Investigator with low Int?

[Aswaarg]

So, after reading the Investigator I have confronted feelings.

One thing that I was wondering i. How Int impact the investigator? Can I build one droping the main characteristic?

Having high Int is going to afect some of the "Recall knowledge" skills. That is going to affect the combat part, but mostly the out of combat part. But if you get high Wis instesd of Int, you are going to improve a lot of the other"investigative" skills (religion, perception, etc).

The main combat thing for the Investigator is the Devise a stratagem and the asociated Stategic Strike damage improvement. On that regard, you could build a high Dex low Int, and you can Devise and choose to apply the Int bonus when the roll is high enough and apply the Dex when the difference makes ghe hit. And when you reach lvl 10, you get Ongoing Strategy and you are going to apply the precision damage every time (so no need for Int bonus).

Talking about Methodologues, only with the Alchemical the Int feels relevant.

Am I crazy/wrong? Is this a bad build snd will crumble when playing? Am I right and some of the playtest feelings are still in here? (The Int is not enough relevant for the class)

[Claxon]

I'm not sure why you would want to roll with low int instead of buffing it, but I suppose you could. It's not going to be as good, as your suggestion is just to build up wisdom instead for skills. And honestly, my response is you don't really have to choose too much. When building a character you can prioritize 3 stats without too much trouble. You're going to have to choose, because they wont all be equal, but because you can increase 4 stats at level up you can just choose 2 to be lousy at and everything else will increase.

I believe you can start an Investigator with 16, 14, 14, 10, 10, 8 and that would be a fine way to go.

[WatersLethe]

Like you surmised, it's going to be tricky to get your Devise a Stratagem damage. I don't think it's really worth going the low int route because you'll be wasting so many actions over an encounter fishing for high rolls to counter your lower int.

Lots of feats key off of int and Devise a Stratagem, so your selection of useful in-class feats will be limited.

I'm just not sure at all why you would go into the class with the intention of hobbling Devise a Stratagem. Rogue should work better for most concepts with high dex low int.

[Claxon]

That's a good point, if you're looking to go high dex, low int (possibly with a side of wisdom) then Rogue is what you should use.

Most classes have almost no use for int (getting a few extra trained skill isn't worth it in my opinion) unless they have classes with features that depend on it. Investigator is a class that depends on int.

The ability scores that are important regardless of class are dex, con, and wisdom. Dex is for ranged attacks, AC, skills and save. Con for hit points and save, and wisdom for skills (include default init) and save.

You only really take str, int, and cha if your class depend on it in some way.

[SuperBidi]

I haven't read everything about the Investigator, but to me, the class concept is Int-based martial. If you want a Dex or Str-based martial, why don't you go Rogue? Maybe with an Investigator Dedication for some of the flavor stuff. But I think there's no point in building a low Int Investigator, not because it doesn't work, but because there are already tons of classes providing you such builds.

Edit: Ninjad!

[Aswaarg]

Claxon wrote:

I'm not sure why you would want to roll with low int instead of buffing it, but I suppose you could. It's not going to be as good, as your suggestion is just to build up wisdom instead for skills. And honestly, my response is you don't really have to choose too much. When building a character you can prioritize 3 stats without too much trouble. You're going to have to choose, because they wont all be equal, but because you can increase 4 stats at level up you can just choose 2 to be lousy at and everything else will increase.

I believe you can start an Investigator with 16, 14, 14, 10, 10, 8 and that would be a fine way to go.

Lets say you build character A), with 10 / 16 / 12 / 18 / 12 /10

And character B) with 10 / 16 / 12 / 16 / 14 / 10

In case A), whe you Devise, you win a +1 tothe hit roll (wich will or will not be relevant), in case B) you can Devise and your modifier for the Strike is going to be the same, no matter if you use Dex or Int.

