Alistair Quinnell's page

Baronet Alistair Quinnell (title from spending prestige)
Choice : Senator
Alignment : Neutral Good
Race : 1/2 elf
Class : Empiricist Investigator 11
Lion Blade : Yes (from spending prestige)

In court, Alistair is a well dressed nobleman with a highly decorative mithral cane. He is known to be highly observant, a scholar in many fields with a particular interest in nobility, and can find the best restaurants and fine entertainment no matter where he travels. (maxed out knowledge nobility and local, and perception bonus of over 30.) He is a follower of Iomedae.

He prefers to negotiate rather than fight, but when things get dangerous, the cane reveals itself to be a glamered mithral rapier. However, his primary weapon is a shortbow. He keeps himself mobile and fires well placed shots. (point blank, precise, and focused shot, ranged study)

Sir, I am a Taldan gentleman with a long standing family line and the title of Baronet. Of course I have a surname!

Quinnell. Alistair Quinnell. In the service of Lady Gloriana Morilla.

One other fun intro to do :

"I am Baronet Alistair Quinnell, in the service of the honorable Lady Glorianna Morilla. I am a diplomat and a scholar, and when need be, an archer. I sharpen my senses through the use of alchemy, and I carry a variety of wands for when unusual circumstances come up. If we get into a fight and I am in the front line, things have gone terribly wrong."

(1/2 Elf empiricist investigator, noble title and Lion Blade vanities, uses point blank shot, precise shot, focused shot, quick study, ranged study, studied combat, and studied strike regularly to do entirely unreasonable damage for a shortbow.)

I have an Investigator in my game that regularly makes 40s or 50s Perception checks. I pretty much assume he is going to spot anything and plan accordingly. The player built him as a skill monkey so skill checks are about the only time he really shines his combat skills are pretty meh.

I toss lots of skill challenges at the party that I know he is going to pass and most of the others fail. It is his time to shine. Why not let him?

Gee, that character sounds like me. As a 1/2 Elf empiricist investigator with expanded inspiration and skill focus perception, I will find just about all the traps with proper preperation. Once in combat, the only way I'm doing fairly decent damage is by firing a bow with focused shot after using an extract of paragon surge do give me ranged study. (Yes, I'm taking ranged study as my next feat.)

Alistair Quinnell wrote:

"I am Special Agent Baronet Alistair Quinnell, of the Lion Blades. I am well trained in finding and disabling traps, identifying the abilities of the opposition, finding said opposition when it is trying to hide, and uncovering obscure bits of information about the places we as Pathfinders are sent on missions. In addition, I am a trained negotiator and am competent with utilizing almost any type of magical device. In the unfortunate circumstance of combat, I will be in the rear with my bow engaging the foes we see and watching out for any additional foes we don't see. If I enter melee, something has gone terribly wrong."

This is a (slightly embellished) version of my usual introduction of my least combat capable character, an Empiricist investigator with point blank shot, precise shot, focused shot, and weapon focus (shortbow) for his only real combat utility. His main use in combat is spotting the foe (makes perception DCs of 40+ regularly and often has a see invisibility extract running,) identifying what the foe is (all knowledges trained, and inspiration is useful,) and telling the party what to do about it (inspirational expertise talent.) As a skill character, he might not add much directly to the fight, but the last time he hit the table I had a 5 star GM flipping me off for wrecking his fun.

The mathematics of skills and checks are not designed for hyper specialisation (where the dice roll become irrelevant even for difficult tasks). If you are standing back in combat because you have channeled all your class and racial abilities, skills, feats, equipment and traits into a small number of dice rolls you are managing to both let down and overshadow the party.

Winning Pathfinder, is not 'Wrecking' the DM's 'fun'!

Number 1, a lot of parties like the idea of the enemy not having a surprise round. Number two, using a bow with the proper archery feats and giving the whole party a +4 to hit for the first round of combat is not exactly just hanging in the back, and neither is handling the wands of bull's strength, barkskin, mage armor, or whatever else the party wants to have activated but doesn't have the action economy for. (yes, investigators require UMD to work wands, so I put the points in it.)

"I am Special Agent Baronet Alistair Quinnell, of the Lion Blades. I am well trained in finding and disabling traps, identifying the abilities of the opposition, finding said opposition when it is trying to hide, and uncovering obscure bits of information about the places we as Pathfinders are sent on missions. In addition, I am a trained negotiator and am competent with utilizing almost any type of magical device. In the unfortunate circumstance of combat, I will be in the rear with my bow engaging the foes we see and watching out for any additional foes we don't see. If I enter melee, something has gone terribly wrong."

This is a (slightly embellished) version of my usual introduction of my least combat capable character, an Empiricist investigator with point blank shot, precise shot, focused shot, and weapon focus (shortbow) for his only real combat utility. His main use in combat is spotting the foe (makes perception DCs of 40+ regularly and often has a see invisibility extract running,) identifying what the foe is (all knowledges trained, and inspiration is useful,) and telling the party what to do about it (inspirational expertise talent.) As a skill character, he might not add much directly to the fight, but the last time he hit the table I had a 5 star GM flipping me off for wrecking his fun.

At least when I'm playing someone who is not good at combat, I advertise it up front, ie "I'm Special Agent Baronet Alistair Quinnell of the Lion Blades. I'm quite skilled at spotting and identifying dangers to my fellow Pathfinders. In addition, I am trained to disable traps, and am a competent negotiator as well. Should hostilities break out, I use my short bow from the rear while watching for any additional trouble. If I am in melee, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong." Note that this character does a bit better damage with a short bow than you might expect : focused shot with an Int of 20 does help :)

Consider that invisibility is rounds/level and see invisibility is 10 minutes/level. When I play my investigator I walk into an adventure with see invisibility and heightened awareness running if it's a dungeon-type scenario that looks like it will last a couple hours of in-game time. This has saved the party on a few occasions when I'm walking around like that and have a wand of faerie fire in hand. "Hey look, it's a sneaky SOB! Wreck him!"

My good sir, based on my adventuring experience I am afraid I must take issue with thy characterization of my skill set as a "piece of trash." If it is thy preference to rush unwittingly through the stronghold of thy foes, I shall not invest large amounts of time in arguing with thee. I shall, however, endeavor to be certain the rest of thy group proceeds with due caution to avoid being taken in by illusions, caught in traps, or deceived by crafty and underhanded knaves.

Speaking for myself, I found my reputation in the society sufficient to gain membership in the Lion Blades as well as the honorable title of Baronet in Taldor. Thus clearly prestige holds some value.

My good man, let me take this opportunity to say that in thos Sovereign Court, the last time I looked into such things it was indeed possible for a small amount of prestige for one to obtain a noble title. In addition to joining the Lion Blades, I have the singular honor of having become a Baronet of the Taldan Court in exchange for services rendered to the noble lady Glorianna.

Do medusa snakes poop?

This is answered in a novel by Seanan McGuire, and it's fairly disgusting and requires a special shampoo to deal with it.

My investigator goes for the whole James Bond crossed with McGuiver vibe, so on every scenario I'm starting out by seeing if this looks like a multi-day trek or a single day run of a few hours so I know how many ant haul extracts to prepare. I tend not to do masterwork backpacks since in my experience the characters who need the extra carrying capacity just lose it again in the extra weight of the backpack.