The Investigator’s Academy:
A Guide to the
Pathfinder Investigator
“A process whereby souls are alchemically transposed against pure planar quintessence—
but no, that would violate Volthor’s Second Law of metaphysical induction.
My translation must be off.”
—Quinn, Iconic Investigator
As Allerseelen (Community Use Policy)
As All Souls Gaming (Commercial License)
INV 102: Comparative Investigation
Sidebar: Tenacious Inspiration
INV 605: Dips, Gestalt, and Prestige
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Ho, Pathfinders!
I’ve made no secret of my love for skill monkey classes throughout my guide-writing days. At the end of the day, I hate expending resources in RPGs, and the promise of the skill monkey is a character who can keep performing essential duties as well at the end of a long day of adventuring as they can at the beginning. Once upon a time, bards and rogues were the only real classes that could fill this crucial role—but that all changed with the release of the Advanced Class Guide, which introduced hybrid classes more generally, and the investigator class specifically. Much as the ranger class benefited from being split into two more specialized classes (the hunter and the slayer) the rogue class also benefited from being split into two more specialized classes. The slayer took over many of the sneaky-stabby combat skills that the rogue chassis hints at, and the investigator was gifted with all of the rogue’s skill domination, getting abilities like inspiration that make it a cinch to identify monsters on the fly, recall knowledge about esoteric topics, and figure any puzzle out in five seconds flat. Of course, the rogue is not the investigator’s only parent class. The other is the fan-favorite alchemist class, which brings with it almost unparalleled versatility through extract casting, potion brewing, and more. The translation of the alchemist class doesn’t preserve quite as many of the alchemist’s excellent class features as I would like, but I accept that the two classes must be kept mechanically distinct lest the investigator become an “alchemist, but better” class as has happened historically with classes like the slayer or primalist bloodrager.
If you’re wondering about why you should play an investigator over another class, I’d like to suggest asking yourself a series of questions to see whether the flavor and mechanics of the class will jive with you:
I hope I’ve managed to make the sale by this point, because investigators truly are one of the coolest classes in Pathfinder, intellectually rigorous, alchemically stocked, and perpetually ready for whatever lurks in Golarion’s darkest byways. And if you have questions, comments, or concerns, hit me up on any of the platforms listed on the title page! I’m always happy to help people out.
With best regards for a good game,
I’m going to try something just a wee bit different in this newest guide of mine. Used to be that I would simply give a rating of class features as I went down the line and leave it at that, but part of understanding any class is to really dive into the fine print of the rules text. If you misunderstand that extracts don’t entirely work like potions and go handing them out without the Infusion discovery, well, that’s going to be one unhappy GM you’re working with. So in this guide to the investigator, we’ll not only discuss what each class feature is worth as the investigator develops, but also what rules (implicit or explicit) you might be missing. Think of it as an exercise to improve your systems mastery!
Throughout this guide, you’ll see feats, spells, class features, etc. rated using a color coding system that was first introduced by Treantmonk and since copied in many other guides. Everyone tends to use their own colors, though, so here’s what we’ll be working with:
Purple ratings are singular, the one ability at a given level or for a given playstyle that is cream of the crop. The apex, the zenith, the pinnacle: purple options are the royalty, the nobility. You will pick purple abilities, and damn the torpedoes.
Blue abilities are the cream of the crop: options that define the way an investigator is played, or that otherwise provide some exponential leap in effectiveness. Try your utmost to pick up these options.
Green abilities are almost universally useful, a good pick for nearly any build. If they’re not gamebreakingly powerful, they’re definitely holding up the line at a solid B+.
Yellow abilities are our C standard, neither good nor bad. A yellow rating can also denote situational abilities that might be useful to some playstyles but not others.
Red abilities are the traps. Stay away from these.
d8 Hit Die: Like most ⅔ casting striker classes (magus, warpriest, inquisitor, hunter, bard, etc.) you get a d8 Hit Die, making you squishier than your full-BAB cousins. You’ll have to overcome this inherent squishiness with clever tactics and ample self-buffing from your extracts, but on the whole, you’ll do well so long as you remember not to draw too much attention to yourself. Try to park Constitution at 12, minimum, and preferably 14. If you can’t do that, consider the Toughness feat or choosing HP as your favored class bonus.
¾ BAB Progression: Again, the other ⅔ casting classes all have ¾ BAB, as well. This isn’t too big of an issue, as studied combat will eventually put your to-hit rolls on par with (and even ahead of!) full-BAB classes. It will mean slower access to BAB-gated feats and fewer iterative attacks, however, so investigators will need to set simple build priorities that don’t rely on a bevy of hard-to-get feats, then stick to those priorities.
Skills: One of the defining features of the investigator class is that they’re incredibly good with skill checks. Rogues get more ranks per level, true, but what they don’t get are many bonuses to those skills above and beyond normal investment—a fighter who’s heavily invested in Handle Animal is likely to be about as effective with that skill as a rogue. We’ll get into the mechanics of inspiration later, but suffice it to say for now that this class feature, your natural Intelligence focus, and extract casting are what take you that last mile into skill domination. You can check out the inspiration section for more information on which skills you’ll be investing in, and why.
Armor Proficiencies: Getting proficiency with light armor only pushes you toward a Dexterity build, at least without modification. One-level dips in other classes are easy ways to up your armor game, and since there’s no arcane spell failure chance associated with extracts, you don’t have to worry about your casting suffering in heavier armors. We’ll go over what these dips might be in later sections, but suffice it to say that a one-level dip of inspired blade swashbuckler is quite nice for Dexterity-based investigators and a one-level dip of fighter can do good things for Strength-based investigators.
Weapon Proficiencies: You get simple weapons, hand crossbow, rapier, shortbow, sap, short sword, and sword cane. That’s not too bad! Assuming you’re not dipping into any other classes to get better weapon and armor proficiencies, you’ll likely go with the shortbow for ranged Dexterity builds (or longbow if your race offers it, like elves), the rapier for Weapon Finesse Dexterity builds, and the longspear for Strength builds. I’d advise that every melee investigator also invest in a +1 morningstar to help overcome DR/Bludgeoning when it inevitably comes up.
Good Will Save, Good Reflex, and Bad Fortitude Saves: Yet another reason to get your Constitution score up to 12 or 14 at point buy. Consider extracts of bear’s endurance, the Great Fortitude or Ancient Tradition (Tar Targaadth) feats, or a dual-attribute physical stat belt. You won’t want to die the first time you’re exposed to a poison or disease.
(1) Alchemy: Central to the investigator class is their ability to create alchemical items and, more imporantly, extracts. What are extracts? They’re how the investigator casts spells, silly! Extract casting is both more powerful than prepared arcane or divine spellcasting in some ways (namely, how long it takes to prepare your extracts vs. how long a cleric or wizard would need to spend preparing their spells) and less powerful in other ways (e.g., you cannot “cast” extracts on allies without investing in an alchemist discovery, Infusion). One very important feature to note about extract casting is that investigators are not considered “spellcasters” for just about any purpose! I cannot stress how big of a change this is. Investigators don’t have a “spell list,” so they cannot use wands or scrolls—ever—without a UMD check. They cannot poach spells off the samsaran’s Mystic Past Life trait, because again, not spellcasters. Can’t qualify for a whole slew of feats based on casting because—have you got the refrain now?—they’re not spellcasters. Whew. Let’s jump in.
When using Craft (alchemy) to create an alchemical item, an investigator gains a competence bonus equal to his class level on the skill check. In addition, an investigator can use Craft (alchemy) to identify potions as if using detect magic. He must hold the potion for 1 round to attempt such a check.
Alchemy hits you right off the bat with an incredibly large bonus to create alchemical items. This is not trivial! There are a million and one excellent alchemical items out there beyond your average, humdrum alchemist’s fire, and given enough time and funding, you can reliably craft all of them. Special notes: competence bonuses don’t stack. If you get a competence bonus to Craft from another source, take the higher bonus and throw the other out.
Like an alchemist, an investigator prepares his spells by mixing ingredients and a tiny fraction of his own magical power into a number of extracts, and then effectively casts the spell by drinking the extract. These extracts have powerful effects, but they are also bound to their creator. Extracts behave like spells in potion form, and as such their effects can be dispelled by dispel magic and similar effects, using the investigator’s level as the caster level.
Paizo has caught a bit of flak for the way this is worded—by tying the class feature to potions, even conceptually, you open up a whole can of rules interpretations. The consensus is: drawing and drinking an extract is a standard action that provokes an attack of opportunity, exactly like a spell. There is no such thing as “defensive drinking”—if you drink the extract while in an enemy’s threatened area, you’ll get hit—but there are also no concentration checks to do so, and you don’t risk losing the spell unless the enemy chooses to use their AoO to sunder the extract. This is a mean yet valid option for GMs to take. Special notes: unlike potions, which usually take effect at lower caster levels than the drinker’s caster level, extracts always use the investigator’s level as their CL. In this way, they function exactly like spells. But remember that investigators are not considered spellcasters for most purposes.
When an investigator mixes an extract, he infuses the chemicals and reagents in the extract with magic siphoned from his own magical aura. An extract immediately becomes inert if it leaves the investigator’s possession, reactivating as soon as it returns to his keeping—an investigator cannot normally pass out his extracts for allies to use. An extract, once created, remains potent for 1 day before losing its magic, so an investigator must reprepare his extracts every day. Mixing an extract takes 1 minute of work.
Extracts aren’t potions, and they can’t be used by either friends or foes without the Infusion alchemist discovery. Other third-party content creators (most notably N. Jolly) have suggested that this is an unnecessary tax imposed on the investigator and alchemist, and I’m inclined to agree—granting Infusion at 1st level and allowing these classes to hand out buffs doesn’t bust the power curve any more than having a different ⅔ casting class on the team would. Special notes: the 1-minute prep time is what truly makes the investigator and alchemist’s “casting” special. While wizards, clerics, and other prepared casters need to spend 1 hour preparing their spells in the morning, the investigator can leave many of their slots unfilled, then whip up more extracts to suit the challenges of the day. Headed into a swamp that will likely contain poisons and disease? Brew up some channel vigor. Traipsing into a volcano where you’re likely to face fire-based enemies? A quick resist energy couldn’t hurt. If you really want to take this to the max, the Numerical Alchemy and Greater Numerical Alchemy talents will let you create new extracts within the space of a round, allowing you to respond flexibly even mid-combat.
Creating extracts consumes raw material, but the cost of those materials is insignificant—comparable to the valueless material components of most spells. If a spell normally has a costly material component, that component is expended during the consumption of that particular extract. Extracts cannot be made from spells that have focus requirements; extracts that duplicate divine spells never have a divine focus requirement.
The main takeaway here is that the material components used in extract casting aren’t significantly different from casting in other traditions. If you want to brew up some restoration, you’ll still need to pay the material cost. I’m genuinely unsure how to interpret the clause about spells that have focus requirements being ineligible to become extracts—just as an example, fly has a focus component (a wing feather) and is an extract. So...which is it, Paizo?
An investigator uses the alchemist formula list to determine the extracts he can know. An investigator can prepare an extract of any formula he knows. To learn or use an extract, an investigator must have at least an Intelligence score equal to 10 + the extract’s level. The saving throw DC for an investigator’s extract is equal to 10 + the extract’s level + the investigator’s Intelligence modifier.
The bulk of your extracts are personal affairs that won’t interact with enemies at all. It’s therefore perfectly okay to build an investigator (especially a combat-focused investigator) with only a halfway-decent Intelligence score—say, a 15 at point buy, with the goal of bumping up to a 16 at 4th level. Sure, you can get more extracts by investing more, and your skills, inspiration, and studied combat will benefit, but it’s not strictly necessary for casting.
An investigator may know any number of formulae. He stores his formulae in a special tome called a formula book. He must refer to this book whenever he prepares an extract. At 1st level, an investigator starts with two 1st-level formulae of his choice, plus a number of additional formulae equal to his Intelligence modifier. At each new investigator level, he gains one new formula for any level that he can create. An investigator can also add formulae to his book just like a wizard adds spells to his spellbook, using the same costs, pages, and time requirements. A formula book costs as much as a spellbook. An investigator can study a wizard’s spellbook to learn any formula that is equivalent to a spell the spellbook contains. A wizard, however, cannot learn spells from a formula book. An investigator can also learn formulae from another investigator’s or an alchemist’s formula book (and vice versa). An investigator does not need to decipher arcane writing before copying that formulae.
Between the 1-minute prep time and the ability to have a whole slew of spells in your formula book, investigators can truly become masters of versatility. Talk with wizards, investigators, and alchemists in every town you travel to in order to keep expanding your formula repertoire, and use the extract ratings in the Extracts section to figure out which big-ticket items to be on the lookout for. Special notes: if you’re low on downtime and civilization but high on encounters with spellcasters, consider picking up the Formula Recollection feat—it’ll let you memorize and transcribe a spell you saw being used during the day without needing to inspect anyone’s spell or formula book.
(1) Inspiration: Like gunslingers with grit, swashbucklers with panache, and monks or ninjas with ki, the investigator runs on a replenishable resource known as inspiration, which lets you add 1d6 to the results of skill checks, ability checks (including initiative!), attack rolls, and saves. Unlike those classes, however, the investigator has no means of regenerating inspiration throughout the day: you wake up with half your investigator level plus your Intelligence modifier, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. A key strategic aspect to building an investigator is to figure out how you’re going to extend the mileage of your inspiration pool. Let’s do our quick rules rundown:
An investigator has the ability to augment skill checks and ability checks through his brilliant inspiration. The investigator has an inspiration pool equal to 1/2 his investigator level + his Intelligence modifier (minimum 1). An investigator’s inspiration pool refreshes each day, typically after he gets a restful night’s sleep. As a free action, he can expend one use of inspiration from his pool to add 1d6 to the result of that check, including any on which he takes 10 or 20. This choice is made after the check is rolled and before the results are revealed. An investigator can only use inspiration once per check or roll. The investigator can use inspiration on any Knowledge, Linguistics, or Spellcraft skill checks without expending a use of inspiration, provided he’s trained in the skill.
The key takeaway from this paragraph is when you get to choose to use inspiration or not: after you roll the d20, but before you know whether you succeeded or failed. This is vital! If you’re trying to escape a grapple using Escape Artist and roll a “tweener” roll like a 9, 10, or 11, the extra few points from inspiration might be enough to put you over the edge into success. If you’re confident that you crushed it with an 18, 19, or 20, you can safely leave inspiration in its holster. The other aspect to remember about inspiration is that you get it for free on some checks—but only if you have at least one skill rank invested. If a Knowlege (History) check comes up and you didn’t invest one point to get 1 Skill Rank + 3 Class Skill + 3.5 Inspiration, you’re going to feel pretty dumb. Make it a rule to always invest at least one skill rank in skills that you could get free inspiration for.
Inspiration can also be used on attack rolls and saving throws, at the cost of expending two uses of inspiration each time from the investigator’s pool. In the case of saving throws, using inspiration is an immediate action rather than a free action.
But wait! Inspiration isn’t just for skill checks! You can also use it to bolster saves and attack rolls. Remember when you get to use it, though: after the d20 roll, but before you learn whether you succeeded or failed. These uses are extra expensive, so you need to play like your 18 Intelligence character would and really pick and choose your battles. If you know that failing the Fortitude save will mean you’re shaken for 1 round, yeah, maybe not. If you’re getting attacked by ghouls and know that failing the Fortitude save will mean you become paralyzed for 1d4+1 rounds, heck yes, burn that inspiration to the ground! Just remember, though, that you can’t take more than one immediate action in a round, and that it eats up your swift action on your next turn. You can’t burn inspiration to pass a series of saves thrown at you when it’s not your turn. The Combat Inspiration and Greater Combat Inspiration talents (or inspired weapon enchantment) will really serve you well if you want to use inspiration offensively more often; you’ll get them as you move up in level.
And now that we’ve covered inspiration, the mechanic that lets you achieve total skill domination, what should we be looking at putting our many skill ranks into?
(1) Trapfinding: Good stuff if you want to pick locks and disable traps on the regular, but there are plenty of archetypes that trade it away if that’s not your deal. Note that the bonuses are untyped, so you won’t have to worry about stacking issues.
(2) Poison Lore: Blech. Poison is always pricey and only sporadically effective in Pathfinder, and the investigator can’t even poison as well as the alchemist, whose discoveries can improve the poison game significantly. You’re far better off trading poison lore away for something better.
(2) Poison Resistance: You do have a weak Fortitude save, and poison effects generally target Fortitude. Remember that this bonus is untyped, first, and that it applies to any spell with the [poison] descriptor or any (Su) or (Ex) ability that specifically calls out being a poison effect. I’d recommend you trade away poison resistance, too, but the immunity at 11th level is lovely if you decide to keep it around.
(3) Investigator Talents: Now we’re talking. Investigator talents are as good as alchemist discoveries or ninja tricks, and can generally be separated into a few categories: talents that improve your skill checks or inspiration, talents that improve your studied combat or studied strike class features, miscellaneous talents, and talents that poach class features from the alchemist or rogue. The Talents section has the complete rundown. Special notes: because you do not gain the investigator talent class feature until 3rd level, you cannot select the Extra Investigator Talent feat until then. This becomes particularly problematic for investigator archetypes that trade away their first few investigator talents, as the level at which you could supplement your talent progression with Extra Investigator Talent is pushed back in parallel with the class feature itself! I’ll call out archetypes that push this mechanic too hard; you really do need your talents.
(3) Keen Recollection: Even History, Geography, Nobility, and Engineering deserve at least one skill rank in order to collect your free uses of inspiration. Given that, why would you need keen recollection?
(3) Trap Sense: As with trapfinding, you’d need to be invested in becoming a dedicated trapfinder in order to make good use of trap sense. This is also prime real estate for an archetype trade, so don’t feel too attached to it if you don’t feel like you need it. Special notes: dodge bonuses stack with other dodge bonuses. Wipe that nervous brow sweat away, my friend.
(4) Studied Combat: Inspiration, alchemy, and studied combat are the cornerstones of investigators. Everything else? Window dressing. So, then, what does it do? In short, studied combat gives you huge insight bonuses to attack and damage rolls against a single target that you’ve studied as a move action. When I say “huge insight bonuses to attack and damage rolls,” I mean it, too—at 20th level, you’ll be rocking a +25/+20/+15 full-attack rotation with a +10 damage bonus to each attack. For reference, a fighter at that same level will be doling out +25/+20/+15/+10 with a +5 damage bonus to each attack. Now, I’m not saying the investigator is better at combat than the fighter, especially once you factor in crits and precision damage, but with self-buffing extracts, studied combat, mutagens, etc., investigators can more than hold their own. A few rules text items to consider:
With a keen eye and calculating mind, an investigator can assess the mettle of his opponent to take advantage of gaps in talent and training. At 4th level, an investigator can use a move action to study a single enemy that he can see. Upon doing so, he adds 1/2 his investigator level as an insight bonus on melee attack rolls and as a bonus on damage rolls against the creature. This effect lasts for a number of rounds equal to his Intelligence modifier (minimum 1) or until he deals damage with a studied strike, whichever comes first. The bonus on damage rolls is precision damage, and is not multiplied on a critical hit.
An investigator can only have one target of studied combat at a time, and once a creature has become the target of an investigator’s studied combat, he cannot become the target of the same investigator’s studied combat again for 24 hours unless the investigator expends one use of inspiration when taking the move action to use this ability.
It’s always a move action to initiate studied combat, and you can’t study enemies that you can’t see due to blindness, total cover, invisibility, deeper darkness, obscuring mist, Stealth checks, etc. Your bonus is an insight bonus; these don’t stack with themselves, but the only other insight bonus you have to attack rolls is true strike, and a +20 will beat out studied combat’s bonus even at 20th level. Crucially, your studied combat ends if you hit someone with a studied strike. Under no circumstances do you want to end a studied combat prematurely unless you can be sure that an opponent will die from your studied strike! If you hit with a studied strike and the opponent is still standing, you’ve blown your biggest bonus to attack and damage and will have to pay both the action and inspiration cost to re-subscribe. Don’t, don’t, don’t let that happen! Part of becoming a good investigator player is understanding that yielding to the temptation of a studied strike is a trap in many scenarios. Save it for when studied combat is about to expire or something is about to change drastically in the flow of battle—you’re about to go unconscious, you got a huge 1-round buff from an ally, your GM tips their cap that the enemy is about to die, etc. The last thing to note is that both studied combat and studied strike are precision damage. Crit fishing is definitely something that investigators can do, but it won’t help your damage output much. We’ll consider special weapon enchantments and the Butterfly’s Sting feat to alleviate this issue.
(4) Studied Strike: Ahhh, studied strike. So flashy, yet so dangerous to the wielder. Taking our hypothetical 20th-level investigator as an example yet again, let’s consider two different attack approaches, one using studied strike prematurely, the other holding off. To illustrate, we’ll make simplistic assumptions: a 20th-level investigator with 10 Strength, 10 Dexterity, and a mundane rapier is within full-attack range and is attacking an enemy with AC 30 using a +15/+10/+5, 1d6+0 damage scheme. (Like I said, very simplistic.) Here’s how the different tactics fare:
Round | Studied Strike: Way Too Soon | Studied Strike: Just Right |
Round 1 | (SC) +25, or 80% chance to hit. (SS) 1d6+9d6 damage, average 33. (No SC) +10, or 5% chance to hit. (No SS) 1d6 damage, average <1. (No SC) +5, or 5% chance to hit. (No SS) 1d6 damage, average <1. Total: 35 | (SC) +25, or 80% chance to hit. (No SS) 1d6+10 damage, average 10.8. (SC) +20, or 55% chance to hit. (No SS) 1d6+10 damage, average 7.4. (SC) +15, or 30% chance to hit. (No SS) 1d6+10 damage, average 4. Total: 22.2 |
Round 2 | (No SC) +15, or 25% chance to hit. (No SS) 1d6 damage, average <1. (No SC) +10, or 5% chance to hit. (No SS) 1d6 damage, average <1. (No SC) +5, or 5% chance to hit. (No SS) 1d6 damage, average <1. Total: 38 | (SC) +25, or 80% chance to hit. (No SS) 1d6+10 damage, average 10.8. (SC) +20, or 55% chance to hit. (No SS) 1d6+10 damage, average 7.4. (SC) +15, or 30% chance to hit. (No SS) 1d6+10 damage, average 4. Total: 44.4 |
As you can see from this simplistic simulation, investigators need studied combat in order to keep their attack and damage rolls relevant throughout the game. If you blow your studied combat as soon as you possibly can for that burst of studied strike damage (which actually isn’t that large, in the grand scheme of things) the investigator next to you who kept studied combat up will outpace you within two rounds. You don’t want that, right? So really truly, take my advice and save your studied strike for the ideal moment. Your teammates and combat effectiveness will thank me later.
From a rules perspective, there’s not much that we need to know about studied strike that we didn’t already learn about studied combat: it’s precision damage (i.e., doesn’t multiply on a critical hit), it doesn’t work on creatures immune to sneak attacks (oozes, elementals, proteans, and incorporeal creatures, unless you have a ghost touch weapon), and it won’t function unless you can visually confirm a vital spot on the creature (again, any effect that gives an enemy concealment, whether blindness, obscuring mist, deeper darkness, etc. will hamper your studied strike, so consider a weapon enchantment like limning to deal with this). There’s some stuff in here about dealing nonlethal damage, but nonlethal damage is a niche option for the investigator. You can’t take Sap Adept or Sap Master, and your weapon proficiencies aren’t particularly well-suited to Bludgeoner or Enforcer unless you’re playing with a morningstar or some nonlethal Sarenite scimitar build. Best just to leave it alone.
(4) Swift Alchemy: The crafting upgrade is great if you plan to brew potions or create alchemical items, but no one should be super excited about the poison clause. Overall, swift alchemy is another class feature that’s ripe for an archetype trade.
(20) True Inspiration: True inspiration amps everything about your inspiration up to 11, and rewards you the more you’ve invested in talents that modify or improve your inspiration. I’m not entirely clear how true inspiration works with Combat Inspiration + Greater Combat Inspiration: the text in true inspiration says “whenever he expends inspiration on an ability check, attack roll, saving throw, or skill check,” which indicates that you can’t get free 2d8 added to every attack. You should, however, get the better of two separate 2d8 rolls if you choose to expend one point of inspiration, though, and if you have an inspired weapon, you’ll also get to add 4d8 damage to the attack. True inspiration is plenty good as a capstone.
Alternate Capstones: Chronicle of Legends was one of the last books published for Pathfinder 1e before the system went dark, and one of the coolest features it added was alternate capstone powers for each and every class. My ratings of these are as follows:
When you’re deciding what class to play in Pathfinder, it’s so, so easy to get lost. I vividly remember being a new player, awash in a sea of archetypes, classes with terms like “hybrid,” “base,” and “alternate” that I didn’t understand, and class features with clauses I didn’t understand or whose scope I didn’t fully grasp. One of the ways to build the “which class do I pick?” brand of systems mastery is to run comparisons and contrasts between classes. What’s different? What’s the same? Based on the mechanics in front of you, what can you extrapolate about the role the class is meant to play, both in combat and out? In this section, we’ll take a look at how the investigator matches up with three other similar-ish classes (the alchemist, the rogue, and the slayer) and try to draw some conclusions about what investigators are and aren’t meant to do.
If you had to submit the investigator class to a paternity test, the alchemist is definitely the baby daddy. And that’s a really good thing! Alchemists are incredibly powerful as Pathfinder classes go, with the archetypes and extracts to be able to fill just about any role that they want, and often at a moment’s notice. Thanks to investigators’ access to alchemist discoveries through their investigator talent class feature and a number of identical class features (poison resistance, alchemy, etc.) there’s a lot of thematic and mechanical overlap between the two classes. Let’s dig in.
If we start with spellcasting, the investigator and alchemist are almost identical. They prepare extracts in the same way, and in the same amount of time; as ⅔ casters, they both receive the same number of extracts per day, with bonus extracts keyed off of Intelligence; they both get access to game-changing spells like alchemical allocation that are so powerful that they act like class features. Both classes will try to aggressively expand their formulae books, whether through rote copying of other wizard, alchemist, or investigator formulae books, through magic items like the formula alembic, or through feats like Formula Recollection. Having a wide variety of extracts available at all times is the best way to foster the versatility that both these classes are known for. There is one key difference between investigators and alchemists that turns out to be non-trivial, however: investigators cannot use wands of their extracts without a successful UMD check, whereas alchemists can. This seemed like an oversight for a while, but no, Paizo eventually clarified their position on the matter. Neither of the classes that use extract casting are counted as spellcasters in the traditional sense, and so the “spells” that they cast don’t actually count as spells known for the purposes of activating spell-completion items (scrolls) and spell trigger items (wands). In order to get back on an even playing field, investigators will almost certainly need to take traits like Pragmatic Activator, talents like Device Talent, or create custom magic items to give them competence bonuses to UMD (a +5 competence bonus will only cost 2500 gp) in order to effectively use their own extracts without “casting” them by drinking them. This quest to become excellent at UMD yields dividends in other arenas, of course, because UMD will work for wands and scrolls from any class, not just your own. By the time investigators can reliably hit a DC 20 UMD check, they’ll be off the races, stealing everyone’s spells.
Turning now to combat prowess, I’m sad to report that alchemists definitely have the edge in both ranged and melee arenas. An alchemist’s bombs can deal any energy type, debuff like crazy, and inflict massive nova damage to a single target and great splash damage to adjacent targets; it’s simply not possible for the investigator class to beat that level of damage in a head-to-head fight. Likewise, the alchemist’s ability to foray into the feral mutagen, greater mutagen, and grand mutagen discoveries makes them effortlessly better at melee combat if they’ve selected the vivisectionist archetype or other combat-focused archetypes. Investigators, who don’t share access to any of the alchemist’s bombs or mutagen powers (barring the base mutagen ability, which must be selected as an investigator talent) will struggle to keep up with a well-built alchemist in terms of raw damage output. Investigators will probably be more accurate after studied combat has a few levels to ramp up, and the inspired weapon enchantment can go a decent way toward plumping up your damage numbers; even so, alchemists tend to rule the roost when it comes to insta-gibbing legions of enemies or getting scary-big and trashing bosses. It’s okay! Investigators were built for other things.
What other things, you ask? Well, skills would be a good place to start. Alchemists get two fewer skill ranks every level than investigators do, and the inspiration mechanic lets investigators pull immediately ahead of alchemists. If alchemists want to be good at skills, they’ve either got to burn resources on the inspiring cognatogen line (and forsake either mutagens or cognatogens, taking penalties to their physical ability scores while they’re at it) or they’ve got to invest in sub-par discoveries like pheromones or webbed extremities. Thanks to inspiration and the various talents associated with that resource, investigators can excel at skill checks all day. Don’t discount the importance of this ability! A good number of combats begin only because someone can’t crush the skill check needed to avoid, bluff, spook, or outsmart the enemies in question; an investigator can do so without having to expend any resources, which opens their extracts up for truly important combat applications. Alchemists do well in combat, but need extract support to do well outside of it; investigators tend to do well outside of combat, but need extract support to truly excel in a melee. Both have advantages and disadvantages!
Lastly, if I may speak from a somewhat personal, subjective standpoint, alchemists are a bit flighty. They’re okay at figuring out mysteries, passing Knowledge checks, connecting the dots—you can only force an INT-based class to land so far from the tree on that one—but ultimately there’s not a lot of finesse to the class. If you’re a grenadier, you’ll get fast bombs, precise bombs, a couple debuffing variants, and then just spam explosives at every problem until it’s a fine powder; if you’re a vivisectionist or other melee monster, you’ll grab mutagens and as many natural attacks as you can, get big with enlarge person or other polymorph extracts, and hit stuff until it dies. You can get very good at those things as an alchemist, don’t mistake me! But some problems require discernment, skill, patience, and perspicacity instead of raw might, and it’s there that you ought to accept no substitute for the investigator. Where alchemists madly amputate with a hacksaw, investigators go in with a scalpel and exquisite knowledge of anatomy.
The tl;dr version: in spite of many similarities, alchemists need less support from extracts, magic items, etc. to do their thing in combat, but more support to contribute meaningfully outside of combat; for investigators, it’s the reverse. Both classes have similar weapon proficiencies, armor proficiencies, and extract casting, making them evenly paired on that front.
Oh, the rogue: “the class so nice they wrote it twice.” Rogues are odd ducks in the Pathfinder world, and there’s a reason they’ve acquired a reputation as being significantly behind the power curve. Paizo got better at writing balanced classes as time went on (one could also argue that that was simply due to power creep); to whit, the rogue, ranger, and monk all got more and more musty as time went. Barring specialized archetypes, monks mostly got superseded by unchained monks and brawlers in later class releases, and rangers’ souls were split into slayers (non-magical combat monsters) and hunters (¾-BAB, ⅔ casters with powerful animal companions) in order to clarify their purpose. Rogues likewise got their “spirits” refined and purposes clarified in future books. There was very clearly a split in what the rogue class chassis wanted to be: either the deadly assassin type, striking from the dark to kill enemies in a single well-placed blow, or the consummate skill monkey on the wrong side of the law, able to pick any lock, steal anything not nailed down, and charm the hearts of gentlefolk everywhere. All these identities, as it turned out, were better rendered in other classes, which finally swept the core rogue’s leg and sent it tumbling onto the mat. The slayer, of course, is the immediate choice for rogue players who want to be able to actually deal a lot of damage in combat, boasting full BAB, studied target, and even sneak attack dice. The vigilante, meanwhile, can take over many of the rogue’s stealth, infiltration, intimidation, and assassination functionalities better than the rogue itself. But as for that skill monkey, well, that role fell to the investigator!
One of the problems, you see, is the way skill ranks work in Pathfinder—an inherent, mechanical limitation of the system. The rogue class tells you that it is the One True Skill Monkey, then points to its 8 + Intelligence skill ranks as evidence supporting this assertion. But surely skills aren’t just about breadth, but also depth, right? This was where things started to go off the rails. The problem is that there simply aren’t that many class-exclusive ways to get skill bonuses in Pathfinder. Class skills? Yeah, everyone has those. Ranks? Yep, even the 2 + Intelligence classes can still invest in a few skills. Magic items? Everyone has the same wealth by level, so it’s definitely possible for a full-BAB martial character to get those eyes of the eagle. Spells? Rogues never had those to begin with, barring wands or scrolls they could use with UMD. Do you begin to see the problem? With roughly the same level of investment, a rogue who was hyperspecialized in Perception, or Disable Device, or Disguise wouldn’t necessarily be any better than a summoner, or a swashbuckler, or even a fighter that was hyperspecialized in those things. Because the rogue didn’t add bonuses on top of what skill ranks and magic items could provide, it didn’t have a truly legitimate claim to the title of the One True Skill Monkey.
Other classes, of course, managed to solve this. Bards and skalds have bardic knowledge, inquisitors have stern gaze and monster lore, occultists have magic item skill—and investigators have inspiration. Although the mechanic is, by its nature, a little more random than the static, passive bonuses available in other classes, I think that’s part of what makes it fun! Investigators have lived a whole lot of life, and that shows up in their moments of sudden acuity. Now, if you want to be noticeably better at a single skill, rather than the same amount of better at a lot of skills, you have only to invest in talents that improve your inspiration and skill checks: there’s Expanded Inspiration and Underworld Inspiration, of course, then the Amazing Inspiration and Tenacious Inspiration talents; certain archetypes like the questioner or empiricist can take bonuses and stack even more bonuses on. Even by 3rd or 4th level, it will become clear to most investigator players that they’re spanking the pants off of their rogue parent where skills are concerned.
As far as combat and versatility go, the investigator once again has the rogue pretty handily outclassed. Alchemy alone is a huge boost to what the investigator is capable of, and can slather on even more skill or combat bonuses when you need them. And man, talk about alchemy making rogue talents like Major Magic look ridiculous! A 1st-level spell, once per day? Gee, golly, mister, you shouldn’t have! The other problem that rogues suffer from in the combat arena is what I call “Core Monk Syndrome.” The basics? You’ve got a bunch of damage, but no way to hit anything. A 20th-level core monk can launch a flurry of seven blows, all with 2d10 damage dice. “Whoa,” you think, “that’s going to be insane when I get there!” Guess what the median AC of a CR 20 creature is, though? 37. Sure, you’ll have some bonuses from Strength and your handwraps, but the fact is that 3-5 of those attacks couldn’t land against an enemy with AC 37 except on a Nat 20. The core rogue suffers from a similar problem: sneak attack dice are sooo enticing, but the rogue has ¾ BAB and no way to significantly raise their attack bonuses through magic, class features, etc. So there they sit, whiffing on a good 50-75% of their attacks against even-CR creatures. Against enemies with precision damage immunities, all-around vision or improved uncanny dodge, true seeing, etc., rogues simply don’t have anywhere left to go. Investigators do, though! Thanks to studied combat, a 20th-level investigator’s basic attack bonuses will be brought up to +25/+20+15, with haste making that +25/+25/+20/+15, whereas rogues will still be stuck at +15/+10/+5. They won’t deal the awe-inspiring damage that rogues can on a successful sneak attack, but they’ll also be hitting far, far more often than rogues. You can fish for criticals, dole out debuffs through Sickening Offensive and Sapping Offensive, proc weapon enchantments like inspiring, etc., but only if you hit. Except where DR is a concern, I’d take a 100% chance to hit for 5 damage over a 5% chance to hit for 100 damage any day of the week.
The tl;dr version: core rogues can’t really surpass investigators in skills, versatility, or combat. The class was just designed before Paizo really knew how to break free from the restrictions of 3.5e, and other classes swooped in and took over much of its turf. Investigators are one take on “rogues as they should have been.”
