I want to help you, but I am not sure what you are asking for? With out knowing more about the campaign, I feel that you need to try to narrow or focus your ideas more. Is there a particular role that you are aiming for?
Investigator is anything but gimp in combat.
You can even play them DEX based (with a dip into Inspired Blade Swashbuckler), or STR based, and both are still extremely viable, and capable of extreme diversity. I absolutely loved my STR Empricist Investigator.
Oh the enemy is flying? I'll drink my Monstrous Physique and turn into a Gargoyle, and then go back to power attacking for like 1d8+20 damage with a free roll to intimidate, also the enemy is auto sickened when I hit so easy -4s to everything.
Plus the character is an absolute beast at skill checks thanks to Inspiration and you can pretty much add 1d6 to every knowledge check for free.
With an investigator you can be more than competent in combat, while also contributing greatly as a skill monkey, and even still have points to spare for diplomacy, or intimidate in my case. This isn't even going into the cheese that is Alchemical Allocation.
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Investigator is something I was interested in because I love the concept of being an empiricist and convincing people with logic and reason instead of force of personality. Unfortunately this class largely falls into "Gimp" in combat territory. I asked and I'm allowed to use potion glutton for his homebrew god of gluttony to drink as a swift and I still can't seem to make this class work.
Wait, what? Investigator is the most powerful Class you've listed in your post. Including in combat starting at level 3-5. They do okay in combat before then, but at 5th? They're cooking with gas.
Start with Str 18 (or 17, raising it to 18 at 4th is workable). Take Power Attack, Medium Armor Proficiency, Mutagen, and Quick Study.
You can now, at 5th, assuming a +1 weapon and no other magic, have a +11 to hit (6 Str +2 Studied Combat +3 BAB +1 weapon -1 Power Attack) for 1d8+15 damage (9 Str +2 Studied Combat +1 Weapon +3 Power Attack). You can do this while rocking an AC easily in the low to mid 20s, and going into the 30s with buffs
That's pretty damn good for that level, actually. And is before you use any buff spells (which you have in abundance) on offense. Throw in Bull's Strength and you've got +13 to hit for 1d8+18 damage. That's on par with most Barbarians and the like at that level.
And it only gets better from there. Because Studied Combat scales up rapidly with level, is only a Swift Action to use, and your buff spells keep getting better to boot.
Drinking Extracts as a Swift is nice and all, but it's almost superfluous to an Investigator being awesome in a fight.
Good will save and kills things? Sounds like a lot of classes. My favorite on that list is the magus. When it works it really works.
Sacred Fist has indeed been nerfed, but it's actually still possible to make a workable unarmed fighter out of the standard warpriest.
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For a home game you can technically ignore this, but the errata for the advanced class guide change the sacred fist to not use their class level for BAB when flurrying.
Try being a vigilante. Pretty sure they have good will saves (but I don't have my book on me), can be a 6th level spell caster, a rogue facsimile, a fighter with less feats and more skill points, or spiderman. Literal spiderman.
'course they can't do all these at once; most of those options are archetypes.
Plus, if you've got time to switch between social and vigilante forms you can be a boss at social interactions and then become competent at fighting in your chosen style.
If you have a central hub city you'll be in frequently, it's even better. You can grab renown and all the locals will inherently treat you one step better in social form and you get scaling bonuses to intimidate in vigilante form.
The biggest potential problem is the name of the class itself. Maybe call it something else so people don't inherently see you as "Masked crime fighter". You don't have to be that just because that's what the class is called.
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The problem is that the damage from 1d8+15 at level 6 is pretty much half as effective as actually being a martial and less than half something like the ZAM or a barb both of which have extremely useful utility in the form of spell sunder and SLA's.
That's level 5 damage, not level 6. At level 6, that's actually 1d8+19. The Barbarian likely still pulls ahead because of their higher iterative attack, but at 7th, the Investigator gets Haste...
And then there's the natural weapon build. Alter Self and the Monstrous Physique spells can give quite a few natural attacks, and later Pounce, keeping up with a Barbarian pretty well.
The Zen Archer remains ahead in damage at all times. But that's because they do that to everyone, not because Investigator is weak. And they have basically no utility of any sort. Their SLAs are all pretty combat focused by definition.
