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From Cohorts and Companions there is the Dread Investigator, and from Occult Adventures there's the Psychic Detective that is rather interesting.Will this guide be updated with the archetypes introduced after the ACG?I do plan on it, although bumping the thread when those come out.
I've got a lot of irons in the fire, so it'll probably take me longer than I'd like to get back to these, but I do plan on reviewing them soon enough.
The Psychic Detective might take a while, considering it uses the Psychic's spell list rather than the Alchemist's.
I've got a lot of irons in the fire, so it'll probably take me longer than I'd like to get back to these, but I do plan on reviewing them soon enough.From Cohorts and Companions there is the Dread Investigator, and from Occult Adventures there's the Psychic Detective that is rather interesting.Will this guide be updated with the archetypes introduced after the ACG?I do plan on it, although bumping the thread when those come out.
Oh no problem, from you response I just thought you weren't aware those two Archetypes were introduced.
Natural attack ratfolk investigator using tailblade?
That's a build I've been playing with. Two claws, a bite, and a tail attack gives you a lot of ways to deliver that Studied Combat bonus.
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Dread and Psychic are reviewed, both are basically as strong as the base class. I wanted to like Dread more, but pushing back the chance to get Swift Study is such a deal breaker for me. Consider the archetype as a whole blue if your GM agrees with my ruling though.
EDIT: I find it kind of funny that some people were excited for a rating for this when they probably already made up their minds on it, but I can't blame them, as before I wrote guides, I enjoyed seeing what other people would rate my fave abilities so I could argue with them if they didn't absolutely love it like I did. In that respect, I believe a natural attack paladin is entirely viable.
Care to share your build?
I phrased it badly. I've been "playing around" with that type of build. I haven't played the build in a game.
Dread and Psychic are reviewed, both are basically as strong as the base class. I wanted to like Dread more, but pushing back the chance to get Swift Study is such a deal breaker for me. Consider the archetype as a whole blue if your GM agrees with my ruling though.
EDIT: I find it kind of funny that some people were excited for a rating for this when they probably already made up their minds on it, but I can't blame them, as before I wrote guides, I enjoyed seeing what other people would rate my fave abilities so I could argue with them if they didn't absolutely love it like I did. In that respect, I believe a natural attack paladin is entirely viable.
I think you made a mistake somewhere. The "Dread Investigator" you have has the "Relentless Inspector" things. And they are like the same evaluation but different colors.
Dread and Psychic are reviewed, both are basically as strong as the base class. I wanted to like Dread more, but pushing back the chance to get Swift Study is such a deal breaker for me. Consider the archetype as a whole blue if your GM agrees with my ruling though
It seems to me that you mistakenly reported the Relentless inspector twice instead of including the Dread Investigator
Maybe I should be using a ring of rat fangs instead of the tusked, I mean it is a +5 to attack with that attack.
The ring is an option. I prefer the Sharptooth feat from The Monster Codex.
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Dread and Psychic are reviewed, both are basically as strong as the base class. I wanted to like Dread more, but pushing back the chance to get Swift Study is such a deal breaker for me. Consider the archetype as a whole blue if your GM agrees with my ruling thoughIt seems to me that you mistakenly reported the Relentless inspector twice instead of including the Dread Investigator
...this is something I could have done, although to my credit, I had to check both PFSRD and Archives for this. In this respect, I like relentless, although for the archives it's called the Leptistad (sp?), so I assumed it was dread. Back to the coal mines for me.
EDIT: Kinda hate dread investy, delayed inspiration isn't even close to fair for what this thing gains, I can't possibly suggest this in all good faith unless you're starting at 7th level, as the thought of going 1-6 with a chain'd rogue's level of offense is physically repulsive to me.
What are your house rules. I don't find them in the document when use CTRL+F "house rules"
I only find this "They’re also not being made with the house rules that I put above"
Have you had a chance to look at the Lamplighter archetype? What do you think of that one, and will you be adding it to your awesome guide?
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What are your house rules. I don't find them in the document when use CTRL+F "house rules"
I only find this "They’re also not being made with the house rules that I put above"
My homerules are at the beginning of the doc, but for clarity's sake:
For those who aren’t playing official, I’d suggest the following changes to the class:
Investigator Talent and Infusion at 1st level
Studied Combat at 2nd level
Studied Strike at 3rd Level
I think these changes really help the class work at lower levels.
Have you had a chance to look at the Lamplighter archetype? What do you think of that one, and will you be adding it to your awesome guide?
Glad you like it, and just finished reviewing it, it's a damn nice archetype. I'd say it's tied with empiricist as straight upgrades for the class.
I've looked through and a lot of stuff looks really nice. However, I did catch a small error. You mentioned TWF could work with slashing grace but there is a catch. Take a look at the feat here or read below
Choose one kind of light or one-handed slashing weapon (such as the longsword). When wielding your chosen weapon one-handed, you can treat it as a one-handed piercing melee weapon for all feats and class abilities that require such a weapon (such as a swashbuckler's or a duelist's precise strike) and you can add your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier to that weapon's damage. The weapon must be one appropriate for your size.
You do not gain this benefit while fighting with two weapons or using flurry of blows, or any time another hand is otherwise occupied.
Of course, the agile weapon enchantment is a nice way to patch this up with cash. It hits me too, oh the Samurai build I could've made...
Other than that a lot of the stuff looks great. Another thing I found that could be pretty handy is the orator feat. While the trait Student of Philosophy does allow INT instead of CHA, this is one set of skill ranks for all the face skills, which gives you two more skills to max out. I always love your guides and I love the Investigator, so great to see. Keep up the good work!
I've looked through and a lot of stuff looks really nice. However, I did catch a small error. You mentioned TWF could work with slashing grace but there is a catch. Take a look at the feat here or read below
Choose one kind of light or one-handed slashing weapon (such as the longsword). When wielding your chosen weapon one-handed, you can treat it as a one-handed piercing melee weapon for all feats and class abilities that require such a weapon (such as a swashbuckler's or a duelist's precise strike) and you can add your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier to that weapon's damage. The weapon must be one appropriate for your size.