The investigator-slayer pairing is probably the most dissimilar of any I’ll discuss here, which is why it comes last. It’s not totally dissimilar, though. Remember that both the slayer and the investigator have the core rogue as one of their parent classes, and that commonality shines through in a couple of class features. The most noticeable commonality between them is their “studied ____” class feature. These are different class features, technically, but they function in much the same way: assuming that both classes can see their target, they can pick out some vital area and continue to strike that vital for more damage. For investigators, studied combat is limited in duration, restricted to only one target, harder to get started in the action economy, and deals entirely precision damage, which doesn’t multiply on a crit; for slayers, studied target is unlimited in duration, limited to fewer than five targets, pretty easy to squeeze in as a swift action, and provides normal damage bonuses that do multiply on a crit. All in all, I believe that studied target is the mechanically superior class feature, but it does make sense—slayers are meant to be incredibly lethal in combat, and their mechanics should match that design goal. Against studied targets, however, there’s not that great of a difference between a 20th-level investigator and 20th-level slayer; the slayer will be hitting at +25/+20/+15/+10, while the investigator will be hitting at +25/+20/+15. Even with the addition of haste or other common buffs, that’s not a world of difference.
Slayers do come with other advantages, though. There’s sneak attack, which, while weaker than the rogue’s version, is far easier to take advantage of with full BAB and studied target. There’s the slayer’s access to ranger combat styles, which lets them build themselves out to be anything they want to be by scooping feats with onerous prerequisites for free. Investigators, perpetually hamstrung by their slower BAB progression and lack of any bonus feats, won’t be able to keep up with the fancy tricks that slayers can pull. Pure power isn’t everything, as the investigator proves, and what slayers earn in power they pay for in versatility and out-of-combat utility. Inspiration, skill ranks, and extract casting wipe the floor with anything the slayer chassis is capable of; you’ll find the investigator “stumped” by far fewer situations than a slayer would be.
The tl;dr version: slayers more than earn their reputation as one of Pathfinder’s most fearsome combat classes, but investigators don’t do too badly at keeping up. Where skills and versatility are concerned, slayers lose to investigators like one-legged men at a butt-kicking contest.
“It's an anagram, isn't it, Doctor? Hester Mofet, 'The rest of me.
Miss The-Rest-of-Me,' meaning that you rented that garage.”
—Clarice Starling, FBI Investigator
When you’ve got a class that’s as ridiculously versatile as the investigator, you’ll have to choose one aspect (possibly two, depending on how much room you have) to focus on. In Pathfinder, specialization is rewarded more than generalization, and investigators don’t get a pass on that precept: specializing lets you distribute your stats more tightly, streamlines your feat and talent progression, lets you know which skills and magic items will be important, and logically suggests extracts and archetypes that will complement your playstyle. All Pathfinder PCs need to have some kind of primary combat specialization, and investigators will usually have enough talents and extract support to be able to achieve some kind of secondary specialization. Let’s dive in!
By far the simplest route available to investigators is to ignore the shiny allure of Weapon Finesse or ranged playstyles and just go with a melee Strength build. In this scheme, your attribute allocation will probably look something like STR, INT > CON > DEX > WIS, CHA. Because Strength-based builds won’t be able to afford to pump Dexterity very high at point buy, most investigators walking this path will want to try to get access to medium or heavy armor proficiency in order to stabilize their AC, either through a one-level dip in something like fighter or through the feat Medium Armor Proficiency. Both are acceptable paths, although a one-level fighter dip does quite a bit for STR-based investigators; between the innate proficiencies you’ll acquire and the extra feat, you can come out a fair bit ahead.
As far as the melee playstyle goes, STR-based melee investigators will want to wield a longspear unless their racial choice grants them a demonstrably superior option; longspears have a good damage die, decent crit modifier, and most importantly, reach. The ability to stand back and poke at someone while a more heavy-duty frontliner takes them on is emblematic of the “battlefield helper” role that investigators are meant to play, and it’s great for keeping yourself alive, threatening ranged attackers or enemy spellcasters, and generally being a simple weapon badass. Early in your career, your go-to move will be to drink an extract of enlarge person, balloon up to Large size, and enjoy 15-foot reach as you stomp around the battlefield. Later, you can use Combine Extracts or an admixture vial to combine enlarge person with long arm; this will let you hit 20-foot reach, slap foes from across the room, and take AoOs whenever you feel like it.
Pros | Cons |
Simple feat progression. You’ll take Power Attack at 3rd level...and then you’re done. Melee STR styles are almost always pretty easy for ¾-BAB classes to build. | Slightly diffuse stat spread, poor AC values. STR builds need to decide whether they’re going to spread out their point buy to accommodate both STR and DEX (not particularly recommended) or leave DEX low and supplement their AC with medium or heavy armor. It’s a rock-hard-place scenario, but not a particularly bad one. |
No need to hunt for bonus damage. STR is lovely for providing damage and attack bonuses rolled into one. That’s not something that can be said for DEX-based melee builds, which need to get Weapon Finesse and probably Fencing Grace in order to use their DEX for both attack and damage. Even after DEX builds have gotten DEX to damage, they can’t get 1.5 x DEX to damage, which two-handed STR builds like longspear builds get right off the bat. |
Any Level: fey form, monstrous physique, undead anatomy
1st Level: anticipate peril, enlarge person, long arm, shield
2nd Level: alchemical allocation, alter self, barkskin, bear’s endurance, invisibility, resist energy, see invisibility
3rd Level: amplify elixir, channel vigor, clay skin, displacement, fiendish wrath, fly, haste, heroism, infuse self, thorn body
4th Level: caustic blood, echolocation, fluid form, freedom of movement, greater invisibility, stoneskin
5th Level: defensive grace, delayed consumption, resurgent transformation, spell resistance
6th Level: heal, legendary proportions, statue, true seeing, walk through space
Elixirs: elixir of darksight, elixir of elemental protection, elixir of spirit sight, seishinru spirit elixir
3: Alchemist Discovery (Mutagen)
5: Quick Study
7: Sickening Offensive
9: Combat Inspiration
11: Alchemist Discovery (Extend Potion)
13: Tenacious Inspiration
15: Alchemist Discovery (Combine Extracts)
17: Alchemist Discovery (Eternal Potion)
19: Greater Combat Inspiration
Gravedigger is fantastic for its scythe proficiency, openness to Shikigami Style, and occultist implement schools, although you have to be aware that giving away alchemist discoveries is a big problem for STR builds; Mutagen alone is where much of your power will come from, and other discoveries like Extend Potion or Eternal Potion do great things for you, as well. The Bonded Investigator can do great things, too, giving their familiar a longspear and letting them flank, use wands to save on the action economy, etc. Lamplighter is a fantastic archetype that can patch your initiative bonus, which will always be on the low side for STR builds, and Portal Seeker can be fun for “Surprise! I’m up in your face now.” moments. Lastly, both Jinyiwei and Cult Hunters are great on STR builds, if a little more niche. Jinyiwei get access to the inquisitor spell list, which is all about self-buffing, and Cult Hunters get to upgrade their effects if they’re facing off against their studied cult or religion. Both can be excellent in the right campaign.
If you don’t want to be the hacksaw, I suppose you want to be the scalpel, eh? The “DEXvestigator” build (no? How about “PoinDEXter”?) is a classic playstyle that hearkens back to the likes of Sherlock Holmes and other Victorian-era detectives and duelists, folks who would rather use their quick reflexes and knowledge of human anatomy--rather than brute force--to strike a killing blow. The investigator is suited to this role for one reason, and one reason only: the inspired blade swashbuckler archetype. Normally, getting DEX to both attack and damage takes at least three feats (Weapon Focus, Weapon Finesse, and one of the “____ Grace” feats, usually Fencing Grace for investigators) which, when you don’t have any bonus feats, puts rather a dent in your early progression. Most players would agree that you need to be able to fill your combat role before 5th level. Fortunately, the inspired blade swashbuckler gives you both Weapon Finesse and Weapon Focus (Rapier) for free at 1st level, which then lets you grab Fencing Grace at 1st level using your remaining feat. Boom, you’re set! With your stat priorities focusing on DEX, INT > CON > STR, WIS, CHA, you can hop into some light armor and be all ready to go.
The combat calculus is a little different for DEX builds than it is for STR builds. Whereas STR builds will want to use enlarge person and their various polymorph extracts to get larger, thereby netting STR bonuses, DEX builds will usually want to get smaller. Your damage dice will go down in size, which will reduce your damage output ever so slightly, but when most of your damage is coming from your DEX and studied combat, it’s actually not that large of a deal--plus, the benefits in Reflex saves, AC, and attack bonuses are well worth the cost. There’s really only one weapon for a DEX build: the rapier. With an 18-20/x2 crit modifier, you’re more than well-positioned to go fishing for crits, although you won’t see huge damage numbers even when you do crit, given that your weapon damage die is small and your studied combat bonuses are precision damage. But scooping up weapon enchantments that grant improved effects on a critical hit (flaming burst, sapping, etc.) or the Butterfly’s Sting feat can help you turn those crits into better effects. Anyway, DEX builds will usually hit themselves with a reduce person, long arm, or shield, then use Combat Reflexes to dole out AoOs while they flank with allies, debuff, and generally make nuisances of themselves. Adopting Small or smaller forms with later polymorph extracts can land you some nice special abilities and grant you further DEX bonuses.
Pros | Cons |
Focused stat distribution. DEX builds are as close as investigators come to being single attribute-dependent, getting most of what they need out of DEX and INT alone. | Not as much damage. DEX builds generally deal less damage than STR builds, and that’s okay: hopefully you know what you’re signing up for when you go DEX-based. |
Better AC, Reflex saves, and initiative. Although STR is almost certainly better for dealing damage in combat, DEX is better at just about everything else. Your AC, Reflex saves, and initiative values will all be higher than your STR-based cousins, and you won’t have to worry about movement speed penalties or armor check penalties from heavier armors at all. | Pretty steep feat prerequisites. Three feats is a lot to enter a playstyle, and it’s not like the investigator has any leeway with feats; whatever they’re not spending on combat, they’ll likely be spending on Extra Investigator Talent. Fortunately, the inspired blade swashbuckler dip smooths this problem out considerably. |
Better race selection. Races that grant STR bonuses are somewhat rare, but DEX bonuses among Pathfinder races are as common as dirt. Ya want that. |
Any Level: fey form, monstrous physique, undead anatomy
1st Level: anticipate peril, reduce person, long arm, shield
2nd Level: alchemical allocation, alter self, barkskin, bear’s endurance, invisibility, resist energy, see invisibility
3rd Level: amplify elixir, channel vigor, clay skin, displacement, fly, haste, heroism, infuse self, thorn body
4th Level: caustic blood, echolocation, fluid form, freedom of movement, greater invisibility, stoneskin
5th Level: defensive grace, delayed consumption, resurgent transformation, spell resistance
6th Level: heal, statue, true seeing, walk through space
Elixirs: elixir of countless eyes, elixir of darksight, elixir of elemental protection, elixir of hiding, elixir of spirit sight, elixir of tumbling, seishinru spirit elixir
3: Alchemist Discovery (Mutagen)
5: Quick Study
7: Sickening Offensive
9: Combat Inspiration
11: Alchemist Discovery (Extend Potion)
13: Tenacious Inspiration
15: Alchemist Discovery (Combine Extracts)
17: Alchemist Discovery (Eternal Potion)
19: Greater Combat Inspiration
Lamplighter would be my candidate for “Top DEX Archetype.” You’ll eventually get to add both your DEX and INT modifiers to your initiative, plus inspiration, which can make you one of the most freaky-fast PCs ever; get elixirs of agility, extracts of heightened awareness, and alchemical items like blood-boiling pills going, and you can make what is fast even faster. Portal Seeker is also a totally acceptable choice, pairing well with the magehunting routine that investigators are capable of. Other archetypes like Questioner or Mastermind will still pair well with DEX builds, but I omit them from this section as they’re better suited to secondary specialties in Knowledge or social skills.
Hoo boy. It’s no secret that ranged builds are monstrously powerful in Pathfinder, capable of taking full-attack actions when melee allies are still struggling to get in position and chock-full of feats like Clustered Shots, Rapid Shot, and Manyshot that pump your damage to frankly laughable levels. Do I love ranged builds? Yes. Do I think that investigators make good ranged combatants? Absolutely not. The problem, simply put, is feats. Ranged builds must always, always surrender at least three feats to become acceptable combatants (Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and Rapid Shot, probably in that order); if they’re full-BAB, they’ll probably also take Deadly Aim; as time goes on, Point-Blank Master, Improved Precise Shot, Clustered Shots, Hammer the Gap, Manyshot, Snap Shot, Improved Snap Shot, Shot on the Run, Pinpoint Targeting, and more will become staples of the ranged diet. And crossbows or firearms? Forget it! You can’t pile on Rapid Reload or Crossbow Mastery when your list of necessary feats is already so long. With ¾ BAB and absolutely no bonus feats of any kind (not even the option to trade an investigator talent for a combat feat!) investigators struggle to keep up with even the basic requirements of a ranged build--but to add to the pain, investigators are also slapped with the feat taxes Weapon Focus and Ranged Study in order to be able to use their studied combat class feature at range. For those keeping track, that’s five feats just to do what you absolutely need to, not counting all the upgraded feats that you’d sure like to have. Now, I did make a ranged investigator build using hinterlander prestige class levels--I think it works pretty well, given the constraints I was under--but overall, this is a really, really tough row to hoe as an investigator. If you’re still interested, set your attributes at DEX, INT > STR, CON > WIS, CHA and we’ll take it from there.
Assuming you can get all the feat taxes out of the way, life as a ranged investigator is pretty sweet. Investigators were never meant to withstand much punishment, so staying out of melee range goes a long way toward keeping you alive, and getting more attacks through Rapid Shot multiplies your studied combat damage in a way that I find highly pleasing. Not to mention, you’ve got pretty decent support from investigator talents--Castling, Fortified Position, and the Knowledge (Geography) benefit of Chronicler’s Insight will go a long way toward keeping you safe from stray hits that drift your way. I think the mathematically optimal way to play a ranged investigator is to shrink down to Small size, whether innately at racial selection or through alter self, infuse self, reduce person, or other polymorph extracts. You’ll be able to benefit from Castling better, the AC and attack bonuses are nice, and CMD will matter less when you’re not in melee. Don’t worry about your damage die size; as with DEX-based melee builds, most of your damage will come from studied combat anyway.
Pros | Cons |
Away from the melee scrum. Ranged investigator builds will probably be the most survivable of all, for the simple reason that it’s hard to hurt what you can’t reach. | Not as much damage. The addition of Rapid Shot will compensate you somewhat for your lost damage, but the fact is that investigators with low STR scores and no other static damage bonuses may struggle to keep up in the damage department. Fortunately, studied combat can do pretty heavy-duty work. |
Better AC, Reflex saves, and initiative. The same benefits that DEX-based melee builds get, you get, too. | Crazy feat prerequisites. Unlike DEX-based melee builds, ranged investigators kind of have nowhere to turn when it comes to plowing down their feat prerequisites: zen archer monks are WIS-based, fighter dips can only do so much, and prestige classes like hinterlander take away from your investigator progression. The absurd number of feats needed to make ranged combat viable, paired with the investigator’s feat taxes (Weapon Focus + Ranged Study) make this the deciding factor in whether or not to play a ranged investigator. |
Better race selection. Same as DEX-based melee builds. |
Any Level: fey form, monstrous physique, undead anatomy
1st Level: anticipate peril, expeditious retreat, reduce person, shield
2nd Level: alchemical allocation, alter self, barkskin, bear’s endurance, invisibility, resist energy, see invisibility
3rd Level: amplify elixir, channel vigor, displacement, fly, haste, heroism, infuse self
4th Level: echolocation, freedom of movement, greater invisibility
5th Level: defensive grace, delayed consumption, dust form, overland flight, resurgent transformation, spell resistance
6th Level: heal, mislead, statue, true seeing, walk through space
Elixirs: elixir of agility, elixir of darksight, elixir of elemental protection, elixir of hiding, elixir of spirit sight, elixir of vision, seishinru spirit elixir
3: Castling
5: Quick Study
7: Fortified Position
9: Combat Inspiration
11: Sickening Offensive
13: Alchemist Discovery (Mutagen)
15: Alchemist Discovery (Extend Potion)
17: Alchemist Discovery (Eternal Potion)
19: Greater Combat Inspiration
Lamplighter and Portal Seeker are just as good here as they are in DEX-based melee builds. Bonded Investigator also makes a nice adjunct, letting you full-attack while your lil’ companion buffs you, helps out allies, or stays with you to give you the benefits of Alertness.
Once you’ve read through the investigator’s class abilities and are sure that you even want to play one, the next step for most players is to choose a race. Like everything in Pathfinder, there are a dizzying number of options available to dedicated trawlers of Archives of Nethys, and as it would be minimally fruitful to review every class Pathfinder has on tap, I typically review all of the core races and a select few other races that suit the class chassis well. If you’re not sure about what you’re looking for in a potential class pairing, let me give you the run-down:
Dwarves are straight-up stanky as base investigators. No Intelligence bonus, poor favored class bonus, nothing too stand-out among the racial traits. They do make excellent jinyiwei, though, so think about going with them if you’re looking at playing a Wisdom-based investigator. As far as planning your racial traits, the only one that you truly want to hang onto is Hardy; it’s awesome on any character.
Pros | Cons |
Racial darkvision. | Generally poor stat distribution, although this reverses for jinyiwei. Intelligence bonuses are a must-have on any investigator, and a Strength or Dexterity bonus wouldn’t go amiss, either. |
Access to a few better weapons. Battleaxes, heavy picks, and warhammers are all good weapons, especially for a Strength-based melee build. | Poor favored class bonus. Many investigator archetypes trade away trap sense (rightly so—it’s not a great class feature) and Perception checks made while underground are niche. |
The Fair Folk make for textbook investigators, with bonuses to Dexterity and Intelligence, a good favored class bonus, and several great racial traits. Thanks to their Dexterity bonus, Constitution penalty, longbow proficiency, and the Crossbow Training racial trait, elves are practically begging to become ranged investigators. Most of the elf’s racial traits are solid for this class, but Elven Magic can and should be traded away for Fey-Sighted. Investigators have no in-class means of casting detect magic, and that can be a real hindrance for a class that focuses on solving mysteries, understanding what’s going on around them, and identifying ongoing spell effects or magical items.
Pros | Cons |
Ideal stat distribution, especially for ranged or finesse builds. Both routes will still cost you a lot of feats, but at least your attributes aren’t fighting you here. | None really jump out, but elves still aren’t quite as good as half-elves. Womp womp. |
Good favored class bonus. More inspiration never goes amiss, particularly in powerful (but inspiration-hungry) archetypes like the gravedigger. Assuming you’re not taking HP to counteract your Constitution penalty, I’d recommend you take this FCB. | |
Low-light vision, but no darkvision. |
Sadly, gnomes just don’t have a lot going for them as investigators. It’s too bad, because flavor-wise, the idea of a quirky investigator who’s dangerously curious about the world is solid—I mean, come one, have you ever heard a backstory that screamed “GNOME!” more loudly? But ultimately, if you’re looking for a small-sized race that can do everything an investigator needs, what you’re looking for are ratfolk.
Pros | Cons |
Good favored class bonus. As prepared casters who can easily copy extracts from either alchemist formulae books or wizard spellbooks, it’s often trivially easy for investigators to learn new spells. More never hurt, though. | Less than inspiring racial traits. As a staunchly Charisma-based race that leans toward full casting, gnomes tend to put a lot of stock in abilities like Gnome Magic and Illusion Resistance that simply do nothing for you. But there aren’t great replacements. :( |
Small size. The bulk of investigator’s damage will come from studied combat and (to a lesser extent) studied strike, so smaller damage dice are a reasonable trade to make for higher AC, attack rolls, and Stealth checks. | Poor stat distribution. Constitution bonuses are never bad, but you’ve got a bonus to Charisma instead of Intelligence, which does nothing for you. And unlike the dwarf, there are no Charisma-based investigator archetypes, so this distribution never becomes any better. |
Low-light vision, but no darkvision. |
Half-elves clear the hurdle into the upper echelon of investigator races without so much as breaking a sweat. Between a floating stat bonus, a bonus feat, two excellent favored class bonuses, and a variety of good racial traits, there’s nothing here to dislike. Only humans and half-orcs will really be able to compete among the core races, and even then, paragon surge probably puts the advantage decidedly with the half-elves.
Pros | Cons |
Floating stat bonus. No matter what kind of investigator you’re building, a floating stat bonus will get you there. | None. |
Two excellent favored class bonuses to choose from. Half-elves, half-orcs, and some of the native outsider races can all opt into the human FCB, which in this case grants bonus extracts known. That’s good enough on its own, but then you also get the chance to add bonuses to all your inspiration rolls! Only ratfolk (in my opinion) do it better. | |
Adaptability / Ancestral Arms / Dual Minded racial traits. Like humans, half-elves get a bonus feat at 1st level. That’s a pretty big deal, because the investigator chassis is feat-starved at the best of times. These two racial traits can do amazing things for you: Skill Focus (Linguistics) + Orator is a classic combo for a party face, Skill Focus (Craft: Alchemy) for a potion monster, or Skill Focus (Perception) to be unfairly good at noticing things. If you want to upgrade the investigator’s weapons, why not pick up the elven curve blade, falcata, butchering axe, or injection spear with Ancestral Arms? Huge boost over your run-of-the-mill rapier. And if you’re still not satisfied, Dual Minded is Iron Will in a racial trait. Can’t say no to that. | |
Paragon surge. Long-time Pathfinder players know how OP this spell is, but new players (myself included, once upon a time) often overlook it. In addition to a +2 Dexterity/Intelligence bonus (great enough on its own) paragon surge also grants you one bonus feat that you qualify for. Once you decide, it stays locked in for the rest of the day, but the ability to flexibly choose feats like Spirit Ridden, Extra Investigator Talent, Formula Recollection, etc. on a whim is a pretty massive deal. | |
Low-light vision, but no darkvision. |
For the purposes of our discussions, halflings and gnomes might as well be the same race. Small size, Charisma bonuses, quirky personalities, the whole shebang. Unfortunately, this means that halflings also don’t have a lot going for them. The lack of an Intelligence bonus just holds them back as investigators. You’ve got better options in ratfolk, half-elves, and humans.
Pros | Cons |
Small size. The bulk of investigator’s damage will come from studied combat and (to a lesser extent) studied strike, so smaller damage dice are a reasonable trade to make for higher AC, attack rolls, and Stealth checks. | Poor stat distribution. Dexterity bonuses are never bad, but you’ve got a bonus to Charisma instead of Intelligence, which does nothing for you. And unlike the dwarf, there are no Charisma-based investigator archetypes, so this distribution never becomes any better. |
Good favored class bonus. As prepared casters who can easily copy extracts from either alchemist formulae books or wizard spellbooks, it’s often trivially easy for investigators to learn new spells. More never hurt, though. | No racial darkvision or low-light vision. |
Adaptable Luck. Save bonuses on a few clutch saves every day is one of the best perks of playing a halfling. |
The idea of a half-orc playing the most cerebral, intelligent class in the game kinda makes you do a double take, but once you scoot past the thematic weirdness, there’s a lot to love (as there always is) about half-orcs in Pathfinder. Shall we start with the floating stat bonus? Oh, oh, or how about the racial darkvision? No? Intimidate bonuses for the demoralize-inclined investigator? Sacred Tattoo plus the Fate’s Favored trait to give you a +2 trait bonus to all saves? Greataxe and falchion proficiency? Yeah, like I said: a lot to love.
Pros | Cons |
Floating stat bonus. No matter what kind of investigator you’re building, a floating stat bonus will get you there. Half-orcs will almost always choose Strength-based melee builds in order to leverage their excellent racial weapon proficiencies, though. | None. |
Human favored class bonus. The half-orc FCB is pretty much flaming trash (crit confirmations, really?) so it’s lucky that they can take the human FCB at no cost. More extracts known equals more yummy in your tummy. | |
Sacred Tattoo + Fate’s Favored. I’m on record as thinking the Fate’s Favored combo is kinda cheesy, but damn it all, people wouldn’t keep going to that well if the water didn’t taste like an angel’s tears! A +2 luck bonus to all your saves is certainly a ballsy way to start out your adventuring career. | |
Baller weapon proficiencies. Greataxes and falchions are enormously powerful, the former for its monstrous d12 damage die and the latter for its 18-20/x2 crit range. Both make admirable upgrades to what Strength-based investigators can normally access. | |
Racial darkvision. |
Humans are the true blank slates of Pathfinder, and while people don’t usually think of blank slates and immediately go, “Oh, man, that sounds powerful,” humans most definitely are. The floating stat bonus, extra skill rank per level, and bonus feat at 1st level can do amazing things for getting investigators off the ground and flourishing by the mid-levels. If you’re ever strapped for a racial choice in Pathfinder, remember: the answer’s always human.
Pros | Cons |
Floating stat bonus. No matter what kind of investigator you’re building, a floating stat bonus will get you there. | No darkvision or low-light vision. |
The OG good favored class bonus. Alchemists and investigators love their extracts like my pupper loves tummy scratches. Which is to say, a lot. | |
Bonus feat. I can’t overstate how feat-starved investigators are! One free feat works wonders on your entry into many feat-intensive builds like Weapon Finesse or ranged builds. | |
Bonus skill rank. One more skill rank is a 50% improvement for 2+Intelligence classes like clerics or fighters, but it’s not much of a bank-buster for investigators. Still, every little bit, right? |
Native outsider races are always a lot of fun to play, at least for me, who considers himself to be a bit of a planar junkie. The base aasimar chassis doesn’t give investigators anything of import, with bonuses to two irrelevant attributes and not much else to set it apart from humans, half-elves, or half-orcs. Fortunately, variant aasimar do come with the peri-blooded variant, which gives us a bonus to Intelligence and several relevant skill bonuses. I don’t think aasimar have any advantage over the three blue-ranked core races, but they remain a solidly strong race through and through.
Pros | Cons |
Stat bonuses without drawbacks! Aasimar are excellent in that they grant two stat bonuses without any drawback stats. Even if Charisma doesn’t do much for the investigator, it’s sure better than nothing. | None. |
Human FCB with Scion of Humanity. Like several other native outsider races, aasimar can take an alternative racial trait that lets them treat themselves as humans for most purposes, including favored class bonuses. Because aasimar don’t have an investigator FCB by default, this should be your go-to move. | |
Racial darkvision. | |
Racial energy resistance. This might seem like a small thing, but resistance 5 against three energy damage types will go a long way toward soaking nickel-and-dime 1d6 hits that would otherwise wear you down. |
Aphorites, or natives of the lawful neutral-aligned city of Axis, are notable for their excellent investigator stat array (+2 Strength, +2 Intelligence, -Dexterity) and some synergy with sunder-heavy archetypes like the holomog demolitionist.
Pros | Cons |
Awesome stat distributions. Aphorites are the poster children for slow-but-steady Strength-based investigators, with bonuses to both Strength and Intelligence. Thanks to the penalty to Dexterity, you may wish to invest in Medium Armor Proficiency or consider a 1-level fighter dip so that your AC isn’t too badly hurt by your low Dexterity scores. | Poor FCB, and no option to trade it away. Aphorites are one of the few native outsider races that can’t pick up the human FCB by hook or by crook. You’ll have to go with HP or skill ranks, because the aphorite FCB is fleas on rats in a dumpster on fire. |
Racial darkvision. | |
Find the Flaw. This is a great aphorite-only feat to have if you’re using the sunder combat maneuver. Sunder isn’t a common maneuver to use, especially not for ¾-BAB classes like the investigator, but the holomog demolitionist archetype does a lot of sundering; you may wish to check that out in conjunction with the aphorite. |
Ifrit normally make pretty poor excuses for investigators, with bonuses to the useless (for investigators, at least) Charisma stat and no meaningful improvement on Intelligence. The variant ifrit heritages change things somewhat, though, as we now have the lavasoul ifrit: +2 Intelligence, +2 Constitution, -2 Dexterity, the excellent battlefield control spell burning sands available 1/day, and Magma Affinity, which is still useless. Trade that for Fire in the Blood. They also come with the fantastic racial trait Wildfire Heart, for a solid +4 to your initiative modifier at 1st level, racial darkvision, and no shortage of Intimidate and demoralize potential with the Fiery Glare racial trait—if you’re into that kind of thing. With Dexterity taking a hit, you may wish to consider getting the Medium Armor Proficiency feat, or picking up heavy armor proficiency through a 1-level dip in fighter to stay safer in melee range. Goodness knows lavasouls won’t be playing ranged investigators anytime soon.
Pros | Cons |
Great stat arrays. Constitution and Intelligence are great, both for all your Intelligence-based abilities and for your Fortitude save and d8 HD. Dexterity is a hard hit to take, but you’ll probably want to take Medium Armor Proficiency in order to compensate for your lower Dexterity bonuses. | None. |
Wildfire Heart. Improved Initiative as an alternate racial trait is genuinely too good to be true. You’ll take this and like it. | |
Human FCB via Mostly Human. Ifrit don’t have an investigator FCB, so you can use Mostly Human to pick up bonus extracts known. | |
Racial darkvision. | |
Fiery Glare. Fiery Glare is a racial trait that lets you take 10 on Intimidate checks, even in combat. This is normally a bigger benefit to inquisitors, vigilantes, etc., but even investigators can benefit with Underworld Inspiration. |
I almost never think about ratfolk as a racial option when I’m building characters, which is a real shame. With small size and bonuses to Intelligence and Dexterity, they make almost criminally good wizards, magi, investigators, and alchemists. They’ve got some lovely racial skill bonuses, darkvision, and an excellent favored class bonus. You may wish to get Surface Sprinter, and you should definitely trade away Rodent Empathy for Cleanliness and Swarming for Cheek Pouches. Beyond that? Solid all around for Weapon Finesse and ranged investigator builds.
Pros | Cons |
Great FCB. Ratfolk have a unique FCB that lets them increase their inspiration bonuses on any one skill they take inspiration on, max +2. This is phenomenal for skill monkeys, who can pile two points into Perception early on, then get going with UMD, Stealth, Knowledge, Linguistics, and anything else that they want to be good at. Perfect for establishing skill dominance. | None. |
Attribute bonuses are spot-on. You could hardly do better for a finesse or ranged investigator than +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, -2 Strength. | |
Sharptooth, Sharpclaw, and a tail blade. Thanks to some cool racial feats, ratfolk are capable of getting three primary natural attacks pretty early in their career; add a ratfolk tail blade, and you’ve got a +0/+0/+0/-5 full-attack routine by 3rd level. Because most of your damage will come from studied combat anyway, this can be a great way to rack up the damage. | |
Racial darkvision. | |
Small size. As mentioned in my write-ups for the halfling and gnome, investigators will deal most of their damage through studied combat and studied strike, which doesn’t particularly care about the size of your weapon damage die. So why not be small? Better Stealth, better AC, better attack rolls...it’s a good package, so long as you have some ways to protect against combat maneuvers. | |
Good skill bonuses. Perception, UMD, and Craft (Alchemy) are possibly the three best skills an investigator could get bonuses to. Awesome. |
Samsarans are a cool race that are known for one thing: Mystic Past Life. This alternate racial trait lets you choose a certain number of spells belonging to other arcane or divine casters (you have to stay in your lane on that one, unfortunately) and add them to your spell list. The issue with that racial trait as regards investigators is that investigators aren’t technically a spellcasting class, hence they can add neither divine nor arcane spells to their list, hence nothing qualifies for the ability. If you’re playing with an archetype that replaces the investigator’s extract casting, say, the jinyiwei, psychic detective, or questioner, this feature suddenly jumps up to a blue.
Pros | Cons |
Good stat spread. No improvement to your physical attacking stats, and a hit to Constitution is hard. But Intelligence and Wisdom are both great mental stats that will come in handy no matter who you are. | No FCB, and no option to take one. It’s okay. With a penalty to Constitution, you really should be getting HP every level. |
Low-light vision, but no racial darkvision. | Mystic Past Life. Because investigators don’t count as a spellcasting class, they can’t benefit from Mystic Past Life unless they’re a psychic detective, questioner, or jinyiwei. Boy, does that ruling suck, huh? |
Sylphs are probably my favorite native outsider race, and they can be a lot of fun to play. There’s really no downside to playing a sylph, other than that they don’t distinguish themselves mechanically from elves, half-elves, half-orcs, and humans on the core list. Still, Breeze-Kissed and Whispering Wind combined with your racial darkvision and stat bonuses can make you a pretty competent sniper, if you’re looking to go that route.
Pros | Cons |
Great stat spread. Sylphs have the same stats as elves, making them excellent non-core ranged and finesse combatants. A little skimpy on the HP, but there are ways around that. | None. |
Human FCB. Sylphs don’t have an innate favored class bonus for the investigator class, so you can take Mostly Human for the human’s FCB or extra HP, if you’re worried about it. | |
Racial darkvision. | |
Relatively good alternate racial traits. With the exception of the ifrit, who rock on racial traits, native outsiders don’t tend to have many good options. Breeze-Kissed, Like the Wind, and Whispering Wind are all solid, though. | |
Racial feats. Investigators probably won’t be able to afford them, but it’s possible for sylphs to gain an innate fly speed. Think it over! |
Tieflings might not be the first race you’d think of as a thematic fit for the investigator, but mechanically, they’re aces. Great bonuses to all the scores we need, racial darkvision, good skill bonuses, good SLAs, good defenses. Just good, all around. With bonuses to Intelligence and Dexterity on the base chassis and no great options among the variant heritages (daemon-spawn is demonstrably worse on an investigator) you’re great just staying where you are. You do have two “paths” to consider with tieflings, though: whether you want the human FCB (thus taking Pass for Human) or the various alternative racial traits (Scaled Skin, Prehensile Tail, and Maw or Claw). You can’t take both paths, so consider which you want carefully.
Pros | Cons |
Perfect stat spread. Dexterity and Intelligence are always welcome, and most investigators dump Charisma anyway. We’re great with this trade. | None. |
Human FCB or excellent racial traits. If you’re not going for the human FCB, I really would recommend that you take the three alternate racial traits listed in the description above. They’re worth it. | |
Racial darkvision. | |
Racial energy resistance. This might seem like a small thing, but resistance 5 against three energy damage types will go a long way toward soaking nickel-and-dime 1d6 hits that would otherwise wear you down. |
More than many other classes, investigators run on traits. For some reason, there’s a bevy of traits that swap out normally Wisdom- or Charisma-based skills for Intelligence, and if you’re guessing that investigators want to get their hands on those traits, you’d be guessing correctly. Investigators typically dump Charisma and leave Wisdom at 10, which means we want our Intelligence to be fueling as many skills and class functions as possible. New players, please note that you can only select one trait from each trait category unless you’ve selected an appropriate Exemplar trait.
Accelerated Drinker: Investigators and alchemists do a lot of potion drinking, so it only stands to reason that you might want to be able to consume them as fast as possible. This is definitely a top-tier trait, and certainly better than Potion Glutton after its errata.
Reactionary: +2 to initiative is powerful and useful throughout your adventuring career.
Resilient: Half of Great Fortitude, sitting here for the taking! Your Fortitude save isn’t great, after all.
Arodenite Sword Training: The longsword is a good weapon, with a solid damage die and a decent crit range. If you don’t want to use a rapier or sword cane and your race doesn’t grant any novel proficiencies, this is a solid way to expand your options.
Bloody-Minded: Initiative bonuses are eternally useful, and Intimidate is certainly something that investigators can do well, so long as they have Bruising Intellect.
Careful Combatant: Adding another square of AoO-free movement to the withdraw action lets you escape from enemies with reach weapons or 10 feet of natural reach. Can be very good for a class that’s not meant to withstand harsh punishment in melee range.
Dirty Trickster: If you’re going to choose any combat maneuver to specialize in, it should be dirty trick. It’s versatile, powerful, and doesn’t depend on the number of legs your enemy has. Problem with all maneuvers is that they need you to take Combat Expertise before you can get to the Improved [Maneuver] feat. Dirty Trickster neatly eliminates that requirement, which saves you a feat tax and gets you to your goal faster. Plus a little bonus! Nice.
Hard to Kill: We obviously don’t want you going unconscious very often, but if you do, your Constitution score isn’t likely to be high enough to stabilize yourself efficiently. Hard to Kill goes a long way toward solving that problem.