And speaking of utility...are you really gonna argue that Spell Sunder is better than being a 6-level caster who also wins at all the skills forever? Because that's not a very reasonable argument to make.
Without AoO's I don't see how you get a remotely decent damage per round compared to real combat oriented characters. Being a gimp in combat who's damage is ~20 when everyone else is in the 40-60 range and having a really low ac at around 24-26 is pretty underwhelming. You aren't a front line and your damage is more or less the same as a cleric with the exception of a whopping half your level increase for a huge hit on spells. The BAB is just kinda crippling to it's combat ability since it can't use archery.
Uh...I can get an Investigator's AC past 30 casually. Yes at 5th level.
And at 5th level? Nobody's doing 40-60 damage.
But okay, you want raw damage? An Investigator can easily have, at 7th level, +15 each on three attacks dealing 1d4+16 damage each, and thus manages somewhat better DPR than most Barbarian builds at that level (and north of 50 damage when they all hit).
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You can now, at 5th, assuming a +1 weapon and no other magic, have a +11 to hit (6 Str +2 Studied Combat +3 BAB +1 weapon -1 Power Attack) for 1d8+15 damage (9 Str +2 Studied Combat +1 Weapon +3 Power Attack). You can do this while rocking an AC easily in the low to mid 20s, and going into the 30s with buffs
That's pretty damn good for that level, actually. And is before you use any buff spells (which you have in abundance) on offense. Throw in Bull's Strength and you've got +13 to hit for 1d8+18 damage. That's on par with most Barbarians and the like at that level.
How do you get +6 to attack from Str at 5th level without buffs? I'm guessing a +4 belt. Bit if that's the case, bull's strength doesn't do anything in your second example.
Don't get me wrong, I love the investigator. I just love consistent math a bit more ^_^
The problem is that the damage from 1d8+15 at level 6 is pretty much half as effective as actually being a martial and less than half something like the ZAM or a barb both of which have extremely useful utility in the form of spell sunder and SLA's.Without AoO's I don't see how you get a remotely decent damage per round compared to real combat oriented characters. Being a gimp in combat who's damage is ~20 when everyone else is in the 40-60 range and having a really low ac at around 24-26 is pretty underwhelming. You aren't a front line and your damage is more or less the same as a cleric with the exception of a whopping half your level increase for a huge hit on spells. The BAB is just kinda crippling to it's combat ability since it can't use archery.
A raging barbarian at 26 STR at level 8 with a +1 Furious Greatsword is +16/+11 2d6+24 damage.
A level 8 empiricist investigator with mutagen and heroism with a +2 Longspear hits for... +14/+9 1d8+20 damage. Add in studied Combat and it becomes +18/+13 1d8+23. This is without Enlarge Person/Monstrous Physique etc. Also in addition to all day Heroism, and Mutagen, he also has all day Barkskin for a healthy 28 AC, 32 with Shield.
Obviously the Investigator will have less HP than the Barbarian, and he can't Spell Sunder, but I think it's obvious you're missing something.
Also who needs archery when you can fly?
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How do you get +6 to attack from Str at 5th level without buffs? I'm guessing a +4 belt. Bit if that's the case, bull's strength doesn't do anything in your second example.
Don't get me wrong, I love the investigator. I just love consistent math a bit more ^_^
That's with Mutagen. I said no buff spells, not no buffs. I'm consistent. :)
Because our party is cooperative everyone get's haste unless the superstitious barb rages before it's cast starting level 5-6. The ability to self haste does not assist our party.
Uh...with Haste, the Investigator has two attacks at 5th for +12 each doing 1d8+15 each (or +14 to hit and 1d8+18 with Bull's Strength). That's an average of 39 damage if they both hit. 45 if buffed with single spell.
And the Barbarian doesn't do too much better at 6th, since his 3rd attack is at -5. That's a big bonus on top of one attack, but a much smaller one on top of two.
The barb at level 5 with haste has significantly more than 40 points of damage in that situation and in one level surpasses most classes in dealing with magic using Spell sunder.
