Hellspawn Ratfolk Investigator / Hellknight Signifer

[Vasemir]

Hey!

I'm having hard time planning a character for an Age of Ashes campaign.
Concept is Hellspawn Ratfolk, a faceless bastion of Law, investigator of humanoids' condition and a philosopher of society and order. Face role in the team with skills like Society, Diplomacy, Deception, Intimidation, Lore: Hellknight, Architecture, Legal.

So what I need is a way to obtain a Hellknight Signifer dedication with a Hellspawn Ratfolk Investigator.
If I'm correct, I'd have to:
- get Wizard Dedication with class feat first on 2/4/6 lvl to get that spellcasting class feature;
- get medium armor prof. on 2lvl with a general feat, then heavy armor prof on level 7;
- get Hellknigth Armiger dedication on level 8;

And only then I could get Signifer and his mask on level 10...

Is there a faster way to achieve that? Workaround for "spellcasting class feature" requirement or a way to make full use of a heavy armor (as Investigator gets only light and unarmed)?
I'm rather hesitant to pick Champion or Cleric dedications for heavy armor proficiency.

As I'd have to invest in heavy, I'm even willing to make a risky move with somewhat dumping Str and Dex in favor of Int and Cha (as I'd base on Devise Strategem either way).

[Seisho]

Might be very well possible that you can't take shotcuts on this

to be honest I think it is kind of a convoluted concept anyway, even though it might be fun

[Vasemir]

I think I've figured it out - Investigator with Oracle (Battle Mystery) dedication shall do the trick ;)

However if anyone has any ideas or tips - I'd be glad to read them.

[masda_gib]

Vasemir wrote:

I think I've figured it out - Investigator with Oracle (Battle Mystery) dedication shall do the trick ;)

However if anyone has any ideas or tips - I'd be glad to read them.

Oracle dedication doesn't give you the constant benefit of your mystery. Armor prof is that benefit for the battle oracle. So that won't work either.

[Lightwire]

That’s definitely one you’ll have to stretch for. You could probably get to normal Hellknight quicker. You need casting, so 3 class feats, you need armor so 2 general feats, you also need hellknight Armiger. So if you don’t take any class feats after level 1 you could be a signifier at level 10.

Anything that includes an archtype is going to take until level 10 to get the first feat for signifier. And unfortunately investigator is one of the worst classes to get to that archtype.

Alternatively, presuming GM cooperation with your Hellknight membership, you could take sentinel at 2 and med armor proficiency at 3. Then wear the plate as a member in training. They obviously would object to just anyone wearing it but I don’t know you much have specific archtypes to in game be a member. Then next time you get a general feat take the next armor proficiency and train out sentinel for Armiger. Then when you hit 10 do some more retraining to get the full signifier. It’s not everything you want any faster but it gives you what you want as quickly as you can get it in reasonable bites.

[Vasemir]

@masda_gib

I'm sorry, but how is that?

Quote:

"Mystery Benefit

You are no stranger to the trappings of warfare. You are trained in medium and heavy armor. At 13th level, if you gain the light armor expertise class feature, you also gain expert proficiency in these armors."

Quote:

"Oracle Dedication

Choose a mystery. (...)"

Why wouldn't it be constant?

I know it's for the Battle Oracle - that's why I would pick it while taking this dedication.

[Lightwire]

Vasemir wrote:

@masda_gib

I'm sorry, but how is that?

Quote:

"Mystery Benefit

You are no stranger to the trappings of warfare. You are trained in medium and heavy armor. At 13th level, if you gain the light armor expertise class feature, you also gain expert proficiency in these armors."

Quote:

"Oracle Dedication

Choose a mystery. (...)"

Why wouldn't it be constant?

I know it's for the Battle Oracle - that's why I would pick it while taking this dedication.

If you read the full text of the oracle dedication feat you’ll see that it specifies you only gain the mild constant effect of a mysteries curse and the skill. So no armor or anything else. Most of the MC dedications are limited like this.

[masda_gib]

Vasemir wrote:

@masda_gib

I'm sorry, but how is that?

Quote:

"Mystery Benefit

You are no stranger to the trappings of warfare. You are trained in medium and heavy armor. At 13th level, if you gain the light armor expertise class feature, you also gain expert proficiency in these armors."

Quote:

"Oracle Dedication

Choose a mystery. (...)"

Why wouldn't it be constant?

I know it's for the Battle Oracle - that's why I would pick it while taking this dedication.

What Lightwire said.

The important sentence in the dedication is "You gain the mild, constant effects of the mystery's curse described in its first paragraph, but not other effects the mystery usually grants.".

For Battle Oracle the mild effect is "You smell faintly of steel and blood no matter how you try to remove or mask the scent, you appear more muscular than you actually are, and you hear the faint clash and clamor of battle in the distance at all times."

It's the same as many other dedications. Sorcerer MC doesn't give you Blood Magic and barbarian MC doesn't give you any Instinct abilities right away.

[Squiggit]

Did some digging and I can't really find a better entry with the stipulations you've put forward.

Unfortunately PF2 is kind of hostile toward builds that really step outside a class' normal assumptions like this.

[Deadmanwalking]

Getting Heavy Armor is pretty easy by level 4 with Sentinel Dedication. Unfortunately, that puts off Hellknight stuff (of whatever variety) for quite a while, but retraining is possible.

What exactly are you trying to achieve here? Just being a Hellknight in-universe? Because as a GM, I wouldn't make you necessarily take the Archetype for that. Most members probably have it, but I wouldn't say all of them do. What's necessary is being Lawful, trained in Heavy Armor, and beating a Devil in single combat...and that's much easier to build an Investigator to do mechanically.

[Vasemir]

I missed that part - thank you for pointing that out!

Quote:

What exactly are you trying to achieve here? Just being a Hellknight in-universe?

I'd like to express my concept mechanically. I'll probably be some kind of a half-brother of one of the Orders right from the start, but I'd like to make that faceless visage of the law and a ratfolk behind it - censor, arbiter, philosopher. I believe Hellkngiht Signifer dedication feat (related to the mask they get during initiation) is probably the best way to do it, but I find those dedications... somewhat lacking. I know they are "knights", but Orders focused so much on social order and diabolical vibe should have place for, er... "signifers", social: judges, leaders, spies, negotiators or interrogators.

At first I thought aboud doing that Hellknight Signifer without any spellcasting feats. As that should be reasonable, I think my GM would agree to option to make a Signifer without spellcasting focus or rather - making a regular Hellknight but with Hellknight Signifer first feat. Unless you guys see some "balance problem" with that or something?

Perhaps there's a better way to keep a skill-monkish utility and concept of an intellectual and get that damn mask and VIP membership?

[Lightwire]

In a home game that’s probably workable, more skill bumps fewer combat boost. That or just doing normal Hellknight with the mask reskinned in. Both will be challenging to do too fast. As to the VIP note it’s worth remembering that aside from a single order a normal Hellknight outranks a signifier.

[Vasemir]

Good to know, but could you please point the source? On wiki I only found this (don't own a book, but I've heard that lore didn't change much):

Quote:

The leader of a Hellknight order is known as the lictor, while a leader whose training is more scholarly and less martial is known as a vicarius. Beneath him are an order's master or mistress of blades (field commanders) and paravicar (leader of the order's arcane/religious forces). Beneath them, paralictors (Hellknight officers), signifers (Hellknight spellcasters), rank and file Hellknights, and armigers (Hellknights in training) flesh out the ranks.[8]