Killer: Most investigators have the ability to crit fish, especially investigators who use rapiers on the regular. Killer isn’t an enormous damage bonus when you confirm a crit, but enough that this is a solidly good trait.
Natural Flyer: Investigators can expect to fly quite a bit with fly on their class list, but Fly isn’t a class skill! Thankfully, there’s Natural Flyer.
Ambush Training: Lamplighters in particular might be interested in Ambush Training, which increases their initiative checks to even more ridiculous levels and grants them a little bonus damage, while they’re at it. It’s not quite as powerful as Reactionary, but it’s also less cheesy.
Guerrilla Tactics: Strictly better than Reactionary if you’re in a forest, for example in an Ironfang Invasion campaign.
Surprise Weapon: Criminally good for gravediggers, who can use shovels and gravedigger’s tools as improvised weapons at no penalty. If you’re going Shikigami Style (again, see the Shovel Knight build below) then this is a free +2 on attack rolls all the time.
Helpful: Battlefield Disciple is better.
Called: Reroll a Nat 1 once per day. What’s not to like?
Disdainful Defender: It’s Divine Defiance, as a trait! That’s a fantastic bonus for magehunters.
Fate’s Favored: Fate’s Favored is famous for its power. Now, investigators don’t have as many luck bonuses available as other classes, especially divine classes that get spells like divine favor, but you can easily massage a few luck bonuses from other places, like the half-orc’s Sacred Tattoo alternate racial trait.
Focused Disciple: The worst effects you can ever be subjected to! Nice to have the bonus.
Oathbound: Similar to Focused Disciple, and similarly good.
Totemist: Whoa! Totemist is a huge, flexible competence bonus to attacks, saves, skill checks...you can only use it 1/day, but how many times will a trait grant you a +10 bonus on something at 20th level?
Imperfect Recall: Knowledge checks made “while you are in danger or distracted” will be most monster identification checks. You could do way worse than a 1/day +3 to those skills.
Indomitable Faith: I prefer Disdainful Defender or Focused Disciple, but Indomitable Faith is great, too.
Schooled Inquisitor: Undead and outsiders are frequent enemies in most campaigns; a +2 bonus to identify them is nothing to sneeze at.
Meditative Rest: An interesting trait to consider if your GM likes to harass you while you sleep to prevent you from regaining spell slots. It’s kinda mean, but I’ve done it before when I feel like a party is steamrolling content a bit too easily.
Patient Calm: Perhaps for taking 12 on Craft (Alchemy) checks?
Sacred Touch: Most investigators will be able to hit a DC 15 Heal check pretty easily. If you’re feeling like writing off those checks, though, Sacred Touch is a great way to do it.
Unnatural Presence: This trait will be mandatory for demoralize builds, who will welcome the opportunity to expand their demoralize attempts to previously unshakable foes.
Acadamae Neophyte: So…a permanent +5 to Knowledge (Planes), perhaps the most useful of all Knowledge skills? Yes, please.
Enduring Mutagen: Any investigator can benefit from the Mutagen discovery; Enduring Mutagen makes it last longer, which is always, always good.
Magical Knack: The perennially useful trait for multiclassed Pathfinder PCs.
Magical Lineage: Magical Lineage—most unfortunately—does not apply to extracts, which are not counted as spells for many purposes, despite the similarities. However, metamagic feats can be applied to potions, so if you want to take Brew Potion and Extend Spell (by far the best, most universally applicable metamagic feat for investigators) you can enjoy free Extend Spell on your most-crafted potion. Rocks my world.
Pragmatic Activator: Woo! Intelligence to UMD instead of Charisma is probably the best of all the Magic traits. UMD is incredibly useful, and depending on how hard you dumped Charisma, this could easily equate to a +10 bonus by the end of your career. If you’ve got one trait and don’t know what to do with the other, make it this one.
Precise Treatment: Precise Treatment does for Heal what Pragmatic Activator does for UMD. If you’re going for a non-magical healing build (see the Herr Doktor build below) you’ll get Precise Treatment and love it.
Transmuter of Korada: Transmutation spells are an investigator’s bread and butter; doubling the length of a stat-boosting transmutation spell and getting a permanent +1 CL is bueno, bueno, bueno.
Cross-Knowledge: A 1/day CL boost for one of your extracts. Could do worse.
Less Effort: Transmutation and abjuration spells are, like, 90% of what an investigator does. So sure, take a permanent +2 CL to your most commonly cast spell!
Meticulous Concoction: Longer duration on an extract, 1/day. Good.
Unscathed: Tieflings, aasimar, and other races that get access to multiple energy resistance types will positively love Unscathed. Now you can literally stand in a bonfire and take no damage at all. Check with your GM about how they interpret this trait in relation to spells like resist energy; if they allow it for those purposes, increase its rating to blue.
Unstable Mutagen: It’s a gamble, but there can be good effects in store for you if you beat the odds.
Alchemical Adept: Great for crafting builds.
Perfectionist’s Brew: And also great for crafting builds.
Adopted: Adopted is a little cheesy, in my opinion, but there’s no denying that being able to pick a Race trait at will is super, super powerful.
Arodenite Historian: All of an investigator’s Knowledge skills are likely to be equally high, so Arodenite Historian is kinda like a free reroll on every Arcana, History, and Religion check you ever roll.
Bruising Intellect: Intelligence instead of Charisma to determine your Intimidate bonus singlehandedly makes investigator demoralize builds possible. You’ll need this if you want to intimidate in combat.
Clever Wordplay: Student of Philosophy will beat out Clever Wordplay in most social situations, but Clever Wordplay still pulls ahead if you’re intending to feint in combat (in which case, select Bluff), gather information (using Diplomacy), or infiltrate enemy organizations (using Disguise) often. Nice to have the flexibility.
Life of Toil: If you need to take a different Combat trait but you wanted Resilient, Life of Toil is here for an identical Fortitude save bonus.
Memorable: Lovely for demoralize builds, but you’ll probably only be able to get it if you’re taking Exemplar traits that allow you to select more than one trait from a single category—you’ll need Bruising Intellect more.
Mock Gladiator: The Enforcer feat is the most efficient single-target demoralize feat on the market, but you have to deal nonlethal damage in order to use it. What if I told you I’d figured out how to do that with Mock Gladiator?
Monster Scholar: Like Acadamae Neophyte, but for Arcana, Dungeoneering, or Nature!
Rich Parents: Even though 900 gp is unlikely to be significant in the long-term, a cash infusion that large at the start of your career is just what you need to get going.
Student of Philosophy: Student of Philosophy is the Social trait that most investigators will want—Diplomacy and Bluff are the most universal face skills.
Ancestral Armor: Free masterwork armor? What’s not to like? Probably best if you’re going for Medium Armor Proficiency, as those are more expensive.
Unintentional Linguist: Good for Orator builds.
Charming Smile, Cunning Soul: You might have noticed that the vast majority of traits that investigators will want come from the Social list. That’s problematic, however, as you can only have on Social trait. You could try to pick...or you could take this Exemplar trait, which gives you a stacking bonus depending on the number of Social traits you have, and allows you to pick more than one Social trait using the Additional Traits feat. If you really, really want to turn your investigator into a feinting, demoralizing, bluffing, persuading master, you’ll need to invest in Charming Smile, Cunning Soul. I’m not entirely convinced that it’s worth it, though, as investigators are better off with the Skill Focus (Linguistics) + Orator combo if they want to act as the party face.
Rather than rate all racial traits, I’ve only rated racial traits from races that make particularly good investigators. Save us all a lot of time, eh?
Ethical Leader: Chances are very good that you’re not playing with Leadership, but if you are, Ethical Leader is phenomenal.
Adrift: Mechanically worse than Child of Two Peoples, but still something.
Clergy Member: Small favors from members of your faith is nice little perk.
Innocent: Particularly good for party faces.
Faith Healer: Very interesting in conjunction with Expanded Inspiration and the Precise Treatment magic trait.
Idealized Campaigner: Good for a party face, but good-aligned creatures aren’t the ones you’ll need to worry about swaying.
Martyr’s Blood: The benefit is good, but I don’t like that you have to be grievously wounded to get it.
Burnished Skin: Too niche.
Celestial Community: Nah, you have better ways to heal.
Celestial Contact: You don’t really have any spells with the (good) descriptor.
Planar Negotiator: Can’t cast these spells.
Pyromancer: You have a few (fire) spells, but they’re generally weak.
Selective Health: Is this even a benefit? Feels more like a drawback to me.
Wary: Eh, there’s better out there.
Forlorn: Fortitude bonuses! Yay.
Warrior of Old: Just as good as Reactionary.
Insular: The humanoids clause limits it somewhat, but it’s still quite good.
Lapsed Faith: Sure, a 1/day cure light wounds. I’ll take it.
Seeker of Brightness: Nice and flexible, but rather weak.
Snowblooded: OP for Reign of Winter.
Wild Stride: Decent if you’re going to spend most of your time in one climate.
Youthful Mischief: You won’t really need a bonus on Reflex saves, though.
Arcane Dabbler: Is 1/day really worth it?
Dilettante Artist: For bards, not investigators.
Keeper of the Secret Shame: Not unless you’re in some kind of Darklands campaign.
Obscure Traditions: Too niche.
Planetary Traveler: Is this a Starfinder campaign? No?
Sovyrian Intellectual: Too narrow.
Tropical Botanist: Too narrow.
Child of Two Peoples: (Charm) and (compulsion) effects are the very worst Will saves you could be affected by, so a +2 at character creation is certainly not a bad idea.
Elven Reflexes: As Reactionary.
Failed Apprentice: This will cover many of the magics you encounter in your journeys. Particularly useful for magehunters.
Elven Serenity: You probably won’t be doing much Handle Animal, although Diplomacy is useful as a party face.
Trade Talk: Only useful if you’re using Craft (Alchemy) heavily.
Bifurcated Magic: Investigators probably won’t be multiclassing into another casting class, just multiclassing with martial classes to give them more feats, weapon/armor proficiencies, etc. You can stick with Magical Knack.
Experimental Rebel: Too niche.
Pearl Diver: Niche.
Wild Domesticator: Made for hunters and rangers, not you.
Child of Two Peoples: (Charm) and (compulsion) effects are the very worst Will saves you could be affected by, so a +2 at character creation is certainly not a bad idea.
Finish the Fight: Investigators will need to keep attacking the same target due to the mechanics of studied combat, so Finish the Fight is a simple +1 to almost all attacks. Great.
Tusked: Even a secondary natural attack is really good for investigators, who care more about studied combat damage than anything else.
Deadeye: More Perception, never a bad idea.
Legacy of Sand: A +1 to your Will save! Cool.
Scrapper: Perception and Intimidate are right at home on an investigator.
Dirty Fighter: Feinting takes up valuable feat space, but it is possible for an investigator. Chalk this up to an emphatic “maybe.”
Irritable Diplomat: Fun flavor and mechanics. Decent for party faces.
Mindlessly Cruel: If you’ve got a bard or skald in the party, sure.
Promising Peacemaker: Another one that’s good for party faces.
Almost Human: How often will you need to disguise yourself as human when you have disguise self and alter self on your class list?
Amazingly Ugly: Thanks, you too. There are better bonuses to Intimidate available, even if that’s your thing, and it’s already a class skill.
Beast Rider: Mounted investigators aren’t really a thing.
Big Mouth: Too narrowly focused on orcs.
Brute: As Amazingly Ugly.
Caravan Drover: Even if you wanted to use a whip (you don’t) you still don’t have access to martial weapons, barring a dip. Nah.
Cruel Rager: Not a barbarian.
Demented Inventor: Not big into crafting weapons.
Iron Control: It’s fun, but how often will you be confused?
Lasting Ferociousness: Trade orc ferocity away for Sacred Tattoo.
Mistrusted: Too niche.
Outcast: Survival? Meh.
Rage of Storms: Can’t summon.
Tribal: How often will a tribal standard be in play?
Unbreakable Hate: Can’t cast defensively.
Wild Ferocity: Too niche.
There are a few too many traits here for me to review; just search for your nationality when you decide on where your character is from and see whether you like any of the options available.
Expert Distractor: A pretty wonderful trait for magehunters, and one of the only reasons I would consider a flaming burst rapier.
Fiery Glare: Criminally good for demoralize builds.
Snap Ignition: A minor QoL increase, if it’s anything.
Hot Headed: Minor benefit, and you won’t charge more than once per combat.
Unflappable Arrogance: How often do enemies try to demoralize you?
Scamper: Great for getting to an enemy on the very first round of combat, and damn the torpedoes. Too bad your base movement is pretty slow.
Ratfolk Avenger: This bonus will apply nearly all the time, and should multiply on a crit. I like it.
Bauble Fascination: Every little bit helps when it comes to UMD, but the class skill doesn’t help us at all.
Business Venturer: Bad skills, bad bonuses.
Wind-Carried Voices: Not often you get a cantrip added to your character as a trait. Watch out for that DC 20 Perception check; otherwise, it’s a great trait.
Aerial Observer: Investigators will fly for much of their career. Given that, a +2 to Perception is nice.
Carrying Voice: Don’t really have any sonic effects available.
Following Breeze: Niche effects.
Thunderborn: Don’t really have electricity effects available.
Ever Wary: It’s like half of uncanny dodge, and still quite good for a trait.
Born Damned: Curses won’t always come up, but when they do, they suck.
Prolong Magic: An extended darkness is fun.
Shadow Stabber: Especially good once you get greater invisibility.
Anticipate Evil: A little too niche, but definitely powerful.
Family Connections: If you’re interacting with evil outsiders a lot, sure.
Friendless: Bonkers-good if you’re going for a non-magical healing build.
Motherless: I suppose it could be good in some infiltration scenarios.
Twilight Zeal: A little niche, but Will save bonuses are always good.
Underling: For infiltration, maybe?
Beast Bully: You won’t be using Handle Animal.
Blessing of Darkness: Only if you have an evil-aligned cleric on your team.
Dark Magic Affinity: No evil-aligned spells.
Enduring Heritage: Why would you want to detect as intensely evil? “No, really, I’m not a cop! Hit me with detect evil, you’ll see!”
Fiendish Sniper: Investigators won’t snipe.
Hard to Pin Down: Just won’t come up that often.
Inciter: How often are you doing this?
Malign Instrument: Don’t really have spells that affect others.
Neutralizing Gut: You have poison resistance already.
Persecuted Expatriate: You won’t be taking a variant heritage.
Prideful Temper: Useless after one hit.
Suicidal: Yikes, but no.
Tempter’s Tongue: You won’t be charming anyone.
Alchemical Prodigy: You’ll have to talk with your GM about whether this trait works, but RAI, I think it should. You do have the alchemy feature, after all. A +1 to CL for all your extract durations is straight-up amazing.
Analytical: Basically a +1 to all Knowledge skills. Really, really good.
Ancestral Weapon: A free cold iron weapon and a +1 to all attack rolls? Yes, that’s amazing.
Chosen Child: As good as Rich Parents.
Cunning Liar: Hey, what’s a social trait doing hiding out here in regional traits? Anyway, Cunning Liar is excellent for those who want to turn all the face skills into Intelligence-based skills.
Destined for Greatness: Free money and adventuring supplies. Cool.
Forbidden Knowledge: Rolling Knowledge (Planes) into Knowledge (Religion) essentially gets you one free skill rank per level.
Free Agent: These are bad spells to be affected by.
Glory of Old: Bonuses against all spells and SLAs.
Heart of Clay / Isgeri Orphan / Mana Wastes Survivalist / Spirit Animal: Fortitude bonuses.
Hermean Paragon: As Reactionary.
Merabian Mentorship: It’s like having a free formula alembic at 1st level!
Palm Potion: Great if you need to slam a potion on the sly.
Resourceful Alchemy: Perfect for crafting builds.
Technological Brewmaster: When you need to craft quickly, there’s this trait.
Absalom Hotspur: Good enough.
Awakened from Stasis: Great for crafting and keeping watch.
Balanced Education: You could use Intelligence for Swim or Climb, which might save your life, or I suppose Dexterity in place of Sense Motive, Perception, Heal, etc.
Bellis Honey Harvester: Swarms suck, but they won’t suck quite so much with this trait.
Blood Potion Brewer: Have a good time with your increased potion durations.
Charmed Innocent: Pretty good for party faces.
Diligence: Good for crafting.
Freed Slave: Blanket improvements to Will saves, always good.
Heavenly Touch / Touched by the Sky: At-will stabilize.
Huldra’s Luck: Flexible, and even better with Fate’s Favored.
Liquid Healing: More magical healing from potions never hurts!
Freedom Fighter (Shokuro): Really, really good on gravedigger builds using improvised weapons.
Iron Mind: The Hellknight provision is hard to swing, but an investigator would hate any ability that damaged or penalized their Intelligence score, so if you can get it, it’s great.
Kobold’s Neighbor / Numerologist: Good for trapfinding builds.
Coming Soon!
Like other ¾-BAB striker classes, investigators get to “cast spells”—but they do it with their own special casting system that stands apart from prepared and spontaneous casting. If you’ve never played an alchemist or investigator before, you may wish to revisit the rules text in the Class Chassis section, as there are important elements that distinguish extracts from other kinds of casting that the player must understand before jumping in headlong. I would always advise that investigators try to leave a few extract slots when preparing their spells for the day, as you never know when you’ll need to bring up a niche extract that exactly fits the situation your team is in.
Tears to Wine: At 10 minutes/level, tears to wine is easily the best 1st-level skill buff you have. Heightened awareness will beat it out for a time due to the latter’s initiative bonus, but once you reach CL 9, you should have tears to wine running more or less constantly. Your Knowledge, Spellcraft, Perception, and Sense Motive checks will thank you for it. Also noteworthy as a high-CL potion, paired with alchemical allocation. It would stink to use a 2nd-level extract on a 1st-level spell, but it may be worth it to you to get the upgraded bonuses sooner.
Coin Shot: Investigators aren’t particularly good at ranged combat, but coin shot gives you a quick and easy effect that targets touch AC, hits for surprisingly decent damage, and overcomes several forms of DR. You could do a great deal worse for a 1st-level extract.
Cure Light Wounds: It’s classic. If you have any unused extracts at the end of the day, whip up a few cure light wounds and save on wand charges.
Enlarge Person: An old chestnut for Strength-based alchemists and investigators: quaff your extract and a mutagen, grow scary-big, and smash stuff hard.
Heightened Awareness: Knowledge checks are, like, half of what investigators do, so you should always be interested in doing them better. Moreover, heightened awareness lasts for a nice long time and stacks with anticipate peril for extra initiative fun.
Long Arm: More reach at 1st level is one hell of a fun party trick. Swallow enlarge person and long arm, and you can manage 15-foot reach!
Reduce Person: Much of an investigator’s damage will come from studied combat and studied strike anyway, so why bother to be big? A Dexterity-based investigator’s best friend.
Shield: Shield bonuses to AC will be rare for investigators, and the spell has the added benefit of blocking magic missiles and incorporeal creatures. Prep a few of these each day.
Anticipate Peril: Long after other 1st-level extracts have dropped off in usefulness, anticipate peril will still be quite good. Bonuses to initiative rolls always are! I wish the duration were 10 min./level, but hey, I can’t complain too much. Quaff it as you head into a dangerous new room and enjoy the results.
Blend: Elf only. Elves make good investigators, and blend is one reason why. The circumstance bonus stacks with other bonuses and the duration is excellent, making blend a useful scouting extract.
Disguise Self: The original deep fake, disguise self is a good utility power for any kind of social interaction or intriguing you need to do in a day. Alter self will be the eventual upgrade.
Expeditious Retreat: Kind of a poor man’s haste. It’s great for covering huge distances in a fight, beating a hasty retreat, catching someone during a chase, etc.
False Face: A great adjunct to disguise self that essentially turns you into a Faceless Man. You’ll love it.
Keen Senses: More Perception and vision modes truly cannot hurt. Doubly excellent for humans and other races without low-light or darkvision.
Pesh Vigor: The enhancement bonus is the only reason this spell isn’t rated blue for Strength-based investigators. Pesh is basically cocaine, so enjoy getting coked up and hitting people really hard.
True Skill: The bonus only gets better with age, and you can flexibly assign it to any check you’d like. That’s quite good.
True Strike: When you absolutely must hit, there’s true strike. For everything else, there’s Mastercard.
Abjuring Step: This spell makes for a good “Oh, no!” button that you can press when you get surprised, steadily backing you out of trouble without provoking and allowing you to self-buff as you go. It’s not wildly good, though.
Ant Haul: You’ll get a bag of holding at some point, but until then, Infusion + ant haul is a great way to have that beefy fighter do the hard work of carrying back the dragon’s hoard.
Comprehend Languages: Might be a good idea to dedicate one of your 1st-level slots to this ability once you get a bit more advanced.
Crafter’s Fortune: Whip up one of these on any day you intend to brew a potion, as it neatly zeroes out the penalty for crafting at double speed.
Detect Metal / Secret Doors / Undead: These are circumstantial abilities, all three, but there will certainly be moments when you need them.
Endure Elements: Being in environments that don't suit humanoid habitation usually results in Fortitude saves every hour to avoid nonlethal damage. How about we just wave those penalties away?
Fabricate Disguise: I prefer disguise self, but fabricate disguise has the distinction of disguising you non-magically. That’s worth it sometimes.
Firebelly: A decent tool for taking down swarms in the early game, or a janky resist energy.
Identify: With a high Intelligence score, Spellcraft as a class skill, and free inspiration on the roll, you should never have trouble identifying magical items. If you do, though, there’s always identify.
Illusion of Calm: Illusion of calm is fairly good in early levels, especially for ranged investigators, but quickly drops off in effectiveness once you get the Sapping Offensive talent.
Jump: Early levels don’t give you many options for dealing with gaps. Jump + expeditious retreat can easily land you in the 50s for long jumps at 1st level.
Longshot: Wonderful for steel hounds and other firearm users; inconsequential for everyone else.
Monkey Fish: Monkey fish is much slower than other movement spells, but one of your earliest routes to a Climb or Swim speed. You’ll need it for scouting and exotic adventuring.
Phantom Blood: I guess if you used a mutagen to boost Constitution? That’s not a bad idea, by the by.
Pierce Facade: Maybe in an intrigue game.
Recharge Innate Magic: It can be good if you have something really useful, like an Aasimar’s daylight. If you have no racial SLAs, it’ll obviously be useless.
Speechreader’s Sight: Good in intrigue games.
Spirit Share: It’s a cool trick, especially for a class that can brew potions so effectively, but the primary difficulty is that you need to cast spirit share as a standard action, then convey your potion as another standard action. In your later levels, it can make an effective pre-combat cast if you want to use your stocked potions as a bank of buffs.
Touch of the Sea: Better than monkey fish in the water. Prep it if you know there will be aquatic adventuring.
Urban Grace: Half-elf only. Good for urban campaigns (yeah, no doy, Allerseelen).
Vocal Alteration: I suppose that’s a good extract to have when impersonating someone.
Waterproof: For aquatic adventuring.
Adhesive Spittle: Better just to throw a tanglefoot bag, if you’re so concerned about having this ability.
Alleviate Addiction: Just say no to drugs, kids. Unless it’s pesh vigor, in which case, just say, “One taste couldn’t hurt.”
Antitoxin Touch: Wow. That’s niche. No.
Authenticating Gaze: Again, niche. Again, no.
Blurred Movement: Nah. Just wait for blur.
Body Capacitance: It should be your goal to avoid damage, not take it. Pass.
Bomber’s Eye: Investigators don’t get bombs by any means.
Bouncy Body: Small, non-scaling bonus to niche effects.
Chameleon Scales: Just use disguise self.
Coward’s Cowl: A small bonus that’s too finicky to maintain.
Enlarge Tail: Nah, kobolds don’t make good investigators.
Ferment: Too tough to make work for you.
Fool’s Gold: It’s interesting effect, but without enemy-targeted spells, you’re simply not capable of using it effectively.
Instant Clot: Very, very niche. You can always whip this up using Numerical Alchemy if you really need to staunch a bleed effect.
Invisibility Alarm: It’s imbibed, so I guess you become the center of the radius? Invisibility alarm doesn’t help you identify where creatures are, so it’s not too useful.
Linebreaker: You shouldn’t be bull rushing anyone, so you can forget linebreaker. Use expeditious retreat if the speed is so important to you.
Locksight: Could you just, ya know, jiggle the handle?
Negate Aroma: Sooo niche.
Petulengro’s Validation: Also way niche.
Polypurpose Panacea: I love polypurpose panacea as a spell, but none of its effects are good enough to make it a regular part of your extract rotation.
Punishing Armor: Who tries to deal nonlethal damage to a PC?
Scarify: It’s slightly—slightly—more effective healing than cure light wounds, but doesn’t help you out in the middle of an adventuring day. You could use it right before you go to sleep, but then again, you could do that with cure light wounds, too.
See Alignment: Such a short duration, and such a specific effect. Pass.
Shock Shield: Inferior to shield in every way.
Skim: Research mechanics are few and far between, so unless you’re drinking this extract in order to pound some more Dostoevsky, don’t bother.
Starsight: Avoid getting lost, whoop de woo.
Stone Fist: Don’t do unarmed strikes, investigators.
Targeted Bomb Admixture: No bombs.
Wizened Appearance: I’m struggling to see the benefit.
Youthful Appearance: As above.
Alchemical Allocation: A friend of mine had a talk with me about alchemical allocation, because even though I saw that it was the most powerful extract at 2nd level, I didn’t see just how powerful it is. It may be the most powerful spell in the game because it turns elixirs and potions into non-expendable resources. Want +10 to all Intelligence- and Wisdom-based skills by 4th level? Buy a potion of tears of wine at CL 15, then just spit it back into the bottle when you’re done with it, reaping the huge benefits and duration long before you could otherwise get them. How about CL 12 barkskin for a cool +5 to your Natural Armor? Or maybe an elixir of shadewalking to travel through the Shadow Plane at 4th level? If you have the Infusion discovery, it gets even crazier, because you’ll be able to pass out infusions of alchemical allocation so that teammates can share your potions. How about granting your hunter’s animal companion greater magic fang for over three hours? Eminently doable. A more complete guide to alchemical allocation is available on Reddit, so I highly recommend browsing that to see what’s worthwhile, then running out to buy as many boro beads and preserving flasks as you can afford in order to keep pumping out more of this extract—there’s a great argument to be made that you should never waste 2nd-level spell slots on any other extract.
Acute Senses: These are nutso bonuses to Perception. You Want This.™ The duration is a little too short to make it a good alchemical allocation pairing.
Cure Moderate Wounds: Best used at the end of an adventuring day if you have leftover extracts.
Focused Scrutiny: Huge, untyped bonuses and an excellent duration make focused scrutiny a prime choice for any social interaction. Unfortunately not eligible for potions due to its personal range.
Investigative Mind: Acute senses, focused scrutiny, investigative mind...2nd-level is a great level for skill buffs. This spell could conceivably be active for large swaths of time, and only gets better as you level up. Remember: if you ever fail a Knowledge check as an investigator, I haven’t been doing my job correctly. As with focused scrutiny, not eligible for potion-making.
Invisibility: You don’t need me to explain why invisibility is good, right?
Resist Energy: Powerful, versatile, and long-lasting, resist energy is everything that a defensive extract should be. I prefer it to protection from energy by a wide margin.
Restoration, Lesser: I prefer a wand of lesser restoration, but it’s not bad to know it as an extract, either. Nice that there’s no material component.
See Invisibility: Very, very necessary for casters and many creatures in the bestiaries.
Skinsend: You don’t want to use this yourself, but it’s instant death to any creature who gets injected with an Infusion of skinsend. No save, no SR. Brutal.
Ablative Barrier: I used to poo-poo ablative barrier, but it actually doubles the effectiveness of your healing by converting lethal damage to nonlethal damage, which is healed in parallel with lethal damage. Makes for a very good alchemical allocation candidate.
Adhesive Blood: Against enemies wielding manufactured weapons, adhesive blood can cause valuable turns to be wasted as foes attempt to pry their swords away from your gluey hide.
Alter Self: Perpetually useful for picking up new vision modes, movement modes, etc. Keep in mind that this isn’t an Illusion effect, so there’s no Will save to disbelieve.
Animal Aspect: Animal aspect is a good spell, but remember that many of the effects here are reproducible at lower spell levels. Raptor can be duplicated by expeditious retreat, Frog by jump, Monkey and Tree Lizard by monkey fish, Otter by touch of the sea...the real strength of animal aspect is that it can be any of those spells, depending on what you need, but you have better options if you’re given prep time.
Barkskin: Unlike shield, barkskin will be duplicated by an amulet of natural armor at some point. The spell can hit a +5 bonus much faster than an amulet can, however, which is why you’ll keep barkskin in rotation for quite a while. High-CL potions of barkskin are also the classic alchemical allocation spell.
Bear’s Endurance: Whether you’re Strength- or Dexterity-based for damage, it’s likely that you won’t have enough money to buy a dual-attribute physical belt, which means that Constitution is open for business with bear’s endurance. Better Fortitude saves and more HP never hurt anyone.
Blistering Invective: I’m struggling to think how blistering invective would work in extract form, but hey, it’s a magical pretend game. This spell—in addition to being wicked cool—deals respectable damage, demoralizes, and has the potential to light enemies on fire. It’s one of your few AoE damage spells, so enjoy it.
Blur: Miss chance spells like blur and displacement scale much better into the endgame, because they ignore enemies’ to-hit bonuses. Blur is an important component of early-game defense, so learn it when you can.
Darkvision: Darkvision isn’t as versatile as alter self, but it does last much longer. You’ll know whether you need this extract or not. If you have the Infusion talent, this can be a phenomenal potion to pass out to others with alchemical allocation.
Fire Breath: Firebelly couldn’t quite get there, but fire breath can. This is your swarm-killer, and a decent means of dealing some damage to tightly packed enemies. With a Reflex save for half, SR, and no scaling damage, though, it won’t stick with you beyond the early to middle levels.
Hidden Blades: As a ¾-BAB class, investigators might consider feinting as a useful strategy to improve their chances to hit. Hidden blades makes your feints and concealed weapons that much more deadly.
Invigorating Poison: The utility of invigorating poison is predicated on you having it prepared and recognizing an enemy as likely to use poison. That being said, it’s hilarious to take what should be a debuff and turn it into a buff!
Ironskin: It’s better than barkskin, but also ten times shorter in duration. Your call, muchacha.
Owl’s Wisdom: Much like Constitution for bear’s endurance, Wisdom is the overlooked hero of the investigator’s mental attributes. Better Will save, better Perception and Sense Motive checks...you can get some decent benefits here.
Spider Climb: Monkey fish can probably fit most of your adventuring needs, but when you need spider climb, you really need it. It’ll get outclassed soon by fly, but it also makes a pretty good alchemical allocation candidate, whereas fly generally does not.
Undetectable Alignment: A must-have for any intrigue game.
Vine Strike: Entangled is actually quite a good condition to go handing out. Plus, Reflex saves tend to be pretty weak. I’d say you should pick up the Chaos Reigns conduit feat and get to work.
Vomit Swarm: Sometimes a swarm will do better work than you could, and using your standard action every round will be worth it.
Aid: A decent combat buff, but nothing gamechanging.
Air Step: Better and better as you add ranks to Fly. A prime candidate for Numerical Alchemy if you ever need to ignore difficult terrain in an encounter.
Aldori Alacrity: I think I’d prefer expeditious retreat in most circumstances, but aldori alacrity is decent enough at what it does.
Aram Zey’s Focus: A primo spell for disabling traps, but I would try to boost this skill high enough on your own that you don’t need it.
Blood Armor: It stinks that you need to take damage in order to proc the effect; it also stinks that blood armor gets less effective as you get better armor. Useful in early levels, though.
Blood Transcription: We-ell, it’s powerful, but also has the [evil] tag. Using this spell is an evil act, and your GM may rule that such an act has consequences. Evil investigators can rejoice, though, because it’s a great spell.
Bullet Shield: Is the improved deflection bonus worth the niche applications? Whip it up if you know you’re going to be facing a ranged combatant. Otherwise, let it go.
Bull’s Strength: As an enhancement bonus, you can’t use both bull’s strength and a physical attribute belt. Strength-based investigators will want the latter full-time; Dexterity-based investigators won’t care about Strength.
Cat’s Grace: As with bull’s strength, Strength-based investigators won’t particularly care, while Dexterity-based investigators will have a physical stat belt.
Certain Grip: You don’t run across many effects that grant outright immunity to a combat maneuver. Maybe think about it if your GM is particularly disarm-happy.
Delay Disease / Poison: Both of these spells are fairly lackluster as extracts, but awesome as alchemical allocation potions. Basically disease/poison immunity as 2nd-level spells.
Detect Thoughts: I’d sooner use the Empathy investigator talent for this effect, but it’s still not bad.
Dongun Shaper’s Touch: Hard to know what to do with this one. Gloves of shaping are the way you’d normally achieve this effect, but dongun shaper’s touch can’t do things quite that flexibly. On balance, I think its uses will be limited—non-magical and unattended are hard restrictions to meet as levels go by.
Enchantment Sight: This spell has always been a strong candidate for permanency on my PCs, as it’s very helpful to know when someone has been hit with an enchantment spell. Best used for spot checks until you can get it made permanent, though.
Enshroud Thoughts: I suppose if you’re playing an intrigue-heavy game, maybe.
Extreme Flexibility: It’s a poor man’s freedom of movement. Not a bad idea to have one handy in earlier levels.
False Age: Half-elf only. I’m sure there are shenanigans to be had here from boosting your mental scores on non-adventuring days and physical scores on adventuring days. Seems like a lot of work, though.
False Life: It’s rather a lot of work to go through for a limited benefit. I’d sooner use ablative barrier.
Fire’s Friend: Goblin only. This is actually a pretty decent disincentive to attack you, and definitely a disincentive to grapple you. I like it!
Fox’s Cunning: It’s great for investigators early on, but quickly loses utility once you can achieve a +4 enhancement bonus to Intelligence through your headband slot.
Ghostly Disguise: I could maybe think of some intrigue uses for this spell.
Heroic Fortune: Assuming you use hero points and can stomach the expensive material component, heroic fortune gives you good things.
Invisibility Bubble: You’ll know when it’s called for.
Pouncing Fury: Pouncing fury won’t be applicable to most weapon builds, but ratfolk with Sharp Claw can use it to turn charges into dual attacks that deal full studied combat damage. A fantastic surprise round opener for them.
Tattoo Potion: There are lots of possibilities here, but it’s certainly not an “everyday” kind of extract.
Twisted Innards: It’s not strictly bad, but I think I’d prefer to use ironskin and get a 100% certain crit negation. It’s not like either spell lasts long enough to protect you through multiple fights.
Ancestral Regression: How many friendly Drow have you met in your travels?
Ant Haul, Communal: Probably better at this point to just give an Infusion of ant haul to your strongest party member.
Beloved of the Forge: Use crafter’s fortune for crafting. The other bonuses are inconsequential.
Bestow Weapon Proficiency: Just use weapons you’re proficient with, dammit!
Blood Blaze: Totally metal, and totally weak.
Catatonia: Okay, Juliet, we get it, you’re not really dead. How the hell are you going to use this spell, though?
Contact High: The extract of choice for stoners everywhere.
Curative Distillation: Stick with your healing spells.
Daggermark’s Exchange: Don’t poison.
Deathwine: You can’t create undead. Don’t bother.
Defensive Shock: Poor damage, easily nullified by resistances.
Diminished Detection: Not very useful.
Dragonvoice: I guess if you’re going to negotiate with a dragon, sure.
Dream Shield: Strange Aeons is about the only campaign where I could see dream shield being useful.
Eagle’s Splendor: Charisma will be a dump stat for most investigators, and for good reason. If you have a face skill that’s still using Charisma, I haven’t been doing my job correctly.
Elemental Touch: Weeeak.
Empower Holy Water: It’s more convenient just to attack undead and kill them normally.
Extreme Buoyancy: Drink a touch of the sea and swim up that way.
Fiery Runes: Weak, weak damage.
Fire Sneeze: Goblin only. It’s hilarious, but ultimately locks you out of doing anything else with your actions.