You do not gain this benefit while fighting with two weapons or using flurry of blows, or any time another hand is otherwise occupied.
Of course, the agile weapon enchantment is a nice way to patch this up with cash. It hits me too, oh the Samurai build I could've made...
Other than that a lot of the stuff looks great. Another thing I found that could be pretty handy is the orator feat. While the trait Student of Philosophy does allow INT instead of CHA, this is one set of skill ranks for all the face skills, which gives you two more skills to max out. I always love your guides and I love the Investigator, so great to see. Keep up the good work!
Note the date on the last post in this thread... It DID work. The guide just didn't update.
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Have you seen the newest archetype in the magic tactics toolbox?
It's called the questioner. It replaces alchemy with int-based bard casting, and it replaces poison lore with a scaling bonus to knowledge checks, plus free eidetic recollection at level 5 (early access).
Cannot take alchemist discoveries, like a psychic detective.
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There's a BUNCH of new archetypes now, according to PFSRD. Cipher, Conspirator, Criptid Scholar, Cult Hunter, Forensic Physician, Gravedigger, Hallucinist, Majordomo, Profiler, Questioner, Scavenger, Skeptic... I think that's all?
My assessments of them are as follows. Note that the Investigator is quite front-loaded on his Investigator talents, so trading away your early talents hurts more than trading away later ones - especially since you can't take the feat Extra Investigator Talent until you have received your first Talent through your class.
Cipher: the changes to class skills and inspiration are indicative of the direction of the archetype as a whole: if you look at them and go "that's fine, it actually fits my character well", read on. If you looked at that list and went "well it hurts, but I can just buy them back with a Talent", then this archetype is not for you. Inattention Blindness makes people need a perception check (scaling DC) to notice that you are right in front of them. It is cool and flavourful, and has a whole bunch of uses for someone who wants to take advantage of it, and it replaces all the things you don't really care about in your class. That's great! Unfortunately to get the rest of the archetype we now need to trade out things we do want. While we get to keep Alchemy, and we get a bunch of really nifty abilities (Hide in Plain Sight? Yes please!) we trade out *every single one of our first 5 investigator talents*. You get a lot with this archetype, but you also trade out a lot. I think it's really quite good at what it does, and I want to like it, but it will really need the appropriate campaign to shine. If it even gave you a single talent at a reasonable level, I would rate this much higher. Delaying the class feature until level 13 is a very big price to pay.
Conspirator: assuming you will buy back your normal use of Inspiration, this costs you two Talents and your trap stuff, and gives you the equivalent of the Underworld Inspiration Talent, a nice bonus on Bluff, a bonus on perception to act in the surprise round, and a really strong boost to spotting invisible scrying sensors. It starts off a poor trade, makes Talents even more front loaded, and reduces your early game knowledge checks. It evens out after a few levels, and the anti-scrying thing is unique but it depends on how much scrying is likely to come up in your game.
Cryptid Scholar: adds wisdom to Monster ID and lets you take 10 - it's nice, but you're not likely to have more than +1 Wis if you're lucky. Trades your normal studied combat for a party defensive buff to all creatures of the same type or subtype as the studied creature. Trades your normal studied strike for an offensive boost to everyone's next attack against that monster (half what studied strike would give). If you're planning to be a support character in combat, this is actually really nice for you and gives you a lot more party buffing ability, without taking anything much away from you. If you are a combat investigator, avoid.
Cult Hunter: trade out all your poison and trap class abilities for a sense motive boost, better saves against poison and compulsion, a few flavour-related uses of knowledge or spellcraft, and reflex and AC in the surprise round. Lost fast alchemy, study up on a religion to gain a bonus on a bunch of skills against it's followers. Unless you're really into your trap-monkeying, I'd call this a win so far. Increase your studied combat/strike against those you studied up on. Decrease it against everyone else. Unless you're going to be going up against this sort of cultist at least 50% of the time, this will end up working out worse for you. Then you trade out your 7th level talent for improved uncanny dodge... but only against summoned creatures... because specialising needs to hurt or your're not doing it right? It's not terrible, you're not giving up anything you need, but unless fighting cultists is basically your job description you're probably better off going somewhere else.
Forensic Physician: free inspiration to heal instead of linguistics, heal bonus instead of trap finding. Heal doesn't come up much past low levels, but it's not a bad skill to have, and you're not giving up much. Boosting your heal checks and saves against disease is pretty meh though, and definitely not worth your 3rd level Talent. If you want this ability, get Infusion instead and use Remove Disease to do it better. Blood Lore is an interesting ability, but there is a spell Blood Biography that does the same thing (UMD and a few scrolls should cover you for the occasional use). There are so many cool things I want to spend my early talents on, and on the right character Blood Lore might be worth one, but never two. Nice flavour, but mechanically weak.
Gravedigger: this archetype actually changes a lot of things, so I'll just give the highlights. You keep your extracts, but lose all other alchemy stuff. This means no mutagens or infusions, which hurts both combat and support types, but isn't fatal. You lose two levels of Studied Combat and Studied Strike against any non-undead creatures - again, painful but not fatal (note: this *does not* delay when you can take Talents that affect it). Gain object reading, necromancy implement, and at fourth level conjuration implement (all limited, but can take extra focus powers in place of Talents) as an Occultist. This might be worth the hit. Your Talents will be in less demand since you can't take the alchemy ones, and the resonant powers actually look really cool. Object reading is what the Forensic Physician wishes it had. I'm not familiar enough with the Occultist to say whether I'd prefer this to infusions/mutagens and full Studied Combat, but it's definitely worth looking into.
Hallucinist: trade out your first five Talents and then some for a couple of SLAs and a shitty mutagen-wannabe that *penalises* your dex for +2 perception and low light vision. Why. Darkvision and See Invisibility at 7 are nice, but you have other ways of getting them when you need to, and Aura Sight is not actually that great. It does at least scale to +10 with Blindsense at 15th level, which is really freaking nice and very difficult to get any other way, but way too little way too late. Pre-7 this thing is barely worth drinking - let alone losing Investigator Talents for. You do get the nifty ability to spend duration of your mutagen-wannabe to cast SLAs: Minor Image, Oneiric Horror (nice looking single target disable, but ongoing saves), and Synesthesia (single target debuff). These are a nice addition to your extracts, but you are paying way too much for them. If you want repeatable single target debuffing play a witch. Grab yourself a potion of See Invisibility and ignore this trash. Your Talents are worth far more that what this gives you in exchange.
