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I’m making a high-dex, low-str investigator who needs to serve as the party’s rogue-type but also needs to be one of the primary melee combatants. I’d love suggestions on how to make him effective. I was thinking weapon finesse and then slashing grace (with Aldori dueling sword) or fencing grace (with rapier), taking a dip into fighter to help with the feat tax. Eventually planning on getting the weapon keen to get more critical hits. I’d appreciate any thoughts on that plan. I am also open to considering two weapon fighting, and I'd love to hear any other ideas. Thanks!
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Inspired blade swashbuckler is better for the feat taxes (you get WF rapier and weapon finesse from 1 level) and also gives you the swashbuckler's parry.
Thanks. That looks interesting. Any downsides to the rapier? It isn't a light weapon, which I guess would mostly matter for two weapon fighting because it couldn't be a light offhand weapon. Would you recommend I also go the TWF route? Are other feats than TWF necessary? What would be a good offhand weapon choice?
I'm not sure TWF is especially useful to you - you probably want a free hand to use extracts. With the opportune parry and riposte deed you don't want attack penalties either.
If you do decide to go that way then neither fencing grace nor slashing grace works alone, either requires a free hand. You need two-weapon grace or 3 levels in unchained rogue to make TWF and dex to damage work together. Shortswords are probably the best of the weapons which an unchained rogue or investigator gets proficiency in for this, though daggers have more options available.
Thanks. Got it. The penalties from two weapon fighting seem too high to make it worthwhile. Any suggestions of how I can increase my effectiveness if I go With the inspired blade swashbuckler dip? I plan on making the sword keen To increase the likelihood of crits. Other ideas?
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Two-Weapon Fighting and Fencing Grace don’t work together. TWF and Swashbuckler also don’t really work together, either. So if you’re going with an Inspired Blade dip, don’t TWF. Inspired Blade is a really strong dip, because you can basically be up and running for melee right from first level. Dex-based Investigator otherwise takes until 4th level to start being good in combat. Once Studied Combat comes online, you’ll start being really good as an Insp Blade 1/Investigator 4+. Cycling Studied Strike becomes important later, once you have Quick Study and Combat Inspiration. Keen is good because of recovering Panache. The Inspired weapon quality is also excellent. Spend an Inspiration to attack and get double what you roll on the Inspiration die to Damage.
If you want a different direction, I struggled with my Investigator up until 6th level, because I didn’t really understand the class’s strengths. I also heavily focused on skills. My fix was to become a natural attacking Investigator. Starting at 4th, you can turn into a troglodyte and get three attacks. Grab an Agile Amulet of Mighty a Fists around 4th so all of your natural attacks get Dex to Damage. At 7th, turn into a Charda. It’s a small creature with 5 natural attacks, so not only do you get lots of attacks, but you get a +2 size bonus to Dex as well. And as a bonus, they have a swim speed and can breath water when you need it. One of the weaknesses of natural attack builds is getting through DR, but you can just turn into a gargoyle or popabola to get a big primary attack. Or a gargoyle when you need to fly. Buy a Monstrification Staff. You can explicitly recharge it with extracts. Now you don’t have to prep Monstrous Physique. Adding Studied Combat and Dex to Damage onto 5 attacks is very effective, and they all have good accuracy, since they are all primary (4 claws and a bite).
Either way... stack as many 10 min/Level buffs as you can. Start with Barkskin, take Mutagen for a +4 DEX -2 WIS mutagen, add on things like see invisibility, resinous skin, false life, resist energy, stoneskin (eventually), and whatever else you can. You can have excellent AC and impressive damage output. you May not keep up with a Barbarian two-handing a greatsword, but you can definitely be good at melee.
The inspired property is another you may like on your sword. It works especially well with a half-elf due to their alternate favored class bonus. Otherwise it's about maxing dex - get the mutagen via an investigator talent, get cat's grace before you can afford a permanent +4 dex belt, etc.
With the opportune parry and riposte deed you don't want attack penalties either.
Just gonna put this out there. The penalties from two-weapon-fighting end when your turn ends, so they likely won't have any effect on your opportune parry (they only will if you're parrying someone during your full-attack action). Having said that, you're still better off just focusing on 1 weapon since that gets you your dex to damage without a huge ton of feats.
To make it offensively effective I probably wouldn't make Keen my first priority. Investigators get a huge buff from studied combat, but the damage bonus isn't increased by keen, so you get a little less out of that enchantment that others would. The obvious choice is the INSPIRED weapon property. The other good weapon enchantment you might look at is ANSWERING.
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Definite vote for the Inspired Blade. You mentioned low strength, but maybe consider getting 13 just for Power Attack? by Lv5 with a Dex mutagen and a heroism alchemical allocation up you should have roughly +20 to hit, so a -2 to hit for a +4 damage would be worthwhile. plus, you know, carrying capacity. If your GM allows the Effortless Lace magic item, you can instead skip Power Attack and instead go Piranha Strike.
No reason to NOT go Empericist unless you REALLY want to mess with poisons for some reason. Lamplighter is actually another good option, giving you free Inspiration on initiative checks, but Empericist is a bit more versatile.