First World Revisions: Wayang only, and as ancestral regression.
Fleshy Facade: Obviously made for villain investigators.
Full Pouch: It’s nice that the DC for your created item scales a bit, but alchemical items will ultimately fall flat in encounters.
Fungal Blisters: Weak damage that only happens if you get hit.
Grasping Vine: It’s a decent spell, and very versatile. But are you really playing a Vine Leshy?
Human Potential: More flexible than any of your stat-boosting extracts, but as an investigator, you don’t really need more flexibility.
Identifier’s Eye: Meh, you’ve got identify. That should be good enough.
Ignoble Form: Yeah, you’re not a Drow.
Imbue with Addiction: Ouch, that’s mean! Also impractical as a debuffing method.
Kalistocrat’s Nightmare: It’s really mean—an inverse Midas Touch—but you’re likely destroying your own loot.
Kinetic Reverberation: Again, destroying your own loot.
Languid Venom: Don’t poison.
Lead Anchor: I love how they casually toss in that lead anchor can be used to murder people. As an extract? Touch of the sea does all this and more.
Levitate: You’ll get fly soon. Hold out.
Minor Dream: Dream magic usually isn’t very powerful. Sorry, Desna.
Neutral Buoyancy: All these aquatic buoyancy spells! Nuisances, is what they are.
Nondetection, Lesser: I’m not saying it’s not effective, only that you’ll cover a tiny portion of the day at minutes/level. Full casters have enough resources that they can try again later.
Overstimulate: A quick trip to permadeath is what Ferocity will get you.
Perceive Cues: If you want Perception, use acute senses. If you want to figure out a particular person, use focused scrutiny. Perceive cues doesn’t do either as well as the specialists.
Protection from Arrows: Bullet shield is better—all arrows will eventually bypass your DR/Magic.
Protection from Spores: Super niche.
Quick Change: You won’t have the change shape special quality.
Scale Spikes: Nah, don’t use armor spikes.
Shadow Bomb Admixture: No bombs!
Shifted Steps: Why would you even need this?
Sickening Strikes: Use the Sickening Offensive talent and do this with no save!
Squeeze: Vishkanya only, and this rarely comes up.
Stabilize Pressure: Don’t get the bends!
Stalwart Resolve: With such a short duration, you can’t do much with stalwart resolve.
Sweat Poison: Grippli only. Don’t poison.
Touch Injection: Syringe spears will get you the skinsend combo without all this nonsense about Fortitude saves and SR.
Transmute Potion to Poison: Don’t poison.
Undeath Sense: Naaah. Just use detect undead.
Venomous Bite: You’re still not listening: don’t poison.
Channel Vigor: Do note that even though the spell is marked as Irori’s, Inner Sea Gods notes that these spells are only most commonly found among Irorans—they can be used by anyone. That being the case, channel vigor is incredibly, incredibly powerful, functioning as haste when you don’t need anything else and conferring super powerful benefits to a host of other skills and saves. Easily our top 3rd-level spell; it wouldn’t make a good alchemical allocation spell even if it were eligible, so brew it as an extract.
Amplify Elixir: Amplify elixir, in conjunction with alchemical allocation and the various elixirs or potions you can purchase, is horrifyingly effective at buffing you to the gills. Because none of the elixirs we want involve numerical randomness, we’re counting on Extending those effects, rather than Empowering them; I’m talking fast healing 5 for 2 full minutes on a trollblood elixir, rerolling every d20 and taking the better result on seishinru spirit elixirs, etc. Potions can easily be Empowered, but Extended is still probably the better call most of the time, especially if you’re using alchemical allocation to grab high-CL buffs like barkskin, greater magic fang, etc.
Assume Appearance: Whoooa. Assume appearance is any secret organization’s worst nightmare. Assuming you can Bluff reasonably well and have done your due diligence on the person’s mannerisms and character, this spell makes it trivially easy to infiltrate just about anywhere.
Burst of Speed: It would stink to burn a 3rd-level extract on burst of speed, but it’s the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card.
Clay Skin: It’s stoneskin, but without the expensive material component! DR/Adamantine will certainly make you tankier. Best of all, clay skin makes a totally legit alchemical allocation target without having to resort to “Oh, but I found a chained summoner who brewed me a potion of 3rd-level stoneskin!” cheese.
Cure Serious Wounds: Another seriously good alchemical allocation candidate for a CL 15 potion. Average of 28 HP for a 2nd-level spell; not bad. Do note that it doesn’t work particularly well in combat, though, due to the slow speed of alchemical allocation, so better off brewing extracts if you’re really worried about needing it in a pinch.
Displacement: A cornerstone of any caster’s defenses, displacement is better than any AC bonus—so long as your foe doesn’t have true seeing. Makes a great Eternal Potion.
Fiendish Wrath: It’s rage, but you can still cast spells and use skills that require patience or concentration! Mr. Hyde investigators using mutagens may well love this spell.
Fly: 100% necessary, 100% worth it. This rating should be self-explanatory. Good candidate for Eternal Potion, especially as investigators don’t get access to the Wings discovery like alchemists do.
Haste: Channel vigor beats haste in every way, especially for an investigator, who can’t select multiple targets with haste anyway. If you find and transcribe haste first, though, it’s still amazing, and it can be made permanent with Eternal Potion where channel vigor cannot.
Heroism: Long-lasting and powerful. A mainstay of combat casters, and one of the first high-CL potions you’ll pair with Extend Potion and alchemical allocation.
Infuse Self: A long-acting version of alter self that also comes with several upgrades as you segue into native outsider races. Lots to like here, not least of which is darkvision, Swim speeds, energy resistance, etc. on command. You can always use the Emergency Attunement feat to swap out your current form if something else becomes incredibly important. Unfortunately ineligible for alchemical allocation.
Paragon Surge: Many consider paragon surge to be one of the primary reasons for playing a half-elf. +2 Dexterity and Intelligence are good enough, but the feat is the real kicker. How’d you like to pick up a different investigator talent every day through Extra Investigator Talent? Maybe some more inspiration? Grab Spirit-Ridden for a bunch of ranks in a skill you don’t have? Paragon surge grants you enormous flexibility.
Resist Energy, Communal: As good as resist energy, and now for the whole team!
Selective Invisibility: It’s certainly not worse than invisibility, and I would argue that the secondary effect is worth the increased spell level. Nice to be able to drink this while you focus on a boss. Do note that the duration is rounds/level, however, so treat it like greater invisibility.
Absorb Toxicity: I would personally use this extract for the disease and poison immunity for 10 minutes/level, not the ability to transfer diseases or poisons to other creatures. Either way, it rates at least a green for the immunity, possibly more depending on your campaign. Unfortunately ineligible for alchemical allocation.
Adjustable Disguise: You’ll get a feeling for when the upgraded version is worth it over disguise self.
Arcane Sight: Great adventuring power.
Aura Sight: Both arcane sight and aura sight should be candidates for permanency once you can afford it. Aura sight does great work in intrigue settings, although of course it can be fooled by effects like undetectable alignment or misdirection.
Beast Shape I: Use this for scouting and exploring, not for combat.
Bloodhound: Surprisingly decent! Scent can act as a ramshackle see invisibility, and the bonuses to Perception, Survival, and poison detection aren’t bad, either. At hours per level, bloodhound does good work.
Claim Identity: Assume appearance is generally better, with a days/level duration, but claim identity doesn’t require the target to be dead. It’s worth considering.
Darkvision, Communal: If you have multiple humans on a team, sure.
Fey Form I: Similar to beast shape I. For scouting and exploration, not combat.
Hypercognition: Depending on how high you roll, hypercognition might be a huge boost to your Knowledge check, or not much of a boost at all. Grows weaker if you’re using investigative mind regularly.
Ja Noi Aspect: Fast healing and a free reroll on a Will save aren’t awe-inspiring, but they’re better than nothing. Think of it as a free cure serious wounds and saving finale, rolled into one.
Nauseating Trail: With no SR, the nauseated condition, and no immunity after a successful save, nauseating trail can be a pretty gnarly debuff if you have enough movement speed to lay it down quickly.
Nondetection: Keeps you safe from Divination magic, and a high-CL potion with alchemical allocation will get you round-the-clock protection pretty early.
Orchid’s Drop: Assuming you took the mutagen alchemist discovery, orchid’s drop will get you a +2 alchemical bonus to all your saves for hours at a time. The only issue is, you’ll pay quite the hefty fee for the material component. Best used when you know you’re going up against a really tough fight.
Penumbral Disguise: A huge, long-lasting buff to Stealth and Disguise. Perfect for scouting.
Protection from Energy: I’m rating protection from energy green because it’s a good spell, but the real power move is to buy an elixir of elemental protection, then use that over and over with alchemical allocation. You don’t have to pick the energy type, because the elixir does it for you; you get to expend a 2nd-level resource instead of a 3rd-level resource; and it may even work with resist energy, as it doesn’t have anything that specifies it “works as protection from energy” or text that explicitly rules out resist energy.
Resinous Skin: DR based on damage type is never overcome through higher enhancement bonuses, making resinous skin a cheap and long-lasting source of DR 5. Pay attention to the benefits involving getting weapons to stick to you, but ignore the rest. You won’t be using combat maneuvers.
Thorn Body: A better alternative to elemental aura that is unaffected by resistances, penetrates DR/Magic, and scales pretty hard with your caster level. Definitely a disincentive to attack an investigator.
Undead Anatomy I: There aren’t any abilities here you couldn’t get through alter self, but you never know when being undead will come in handy.
Absorbing Touch: It’s an alchemist/investigator-only extract, which makes me think that it should be great for us; there are certainly some uses, true, like sneaking nonmagical weapons into weaponless events, carrying sensitive documents to the right people, etc., but overall it’s pretty niche.
Age Resistance, Lesser: Age is a funny thing in Pathfinder. There aren’t that many ways to boost your mental stats beyond point buy, new attribute points that you gain as you level up, mental stat headbands, magical stat tomes...and getting older. The age resistance suite represents a pretty clear trade-off: in exchange for one of your daily extract slots (3rd, 4th, or 5th-level) you can get all the benefits of advancing age with none of the penalties. Being venerable, for example, can give you +3 Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, at the expense of -6 Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. If you can lose those penalties, that’s a huge deal.
Animal Aspect, Greater: I don’t think that any of the benefits in the second tier of animal aspect merit the higher-level spell slot. You can still gain many of these effects with 1st-level extracts.
Burrow: Novel movement modes are always worth taking note of, but burrow isn’t great at what it does, being both slow and risky.
Countless Eyes: Okay, gross. But also potentially worth it at hours/level.
Create Drug: Useful for bribes and the like.
Darkvault: You drink the spell, but it must be cast on an area? Not sure how that works. If darkvault travels with you, it would be a great way to take advantage of concealment, but it’s fairly useless if it won’t travel.
Delay Poison, Communal: As with delay poison, a situational benefit.
Dragon Turtle Shell: This spell will definitely negate some of the damage you would take, but generally speaking, it’s the static bonuses to damage that you have to watch out for as you progress, not the damage dice.
Elemental Aura: It’s a decent way to repel grapplers or monsters that enjoy swallowing PCs whole, but the damage is too weak to be used offensively.
Endure Elements, Communal: You’ll know if this spell is called for.
Free Swim: For aquatic adventures only.
Gaseous Form: Decent for scouting and passing through narrow cracks or keyholes; pretty useless everywhere else.
Guarding Knowledge: Not terrible, but you have much better, blanket save-boosters available.
Lead Plating: Protection from scrying and radiation, but a very short duration.
Remove Blindness / Deafness / Curse / Disease: Sometimes you might have to act as your own cleric in this capacity. These won’t be everyday extracts, but you positively must have them in your formula book.
Seek Thoughts: Could be useful as an intrigue device.
Spider Climb, Communal: Nearly everyone should be flying by this point.
Tongues: It’s unlikely with your Intelligence score that you’ll ever need more languages, but if you do, tongues is your one-minute solution to that problem. Of course, an Extend Potion version of tongues with alchemical allocation will make it essentially permanent as a 2nd-level extract.
Vomit Twin: The spell is goblin-only, which is why I’ve rated it low. It’s actually quite handy for getting out of tight melee scrapes.
Water Breathing: For underwater adventures.
Air Breathing: This isn’t meant for PCs.
Anchored Step: The benefit is good, but a 10-ft. movement speed won’t help anyone.
Barghest Feast: Way evil, and clearly meant to be a villain-only AP spell.
Battle Trance: No way you’ll convince me to sanction 4 points of Intelligence damage.
Blood Scent: Orcs make exceptionally bad investigators, so no surprises that their spells aren’t great, either.
Blood Sentinel: Blood sentinels can be solid touch spell delivery vehicles for wizards, but you don’t get touch spells.
Bouncing Bomb Admixture: No bombs.
Caustic Safeguard: Weak damage.
Disable Construct: Will save every round.
Draconic Reservoir: Just use protection from energy or resist energy.
Drain Poison: Don’t poison.
Eruptive Pustules: Fortitude negates. Just use Sickening Offensive instead.
Fire Trail: The most goblin-y of all goblin spells. But the damage is weak, so pass.
Glimpse the Hidden: The primary benefit is that you can pass glimpse the hidden to a teammate. But you could have done that with an Infusion of see invisibility, so…
Lightning Lash Bomb Admixture: No bombs.
Liquefy: Use absorbing touch instead.
Marionette Possession: Has to be used on a willing creature. Emphasis willing.
Monstrous Physique I: Better just to use alter self.
Phase Step: Extraordinarily short range makes phase step way worse than dimension door.
Prehensile Pilfer: There are some investigator talents that let you use dirty trick or steal maneuvers better, but on the whole, it’s not worth it. Also vanara-only.
Pressure Adaptation: I guess if you’re deep sea diving, sure.
Protection from Arrows, Communal: Every weapon will be magical at this point.
Protection from Natural Attacks: Most enemies with natural attacks have several that they can choose from. Moreover, the DR never scales. Pass.
Rage: Fiendish wrath gets you all the benefits with none of the drawbacks.
Rags to Riches: The bonuses to your armor and weapons are niche, and you’re likely to have plenty of insight bonuses for any check that would involve a skill kit.
Repugnant Taste: Better just to use Sickening Offensive and leave it at that.
Temporary Graft: You could have achieved this suite of abilities in a much easier way, and without toting around dismembered body parts.
Toxic Blood: Weak, and easily beaten by Fortitude saves or poison immunities.
Voluminous Vocabulary: Use tongues instead.
Waters of Lamashtu: Expensive, evil, and impractical.
Wing Thorns: Gathlains don’t make great investigators, and the spell isn’t great.
Echolocation: I hate to do two purple extracts per level, but believe me, echolocation is worth it. Investigators are incredibly dependent on opponents not having concealment: if you can’t pick out a vital spot visually, you might as well be playing a core rogue, for all the damage you’ll do. No studied combat and studied strike makes me weep sad tears. But blindsight 40 ft. for 10 minutes/level? Deeper darkness, displacement, mirror image, obscuring mist, blindness/deafness...it all becomes a bad dream you don’t have to remember anymore.
Freedom of Movement: You’re a ¾-BAB class with a poor CMD score and Fortitude save! You need freedom of movement for grapples, paralysis effects, and more. Do it for me, if for no one else. It’s a mainstay of Pathfinder for good reason.
Arcane Eye: Classic Divination spell for scouting. Full casters will have had this ability for quite some time, however.
Assume Appearance, Greater: For a relatively small increase in spell level, you get a big increase in efficacy. Appearance, voice, aura, days/level duration, all based on a picture? I’ll take that.
Caustic Blood: Surprisingly good on a melee investigator, but even better passed off as an infusion to your frontline fighter. This is a lot of damage for a class that typically isn’t great at dealing damage with their spells. And no SR, to boot!
Cure Critical Wounds: Again, don’t prepare cure critical wounds at the start of the day. It’s your free end-of-day healing if you have any slots left.
Fluid Form: DR/Type, +10-ft. reach, and a great Swim speed. Melee investigators will love fluid form for its offensive and defensive capabilities.
Greater Invisibility: Blindsight, tremorsense, constant see invisibility and true seeing, etc. are pitfalls to watch out for at this level; nevertheless, greater invisibility is great on both offense and defense. Any investigator would do well to learn it.
Restoration: Yep, always good to know, even if you don’t need it all the time.
Stoneskin: The material component costs aren’t great, but when you need it, you need it. If you’re looking for an alchemical allocation sherpa, clay skin is probably better for your purposes unless you miraculously find a 20th-level chained summoner with the Brew Potion feat (hint: no reasonable GM will let that happen).
Universal Formula: It’s fantastic unless you have Numerical Alchemy, in which case it’s not needed at all.
Beast Shape II: Beast shape II opens you up to Pounce, which is crucial for Strength-based melee investigators. Tiny animals are also good scouts.
Bit of Luck: Catfolk only, but excellent. You can either get a bunch of mini-boosts, or one big boost. Stacks with inspiration, too!
Enchantment Foil: I love enchantment foil, and at hours/level, it’s good enough to keep you safe from dominate person, suggestion, and charm person almost all day long. A good start-of-day extract.
Eyes of the Void: When you need to See In Darkness like Devils do, there’s eyes of the void. You can’t counter darkness tactics with daylight or similar spells, so you’ll have to respond with self-buffs. Echolocation is probably more versatile, though, if you had to pick one.
Fire Shield: I wouldn’t call it fantastic, but against enemies who deal heaps of fire or cold damage, fire shield is just the thing to pair with resist energy. The damage is likely to be...minimal.
Monstrous Physique II: Yeah, your special abilities are starting to get better. Keep this in your suite of polymorph effects.
Unbearable Brightness: Remember when I said you couldn’t counter deeper darkness? Turns out I was full of it. You can, with The Unbearable Brightness of Being.
Absorbing Inhalation: It’s cool, and might even be effective against casters, dragons, and other nasties. It’s sylph-only, though, so take that with a grain of salt.
Age Resistance: As lesser age resistance. You can get some cool mental attribute bonuses for very little investment.
Air Walk / Communal: There’s still a place for these spells, as they require no ranks in Fly and last much longer than the spell fly. They’re still not as good, though, and the increased extract “cost” can’t be ignored.
Blightburn Weapon: You can avoid the effects yourself with lead plating, but it’s still only so-so for a 4th-level extract.
Darkvision, Greater: In my mind, not worth the increased spell level. YMMV, though.
Death Ward: A great spell to whip up if you’re facing undead. Energy drain stinks, yo.
Duplicate Familiar: Some investigator archetypes get familiars.
Harvest Knowledge: Sure, this could have some uses when solving puzzles or interrogating prisoners.
Innocuous Shape: Innocuous shape isn’t bad, but I think greater assume appearance would generally work better, and at days/level duration instead of minutes/level.
Naga Form I: Good if you’re a nagaji. Ignore if you’re any other race.
Neutralize Poison: I would use delay poison until you can figure out what’s going on, then neutralize from there.
Persistent Vigor: Flat immunities are great, but remember that channel vigor can get you a +6 to your Fortitude save in your 3rd-level extracts.
Spell Immunity: If you succeed at a Knowledge check hard enough that your GM will answer the question, “What spells is this creature likely to cast on me?” you have my permission to use spell immunity. Otherwise? Too narrow.
Absorbing Barrier: All damage that matters will penetrate DR/Magic at this point, so there’s not much room for absorbing barrier.
Adjustable Polymorph: Nah. Either make do with adjustable disguise or alter self. We’re at 4th level here—extracts need to earn their place in the ranks.
Bleaching Resistance: Has the GM ever brought up the Bleaching for your gnome character? Thought not.
Concealed Breath: If it can’t protect you from clouds or gases, it’s not worth your spell slot.
Crimson Breath: Yeah, still don’t poison.
Deathless: Unless you have Diehard (and you likely won’t, as an investigator) deathless does nothing for you. Move on.
Decollate: Serious, serious consequences if your head is lost or destroyed. Pass.
Detonate: Weak damage. Even caustic blood does better, and many believe that that spell isn’t even that good.
Discern Lies: I’m used to the inquisitor, who gets this for free. Nah, not as a 4th-level extract. You should have all the tools you need to make amazing Sense Motive checks anyway.
Dissolution: Use absorbing touch if you really need this effect.
Dragon’s Breath: Weak blast.
Earth Glide: 5 feet/round pretty much nullifies any combat effectiveness earth glide might have had.
Elemental Body I: It’s too little, too late for elemental body I. All these effects are duplicable at lower spell levels.
False Life, Greater: Still bad.
Flash Forward: If your build would make charging a logical move for you, chances are also good that you’ll want to remain in melee.
Healing Warmth: Nah. Just use protection from energy if you love it so much.
Hobbling Bomb Admixture: No bombs.
Miasmatic Form: No, no, no. Not worth it.
Mutagenic Touch: Between the investigator’s inability to get advanced mutagen varieties and the relatively weak hit to mental scores, this isn’t even that good for magehunting.
Rubberskin: You still take the damage, so…
Rune of Ruin: Much like the sunder maneuver, you’re ruining your own gear.
Scale Spikes, Greater: Clearly meant for monsters.
Scorching Ash Form: Weak damage, weak save effect. Gaseous form and its imitators are never that great.
Tail Strike: Too weak for a 4th-level extract.
Tongues, Communal: Only one person needs to negotiate. And that person should be you.
Touch of Slime: Lots of disease immunities and strong Fortitude saves. Forget it.
Umbral Infusion: Meant for enemies.
Vermin Shape I: Vermin don’t bring anything new to the table.
Viper Bomb Admixture: No bombs.
Vitriolic Mist: Acid damage is less common, and you’re unlikely to deal acid damage to an acid damage-dealing creature. Just stick with resist energy.
Delayed Consumption: Delayed consumption is the alchemist and investigator’s answer to contingency. Greater invisibility, burst of speed, and freedom of movement are all good options for your delayed extract.
Defensive Grace: The rare investigator-only extract! Defensive grace only gets better as you add on effects like Amazing Inspiration or Tenacious Inspiration: dodge bonuses to AC stack, you’re immune to the tricks of rogues and slayers, and you can even negate a crit at need.
Dust Form: Unless someone has a ghost touch weapon, you’re getting a 50% or 100% reduction of incoming damage. I call that worth your while.
Overland Flight: Overland flight is one of those great QoL extracts that just makes your life easier. Can the rest of the party fly with you? Who cares? You’ll meet them at the campsite.
Resurgent Transformation: It might just save your life. If you’re feeling particularly frisky, you can pair resurgent transformation with a delayed consumption restoration, which will immediately heal the ability damage and exhausted condition. It’s an expensive get-out-of-jail-free card, but very much worth it when you’re going up against a boss.
Sending: Text someone anywhere in the multiverse! Sending is one of those extracts that you should absolutely learn, even if you don’t expect to need it every day.
Spell Resistance: Full casters usually have tricks like the Piercing Spell metamagic feat or the Spell Penetration feat for dealing with SR. For ⅔- and ½-casters, though, SR this good might be game over.
Stoneskin, Communal: When you need it, you really need it. Learn it and prepare it for boss fights.
Beast Shape III: The beast shape suite continues to be good for scouting and out-and-out combat scenarios in which you don’t use your weapon or formula book. Avoid the Magical Beast option.
Claim Identity, Greater: It’s a quick way to get rid of a body, if nothing else!
Fey Form II: As beast shape III. Still some great options here.
Magic Jar: Magic jar isn’t quite the power player for investigators that it is for full casters, primarily due to the lower save DC and higher effective resource cost. Possessing people is fun, but do remember that it is trivially easy for knowledgeable casters to kill you if they figure out what’s going on, either by running away with the magic jar itself, coup de gracing your helpless body, or dimension door-ing the possessed enemy away and killing it. Treat this spell with respect.
Monstrous Physique III: As beast shape III.
Undead Anatomy II: Still some cool features available here.
Age Resistance, Greater: Assuming you can spare one 5th-level extract per day, you can get +3 to all your mental stats at no cost.
Glimpse of Truth: One round won’t be enough to do much with in a combat scenario, but it can be useful if you want to confirm a suspicion about a polymorphed creature, illusion, etc.
Mask from Divination: Nondetection will probably be your go-to in order to avoid the expensive material component. Still, this is an effective defense.
Naga Form II: Naga are cool, but this is nagaji-only.
Nightmare: Surprisingly decent for harassing arcane casters, although they’ll probably be very happy to respond in kind.
Planar Adaptation: I mean, sure, use it if you travel to another plane.
Planetary Adaptation: ...and if you travel to another planet.
Transfiguring Touch: Your touched object has to be nonmagical and unattended, but beyond that, you’re free to get creative. This is one of those spells that rewards you the harder you think about using it.
Unerring Tracker: If you’ve ever wanted to follow the tracks of a flying creature, this is how it’s done.
Ancestral Memory: Your Knowledge checks should be more than capable of giving you this benefit without burning a 5th-level extract.
Contact Other Plane: Anything that exposes you to a reduction of your Intelligence score to 8, no matter how unlikely, is unacceptable for an investigator.
Dream: Nah, you’ve got sending at 5th level. Ignore.
Dream Reality: There might be some applications in intrigue games, but this is too finicky for my tastes.
Elemental Body II: Still way behind the pack, unfortunately. A Medium elemental at 13th level ain’t worth it.
Elude Time: You have way better panic buttons than elude time.
Grand Destiny: Competence bonuses are unfortunately common enough that grand destiny has a lot of better (and cheaper) competitors.
Half-Blood Extraction: Wooorthless.
Languid Bomb Admixture: No bombs.
Ooze Form I: Pitiful damage for this level, and the loss of all your abilities. Nah.
Plant Form I: As ooze form. You can’t be picking up these abilities at 13th level, guys.
Polymorph: Your other polymorph spells are more specific, true, but also far more powerful by this level. You should not be using a 5th-level extract to cast alter self, a 2nd-level spell.
Shapechanger’s Gift: As with polymorph, you should be using more powerful abilities to do this.
Swallow Poison: Don’t poison.
Transplant Visage: Nah, just use greater assume appearance.
Vermin Shape II: Doesn’t get you anything you don’t already have.
Legendary Proportions: You’ll need a pricey material component, but the benefit of legendary proportions over other similar transmutation spells (it’s not a polymorph spell, so it can actually stack with polymorph spells, although the attribute bonuses might not) is that legendary proportions features no hit to Dexterity and gives you considerable DR to anything less than a +4 weapon.
Heal: The best in healing technology. You want it.
Statue: Essentially DR 8/— for hours per level. I’ll take those odds.
True Seeing: An antidote to many of the most annoying spell effects and special abilities you’ll run into.
Walk Through Space: Solves your AoO problems for rounds/level.
Analyze Dweomer: Very much on-brand for the investigator! It’s particularly useful for discerning which buff spells your enemies are under so that you can better advise the team.
Borrowed Time: The Constitution damage is troubling, but then again, free swift actions are amazing. We’ll average it at a green.
Fey Form III: More special abilities, Diminutive- and Huge-sized forms, and more. Good stuff.
Giant Form I: At least a Giant can wield weapons, drink extracts, etc. A good combat form for Strength-based melee investigators.
Magnetic Field: You need metal in order to make this extract work, but when it does, a Reflex save will likely guarantee that enemies fail, being pulled toward you or dropping their weapons.
Mislead: By the time you get mislead, lots of enemies will have constant see invisibility or true seeing, which means that the greater invisibility portion of this extract might not work. Even if that’s the case, though, you’ve now created an illusory double that can’t be discerned unless an enemy interacts with it.
Twin Form: The short duration and lack of improvements to the action economy don’t do twin form any favors. Still, if you have a way to keep your twin safe (say, by parking it outside the door to the boss fight) you can functionally double your HP.
Undead Anatomy III: As good as fey form III.
Beast Shape IV: Size increases (or decreases) cap out for your Animal forms at beast shape III, and the Magical Beasts are still playing catch-up here. I’d say that you should look elsewhere (monstrous physique, undead anatomy, fey form, etc.) if you want cool special abilities.
Monstrous Physique IV: Not significantly improved over monstrous physique III. Is it worth the upgraded spell slot? Meh.
Naga Form III: Only for nagaji.
Neutralize Poison, Greater: By this level, your caster level should beat just about anything you run up against, making the base neutralize poison just as good.
Shadow Walk: A good traveling spell, but you also have overland flight.
Transformation: The enhancement bonuses to attributes and the natural armor bonuses to AC will be easily subsumed by magic items at this point. Between that and losing your ability to drink extracts, there’s really not much appealing about transformation.
Wind Walk: As shadow walk. Basically a souped-up overland flight.
Baleful Shadow Transmutation: You’d have to infuse it, then inject it into an unwilling creature. Then they’d have to fail two saves. No. Too much trouble.
Caging Bomb Admixture: No bombs.
Elemental Body III: Simply doesn’t scale fast enough to be worth your time.
Eyebite: [Emotion], [pain], Fortitude negates, SR applies...all for the sickened condition? You could have gotten that with Sickening Offensive eons ago, and with no save or SR.
Form of the Dragon / Exotic Dragon I: Nah, a Medium-sized Dragon just won’t do it. Full casters are toying around with Huge-sized Dragons at this point.
Ooze Shape II: Oozes are a bad choice for PCs. Nah.
Plague Bearer: Fortitude saves and SR make for a bad extract. This should really be a villain extract, not a PC extract.
Plant Shape II: As bad as ooze shape II.
Sonic Form: You’ve got dust form as a 5th-level extract. Use that instead. The touch attacks aren’t worth extra spell level.
Transmute Golem: You’re not likely to have Craft Construct.
Verminous Transformation: Nah, don’t waste a standard action each round on this. Enemies will pass the Fortitude saves and you’ll be left having dealt only 4d6 damage.
Elixirs are normally pretty expensive endeavors, costing anywhere from 150 gp on the low side to 5,500 gp on the high side. And you’re right, you wouldn’t want to be spending that kind of money on consumables. The bright silver lining is that you don’t have to spend money on those consumables! Or at least, once you’ve bought them, you don’t ever have to consume them. I want to draw your attention back to your 2nd-level extract casting, and the little purple gem at the top of the list called alchemical allocation. For the cost of one 2nd-level extract, alchemical allocation allows you to imbibe any elixir or potion, gain its effects at its normal caster level, but not expend the elixir or potion. Sure, potions at high caster levels and elixirs are expensive, but when you only have to buy them once and keep on reaping outsized rewards for using them, the “cost” very quickly becomes something you’d gladly pay, again and again.
Elixir of Countless Eyes (CL 5, 1200 gp): All-Around Vision and an initiative bonus for an hour. What more do you need?
Elixir of Darksight (CL 6, 1200 gp): You’ll have echolocation to deal with this kind of thing eventually, but until then, See In Darkness is a phenomenal ability for investigators to beat tactics that usually lock them out of their studied combat bonuses.
Elixir of Elemental Protection (CL 9, 1800 gp): It’ll eventually be outclassed by protection from energy, but this is a 2nd-level ability through alchemical allocation, whereas protection from energy is a 3rd-level extract, and you can’t use a potion of protection from energy without purchasing something specific to one element. This elixir simply gives you protection from the first element to hit you, which is way more flexible.
Elixir of Emulation (CL 9, 4000 gp): You’ll never need another ability to help you infiltrate enemy organizations. You’re using alter self with this polyjuice potion, so you don’t need to worry about pinging detect magic, and you can easily use honeytongue elixirs (with alchemical allocation, obviously) to beat any truth detection abilities the enemy might have handy.
Elixir of Hiding (CL 5, 250 gp): A fantastic alchemical allocation target that can make you as sneaky as you need to be for an hour. Wanna know what that costs as a constant ability on armor? 15,000 gp. And you’re going to get it as often as you need for 250 gp.
Elixir of Shadewalking (CL 11, 3500 gp): Hilariously good. Take the party up to 550 miles as a 2nd-level spell with alchemical allocation.
Elixir of Spirit Sight (CL 5, 1000 gp): Incorporeal fights are so, so frustrating to many Pathfinder players, but it’s only because they’re usually ill-equipped for them. With see invisibility, a ghost touch weapon, and ghost touch armor, they’ll be way, way less frustrating.
Elixir of the Thundering Voice (CL 5, 250 gp): Never fail an Intimidate check to demoralize ever again! Try this out on the Socialite build down in the builds section and see how she does.
Elixir of Vision (CL 2, 250 gp): A CL 16 potion of acute senses plus an elixir of vision, both subject to alchemical allocation, can grant you +40 to Perception checks pretty early in your career. No big deal.
Seishinru Spirit Elixir (CL 10, 5500 gp): The best-of-two mechanic improves every d20 roll you make by about 4 for an entire minute. Snuff this with alchemical allocation early in a combat, and you won’t be disappointed.
Spirit Rush (CL 13, 2400 gp): A phenomenal get-out-of-jail-free card, at least where death is concerned.
Elixir of Agility (CL 5, 450 gp): A little bit more speed, a little bit more Acrobatics, a little bit more initiative. It doesn’t excel at any one thing, but the initiative bonus alone is enough to make you pay attention.
Elixir of Oppression (CL 3, 600 gp): The morale bonuses to attack are what we’re really after here; you’ll have to use one of your polymorph extracts to get scent.
Elixir of Swimming (CL 2, 250 gp): You could keep this elixir around for times when you’re swimming in really rough waters, but with monkey fish, animal aspect, and alter self on your 2nd-level class list, you shouldn’t have any problem grabbing a swim speed as necessary.
Elixir of True Form (CL 8, 1600 gp): Remove curse is a 3rd-level investigator spell that requires a successful caster level check to remove curses; this just does it. It’s got gillman flavor (tastes like the sea, yum) but I don’t see any reasons why it wouldn’t work.
Elixir of Tumbling (CL 5, 250 gp): Plenty good when you know you’re going to be trying to maneuver around a lot of AoOs in a tight battlefield. Remember that Sapping Offensive also works for single targets with reach.
Honeytongue Elixir (CL 7, 750 gp): It’s good for lying your way out of tight spots, especially since potions of glibness aren’t available. (Spells with a range of personal can’t be turned into potions.)
Trollblood Elixir (CL 13, 4550 gp): It’s an expensive purchase, but far more effective at out-of-combat healing than other 2nd-level extracts like cure moderate wounds. And you even get a regeneration effect, too! Hopefully you won’t need it, but still...
Elixir of Amnesia (CL 5, 500 gp): Erase your own memories? I can’t think why you would, but there’s got to be some circumstance where it might come in handy. Trying to fool an enemy inquisitor, maybe?
Elixir of Dragon Breath (CL 7, 1400 gp): I’m normally not a fan of blasts, especially ones like this with easy-to-pass Reflex saves, but the versatility available to you through the various energy damage types is worth considering, at least.
Elixir of Forceful Exhalation (CL 3, 900 gp): Decent for foiling fogs and mists by casters, but other, cheaper extracts (Tumbling and Swimming) will deal with the other aspects of the item better.
Elixir of Luck (CL 7, 3600 gp): The 1/month limit, well, limits it, but it’s still a powerful benefit when you need it. Definitely not useful in short campaigns, one-shots, etc.
Elixir of Repression (CL 3, 150 gp): You’d have to make sure you weren’t missing out on any morale bonuses, but if you’re not, it’s a cheap bonus vs. mind-affecting effects.
Elixir of Sex Shift (CL 9, 2250 gp): An awesome elixir for exploring themes of gender identity and sexual identity at your local table. Probably niche, though.
Elixir of the Peaks (CL 7, 2450 gp): Some campaigns feature high-altitude mountaineering. It’s conceivable you could need this.
Ice Floe Elixir (CL 6, 2250 gp): Can probably be duplicated better by a CL 11 potion of resist energy, but the ability to meld into ice is cool.
Steelsheen Elixir (CL 6, 900 gp): Probably better off with a CL 12 potion of barkskin, but this is okay.
Swarmform Elixir (CL 11, 3300 gp): Wasp swarms are immune to weapon damage, so it’s possible for you to become a swarm, go harass martial enemies that have no way of hurting you, and escape if they show signs of being able to blast you with magic or alchemical items. Great for scouting, too, as you retain all your mental ability scores.