Majordomo: getting teamwork feats is nice, and being able to share them with your allies is really nice, but you know what is nicer? Alchemy. If you want to buff your teammates use infusions. If you want teamwork feats, play an Inquisitor/Hunter and keep your casting. Even the replacements for trapfinding and trapsense, two abilities I do not rate very highly, are basically worthless in 99% of campaigns. Trash archetype is trash.
Profiler: a boost to Sense Motive is nice, also necessary for what comes next. Track someone with sense motive rather than survival. This overrides Pass Without Trace, flying etc. but the minimum DC is 40, and made in secret by the GM. Don't expect to have any confidence in your results any time soon (Level 10: +6 Skill Focus, +5 archetype boost, +10 ranks, +3 class skill, +1 Wis +5 item = 1d20+1d6+29, for 67.5% chance of success). Some minor divination stuff is cool, though two inspiration is a lot to pay for Blood Biography, and the flanking immunity is a bit situational but not a bad return for your level 7 Talent. A nifty little archetype, nothing flashy, but some nice stuff in there.
Questioner: you swap all your alchemy for Bard spellcasting and a scaling boost to knowledge checks, plus a free Talent to let you take 10 on knowledge checks like a Bard. Straightforward. Painful. Not necessarily a write-off. You were already good at knowledge checks, this makes you better. Nice but nothing game breaking. The real thing here is whether you think the bard spell list (and spontaneous casting based of Int) is worth giving up Alchemy. Going Bardic certainly has advantages (AoE buff/debuff effects like Haste, Glitterdust and Silence are all tempting, plus: Detect Magic!) but I'm still weighing alchemy and the ability to have a formula book higher, due to the massive flexibility it gives you from day to day. While spells let you use your actions to buff your allies instead of theirs, extracts let you give them buffs they would otherwise need to cast themselves. I could be convinced though.
Scavenger: use clockwork instead of potions, but achieve essentially the same effect, but swap potion ID for Wondrous Item ID. Lose free inspiration to all knowledges except (Engineering), and swap linguistics and spellcraft for appraise and disable device. Jury-Rig is pretty circumstancial - repairing devices is pretty rare, and sacrificing extracts to do so hurts, but it's still better than poison lore I guess. A bonus to repair or damage constructs is kind of nice, if rare, but getting Craft Construct for free at 11th level is really quite nice. Overall probably a bit weaker early on (though the inspiration is the only thing you're likely to miss), but definitely picks up once you start making constructs. Note, I cannot find any mention of this archetype at all outside of PFSRD, so I have no idea if it is PFS legal.
Skeptic: swap finding traps for finding haunts, saves against poison for saves against haunts, and faster item creation for the ability to smite haunts (which are otherwise rather difficult to harm). Lose nothing you will cry over, gain some flavourful, if rather circumstantial abilities. Then you swap your level 7 Talent for the ability to damage possessing creatures with a touch attack against the creature they have possessed (yelling "The Power of Nethys compels you!" while doing so is completely optional). While possessed creatures may not be that common, without someone to cast Break Enchantment (caster level check means scrolls are of limited use) you can be extremely short on options. This is a unique and flavourful ability and I like it. Totally something I would consider for the level 7 talent it costs, which is exactly where archetypes should sit in terms of power.
I think that's all. Several are utterly terrible and should never be taken. None are so powerful that they will replace Empiricist as the go-to archetype, although Cryptid Scholar is probably superior for a support Investigator. Cipher is cool but hard to recommend, Conspirator is not bad, Cryptid Scholar is great for some builds and terrible for the rest, Gravedigger certainly has promise, and Skeptic is solid and full of flavour. Most of them though are just kind of situational, or give up too much for what they give you.
Feel free to dispute anything I've said here, these are just my first reactions so I'd be interested to hear other people's perspectives, and thanks for reading what turned out to be more of a wall of text than was originally planned.
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Nice review of the new archetypes, Librain. 2 notes, Scavenger is from Blood of the Beast, and PFS hasn't updated the Additional Resources yet regarding content from that book (as of today, but the update is expected "soon.")
I really like the Questioner. Been wanting to build one since it came out, but I can't get past one issue - arcane spell failure. It didn't need to be addressed on the standard investigator cause alchemy isn't arcane casting. And bards get the ability to cast in light armor without incurring it. But there's no such waiver for the Questioner. Feels like either an oversight or a tax, but until I can figure out a reliable and relatively easy way to overcome it, I'll stick with other builds.
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Re: Scavenger, I knew what book it was from, but I've learned to be wary of trusting too blindly in PFSRD (I've seen too many people bringing the trait "second chance" to the table) so the inability to find any mention of the archetype anywhere else on the web had me a bit worried. Good to know the update will be coming soon.
Good catch on the Questioner's ASF, it didn't even occur to me when I was looking through them. I can only assume that it was an oversight, as I feel they would mention such a significant change. Not to mention the archetype is tuned pretty nicely in terms of power, and losing all armour would completely throw that out and turn an interesting archetype into a trap. People will love the idea of a bard/investigator hybrid, and they'll start playing one, and then suddenly they'll need to lose their armour and will be too squishy for words and they'll hate it and wish they'd known about this before they chose the archetype.
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An addendum to the review, the following archetypes stack with Empiricist: Conspirator, Forensic Physician... that is all. Neither are great archetypes, but neither are so terrible that we can't expect to see the occasional character combining the two.
Lamplighter works with: Majordomo. Eww. Also Sleuth if you count the older archetypes. Still not even interested.
Mastermind stacks with: Cryptid Scholar. This one is actually really interesting, as both are decent archetypes that work well for a support investigator.
There is very little stackability amongst the archetypes, as most trade out poison use, with trapsense and trapfinding not far behind. Maybe some of the new ones will stack with each other? I don't have time to look into it fully.
