Whats the rest of the party? the extracts you pick out will vary depending on party comp.
your combat effectiveness is mediocre to bad til level 4 and after that you just want to make sure you're focused on weapons that can get Inspired (+1) added to them and that you pick up combat inspiration and sickening strike when you can.
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Well, here's the thing:
Investigator isn't a caster offensively, and Aid Another, while cool, isn't a very sustainable strategy long-term. Which means, for the most part, that you need to be pretty good at combat to be effective.
But note that word choice: 'pretty good'.
So...go Str 14 and pick up Power Attack at 3rd, Quick Study at 5th, and you'll be adequate at combat. Throw on Sickening Offensive for some solid debuffing. This build also benefits from Medium Armor, so you might want to grab the Proficiency. Other than that, your Feats are mostly free.
Personally, I'd also go Empiricist (a lovely archetype) and grab either Student of Philosophy (my preference) or Bruising Intellect. Bruising Intellect does fit into your 'not liked very well' background better, and actually allows a fun little combo.
Grab the Blade of Mercy Trait and the Enforcer Feat with Bruising Intellect, and by 7th level, every time you hit anything susceptible to nonlethal, you're inflicting Sickened and Shaken on them. That's -4 to almost everything, and with Power Attack and Studied Combat, your damage winds up respectable too. If you don't want to worship Sarenrae, grab the Bludgeoner Feat instead of the Trait and use a bludgeoning weapon (smack people around with your walking stick). The Bludgeoner version does significantly more damage, since it can two-hand a weapon and get bonus damage that way, but the Blade of Mercy version does get to use a buckler for more AC.
A stat lineup for this character at 20 point-buy would be something like this:
Str 15 Dex 14 Con 12 Int 18 (16+2) Wis 10 Cha 7. Str goes up at 4th, and Int after that.
At 15 point buy, Str is at 14 and Int at 17 instead, and Int goes up at 4th and every opportunity thereafter.
It can ...KIND OF be an offensive caster, but it really requires forethought and preparation. Giving infusion extracts of resist/protection from elements and detonate to your highly mobile party members like monks is a pretty valid aoe strategy. Touch injection + skinsend is a thing even if they get a save now, and you can eventually start passing out potions of magic jar to party members, or for added fun, the party mages improved familiar.
The problem is this usually doesn't come online til mid level so usually people sink their feats and discoveries into some form of non magic combat before then.
It sort of sounds like what you really want is a Bard? Deadman has the right idea to make the Investigator work, but the Investigator is meant to do some melee. Your buffs are single target, as will be your debuff options. And they all need to be administered through touch, which means getting up the action anyway, unless 6ou hand out extracts in advance which leaves you with nothing to during combat.
The Bard can buff the entire group all day in multiple ways, can debuff enemies with spells and dazzling display, and can do bookish great because it gets bonuses to knowledge checks.
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Ability scores will be high intelligence for skills. You are not using feats to create damage with dex and a weapon. That is why I don’t use these feats myself, they take up too many feat slots. An average strength but a kicker to level the playing field is to use poisons. Feats like poison focus, insightful delivery and extra inspiration talent for sickening strikes (concentrating on studied combat at first for this) and concentrate poison will make poisons more irresistible to resist.
Other feat suggestions.
Focus inspiration, Extra inspiration, Inspired alchemy (This allows rebuffs of extracts you cast)
Inspiration talents a must = infusion.
The tactic with this is to give extracts to your fighting characters that use weapons. Offensively, beyond a spear or a long spear, your choices are not that great. Of course, there is the Tengu with the ability to use any blades with proficiency.
Any inspiration that causes the free use of inspiration for skills is part of this build.
Of course, I hope all this helps
The rogue and bloodrager are plenty to hang an investigators buffson. You can also get the ranged study talent. It works with ranged but there's a discovery tax.
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Ooh, if you're not married to the Investigator Class (cool as it is), you suddenly have several options:
The Psychic Searcher Oracle, particularly with the Lore Mystery, makes a very good (small 'i') investigator and can do support casting and healing quite well and is still ell-suited to investigation. Focused Trance + Inspiration is amazing for knowing things, and you can have be all 'bookish and clumsy' with Sidestep Secret.
I'd particularly recommend this one since it sounds like you have no real healer, and while not a primary role per se, having a healer is handy.
The Archivist Bard also does all the Bard stuff having to do with knowing things without the performance element you seem to not want thematically. They technically still perform, but it takes the form of detailed lectures on the enemy's weaknesses. You could grab a short bow and be a very solid support archer as well, and one of the best party-buffers in the game.