Wraith’s Sight Elixir (CL 9, 1500 gp): May be good in times when you would be blinded anyway (deeper darkness, blindness/deafness, etc.) but overall, you should wait for echolocation.
Bloodbrew Elixir (CL 3, 1000 gp): Not for you.
Blood of Baphomet (CL 9, 2250 gp): Nah, rage doesn’t get you much.
Chon-Chon Elixir (CL 11, 2750 gp): Nah.
Colossus Draft (CL 16, 28800 gp): Wicked expensive, the Will save penalty will get you killed, and the bonuses aren’t even that good.
Deathgag Elixir (CL 7, 1400 gp): Gross, and also no.
Elixir of Concordance (CL 7, 1100 gp): You’re not a caster, unfortunately, so you can’t benefit.
Elixir of Fire Breath (CL 11, 1100 gp): Weak damage. Not worth your money even with alchemical allocation.
Elixir of Last Will (CL 1, 150 gp): Functions only as you’re about to die, and the bonus is small. Pass.
Elixir of Love (CL 4, 150 gp): Not for you, no.
Elixir of Rancid Breath (CL 5, 1400 gp): Everything will pass this Fortitude save by now.
Elixir of the Infernal Familiar (CL 7, 1400 gp): Failing to see how this meaningfully improves on potions of beast shape.
Elixir of Truth (CL 5, 500 gp): Not made for alchemical allocation.
Elixir of Two Worlds (CL 15, 5000 gp): I wanna be where the people are...no, but seriously, Ariel, you can’t use this item with alchemical allocation. Pass.
Elixir of Vicious Magic (CL 7, 1750 gp): You can’t cast.
Fiery Maw Elixir (CL 5, 800 gp): Fun, but not very useful. You have better extracts even if you’re dealing with swarms.
Pliability Elixir (CL 5, 500 gp): Again, not for you.
Truefrost Elixir (CL 17, 1500 gp): You don’t deal cold damage through spells.
“The fool always leads with mirror image. Feh. Predictable.”
—Gavro Mevonwyn, Sleepless Detective
Much like the investigator’s parent classes, the rogue and alchemist, the investigator also gets feat-like abilities called talents beginning at 3rd level and continuing at every odd level thereafter. Talents are generally dedicated to improving your use of inspiration and skills (see Inspiration Enhancers), your combat efficacy from studied combat or studied strike (see Studied Combat Enhancers), miscellaneous other skill or extract casting buffs (see Miscellaneous Talents), or talents/discoveries that are ripped straight from the pages of the rogue and alchemist classes. In general, talents are very powerful, usually quite a bit more powerful than feats; any archetype that trades away a large number of investigator talents will be required to bring something truly special to the table, and failing that litmus test is a great way to suss out subpar archetypes. Always remember that the Extra Investigator Talent is available to help you ease the crunch—it’s a great option for double-digit levels when your immediate combat needs have been taken care of and you want to revisit some of the options from your base class. Alright! Let’s hit it!
Atheist Inspiration: Divine Defiance is already a good feat, granting you +2 vs. saves against divine spells or SLAs; Atheist Inspiration is even better, granting you (on average) +3.5 vs. those same rolls and qualifying you for skill buff feats like Divine Denouncer or primo magehunting feats like Focused Disbelief. Definitely up there if you want to capitalize on your already-strong Will save.
Expanded Inspiration: Expanded Inspiration could easily hit a blue rating just for the Perception buff; add useful social skills like Diplomacy and Sense Motive, and it does even better for itself. Heal and Profession will be the most niche uses of Expanded Inspiration, but can still do good work if you need to treat diseases, stabilize someone on the fly, make various Profession checks untrained, etc.
Device Talent: Wands of spells that aren’t on your class list are fair game after you can reliably hit a 20 on a Use Magic Device check. Even if you’re an Empiricist using your Intelligence modifier instead of Charisma on UMD checks, it can still be a long march to a 20. Device Talent makes that much, much easier, although investigator talents are limited enough that you might not be able to find room for it.
Underworld Inspiration: The skills included in Underworld Inspiration aren’t as universally useful as those in Expanded Inspiration. Still, Underworld Inspiration is a necessary adjunct to any build that attempts to be the world’s best skill monkey.
Inspired Alertness: Mostly present on your talent list to ensure that you don’t get splattered in surprise rounds. It’s okay; there are much more pressing priorities among your talents, however.
Inspired Intelligence: Base investigators can already add their inspiration dice to these skills—this talent is here for investigator archetypes that traded away that particular ability.
Inspired Intimidator: Investigators can be good at Intimidation with the Bruising Intellect trait, Underworld Inspiration talent, Pathfinder Unchained Intimidate Skill Unlock feat, and a few other helping hands. Inspired Intimidator only increases the duration of the shaken condition, however, which makes it worthless for escalating fear conditions. You shouldn’t trade a point of inspiration for one extra round of the shaken condition.
Unconventional Inspiration: Investigators can get free inspiration on Knowledges, Linguistics, and Spellcraft checks (Base, or Inspired Intelligence), on UMD checks (Device Talent), on Perception, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Heal, and Profession checks (Expanded Inspiration), and on Bluff, Disable Device, Disguise, Intimidate, and Sleight of Hand checks (Underworld Inspiration). That leaves Acrobatics, Appraise, Climb, Craft, Escape Artist, Fly, Handle Animal, Perform, Ride, Stealth, Survival, and Swim checks up for grabs from Unconventional Inspiration. The best argument I could make is for Acrobatics, Escape Artist, and Stealth, but even so, talents are precious resources; the juice isn’t worth the squeeze here.
Empathy: As a 2nd-level spell, detect thoughts quickly becomes trivially easy for targets with decent Will saves to resist. Empathy gives you the ability to scale the save DC with your investigator level, however, making your mental intrusions that much more difficult to shake off. Pair Empathy with Expanded Inspiration, and there should be no earthly reason why anyone pulls the wool over your eyes ever again. Empathy is a top-shelf ability for any intrigue or investigation scenario.
Inspirational Expertise: Inspirational Expertise has several notable flaws, including limited range, short duration, susceptibility to the deafened condition, and poor control over when the ability can be activated. Nevertheless, +4 is a large bonus, easily capable of decimating an enemy boss if your team is properly positioned for sneak attacks, full-attack actions, alchemist bomb fusillades, etc.
Amazing Inspiration: If you’re like me, you get unreasonably excited by effects that increase your die size, without pausing to consider how the mathematical averages shake out. Amazing Inspiration is effectively a +1 to any check that you use inspiration on. That could be an excellent effect, if you’ve invested heavily in Expanded or Underworld Inspiration, Combat Inspiration, etc., or an underwhelming effect if you stuck with what the base investigator was capable of. See my Sidebar: Tenacious Inspiration section for more info about Amazing Inspiration.
Combat Inspiration: If you ever intend to use inspiration during combat, there’s no reason to avoid Combat Inspiration. It doubles your inspiration economy; it paves the way for Greater Combat Inspiration, the worthiest of capstone talents; it makes your ¾-BAB chassis that much more effective in encounters. Take it, and especially take it with the inspired weapon enchantment for even more damage.
Eidetic Recollection: Knowledge checks can be the difference between life or death when identifying monster strengths or weaknesses in combat. Even without that utility, Knowledge checks often help players piece together in-game mysteries, advance the plot, and accomplish other useful narrative purposes. Eidetic Recollection is therefore extraordinarily useful for skill monkeys.
Sustained Inspirational Expertise: Inspirational Expertise is already only good—not great—so you can imagine that I’m not enthused about spending additional inspiration every turn for a steadily declining benefit. You might be able to get away with this talent if you’ve invested in some means of streamlining your inspiration use on other checks; if you haven’t done that, Sustained Inspirational Expertise is likely to suck you dry with few perceptible effects.
Tenacious Inspiration: See my Sidebar: Tenacious Inspiration section below for a complete, statistical discussion of the relative advantages of Amazing Inspiration, Tenacious Inspiration, or both. The tl;dr version is that Amazing Inspiration is okay, Tenacious Inspiration is better, but both talents together are best. My recommendation would be to take both or neither, but to take Tenacious Inspiration if you have to take one on its own.
Greater Combat Inspiration: A fitting capstone for investigators, who are perpetually looking for ways to apply their inspiration rolls to literally everything. Now inspiration on attack rolls is free! Pity you have to wait this long to get it.
Twilight Talon Improvisation: As a ¾-BAB class with no bonus feats, the Improved [Maneuver] feats are generally traps unless they’re given to you for free without the Combat Expertise prerequisite. Dirty trick is the most versatile of all the combat maneuvers, which is why I’m not rating it red, but there’s still something ironic about trying to blind someone as you let loose with what you hope will be an encounter-ending studied strike.
Didactic Strike: I think I’m safe in saying that Didactic Strike is garbage. The damage is all precision damage, so you can’t pass it off to a crit-fishing ally, unlike Butterfly Sting. It might be good in niche, niche cases where you can’t penetrate DR with your weapon, but an ally can, or if your accuracy is debuffed to the hilt, but an ally’s is not. These instances aren’t worth burning a talent on, though.
Timed Strike: Timed Strike ultimately falls very flat. First, most combats will last only a few rounds, limiting the bonus damage. Second, Timed Strike penalizes you if you’ve studied multiple targets sequentially. If you’re not focused on one target, you’re not stacking up the damage bonus. Third, you get only one chance at a studied strike, so even in the best-case scenario, you’ll get your bonus damage precisely once. Fourth, the damage is precision damage, so it’s not multiplied on a crit and is vulnerable to enemy immunities—although this is a limitation of studied strike generally, not Timed Strike specifically. Not worth it, in my estimation.
Quick Study: Quick Study is a peerless improvement to your use of the action economy, allowing you to study (swift action), move (move action), and strike (standard action). With very few exceptions, Quick Study should be your 5th-level talent.
Sapping Offensive: No save, no studied strike requirement, just flat AoO denial. Especially as time goes on and enemies’ threatened squares grow more and more numerous, Sapping Offensive becomes indispensable for ally positioning. By the time your level enters the double digits, Sapping Offensive is rocking and rolling pretty hard.
Domino Effect: Assuming you took Quick Study, Domino Effect is probably superfluous. Unlike Inquisitors or Warpriests, the swift action economy is pretty lax for investigators, which means you should have no trouble burning a swift action to switch to a new target after you perform your studied strike.
Numerical Strike: Not only do you have to threaten a critical hit on your studied strike (remember, that’s an opportunity you’ll get only once per target, if that) you have to confirm it, too! Numerical Strike is decent when you need to ensure that an enemy with low HP dies from your crit, but otherwise acts only as a gateway to the much-better Greater Numerical Strike. Obviously do everything you can to become a crit-fisher if you take Numerical Strike—a keen rapier or Improved Critical (Rapier) will give a 15-20/x2 threat range.
Sickening Offensive: As with Sapping Offensive, Sickening Offensive is notable for its lack of an opposed save and studied strike requirement. You deal damage to a studied combat target, they get the debuff. And sickened is nice, too! A flat -2 to all saves, skills, to-hit checks, damage rolls...great stuff for contributing to the team effort.
Slowing Strike: With a Fortitude save to negate, a weak effect that’s easily reversed, and the studied strike requirement, Slowing Strike languishes at the bottom of the barrel. Recommended under no circumstances.
Combat Inspiration: If you ever intend to use inspiration during combat, there’s no reason to avoid Combat Inspiration. It doubles your inspiration economy; it paves the way for Greater Combat Inspiration, the worthiest of capstone talents; it makes your ¾-BAB chassis that much more effective in encounters. Take it, and especially take it with the inspired weapon enchantment for even more damage.
Studied Defense: The option to improve your AC rather than to-hit chances is great to have. Use Studied Defense against weaker minions that you’re confident you’ll be able to hit without your bonuses; bosses will penetrate extra AC anyway, and you’ll need all the help you can get to hit them.
Toppling Strike: Trip is OP against humanoid creatures, but the issue with this combat maneuver has always been that you can’t guarantee that you’ll be fighting humanoid creatures. Probably bumps up to green if you also selected Unbalancing Trick, but only just. I still don’t like that all of the studied strike talents require you to burn your studied strike in order to use them.
Greater Numerical Strike: You need to both threaten and confirm your crit in order to use Greater Numerical Strike. If you can, however...hoo laddie, is it powerful. Maximizing weapon and studied strike damage makes for one powerful nova strike.
Prolonged Study: Even the dumbest investigator will probably have a +6 or +7 Intelligence modifier by their career’s end, which should be plenty of time to focus on one target. If your Intelligence is lower, or you fight a lot of protracted battles where your enemies are striking and disappearing, Prolonged Study might rate a blue.
Iconoclastic Strike: It’s nice that you don’t provoke on the sunder attempt, and nicer still that you always deal maximum damage. Divine casters (when they’re present) usually own multiple holy symbols or have figured out a way to turn their holy symbol into some part of their body or equipment, though. On balance, not worth it.
Repositioning Strike: Reposition is weak. You have ¾ BAB. You only get this effect once per target, and then only when you’re just about to kill them.
Stealing Strike: Same basic problems as the other [Maneuver] Strike talents.
Silencing Strike: Fortitude saves and the silenced condition make this ability fairly good for hunting casters, especially as you get a limited effect even on a successful save. One of the few Strike talents I would consider, although you’ll need to keep in mind that the Silent Spell metamagic feat nullifies this talent’s effects.
Deafening Strike: Deafened is a weak condition, and at this level, nearly any caster will be able to remove the effect even if you do manage a failed save.
Masterful Numerical Strike: If you came this far with the Numerical Strike line, Masterful Numerical Strike is a decent choice. It does compete with Eternal Potion, however, which should almost certainly be your 17th-level pick.
Blinding Strike: Blinded is a powerful condition in earlier levels, but not especially powerful at 17th level, when magical healing, blindsight, multiple eyes, and sky-high Fortitude saves run rampant. I can’t realistically give it more than a yellow.
Greater Combat Inspiration: A fitting capstone for investigators, who are perpetually looking for ways to apply their inspiration rolls to literally everything. Now inspiration on attack rolls is free! Pity you have to wait this long to get it.
Confusing Strike: Getting one round of confusion on a successful save is nice, but you have to remember that 90% of the stuff you fight at 19th level will be outright immune to this effect.
Effortless Aid: Builds focusing on the aid another action are a niche application of the Pathfinder rules, but can be astonishingly powerful in the right hands. If you’re a halfling or other aid another specialist, Effortless Aid is a great purchase for you.
Chronicler’s Insight: With Pathfinder Chronicles costing only 50 gp, Chronicler’s Insight gives you a good amount of versatility and power in exchange for its paltry monetary and inspiration cost. The Local and Nobility benefits outperform in social and intrigue scenarios, Engineering is great in dungeon crawls, and Arcana, Nature, Planes, Religion, and Dungeoneering can find a home in everyday combat situations, although it’s unfortunate that they mostly apply to studied strike, and not studied combat. Even History is good if you’re playing an investigator with a lower Intelligence score.
Eldritch Conduit: The ability is a little bit tough to envision, but it’s worth buying or crafting a high-level potion, wand, or scroll to keep on your person for the instances when you need to supercharge another spell-trigger item you found.
Numerical Alchemy: Assuming you leave some of your extracts unprepared at the start of the day, Numerical Alchemy can be a great ability to have for those fights where you have the perfect formula in your formula book.
Occult Dungeoneer: A great dungeon-crawling tool, especially early in your career, when you won’t be able to beat UMD checks reliably for wands.
Spell Storing: If you have an allied spellcaster who’s fine with buffing you, it’s nice to be able to decide when that buff begins.
Unbalancing Trick: One of the few ways that investigators should attempt combat maneuvers.
Applied Engineering: I love the flavor of Applied Engineering, especially since Strength checks are usually so difficult to beat. The idea of an investigator with 8 Strength smashing down an adamantine door with nothing more than his mind is...fun. Mechanically, however, these are niche effects that won’t be applicable all the time. I’m duty-bound to rate it yellow.
Castling: Castling is one of those abilities that looks unassuming on its surface, but has major implications. If you’re playing a Small-sized ranged character who can scurry through a battlefield to position friends between himself and the big-bad, you’ll be getting some pretty excellent benefits here. Toss in the Fortified Position talent and Knowledge (Geography) benefit of Chronicler’s Insight, and you’ve got a wombo combo building up. Don’t forget that enemies can’t take AoOs against creatures with cover; Castling can be used as a janky Escape Route in a pinch.
False Spellcaster: It’s an interesting ability if you’re looking to fake being an arcane or divine spellcaster; just hold a holy symbol or arcane-looking book and chant mumbo-jumbo incantations. If you have the Infusion talent, the talent’s worth goes up considerably, as you no longer need something like an injection spear to put extracts into enemies, and no longer need to waste time with drinking to put extracts into friends.
Favored Beat: Vigilantes can very easily burn their entire complement of talents on Renown and its older cousins. Some of the talents available to you are decent, but without a Vigilante identity, you can’t leverage most of the benefits of Renown. I’d skip it in most instances.
Fortified Position: Soft cover doesn’t provide any bonus to Reflex saves, so Fortified Position is only useful in circumstances where you’re partially or fully sheltered behind a solid object. This talent can, however, be excellent for ranged investigators who took the Castling talent. Now every bit of soft cover is normal cover!
Just a Face in the Crowd: If you’re playing Hell’s Rebels, War for the Crown, Council of Thieves, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and other city-based campaigns, sure. Everywhere else, you’re unlikely to see benefit.
Perceptive Tracking: Perception is certainly way better than Survival, at least in non-wilderness games. Even so, following tracks is a niche activity.
The Whole Time: Invisibility and greater invisibility are already on your spell list, so the only real benefit is gaining access to vanish (not a bad idea) and being able to sheathe your weapon as a free action.
Anathema: Poison in Pathfinder is bad. Unless you’re playing with Spheres of Might and using the Alchemy sphere, you shouldn’t use Anathema.
Extra Earthcraft: This would only be important if you were multiclassing with an earthshadow rogue.
Greater Anathema: As Anathema. Trade away your poisons, for the love of Groetus.
Hidden Agendas: This is a worthy talent for any GM to challenge their PCs with, but only narrowly applicable for PC investigators.
One of Those Faces: You have disguise self on your class list. This shouldn’t be an issue.
Scrying Familiarity: Another talent that’s of more use to GMs as they try to hide their evil investigator’s activities from a PC wizard.
Lingering Venom: Don’t poison. Drop it. Drop it.
Item Lore: It’s cool, but not especially necessary.
Eidetic Recollection: Knowledge checks can be the difference between life or death when identifying monster strengths or weaknesses in combat. Even without that utility, Knowledge checks often help players piece together in-game mysteries, advance the plot, and accomplish other useful narrative purposes. Eidetic Recollection is therefore extraordinarily useful for skill monkeys.
Greater Numerical Alchemy: Even if Greater Numerical Alchemy doesn’t significantly improve on what Numerical Alchemy brings to the table, it’s still quite good. Never again will you need to go without the perfect extract!
Extend Potion: Free Extend Spell on a bunch of potions per day! Used with high-CL potions, alchemical allocation, and amplify elixir, you can easily get buffs that last all day: I’m talking barkskin, greater magic fang, heroism, the like. With Extend Potion, amplify elixir, and a CL 20 potion that lasts 10 minutes/level, you’ll get 5 hours of buffing for the cost of one 2nd- and one 3rd-level spell. Spells that last hours/level can simply be Extended to last all day. As if this weren’t enough, Extend Potion opens the door to Eternal Potion, which is your 17th-level investigator talent, no questions asked.
Enhance Potion: Enhance Potion causes potions to behave more or less like extracts, which are automatically heightened to your caster level. This allows you to craft weaker 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-level potions at their lowest possible caster level, then boost them as you drink them. Improving the caster level of these items is critical for effects that rely on opposed caster level checks (remove disease, remove curse, neutralize poison, etc.) and for effects that get better as CL increases (cure spells, resist energy, protection from energy, greater magic fang, etc.). And because you can also use these enhanced potions with alchemical allocation, you can look forward to enhancing ‘em all day, every day.
Infusion: Although I’m rating Infusion blue, it’s essentially a talent tax in order to be able to use your extracts on allies. That stinks. Some points to remember: first, recall that the spell slot you used to create the extract remains filled until the person you gave your infusion to uses it. At the worst, it’s possible for enemies to steal your infusions, locking you out of casting until you recover them. I’m not saying that scenario is likely, only that the rules make it possible. Second, this discovery enables you to use extracts on enemies with a syringe spear or similar piece of equipment. The classic combo is skinsend with a syringe spear, which separates a foe from its body with no save; you then coup de grace the helpless corpse.
Mutagen: Why are there so many good alchemist discoveries!? Mutagen is particularly potent for Dexterity-based investigators, who won’t mind a dip in Wisdom as much as Strength-based investigators will mind a dip in Intelligence. Mutagen has always been great, and will always be great.
Concentrate Poison: Don’t use poison. It’s a one-way ticket to heartache.
Poison Conversion: No poisons, remember?
Combine Extracts: Sweet Christmas, Combine Extracts is good. Sure, you’re using up a higher-level resource, but you also get to double your action economy, which can be crucial in a surprise round. Think about common pairings that you might need (enlarge person + long arm, tears to wine + heightened awareness, focused scrutiny + acute senses, shield + reduce person, invisibility + cure moderate wounds, etc.) for allies or specific scenarios, then write them down on notecards to remind yourself what you needed them for.
Dilution: I’ll assume that many investigators will take the Brew Potion feat in order to use all of the excellent alchemist discoveries available to them. If you do that, Dilution creates 2x the potions for only .75x their market value. Quite nice!
Eternal Potion: Holy cow. Eternal Potion makes one buff effect permanent on you. Permanent displacement? How about fly? Good hope? Haste? Heroism? Eternal Potion can give you some ridiculously good buffs, and if you drink it with Enhance Potion, there’s a good chance that even dispel magic won’t be able to strip them off you.
Elixir of Life: Investigators certainly have no other means of casting true resurrection, so Elixir of Life is a very good purchase if you have no allied alchemist or divine caster.
Rogue talents are, by and large, bad. The core rogue as a class is, by and large, bad. It won’t be surprising, therefore, that there aren’t many mechanically decent abilities to be found on the list. Take a look at the green talents, and let the rest go. They’re not worth it when you have so many amazing alchemist discoveries and investigator talents to choose from.
Charmer: I like that you eventually gain the ability to use this talent more than once per day. You’ll like it if you’re the party face.
Fast Stealth: Sure! Moving at half speed while using Stealth can be a bit of a pain, especially if you’re trying to do it in the middle of a combat.
Got Your Back: Again, a good one for aid another builds. Get into flanking, then pass all these benefits to an ally.
Iron Guts: Investigators have poor Fortitude saves. You could certainly do worse than give yourself a hefty buff against effects that will sicken, nauseate, or poison you.
Peerless Maneuver: Sapping Offensive is a much better choice if you’re looking to avoid AoOs, but I suppose Peerless Maneuver is available if you have to jump like Jordan for a round.
Resiliency: It’s best to drop and pretend to be unconscious, even if these temporary hit points keep you from dying.
Terrain Mastery: Even without scaling benefits, getting a favored terrain can be quite strong if you tend to stay in one biome.
Trap Spotter: Especially useful in dungeon crawls, when you don’t want to spend a bunch of time checking every square for a trap.
Wall Scramble: Investigators aren’t likely to have invested very highly in Strength, and Climb isn’t one of the skills you can add inspiration to, barring Unconventional Inspiration. Wall Scramble therefore represents a decent way to escape from pits and other nasty falls.
Acrobatic Assist: You could do worse than Acrobatic Assist—and many rogue talents will. Builds focusing on Effortless Aid and the aid another action will be able to put it to good use here. Much easier to take Sapping Offensive and deny any AoOs, though.
Black Market Connections: I mean, maybe, maybe your GM plays using Pathfinder’s rules for determining which magical items are for sale in a given location. I haven’t run across many GMs who can be bothered.
Canny Observer: A straight bonus to a decent chunk of Perception checks. Especially useful if you’re the designated trap spotter.
Convincing Lie: Even though Convincing Lie is niche enough that I don’t think it would find a home in any but the most intrigue-heavy campaigns, it’s still a heck of a lot of fun. Incept people, start rumors that spread like wildfire through a town, have someone use modify memory and then Bluff your way into a convincing alibi...lots of possibilities, even though most of them aren’t directly useful in combat.
Expert Leaper: Sure, why not? I still wouldn’t prioritize this ability over just about anything else, but it’s not a trap option.
Grit: Steel hounds will want this boi.
Honeyed Words: Bluff checks are typically very, very important. I still wouldn’t call this ability great with limited uses per day, but it’s okay at what it does.
Stand Up: Getting knocked prone stinks, and Stand Up fixes that pretty well. Still, I don’t think this would come up enough to rate more than yellow.
Assault Leader: Once per day. Pass. (Weak, 1/day powers will be a running theme with rogue talents, so get ready.)
Camouflage: Once per day, and only in limited terrains.
Coax Information: Coax Information doesn’t affect Intimidate checks made to demoralize a foe. Anyway, Bruising Intellect + Underworld Inspiration will do a much better job at this goal than Coax Information.
Combat Swipe: Unlike Unbalancing Trick, Combat Swipe does nothing to alleviate the prerequisites for Greater Steal or Quick Steal.
Cunning Trigger: Traps aren’t effective in core Pathfinder. You want effective traps, play with Spheres of Might.
Deft Palm: It’s likely that most investigators will be playing with rapiers, sword canes, or the like. Hard to conceal those, as they’re not light weapons.
Demand Attention: You don’t have the sneak attack class feature, so it’s hard to say why Paizo thought this would affect an investigator at all.
Fast Fingers: Sleight of Hand is super niche. Pass.
Fast Getaway: No sneak attack, remember?
Fast Picks: When are you ever under this kind of time pressure to open a door?
Firearm Training: Only steel hounds should be using firearms, and they get proficiency innately.
Guileful Polyglot: You should never be short on languages known, and anyway, tongues is on your class list.
Hard to Fool: The Empathy investigator talent so ridiculously outclasses Hard to Fool that it’s not even funny.
Hold Breath: God, the core rogue really is the worst. No, you don’t want to spend a talent on being able to hold your breath for two more rounds.
Ledge Walker: Sooo niche. No.
Major Magic: Investigators are already casters, after a fashion, so the Minor/Major Magic talents are worth much less for them than they would be for rogues. I might give my blessing to take these two talents if your GM allows you to take the unchained rogue’s versions of these two talents, which are much better.
Minor Magic: As Major Magic.
Nimble Climber: Catfolk don’t make great investigators, and this would be niche even if they did.
Quick Disable: Again, when have you ever needed to use Disable Device under time pressure?
Quick Disguise: Want to guess what can achieve these effects as a standard action? That’s right, disguise self, the 1st-level extract you have on your class list.
Quick Trapsmith: Core Pathfinder traps are just bad. Avoid.
Rogue Crawl: Just get up!
Rope Master: This won’t come up often enough to ever be worth it.
Strong Stroke: You have monkey fish and touch of the sea on your 1st-level extract list. Nah.
In most investigator guides that I’ve read, veteran players tend to dump on Amazing Inspiration, pointing out (rightly) that it only adds an average of +1 to any check on which you use inspiration. What these debates tend to ignore, however, is that Tenacious Inspiration (which is typically rated much higher) isn’t all that much better, at least in isolation. I’ve taken the liberty of crunching the math underlying this problem on AnyDice.com. (AnyDice is amazing, by the way, and has helped me out with many Pathfinder questions. Kudos to Jasper Flick for creating this great resource.) In order, the rolls are 1) Base Inspiration, 2) Base Inspiration with Tenacious Inspiration, 3) Amazing Inspiration, and 4) Amazing Inspiration with Tenacious Inspiration. I’d like to highlight a few things.
First, while Amazing Inspiration can increase your average inspiration rolls in a linear fashion (1d6 has an average of 3.5, 1d8 has an average of 4.5, 1d10 has an average of 5.5, etc.) Tenacious Inspiration increases your average roll more the higher your die size goes. The “best of two” mechanic on 2d6 results in an increase of only .97, whereas “best of two” on 2d8 increases your average result by 1.31. Once you get into 2d10—possible only with the Focused Inspiration feat—you get an increase of 1.65. In research, this is known as an interaction effect, where we see differential effects on a dependent variable (in this case, our die roll) depending on which combination of two independent variables was present. Tenacious Inspiration has an outsized effect in the Amazing Inspiration + Tenacious Inspiration match-up than it does in the Inspiration + Tenacious Inspiration match-up. This interaction effect is something that’s readily visible if you look at the graph of this effect—the slope of Amazing Inspiration + Tenacious Inspiration is higher than Inspiration + Tenacious Inspiration. This being the case, it’s fairly easy for me to recommend that you 1) take neither Amazing Inspiration nor Tenacious Inspiration, or 2) take both Amazing Inspiration and Tenacious Inspiration. Taken singly, neither Amazing Inspiration nor Tenacious Inspiration does much more than raise your average roll by 1; combine them, however, and the effects aren’t additive, they’re multiplicative—you get a 2.31-point bump.
If you have to take one and not the other, though, the mathematically “correct” answer to take Tenacious Inspiration. Why? Well, it has to do with the standard deviations of this probability array. For those of you who haven’t yet had the great good fortune to take a statistics class (/sarcasm) standard deviation is a measure of how dispersed data are. Think of it like a shotgun blast of data: if your standard deviation is large, you’ll spray pellets all over the side of a barn; if your standard deviation is small, you’ll be able to put those pellets into a 1-foot spread instead. Amazing Inspiration and Tenacious Inspiration each increase your mean (i.e., average) roll by about 1 point to 4.5. Tenacious Inspiration has the added effect, however, of decreasing the standard deviation of the array, meaning that you’ll see your rolls clustering more reliably around that 4.5 mark, rather than seeing them spray randomly between 1 and 8 with Amazing Inspiration.
Investigators are perpetually crunched for feats! There’s combat efficacy to consider, and skill buffs, and more instances of Extra Inspiration or Extra Investigator Talent...it can all feel a little overwhelming at times. When building an investigator, just remember the old acronym KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. We’re not fighters, we’re not brawlers; we’re a ¾-BAB striking class that has to use what it’s got as intelligently as if the player had the same Intelligence score as the player’s character. I’ve tried to break combat functions up into the three broad categories that investigators will pursue (Melee Strength, Melee Dexterity, and Ranged Dexterity) and place other feats in their respective categories. Enjoy!
Barroom Brawler: Even 1/day, martial flexibility is a powerful ability. Darkness that you can’t fix? Blind-Fight. Pinned down by AoOs? Mobility. Big ugly monster? Big Game Hunter. You can’t progress all the way up feat trees like brawlers can, but it’s enough.
Improved Initiative: “Those who go first, go last” should be Pathfinder’s unofficial motto. As traditionally Dexterity-based combatants, investigators have to be particularly militant about avoiding the flat-footed condition. You really do want to go first in order to extract up.
Lunge: The hit to AC is a little hard to swallow on a class that already has some difficulties with defenses, but there’s no substitute for reach when you need it. Less necessary if you’re investing heavily in long arm.
Nature Soul + Animal Ally + Boon Companion: Three feats is a steep, steep price to pay, but the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is your very own animal companion, scaled fully with your level! “Beary, stay.”
Big Game Hunter: Large and larger creatures make up a large proportion of later CR tranches. You could do worse than to pick this ability up at 11th level or so.
Blind-Fight: Especially if you’re human or another race that lacks darkvision, you may wish to pick up Blind-Fight. Concealment comes up more often than players think it will, and it’s a huge boon to be able to reroll your miss chances like this.
Combat Reflexes: With long arm and enlarge person on your class list, most investigators have the potential to set up an “oh no no zone” where extended reach combines with AoOs to stop enemies from moving around effectively. Combat Reflexes is a necessary element in that playstyle.
Death from Above: Something of an unusual feat choice, but hear me out: you’ve got fly on your list, and any number of your polymorph extracts allow you to fly. And +5 is a huge bonus to hit. Huge. I wouldn’t make it my 1st-level feat choice, but at 11th, 13th, 15th? Maybe then.
Dirty Fighting: To be clear: I’m not advocating that investigators use combat maneuvers. But if you were going to use combat maneuvers through the relevant investigator talents, Dirty Fighting would be the correct way to clear away prerequisites for you to advance to the Improved and Greater [Maneuver] feats.
Ghostslayer: Incorporeal creatures, like oozes or swarms, are one of those encounter types that all Pathfinder players must have some means (however rudimentary) of dealing with. If you’re not willing to shell out for a ghost touch weapon or ghost salt weapon blanches, Ghostslayer does a good job of prepping you for those encounters.
Great Fortitude: Your Fortitude save is generally poor. Not bad if you feel your defenses flagging a bit!
Improved Critical: With rapiers on your proficiency list, there’s a good chance that you’ll want to do some crit-fishing in your spare time. At BAB +8, Improved Critical isn’t the greatest tool for getting that done—you may turn to the keen weapon enchantment before considering this feat—but it’s still worthwhile. Remember that you’ll be crit-fishing less for your own damage output and more for enchantments (sapping, flaming burst, etc.) that grant better effects on a crit or niche playstyles like Butterfly Sting that let you “use” crits without resolving them yourself. You can’t take your studied combat damage with ya, folks.
Mobility: Investigators are meant to be pretty mobile, so this wouldn’t be a bad investment.
Open Conduit: Conduit feats are among the more powerful feats in Pathfinder, and I’ve reviewed a number of them here. Open Conduit is a great way to use those feats more often.
Scale and Skin: Investigators can expect to be under the effects of a transmutation spell much of the time, hence Scale and Skin is a pretty easy route to a +1 or +2 natural armor AC that will stack with your amulet.
Toughness: More HP. Worth considering if your race features a hit to Constitution and you plan to spend any time in melee range.
Weapon Versatility: Sad about the Weapon Focus requirement, but otherwise a fantastic feat for penetrating DR/Type.
Combat Expertise: Combat Expertise isn’t actually the worst feat in the world on an investigator, who will generally have more offense available through studied combat and their various extracts than defense. Combat Expertise can make you a little safer as a lightly armored striker class. It’s also horrendously common as a prerequisite—not for feats that you’re likely to take, granted, but a prerequisite nevertheless.
Defensive Combat Training: As a ¾-BAB class that’s expected to function primarily in melee range, CMD will always be a going concern: one grapple, one trip, one bull rush gone wrong, and you might find yourself in a very sticky situation. Defensive Combat Training doesn’t entirely solve that problem, but it’s better than nothing if your GM is maneuver-happy or you’re playing with a system like Spheres of Might.
Divine Fighting Technique (Cayden Cailean’s Blade and Tankard) + Two-Weapon Fighting: I would normally never recommend TWF to investigators, but Cayden’s DFT is interesting because it allows you to fill up your tankard with potions or extracts that can then be consumed as part of a full-attack action. The prerequisites—especially for the advanced boon—are steep, but possibly worth it if you’re really looking to maximize your use of the action economy.
Divine Fighting Technique (Urgathoa’s Hunger): Only Gravediggers are proficient with scythes, but holy cow, what a power! Especially if you’re rocking a keen scythe and confirm your critical hit, you can easily rack up 60-75 temporary HP with this feat.
Dodge: A minor buff to AC, but not nothing.
Improved / Greater [Manuver]: Thanks to studied combat—and studied combat alone—investigators don’t do too badly at combat maneuvers, although Dexterity-based investigators will need to pick up the Agile Maneuvers feat to add their Dexterity to CMB. On the whole, though, combat maneuvers are a small corner of martial combat, only circumstantially useful, and highly reliant on feat investment. They’re not quite a trap for the class, but they’re certainly not what I would recommend pursuing with all your might.
Quick Draw: Nearly no one has space for this feat, but it’s a nice improvement to the action economy.
Vital Strike / Improved VS / Greater VS / Devastating Strike: Studied combat is the real deciding factor in figuring out whether any particular combat style is worthwhile for an investigator. Being proficient with primarily light, simple weapons means your damage dice will always be rather small; that makes Vital Strike a poor choice. Getting primarily precision damage from studied combat makes your crits rather unimpressive; that makes crit-fishing a poor choice. These can be phenomenal feats, but work best on other classes.
