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My PC for Curse of the Crimson Throne was a private investigator, so may not be what you're looking for.
When she came of age, Carina ran away from home, eventually settling in Korvosa, where the discrimination towards Tieflings was not quite as bad as in Cheliax. She forsook her birth name, adopting the name Aesara, after an ancient Thassalonian philosopher. She survived through a series of low paying manual labour jobs. While employed as a dock worker, on her own initiative, she managed to solve a mystery surrounding cargo theft. Through word of mouth, she was contacted for the occasional personal or business investigation, which she conducted in her spare time.
Eighteen months ago, Aesara left her job as a dockworker and went into business as a full time Private Investigator. She plays upon people's prejudices by insulating misleadingly that she has underworld contacts that give her access to difficult to find information. Two months ago, she was contacted by the Marras family. Their son Paulo, age 9, was abducted while their nanny was taking him on a trip to the market. She has been working on this case tirelessly since then.
I briefly played an Investigator in the Carrion Crown adventure path.
This is NOT a spoiler as what I'm going to say is in the preamble before the adventure actually begins, but if you really want to go in knowing nothing about the Carrion Crown adventure path then don't read it.
WALTER DORNEZ was a half-elf who's elven parent was a Drow .
As a Half Elf he was seen as property by his Drow parent, so much of his life was spent in servitude. He was freed by the professor and managed to make a life for himself and eventually found love.
Later in life his Drow heritage caught up with him once more. His wife was killed and his two children were kidnapped. Walter turned to the only person he could think of to help - Professor Lorrimore.
The two of them were able to track down Walter's daughter and save her, but they never caught the perpetrators, and his son was never recovered. Walter felt he owed a great dept to the professor, and having lost the sense of safety in his own home, he asked to join Lorrimore's household as his manservant. Between his adventures in the underdark and his tasks helping the professor Walter learned the art of fencing and some rudimentary alchemy .
When the party who were investigating the strange happenings disappeared, Walter took it apon himself to take up the case where they left off.
Unfortunately my string of bad luck continued just a little longer and Walter began the game with just 18 Hitpoints. He lasted less than 2 combats before I had to roll up a new character .
*I wanted to avoid the Swashbuckler dip, but Walter Dornez is a weapon master. I couldn't find a good analogue for Walter's signature weapon, but decided the weapon choice was less important than the theme of having a martial skillset. If I'd been able to start him at a higher level or if I'd been in a less undead-heavy campaign I might have given him a whip instead
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I briefly played an Investigator in the Carrion Crown adventure path.
Wow. Seems like we played very similar characters in our personal adventures through Carrion Crown. I had a half-elf Archaeologist Bard that dipped Investigator (Sleuth) a bit later on, though his experience with swashbuckling developed from feat investment, rather than another class dip. My character survived, and relied, on luck for most of his adventuring career.
So, I'm interested in the Investigator class but I struggle to think of a backsatory other then the detective/sherlock holmes styled one. So I was wondering if people who have played the class would mind sharing your backstories here?
Kneville von der Phey, Cartographer, genius, raconteur, ladies' man (ladies' gnome to be exact) and all round adventurer. Happily introduces himself as "the cleverest person in the room".
Or if you want to look at it aa different way, an untrustworthy, drug-addled conman who will go anywhere and do anything to get his hands on a rare map. I may have taken some of the roleplay inspiration from watching the Wolf of wall Street...
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@MrCharisma
Walter Dornez's weapon was essentially a Garrote, but it functioned more like +5 Vorpal Piano Wire, and whatever d20 he was rolling was nothing but 20's.
If you wanted to duplicate his weapon, you could create it with the Custom Weapon rules as a 1d4dmg 2handed Exotic weapon with Weapon Finesse (3dp), Weapon Feature: Grapple (1dp), Weapon Feature: Reach (3dp), and Spring-loaded (2dp), and call it a "Flying Garrote", then take Exotic Weapon Proficiency in it?
@OP
As far as a backstory for an Investigator, let's say that when you were about 13-14 yrs old, you were standing next to a town crier newsboy who was talking about some infamous case that recently happened, and you happened to unknowingly/"unaware-ly" witness a part of it. So, now that you knew it was a capital crime that you saw happening, you took it upon yourself to track down and solve the matter, and then testified in court to seal away the bad guy (Tommy 'Two-toes' McClarren) for 10 years, and in the process you also became somewhat locally famous as well. Afterwards, the cityfolk treated you like you were a veritable Encyclopedia Brown or the Hardy Boys, and they would come to you for oddjobs like solving break-ins after the local authorities had given up or got stumped, or tracking down missing persons and runaway teens, and you were quite successful, gaining even more notoriety. You did this for some several years and took it up as a legit trade at age 18 after you finished your schooling (possibly even gaining the profession of barrister due to how many times you appeared in court?), and now you're about 24 yrs old.
