I recently decided I wanted to make a detective character in pathfinder, but one who used little to no magic (low/standard fantasy).
After reading a bunch of the classes, I decided none of them really did what I wanted.
The Bard is inherently more magical than I wanted to go, the rogue was a little too general, and nothing else particularly suited to what I was trying to do.
Before I get too far into this, the idea for the character is an Urban Detective who can find information and lost items/people. He's not a combat focused character, but he'll have some combat abilities.
I was wondering if anyone else has tried/succeeded on making a character like this? What build suggestions do people have? Is there a class I'm missing (or are there some that are better than I thought they were?)
(You can stop reading here if you like, the rest of this post will be explaining what I've gone with so far and why, but if you've made something like this before, you can just post if you don't wanna keep reading)
I decided Ranger looked like the best fit, but the class skills, and some abilities were all wrong. I looked at Urban Ranger, but it looked to me like just taking "Favoured Terrain - Urban" would be better than that (If Urban Ranger is really good, let me know).
My solution was to just take 1 level of Rogue, then put the rest into Ranger.
From a role-play perspective, this was perfect, grew up on the streets, then used that knowledge to carve out a private investigator business.
From a Game-play perspective, I think it worked really well, with the ranger's Tracking and Favoured Terrain/Enemies really fitting the theme well.
Here's my character at level 10 (so you know where I'm going with it, but there's still room to improve).
Half-Elf Ranger/Rogue: ("Standard Fantasy" buy, 15 points for abilities): Str 10, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 16, Wis 16, Cha 10. (includes racial and high level ability increases).
HP: 58 (average)
High Save: Reflex
BAB: +9
Skills Maxed: Bluff, Diplomacy, Disable Device, Knowledge (Local & Nobility), Linguistics, Perception, Sense Motive, Slight of Hand, Stealth. (+1 point in Climb and Survival).
I've taken the Crossbow Combat Style Feat for Ranger (APG), and finesse etc for my regular feats. I also didn't take Animal Companion, and instead used one of my feats to get Leadership, as this fits my character concept better.
My Cohort is my assistant in my detective business (Half Orc Expert with a great-axe and intimidate & complimentary knowledge skills), and my followers are my contacts and spies around the city (I have 8 followers).
I only took 1 point in Survival, because between class skill points, Ability modifiers, Ranger "Track" ability, and Favoured Terrian/Enemies it kinda takes care of itsself (As I have it written i have a +18 to track anyone in a city, with only 1 point invested, and any favoured enemies just give me more bonuses).
By taking a 1 level dip into Rogue, I'm taking tiny penalties to abilities like track and animal empathy (meh), I'm missing 1 spell per day (meh), I'm at 1 less BAB (meh) and I have 1 less Favoured Enemy than I would otherwise be at level 10 (sad face). As I said this isn't a combat focused character and I'm trying to go low-magic, so most of that I don't care about, but the Favoured Enemy is something I lament losing.
But on the plus side, for that 1-level dip I'm gaining 1d6 Sneak Attack (not amazing, but a nice bonus), Trap Finding (can disable magic traps, useful when breaking into rich people's houses) and a whole lot of class skills (WOO). This skill bonus is the main thing, aside from the 2 extra skill points a rogue has, 7 of the skills I maxed are Rogue skills and not Ranger skills, so I'm effectively getting 21 bonus skill points just from "class skills" that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
Losing 1 BAB and a favoured enemy seems like an alright trade for 23 bonus skill points, a Sneak Attack bonus and Trapfinding (remember I'm not a combat focused character).
First of all thank you for reading this far, and secondly, does anyone have any suggestions to add to/alter this build? Is there a class I missed? What are people's thoughts on low-magic detectives in a fantasy setting?
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Is there a particular reason you don't want to use Investigator class that came out last year in the Advance Class Guide? It's pretty much tailored made to do exactly what you're trying to accomplish.
Contributor
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On top of the Investigator class, the Sleuth archetype removes the extracts (which you may not be into) for a luck pool system and some special tricks based on swashbuckler abilities. If you're looking for a nonmagical detective, this is about as close as you'll get in a ready-made package. ^_^
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Sleuth, is, kind of terrible.
Empiricist will straight up allow you to use your Intelligence modifier instead of the skill's typical ability for all Disable Device, Perception, Sense Motive, and Use Magic Device checks, along with any Diplomacy checks made to gather information.
Add the Clever Wordplay trait, and use Intelligence for either Intimidate, or Bluff.
You can then nab the Perceptive Tracking Talent, which will allow you to use Perception(which will be based off Intelligence), instead of Survival to track foes.
You will just be, Intelligent as heck, and all sorts of master detective.
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Wait, did I mention the Precise Treatment trait, which will allow you to use your Intelligence for Heal checks?
Which, if you want, can be taken along with either Clever Wordplay, or Student of Philosophy, which allows you to use your Intelligence modifier in place of your Charisma modifier on Diplomacy checks to persuade others and on Bluff checks to convince others that a lie is true.
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Have you checked out the Sleepless Detective prestige class? It gets a handful of investigative SLAs, moderate skills, and a bit of sneak attack. Could be pretty good going off of a Sleuth Investigator.
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I agree Investigator is the way to go. It may dabble in alchemy, but it's literally made for this concept.
If you insist on Ranger, Urban Ranger pretty much removes the need for Rogue levels, and gives a variety of appropriate abilities. You'll need to invest Traits and maybe the Cosmopolitan Feat into getting the social skills as Class, but that's very doable.
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You can easily refluff extracts as performance enhancing drugs. (not all of them, but many) Plus you get the skill points and inspiration to be Sherlock Holmes.
You can refluff many of the others as gadgets/one use magic items. A Batman-style utility belt would very definitely be a valid explanation for extracts, for example.
Batman mixed with Sherlock Holmes? You guys just gave me a reeeeaaally weird image in my head of batman wearing a trench coat with magnifying glass and a fat robin in a bowler hat.
Thanks everyone who commented, this was exactly what I was looking for ^_^
I only own a few pathfinder books and am fairly new to this system so I didn't know about these classes (I played a fair bit of 3rd Ed DnD, so it's been a pretty easy transition).
The Investigator (Sleuth) seems like it's exactly what I was going for.
I could go a different Investigator archetype, but I think I'd have to be very careful which extracts to take to really keep the feel I was going for.
The Sleepless Detective is cool, but it uses a bit more magic than I was going for with this theme.
For the record I'm not at all worried about playing a less-than-optimised build if it fits the role-play aspects I'm going for (for example, the rogue/ranger build I made before you all kindly showed me the error of my ways), so even if the Sleuth isn't as powerful or useful as other Investigators I'd probably pick that one.
This has been my first ever thread in the Paizo forums and you've answered my question in under 24 hours. Thanks guys!! =)