Now, lets take case C) 10 / 16 / 12 / 14 / 16 /10. Now when you roll Devisa a Stratagem. If your check is going to hit the enemy just barely using your Dex mod (so total = AC), you will not get the Stategic Strike damage, but if the total using your Dex is superior to de AC (for 1 or more points), you are going to use the Int modificator, so you will apply the extra damage. The thing is that pre-rolling the dice you can take the best result for your action.

Now, is it worth to sacrifice that amount of damage? If it is, how much is worth downgrading your Int?

WatersLethe wrote:

Like you surmised, it's going to be tricky to get your Devise a Stratagem damage. I don't think it's really worth going the low int route because you'll be wasting so many actions over an encounter fishing for high rolls to counter your lower int.

Lots of feats key off of int and Devise a Stratagem, so your selection of useful in-class feats will be limited.

I'm just not sure at all why you would go into the class with the intention of hobbling Devise a Stratagem. Rogue should work better for most concepts with high dex low int.

There aren´t that many feats that are keyed with Int. MOst of them are "Recall knowleadge" related feats, were is also important to having a high Wis (you if you dump Int but rise Wis should be similar).

Level 2:

- Athletics Strategists: You would not profit of this one.

Level 4:

- Alchemical discoveries: It´s true that you are not going to chooose low Int if you go the alchemical methodolgy

- Scalpels point: It is going to be harder to crit if your Int is lower, so yeah it gets a little bit worst for every point you loose.

- Strategic assesment: Same as before.

Level 14:

- Strategic bypass: Is going to be harder substituting with the Int so this will be harder to apply.

Maybe I left something out, maybe the "recall knowledge" feats are more imporant and having both INt and Wis high is going to be very relevant. But I don´t feel losing the feat chocies above is that bad.

SuperBidi wrote:

I haven't read everything about the Investigator, but to me, the class concept is Int-based martial. If you want a Dex or Str-based martial, why don't you go Rogue? Maybe with an Investigator Dedication for some of the flavor stuff. But I think there's no point in building a low Int Investigator, not because it doesn't work, but because there are already tons of classes providing you such builds.

Edit: Ninjad!

I could do that and is a valid thing to do. But if I want an Int-martial-skill monkey, why I don´t go with the Rogue Master-Mind Racket?

In other words, what the Investigator brings to the table that other clases don´t do.

For my reasoingn, if you can build a low Int investigator and not suffer a lot from it, Int is not the main thing, but a usuefull ad-on.

Every time that I try t build a new Investigator, I always lean towards Wis (some of the good feats are based on Wis), and Int is something that is there, maybe I want a +1 or +2, but a +3 or +4 don´t improve the character that much.

Anyway, thaks the 3 of you for your input!

[SuperBidi]

Aswaarg wrote:

I could do that and is a valid thing to do. But if I want an Int-martial-skill monkey, why I don´t go with the Rogue Master-Mind Racket?

What I mean is Investigator allows you to put a high Int to your character and still make it a pretty efficient martial. It's not the case for a Fighter for example, where a high Int will be payed by reducing some of his other attributes and lose effectiveness. Now, you can also choose Mastermind Racket, it's another solution.

But going Investigator without having high Int... why? What does the Investigator gives you that is so good that you can only build an Investigator to get it?

If you want to build a Wisdom-based Martial, I encourage you to go Ranger. With Master Monster Hunter (ok, you have to wait for level 10, but still), you gonna be the king of Wisdom while being a powerful martial. And you can easily grab Investigator Dedication to add a few skill increase and the low level Investigator feats that you like.

[Claxon]

Yeah, investigator doesn't gain much from Wisdom except some skills and saves. It's an important ability, but not so much that you should choose to focus on it rather than int, at least on a Investigator.

You will be best served by having high dex & int, and then invest in either con or wis, and then str, cha are last.

[Deadmanwalking]

I think there are probably good Cha and Str Investigator builds, but both are pretty specific (the Str build grabs Sentinel for armor, the Cha build leverages Intimidate to get better odds of hitting with Devise A Stratagem attacks).

But yeah, if you aren't focusing on Int I'm kind of really unclear on why you're playing an Investigator.

