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It seems threads discussing martial/casters in PF2 are pretty popular recently and I wanted to create a more focused discussion, versus occasional mentions, of the Investigator and why I think it is currently (pre-Secrets of Magic) the best chassis for a balanced martial/caster build. I’ll just lay out my points and let the discussion go from there:
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-The key ability of the Investigator is also a casting ability used by Witches and Wizards. This allows maximizing their casting ability when multiclassing. You should only be, at most, -2 behind any other full caster. The only other classes that have a key ability shared by casters are the Alchemist and Rogue, though due to some of the following points, the Investigator has an edge over them. This also greatly reduces MADness. You can dump strength and charisma and focus on everything else easily.
-The Investigator can use their intelligence for attacks through Strategic Strike as well. Strategic Strike also gives bonus precision damage that is close to equivalent of making 2 successful strikes with a 1d6 weapon.
-It seems to be agreed that a vital part of playing a master proficiency caster seems to be knowing the weakest saves of your opponents. Having all of the extra skills and skill feats the Investigator provides makes it more than possible to excel in every skill needed for Recall Knowledge rolls. What’s more is you can take Known Weakness and get a free Recall Knowledge roll every time you use Devise a Stratagem. Recall Knowledge checks are supported further with Thorough Research and Just the Facts among a few others.
-Spellcasting provides a great alternative against your target when you roll badly for your Devise a Stratagem.
-Something I don’t see mentioned a bunch is that martial/casters should invest fairly heavily in items such as scrolls and wands due to their low level and slow progression of spell slots. With the Predictive Purchase/Implausible Purchase feats, this is supported and made even easier for up to 5 scrolls a day.
-All those skills that you will be using for Recall Knowledge can also be used for Trick Magic Item. You can now easily use scrolls to cast spells not on your MC spell list.
-Having the Witch as an ideal multiclass makes it even easier to invest in a familiar. The great thing about a familiar is you can give it Independent and Valet. This allows you to grab whatever scroll or wand you have on your person for no action (make sure these items are worn, not stowed). Otherwise, you are looking at 2 turns to cast a 2-action spell scroll (interact, trick magic item, cast a spell).
-The Alchemical Discoveries methodology can add even more. Nothing particularly useful for spell casting but it’s still awesome for its added versatility. Alternatively, the Forensic Medicine methodology can make you great as a backup healer if not the main healer of the party.
-Did I mention the skills? On top of being completely competent in combat (melee or ranged) and spellcasting, you also get all those skills. The amount of versatility possible for this class is astonishing to me.
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The following are the only major disadvantages I have found the Investigator to have versus other martial options for such builds:
-Low Defenses. 8 HD is just OK. Your AC should be acceptable though as long as you keep investing in your light armor and dexterity. You definitely will not be the tank of your party.
-Social Encounters. You’ll probably want to dump charisma for this sort of build. You can easily still get trained in at least a couple charisma skills but these will probably only help with getting NPCs to give the bare minimum of cooperation.
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That’s all I can think of for now. I'd love for people to add on to why they agree the Investigator makes a great martial/caster or if they find another class to be better suited and their reasoning.
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It's a good pairing, but I think you leave off one of the biggest cons: using Devise itself. Against creatures that aren't the subject of your Lead, DaS-Strike is two actions, which makes it incompatible with spellcasting if you aren't quickened. This diminishes their martial-caster synergy a bit since you more or less have to choose between amping up your physical attack and throwing out magic.
This limits their offensive capabilities a bit compared to say, a rogue who can cast a spell, attack, and potentially still trigger sneak attack and debilitations off that attack while also still getting a ton of extra skills like the Investigator.
I'm not entirely convinced that Investigator is the best class for the martial main class of a martial/caster hybrid character. However, I do see the value of adding a caster MCD to the Investigator.
Investigator is a solid class for campaigns heavy on the role play and out of combat encounters. Exceptionally good at campaigns where investigating things is important. Where they don't do so well is in straight-forward dungeon crawl campaigns. Playing a Rogue would probably be a better choice in that type of game and setting. Adding a casting class could help improve that. Though probably not more than just playing a Rogue with the caster multiclass instead.
So picking Investigator at all is probably a campaign-specific choice. And if you then find yourself lacking because there was more combat involved than you were expecting, picking up a caster MCD is probably a good choice for improving your satisfaction with the character.
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Good Martial MC caster Imo is Monk with Cleric & Champion with either Oracle or Divine Sorcerer.
The free scaling proficiency is great and allow to make good use of Focus spells without having to dedicate 5 feats for the full chain.
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I really think it depends on what you are looking for.
If you want to be a strong caster from a martial class, you should forget about it. That's just not possible. Maybe Magus will change that. But currently, between the lower level of spells, the reduced proficiency and the limited number of spells per day, you won't feel like a caster even with all the feats.