He does? A +1 weapon, Str 18 base, and Rage give him +12/+12 to hit for 2d6+17 and 48 damage with Haste. A whole 3 points more than the Investigator has with one buff spell up. And at -2 to hit, and thus probably lower actual DPR.
And the Investigator has way more tricks than Spell Sunder. I mean, Spell Sunder is nice but it's one trick. an Investigator has dozens.
The ZAM has 4 attacks with haste 5 with ki, each of which are deadly aimed to be between +9 damage and +12 damage depending on starting stats and has a self buffed(long term buffs not short term) AC of 31 before haste or any outside buffs or ki stuff.
An Investigator can't match a Zen Archer's damage. But then, basically nobody can. they can easily match that AC with a couple of spells, though.
The damage listed of 3d4 + 48 at level 7 while hasted is again not particularly impressive and I don't disagree with the numbers I just don't think it's very high. Needing to full attack to do 50 points or so at level 7 in my group pretty much is gimp territory.
Oh, while Hasted, he'd get a 4th attack for 4d4+64. I wasn't counting Haste in that one.
As far as utility the investigator isn't really unique it just adds more skill points to the party which once again we cooperate to cover pretty much every skill.
Sure. But 6 levels of casting can also be used for utility. and do so very very well.
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Ah, thanks Deadman! I forgot about that entirely.
Mr.Undone, could you tell us anything about the OTHER PCs in the group?
You have asked for ideas and assumed that you'll have haste, but we don't know what else needs to be covered?
You mentioned passing skill responsibilities around, which is great foresight. Do you have means to deal with magical traps and mundane traps?
Do you have means of dealing AoE damage?
Healing? Few people's favorite option I admit, but can be helpful depending on party make-up.
Do you have a buffer?
Or, are you looking at being generally a solid DPSer and assuming that the party will pick up those roles?
I'm not trying to be critical, but having more information will help us try to help you. ^_^
Right now, I'm kind of a fan of the spell/melee combos - Magus, Bloodrager, Warpriest, etc. I like that the Warpriest does the swift action self-buffs, the Magus is a nova style class that can do insane damage, and the Bloodrager has rage plus can do all kinds of cool casting and self-buffs.
Alternately, the vivisectionist is really cool. I also like my current save-or-suck based sorceress.
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Not including reckless abandon, reckless rage, or witch hunter (and as my group always says if witch hunter doesn't apply we don't need to worry about it) leads me to believe you don't optimize your barb much.
At 5th level? Along with Spell Sunder? I optimize my Barbarians, and would expect all those eventually but at 5th, I expect Superstition, Lesser Beast Totem (because Beast Totem is actually super nice, and, well, prerequisites), and probably one Feat in Extra Rage Power (for Spell Sunder if going that route).
I guess without the Beast Totem and two Feats in Extra Rage Power you can have all that, but then your AC is sorta terrible (-4 AC and no buffs...the Investigator can casually have something like 14 points of AC on this Barbarian build), and you're still doing 52 to the Investigator's 45, which is a difference, but not a huge one.
I don't think 7 points of damage a turn and a better Fort Save is worth 14 points of AC, and that's pretty much the scale of tradeoff we're talking with that Barbarian build.
With bonuses from a bard and/or flanking the iterative will have more than a 50% chance to hit overwhelmingly. At level 11+ The paladin giving out smite makes your last iterative hit on a 2-5..
Assuming you have a Paladin, sure. Once, maybe twice a day (barring Oath of Vengeance anyway).
And yeah, I'm not saying that iteratives are bad, I'm just saying they count for a bit less than main attacks. And don't matter at all if the Investigator is going natural weapon build, since that'll wind up with more attacks anyway.
At level 7 the alchemist has 1 attack. How are you getting 4? Are you using natural attacks? Because our half orc barb has a bite too which once again just leads me to except you don't optimize your barb much.
At -5 and half Str damage, a bite isn't gonna do much. We're talking, what? +12 to hit for 1d4+5?
But yes, natural attacks. Via Monstrous Physique 1, which gives 3 of them, making it a viable alternative to using weapons at all.
I don't optimize investigators much but they have significantly and ever growing differentials in hit, damage, and number of attacks per round.
Uh...Barbarians get one more attack than Investigators.