Shikigami Style / Mimicry / Manipulation: Only for gravediggers going for improvised weapon builds, but it’s amazing in that context.
Soulblade: Interesting feat for haunt-heavy games.
Arcane Strike: Most unfortunately, even though investigators are “spellcasters” after a fashion, they don’t count as arcane casters for the purposes of qualifying for Arcane Strike. Too bad, too, because it’s a great feat for certain builds.
Combat Casting: There’s no such thing as “drinking defensively,” so Combat Casting and other abilities that improve your concentration checks are worthless to an investigator. You either find a way to get out of range, or you take the AoO.
Cunning Killer: Cunning Killer would be quite a good feat for investigators, but both your studied combat class feature and Cunning Killer are insight bonuses, and insight bonuses don’t stack.
Step Up / Following Step / Step Up and Strike: I’ve grown to love Step Up and Following Step more and more as I play more Pathfinder. Spellcasters and ranged combatants will go to great lengths to avoid needing to take AoOs or cast defensively, but Step Up makes it way, way harder to do any of that. Whenever I want to boost the CR of an encounter by 1 or so, I give a few of the combatants Step Up. Elegant, simple, and deadly.
Arcane Vendetta: +2 damage isn’t the best bonus in the world, but investigators should be using Spellcraft to identify literally every spell an enemy ever casts, so there’s no opportunity cost to picking up Arcane Vendetta. Too bad it doesn’t work on SLAs, though.
Divine Defiance: A straight +2 to all saves against divine spells, divine SLAs, and spells or SLAs cast by outsiders with affinities toward a certain deity is amazing. Atheist Inspiration is also available to do the same thing, but with an action cost. Your call, buckaroo.
Eagle’s Resolve: A fun bonus to [mind-affecting] saves and to improve your offensive capabilities against casters.
Focused Disbelief: SR is one more layer of defenses when you’re hunting down clerics, inquisitors, warpriests, etc. Good stuff.
Armor Proficiency, Medium: Strength-based melee investigators won’t want to have to split their point buy between Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Intelligence. Even though I’m loath to recommend yet another feat, Strength-based melee investigators will have the most feats to burn, so they may wish to consider dropping their Dexterity and picking up Medium Armor Proficiency at 1st level, then Power Attack at 3rd.
Chaos Reigns: The absolute simplest way I know of to get an extra natural attack that benefits from studied combat and Strength bonuses. I’m genuinely uncertain about whether this attack can be taken as part of a full-attack action with a two-handed weapon. My understanding was always that removing a hand from a weapon was a free action, hence that was possible, but I’ve since heard that any appendage used as part of a full-attack action (both hands, in this case) can’t be used to make further attacks. So: bites are fine, gores are fine, wings or tail slaps are fine—hand slams, potentially not fine. Talk with your GM, and skip this feat if they rule for the second interpretation.
Power Attack: A classic for all Strength-based melee classes. Between a mutagen and studied combat, you should have more than enough bonuses to make this work for you.
Furious Focus: I think there’s an argument to be made that Furious Focus is really designed for ¾-BAB classes. After all, you don’t get as many iterative attacks, so Furious Focus boosts a higher percentage of your attacks, and your ¾ BAB progression makes you less likely to land a hit, even attacking at your highest BAB. I wouldn’t call this feat your first priority, but it’s nice to have.
Eldritch Claws: Potentially useful for a polymorph build that relies heavily on natural attacks gained in their assumed form.
Butterfly’s Sting: I have no idea why Combat Expertise is a prerequisite for this feat—blech—but it is. Anyway, if you’re worshipping Desna and wielding a keen rapier or something similar, there’s no excuse not to have Butterfly’s Sting. Very little of your damage will transfer over to a crit, so why not let someone else have it? If it’s a x3 or x4 crit, even better.
Weapon Finesse / Dervish Dance / Bladed Brush / Slashing Grace / Starry Grace / Fencing Grace: If you want my opinion, Pathfinder has way too many feats that deal with Dexterity-to-attack and Dexterity-to-damage. Barring any dips, by far the most common path to the Dexterity-based melee playstyle is Weapon Finesse + Weapon Focus + Fencing Grace with a rapier. You’ll take one level of inspired blade swashbuckler and be golden.
Possessed Hand: What a weird choice, right? But the mechanics are solid for investigators: bonuses to attack and damage, a few skill bonuses, and best of all, the penalty doesn’t even apply to your brand of casting. You’ll also want to consider Hand’s Autonomy and Hand’s Sight, which are two great upgrades to this feat path.
Piranha Strike: Fun fact: rapiers aren’t light weapons, so you can’t actually use Piranha Strike with them by default. Unless you use effortless lace or something similar to be able to treat rapiers as light weapons, you won’t be able to use Piranha Strike on a boilerplate Dexvestigator.
Agile Maneuvers: Don’t bother with maneuvers if you’re Dexterity-based. Too much risk for far too little reward.
Ranged Study: If you want to do a ranged investigator at all, you need Ranged Study. Period. Unfortunately, it also requires Weapon Focus (why all the ridiculous feat taxes?) so that’s a minimum of five feats (Weapon Focus, Ranged Study, PBS, Precise Shot, and Rapid Shot) to get going with a ranged build. Even more, if you’re using crossbows. Gah.
Deadly Aim: Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn’t recommend a feat like Deadly Aim to ¾-BAB classes. On a rogue, for example, it would be something of a trap—without attack bonuses, ¾-BAB classes don’t have the to-hit chances to manage accuracy-for-damage tradeoffs like this. Assuming you can get your studied combat going with Ranged Study, however, the investigator’s chances to hit are quite good; slap on bracers of archery and some buffing extracts, and Deadly Aim becomes as useful to you as it is to full-BAB characters. Prioritize must-have feats like Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and Rapid Shot first, but after that, feel free to get Deadly Aim.
Focused Shot: Now, granted, Focused Shot is incompatible with full-attack actions, but let’s be real: not every combat permits you to take full-attack after full-attack with zero interruptions. Sometimes you’ve got to stay mobile, whether to kite an enemy, get to a more defensible position, etc., and when that’s the case, you may as well add on a bunch of damage for free. There’s no official in-text ruling on whether this additional damage is precision damage, but because enemies who are immune to sneak attacks and crits are also immune to Focused Shot, my ruling would be that it is precision damage, hence not multiplied on a crit.
Improved Precise Shot: It’s a very late entry into the investigator’s arsenal, but a must-have. Enjoy it when you get it at 15th level.
Point-Blank Shot / Precise Shot / Rapid Shot: The three must-have feats for any archer. Studied combat (once you get it, that is) should make your Rapid Shot nice and accurate, especially with other buffs like reduce person.
Rapid Reload / Crossbow Mastery: If you’re using crossbows or firearms (as a steel hound) you’ll need Rapid Reload, and possibly Crossbow Mastery, to boot. Ranged combat in Pathfinder is full of feat taxes; that’s just the price you pay.
Auspicious Birth: Auspicious Birth isn’t as great for investigators as it is for some classes (I mean, how great is Conjunction for inquisitors, cavaliers, hunters, etc.?) but it still handles itself decently. Eclipse and Meteor Shower are the only two that I would recommend, and then only for ranged investigators—not that they’re likely to have any feats left to spare.
Bullseye Shot: When you need to hit, you need to hit. The extra accuracy can be worth the trade-off for your iterative attacks, especially against high-AC enemies.
Clustered Shots: With fewer iterative attacks than full-BAB classes, Clustered Shots isn’t as necessary as it is elsewhere for cutting through damage reduction. Still, you might consider it at 9th or 11th level.
Hammer the Gap: Good on any character, especially with Rapid Shot, but investigators have fewer iterative attacks than full-BAB classes to take advantage of this ability.
Snap Shot / Improved: Excellent feats for ranged characters, although you’ll likely want Point-Blank Master before you go here.
Manyshot: Ohhh, poor Manyshot. So great for slayers, rangers, fighters, etc., and so lackluster for ranged investigators. The issue here boils down to studied combat, as it always does. Studied combat is precision damage, and thus doesn’t multiply on your Manyshot. Lacking any great way to add multiplicable damage to your ranged attacks, Manyshot falls kinda flat. Still decent, but less effective than it can be.
Deific / Fey Obedience (Irori / Magdh): If you have space for only one skill monkey feat in your build, make it a Deific Obedience to one of these two gods. Magdh worship is a little more niche as one of the Eldest, but her Obedience benefit is insane—a +4 bonus to every Intelligence-based skill check! If you’re not feeling like worshiping a Fey deity, Irori is far more common in the Inner Sea, but grants a +4 bonus only to Knowledge checks. Both are excellent.
Additional Traits: Traits are even more important for investigators than for most characters, thanks to the bevy of traits that swap out your skill bonuses for Intelligence.
Breadth of Experience: A +2 bonus to all your Knowledge checks. What’s not to love for a skill monkey?
Divine Deception: The march to a DC 20 UMD check to use wands of spells that aren’t on your class list can be a long one. Divine Deception is a massive bonus to that check, easily able to put you in striking range for all the premium buffs available on the divine lists. Barkskin, shield of faith, wrath, divine favor, bless, etc. can all be excellent additions to the investigator’s arsenal.
Skill Focus (Linguistics) + Orator: A classic combination for investigators who also want to become the party face, Skill Focus (Linguistics) + Orator accomplishes a few goals: 1) lets you base your face skills off of Linguistics, essentially swapping your modifier for Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate to Intelligence, rather than Charisma; 2) gives you free inspiration on those same Linguistics checks; and 3) consolidates your skill point expenditures, giving you three skill ranks for free every time you sock a rank in Linguistics. Great benefits, all. Do remember, though, that Orator isn’t a panacea: if you want to demoralize, feint, gather information, etc., then you’ll need to actually invest in those skills. Student of Philosophy doesn’t work with feint or gather information, although Bruising Intellect will work with demoralize.
Spirit-Ridden: The utility of Spirit-Ridden will depend entirely on how your GM interprets the phrase, “while you’re possessed, the spirit influences your personality.” A quirky, eccentric love grilled cheese sandwiches? Fine. A sudden urge to cannibalize your teammates? Less fine. Nevertheless, this feat gives you (at minimum) one extra skill rank per level, plus a class bonus, all of which can be flexibly assigned as you need it. Makes the already-versatile investigator even more versatile.
Ancient Tradition: This feat might come across as a little cheesy unless you really build it into your background, and I have no idea whether the boons stack with Deific Obedience. I haven’t seen anything specific forbidding it on the Paizo forums or in the feat text. Azlant is good for most of the skill things you’ll do as an investigator, but Tar Taargadth is the real winner. +2 to your Fortitude save and skill bonuses and SLAs? Yes, please.
Axiomatic Discourse: Multiple free Diplomacy rerolls every day make Axiomatic Discourse great for party faces.
Dampen Presence: If you’re intending to do any heavy-duty Stealth work, you’ll absolutely need Dampen Presence to beat blindsense and blindsight. Toss in a little fly to beat tremorsense, and you’re well on your way to risk-lite scouting.
Insightful Advice: In exchange for a few Perform (Oratory) ranks and minimal time investment, you get to give allies a +2 bonus to one skill, all day long. This feat functions best in teams where everyone has a very clearly defined role—the wizard always makes Knowledge (Planes) checks, the ranger always makes Perception checks, the rogue rolls Acrobatics all the time, etc. You’re still likely to surpass them all, you lucky dog.
Measure Foe: There are precious few ways to gain access to metainformation in a campaign, but Measure Foe is one of them. If you’re ever looking for an indication of how tough a fight is going to be, and what tricks enemy martials might pull out of their scabbards, Measure Foe is a great feat to have on board. Do note that the Sense Motive DC is going to be very high, so you’ll likely want both the Expanded Inspiration and Empathy investigator talents to improve your odds, as well as perceive cues.
Open Conduit: Conduit feats are among the more powerful feats in Pathfinder, and I’ve reviewed a number of them here. Open Conduit is a great way to use those feats more often.
Scrutinize Spell: Access to meta-information like this is valuable and rare. You’ve got free inspiration to Spellcraft checks, so why not use it?
Esoteric Advantage: I really wish the bonus scaled with your level. Even at its static level, Esoteric Advantage gives you a bonus on Knowledge checks that you’ll make (and pass) in literally every encounter. Hard to say no to that.
Esoteric Linguistics: Assuming that you’re going with the Skill Focus (Linguistics) + Orator combo, you’ll already be most of the way there to using Esoteric Linguistics. It’s another nice way to be able to cast high-level scrolls without having to worry about UMD, although you could get there more easily through Divine Deception.
Master of Knowledge: Many investigators will want to worship Irori in order to access his amazing Deific Obedience, so it’s conceivable that you might also take Skill Focus and then want to progress to Master of Knowledge. It’s a fairly tame benefit, but auto-succeeding at a crucial monster identification 1/day might be worth it to you.
Street Smarts: Street Smarts doesn’t win any feat awards, being essentially the same as other +2/+2 feats like Deceptive or Alertness. What it does do is open you up to take the Measure Foe feat, which I’ll detail above.
Uncanny Activation: Investigators use UMD quite a lot (or they should, anyway) so it can be nice to get that skill expertise rewarded with CL boosts.
Xenoglossy: A cool feat that can eliminate the need for tongues, but recommended only for Orator builds.
Dilettante: If Knowledge bonuses are what you’re angling for, use Deific/Fey Obedience or Breadth of Experience, not Dilettante. Talk about a feat with a limited shelf-life.
Ironclad Logic: You’d think this would be a decent ability for investigators who want to be the party face, but truthfully, the Student of Philosophy trait does much better, and with less investment. And holy cow, those Intelligence requirements! How smart do they think you’re going to be!?
Masked Renown: Flavorwise, it’s very cool, but the bonuses are small and only work while in your “masked persona.” Look at Spirit-Ridden if you want something mechanically stronger.
Noble Scion (Lore): Even if you wanted a bonus this small, you have many, many better options available through Breadth of Experience or Deific/Fey Obedience. Go for those.
Signature Skill (Intimidate): Very few methods of demoralization allow you to skip straight over the shaken condition to frightened, panicked, or cowering. But this is that method. You absolutely must take Signature Skill if you want to be effective at making monsters poop themselves with fright.
Bludgeoner/Stage Combatant + Enforcer: Assuming you can figure out a way to consistently deal nonlethal damage (a merciful weapon, Stage Combatant, Sarenrae’s Divine Fighting Technique, the Bludgeoner feat plus a morningstar, etc.) then Enforcer is absolutely the most efficient demoralization method on the market.
Cornugon Smash: If you’re a Strength-based melee investigator, Cornugon Smash is likely your best bet for demoralizing individual enemies. The duration isn’t nearly as good as Enforcer, but it is what it is.
Dazzling Display: Weapon Focus has always been an unfortunate feat tax for Dazzling Display, but otherwise, it’s an excellent tool for when the normally self-focused investigator wants to help the team out. Especially if you’re rocking the Intimidate Skill Unlock, Underworld Inspiration, Bruising Intellect, etc., there’s no reason you shouldn’t be regularly pumping out the frightened and panicked conditions at later levels.
Disheartening Display: If you’re going the Dazzling Display route for some area debuffing, you may as well also pick up Disheartening Display, which lets you increase the severity of your fear conditions by one step. Because you can’t affect foes with it more than once per day, though, you’ll also need the Intimidate Skill Unlock to hit higher fear severities right off the bat.
Hurtful: Attacks made as swift actions whenever you successfully demoralize a creature? Yes, please.
Violent Display: This feat was made for weretigers, so check with your GM about whether they’re okay with that. If they are, you have carte blanche to start crit-fishing and handing out Dazzling Displays like you’re on Ru Paul.
Ancestral Scorn: Tieflings will have to take the Bruising Intellect trait and the Underworld Inspiration talent in order to make much of their innate Intimidate skills, but once you have those, it’s generally pretty easy to get going with a demoralize build. Ancestral Scorn gives you the lovely sickened and nauseated conditions on top of your demoralization, making you even safer in a crowded melee scrum.
Equipment Trick (Cloak: Dazzling Trail): A nice, method-agnostic increase to the length of your demoralize effects. Plus, the feat text doesn’t specify that the demoralize effect has to be shaken! If you can manage to get frightened, panicked, or cowering up and running, Dazzling Trail would boost those, RAW.
Shatter Defenses: Shatter Defenses is merely okay on the investigator, who can’t take great advantage of enemies who have lost their Dexterity bonus to AC. But denying Dexterity is a great way to hit more easily, and we like that just fine. Unfortunately, you can’t pass that condition out to allied rogues or slayers, so womp womp, little rain cloud.
Gory Finish: It’s a decent way to proc Dazzling Display, but as an investigator, you’re unlikely to be the one to strike the finishing blow that often. You can probably do better with Dazzling Display on its own.
Intimidating Prowess: A nice skill boost if you’re a Strength-based investigator.
Motivating Display: A minor team buff if you’re using Dazzling Display regularly. If you’ve got a bard or other source of morale bonuses on your team, don’t bother.
Killing Flourish: Slayer only.
Martial Dominance: The crit-fishing part is interesting, but even so, your Intimidate ranks will always be better than your BAB.
Pile On: Just take your damage.
Healer’s Hands: Under normal circumstances, treating deadly wounds takes 1 hour of labor, and a creature can’t benefit more than once per day. Healer’s Hands therefore allows you to treat deadly wounds 600x faster, without a healer’s kit, and multiple times per day on the same creature. If you beat the DC by 10 or more, you restore 1 HP/level of the healed creature + Wisdom modifier (per the base Heal skill text) + Knowledge (Planes) ranks. By 10th level, you can easily be healing 20-25 HP a pop with this ability, making Healer’s Hands one of the foundational elements of any Heal build. But wait! We can go further.
Heal Skill Unlock: The 10-rank skill unlock makes the base healing of treat deadly wounds 4x more effective, which gets increased to 6x and 12x at 15 and 20 ranks, respectively. The Healer’s Hands + Heal Skill Unlock combo increases your healing powers to 4 HP/level of the healed creature + Wisdom modifier + Knowledge (Planes) ranks. At 10th level, we’re up to 50-55 HP per treat deadly wounds action; that increases to around 75 HP at 15th level, and 240 HP at 20th level. Yeah. Imagine getting that benefit 20 times per day.
Incredible Healer: Healer’s Hands gets the purple rating because it’s more powerful past 10 skill ranks in Heal, but before then, Incredible Healer is the better option, especially if you’ve been investing heavily in the Heal skill via the Precise Treatment trait, Expanded Inspiration talent, etc. Plus, it leads into Pathologist, which is always nice.
Acupuncture Specialist: I wouldn’t make this an immediate buy, but as you approach the double digits, [curse] effects like insanity will start to become more common—and more deadly. It’s a good buy then, when you can suppress curses at worst, and cure them at best.
Pathologist: Given how high your Heal checks will eventually be, Pathologist is game over for any poisons or diseases in your system. Poison gets a little tricky, just because AoE poison effects can’t be effectively dealt with in the middle of the battlefield, but overall, Pathologist is still an effective feat for replacing neutralize poison and remove disease.
Emergency Attunement: Much like Numerical Alchemy gives you the chance to respond flexibly with your extract selection, Emergency Attunement lets you switch out an ongoing abjuration or transmutation effect at need. Considering that the vast majority of effects on your spell list are abjuration or transmutation, you should be very excited about this. Change a polymorph form at need, swap out a resist energy element, pick a new animal aspect! It’s all possible with a laughably easy Spellcraft check. Special shout-out to Emergency Attunement for allowing you to alter your bonus feat from paragon surge, too. As if half-elves needed to be any better.
Flickering Step: Free dimension door is certainly not something that investigators could do before Conduit feats came on the market. Great if you’re looking for more battlefield mobility, although you could just as easily take the Portal Seeker archetype.
Wanderer’s Fortune: Every investigator will learn freedom of movement as soon as they possibly can; Wanderer’s Fortune is like a free freedom of movement multiple times a day. That’s a hilariously good deal.
Heaven’s Light: And free daylight, as well. Take that, darkness tactics.
Equipment Trick (Sunrod: Like the Sun): Lamplighters get lots of light spells at their disposal, and hey, look at that, a free improvement to all of those spells! You’ll also be able to pick up the Flare and Twice as Brightly tricks easily with your skill ranks, which is fun.
Spell Focus + Greater Spell Focus (Transmutation): Spell Focus is not at all necessary for nearly any investigator build. That said, the DCs of any creature ability used while you’re polymorphed are keyed off of the DC of the extract you used; getting an increased DC increases all of those save DCs. Fantastic for polymorph builds.
Spirit Ally: Constant unseen servants can do lots of things, from opening doors at range to running heedlessly into trapped rooms for you. Cool stuff, although you may not have space in your build.
Eschew Materials: Even when polymorphed, extracts already have their material components “baked in.” Pointless for investigators.
Potion Glutton: Potion Glutton got errata’d out of existence a while back. There’s still the Accelerated Drinker trait, but it does only work for potions, not extracts.
Spell Penetration / Greater Spell Penetration: Not needed for investigators.
Brew Potion: Thanks to the investigator’s parent class, the alchemist, the class does very well as a backup crafter and potion brewer. You get access to important alchemist discoveries like Enhance Potion and Eternal Potion, so there’s really no reason not to be crafting if you can spare the time and resources.
Healing Potion: A fun little feat to be able to tack healing effects onto potions you create for your team. Not bad at all.
Master Alchemist: I’ll fully admit that I’ve never taken the time to really familiarize myself with Pathfinder’s crafting rules, but I do know that Master Alchemist lets you craft alchemical items way, way faster than you normally could.
Vaporous Potion: If you need to pass out buffs, Vaporous Potion might be a more efficient route than even Infusion.
Cooperative Crafting: Most people think of Cooperative Crafting as something that you give to followers and cohorts to help you craft, but the investigator will always have more skill ranks than they know what to do with. Why not help your party’s main crafter out?
Improvisational Healer: A smallish but significant boost to your potion healing, perhaps worthwhile if you’re going with a Brew Potion build.
Lengthy Potion: This is unlikely to be very worthwhile for investigators themselves, thanks to the Enhance Potion alchemist discovery, but it could be decent for teammates.
Instant Alchemy: Only appears to be relevant if you’re using the spontaneous alchemy rules.
Sure-Handed Alchemy: As Instant Alchemy.
I thought about placing these feats in the categories listed above, but ultimately, if you’re playing an archetype that trades away the requisite class feature, you won’t be able to take these feats. Food for thought as you consider your archetype choices!
Extra Investigator Talent: Talents are usually quite a bit more powerful than feats, which means you should be burning as many feats as your build can spare to pick up more talents. And if you ever run out of investigator talents, hey, dip into alchemist discoveries! (You should have been doing that from the beginning, though. You were, right?) If you’re ever at a loss for what feat to take, the answer is this one.
Focused Inspiration: Depending on how you’ve spec’ed yourself, Focused Inspiration could provide its bonus on more than just two skills. Consider the classic Skill Focus (Linguistics) + Orator combo, for example. Ostensibly, you’re only improving Linguistics, but in reality, you’re also improving Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate. How do you like them apples? (Note: see my section on Amazing / Tenacious Inspiration for more information on why you should select those talents for skill monkey dominance.)
Inspired Alchemy: Few effects allow you to regain lost spell slots, but here’s one sitting right out in the open for you. Depending on your level, Intelligence modifier, and commitment to the Extra Inspiration feat, you might have more inspiration lying around than you know what to do with, especially if you’ve invested in talents that allow you to reduce or negate the cost of inspiration rolls. If that’s your sitch, why not turn all that inspiration into more casting?
Extra Inspiration: I’m of the opinion that you should do everything, and I mean everything within your power to get inspiration working for you for free. Having more inspiration available in combat (which can’t be made totally free until 19th level) is always a good idea, though, and there are plenty of archetypes that burn inspiration as fuel for other useful effects. The gravedigger archetype, for example, uses them to fuel occultist implements, which everyone should want to get a piece of.
Studied Expertise: This feat gives you a little more leeway on when you roll your Knowledge check in conjunction with Inspirational Expertise, but is that really worth an entire feat? It’s a middling benefit, at best.
Daring Exploit: Nah, a free reroll a few times per day on one inspiration die isn’t a good bargain for a feat.
Expeditious Sleuth: If you can afford to spend 10x the time needed to make a Perception check, you can afford to spend 20x the time needed. Skip this for something better.
Inspired Sneak Attack: Studied strike is somewhat weak to begin with, applicable only to the final hit you make against a foe, and frequently weakened through dips in other classes. Because the probability is locked into a 1 when you choose to use this ability, you’d get a 2.5-point damage boost per rerolled die, on average, but it’s not worth the feat or inspiration cost.
Focused Inspiration: Depending on how you’ve spec’ed yourself, Focused Inspiration could provide its bonus on more than just two skills. Consider the classic Skill Focus (Linguistics) + Orator combo, for example. Ostensibly, you’re only improving Linguistics, but in reality, you’re improving Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate. How do you like them apples? (Note: see my section on Amazing / Tenacious Inspiration for more information on why you should select those talents for skill monkey dominance.)
Formula Recollection: Assuming you run into casters on a regular basis (and eventually damn near everything will be some brand of caster) Formula Recollection gives you a free way to expand your extract book. Formula Recollection doesn’t say anything about costs associated with this ability, so I’m assuming it’s free to use.
Poison use in Pathfinder is a polarizing topic, but if you’re going to do it, do it right. Take a look at the two best guides on the subject, Going in Against a Sicilian When Death is on the Line and The Long Farewell, for more information about which feats, traits, etc. you’ll need to select in order to make poisons work. Alchemists generally do it better than investigators, but we can still make it rain venom when we need to.
Shadow Strike: Studied combat and studied strike are both precision damage, and as with the rogue’s sneak attack, you can’t deal that precision damage unless you can visually confirm a vital target to hit. Concealment-based miss chances from blur, displacement, obscuring mist, deeper darkness, etc., can all be mitigated somewhat with Blind-Fight, but won’t help you at all if you want to deal your studied combat damage. Shadow Strike does that, ensuring that your combat efficacy isn’t diminished at all by common magical effects or environmental conditions. I’d for sure recommend it as your levels move into the double digits—without your studied combat, you’re not very good in battle.
Inspired Strike: Inspired Strike would get a blue rating if it were an investigator talent that simply got applied to your studied combat once per round. It might squeak up to a green if you’ve invested in Amazing Inspiration and Tenacious Inspiration.
Ranged Study: If you’re playing a ranged investigator, Ranged Study will obviously be as blue as it gets. Melee? Red.
Inspired Sneak Attack: Studied strike is somewhat weak to begin with, applicable only to the final hit you make against a foe, and frequently weakened through dips in other classes. Because the probability is locked into a 1 when you choose to use this ability, you’d get a 2.5-point damage boost per rerolled die, on average, but it’s not worth the feat or inspiration cost.
Surprise Maneuver: I get it, you’re intrigued by combat maneuvers. But you are a ¾-BAB class that leans toward skill monkey rather than striker. This just isn’t for you.
Ambush Sense: A nice package of bonuses, actually, and in combination with your innate godliness at Perception checks solidly guarantees that you’ll always be acting in the surprise round. I like it!
Disable Dweomer: The activation time is too long to be useful in combat, and too niche to be useful out of combat. Unless you’re trying to take off a bunch of cursed gear, I’d leave it alone.
Archetypes are the bread and butter of any well-versed Pathfinder player, as they allow you to flexibly trade away class features you don’t like from your base class, poach class features from other classes, and more. You can almost always tell how “veteran” a Pathfinder player is by how well they know their way around the various archetypes on offer in the system. In order to help you “rank” the investigator archetypes in your mind, I’ve introduced a new, handy-dandy table below that arranges them in terms of power and versatility. That way, you don’t have to waste your time scrolling through garbaggio like sleuth and reckless epicurean. Blech.
Archetype (Wheat) | Versatility | Power |
Bonded Investigator | +2 | +2 |
Gravedigger | +2 | +2 |
Lamplighter | +2 | +2 |
Empiricist | +1 | +2 |
Mastermind | +1 | +2 |
Portal Seeker | +2 | +1 |
Cult Hunter | -1 | +2 |
Holomog Demolitionist | +2 | -1 |
Jinyiwei | -1 | +2 |
Profiler | +1 | +1 |
Psychic Detective | +1 | +1 |
Questioner | +1 | +1 |
Tekritanin Arbiter | +1 | +1 |
Antiquarian | +1 | +0 |
Cartographer | +0 | +1 |
Cryptid Scholar | +1 | +0 |
Guardian of Immortality | +0 | +1 |
Lepidstadt Inspector | -1 | +1 |
Natural Philosopher | +0 | +1 |
Spiritualist | -2 | +2 |
Steel Hound | -1 | +1 |
Toxin Codexer | -1 | +1 |
Archetype (Chaff) | Versatility | Power |
Conspirator | -1 | -1 |
Dread Investigator | +1 | -2 |
Engineer | +0 | -1 |
Forensic Physician | -1 | -1 |
Ruthless Agent | -1 | -1 |
Scavenger | -1 | +0 |
Star Watcher | +0 | -1 |
Infiltrator | -1 | -2 |
Reckless Epicurean | -1 | -2 |
Skeptic | -2 | -1 |
Cipher | -2 | -2 |
Hallucinist | -2 | -2 |
Majordomo | -2 | -2 |
Malice Binder | -2 | -2 |
Sleuth | -2 | -2 |
Relicmongers who identify old objects, avoid curses like bosses, and cast their spells from a collection of charms and trinkets.
Versatility: +1
Power: +0
Stacks With: Conspirator, Forensic Physician, Reckless Epicurean
(1) Relic Magic: Alters alchemy. Even though you trade away your access to alchemist discoveries (a crying shame) relic magic actually kinda gives you the best of both worlds. You prepare spells like an extract caster (so, 1 minute to call forth a spell you need) but can cast spells like a normal arcane spellcaster, no Infusion discovery required. As with other archetypes that replace or significantly alter your extract casting, I won’t give this a rating; it’s simply a different way to play an investigator.
(1) Item Lore: Replaces poison lore. Certainly more useful than poison lore. Gotta hand it a green for that.
(2) Curse Resistance: Replaces poison resistance and poison immunity. The antiquarian definitely comes out a bit ahead in this trade. Poisons stink, but they’re uncommon enough that you don’t need to guard against them so scrupulously, especially with neutralize poison on your spell list. Curses can be very bad, though, with effects like blindness/deafness, bestow curse, geas/quest, ill omen, and others that can really mess your day up in the hands of determined spellcasters.
(4) Swift Search: Replaces swift alchemy. Taking 20 on a Perception check only takes 2 minutes, so I don’t see how this is a huge upgrade. Still, swift alchemy wouldn’t have gotten you anything anyway.
Antiquarian isn’t a bad little archetype, but with little to no stacking synergy, you’re better off picking something stronger. You could definitely do a great deal worse, though.
Bonded investigators replace some portion of their studied strike damage with a wizard’s familiar. Don’t worry! It’s amazing.
Versatility: +2
Power: +2
Stacks With: Forensic Physician, Jinyiwei, Majordomo, Mastermind, Natural Philosopher, Reckless Epicurean, Sleuth, Star Watcher
(1) Familiar: Replaces poison lore, poison resistance, and poison immunity. Wooow. Wow wow wow. Familiars are amazing*in* Pathfinder: at the very least, they grant you the Alertness feat, offer a familiar-specific bonus to skills, saves, or initiative, possess all the skill ranks you possess, and can use their own skills autonomously, which allows you (in essence) free rerolls on a variety of skill checks. They also have improved evasion, SR, and half your HP, so they can be surprisingly resilient if the situation is right.
I could speak at length about different familiar archetypes, bonuses that familiars grant, etc., but the fact of the matter is that both the archetypes (Mauler, Protector, and Valet, at least) and the skill/save/initiative bonuses granted by your familiar will go away at 7th level, when you gain Improved Familiar. This is complicated, and a matter of some debate on Paizo boards. Archetypes are reliant on the speak with master and speak with animals of its kind class features, both of which Improved Familiar trades away; sage is still legal, but of limited use when the investigator will already have so many skill ranks to share with their familiar. It’s unclear whether celestial/infernal/resolute/entropic animals continue to grant the bonuses that they did during their earlier careers, but you’re probably better off switching to an outsider, dragon, magical beast, etc. anyway to grab their unusual movement modes, SLAs, and DR/resistances/immunities.
(4) Inspired Familiar: Replaces 4th-level studied strike damage. The bonded investigator keeps on giving! What’s neat about inspired familiar is that all the talents you take that improve your inspiration ability also apply to your familiar. If you get inspiration for free on your skill check, so does your familiar; if you have Combat Inspiration and need to expend only 1 point to get your inspiration die on an attack roll or save, so does your familiar; if you have increased inspiration dice through Amazing Inspiration, Tenacious Inspiration, or the Focused Inspiration feat, so does your familiar. Other expenditures of inspiration, such as Inspirational Expertise, Applied Engineering, or many of the abilities from other investigator archetypes don’t apply, however. Paired with familiar archetypes like sage, it can become nearly impossible for an investigator/familiar duo to fail a skill check—even if one rolls poorly, the other has a decent chance of rolling well.
(6) Studied Strike: Alters studied strike. I’m totally fine with this trade. As we’ve discussed elsewhere, studied combat is what you really can’t afford to let go of; studied strike is passably good, but can be a trap if used incorrectly. With the unparalleled versatility and power that a familiar can offer you, you come out waaay ahead in this exchange.
(7) Improved Familiar: Replaces 7th-level investigator talent. Improved familiars are a thing of beauty. Even though improved familiars still count as whatever creature type they were prior to their transformation, the rest of their abilities are transmuted into those belonging to fey, outsiders, magical beasts, and more. A complete rundown of all the available familiars is beyond the scope of this guide, but here are a few things to look out for:
Absolutely. At the very least, familiars can always provide either Aid Another actions to help out your skill checks, or simple rerolls through their own skill checks; they always grant Alertness, too. At best, once you have Improved Familiar, you can use your familiar’s fly speed, SLAs, innate intelligence, and languages to send them on semi-autonomous missions of their own, using wands and other UMD items to accomplish tasks. You’re getting a tremendous amount of power and versatility for a very low cost in this archetype.
Cartographers make maps. “As in life, so in art.” It’s a fun little archetype that could stack with natural philosopher to give you some good benefits in a wilderness campaign like Ironfang Invasion, but overall pretty unobtrusive.
Versatility: +0
Power: +1
Stacks With: Conspirator, Forensic Physician, Natural Philosopher, Reckless Epicurean
(1) Studied Terrain: Replaces poison lore and poison resistance. I really, really like studied terrain. It’s easy to use, the radius scales nicely, and the inspiration bonuses all go to skills that you wouldn’t normally get free inspiration on. Stealth, Survival, and Acrobatics in particular are nice, as are Swim and Climb, when they’re relevant. If you can foresee yourself using inspiration on even one of the included checks, your costs have already broken even, so consider using a map whenever you can. In dungeons, you’ll probably want to scout ahead using invisibility wherever possible so that you can actually get your bonuses; the overland map and town map features aren’t finicky.
(3) Geographic Lore: Replaces keen recollection. Keen recollection pretty much stinks as an ability, so sure, let’s become a human compass and sell maps as a side hustle. Will it ever come up? Maybe not, but it’s cool, and as my dad told me right before I went to high school, being cool is the only thing that counts in life, son.
(4) Swift Travels: Replaces swift alchemy. Be honest, how many times has your GM ever used the rules for trackless vs. trails vs. highways? Never? I thought so. It’s worse than swift alchemy, but still a fun little flavor ability.
Sure, it’s a fun piece of fluff. Harmless. You won’t be winning any awards for power or versatility, but I like the flavor and skill bonuses from studied terrain enough to give it a pass.
The cryptid scholar takes all of its personal offensive abilities and farms them out to colleagues, making itself less powerful, but the team correspondingly more powerful. If you’re looking for a safer, more support- and skill-focused investigator, you’ll definitely want to take a look at this archetype.