It was mentioned that you should hold off on Keen, and I really disagree with that. Being able to parry and riposte is really important, and while you start out with a higher amount of panache than regular swashbucklers, your easiest mean of getting panache back is now gone. You ONLY regain panache on a crit, so getting that high crit range is super important.
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One more vote for the swashbuckler dip. I played an Investigator with an Inspired Blade dip. He worked out decently in melee, and was a great skill monkey, but don't expect too much combat-wise. If you are going to be one of the primary melee combatants, you have to be extremely careful. My guy did great until he didn't. He got critted and instantly killed during a fight in the Hells Rebels campaign. He was level 4 at the time. It was a tough fight though. My next, and current PC is a Rogue with a Barbarian dip. He is majorly badass and can melee with the best of them. Does a ton of damage and drives the GM crazy because we destroy all the bad guys so quickly.
Thanks, everyone! Great suggestions. I will definitely do with the inspired blade swashbuckler dip. Do you have suggestions for traits and for feats beyond fencing grace. Down the line I will get an effortless lace and then Piranha Strike, but what other feats should I consider.
If you want a different direction, I struggled with my Investigator up until 6th level, because I didn’t really understand the class’s strengths. I also heavily focused on skills. My fix was to become a natural attacking Investigator. Starting at 4th, you can turn into a troglodyte and get three attacks. Grab an Agile Amulet of Mighty a Fists around 4th so all of your natural attacks get Dex to Damage. At 7th, turn into a Charda. It’s a small creature with 5 natural attacks, so not only do you get lots of attacks, but you get a +2 size bonus to Dex as well. And as a bonus, they have a swim speed and can breath water when you need it. One of the weaknesses of natural attack builds is getting through DR, but you can just turn into a gargoyle or popabola to get a big primary attack. Or a gargoyle when you need to fly. Buy a Monstrification Staff. You can explicitly recharge it with extracts. Now you don’t have to prep Monstrous Physique. Adding Studied Combat and Dex to Damage onto 5 attacks is very effective, and they all have good accuracy, since they are all primary (4 claws and a bite).
Interesting! Is all this shapeshifting available to all investigators, or is it an archetype? Just doing it with alchemical extracts?
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Just with extracts. Alter self starting at 4th level, then Monstrous Physique I at 7th. That's all you really need, but if you want to be Large or Tiny, you get Monstrous Physique II at 10th.
The Inspired Blade build is great, though, and I certainly don't think you'd go wrong doing that.
There's a definite downside to going with the shapeshifting build in that you have to drink the extract/activate the Monstrification Staff. Since I played my Investigator in PFS, I could often guess wishing 8 minutes when the next fight was coming. When I didn't, I'd have to spend a standard turning into whatever. Though sometimes there's a benefit to that as well, as you can choose what you turn into based on what you are fighting.
Thanks. But are the builds mutually exclusive? It seemed like you were suggesting a DEX build could be a effective polymorpher with the agile amulet. How would the builds differ?
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Yeah, the polymorph build is mutually exclusive to the inspired investigator build. With inspired blade you're going for fencing grace to get dex to damage. You would typically be more strength focused if you go a polymorph build. If you polymorph, you're not utilizing fencing Grace, if you use fencing grace you have to use a rapier. It's not necessarily a bad thing to split up your tactics like that, but know that utilizing extracts is temporary, and with the inspired blade dip you can use the rapier all day long.
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They aren't mutually exclusive, but they rely on different resources. I wouldn't try to do both on the same build. Though I do use a rapier as my backup weapon for when I don't want to spend resources changing into something. I never bothered to enhance it, though. not even +1, let alone Agile. But you could have an Agile rapier as well.
The polymorphing build is more complicated to play, and is limited by extracts (though getting the Monstrification Staff helps a lot). Pick whichever sounds the most fun. I enjoy telling people, "Sometimes I turn into monsters. Please don't kill me when I do."
I used the Inspired Blade dip on a melee witch character to give me a backup fighting style when I don't have Prehensile Hair going. It's a really quick way to become good with a rapier.
Thanks. That makes sense. I'll go with the inspired blade build, but it's good to know about the other option.
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Getting Mutagen and the Alchemical Allocation extract asap is priority for a melee investigator. Lv2 Boro beads, while mildly expensive, can really be a huge help for you. Things like Heroism, fly, and even haste (all 3rd lvl extracts) essentially become 2nd lvl extracts with Alchemical Allocation.
I had an elf investigator with a level dip in inspired blade and at level 5 with heroism, studied combat, and mutagen I had somewhere like a +22 to hit.
That’s wild! What feats did you take? I guess you recommend as my first investigator talent that I take the alchemist discovery mutagen? Did you go for the Piranha Strike feat , using an effortless lace?
Yeah, that doesn't add up. Swashbuckler 1 / Investigator 4 is +4 BAB, Dex 20 base would be another +5, studied combat, heroism and mutagen each add +2 (+6), and weapon focus is another +1, cat's grace might be another +2 and haste another +1. Altogether that's +19 with 4 temporary buffs up, one of them rounds/level.