 to +5, but uses character level rather than caster). It is a feat that is solely for the plane touched races and element is bound to your race (so fire damage for an ifrit).

The reason it is not as good as the arcane strike- arcane strike is just pure damage rather than elemental. So you have to worry about resistances- and anything more than token resistance is going to wipe out your extra damage.

Also, there is the obvious problem that this is bound to 4 different races. I am not sure if you will mind, but it could be a problem for some people.

Scarab Sages

Possibly the Questioner Archetype? That’s an Arcane caster Investigator.

Sovereign Court

The Questioner Investigator is pretty cool. Bard spellcasting meshes very well with the rest of the investigator class.

It's got one technical flaw though, which you should discuss with your GM. Bards are arcane casters so they're at risk of arcane spell failure in armor. However, in their armor proficiency description, they get an exemption for shields and light armor.

Investigators normally use extracts so they don't worry about armor spell failure. Both classes wear light armor, and the archetype doesn't change it. Neither spell list has mage armor spells, because the classes are expected to wear light armor.

In PFS this hasn't been fixed. In a home game, ask the GM to let the Questioner cast spells in light armor just like the bard, and then you're fine.

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If you really want to go for throwing deadly cards though, consider instead the Card Caster witch archetype, which gets those abilities much more easily. It shouldn't be hard to style that archetype in a Victorian style either.


I think the Cartomancer witch archetype with the Amateur Investigator and Psychic Sensitivity feats would get you close to what you want.


Thanks all, it looks like that last one will be the best option for me without needing too much adaption.

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