I'd probably go with one of those.
...Grab the Blade of Mercy Trait and the Enforcer Feat with Bruising Intellect, and by 7th level, every time you hit anything susceptible to nonlethal, you're inflicting Sickened and Shaken on them. That's -4 to almost everything, and with Power Attack and Studied Combat, your damage winds up respectable too. If you don't want to worship Sarenrae, grab the Bludgeoner Feat instead of the Trait and use a bludgeoning weapon (smack people around with your walking stick). The Bludgeoner version does significantly more damage, since it can two-hand a weapon and get bonus damage that way, but the Blade of Mercy version does get to use a buckler for more AC.
I don't see any reason why you can't two-hand while using Blade of Mercy.
Another option is the Merciful Scimitar trait from the Weapon Masters Handbook. It lets you deal non-lethal damage with a scimitar with no penalty. Worshiping Sarenrae isn't required.
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I don't see any reason why you can't two-hand while using Blade of Mercy.
Another option is the Merciful Scimitar trait from the Weapon Masters Handbook. It lets you deal non-lethal damage with a scimitar with no penalty. Worshiping Sarenrae isn't required.
You can do both these things easily. Except that Investigators aren't proficient with any slashing weapons that aren't light, and thus not usable two-handed. Including scimitars.
So...there's that. You could play a race that got such proficiencies, certainly, or burn a Feat, but either way you're giving up the Human Bonus Feat for this as well as a Trait, and might well just want to go Bludgeoner instead.
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There is ranged study and domino effect, & slowing strike. Using inspiration such as sickening strikes makes for control at range. It looks like damage is not the main thing you are looking for. I would look for ways of control or hindrance at a range.
Ranged study uses a ranged weapon to use studied combat and strike.
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I play an investigator in PFS, and I'd like to offer the following points:
1) The class is a lot of fun to play. Lots of skills, powerful extracts, a powerful fighting style. Don't be distracted by Inspiration; the most powerful class features are actually the alchemy, studied combat and mutagen.
2) You're totally unimpressive as a debuffer. Inflicting the occasional Sickened or Shaken really doesn't count as a serious contribution past level 3.
3) You're not that impressive as a buffer. While you have really good buff spells on your list, conferring them on other people requires a lot of fuss with handing out extracts which is fairly slow. Compare this to a bard, skald or cleric, and you start to look pretty lame. And those classes could also easily fit the concept you're interested in.
4) Combat tends to take a lot of real-world time when it happens. Do yourself a favour, and make sure that you have something fun and entertaining to do in combat. "Not really about combat" is doing yourself a disservice, it means you'll be sitting out a large part of the game. But doing something in combat doesn't have to be fighting; a bard handing out just the right buffs at the right moment, or countering an enemy's nasty things, is also making an interesting contribution.
5) Investigators are very capable combatants; while they're not inherently good at manipulating the environment, they're very good at adapting to it. With the extremely nice alchemist list of extracts, you can turn into flying or swimming monsters to get at enemies anywhere, go invisible, become super-tough and hit like a truck. Studied combat after about level 8 starts to be as deadly as rage (by then, a +4 to hit and damage that never really runs dry).
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Ooh, if you're not married to the Investigator Class (cool as it is), you suddenly have several options:
The Psychic Searcher Oracle, particularly with the Lore Mystery, makes a very good (small 'i') investigator and can do support casting and healing quite well and is still ell-suited to investigation. Focused Trance + Inspiration is amazing for knowing things, and you can have be all 'bookish and clumsy' with Sidestep Secret.
I'd particularly recommend this one since it sounds like you have no real healer, and while not a primary role per se, having a healer is handy.
The Archivist Bard also does all the Bard stuff having to do with knowing things without the performance element you seem to not want thematically. They technically still perform, but it takes the form of detailed lectures on the enemy's weaknesses. You could grab a short bow and be a very solid support archer as well, and one of the best party-buffers in the game.
I'd probably go with one of those.
I agree with the above advice.
Many times with Pathfinder you need to ignore the name of a class and concentrate on the mechanical abilities it gives. Just because you are a royal investigator doesn't mean you should automatically take the investigator class.
Using the Archivist to give lectures on the creature's weaknesses would be a good buff for the party and doesn't require you get your hands dirty in actual melee. Fits in well with what you have described yourself wanting.
The Lore Oracle with Psychic Searcher would be a much more intensive caster, but be quite capable of handling the skill checks. A friend of mine has been playing an Oracle with that archetype and has been smashing the various knowledge checks as they came up.