One final note, I was recently made aware of the new prestige class Brewkeeper, which specifically says that it progresses alchemy instead of spellcasting if you have it. It gives a bunch of metamagics and debuffs on touch spells and splash weapons, and you get free infusion on your extracts if they would be eligible for potions. Not as great as actual infusion, because the ones that are too OP for potions are the ones that you most want to be handing out to your party in liquid form, but still nice for all you Caileanites out there.
Probably better for full Alchemists (who have more splash weapon options) or Magii (who make more use of splash weapons), but could still combo nicely for you.
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So it's been a while, but curiosity brought me back here and then onwards to discovering that there are actually now a BUNCH of new archetypes for the investigator.
... did someone say review time?
Again, all things come with the pre-existing acknowledgements that Talents are hugely front loaded, and that I don't value trapfinding or poison stuffs very highly.
Antiquarian: Your alchemy becomes spell casting, with no spell failure. You don't change your spell list though. The main benefit of spells is being able to target multiple people at once, but the Alchemist spell list is incredibly short on spells which would actually benefit from this (Haste is one, I can't find a second), while losing infusions cuts you off from the best aspect of alchemy - handing out powerful self-only buffs to the martials who most benefit from them. Detect magic and curse resist/immunity are nice, but not enough to save this archetype (Lantern of Auras costs 2k). Casting Alchemist formulae as spells is the worst of both worlds, nothing else here changes that at all.
1/5 (1.5/5 if you give your party Haste regularly)
Bonded Investigator: Get a familiar at level 2! An amazingly utilitarian replacement for all your poison stuff. Does this mean you can take Improved Familiar at 7th level? IT DOESN'T MATTER YOU GET IT FOR FREE!!! OK technically you lose your Talent in exchange for it, but I'd probably be buying it anyway, so it works out the same. Great Archetype. Up there with the best. I'm not sure how useful granting your familiar access to your inspiration will be (maybe it will help out with UMD checks?), and your Studied Strike is nerfed, but you probably shouldn't be relying on that for damage anyway. Familiars are better.
4/5
Cartographer: You get to spend 10 minutes drawing a map of your area to gain some minor skill bonuses. In towns and wilderness this could be useful, but in a dungeon you are restricted to areas you've already explored, which is usually pretty redundant. Losing Keen Recollection isn't really a big deal since you probably have all the skills anyway, but know direction is a cantrip, and not even a good one - a compass costs 10gp. Swapping Swift Alchemy for faster travel off road is OK I guess, if that's the sort of thing you're going to be doing a lot. Overall it's got a bit of flavour, and you don't lose anything important, but it also doesn't really do much for you. Unless this really fits your niche, I wouldn't bother.
2/5
Demolitionist: Get improved sunder for free at level 2, and later ignore the first 5 points of hardness. You also pick up a cone attack - short range but decent damage, great for dealing with swarms but not much else. Finally, you get some useful battlefield control tactics: creating difficult terrain, providing concealment/cover to allies, and sundering an entry point through a solid stone wall. These give you lots of options to help you and your party manipulate conditions in your favour. In terms of cost, losing Studied Strike progression hurts, but not much; the biggest problem is losing your 3rd and 9th level Talents. I don't see this being a threat to a sunder-based fighter at all, but the utility is certainly something I would seriously consider.
3.5/5
Engineer: Trade out trap and poison stuff for a meh bonus on identifying constructs, and the ability to hand out your inspiration to other members of your party. You need to assign it beforehand, and it only lasts a few minutes (until level 11 when it suddenly lasts for hours) but this is still quite an interesting ability that will help you support your party better. Giving your fighters a boost on their crucial will saves might change what side they're fighting on when the succubus says hi. Given you don't lose anything of significance, even if the construct thing never comes up handing out inspiration is valuable support.
3/5
Guardian of Immortality: Swap Poison Lore for a scaling bonus on sense motive. Swap Poison Resistance for Endurance at level 2, fire resistance at 5, and double visibility in sandstorms and fog at 8. Free fire resistance is very nice, and many fog spells can be crippling - an extra 5 feet of visibility could make a huge difference. At 7th level, lose your Talent to gain free inspiration on a bunch of things, but unless you make heavy use of the disguise skill, the only one likely to come up is saves against Illusions. Weak for a talent. Swapping immunity to poison for a flat +1 to all saves is really nice, and the teleportation blocking ability at level 13 might have some situational use, but costing a Talent is steep. Overall you get a few nice things, but some builds will struggle with losing two talents for them. It's probably a fairly even trade all up, and it mostly won't play out much different from a vanilla investigator, but if you want the anti-teleport stuff then go for it.
2.5/5
Jinyiwei: Again we swap out alchemy, this time for Wisdom casting as an Inquisitor. Because we are Divine, there is no spell failure and we can wear armour as normal. The rest of it is pretty sweet: swap some of your less useful class abilities (trap finding, trap sense, quick alchemy) for cool stuff you will regularly make use of: scaling bonuses to Sense Motive and the most common uses of Perception! Saves against enchantments and illusions - some of the worst saves to fail! A slightly weaker version of the Judgement class feature! Fundamentally this all comes down to the Investigator spell list - there's some good stuff on that your party will love you for, but you lose handing out the powerful "self only" infusions. If you like it enough, the rest of this archetype is great value. If you can't get past losing infusions, then Judgements won't be enough to save this archetype. Note that while Inspiration is keyed to Wisdom now, Studied Combat/Strike are not, so it is best stacked with Cryptid Scholar, which not only gives you Wisdom to Monster ID, but also swaps out the Studied Strike/Combat that you weren't planning to use anyway for a handy party-wide buff!
1 if you don't like the swap, 4 if you do, higher if combined with Cryptid Scholar
Malice Binder: DO NOT TAKE THIS ARCHETYPE! Replace Alchemy with "fetters" - like hexes, but less powerful, less versatile, and more restrictive. Losing alchemy for these is an insult. Seriously this archetype competes with the Majordomo for the worst archetype! Full rant on how bad fetters are in spoiler below.