Otherwise, Focus Spells are clearly a good way to go for a martial MCed into caster. You don't have to dedicate tons of feats to get one casting per fight. They are cast at your highest level. And because Focus Spells are designed with a caster class in mind, some of them are extremely powerful in the hands of a martial.
For example, Incendiary Aura (Oracle of Flamme) increase your damage by 2d4 to 6d4 persistent fire damage as long as you are able to deal fire damage with your strikes (either through an Elemental Rune or class features like Rain of Embers Stance).
Vibrant Thorns (Nature Cleric) is also excellent, everytime you're hit you inflict 1d6 points of damage per 2 levels. You need to cast a one-action Heal spell every round for that, but even Barbarians can do it as there is no verbal component to it (and Barbarians love to inflict damage every time they're hit).
Sepulcral Mask (Psychopomp Sorcerer) is certainly the most overpowered spell for a tanking martial. Just dive into melee and see how everything dies around you.
And so much more Focus Spells I don't know about.
Piggybacking on SuperBidi's points, martials which can recharge Focus Points are better than an Investigator. And unless going for the whole chain to Master Proficiency, martials which get proficiency w/ their class will cast those Focus Spells better.
So Champions, Monks, & Rangers for the first point and Champions & Monks for the second (if Divine for former, Divine or Occult for latter).
Separately, and more on the Cantrip side, a Rogue's ability to begin with 18 Cha (for those innate spells) & get Sneak Attack w/ many Cantrips makes them superior IMO.
Relying on slots as a martial simply is unfeasible.
Or an Eldritch Trickster could go 18 Wis, which has several important benefits too.
And a 16 Cha for a Thief hardly effects its combat prowess, unlike most other martials.
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I’m just going to summarize my response to everyone to keep it shorter than it would be otherwise.
I will concede that the Rogue is probably on par or might even have a leg up on the Investigator due to the Eldritch Trickster being able to pick any spellcasting multiclass. I also agree that the Rogue can easily participate in just about any type of campaign while the Investigator will likely not be fully utilized in a traditional dungeon crawl. I do think the Investigator has an edge on Rogues for a full on intrigue game. My opinion of the Investigator being better than the Rogue really is just personal preference. Objectively I find them to be pretty equal to each other in the case of being built as martial/casters.
As far as I am aware, Rangers do not naturally progress in primal spellcasting proficiency for their warden spells. I wish they did though. Not much else to say for Ranger on the topic.
Currently, I don’t think relying solely on the Monk and Champion focus spells alone would fill in the martial/caster role enough. You’re still pretty much a martial with a very limited selection of spells which you are also spending an entire class feat for each of those spells.
If you are a fan of the divine spell list, the Champion and Monk do seem like good classes to take up some Oracle/Sorcerer or Cleric focus spells, respectively. However, a problem with these classes is that the spellcasting dedications they would most likely want to take will limit their selection of focus spells based on the Mystery/Domain/Bloodline chosen. Also, unfortunately, for the Monk, there is currently no wisdom based occult caster so they pretty much can only multiclass into Cleric if they are wanting to effectively use offensive spells while relying on their own spellcasting progression.
The Champion does have an advantage of having charisma as a favored ability which easily gives them the option of multiclassing into Sorcerer and going into any spell list. However, it also seems like proper roleplaying would usually dictate and limit what spells you could choose to take based on the Champion’s dedication to a cause.
Currently, if I were to rank martial classes that naturally contribute to a spellcasting dedication in some way it would be the following:
1. Investigator/Rogue (tied)
2. Champion
3. Alchemist (due to INT key ability)
4. Monk
5. Ranger
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I think it depends on your goal.
Investigator/caster gets you an extremely flexible character that can shift gears pretty easy. I disagree that devise is a nonbo with spells because you're falling back on the save spell if devise fails; it's definitely better than attacking someone else.
I also don't think you have to suck with social encounters. Your offense is SAD for int, so you can place one or two boosts to cha safely, and with 14 cha and your skill proficiencies, you'll be just fine charming people; we dont say the barbarian sucks at demoralize :p
I would say the best multiclass combos would be fighter for a "mage knight", investigator or alchemist for versatility, and then monk/champion get huge honorable mentions for having built in proficiency boosts, but suffer from not having as open of access for synergies with their own native spells
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I think it depends on your goal.
Investigator/caster gets you an extremely flexible character that can shift gears pretty easy. I disagree that devise is a nonbo with spells because you're falling back on the save spell if devise fails; it's definitely better than attacking someone else.
I totally agree but I can also side with the Rogue having a bit better action economy and is a bit more straight forward. Devise a Stratagem seems to require a lot of plan B thinking (and maybe plan C and D if you plan too far in advance) but I find that sort of gameplay fun.
I also don't think you have to suck with social encounters. Your offense is SAD for int, so you can place one or two boosts to cha safely, and with 14 cha and your skill proficiencies, you'll be just fine charming people; we dont say the barbarian sucks at demoralize :p
Oh no, for sure you don't have to dump charisma. I was just talking for if you wanted to maximize combat stats (attack, AC, saves, HP). Heck, my current Investigator is suboptimal compared to my own idea of what is optimized as I'm investing more in strength than dexterity but that's the character's concept.