Either of these two options would allow you to contribute in combat without having to get into melee.
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If you have your heart set on a Investigator that buffs try the Psychic Detective. You get group buffs without having to take infusion. This may give you the feats to play a ranged investigator if you want to stay out of the fray.
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12/16+2,/12/16/10/7
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Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot at 1.
Weapon Focus, Mutagen at 3.
Range Study, Quick Study at 5.
or
Basic melee competent build. Long spear wielding dual talented human.
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15+2/14/14/15+2/12/7
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Medium armor proficiency
Power Attack, Mutagen 3
Weapon Focus, Quick Study 5
Below is the rational describing why you don't want to ignore your combat abilities.
In general classes are give an set of abilities that balance them against other class. If you ignore a set of abilities your class has access to, you will be a weaker character over all.
So let us look at the investigator (or really most d8 HD, 6th level caster class)
- d8 HD means respectable hit points (you can take some damage so your fighter or barbarian does not have to take 100% of it).
- 2/3 BAB reasonably accurate you will be able to hit things reliably (also most class like this have a way to increase accuracy). With studied combat you have "1 1/4 BAB" against a single target. Not using this leaves a lot on the table.
- Extracts (buff you up further) but giving them out to buff other people means they have to use a turn, that could be spent attacking, to drinking one. For a barbarian that is a significant decrease in damage.
- Inspiration, Trap Finding etc. Make you useful outside of combat. These are the things that make the character fun to play out of combat.
If you ignore a portion of this you are not really contributing fully.
You can do both these things easily. Except that Investigators aren't proficient with any slashing weapons that aren't light, and thus not usable two-handed. Including scimitars.I don't see any reason why you can't two-hand while using Blade of Mercy.
Another option is the Merciful Scimitar trait from the Weapon Masters Handbook. It lets you deal non-lethal damage with a scimitar with no penalty. Worshiping Sarenrae isn't required.
I see what you mean now.
So...there's that. You could play a race that got such proficiencies, certainly, or burn a Feat, but either way you're giving up the Human Bonus Feat for this as well as a Trait, and might well just want to go Bludgeoner instead.
Good advice, as usual. Another reason to stick to the Investigator weapon list is the option of adding the Inspired special ability.
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GhostWhoWalks, take thier suggestions over mine, I was only trying to get your wish done by posting what I mentioned. Those that have posted they play the investigator are the ones to listen to the most.
I have posted an Ifrit investigator recently, it kind of follows what they have posted. I like gishes that increase their size to a large creature and CMB. That is a formula that works for me. Take Care
If you have your heart set on a Investigator that buffs try the Psychic Detective. You get group buffs without having to take infusion. This may give you the feats to play a ranged investigator if you want to stay out of the fray.
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12/16+2,/12/16/10/7
-----------------------------------------Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot at 1.
Weapon Focus, Mutagen at 3.
Range Study, Quick Study at 5.
Sadly, Psychic Detectives can't select the Mutagen Discovery.
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Sadly, Psychic Detectives can't select the Mutagen Discovery.If you have your heart set on a Investigator that buffs try the Psychic Detective. You get group buffs without having to take infusion. This may give you the feats to play a ranged investigator if you want to stay out of the fray.
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12/16+2,/12/16/10/7
-----------------------------------------Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot at 1.
Weapon Focus, Mutagen at 3.
Range Study, Quick Study at 5.
Thanks for that correction. I have not had the chance to play a psychic detective yet so I forgot that part.
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I've never played a bard.
A few people have mentioned the archivist bard.
If I went that way instead of the investigator route, it sounds like I might have an easier time with buffing the party at least.
Any suggestions if I were to go that way?
Well, do you want to be a melee character or archer? You won't be doing either primarily, but being halfway decent doesn't hurt.
Investigator is fine for buffing the party, i've played one from 1 to 12 and they buff fine,its just not the standard broad area buffs people tend to expect from a party buffer. Their strength comes from being able to hand out buffs that certain classes otherwise are completely unable to benefit from.
See invisibility to your rogue scout
Beast/elemental/giant shape to your martial
Resinous skin for your anvil character
Magic jar for the whole party
False life/Greater false life for front line people/rogues
At high level, giving your rogue an extract of transformation is going to be a game changer for that fight.
They also are more than adequate debuffers.
Adhesive spittle supplies entangled -2 to hit, -4 dex, no run/charge
Sickening strike--sickened -2 to hit/damage/save/skills/ability checks
Miasmatic form--Nauseated single move action per turn
And shaken is easy enough for anyone willing to either burn feats or skill points on intimidate.