Versatility: +1
Power: +0
Stacks With: Conspirator, Forensic Physician, Jinyiwei, Majordomo, Mastermind, Natural Philosopher, Reckless Epicurean, Ruthless Agent, Sleuth, Star Watcher
(1) Intuitive Monster Lore: Replaces poison lore and poison resistance. Monster lore is an excellent inquisitor ability, and totally fitting for investigators, too. Unfortunately, the investigator already has great Intelligence scores, and as monster lore is demonstrably narrower in scope than pure Intelligence for Knowledge checks, I can’t think that this ability will ever grant you more than a 1- or 2-point bonus to identify monster weaknesses. Anything’s better than poison, though.
(4) Opportune Advice: Replaces studied combat. “Replace studied combat,” I hear you thinking, “are they crazy!?” Yes, it’s something of a lateral move, but hear me out: opportune advice is actually pretty good, or at least no worse than studied combat, considering the role the cryptid scholar archetype is meant to play. You won’t be the star of the show with your rapier crits, but you will be a quiet asset on the back line, ensuring that allies don’t fall victim to the most dangerous (Su) and (Ex) abilities on display in encounters. Keep in mind the range of your opportune advice, and be on the lookout for encounters that feature divergent enemy types, as your opportune advice can only coach allies on one enemy type at a time.
(4) Knowledgeable Strike: Replaces studied strike. Depending on how many allies you have present on the battlefield, knowledgeable strike can end up being more potent than studied strike by a decent margin. Again, this isn’t really better or worse than studied strike, just a fundamentally different way of playing an investigator.
This archetype is one of those rare archetypes that is—in my opinion, at least—perfectly balanced. The abilities you get are of exactly the same caliber as those you give up. If you’re interested in a support playstyle for your investigator, cryptid scholar is definitely your one-stop shop. No need to look any further.
Cult hunters track down organizations of dangerous people summoning even more dangerous extraplanar entities into the Material Plane. The archetype sounds at first blush like it would be too restrictive to be useful in a normal game, but it features a surprising amount of latitude as far as what constitutes a cult.
Versatility: -1
Power: +2
Stacks With: Nothing
(1) Sense Madness: Replaces trapfinding. I always like bonuses to Sense Motive. Nice to know when someone’s trying to mislead you or withhold information.
(2) Purify Mind and Body: Replaces poison resistance and poison immunity. I’d much rather have resistance to compulsion effects, wouldn’t you? A single dominate person will ruin your day.
(2) Student of the Beyond: Replaces poison lore. These bonuses will be very circumstantial, but they replace the poor poison lore ability, so hey, we’ll call it a win.
(3) Ambush Sense: Replaces trap sense. Finally, something good! Surprise rounds can be dangerous indeed, but you’ll feel far more comfortable with these bonuses. A nice get.
(4) Cultic Study: Replaces swift alchemy. I was all ready to dismiss cultic study, but it’s actually a mechanically solid ability. Think about it: in, say, the last three books of any Paizo AP you care to name, what percentage of the time are you fighting enemies aligned with a particular deity, demon lord, archdevil, etc., or the more generic “extraplanar creatures” mentioned in the ability text? I bet it’s more than you think. All of these skills are extremely handy to have in the course of everyday adventuring, and last forever, or until you change them. There’s more here than meets the eye.
(4) Cult Combat / Cult Strike: Replaces studied combat and studied strike. Again, I can’t promise that these bonuses will always applicable, what with random encounters, unaligned animals, constructs, magical beasts, undead, etc., but plots need antagonists, and antagonists in Pathfinder are usually associated with some kind of cult, religion, or extraplanar entity. That means you might see your cult combat and cult strike bonuses more often than you think.
(7) Summoning Sense: Replaces 7th-level investigator talent. If you’re going to lose talents, I’d prefer them to be at least at 7th level, so you can pick up Quick Study at 5th and (most likely) an inspiration-enhancing talent at 3rd. Summoning sense won’t come up in every battle, but in boss battles (which almost exclusively feature spellcasters) you’ll be very happy to have defenses against all the summons that bosses tend to rope in.
(13) Extraplanar Expulsion: Replaces 13th-level investigator talent. The dispel [alignment] suite of spells is powerful and versatile, shunting extraplanar entities back where they came from, shutting down bad enchantment and compulsion effects, and granting you a hefty bonus to AC in the meantime. I’m totally fine with this ability.
Yes, I think so! Your versatility will naturally be a little lower with cult hunter, but the bonuses are powerful enough (and broadly applicable enough to cults, religions, extraplanar entities, etc.) that you won’t mind most of the time. Solid B+.
Empiricist. It’s the archetype that jumps into everyone’s mind when you mention the investigator class, and for good reason: it gives up little power from the base investigator chassis, and gains a bunch of power in return, mostly by keying a bunch of your most important skill checks off of Intelligence, rather than other attributes. It’s the template for how to do an archetype right in very little space.
Versatility: +1
Power: +2
Stacks With: Forensic Physician, Natural Philosopher, Reckless Epicurean
(2) Ceaseless Observation: Replaces poison lore and poison resistance. Hoooly cow, that’s the way to start off an archetype. All four of these skills are rated green or blue in my scheme; Use Magic Device at the very least will save you a trait on Pragmatic Activator, and switching over Perception, Sense Motive, and Disable Device can reduce the need for Expanded Inspiration. And all you have to give up are some lame poison abilities? This is an archetype feature done right.
(4) Unfailing Logic: Replaces swift alchemy. Surprisingly large bonuses vs. illusion magic, with the option to toss in inspiration on the save and eventual immunities. Even if illusions aren’t an everyday feature of Pathfinder campaigns, they do come up, and they’re often troublesome. And if you ever square off against a full caster using any of the shadow suite of spells (shadow conjuration, shadow evocation, etc.) you’ll be doubly happy to have unfailing logic. Swift alchemy isn’t a crushing loss anyway.
(20) Master Intellect: Replaces true inspiration. I’d recommend the alternate capstones released in Chronicle of Legends instead of either true inspiration or master intellect, so you shouldn’t even count this ability as being part of the empiricist except for determining which archetypes stack.
Like I said, the empiricist knows how to get a lot done in a short amount of time. You’ll give up next to nothing, and your skills will really get kicked up a notch.
The gravedigger is monstrously powerful, losing some of the investigator class’ worst abilities in exchange for some of the occultist class’ best abilities. Before you dive into what makes the archetype so great, I want to stress that you will chug through an insane amount of inspiration while playing as a gravedigger, so it behooves you to meet your immediate combat needs, then focus all your resources on the Extra Investigator Talent and Extra Inspiration feats. They’ll take a great archetype and make it even greater.
Versatility: +2
Power: +2
Stacks With: Nothing
(1) Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Two upgrades here, one amazing and the other potentially amazing. First, scythes get added to your weapon list. Scythes are amazing, dealing 2d4 damage with a x4 crit modifier. Second, depending on how your GM interprets the clause about being able to “fight with gravediggers’ tools such as a shovel or lantern as if she had the Catch Off-Guard feat,” you may qualify for Shikigami Style right off the bat. Get yourself a traveler’s any-tool, and with Shikigami Manipulation, you can treat that humble any-tool as a +2 shovel by 5th level. Ruling that it’s similar to a warhammer or battleaxe in size and weight, the three effective size increases from the Shikigami Style feat line bring your base damage dice from 1d8 up to 4d6 (1d8 → 2d6 → 3d6 → 4d6). Now, it’s also possible to craft weapons with higher caster levels than just what is listed in the item description, so you could easily ask a friend to craft a CL 12 any-tool, a CL 16 any-tool, a CL 20 any-tool, etc., and keep working your way up to new enhancement bonuses. A +5 shovel that deals 4d6+5 damage before any other modifiers is certainly a terrifying thought. This feat combo is available to all investigators, by the way, not just gravediggers, but because gravediggers have the potential to get Catch Off-Guard out of the way with no investment, their entry into the Style feat line is easier.
(1) Limited Alchemy: Alters alchemy and investigator talents. Look, I won’t pretend that losing out on alchemist discoveries isn’t a huge blow. Mutagen, Combine Extracts, Eternal Potion...base investigators are never at a loss for what to take with their Extra Investigator Talent feats because alchemist discoveries are always available even after they’ve run out of worthwhile investigator talents. But we’re going to make the most of this, right? You won’t need to think about Brew Potion or alchemical crafting, because you don’t have the tools to take advantage of them anymore. Instead, you’ll focus on combat prowess and skill domination with your investigator talents, and you’ll still do really well with those roles. You’ll also be getting some powers from the occultist class in a little bit, so some of your investigator talents will inevitably go toward improving your focus powers.
(1) Grave Magic: Thematic, if niche abilities for destroying, placating, or communicating with undead creatures. Of them all, I like calm spirit, speak with dead, and call spirit best for their utility in solving puzzles and cracking mysteries open, although expeditious excavation can be a lot of fun at lower levels. Rest eternal probably won’t come up that much unless you’re regularly fighting necromancers, vampires, etc.
(1) Relic Focus: Replaces trapfinding and trap sense. Wooow. So we’ve had crossovers with the bard (questioner archetype), the inquisitor (jinyiwei archetype), and the psychic (psychic detective archetype), but now we get a crossover with the occultist class! Occultists are really, really cool, and many of their focus powers are incredibly good. Necromancy leans a little too heavily on [mind-affecting] effects, negative energy damage, and the like, but it also has some incredible focus powers for minion masters: necromantic servant and soulbound puppet. Let’s review these abilities, including the focus powers you can pick up as investigator talents:
(2) Deny Death: Replaces poison resistance and poison immunity. I’ll gladly make this trade. Energy drain and death effects are both awful and awfully common wherever undead creatures linger.
(2) Read the Bones: Replaces poison lore. You’d be surprised at how often object reading can give you actionable information in campaigns. Being able to use it at will on corpses, bones, and other remains ensures that you don’t need to use speak with dead as often, and helps you proceed forward with confidence anywhere there’s been mysterious death.
(3) Focus Talent: Alters investigator talents. This ability is one of the reasons you don’t really need alchemist discoveries—because you’re part-occultist, not part-alchemist. I’ve already rated the focus powers from the necromancy school, and I’ll be getting to conjuration in just a bit.
(4) Kill the Dead: Alters studied combat and studied strike. Kill the dead is the biggest fly in this archetype’s ointment, and even then, it’s pretty mild. Losing 1d6 off your studied strike and 1 off your studied combat bonuses won’t do too much to harm your combat efficacy, especially considering all the focus powers you’ve picked up instead. And investigators who went with Shikigami Style won’t miss the damage at all—they’ll be too busy smashing 4d6+5/x3 shovels in people’s faces.
(6) Grave Lamp: Replaces swift alchemy. You’ll never be able to expand your implement selection beyond necromancy or conjuration implements, but that’s plenty as it is. Let’s review your available powers below.
The gravedigger archetype goes to show that replacing portions of one class with portions of another can yield exponential improvements. Between your awesome weapon proficiencies, grave magic, and incredible occultist abilities from the necromancy and conjuration schools, I feel like I can be unqualified in saying that this archetype is the most versatile and powerful of any on the market for investigators.
Thuvian investigators who are all about tracking down thieves who attempt to steal the secrets of the sun orchid elixir. The abilities (with the exception of liar’s familiarity) are all firm upgrades over the abilities they replace, leaving an investigator that’s no more versatile but a bit more powerful than the base investigator. Good for desert-themed games.
Versatility: +0
Power: +1
Stacks With: Forensic Physician, Jinyiwei, Majordomo, Mastermind, Natural Philosopher, Sleuth, Star Watcher
(1) Guardian’s Gaze: Replaces poison lore. I’ll absolutely take a big buff to Sense Motive over poison lore. All the better to catch the people who steal my sweet sun orchid elixir!
(2) Desert Survivor: Replaces poison resistance. The fire resistance is about the only part of this ability that will regularly benefit you, although Endurance might come up at some points.
(7) Liar’s Familiarity: Replaces 7th-level investigator talent. No, no, no, this isn’t good at all. With the investigator talent you lost, you could have taken Expanded Inspiration and gotten free inspiration on every Perception and Linguistics check. Too specific to be much use.
(11) Orchid’s Drop: Replaces poison immunity. Alchemical bonuses will stack with everything, so this ability is just a nice, round buff to all your saves. Perfect.
(13) Teleportation Warden: Replaces 13th-level investigator talent. Against higher-level creatures that can summon more of themselves and teleport at will (I’m thinking specifically of demons here, but many other creatures can pull these tricks, as well) teleportation warden is actually quite good. Losing investigator talents stinks, as always, but by 13th level your build should be rock solid, so you’ll be able to take Extra Investigator Talent with nearly every feat you get.
Broadly speaking, yes, and doubly so in a desert-themed game like Mummy’s Mask or Reign of Fire. The loss of investigator talents is the hardest part, but so long as you’re only losing one or two, still receive your first talent at 3rd level, and receive something good in return, archetypes can usually shrug the losses off. Guardian of immortality does fairly well for itself in that sphere.
The holomog demolitionist, as the name might imply, does a lot with building up and breaking down your environment. It can bring some major versatility to bear, especially if you don’t have a resident terraformer on your team, but it also gives away most of your studied strike damage and two investigator talents. If I could get a refund on the ricochet ability, I’d be unqualified in recommending the archetype, but alas, you don’t get to pick and choose.
Versatility: +2
Power: -1
Stacks With: Conspirator, Jinyiwei, Majordomo, Reckless Epicurean, Ruthless Agent, Sleuth, Star Watcher
(2) Structural Knowledge: Replaces poison lore. I wouldn’t advise that you use Improved Sunder on weapons and armor (first, because you’ll be pretty bad at it; second, because you’ll be destroying your own equipment) but it’s plenty good against doors, walls, floors, ceilings, load-bearing pillars, etc. Certainly an upgrade over poison lore, although that’s not saying much.
(2) Structural Insight: From where I stand, the 5th- and 11th-level abilities in structural insight are the best, allowing you to progress laterally through the aforementioned doors, walls, floors, and ceilings. You’re getting a big upgrade over poison resistance, at least.
(3) Ricochet: Replaces 3rd- and 9th-level investigator talents. In the end, the damage is pitiful, and you can’t guarantee that you’ll even be able to use it often, depending on the positioning of objects and walls on your battlefield. Definitely not worth the investigator talents you gave up.
(4) Studied Strike: Alters studied strike. Okay, well, that’s obviously a downgrade. It’ll be replaced by battlefield preparation, but that’s still a few levels down the line.
(6) Battlefield Preparation: Difficult terrain, concealment, and even cover are all part of battlefield preparation. Especially given that there are no limits to your daily uses of this ability, it’s powerful—but it’s also nothing that a wizard or druid couldn’t do with obscuring mist, burning sands, wall of stone, etc. You need to wait until 6th, 10th, and 14th levels for these abilities, so are you really doing anything better than the full casters at that point?
Holomog demolitionist takes a long, long time to come into its own—you won’t be at peak capacity until 10th level, at least. If you’re willing to wait that long, battlefield preparation and the later iterations of structural insight are plenty good, but I have reasonable doubts about how much a party will need you, the investigator, to fill the role of battlefield manipulator, as opposed to your resident full caster. This archetype doesn’t allow stacking with any of the other top-tier investigator archetypes, so my best advice is to consider very carefully whether the trade-offs (lower studied strike damage, two lost investigator talents) are really worth it to you.
Part-inquisitor, part-investigator, all badass, jinyiwei are secret police that use Wisdom as their main mental and port over features like judgment from the inquisitor class. I love jinyiwei, and they’re mechanically solid, if less flexible than their base investigator cousins.
Versatility: -1
Power: +2
Stacks With: Bonded Investigator, Cryptid Scholar, Holomog Demolitionist, Guardian of Immortality
(1) Divine Inspiration: Alters inspiration and replaces alchemy. Well, you’re an inquisitor now! As with the questioner and psychic detective archetypes, whether you like this class feature or not will depend on how much you like the inquisitor’s spell list. Certainly, pumping your Wisdom instead of Intelligence will make your Will save, Perception, and Sense Motive checks much better, but you’ll pay for it in skill ranks and Knowledge checks. Neither one is worse, really—the inquisitor’s spell list is mostly based around self-buffing, same as the investigator’s.
(1) Suspicious Mind: Replaces trapfinding. Sure, these are some good bonuses if you don’t need a party trapfinder. Sense Motive will probably be the most useful, although some of the Perception permutations could also come into play relatively often.
(3) Celestial Insight: Replaces trap sense. Illusion effects aren’t usually a feature of everyday adventuring, but Enchantment spells are the worst. Bane, confusion, daze, dominate person, forbid action, geas/quest, hold person, mind fog, shamefully overdressed, waves of ecstasy...nearly all the worst effects you can fail a save on are Enchantment effects. It’s excellent to get bonuses against those where you can.
(4) Imperial Judgment: Repalces swift alchemy. Getting an inquisitor’s judgment ability in exchange for swift alchemy is a very, very good trade. It stinks that you progress a few levels behind the inquisitor, but it makes sense that Paizo wouldn’t want you to be that powerful. You’ll probably be using Destruction most of the time, unless there’s a compelling reason not to.
Giving up your Intelligence casting stat and the flexibility of extract casting makes the jinyiwei less comfortable in the skill monkey role than base investigators. What you get in return, however, is a lot more mechanical oomph to your Will saves, Perception and Sense Motive Checks, and combat power. Jinyiwei shine in circumstances where Knowledge checks, face skills, and trapfinding are already covered by other party members.
Lamplighters are all about illumination, illumination, illumination. If you go with this archetype, you’ll get a large swath of light-based spells handed to you, as well as peerless improvements to initiative checks and surprise rounds. Highly recommended.
Versatility: +2
Power: +2
Stacks With: Reckless Epicurean, Sleuth
(1) Class Skills: Alters class skills. Losing Perform and Profession won’t do you a lick of harm. I’m fine with this.
(1) Lamplighter: It seems like it wouldn’t have any meaningful uses, and that’s perhaps true in most circumstances. Swarms can be damaged by lit torches, however, which may be all that stands between you and a TPK in the early game. Nice to be able to bump your flint and tinder down from a full-round action.
(2) Alchemical Illumination: Replaces poison lore, poison resistance, and poison immunity. Alchemical illumination is an amazing class feature. Darkness tactics are fairly prevalent among the bestiary entries, and few parties are 100% prepared for supernatural darkness—or even natural darkness. Gaining access to spells like daylight, then, is a big deal. Continuous flame is a nice utility spell, searing light holds up well as an anti-undead blast, and judgment light has considerable flexibility for party buffing or enemy debuffing. Great class feature.
(3) Ready for the Revelation: Replaces keen recollection and trap sense. It’s widely accepted that initiative is one of the most important checks in the game to be good at. If you go first in an encounter, you can pre-buff, position yourself advantageously, escape, use studied combat on a foe, etc. If you go last, you’re starting the encounter on the enemy’s terms, not your own. This class feature simply ensures that you’re among the best initiative rollers in all of Pathfinder, eventually giving you Dexterity + Intelligence + Inspiration to each and every initiative check and making surprise rounds much less deadly. You’d be hard-pressed to do better.
Lamplighter and empiricist are frequently brought up as two of the best investigator archetypes out there, and for good reason. Ready for the revelation is far and away one of the most powerful investigator abilities on the market, and alchemical illumination shores up your defenses against a variety of common enemy tactics. Lamplighter is the bee’s knees.
The Lepidstadt University in Ustalav is the most famous academy for investigators in all of the Inner Sea region, so it makes sense that they get their own archetype. More than any other archetype (except perhaps the empiricist) the Lepidstadt inspector feels like Sherlock Holmes. The main things you’re giving away are your first two investigator talents, which can be difficult to surrender if you’re building toward Quick Study or other crucial early-game investigator abilities.
Versatility: -1
Power: +1
(1) Interrogation: Replaces trapfinding. This class feature is essentially the same as the inquisitor’s stern gaze class feature, albeit with no support for demoralize builds. I feel like a broken record here, but if you’re fine with not being the party’s trapfinder, this ability is a solid upgrade.
(3) Keen Mind: Replaces trap sense, poison resistance, and poison immunity. Hoo boy, untyped bonuses to Will saves and Perception checks. Yes, that’s a blue, even with scaling that moves slower than trap sense. The most important save, paired with the most important skill.
(3) Perceptive Tracking: Replaces 3rd-level investigator talent. Ooooh. Locked into a very poor investigator talent. Even with relentless pursuit at 5th level, you still won’t be able to use Perceptive Tracking for much, although it’s nice that the class feature doesn’t replace your 3rd-level investigator talent; it merely dictates that you must use the talent to select Perceptive Tracking. That’s a big deal, as getting even one talent opens you up to take the Extra Investigator Talent, which you could use to progress other skill or combat functions.
(5) Relentless Pursuit: Replaces swift alchemy and 5th-level investigator talent. I’d almost consider rating this ability blue if it weren’t 1/day. As it stands, this is a lovely yet short-lived buff that can help you take down priority targets. You’re losing the bulk of your early investigator talents, though, so make sure to compensate with some extra feat support.
Sure? I really wish it were possible to exit an archetype, because interrogation and keen mind are both fantastic abilities; the issue, of course, is that perceptive tracking and relentless pursuit are not. Or, rather, they’re not so good that you would want to pass up your first two investigator talents in order to acquire them.
The mastermind is a bit more sinister than other investigators, using allies as puppets to perform tasks. The archetype receives huge boosts in defensive and anticaster effectiveness at 4th and 9th levels, when mastermind defense and impregnable mind kick in. Well worth your time to review!
Versatility: +1
Power: +2
Stacks With: Bonded Investigator, Cryptid Scholar, Guardian of Immortality
(1) Mastermind’s Inspiration: Alters inspiration. Intimidate and Diplomacy will probably come up more than Spellcraft and Linguistics, which makes mastermind’s inspiration a worthy successor unless you’re using an Orator build or something similar. Very much on-brand for the quiet menace of a mastermind, too.
(1) A Quiet Word: Replaces trapfinding and trap sense. I’m not sure how powerful this ability is for PCs, as all members of a party generally travel and operate together. I can’t think of many circumstances in which I would have needed to prepare an ally with my skill ranks...and couldn’t have used them myself. Still, the 12th-level upgrade opens up a great deal more flexibility with this feature—it almost becomes a janky version of the bard’s inspire competence class feature. If you don’t need trap capabilities, a quiet word is a decent replacement.
(4) Mastermind Defense: Replaces swift alchemy. Now here’s an ability! Because inspiration is applied after the d20 is rolled but before the result is revealed, mastermind defense can be used in precisely those clutch moments when you need to nudge a hit down into miss territory. A few inspiration to shrug off the effects of a huge Power Attack hit, a Vital Strike, an attack with grab or swallow whole, etc. is a very small price to pay indeed. With Combat Inspiration, Amazing Inspiration, and Tenacious Inspiration, this ability easily lives up to its royal purple. Make sure you communicate with your GM about when you’re considering using this ability so that they can tell you just the result of the d20 roll, not their total.
(9) Impregnable Mind: Replaces 9th-level investigator talent. Another extraordinarily powerful ability from the mastermind! By 9th level you should have the bulk of your priority investigator talents out of the way, which makes impregnable mind quite the steal. This is the level at which full casters will begin spying on you with scrying, discern location, etc., but blanket immunity is a straight-up “screw you” to all those tactics, plus alignment or lie detection. I always judge powers that replace investigator talents by asking myself, “If taking this power weren’t compulsory, would I still want to take it anyway?” In the case of impregnable mind, the answer is a resounding yes.
Yeah, mastermind is a very good archetype. Mastermind defense can greatly improve your survivability, especially if you’re only taking occasional blows on the back line, and impregnable mind is fantastic as an anticaster tool. Although a quiet word takes some getting used to, you could eventually prep allies to make all kinds of skill checks. Note that mastermind also stacks with the cryptid scholar and bonded investigator archetypes, both of which are excellent in their own ways. In particular, the mastermind/cryptid scholar combo opens the door for a team-buffing investigator who’s deadliest when he’s using his allies as weapons.
The natural philosopher is, as the name implies, a nature-based investigator that should get on quite well in survival- and wilderness-themed campaigns like Ironfang Invasion or Serpent’s Skull. This is another archetype that is neither better nor worse than the base investigator, just equipped for different scenarios. The versatility and power ratings below assume that you’re in a wilderness-heavy game.
Versatility: +0
Power: +1
Stacks With: Bonded Investigator, Cartographer, Cryptid Scholar, Empiricist, Guardian of Immortality
(1) Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Alters proficiencies. As usual with simple weapons, longspear and/or crossbow are the way to go, although the addition of the kukri is certainly interesting for those thinking about two-weapon fighting builds, crit-fishing, or both. Because most of the investigator’s damage will come from studied combat’s precision damage, you’re best off with a feat like Butterfly’s Sting that can pass crits to better-suited martial allies—but we’ll get to that in the feats section.
(1) Class Skills: Alters class skills. Almost no one uses Perform anyway, so we’ll actually rate this ability a green. Survival can be useful.
(1) Natural Philosopher’s Inspiration: Alters inspiration. Survival and Heal will be way more useful in wilderness campaigns than Linguistics or Spellcraft, so sure, even stevens.
(1) Track: Replaces trapfinding. Again, traps will be less common in the wilderness, but tracking will be more common. We’ll rate that yellow—probably less applicable for most campaigns, but solid for wilderness campaigns.
(3) Herbalism: Replaces trap sense and 3rd-level investigator talent. Wait, I’m confused. Why would you allow players to use Knowledge (Nature) in place of Craft (Alchemy) and Profession (Herbalism), then grant bonuses to the two skills that got replaced? Am I going crazy? At any rate, any reasonable GM will rule that you simply apply half your class level to Knowledge (Nature) checks that function as Craft (Alchemy) and Profession (Herbalism) checks. For example, you get the Knowledge bonus when crafting thunderstones, but not when identifying a type of gunpowder; you get the bonus when gathering herbs, but not when using Profession to earn money in an herbalist’s shop during downtime. Getting Infusion isn’t free, per se, because you’re sacrificing your 3rd-level talent, but there are worse talents you could be shoehorned into. I thought for sure Perceptive Tracking would be the go-to. I’m glad it’s not.
Assuming you’re playing a wilderness campaign, yes, it’s a worthwhile upgrade. Cartographer might be a natural archetype to pair it with.
Introduced in Planar Adventures, the portal seeker gets access to some pretty potent teleportation abilities that let you zip around battlefields, dungeons, and other locations without expending extract slots to do so. It gives up studied strike, which is probably the biggest ding against it, but what you gain is entirely, entirely worth the cost.
Versatility: +2
Power: +1
Stacks With: Sleuth
(1) Hunt Portal: Replaces trapfinding. Wooow, weird. This effect is going to be a lot more niche than trapfinding, but I can’t think of another effect that duplicates it in all of Pathfinder. Against very high level enemies, you might be able to use hunt portal as a janky “detect enemy” effect, assuming they’re carrying bags of holding or handy haversacks. I feel like I need to rate it red just because of how mechanically specific it is, but I have to say, from a flavor perspective, I love it.
(2) Resist Teleportation: Replaces poison resistance. I guess if someone targets you with a plane shift to send you to the Negative Energy Plane or something? Again, these effects will be even more niche than the already-niche poison resistance, so I feel like I have to rate it red, but again, cool flavor. Oh, and if you’re ever targeted by imprisonment (pray to whatever deity your character worships that that doesn’t happen, by the way) you’ll be glad you have resist teleportation.
(2) Portal Lore: Replaces poison lore. I could at least envision this ability coming in handy sometimes, and it’s better than poison lore. Let’s pass over it, because your 4th-level ability is really what we’re after.
(4) Transit Portals: Replaces studied strike. Heck. Yes. This ability right here, this is why you would want to play a portal seeker. Now, you might be saying, “Give up studied strike? Are you insane, Allerseelen?” And sure, I can understand the impulse: studied strike is a lot of d6s. But remember that, as discussed in the Class Features section, it’s actually studied combat that deals most of your damage, at least in the long term. And studied strike is inherently difficult to use well: you have to wait until you’re confident that an enemy could be dispatched in one blow, by which time your allies might have killed or mezzed them, they might have dimension doored away, etc. If you mistime it and use it early, those critical studied combat bonuses to hit and damage are gone, gone, gone. With all that considered, you won’t be surprised to find out that I consider transit portals to be an extraordinary upgrade over studied strike.
What are you getting here? Versatility. Mobility. The ability to respond to changing battlefield conditions with ease. At the bottom of a hungry pit? Forget climbing, just portal out of there! Walled off from an ally in desperate need of healing by a wall of force? Portal right through it—it’s invisible, after all. Trapped on the other side of difficult terrain? In a narrow hallway with no way to maneuver around an enemy and into a flank? Thrown in prison? Locked out of a key room with a Disable Device check you can’t hit? Breaking and entering during a heist or robbery? Need to dodge in under the guard of a Colossal-sized enemy without provoking an AoO? Portals can solve all these problems and more. True, you have to be able to see where you’re going and need to be able to take a move action (so no teleporting out of grapples) but that’s only a speed bump in the grand scheme of things. One last suggestion, though: talk to your GM about giving you a 5-ft. boost every level, rather than a 10-ft. boost every other level. They’re mechanically identical, but the suggested rewrite smooths out your progression a bit and matches the wording of your 11th-level ability, extended portals.
(11) Extended Portals: Replaces poison immunity. Another fantastic upgrade for the portal seeker. More expensive, true, but way more useful for repositioning the entire team where you need them to be. You’ll be seeing a lot of MVP moments with extended portals, I guarantee.
You have to be okay losing studied strike, but as I’ve argued previously, I think that’s not as big a deal as it seems on its face. And what you get in return is marvelous. Your transit portals are an exponential, paradigm-shifting leap forward in what your investigator is capable of.
Profilers are all about extrapolating information from a couple environmental clues. Every class feature is a small but demonstrable upgrade over the investigator’s base abilities, so it’s a good archetype to go with if your party doesn’t need trapfinding and you’re looking for an incremental increase in what the investigator can do.
Versatility: +1
Power: +1
Stacks With: Nothing
(1) Expert Profiler: Replaces trapfinding, poison lore, and trap sense. I’d prefer bonuses to Sense Motive over bonuses to Disable Device in most circumstances, but whether this ability is useful to you or not will depend on whether your team needs a dedicated trapspotter. Static bonuses and free inspiration go a long way toward making you very hard to fool, but even with those bonuses, you won’t be regularly hitting the DC 40 check to guess a creature’s movements before about 12th level (Take 10 + 12 ranks + 3 class skill + 1 Wisdom + 6 expert profiler + 3.5 inspiration + 5 tears to wine = 30.5, give or take a few bonuses from items that may let you do this earlier). It’s cool to be able to do this nonmagically, but by this level, your wizard or arcanist will be sitting around bored and wondering why they can’t just cast scrying already. I’ll still rate it green for the Sense Motive bonuses.
(2) Divination Analysis: Replaces poison resistance and poison immunity. Oooh, CL bonuses. It’s rare to come across effects that give you straight boosts to your caster level without any caveats. Without the ability to cast offensively against creatures, CL won’t be relevant for things like penetrating SR, but it will be relevant for concentration checks, spell durations, and certain CL-dependent effects in extracts like anticipate peril, ancestral memory, contact other plane, hypercognition, true skill, etc.
(4) Blood Sleuth: Replaces swift alchemy. Discern next of kin isn’t particularly useful, but blood biography is an excellent investigation tool that can give you valuable metainformation about past events. Pretty solidly green, I’d say.
(7) Pack Psychology: Replaces 7th-level investigator talent. It’s like improved uncanny dodge, but better! Enemies can’t even overcome it by having more HD than you, so bye-bye, rogues. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
Yeah! Profiler doesn’t rock the boat by overhauling key investigator class features, but it adds lots of little options that will make your life as a forensic scientist easier. Make finding and learning divination extracts a priority so you can take advantage of divination analysis and your CL bonuses.
The psychic detective is an investigator who gets his spell list from the psychic class. I think psychics get one of the coolest, most flavorful spell lists in the game, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they have the most spells that are 100% unique to their class. If you know your campaign will feature some amount of psychic magic, psychic detectives are a cool way to go, neither significantly more powerful nor significantly less powerful than base investigators. The versatility and power ratings below assume that you’re in a psychic magic-heavy occult campaign like Strange Aeons.
Versatility: +1
Power: +1
Stacks With: Conspirator, Reckless Epicurean
(1) Class Skills: Alters class skills. Well, poop. Just a straight loss. Climb and Perform aren’t particularly necessary skills, but it hurts to lose Acrobatics in a world where your AC and HP might not be good enough to regularly tank AoOs.
(1) Spells: Alters spellcasting. So, you want to be a psychic caster, hmmm? Well, now you are. There are any number of advantages and disadvantages to psychic casting—for example, you no longer need to provide verbal or somatic components for spellcasting, but you do need to provide thought and emotion components. You can cast while pinned, but not while frightened; you can cast a spell at a dinner party that a wizard wouldn’t be able to without raising eyebrows. In general, psychic casting isn’t really better or worse than arcane or divine casting, just different. Make sure you read up on psychic casting before jumping all the way into this archetype.
One really, really cool feature (shared with the hunter and warpriest classes) is that the psychic detective is a ⅔ casting class that gets access to every spell on the list of a full caster. Bards have their own list, inquisitors have their own list, magi have their own list, but psychic detectives get a huuuge range of possible spells known thanks to their connection to the psychic class. And the psychic spell list is amazing! In spite of getting dumped on as a “worse sorcerer,” the psychic has a neat niche all of its own. Mind thrust, id insinuation, thought shield, paranoia, analyze aura, intellect fortress, possession, wall of ectoplasm, psychic crush, mindscapes, freaking psychic duels...there’s just such a lot to love here. Remember, though, that you are still a ⅔ caster with all the limitations that go along with that. Your Intelligence and spell levels will be lower than a full caster’s main casting stat and spell levels, which means your save DCs and caster level checks to penetrate spell resistance will all be less effective. Focus primarily on buffing yourself and allies, getting intel with divination magic, etc., and you’ll be just fine. Oh! And buy as many wands and scrolls of good psychic spells as you reasonably can. There’s a lot of versatility you can leverage out of this kind of spellcasting.
(2) Psychic Meddler: Replaces poison lore, poison resistance, swift alchemy, and poison immunity. Psychic meddler is narrowly focused on games with lots of psychic or occult magic, so campaigns like Strange Aeons will be best suited to this ability. Well, neither poison resistance nor psychic resistance could be accused of being universally excellent.
(3) Phrenic Dabbler: Replaces 3rd-level investigator talent. Mmmm. You don’t get to add your casting stat to the number of phrenic pool points you get every day; that will limit how cavalier you can be about burning through your pool. Your best bet will be to find cheap phrenic amplifications that affect allies or yourself. Mindshield, Perfect Body, and Psychofeedback are all good picks. It’s a real shame that you lose out on your very first investigator talent, as that will prevent you from taking the Extra Investigator Talent feat, Quick Study, etc. until at least 5th level. If you do opt to take another phrenic amplification at later levels (you’re allowed one extra as an investigator talent) I would make it Relentless Casting. SR is problematic for ⅔ casters, but that amplification can increase your odds of landing a critical spell at a critical time.
(3) Investigator Talents: Alters investigator talents. It’s a shame to lose alchemist discoveries, of course, but you couldn’t do anything with them anyway unless you had the other class features from the base investigator. You may wish to give some thought to the Expanded Phrenic Pool feat and the option to gain one extra phrenic amplification—it’s something that sets you apart from other investigators, so you might as well make good use of it.
Much like the questioner or jinyiwei archetypes, whether you become a psychic detective is ultimately down to what kind of caster you want to be: do you want to cast divine spells, arcane spells, extract spells, or psychic spells? The investigator has options for all sorts, and switching out your casting tradition is the real reason why you’d consider taking any of these archetypes. If you’re in a Strange Aeons game or other campaign featuring lots of psychic magic and bizarre, eldritch happenings, the psychic detective will be both flavorful and mechanically powerful—you just have to be ready for it to be a little out of its element in other settings.