Ignoring Ability scores and weapons (which will be equivalent, or can be anyway), at 18th level, from class abilities alone, a Barbarian has +26 to hit via BAB, Reckless Abandon, and Rage. They have +9 damage similarly (if they count Witch Hunter).
An Investigator, meanwhile, has +24 to hit from BAB, Mutagen, and Studied Combat, and +12 damage from Studied Combat and Mutagen. and at least +4 AC over the Barbarian due to Mutagen giving AC while rage takes it away.
Now, let's add in Power Attack, that makes the Barbarian +21 to hit for +24 damage, and the Investigator +20 to hit for +24 damage.
So...all things told, by 18th, the Barbarian has one extra attack (at -15) and +1 to hit, in exchange for the Investigator having +4 AC, and 6-level casting from a self-buff focused list.
That doesn't sound to me like Investigator gets a bad deal here.
Now don't get me wrong, I love Barbarians and they do have advantages (HP and DR leap to mind, plus Superstition on Saves). But Investigator is close enough to the optimal Barbarian build in raw damage output that calling them bad in combat is actively untrue.
Which was my whole point. If you don't want to play one, feel free not to, but don't say it's because they're bad in combat. They aren't.
I can't find anything the investigator does which is more unique than spell sunder.
More unique? Probably not. Better? I'd argue so. They have more than half the utility spells in the game available to them. Dispel Magic is nice, but it's not that nice.
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I'm having a Blast with a Bomb Alchemist ATM.
I know you want a good will save built into the class but you can get by shoring up on will in other ways.
Traits: Carefully Hidden (+1 Will saves and +2 vs Divination) and Fate's Favored (Pick up Luck bonuses like Luckstone)
Feat- Iron Will
Discovery- Tumor Familiar-Hedgehog (this is better than Iron will...take protector archetype for familiar and enjoy gaining more HP survivablity)
This is basically an Easy +6 to will saves. Lets not forget your Heroism +2, Protection from Evil, Regular cloak of Resistance, and Undead anatomy 2 and 3.
You can shore up a very good will save with good Options.
You also get to control the field with bombs or pass out buffs with infusion.
Lots to do both In and out of combat with lots of skills.
Great AC due to dex. Ability to Layer up defenses beyond AC.
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Unless it's the level of Charisma to saves the paladin get's, superstitious or a good base will save I really have 0 interest in the class. I've had enough characters run in fear, get dominated, or just plain go crazy because of a blown will save. I will not take a bad will save ever again. Shoring it up to be "Ok" is simply unacceptable.
Its fine.
Go with Barb, Paladin, or Core Monk then.
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again not knowing spell sunder is 6th level or the actual mechanics of what spell sunder fundumentally is makes me feel you haven't witnessed the barbaric insanity that is spell sundering.
I've seen Spell Sunder in use. Several times.
My apologies for assuming you weren't wrong in talking about it on a 5th level character, and being a bit distracted, and thus not looking it up. And you certainly seemed to imply that a Barbarian would have it at 5th in one of your previous posts, though looking back it seems like that was unintentional on your part.
First off most barbs I know Go 1) Power attack H) Reckless Rage 3) ERP: Witch Hunter with rage powers being Superstitious, Witch hunter, and reckless abandon all by level 4. The beast totem line is entirely trash until you reach level 10 so most people i know retrain a feat or take the feat/RP line at 7/8/9/10. This in addition to starting 20 STR tends to embarrass most other martial classes.
Huh? Lesser Beast Totem is a speed-bump, but Beast Totem is pretty great if you actually want to have AC. And you probably should. AC's handy.
And where's Raging vitality on that list? Or do they not pick that up until a little later? 7th works, but not taking it until 9th is playing with fire.
Secondly spell sunder is no mere dispel magic. It can shatter any magical effect. Literally anything even AMF's (If you stand outside of them). That 20th level caster effect protecting the building from teleportation which cannot be dispelled by dispel magic? Spell sunder and strength surge can destroy the effect. Spell sunder is such a large maul that eliminates ongoing magic that if given 20 skill points per level or spell sunder I'd take the latter in the group.
Barring antimagic field...I don't think any such effects actually exist in the published rules. And Investigators have a lot more options than just skills.