-2/5
Oh look. They don't. And not in a "they are kinda sucky and I'm badmouthing them" kind of way - they have literally zero effect on anyone who does not have some kind of spellcasting or spell-like abilities. Supernatural doesn't count. That's probably 3/4 of the bestiary that are flat out immune to what is supposed to be one of your strongest abilities. You still get to keep studied combat/strike, but without either mutagen or extracts to buff it you won't be dealing meaningful damage.
But what if your opponent DOES have some spellcasting? If they're this restrictive, they must be pretty good when they do work, right? Well... no. No they are not. At low levels, the effects you can generate from these fetters include things like: target is shaken for 1 round on a failed save, the same but with sickened, or deafened, or entangled (at least this one isn't time limited), or party buffs like granting an ally +2 AC against the target at the cost of sickening them, or granting an ally +2 on saves but they can't drink (including potions), speak, or cast verbal spells without breaking the effect. For the buffs, the first one seems like a poor trade honestly, and while the second could potentially be decent on a non-caster, it doesn't stack with a Cloak of Resistance, or the Orison, Resistance. It's a long way from being "good", or even "decent", or even "better than Protection From Evil", but given that it is not restricted by alignment it does finally approach "worth the action to cast". The Save or Suck (SoS) effects, however, are terrible. A single target effect, imposing a minor condition on a failed save would be weak for a first level spell that can target anyone. Especially given that passing the save makes them immune to it for 24 hours. And that once you've done your single fetter you literally have nothing else left up your sleeve. You don't get to pick a second fetter until level 4. These effects are more comparable to Touch of Fatigue - a cantrip. Yes, this archetype trades out your low level Alchemy for a cantrip. One. Single. Cantrip.
At level 6 some of these fetters scale to things like blinded for 1 round per 2 class levels. That may sound good at first, but I remind you that blindness/deafness is a second level spell with permanent duration and longer range (oh, did I forget to mention that they generally require the target to be within Close range?). Honestly, apart from the HD restriction I'd still rather take Sleep than 3 rounds of blinded. 6th level is entirely too late for these effects to start getting good, and the "good" is not even nearly good enough. This is the level where normal Investigators really start to come online, with things like Monstrous Physique becoming available, and Mutagens pumping their stats up to do some really quite impressive damage. This is where normal Investigators are handing out Invisibility, Displacement, Fly, or Heroism. But I guess you get to prepare your "staggered for one round on a failed save" as a swift action now, so that's... not as weak as it was before? But yeah, you are falling further and further behind the pack here.
But it gets worse. These fetters require an item from your target in order to work. So this random spellcaster you stumbled upon in the forest? You need to walk right up to them, make a Steal combat maneuver (you get Improved Steal for free so at least you don't provoke) to grab something you can make a fetter out of, spend a move/swift action to prepare the fetter (I'm not sure whether it provokes or not), and a standard to cast it. Minimum of 2-3 full rounds of combat per fetter. And that's assuming you succeed on the first attempt (what is your CMB again??), to impose a minor condition on a failed save.
Now, this is not the *intended* use of this ability. You are supposed to be a witch hunter, tracking down your target, creating fetters as you go from pieces you pick up as you track them. So in this particular situation, when everything is going right for the Malice Binder, and he can use multiple fetters as a standard action each, surely they become useful then?
Oh you sweet summer child. No. No, even then these fetters are not worth casting, due to one simple fact that even I missed on first reading this dumpster fire of an archetype: your saves are keyed to your charisma.
Yes, that's right, your one true dump stat is now also your casting stat. And most of your effects target Will - a spellcaster's best save. Even at level 11, when your fetter effects start to get actually good (even if they still fall well short of where they should be at for the level), you will never see them because the only people they work on will make the save on a 2, laugh, and disintegrate you. According to the bestiary statistics, the average CR12 monster has a will save of +10, and as casters universally have strong will saves, the ones you are hunting will almost universally be higher than that. A base DC of 15 gives an 80% save rate, which is totally unacceptable in a single target Save-or-Suck, and about a third of the bestiary will be hitting 90-95%.
And that's for monsters only a single CR above you. Sure you can increase your charisma, but not enough to matter. Not without sacrificing entirely too much in stats that are more important. With half your class abilities still keyed to your Int, turning that into your dump stat instead will cripple your inspiration pool and make Studied Combat unuseable. When throwing out single target Save-or-Sucks, you want the save to be high and the suckage to be severe. Not only do you spend your early career with nothing more than "save of be mildly inconvenienced", at the point where you get a few rounds of blindness with a DC of 15, the pure casters you are hunting down will be throwing out spells that paralyse or even straight up kill you with a DC of 25 or higher. Even fully fledged Fetters simply cannot compete with even the 4th level spells a 2/3 caster gets at the same level.
The "best" use I can see for this in normal play is to ignore anything that relies on a save and go for straight combat, using the Hexing Shield to boost your save against the spells that will be coming for you. Note, however, that while a +8 to saves at level 19 sounds impressive, it's a resistance bonus so will not stack with your cloak. Even this only gives you a small boost that could be easily replicated by alchemy. Add in the limitations on the number of fetters known, and the difficulties in casting multiple fetters per encounter... you are comparing this with something like handing your party barbarian Beast Shape II and turning them into a 30 Str dire tiger with 5 attacks on a pounce. And then having another dozen extracts left over. Or handing your rogue Selective Invisibility so they can walk freely around enemies into prime backstabbing position, then go to town on their target of choice without breaking invisibility to anyone else.
I'm trying not to make a disparaging personal comment about whoever designed this ability, but they are really not making it easy for me here. If they were just keyed to Intelligence then there's a couple that could have become decent (after 5 or 10 levels of mediocrity) - not enough to make this archetype good, not by a long shot, but enough to make it at least useable. Fear and Blindness can be utterly crippling to most enemies, but nerfing the save has taken even that away from us. The last Investigator I played had +6 intelligence and -1 charisma. That equates to a -7 on save DC, or 35%. That's beyond huge. Huge doesn't even begin to cover the difference a +7 to save DC makes. Do you know how much wizards would pay for even a +2? If they had permanent advantage on their saves - being able to roll twice and take the better result each and every time - that would only equate to roughly a +5 on their save.
