Character Design Help: Detective

[sam kelley]

Aloha! I've only recently gotten started playing pathfinder, and I'm due to join an AP game in a week or so. I'm slowly purchasing/trudging through all the material for the game, but while I do that at my own pace, I would love some help with character creation.

I'm looking to make a Detective-esc character who can also contribute to combat encounters. I've been looking at bard (particularly at the detective archtype on pfsrd.com) but I can't wrap my head around playing a bard in any situation besides skill checks/RPing.

My question is really: How can I make a character with a detective (sherlock holmesy feel) feel useful up to level 20? Would I play a bard and cross class with ninja? Or just go with a full caster that has all the flavor in the write-up?

Thanks so much!

[CasMat]

Inquisitors really fill this role well, unless it bothers you to be associated with a church. Good tracking abilities, the ability to detect Evil, Good, Chaos, Law at will (as well as detect magic on their spell list), and definitely able to contribute to combat. They are in the APG.

I'm not really sure a bard crossed with a ninja would give you what you are looking for exactly (and honestly doesn't sound like it would be that good without some very in-depth optimization), but a pure bard is useful up to twentieth-level, I promise. It seems you may want a bard actually, as they can be very good at the things detectives do (gather information, use obscure knowledge, bluff, etc.).

There are a few "Detective" archetypes in the APG, for rogue and bard. I'm not sure if they are mechanically up to snuff, but you can decide that for yourself.

[Hudax]

Sherlock Holmes is deceptively challenging to model, having several conflicting traits. He is incredibly observant, yet is in truth not a wise personality (due to his penchant to not eat during cases and shoot cocaine in between). His knowledge of certain subjects is remarkable, yet he doesn't know that the earth revolves around the sun (he considers it irrelevant). He is a master of disguise, yet generally disliked.

Some criteria:
some martial arts training
good swordsman
good shot with a pistol (but I think he uses it once?)
very perceptive yet not necessarily wise
very knowledgable on certain subjects yet ignorant on others
master of disguise
makes people uncomfortable with his observations and personality
likes to play violin

Personally a caster would ruin the flavor for me. If I were doing this, I would go all rogue, emphasising Dex, Int and Cha. I would play the Cha as intimidation, arrogance and force of personality rather than likeability.

Not sure how I would make him incredibly perceptive--maybe just traits, ranks and feats. I might make him lawful neutral to represent his misanthropy. This would also allow you to take the Eyes and Ears of the City trait (+1 perception).

Not sure how I would make him combat viable either. TWF/Dex is feat starved already, and trying to boost perception would make him even more so.

Hope that helps some. I've often wondered about this exact problem.

[therealthom]

Urban ranger? A guy played one in one of my games. He did well.

[Jiggy]

There's also the Investigator archetype for the rogue. You replace trapfinding with a really strong ability relating to gathering information. Also, there are a few rogue talents that really complement the concept as well. I suggest looking into that route instead of the bard.

[Atarlost]

While you may want a rogue if you refuse to be a caster I don't think any rogues except possibly ninja (I haven't yet seen UC so I don't know) are up to snuff. Compare them to alchemists. Alchemists have the same BAB; have bombs that must be better than sneak attack since that's the only mandatory swap in the vivisectionist archetype, who also gets some free extracts known and a skill consolidation on top of that; have discoveries that are at least as good as rogue talents; and have roughly bard equivalent spellcasting. They're even not all that far behind on skills as a 4+int int based class. There's no way trapfinding, trap sense, evasion, uncanny dodge, and 1 or 2 skill points per level are worth six level spellcasting.

The detective archetype of bard is also mechanically weak if you want to hold your own in combat. Inspire Courage is the bread and butter of bards and they don't have it or anything of comparable value. They don't get a generally useful battlefield performance until level 8.

So mechanically the best detective is probably an inquisitor or Bard Classic or, depending on what's been done to their skill list, a ninja. I don't think ninja and rogue can multiclass because one is an alternate of the other.

[sam kelley]

Thanks for all the help. Looking over Holmes as a basis for character design, the bard class seems to lend itself more and more as a top contender (Violin can be more than aesthetic, can be intelligent but not wise -wis is a dump stat- and the archetype is "detective). Plus I'm hoping in a game with 7 other players, one of them will be able to fill the shoes of Watson, the muscle. Perhaps a vivisectionist alchemist...

I'll get cracking on few builds (level 7 or so) and post them here once I'm done.
Again, Thanks!