The game is rocket tag at higher level unless your AC is in (level+10)*3 your level category and even then if you just flub a save you are useless or die. Pretty much only the monk style characters and paladins possess enough defensive abilities to fill up the holes on saves and AC.
Investigator does fine as well. I mean, they can walk around under constant Heroism pretty readily, which shores up Saves a bit, and have more AC buffs than you can shake a stick at. Actually well into enough to matter at high levels.
Though I'm not sure what your formula is actually supposed to be saying, because at the moment it looks like you're requiring 60 AC at 10th level to be meaningful, which is kinda excessive.
Why would we bar this, every paladin I've ever seen takes it.
True enough. Though it doesn't sound like your group has one.
at level 5 it hits for half STR (4) Power attack (6 YES this is the 2/step he get's an extra step) Witch Hunter (2) bard (1) So 1d4+13 once again this is why I don't believe you understand how large the differential is on numbers. Not your fault I don't know everything about the investigator but it makes it hard to believe you really get why it's an issue. The to hit is typically at this level +8 str +5 BAB +2 Reckless abandon +1 haste +2 flanking +1 bard.
Uh...this is not how Power attack works. It goes to 1/2 effect and thus +1 per -1 on all attacks that only do 1/2 Str. That's just how Power Attack works.
In no way is a +5 furious courageous weapon for a barbarian equal to a weapon an investigator has at any point during the adventuring life time.
Coourageous doesn't work that way any more. They errata'd it.
And Furious is cool, but so's Inspired, Combat Inspiration, and a few other Investigator only tricks.
I literally don't have the time to explain how wrong this is by stating up my own barbarian from scratch again but I can tell you for sure that those numbers were low for a barb when I was 12th level I cannot fathom how you got them at level 18. If my party had those numbers I would wipe them literally every encounter without fail and without mercy. Most of my current 18th level characters in WotW have +30-+40 to hit and +40-+60 damage with many attacks and ways to get extra attacks. Average damage from a full attack at 18 is more than enough to kill a pit fiend (I Know because they have 1 full attacked several 20cr monsters at 18 2 balors and a pit fiend come to mind thus far) unbuffed. It boggles my mind how those numbers are so low.
That's not counting items, Str, or anything other than BAB and Class Features (ie: it counts str bonuses from Rage and Mutagen but not base str). After all, base stats and items can be almost identical.
So, by the same metric, fighter would have +23 to hit and +8 damage at 18th, because all I'm counting are Weapon Training, fighter-only Feats, and BAB.
It's intended to ignore extraneous modifiers that aren't actually about the Class, and is for purposes of comparison only.
And comparing the Classes absent extraneous factors is what I've been doing in general. For example, I think bringing up Bard or flanking bonuses when talking about the Barbarian's to-hit is ridiculous. They're an equal advantage to anyone, so the Investigator can use them just as easily.
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With two front-liners, yourself, a druid companion, and possibly the druid itself, sounds like a nice party to play a skald in.
The bonuses from raging song all cover different areas than inspire competence, so you can double-dip buffs.
Plus, after buff-spells go out you can throw superstitious and witch hunter to potentially the entire party.
Plus since you can go in and out of the skald song at the start of a given character's initiative each round, partial casters can use it when they want and stop when they don't.
Additionally, since the group seems to have tactical combat on lock, you can grab the new archetype from Ultimate Intrigue that lets the skald grab teamwork feats and share them like rage powers at the cost of 2 rounds of song.
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You are correct I haven't read the changes in a long time. It did not work like that always. That still leaves it at +10 and the capacity to increase dramatically over the course of career.
Sure. An Investigator can easily have one, too, though.
And that assumes they aren't going the 'all natural attack' build. Which they can, and be scary with it.
I don't see what you mean.
Here's the errata (actually technically a FAQ...same thing in this case). Basically, they nerfed it to uselessness. It only applies to bonuses to saves vs. Fear now.
I dunno why D20pfrsrd hasn't changed it, but them's the rules.