Hell, even the change to Inspiration is a poor deal. Lose free inspiration to all knowledges except (arcana) in exchange for sleight of hand and survival. Not terrible exactly, but your job in the party is to know things, not be the tracker. There is not a single part of this archetype this is good. Sure you can still make it almost work, if you just focus completely on combat and ignore fetters altogether... I mean you'll basically be a less-useful rogue with less damage
I think this is probably one of the worst designed archetypes in the entire game. I can think of a few terrible ones, but they would be hard pressed to compete with one that takes away the best part of the base class and replaces it with something that is so actively terrible.
Natural Philosopher: The weapon proficiencies aren't great but that's not exactly a change, lose free inspiration on Spellcraft, some other miner changes to skills, and you were probably going to take Infusion as your third level Talent anyway. You're not losing a lot, but you're probably gaining even less. It's so marginally different from a vanilla investigator as to barely be worth being an archetype.
2/5
Portal Seeker: This one's SUPER niche. The ability to teleport around the battlefield is nice for the combat types, but it costs Studied Strike, so I'm not sure who this is actually meant for. A Detect Magic for extra-dimensional portals... do dimensional portals tend to hide themselves? In the very rare case that an enemy has a bag of holding, it should be obvious immediately on looting the corpse. And resisting teleportation effects? There's some nice flavour here, but not much that I would really consider useful.
1.5/5
Reckless Epicurean: The main draw here is Experimental Potable - need an extract but don't have the formula in your book? Just bluff your way through and hope! There is a Spellcraft check to prevent a Wild Magic Surge, but it's only 15+extract level. With free inspiration and a cheap +2 item (800gp ioun stone works) you should never fail this. For the price of your level 5 Talent, the added flexibility is pretty nice. The 13th level one is a niche boost to saves, but it will rarely be the school that you want, so not worth the price of the Talent imo - though it's also late enough that many people will never see it. Swapping Trapfinding for identifying potions is nice flavour, but you should have better means to identify magic items. Mostly it just stops you from stacking this with other archetypes. Does still stack with Bonded Investigator, Cryptic Scholar, Demolitionist, Empiricist, Lamplighter and a few others, including possibly some that replace Alchemy... I'm actually guessing that won't work since the text requires that you fill an empty extract slot, but without Alchemy you will not have any to fill.
3/5
Ruthless Agent: To play out the role of interrogator, you get a scaling bonus on Intimidate, the ability to apply a penalty to your victim's bluff, (early!) access to Discern Lies with one free use every day, and eventually the ability to literally compel obedience. This seems nice, but Geas is rather situational, and 6th level scrolls exist if you don't know someone who can cast it. Paying two talents, even late ones, for that ability seems like a very poor trade. In light of this, even a rather nice boost to Intimidate seems insufficient. Take a trait to get the skill keyed off your Int, get a few items to boost it, and max ranks will soon have you passing any intimidate check the DM cares to throw at you. Not exactly bad, but it's not strong enough for how niche it is.
2/5
Star Watcher: Once again, we swap alchemy for "spellcasting" (from scrolls, so still no spell failure). Only this time you need to decide *at the time of preparation* which spells will be cast on whom. This does seem to make infusions unnecessary, which is really useful (and getting it at level 1 is even better), but the lack of flexibility isn't, and losing Mutagen will hurt the combat oriented. Scribe Scroll is nice and adds back some of the lost flexibility, as does Precognition (fill a single empty extract slot as a swift action - self target only), but you still need to spend a Talent to get this. As for Talents that work off using the star knife as a ranged weapon... at a quick glance this might actually be the second best way to make a ranged Investigator. Behind NOT making a ranged investigator. Frankly, I can see someone making this work, but I'm personally not a fan.
2/5
Tekritanin Arbiter: The ability to communicate with literally all of the common human languages requires you to be in a setting where there are humans who don't speak common. While this archetypes gives up nothing I'd lose any sleep over, a minor bonus to appearing a native speaker of a language is possibly the most niche ability I've ever seen! If you're in a campaign where this sort of thing is more likely to come up than trap sense, then... well I'd still recommend you go for one of the stronger archetypes first, but at least this one has some interesting and unique abilities that will never be a burden (coughmalicebindercough). Probably more for the NPC diplomat that most campaigns tend to end up with at some point, but it's certainly not bad. Just niche.
2/5
Toxin Codexer: If you want poisons, take this. You don't give up much beyond your 3rd level Talent(!), but it takes a while for the poisons to even be worth using. You are not going to have the best save DC, and all the really important enemies will probably have a Fort save through the roof. At higher levels the poisons are really quite scary - 1d6 con damage and 2 consecutive saves is basically a death sentence for a lot of people if you can use it out of combat, but in combat it's not worth a 6th level slot over handing your barbarian Giant Form I. The modified toxins are utter meh. Also the beneficial options are weird - why would I cure bleed damage with a poison, when cure light wounds will do it better and without the Int damage?? Not a single one of them seems worthwhile. Frankly I'd pass on this entire archetype, but if you want poisons this is how you get them without the crazy price tag.
1/5
So there you have it. Given the release of 2e, this will be all the archetypes we will ever see for this class. Honestly I think we've got a pretty good selection, including a solid way to make a Wisdom or Charisma based Investigator, and a bunch of possible combinations, most of which I did not go into. Enjoy.
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Portal Seeker: This one's SUPER niche. The ability to teleport around the battlefield is nice for the combat types, but it costs Studied Strike, so I'm not sure who this is actually meant for. A Detect Magic for extra-dimensional portals... do dimensional portals tend to hide themselves? In the very rare case that an enemy has a bag of holding, it should be obvious immediately on looting the corpse. And resisting teleportation effects? There's some nice flavour here, but not much that I would really consider useful.
1.5/5
I played a Swashtigator all the way through Curse of the Crimson Throne, and didn't use Studied Strike even once, and I was usually in the thick of combat (I didn't want to take the risk of missing, or not doing enough damage to drop an enemy, and ending Studied Combat).
The issue with this archetype is that it's not compatible with Empiricist.
