Geotic Investigator Archetype


Homebrew and House Rules


Goetic Investigator Archetype

For review and criticism. Please place all comments and thoughts in this thread.


What does "Geotic" mean? I looked it up, but the definition I found doesn't seem to have anything to do with the class flavor.


Know what I hate? When I transpose vowels. It should be Goetic.


That makes so much more sense.


How does the goetic investigator get a new spirit animal if it dies? Is it the same rules as the shaman?


Yes, as referenced on page 47 of the ACG. Since it was covered there I didn't think I needed to explain it in the class ability.


So this archetype basically trades the trapfinding feature of the investigator and gives the class the ability to use a handful of shaman spells (using their normal extract slots), right?

And then trades the studied combat chain for a single ability usable a few times per day.

Seems well done to me.


Mechanically pretty much. There is a lot of versatility there but you are taking a beating losing studied combat to get it.


I've been summoned!

I'm generally not a huge fan of archetypes that just take X features from Y class and give them to class Z, but this is kind of an interesting take. The text needs a lot more massaging if it'd ever be fit for release, but since I'm guessing it'll just be a homebrew thing that is used in your campaign, it's obvious enough how things should be interpreted. For example, investigators don't have spells, and they aren't arcane or divine. They do get drug-- extracts though.

It is giving up at least 1 fairly useful ability, but in return grants them a very versatile feature set, and the familiar is very, very nice. Part of me feels that someone who wanted to focus on versatility wouldn't have been focusing on the combat abilities anyways, but I think this shouldn't be held against the swap.

Not granting the ability to take Extra Hex was very smart.

I find the flavor of the class to be a bit at odds with the mechanics. Given the flavor of facing inner demons, I would've expected it to be somewhat related to the Occult Adventures classes rather than the Shaman. For instance, I'm not certain why studying inwards would let them blast people with fire and require them to meditate with an actual external creature to get their features.

The use of Int for some of the received class abilities but not others seems fairly deliberate, and also not a bad idea. The tricky part with classes that gain versatility is that at some level the versatility needs to be restricted, and I think you did a decent job of that here.


To be clear normally investigators don't get spells. This archetype does gain a limited number. That's why I put the language in about how they prepare these spells and what stat is used to prepare them. They are spells, not extracts -- however it is in the place of an extract when done.

I should put in more fluff about the goetic system though and probably clean up parts of it too.

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