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Not really true, you are assuming they need high WIS for own Monk spells. Actually they can ignore WIS for those, only taking non-Save/Attack dependent Monk spells, while still applying Monk Occult proficiency to Occult multiclass spells (slot or Focus) which use different stat like CHA.
Wait, does ranger has automatic progression in Primal now ?
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Not really true, you are assuming they need high WIS for own Monk spells. Actually they can ignore WIS for those, only taking non-Save/Attack dependent Monk spells, while still applying Monk Occult proficiency to Occult multiclass spells (slot or Focus) which use different stat like CHA.
Oh, you're right. I did not think about that approach. Might actually bump the monk up in my ranking. The champion, alchemist and monk were very close for me.
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There's been no discussion of what I consider to be the #1 criterion for whether a class is a good chassis for a MCD build:
What class feats are you giving up to get the dedication?
Here's the problem with investigators in this discussion: investigator feats are really good. Which two would you give up for Basic Spellcasting, and what do you gain over taking Trick Magic Item with one of your many, many, many skill feats?
Also, alchemists aren't martials (at least bombers and chirugeons, anyway) and a lot of the alchemist feats are either good or "feat taxes" that you don't want to give up.
A lot of Investigator feats are neat, and Shared Stratagem is a great pickup, but I don't think any of the Lv 2/4 options are critical to have at-level or anything, especially if your focus with the class feats is combat. I'm currently playing a Forensic Medic and don't feel too much sting from going for the dedication and Doctor's Visitation instead. At later levels, the biggest critical standouts to me are Suspect of Opportunity and Didactic Strike, neither of which conflict with a Lv 12 or Lv 18 spell increase.
I think this is by design, this makes the Investigator very easily to multiclass into anything to adapt it to your needs. Be it for combat, magic, or other archetypes.
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There's been no discussion of what I consider to be the #1 criterion for whether a class is a good chassis for a MCD build:
What class feats are you giving up to get the dedication?
Here's the problem with investigators in this discussion: investigator feats are really good. Which two would you give up for Basic Spellcasting, and what do you gain over taking Trick Magic Item with one of your many, many, many skill feats?
Also, alchemists aren't martials (at least bombers and chirugeons, anyway) and a lot of the alchemist feats are either good or "feat taxes" that you don't want to give up.
It seems all of the Investigator feats that focus around detective work and solving mysteries are pretty divisive. People either seem to find them too niche or too over powered based on if the game is focused on that sort of thing or not. The rest of the class feats are nice, some even great, but none are mandatory to make a character function. Whether or not any are better than a spellcasting dedication is completely subjective. Also, if you are not trained in a spellcasting proficiency you are losing action economy in combat by relying on Trick Magic Item alone. You are losing an additional action if you do not have a familiar to independently valet the magic item to your hand.
Considering some people classify the Kineticist (or their preferred PF2 conversion of the class) as a martial, I don't see why the alchemist would not be a martial. They are not innately able to cast spells and though they aren't great with weapons or armor, they naturally rely on them over spells. In the martial/caster dichotomy they are very obviously on one side, unless you are suggesting a trichotomy (utility/support?).... I would agree about their feat taxes though.
With the Predictive Purchase/Implausible Purchase feats, this is supported and made even easier for up to 5 scrolls a day.
Minor mistake on my part. Implausible Purchase actually does not limit the number of scrolls you can pull out of nowhere provided their item level is at most half of your level and you have the coin and encumbrance available. I find this feat is absolutely nuts and a bit too strong actually and have opted out of it for my current build.
Currently, if I were to rank martial classes that naturally contribute to a spellcasting dedication in some way it would be the following:
1. Investigator/Rogue (tied)
2. Champion
3. Alchemist (due to INT key ability)
4. Monk
5. Ranger
I think you should really define what you call "martial classes that naturally contribute to spellcasting dedication", and at the same time what you are expecting to gain from the dedication.
Because Monk is by far the best class for a martial caster who's using both casting and martial attacks at the same time and Ranger is a close second at high level.Also, Alchemist is a caster class more than a martial one.
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Not really true, you are assuming they need high WIS for own Monk spells. Actually they can ignore WIS for those, only taking non-Save/Attack dependent Monk spells, while still applying Monk Occult proficiency to Occult multiclass spells (slot or Focus) which use different stat like CHA.
Additionally, the DCs for monk stuff that is not focus spells (like stunning fist) is based on your class DC which is based on STR/DEX. Of the monk focus spells to date, only Ki Blast, Shadow's Web, Quivering Palm, and Medusa's Wrath involve a save. So you can just avoid those feats if you left Wisdom at 10.
Wisdom is useful for other things, for sure, but perception isn't going to be your job and you have other ways to fix your will save.