I played a Swashtigator all the way through Curse of the Crimson Throne, and didn't use Studied Strike even once, and I was usually in the thick of combat (I didn't want to take the risk of missing, or not doing enough damage to drop an enemy, and ending Studied Combat).Portal Seeker: This one's SUPER niche. The ability to teleport around the battlefield is nice for the combat types, but it costs Studied Strike, so I'm not sure who this is actually meant for. A Detect Magic for extra-dimensional portals... do dimensional portals tend to hide themselves? In the very rare case that an enemy has a bag of holding, it should be obvious immediately on looting the corpse. And resisting teleportation effects? There's some nice flavour here, but not much that I would really consider useful.
1.5/5
That's probably something specific to the Swashtigator. A straight Investigator probably doesn't care about losing accuracy for AoOs, while a Swashbuckler needs it for Oportune Parry. Also the Riposte would use an immediate action, meaning you couldn't quick-study the enemy again the round after, and again this isn't much of an issue for a straight investigator.
This really means Studied Strike isn't great for a Swashbuckler, but on a straight Investigator there isn't much of a downside to adding some damage at the end of your round (providing you have enough Inspiration to re-study next round).
The issue with this archetype is that it's not compatible with Empiricist.
Empiricist is Lame, Lamplighter is the best! Fight Me!
(But it's also not compatible with Lamplighter, so meh.)
I played a Swashtigator all the way through Curse of the Crimson Throne, and didn't use Studied Strike even once, and I was usually in the thick of combat (I didn't want to take the risk of missing, or not doing enough damage to drop an enemy, and ending Studied Combat).Portal Seeker: This one's SUPER niche. The ability to teleport around the battlefield is nice for the combat types, but it costs Studied Strike, so I'm not sure who this is actually meant for. A Detect Magic for extra-dimensional portals... do dimensional portals tend to hide themselves? In the very rare case that an enemy has a bag of holding, it should be obvious immediately on looting the corpse. And resisting teleportation effects? There's some nice flavour here, but not much that I would really consider useful.
1.5/5That's probably something specific to the Swashtigator. A straight Investigator probably doesn't care about losing accuracy for AoOs, while a Swashbuckler needs it for Oportune Parry. Also the Riposte would use an immediate action, meaning you couldn't quick-study the enemy again the round after, and again this isn't much of an issue for a straight investigator.
This really means Studied Strike isn't great for a Swashbuckler, but on a straight Investigator there isn't much of a downside to adding some damage at the end of your round (providing you have enough Inspiration to re-study next round).
The issue with this archetype is that it's not compatible with Empiricist.Empiricist is Lame, Lamplighter is the best! Fight Me!
(But it's also not compatible with Lamplighter, so meh.)
I don't get the love for studied strike. Studied combat is IMO in every way better. it multiplies on a crit, adds enough + hit that you're as accurate as any full BAB class and more accurate at some levels. Taking the dice enhancements to inspiration and then using an inspired weapon seems a better use of inspiration if you're using it mid combat.
I don't get the love for studied strike. Studied combat is IMO in every way better. it multiplies on a crit, adds enough + hit that you're as accurate as any full BAB class and more accurate at some levels. Taking the dice enhancements to inspiration and then using an inspired weapon seems a better use of inspiration if you're using it mid combat.
Sorry to break it to you but that's not correct.
With a keen eye and calculating mind, an investigator can assess the mettle of his opponent to take advantage of gaps in talent and training. At 4th level, an investigator can use a move action to study a single enemy that he can see. Upon doing so, he adds 1/2 his investigator level as an insight bonus on melee attack rolls and as a bonus on damage rolls against the creature. This effect lasts for a number of rounds equal to his Intelligence modif ier (minimum 1) or until he deals damage with a studied strike, whichever comes first. The bonus on damage rolls is precision damage, and is not multiplied on a critical hit.
Having said that, you're right - Studied Combat is WAAAY better than Studied Strike. What I was trying to say is that a straight Investigator doesn't have to choose between them the way a Swashtigator does.
For you the accuracy boost is also a defensive boost, and your action economy prohibits you from using Studied Strike and Swashbuckler's Parry and Riposte every round. So of COURSE you didn't use Studied Strike.
Meanwhile a straight Investigator could simply declare that their final attack is a Studied Strike to get ~+20 damage for the round. They don't have to declare it till after they hit, so if they miss they keep the Studied Combat bonus. If they really want to make the most of it they could spend a point of Inspiration to take that final attack from a probable miss to a probable hit. Between the Inspired Weapon damage and Studied Atrike that's ~60 bonus damage for the round, which might negate the need for a Parry or another round of Studied Combat.
(Obviously I just pulled those numbers out of the air, but you get the idea.)
TLDR: It's not the greatest, but it's basically free damage when you need it.
I played a Swashtigator all the way through Curse of the Crimson Throne, and didn't use Studied Strike even once, and I was usually in the thick of combat (I didn't want to take the risk of missing, or not doing enough damage to drop an enemy, and ending Studied Combat).
But if you use Studied Strike on the last round of Studied Combat, is the risk that high? Studied Combat is going to finish anyway, right? You just lose the Studied Combat bonues for that single round yes?
(Apologies if this is a dumb question - Studied combat vs. Studied Strike has always confused me a bit :P).
I played a Swashtigator all the way through Curse of the Crimson Throne, and didn't use Studied Strike even once, and I was usually in the thick of combat (I didn't want to take the risk of missing, or not doing enough damage to drop an enemy, and ending Studied Combat).But if you use Studied Strike on the last round of Studied Combat, is the risk that high? Studied Combat is going to finish anyway, right? You just lose the Studied Combat bonues for that single round yes?
(Apologies if this is a dumb question - Studied combat vs. Studied Strike has always confused me a bit :P).
Swashigators like the bonus to hit for parry and riposte
If your investigator is an empiricist (maybe even if not), their Int will be high enough that studied combat ends when they want it to, not before. Int 18 is 4 rounds and few enemies last more than that - and empiricists don't stop when they get to 18.
If your investigator is an empiricist (maybe even if not), their Int will be high enough that studied combat ends when they want it to, not before. Int 18 is 4 rounds and few enemies last more than that - and empiricists don't stop when they get to 18.