To give you an example of the problem which is "Cannot be dispelled" in the AP we are playing one of the plot points is that there is a wall of fire created by mitra himself (there by immune to dispel magic and greater dispel magic) but it's given a caster level of merely 30. Now that sounds high but the barbarian has a long time to try and obliterate it and it turns out he did it on the first try circumventing an entire dungeon. If the effect exists it's likely dispelled just by having a barb in the party. Spell sunder can basically dispel plot points which is so funny I have to let it slide but also frustrating because it circumvents huge swaths of the game. (Level 6? Wall of force should LOLNOPE) There are lots of undispellable effects Walls of force and AMF spring to mind but there are plenty more such as plottonium.
I've read through four or five APs, and run another couple. I've never seen anything like this anywhere. I'm sure it's come up some time, but not often enough to be a meaningful advantage.
At level 18 my PC's except for the one invested in AC while smiting who has a ~53 are tissue paper AC solely around the 30s to keep mooks away. Survival is about HP, Saves and initiative. If you have a +20 init and a 0 AC you are safer than if you have +0 init and AC 40.
It's useless if you don't invest in it. But investing in AC is still very doable even at that level, and very useful if you do. It requires a substantial investment to be relevant, but it's by no means impossible.
Except for furious, reckless rage, and a host of other feats/items related to damage the barbarian gets exclusively.
Reckless Rage is -1 to hit for +3 damage and furious is +2 to each. That doesn't change the calculus much, adding +1 to hit and +4 damage. Monstrous Physique is something the Investigator has access to, and at that level adds +3 to hit and +4 damage.
So...I was leaving off some ancillary stuff for both of them. Including every possible option just doesn't work when making a class comparison, you have to look at the base chassis and then a few important boosts, not every possible factor. And yesw, Furious is nice, but Inspired (for Investigators) is more burst-y but actually almost as nice in many ways.
I second the skald suggestion. You have a lot of buffs and utiliy while still being able to hold your own.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned Paladin, as it's exactly the sort of thing the OP wants: Good Will Save progression, Ridiculous Saves and Immunities in general, gains access to spells by 4th level, taking a feat gives him access to some pretty crazy spells that no other Paladin could take, deals a ridiculous amount of damage almost all of the time (because 90% of crap you fight is Evil-aligned anyway, and with spells you can mitigate yourself against non-evil enemies too). The only problem is it somewhat shoehorns the character concept.
Otherwise at this point, all you can really afford is a Battle Druid, a Cleric, or a Sorcerer, Wizard, or Arcanist; in other words, Full Divine or Full Arcane spellcasters, there's very few martials that have a Good Will Save progression and also function as Full BAB with Spells. In fact, Paladins are perhaps the only Full BAB, Good Will save, Spells Martial that exists in the game, and outside that, the only way you can get that level of power is through Gestalt gameplay.
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Ok so what about the number of attacks? The barbarian in our group get's 6 attacks a round with his great ax since he has haste and get's an extra attack if he fears something (Which the antipaladin makes 100% possible) and averages another 4-5 from come and get me.
Once you start adding Come And Get Me it gets real hard for anybody but a Zen Archer (and a few other dedicate archer builds) to keep up with a Barbarian's attacks. Of course, that's only at 12th level and only when you're getting hit with melee attacks.
The most an Investigator can readily manage is 8 from Monstrous Physique + Haste + Rend (I think, it's possible there's a Monstrous Humanoid with more than 6 Natural Attacks + Rend...I'm not sure what it is though). Those are all at Full BAB rather than the Barbarian's penalties on his iteratives, though (they are also all'one-handed' for Str/Power Attack purposes, though). They could technically get up to 10 by using a weapon plus all the natural attacks but one, but that's not a great plan since they'd all become secondary.
Where's the extra attack from fear coming from? I'm curious now. If it's not Barbarian specific, they could tack that on.
I'm guessing synthesist summoner isn't an option? It doesn't technically have a companion creature, so loophole.
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It's a barbarian specific feat I believe but I cannot remember what it is at the moment I'll ask the player later but I read it at the time it basically trade's off shakening the target for an extra hit once per turn.
Ah. Gotcha.
Oh! That does bring up (in my head anyway) a cool thing Investigators can do. They can sicken just about everything they hit starting at 7th. At no cost (beyond the Talent to do it) and every time they attack. It doesn't stack with itself, but it's still super shiny as a free additional thing.