[Quandary]

It does seem a bit odd that despite Devise a Strategem's INT substitution being OPTIONAL, the Strategic Strike bonus damage only applies if you used the INT substitution. I feel like Strategic Strike bonus damage only requiring the Strategem weapons would have been sufficient restriction, and would have graciously supported broader build approaches... MOST especially low STR/high DEX/low INT builds. It's not like the INT requirement itself is constraining damage, as the same limits on STR/DEX scores exist irrespective of INT.

I recall the Playtest version being more amenable to low-INT (or moderate INT with STR/DEX>INT) builds, with the bonuses to Knowledge checks even helping assuage <max INT builds... Only thing was that most commentators seemed to overlook or be averse to that approach, and complain about lack of "pay-off" for their preferred max Key Stat (INT) build paradigm. So it seems like Paizo swung back harder in the other direction...

Within current rules, I agree a high STR build can achieve reasonable viability if you aren't pursuing max INT... Besides STR's inherent damage bonus, that also leverages the class' full Martial Weapon proficiency for higher weapon damage / better traits, with more flexibility/independence from Devise a Stratagem action and weapon restriction. That may be a bit behind the damage curve, but is still "OK" and Devise a Strategy can still be exploited to "test" attack success (and do something else if it would fail). I don't see Medium/Heavy Armor as inherently required for high STR build as such (as you can still easily fill out Light DEX cap), but it does become very attractive if you are ALSO prioritizing WIS/CHA.

Even with max INT builds, STR>DEX (with or without Sentinel/Med/Heavy Armor) is solid approach... and actually coherent with Investigator granting ALL Martial weapon proficiency, not just Agile/Finesse weapons (or with Feat, Clubs) that are required for Strategic Strike. Strategic Strike's bonus damage incentivizes having an Agile/Finesse weapon ready to use, but as most of those are 1H it's not a stretch to also be wielding better, non-Agile/Finesse weapon to use for other, non-Strategic Strike attacks. While the d6/Deadly Finesse weapons like Rapier are ideal for Strategic Strike, the bonus damage means you are less reliant on weapon itself, so the total doesn't really drop too much even using just a Gauntlet... which allows to wield even 2H (or Two-Handed Trait) non-Agile/Finesse martial weapons for maximal power/flexibility in non-Strategic Strike attacks (albeit at cost of extra Runes/Doubling Ring), while not significantly impeding Strategic Strike efficacy.

[Gisher]

If Int doesn't seem that valuable, you could make it more valuable by taking the Wizard MC or Witch MC. That's my current concept. I figure that in a typical round of combat I will use Int for (Devise a Strategy + Strategic Strike) once and also use Int when I cast a cantrip/spell. All Int, all the time. :)

I'd also make either Str or Dex into a slightly less powerful backup combat stat for rounds when the Int-based options aren't workable.

[Gisher]

Gisher wrote:

If Int doesn't seem that valuable, you could make it more valuable by taking the Wizard MC or Witch MC. That's my current concept. I figure that in a typical round of combat I will use Int for (Devise a Strategy + Strategic Strike) once and also use Int when I cast a cantrip/spell. All Int, all the time. :)

I'd also make either Str or Dex into a slightly less powerful backup combat stat for rounds when the Int-based options aren't workable.

Got the action economy wrong. Gotta make some adjustments. :)

[Ferious Thune]

Aswaarg wrote:

And when you reach lvl 10, you get Ongoing Strategy and you are going to apply the precision damage every time (so no need for Int bonus).

I’ve seen this stated in a couple of different threads, and I don’t think that’s how Ongoing Strategy works. You don’t get you full strategic strike damage on every attack. You get bonus damage equal to the number of strategic strike dice. So at 10th level, I believe you’re only getting +3 damage if you aren’t substituting INT, not +3d6. Otherwise it would just say you get your strategic strike damage.

[Aswaarg]

That is true! I was wrong about Ongoing Strike.

It makes Int better then.