At the end of the day, I really love the investigator, but i think the empiricist has real issues with giving gms the problem of either trivializing almost all skillchecks to the point its not even really worth having them, or the DC's getting so high that the investigator is the only one who can make them.
If your investigator is an empiricist (maybe even if not), their Int will be high enough that studied combat ends when they want it to, not before. Int 18 is 4 rounds and few enemies last more than that - and empiricists don't stop when they get to 18.At the end of the day, I really love the investigator, but i think the empiricist has real issues with giving gms the problem of either trivializing almost all skillchecks to the point its not even really worth having them, or the DC's getting so high that the investigator is the only one who can make them.
That's a problem with more than empiricists, it's just that they may do it to a wider range of skills than most. But yes it is a problem.
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At the end of the day, I really love the investigator, but i think the empiricist has real issues with giving gms the problem of either trivializing almost all skillchecks to the point its not even really worth having them, or the DC's getting so high that the investigator is the only one who can make them.
I must admit that the Empiricist I played had this problem to an extent that no other character I've seen has had. At level 7 my perception was such that I could reliably expect to make a DC of 30, and would regularly roll above 40 or even sometimes 50. Most characters at that level would have maybe a +10 to perception, meaning that their checks ended where mine began. The GM didn't really know how to handle that.
I agree with avr that this is not exclusively Empiricist though. You have, what, a high stat in the relevant ability score? Does that extra D6 really make so much difference? The only thing the Empiricist does is allow you to do this in 12 different skills at once.
At the end of the day, I really love the investigator, but i think the empiricist has real issues with giving gms the problem of either trivializing almost all skillchecks to the point its not even really worth having them, or the DC's getting so high that the investigator is the only one who can make them.I must admit that the Empiricist I played had this problem to an extent that no other character I've seen has had. At level 7 my perception was such that I could reliably expect to make a DC of 30, and would regularly roll above 40 or even sometimes 50. Most characters at that level would have maybe a +10 to perception, meaning that their checks ended where mine began. The GM didn't really know how to handle that.
I agree with avr that this is not exclusively Empiricist though. You have, what, a high stat in the relevant ability score? Does that extra D6 really make so much difference? The only thing the Empiricist does is allow you to do this in 12 different skills at once.
its actually 2d8 pick the highest by the time you're done. You want to buff that on a pure investigator because it translates to saving throws, and attack/damage rolls.
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Or 2d8 pick the highest and add 3 if you're a half-elf (for an average of ~+9).
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I agree with avr that this is not exclusively Empiricist though. You have, what, a high stat in the relevant ability score? Does that extra D6 really make so much difference? The only thing the Empiricist does is allow you to do this in 12 different skills at once.
What I was saying in the post I made above (2d8 keep highest then add 3) is that you CAN make Inspiration absolutely crazy good, and if you can add it to everything for free (Expanded/Underworld Inspiration) it gets pretty crazy.
Having said that, you're right that this isn't specific to the Empiricist. What the Empiricist does is pet you use your INT for everything. The difference there can be another +8 or so for some skills without much effort. (Also with a trait you can get pretty much every skill to run off INT and DEX.)
Now +8 or +9 to skills is good, but stacking them for a +17 from class features is pretty crazy (which you could easily do).
Plus the Int affects your alchemy save DCs so shit like detonate and dragon breath actually have a chance of monsters failing.
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I played a Swashtigator all the way through Curse of the Crimson Throne, and didn't use Studied Strike even once, and I was usually in the thick of combat (I didn't want to take the risk of missing, or not doing enough damage to drop an enemy, and ending Studied Combat).
The issue with this archetype is that it's not compatible with Empiricist.
OK, on further thought, I must admit that I rarely use Studied Strike either. You want to use it on your last hit, but you don't know that it will be your last hit until after your iterative misses. Maybe that isn't such a problem after all for the combat Investigator? That would make it less of a penalty, but it's still not a fantastic ability. The manoeuvrability is nice, don't get me wrong, but needing to take a move action to do it will prevent full round attacks. It doesn't stop you from using extracts, so getting into a good position (or out of a bad one!) can be combined with your round of buffing, or even handing a party member a vital potion that they need. But it's certainly not something that breaks combat or anything. Probably raises the archetype half a star, but not more.
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its actually 2d8 pick the highest by the time you're done. You want to buff that on a pure investigator because it translates to saving throws, and attack/damage rolls.
Yeah, but I'm not counting the capstone because so few people ever get there, and when they do it's really not even that powerful for a capstone. Compared to some of the crazy things other classes pull, this isn't even overpowered. Outside of this Empiricist doesn't do much to increase the height of your skill checks, so much as the breadth. Even an extra +6 to all those skills is not going to take you past the realm of reasonable - other players can easily get close to your scores on any one or two skills if they put even a small amount of investment in, and spending it on attacks and saves costs inspiration, which can very rapidly deplete when you start to go spending them on every attack.
furthermore, a half-elf with 1d8+2 is sacrificing a bunch of hitpoints to get that extra +2, and on a d8 class with only light armour that is not necessarily something that is going to sit well with many players. It doesn't matter how good your sense motive is if you die every second combat.
its actually 2d8 pick the highest by the time you're done. You want to buff that on a pure investigator because it translates to saving throws, and attack/damage rolls.Yeah, but I'm not counting the capstone because so few people ever get there, and when they do it's really not even that powerful for a capstone. Compared to some of the crazy things other classes pull, this isn't even overpowered. Outside of this Empiricist doesn't do much to increase the height of your skill checks, so much as the breadth. Even an extra +6 to all those skills is not going to take you past the realm of reasonable - other players can easily get close to your scores on any one or two skills if they put even a small amount of investment in, and spending it on attacks and saves costs inspiration, which can very rapidly deplete when you start to go spending them on every attack.
furthermore, a half-elf with 1d8+2 is sacrificing a bunch of hitpoints to get that extra +2, and on a d8 class with only light armour that is not necessarily something that is going to sit well with many players. It doesn't matter how good your sense motive is if you die every second combat.
thats level 13, not the capstone. Tenacious inspiration and amazing inspiration. Capstone is 3d8 highest 2