All that said, I'm not sure Investigator is the best fit for the party you listed (there's a lot of overlap with Bard in terms of theme and non-combat stuff). You really might want to go Paladin.
Inquisitor is always a strong option, and has some pretty great saves.
My personal favorite OP combo is an aberrant bloodrager with a tumor familiar that has the protector archetype. This combo makes the spelleater archetype a pretty decent option too.
Ok so what about the number of attacks? The barbarian in our group get's 6 attacks a round with his great ax since he has haste and get's an extra attack if he fears something (Which the antipaladin makes 100% possible) and averages another 4-5 from come and get me.Once you start adding Come And Get Me it gets real hard for anybody but a Zen Archer (and a few other dedicate archer builds) to keep up with a Barbarian's attacks. Of course, that's only at 12th level and only when you're getting hit with melee attacks.
The most an Investigator can readily manage is 8 from Monstrous Physique + Haste + Rend (I think, it's possible there's a Monstrous Humanoid with more than 6 Natural Attacks + Rend...I'm not sure what it is though). Those are all at Full BAB rather than the Barbarian's penalties on his iteratives, though. They could technically get up to 9 by using a weapon plus all the natural attacks but one, but that's not a great plan since they'd all become secondary.
Where's the extra attack from fear coming from? I'm curious now. If it's not Barbarian specific, they could tack that on.
It's a barbarian specific feat I believe but I cannot remember what it is at the moment I'll ask the player later but I read it at the time it basically trade's off shakening the target for an extra hit once per turn.
...I'm surprised nobody mentioned Paladin, as it's exactly the sort of thing the OP wants: Good Will Save progression, Ridiculous Saves and Immunities in general, gains access to spells by 4th level, taking a feat gives him access to some pretty crazy spells that no other Paladin could take, deals a ridiculous amount of damage almost all of the time (because 90% of crap you fight is Evil-aligned anyway, and with spells you can mitigate yourself against non-evil enemies too). The only problem is it somewhat shoehorns the character concept.
Otherwise at this point, all you can really afford is a Battle Druid, a Cleric, or a
Well, there you have it. Your choices are Zen Archer Monk or Paladin, according to the criteria that you're searching for in a character. AFAIK, the Divine Hunter archetype serves a similar purpose to the Zen Archer Monk, so if ranged combat is your forte, there you go.
I kind of wish there was more to offer that would fit the criteria you set forth, but the only other ways to do that would be to implement Gestalt rules, which I'm certain you or your group don't want (otherwise it probably would've been put in already).
I will go ahead and mention that if you think the home game will be about a 6 or 7 out of 10 on the difficulty meter, compared to Rappan Athuk being a 10 on that meter, that maybe optimization that you would see in relation to Rappan Athuk may not be neessary, meaning other, not-so-optimized options, such as the Inquisitor (which is still pretty decent), Investigator (with the right talents, they're absolutely mean in combat, and have almost invaluable out-of-combat options), Battle Druid (full spellcaster that can shred enemies to kibbles and bits), et. al., would still be strong and acceptable options for the kind of campaign you're playing.
Angry much?
Well you don't want to play a full caster for 'being nice to a new GM' reasons. Alright fine. However I'll mention a funny (and nasty) build that can be done with most arcane full casters and (in a very different way) the magus.
The good ol' enervation manipulation build. Not really relevant at lower levels (enervation is a 4th level spell after all)
So here's what you do get a point of metamagic adjust on enervation then get empower and maximize and thanatopic spell and naturally quicken, and finnaly spell perfection. You are going to want to have also point blank and precise. Also get rods (of maximize prefferably)
it's kind of funny round one: empowered maximized enervation, followed by empowered maximized quickened enervation.
Assuming no crit thats 10-12 negative levels, and well it's probably not dead, as you are level 15, but the fight is now a joke. Oh and no save, let's not forget that. Oh and before you object all that metamagic is legit and I just used one 4th and one fifth level spell slot. You have massive sysem mastery so I don't think I need to explain it.
Alternatively you can do the same thing (more or less) with the magus, but with crits (oh and damage I guess). There's an arcana that lets you spell strike with enervation etc. etc. You get it. Metamagic and slots are a but more tricky though.