Recently, you were hired by a wealthy guy named Octavius Powers to track down an artifact called the Runes of Transformation (he didn't tell you it was an artifact, nor did he tell you what the name of it was - when Octavius hired you, he called it the Runes of Luminosity). You weren't successful in acquiring the artifact, at all. The whole thing went south and you pissed off a lot of people in the process, including Octavius Powers who paid you a large sum of 10000g and you didn't deliver, and you've already spent the money (mostly bribing people to gather information and travel costs-- the point being that the money is now inaccessible). You found that the Runes of "Luminosity" was a couple countries/continents away and currently being held by a corrupt Museum curator named Mordecai Ozgold in his own private stash, and after your failed raid to acquire it, he has now hired more henchmen, moved the artifact to a more secure location, and has put a price on your head. In your investigation, you also found out that these are actually called the Runes of Transformation, and this ancient slab of Illithid Runes can be used in a ritual as sort of a "dirty bomb" to transform humanoids within 1 mile into mindless slaves (or w/e you want), but the Runes of Transformation can only be activated during a Blood Moon. The next Blood Moon is only a few months away.
Tommy 'Two-toes' McClarren was released from prison this year, and has sworn a vendetta against you. Octavius Powers wants to track you down and force you to either pay the money back or finish the job, and now you have Mordecai's bounty hunters after you, but luckily they only have a face and not your name (you smartly and wisely used a false name during your travels while searching for the Runes of Luminosity). You're kinda on the lam right now until you can get things situated, but your good name as it was, has been besmirched by Octavius's gossiping and crap-talk, to say the least.
Any general "smart guy" template works fairly well. The following are just some basic stories we can elaborate on.
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Alchemist
Scientist
Field Medic/Alternative Problem Solver for a company of mercenaries
Eccentric Noble with a PHD in Alchemy
Drug Dealer
Merchant
Hedge Wizard
Witch
Historian
Any type of Rogue story, except you make your own potions/poisons to save money
Assassin
Archeologist
I think that this thread is showing that Investigators have the range to not always be the Sherlock Holmes type. I played a Cartographer archetype Investigator for part of Ruins of Azlant, and he was the son of two adventurers, but he was essentially raised by all the members of his parents' adventuring group. This was to explain his diversity of skills. His parents were an elven mage and a human rogue, and the other members of the party were a druid and a fighter (I played a Strength-based Investigator). His last name that he took for himself was the name of his parents' adventuring party.
Honestly, hybrid classes are an open book...
Make whatever you want be your backstory... THEN, tie it into your mechanical choices...
I very, VERY, seldomly have a fully fleshed out backstory... nobody gives a $#!+ where I came from... they care about what I can do.
I use my mechanical choices to paint a story...
Variel started at level 9 as a "Kyonin Ranger"...
1. Inspired Blade Swashbuckler
2-5. Kata Master-MoMS Monk
6. Hooded Champion Ranger
7-9. Kensai Magus
9+. Kensai Magus
Variel, as young and stupid child, tried life as a pirate... having gotten involved with the wrong crowd. His parents, being upsranding, high class Elves, deported him to Kyonin to study in a monastary. His eagerness to branch out encouraged his straying from the monastary to join the rangers...
If you need more backstory than that, you can literally consume mine own buttocks with a spoon.
I love to paint a picture with my character's current choices. Bring me gestalt, I will paint you a beautiful picture...
I briefly played an Investigator in the Carrion Crown adventure path.Wow. Seems like we played very similar characters in our personal adventures through Carrion Crown... My character survived, and relied, on luck for most of his adventuring career.
My character relied on luck too ... it didn't work out so well =P
Yeah I usually don't like the dip for Investigators, but if you're going to be playing at low levels dipping can help get your feats in place faster.
@MrCharisma
Walter Dornez's weapon was essentially a Garrote, but it functioned more like +5 Vorpal Piano Wire, and whatever d20 he was rolling was nothing but 20's.
Yeah. I looked at the weapon choices available with a friend and we couldn't really see a good way to do it without home-brewing something. In the end my friend convinced me that while cool, the Garrote wasn't necessary for the character concept, and it was much easier to build the character without shoehorning it in.
In regards to Walter from the show, I think he's just over-leveled. It's an E6 world with a few exceptions. Walter is probably level 10 or so, and Alucard is obviously level 20 or Mythic or something. You don't need to roll 20s or have a Vorpal weapon when you're fighting mooks half your level.
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My PFS investigator is a blatantly diabolic tiefling (scales, horns, tail, claws) who was raised by Asmodeans in Cheliax. Atticus felt no calling to the priesthood himself. Instead, from a very young age, he proved to be more intelligent and perceptive than most people around him, so pursued a scholarly life until his curiosity and penchant for problem-solving led into a career as an adventurer.
When the Pathfinder Society was granted access to sites in Cheliax, he and a friend (an aasimar cleric of Asmodeus) joined up to serve as liaisons between the two. Missions for the Society have given him unprecedented opportunities for research and travel, and his loyalty to the organization has been growing steadily stronger as a result.
@MrCharisma
Walter Dornez's weapon was essentially a Garrote, but it functioned more like +5 Vorpal Piano Wire, and whatever d20 he was rolling was nothing but 20's.
Yeah. I looked at the weapon choices available with a friend and we couldn't really see a good way to do it without home-brewing something. In the end my friend convinced me that while cool, the Garrote wasn't necessary for the character concept, and it was much easier to build the character without shoehorning it in.
In regards to Walter from the show, I think he's just over-leveled. It's an E6 world with a few exceptions. Walter is probably level 10 or so, and Alucard is obviously level 20 or Mythic or something. You don't need to roll 20s or have a Vorpal weapon when you're fighting mooks half your level.
Yeah, that's true. Walter was probably a couple levels higher than them :P Alucard is Quadruple Gestalt Mythic w/ Vampire Lord template :P