It’s the bard/investigator hybrid everyone wanted! Questioners cast bardic spells and gain a version of bardic knowledge, too, so step right up if you want to know everything about everything.
Versatility: +1
Power: +1
Stacks With: Lepidstadt Inspector, Reckless Epicurean, Skeptic
(1) Inspiration for Subterfuge: Alters inspiration. Stealth for Spellcraft is a pretty even-stevens trade. I’m just glad to still have all of the Knowledge skills for free.
(1) Spells: Replaces alchemy. So you’re a bard now! Bards get a lot of cool spells, and class exclusives like good hope or glibness are enough to make you sit up and take notice. Again, though, this swap is really a matter of preference. If you prefer alchemy’s strategy of self-buffing above all else, don’t take this archetype; if you’re fine with being more of a team buffer, by all means, come on in. The water’s fine. Do note that without bardic performance some of the bard’s best spells (saving finale or allegro, e.g.) won’t be worth a thin penny to you. Also note that questioners don’t actually get excused from arcane spell failure chance in light armor, as bards do, so you’ll either have to go without armor (a wand of mage armor, perhaps) or purchase Arcane Armor Training.
(2) Know-It-All: Replaces poison lore. Q: How do you make the investigator even cooler? A: Give him more Knowledge bonuses, dum-dum. More Knowledge skills are great; Eidetic Recollection is great; this ability is great.
(3) Restricted Talents: This should go without saying, but without the alchemy class feature, you can’t really use alchemist discoveries. It’s sad, but you knew what you were getting when you signed up for bardic casting. Don’t stand over this grave and weep.
If you’re okay casting as a bard and giving up alchemist discoveries, questioner is aces. Know-It-All really, really solidifies your role as the party’s unstoppable monster identification machine while giving up very little.
The spiritualist trades away all your alchemical prowess (extracts included!) for some hefty defensive abilities that shore up your AC and saves. Let’s be clear: if you play a spiritualist, you are not playing a functional caster. Sure, you can cast a few Divination spells that might help you solve a puzzle here and there, but there’s nothing your spells can contribute to combat. Losing alchemy is a huge hit to your versatility, but sixth sense and whispering spirits are both bonkers-good defensive powers. So I guess the spiritualist is sort of a tank investigator, with some incorporeal, occult flavor thrown in?
Versatility: -2
Power: +2
Stacks With: Reckless Epicurean
(1) Commune with Spirits: Replaces alchemy, and boy howdy, is it not worth the trade. All of the spell-like abilities that you gain through commune with spirits are circumstantial at best, and in return you surrender your entire ability to respond flexibly to situations through extract usage. Were it not for sixth sense and whispering spirits coming up soon, I’d say this trade sinks the archetype before it can even get its legs under it.
(2) Spirit Sense: Replaces poison lore. Nah. How often do you fight incorporeal creatures? They’re scary when they come along, but that’s not too often. Nice that you can make the ability free at 9th level, though. That should mean that you never fail a save against an undead’s level drain ever again…
(2) Strong Life: ...especially with the strong life class feature. Decent, but very niche. Replaces poison resistance.
(3) Sixth Sense: Replaces trap sense. Considering how garbage most of the powers available to you through Commune with Spirits are, you should be extremely happy to use them on something this good. Rerolls on (functionally) as many saves as you want during the day makes many combats way, way easier.
(4) Whispering Spirits: Replaces swift alchemy. Between sixth sense and whispering spirits, you’re actually becoming very tanky. As with sixth sense, this is a much better use of your Commune with Spirits ability than pretty much any of the SLAs on your list.
(11) Touched by the Beyond: Probably a bit better than poison immunity, with your poor Fortitude save. Don’t forget to use whispering spirits as often as you can, and boost your Wisdom score as high as it will reasonably go.
If you’re really, really sure that you can live without extracts, you’re welcome to pump Wisdom instead of Intelligence and go to it. You’ll certainly be more at home in a crowded melee scrum with sixth sense and whispering spirits slamming your AC and saves through the glass ceiling like a coked-up Willy Wonka. If you want versatility over power, though, my recommendation is to skip this archetype. You truly are giving up a lot.
The steel hound is an investigator with a gun. Is that as powerful as it sounds? Well, yeah, but the caveat is that ranged investigator builds need both the Weapon Focus (Firearm) and Ranged Study feats in order to function effectively...and that’s on top of the already ludicrous feat prerequisites forced on ranged characters. Given that investigators get no bonus feats, it’s unlikely that a steel hound build will be complete before 9th or 11th level, and you’ll need to sacrifice other build priorities like skills, extra investigator talents, or alchemist discoveries in order to achieve it. Your choice!
Versatility: -1
Power: +1
Stacks With: Conspirator, Dread Investigator, Forensic Physician, Malice Binder, Reckless Epicurean, Relentless Inspector
(1) Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Firearm proficiency is the big seller here.
(2) Packing Heat: Replaces poison lore. Who needs poison when you’ve got guns!? Gaining a grit pool and the ability to start crafting your own firearms and munitions is necessary to the playstyle, so I’m glad you get these feats.
(4) Shot in the Dark: Replaces swift alchemy. Blind Shot ignores all miss chances from concealment, so that’s invisibility, blur, displacement, etc. Heck, you can even shoot people when you’ve got the blinded condition! That has to rate at least a green.
(11) Talented Shot: Dead Shot, Gunslinger Initiative, Quick Clear, and Deadeye are probably the best deeds available to you at 11th level. Bleeding Wound makes for a good 15th-level deed. Overall, though, you’ll probably be starved for feats and investigator talents as a steel hound. I wouldn’t count on having many free talent slots available to select gunslinger deeds.
If you’re fine accepting the challenging feat prerequisites—or your GM hands out free feats, plays with the Elephant in the Room ruleset, etc.—you might like the steel hound archetype. Get ready for a bit of a build crunch, though.
From Blood of the Ancients, the tekritanin arbiter has a real diplomatic flair. If you’re not going to be doing any heavy-duty dungeon-crawling (or if you already have trapfinding taken care of) the archetype won’t give away anything you weren’t already willing to part with, and in exchange, you get some phenomenal face skills. Of note, the tekritanin arbiter synergizes really well with the Skill Focus (Linguistics) and Orator feat combo, to the point that you could easily outstrip a bard in social interactions. Great if you’re going for a support-based character.
Versatility: +1
Power: +1
Stacks With: Sleuth
(1) Tekritanin: Replaces trapfinding. Okay, so on its face, the tekritanin ability is pretty bad. Bonuses to Linguistics don’t typically do much—it’s the ranks and bonus languages you’re after. And besides, investigators are Intelligence-based folks that have tongues on their class list. Why would they need bonuses, to detect forgeries? But there’s another benefit here: those who take the Skill Focus (Linguistics) and Orator feats will essentially be able to use their Linguistics checks in place of all face skills, at least out of combat; combine Skill Focus with free inspiration and the boost you get from tekritanin, and you really are a monstrously talented diplomat. I have to rate the ability yellow due to its niche utility, but if you’re planning to be the party’s face, tekritanin could be green or even blue. Anything that lets you out-interact a bard has got to be worth considering, right?
(2) Expert Mediator: Replaces poison lore. Considering what you’re giving up, expert mediator is a surprisingly solid ability for intrigue- and interaction-heavy games. The ability to get metainformation on exactly what attitude a target has toward you is interesting.
(2) Hidden Meaning: Replaces poison resistance. There aren’t too terribly many [language-dependent] effects, but the ones that are out there friggin’ stink to get hit by. I’m talking suggestion, blistering invective, greater forbid action, geas/quest, any of the Inquisitor’s litany spells, etc. Getting outright immunity by 11th level is plenty good, even if it’s a bit niche.
(3) Fluent Speaker: Replaces trap sense. Again, surprisingly good! Most regions of the Inner Sea have common languages (Taldan in Taldor, Skald in Irrisen, etc.) that can let you scoop up some cheap, untyped bonuses on Disguise, Diplomacy, and Sense Motive checks.
Again, if you’re looking for an archetype that can leverage all of the investigator’s abilities for social interaction, tekritanin arbiter is where you should begin. Bonuses to Linguistics, Sense Motive, and Diplomacy all fit right in.
Remember how I kept harping on about not poisoning people in the extracts section? Well, toxin codexer might be the only archetype that addresses that concern. It doesn’t solve the basic problem of poisons—namely, that entire classes of enemies that are immune to poison, no questions asked—but does at least compensate you by letting you brew your poisons as extracts and give them improved save DCs. I stick by what I said about not poisoning, but if you still want to, this is the archetype to do it with.
Versatility: -1
Power: +1
Stacks With: Nothing
(1) Poison Lore: Modifies poison lore. If poison is going to be your thing, you’ll need to avoid poisoning yourself at 1st level. That seems pretty obvious, no?
(1) Synthetic Venom: Modifies alchemy, replaces trapfinding and 3rd-level investigator talent. The signature ability of the toxin codexer is to create poisons as if they were extracts—no crafting time or costly material components required. If you want to poison—and I’m still not sure I can recommend it, given how often high Fortitude saves or poison immunities will screw you over—this is certainly the way to do it. The greatest thing to note about synthetic venom is that it scales the save DC with your investigator level and Intelligence modifier, making even early poisons like arsenic and black adder venom (in theory) worth applying to later enemies. I won’t rate all the poisons here—oh, wait, what’s that? This is one of my guides? Shoot, I guess I will, then.
(3) Modify Toxin: Replaces keen recollection and trap sense. These are mostly pretty bad, sorry to say. The 30% spell failure chance option at 12th level is amazing, but everything else I could take or leave. There’s no particular synergy with your toxins, and I don’t entirely understand the addition of beneficial effects to poisons. Is Paizo expecting you to poison your allies?
Poison immunity and careful target selection remain going concerns for any poison build, but toxin codexer at least raises your save DCs beyond laughable levels. You’ll certainly deal some ability damage in your day if you play smart. This one earns my guarded approval.
“The Dewey decimal system, in an archive of this standing? How distasteful.”
—Quinn, Iconic Investigator
Cellophane, Mr. Cellophane, shoulda been my name...the cipher is, as the description says, a student of nonexistence. All your resources are bent toward becoming utterably untraceable, unknowable, unfindable, unremarkable. The problem with the archetype—in addition to giving up far, far too many investigator talents—is that your ace in the hole, inattention blindness, just doesn’t work as it should. I love the flavor of the cipher, and I want it to work, but it doesn’t. Pretend like this archetype doesn’t exist (that’s kind of its schtick anyway) and move on.
Versatility: -2
Power: -2
Stacks With: Nothing
(1) Unassuming: Alters class skills and inspiration. Both because of the removal of all face skills from your class list and because of the changes to your inspiration skills, unassuming is a major downgrade. A necessary downgrade, given the archetype’s theme, but a downgrade nevertheless. Stealth and Escape Artist bonuses are probably your biggest gains here, but that’s cold comfort.
(1) Inattention Blindness: Replaces trapfinding, poison lore, poison resistance, poison immunity, and trap sense. Even if I think that cipher doesn’t quite live up to its potential as an archetype, I really have to admire what a big, daring risk Paizo took on an ability like inattention blindness. I know of nothing else like it in Pathfinder. Let’s look at a couple points.
Can you see, on balance, why I have serious reservations about inattention blindness? The only thing that saves it is the hide in plain sight ability, which you get later on. Thanks to HiPS, it kinda doesn’t matter whether your inattention blindness worked or not—you can just use Stealth to escape notice instead. Good thing, too, as inattention blindness is broken. And not in a good way.
(3) Evasive: Replaces 3rd- and 11th-level investigator talents. Sure! I’d take these as investigator talents even if they were offered optionally, and that’s usually my criterion for deciding whether mandatory talent-replacing features get the nod. Evasion is one of those “never, ever hurts to have it” features.
(4) Null Aura: Replaces swift alchemy and 9th-level investigator talent. Null aura will definitely ensure that you’re very, very difficult to pin down with divination magic, but I can’t help but feel that this ability is better used by GMs to create a scarily tough-to-find antagonist. How creepy would a cipher serial killer be in an urban campaign? Huh?
(5) Tenuous Threat: Alters studied strike, and replaces 5th-level investigator talent. Tenuous threat is interesting in that it decouples studied strike from studied combat. Part of me thinks that’s cool! Now you can study a main target, lash out at any minions that decide to get close, and hopefully burn a few down. But there are problems. First, you’ve now attached a Will save to negate. Dukes! A good half of enemies will succeed at those. Second, your studied strike is now [mind-affecting]. Double dukes! So in addition to oozes, elementals, and incorporeals, all of which are immune to precision damage, you now also have to worry about constructs, inevitables, qlippoth, plants, undead, and vermin. Third, you don’t get to use studied combat’s attack bonuses to help you land your studied strike. Triple dukes! Maybe an enemy has really high AC, and you’d genuinely like to be able to use studied combat for that purpose. Nuh-uh, you can’t. Not much going right here.
(7) Hide in Plain Sight: Replaces 7th-level investigator talent. As with evasion and improved evasion, I would always take HiPS if it were offered regularly. You might as well think of this as your stealth ability, because inattention blindness won’t cut it much of the time.
Rrrrgh, I really want it to be, but it’s just not. Inattention blindness doesn’t work as intended, and the one archetype that’s meant to make you most unfindable is instead likely to get you splattered if you try to use it to sneak around enemies or observe them unseen. It doesn’t help that you also trade away damn near all of your investigator talents! I mean, jeez, you get your first one at 13th level? You can’t even take Extra Investigator Talent before that to alleviate the pain, because you don’t yet have the class feature to satisfy the prerequisite. I’d take evasive, HiPS, and even null aura if they were offered to me in a different archetype, but cipher sucks enough to make me back away slowly.
Another vaguely sinister investigator archetype, like Lepidstadt inspector or mastermind.
Versatility: -1
Power: -1
Stacks With: Antiquarian, Cartographer, Cryptid Scholar, Holomog Demolitionist, Empiricist, Psychic Detective, Sleuth, Steel Hound
(1) Underhanded: Replaces trapfinding and alters inspiration. I’m torn about underhanded. On the one hand (the underhand, perhaps?) the swap you make on your inspiration skills is pretty bad. Of the five skills you get, only Bluff and Intimidate are likely to be used often; Disable Device would be useful, but you’ve traded away trap sense and trapfinding in this archetype, and both Disguise and Sleight of Hand remain circumstantial, at best. On the other hand, (the overhand) the ½-level bonus to Bluff is nice. Disguise is again not worth it. Overall, I consider this a downgrade.
(3) Watcher Sense: Replaces trap sense and 7th-level investigator talent. Another split, this one a little better. Bonuses to Perception checks, especially to determine whether you can act in a surprise round, are great. Bonuses to notice a scrying sensor? Mmmm, less worth it. If an enemy caster is spying on you using divination magic, it shouldn’t really be you, the ⅔ caster, who’s taking care of countermeasures. Again, not quite an upgrade.
Not really, no. You’re not trading anything unbearable away, but many other, better archetypes rely on being able to trade away trapfinding and trap sense. There’s an opportunity cost that has to be considered. I’d say go elsewhere if you want the “covert operative” feel; questioner, profiler, mastermind, and Lepidstadt inspector all have better chassis.
Think of the dread investigator archetype as the Little Engine That Believed It Could Be Gravedigger. It tries many of the same tricks, but with nowhere near the follow-through necessary to pull them off. Just go with gravedigger archetype if you want to be a master of death and undeath.
Versatility: +1
Power: -2
Stacks With: Steel Hound
(1) Delayed Inspiration: Alters inspiration, studied combat, and studied strike. Yeah...no. These are all key powers for an investigator, and you’re trading ‘em away for little in return.
(1) Embalming Fluids: Replace poison lore. The best spells in your necromantic stables are the animate dead spells, but the gravedigger archetype already does that better than the dread investigator with its necromantic servant focus power.
(2) Negative Energy Resistance: Replaces poison immunity and resistance. I gave this ability a blue rating in the gravedigger archetype, so I suppose it’s only fair that I do it here, too. Dread investigator is a demonstrably inferior archetype, though.
(7) Reanimation Fluid: Replaces 7th-, 13th-, and 19th-level investigator talents. You can get the undead anatomy spells from any high-level wizard or alchemist you meet, so it’s not like this is a huge boon. And if you want to stabilize dying allies, just give them an infusion of heal! Problem solved without trading away three of your investigator talents.
Nope. Slower inspiration, studied combat, and studied strike progression, plus lost investigator talents, all for not much in return. If you’re really looking for this flavor, go with gravedigger.
Engineers can pass out their inspiration dice with a little bit of preparation, but that’s less exciting in the end than it sounds. Look to holomog demolitionist for more of the flair that the engineer so desperately needed.
Versatility: +0
Power: -1
Stacks With: Sleuth
(1) Custom Mechanism: Replaces trapfinding, poison lore, and poison resistance. Custom mechanism allows you to loan out your inspiration class feature to allies. Although that’s a nifty trick, investigators were designed with the intent that they’re the true skill monsters of Pathfinder, and hence don’t need to loan out their inspiration. It’s not like custom mechanism replaces anything important, so I can’t get too mad, but trading away these class features has a high opportunity cost—engineer doesn’t stack with anything but sleuth, and you’re not fricking taking sleuth.
(3) Mechanical Understanding: Replaces trap sense. Knowledge (Engineering) will be useless; Knowledge (Arcana) to identify constructs is better. Still, though, was this all they could come up with for an engineering-based archetype? It’s just so boring.
Nah, not really. If you’re looking for the engineering feel on a better chassis, consider holomog demolitionist instead. Not enough meat here to really latch onto.
Forensic physicians were introduced in Ultimate Intrigue, a book that I’ve come to associate with the impression, “Cool flavor, but how would this be mechanically useful?” This archetype is an example of just that impression: heavy on the flavor of being a crime scene investigator able to deduce everything from a blood spatter, but low on mechanical impact. If you’re looking for a similar flavor with a better chassis, the profiler archetype can cast blood biography easily, which is most of what makes forensic physician interesting anyway.
Versatility: -1
Power: -1
Stacks With: Antiquarian, Bonded Investigator, Cartographer, Cryptid Scholar, Empiricist, Guardian of Immortality, Sleuth, Steel Hound
(1) Medical Expertise: Alters inspiration and replaces trapfinding. As you may have noticed from the Feats section, builds incorporating the Healer’s Hands and Heal Skill Unlock feats can become capable of some truly ridiculous non-magical healing. This healing is predicated on the ability to reliably hit a DC 30 check (DC 20 to treat deadly wounds, then beat the DC by 10) so most non-magical healing builds will be looking to get at least a +20 to their Heal skill ASAP so that they can take 10 on their check out of combat. The magical +20 is easily achievable by about 8th level (8 ranks + 3 class skill + 3.5 average inspiration + 4 medical expertise + 2 tears to wine) but might be available a bit earlier or later, depending on your traits, feats, inspiration talents, etc. At any rate, medical expertise is good for these specific builds, but by no means essential—even builds without the medical expertise bonuses can hit a +20 by about 10th level. I think I’d prefer to take Expanded Inspiration on a base investigator and do things that way than go through forensic physician.
(3) Disease Lore: Replaces trap sense and 3rd-level investigator talent. Real-life doctors need to understand what a disease is before they cure it; Pathfinder doctors just roll a Heal check and say, “Haha, it doesn’t matter what the disease is!” As for the bonuses against diseases: diseases are like poisons, but slower and less deadly. Bonuses against poison are pretty bad already. Bonuses against disease are worse.
(5) Blood Lore: Replaces 5th-level investigator talent. Blood lore is cool and all, but I can’t help but feel that you might as well just ask your wizard to scribe a few scrolls of blood biography, then use those instead. Losing both your 3rd- and 5th-level investigator talents will force you to push essential investigator talents like Quick Study back until at least 7th level, and that’s just no fun.
Forensic physician tries to do some cool things—and almost gets there. Ultimately, however, you’re pushing your investigator talent progression back until at least 7th level for very little in return. If you want to do the non-magical healing schtick, just pick up Expanded Inspiration, Healer’s Hands, the Heal Skill Unlock, and tears to wine, then go from there. You’ll be fine without the bonuses from medical expertise, and you’ll thank me for your investigator talents.
The hallucinist tries to get cool with a mind-expanding hallucinogen (similar to an alchemist’s mutagen or cognatogen class feature) but beefs it hard by trading away damn near all of your investigator talents. You need those, kids! The abilities you get in return simply don’t do enough for you to merit that trade.
Versatility: -2
Power: -2
Stacks With: Sleuth
(1) Psychedelic Perception: Replaces trapfinding, trap sense, and 3rd-, 7th-, 11th-, and 15th-level investigator talents. Ultimately, your hallucinogen will give you low-light vision, darkvision, blindsense to 60 ft., see invisibility, aura sight, and a +10 Perception bonus for 10 minutes/level—all for the low, low price of a -2 penalty to Dexterity. Unfortunately, between psychedelic perception and shared hallucinations, you give away all of your investigator talents. Unacceptable. Most of these effects can be duplicated through wondrous items or extracts, whereas investigator talents typically cannot. To cap it all off, you can’t even compensate by taking the Extra Investigator Talent feat a bunch of times, because you don’t get your first talent until 13th level.
(2) Drug Lore: Replaces poison lore. How many times have you run across drugs in Pathfinder? Fewer than poison? Yeah, me, too.
(2) Drug Resistance: Replaces poison resistance and poison immunity. You could probably do some funny things with total immunity to drug addiction, but again, even poisons are more common and more dangerous.
(3) Shared Hallucinations: Replaces keen recollection and 5th- and 9th-level investigator talents. Again, losing the vast majority of your investigator talents isn’t a great way to start. I’d say that these were good effects, but because you need to expend both inspiration and 10 minutes off of your hallucinogen duration in order to use them, you’ll be blowing the one substance you traded everything for—the hallucinogen. Again, can’t recommend.
(6) Simultaneous Study: Replaces studied combat and trap sense. Okay, this is actually pretty cool...but you just don’t need it. Investigators are fundamentally intended to be single-target attackers, whether in melee or at range, and you have no abilities that would allow you to take advantage of multiple targets at the same time. The limitation of one studied target isn’t too restrictive for the base investigator because every investigator will take the Quick Study talent ASAP; you can’t do that, however, because you traded away all your talents. Poop.
Investigator talents are what shore up the mechanics of the class chassis. Without them, you’re sunk. It’s okay to give away one or two if the trade is worth it, especially if they come a little later in your progression, but giving away every talent until 13th level for comparatively little in return isn’t an acceptable trade.
Listen. Sometimes Pathfinder archetypes take good class features and swap them for bad class features; sometimes they take mediocre class features and swap them for even more mediocre class features. The infiltrator belongs to the latter group of archetypes. The whole thing is based around becoming better at mundane disguises, which in my history of Pathfinder play I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone use. Once. You’re only losing trapfinding, poison lore, and poison resistance—which aren’t terrible to lose, as you’ve heard me opine—but there are so many other, better investigator archetypes that you won’t be able to play if you select infiltrator. Pass. Just pass.
Versatility: -1
Power: -2
Stacks With: Sleuth
(1) Master of Disguise: Replaces trapfinding. You’re just reducing penalties to a skill that no one uses anyway. This ability is better used by NPCs.
(2) Voice Mimicry: Replaces poison lore. Yep, still pretty bad.
(2) Mimic Mastery: Replaces poison resistance. You could achieve all these effects with a hat of disguise and a few polymorph extracts. Pardon me if I don’t get excited.
Nooope. Disguise isn’t used by a majority of Pathfinder players for a reason. It’s just lackluster all the way through.
There’s not much to say about the majordomo archetype other than that it is clearly meant to be an NPC-only archetype—it’s not even PFS-legal, which is Paizo’s usual way of designating an option either too powerful (and retconning it out of official play) or intended for NPCs. If you were playing a campaign like Kingmaker and wanted to give an NPC cohort levels in majordomo, that would be a fine choice! It’s not good at all for adventurers, so I won’t even bother to review the abilities here. Read it if you’re interested, but otherwise, move on.
Versatility: -2
Power: -2
Stacks With: Bonded Investigator, Cryptid Scholar, Holomog Demolitionist, Guardian of Immortality
N/A
Not for PCs, no! Keep looking.
The malice binder archetype attempts to give you some witchhunter flavor by letting you craft “fetters,” which are magical talismans that do various harmful things to targets. Unfortunately, the archetype is bogged down by some truly ludicrous restrictions and design choices; you ultimately give up all your extract casting for just about nothing in return. Terrible.
Versatility: -2
Power: -2
Stacks With: Steel Hound
(1) Witch Lore: Alters inspiration. A straight downgrade. Even if Sleight of Hand is useful for your fettering class ability, losing free inspiration on every Knowledge check except Knowledge (Arcana) is a huge blow. Blech.
(1) Take a Bit: Replaces trapfinding and trap sense. This ability will prove to be integral to your fettering ability, so I suppose it’s important to have. I still think a ¾-BAB class using combat maneuvers on the regular is incredibly risky. You’ll probably want to invest in Amazing Inspiration and Tenacious Inspiration, then use those liberally when attempting to collect tokens from creatures. More on that in our next ability.
(1) Fettering: Replaces alchemy. So: in exchange for all your casting abilities, malice binders get the opportunity to create…well, not voodoo dolls, exactly, but bits of magical material crafted from parts of their targets’ bodies that can be used to create a variety of effects. In order to get those parts of your targets’ bodies, you’ll need to be able to steal them, which is why take a bit and take a bit more are class features. Let’s take a look at some of the rules text to see what we’re getting here, because this ability is a long one.
A malice binder forgoes alchemy for the study of sympathetic magic that allows him to hinder foes. Fetters rely on the magical resonance of creatures capable of casting spells (spellcasters and creatures with spell-like abilities) which saturates even their hair and clothing. Fetters cannot target a creature with no magical ability. The malice binder knows one fetter at 1st level and gains another at 4th level and every 2 levels thereafter.
Right off the bat, this isn’t what I’d call a good set-up. Alchemy and extract casting is incredibly versatile and powerful, but fettering trades it away for one power that you can use until 4th level, and only then against magical creatures from whom you’ve collected a token. Not. Good.
Every fetter requires a token taken from his desired target: a few hairs, a lost tooth, nail clippings, a scrap of clothing, or a small treasured possession with some significance. An investigator can obtain a single token in any of the following ways: a successful Sleight of Hand check against an unsuspecting target, a successful steal combat maneuver, or a successful Perception check (DC = 15 + the creature’s CR) to search an area his target occupied for at least 2 hours. Malice binders can search such a location for additional tokens, but each subsequent Perception check increases the DC by 5, regardless of success or failure. Tokens rely on the magic that clings to spellcasters and creatures with spell-like abilities; they must be carefully preserved as soon as they are recovered and before they can be used. Preparing a token requires a move action, and a malice binder can maintain one prepared token per class level. Each token can be used only to power a fetter targeting the creature it came from, and it is consumed in the process. At 7th level, the malice binder can instead prepare a token as a swift action.
In order to use this incredibly specific fetter against only magical targets, you first have to collect and craft a token. If you’re in a dungeon crawl and can find some items relating to the boss lying around, sure, this might not be a big problem. What if you’re just traveling through the woods, though, and get hit with a random encounter? Well, you’ve got to use the steal maneuver. So that’s at least a standard action to steal, plus more if you fail the first time. Then you’ve got to craft the token as a move or swift action, and finally activate the fetter as a standard action. Ooookay. Let’s see what else this ability has going for it.
The DC to resist a fetter is equal to 10 + half the investigator’s class level + the investigator’s Charisma bonus. Activating a fetter is a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity, and unless otherwise stated the target must be within 30 feet, plus 5 feet per 2 levels. Once a creature has been the target of a specific fetter, it is immune to that effect for 24 hours.
And for the piece de resistance, the malice binder splits your point buy up with Charisma. Why? Why? Why was this necessary? Now you’re forced into a rock-hard-place scenario where focusing on Intelligence shores up your inspiration and studied combat, but focusing on Charisma improves your fetters. This is likely to be the kiss of death for both sets of abilities. Alright, once I can get my blood pressure down into acceptable margins again, we’ll take a look at the specific effects of the fetters...which can only target an enemy once per effect in 24 hours. Oh, god, there it goes again. Hang on. Taking my hypertension meds.
So, summing up the fettering class feature: you’ve traded away all your alchemical prowess and extract casting in return for fettering. In order to use a fetter, you have to get a token from a magical target (standard action), craft the token (move or swift action), use the token (standard action, provokes), and finally hope that your target fails its save. How likely is that? Well, since your save DCs are nonsensically keyed off of Charisma, not very likely. In order to be a good ability, fettering would have to work against nonmagical targets, key off of Intelligence, and feature upgraded effects or durations in order to be worth anyone’s time. As it stands, fettering is incredibly bad.
(8) Take a Bit More: Replaces poison resistance. Okay, sure, better steal maneuvers. Whatever. I’m numb after fettering.
(11) Witch Trapper: Replaces poison immunity. Ranger traps are so weak and ineffective that even rangers don’t use them. Forget this.
No, no, and a thousand times no. Archetypes that give away core class features away have to be prepared to substitute something equally powerful and versatile in their place, and malice binder simply doesn’t do that. On top of the flaming, multicolored dumpster fire that is fettering, there are some truly baffling design choices at play. Why make the malice binder’s key stat Charisma, but then not change any of the investigator’s Intelligence-based abilities to reflect that? Why make fetters only applicable to magical creatures? Why force players to spend at least two rounds stealing, crafting, and using a fetter? It just boggles the mind. Perhaps the investigator’s worst archetype, and that’s even taking sleuth into account.
The Reckless Epicurean tries to make you a little more versatile by letting you pull extracts you haven’t learned into your rotation, but forgets that investigators should already be making formula acquisition a main priority. Don’t throw away your investigator talents on these benefits.
Versatility: -1
Power: -2
Stacks With: Antiquarian, Bonded Investigator, Cartographer, Cryptid Scholar, Empiricist, Holomog Demolitionist, Lamplighter, Psychic Detective, Questioner, Scavenger, Sleuth, Spiritualist, Steel Hound
(2) A Familiar Taste: Replaces trapfinding. Ummm, okay? Identifying potions isn’t usually that hard, and just because the skill is so niche, I’m going to have to rate it even worse than trapfinding.
(5) Experimental Potable: Replaces 5th-level investigator talent. So...let me get this straight: the benefit is that you get to mix an extract you don’t know—which shouldn’t be many, given how cheap it is to learn new extracts—but you might become confused or dazed, take Constitution bleed, or summon grease on yourself? It’s waaay too unpredictable. People cast the spells they cast because they want those effects, not random others. Go play an oracle with the Whimsy mystery if you want this kind of stuff.
(13) Sympathetic Resistance: Replaces 13th-level investigator talent. I’ll the ability this: these are some hefty bonuses that will stack with everything else you’ve got. Think about it, though. If an enemy wizard is blowing you away with evocation magic and you drink an evocation extract (not sure what that would be) then they can always switch to other spell schools to mess you up. Spellcasters with enough resources to mess with you also have enough resources to do it creatively.
Nope nope nope! Way too niche, and the experimental potable class feature that the archetype hinges on doesn’t do you much good. Too swingy.
Ruthless Agents are the classic Hans Landa kinds of investigators. Sure, they’re investigators, but they’re also all about scaring the pants off of witnesses until they get what they want. Unfortunately, the archetype trades away one too many good class features for one too few good benefits, at least for my taste. Consider the mastermind, Lepidstadt inspector, and even profiler archetypes if you’re looking for the same flavor but a better mechanical fit.
Versatility: -1
Power: -1
Stacks With: Cryptid Scholar, Holomog Demolitionist
(1) Inspiration: Alters inspiration. Oof baboof, no inspiration on attack rolls or saving throws? I’m not saying you’ll be doing those all the time as an investigator, but man, it’s sure nice to have the option in a pinch. Straight downgrade.
(1) Enhanced Intimidation: Replaces trapfinding. Enhanced intimidation is good enough to keep people you Intimidate pooping themselves for days on end. If you’re going for a Bruising Intellect-type build, you’ll get plenty of mileage out of this ability.
(3) Interrogate: Replaces trap sense. Ruthless Agent has a real inquisitor feel going on. If you’ve invested skill ranks and talents into making Sense Motive a good skill for yourself, interrogations will get you answers in a hurry. Great for bullying hapless commoners you run into.
(4) Agonizing Strike: Replaces swift alchemy. I suppose it’s decent, but a studied strike should really be putting someone into the ground—that’s why none of the studied strike investigator talents get very high ratings. Why tag a good debuff or combat maneuver onto an ability that’s intende to kill a target outright?
(7) Concoction of Truth: Replaces 7th-level investigator talent. A 1/day discern lies isn’t better than an investigator talent, I’m sorry to say. Have to rate it red.
(11) Compel Obedience: Replaces 11th- and 17th-level investigator talents. Geas/quest is an awesome spell to be able to use, perfect for getting unwilling allies on the inside of whatever cult or stronghold you’re infiltrating. Better than two investigator talents? Well, meh. Considering you could be getting crazy-good alchemist discoveries like Eternal Potion at this level, though, what are you doing monkeying around with a 1/day SLA?
My favorite class is the inquisitor, so you know I’m all about intimidation tactics. And if all you were going to throw away was trapfinding and trap sense, I would say go for it! But you’re also losing three precious investigator talents and the ability to use inspiration on attack rolls and saves. That really, really cuts into both your power and your versatility. I’m sorry to say I can’t recommend it.
The Scavenger becomes better at doing things with clockwork constructs and machinery in general, but sacrifices too much from its inspiration capacities to be too good.
Versatility: -1
Power: +0
Stacks With: Reckless Epicurean
(1) Gadgetry: It’s not functionally any different from alchemy, but the Craft (Clockwork) bonus is welcome if you’re going to be creating many constructs.
(1) Mechanical Inspiration: Blergh, a straight downgrade. Appraise is bad, Knowledge (Engineering) is bad, Disable Device is only situationally useful, and you lose out on many, many better Knowledge checks, not to mention Spellcraft for identifying casters. Bad.
(2) Jury-Rig: Jury-Rig is good if you’d like to be a dedicated trap disabler, but I would have preferred to get this ability without sacrificing Inspiration at 1st level.
(2) Construct Mastery: Okay, this is actually quite good. Constructs usually give parties trouble, so bonus damage? Yep, show me where to sign. Craft Construct is even better. Just don’t run around trying to be a trompe l’oeil investigator.
Probably not. Other classes are better at crafting constructs than you are, and the loss of most of your free inspiration skills hurts your skill monkey potential. I’d recommend that you skip the archetype unless you have a very specific concept in mind.
The Skeptic funnels all of its replacement abilities into turning you into an occult hauntmaster. Problem is, haunts only occur once in a great while, and when they do, someone usually has the positive energy damage to deal with them. If you’re this worried about haunts, consider getting a scroll of speak with haunt in order to be able to dispel them effectively.
Versatility: -2
Power: -1
Stacks With: Questioner
(1) Hauntfinding: Unless you’re playing a campaign like Strange Aeons that specifically features a lot of haunts, hauntfinding will be infinitely worse than trapfinding. Hard pass.
(2) Suspect Hoax: Surprisingly decent, actually. Better saves against level drain and haunts are decent, and fear effects come up as much as or more than poison effects.
(4) Smite Haunt: Well, niche. But you knew that.
(7) Exorcising Touch: So niche that it’s likely never to come up unless you’re constantly fighting demons with magic jar and similar effects.
Nah. Too narrowly focused, and without much power to warrant the narrow focus.
The Sleuth archetype turns you into a pseudo-swashbuckler or pseudo-gunslinger, with a fluctuating pool of luck points that you can spend on many of the same things that those classes can. But...it’s bad. You trade away all your extract potential for...the ability to add 1d6 to Climb, Swim, Acrobatics, Escape Artist, Fly, or Ride checks? Um.
Versatility: -2
Power: -2
Stacks With: Bonded Investigator, Conspirator, Cryptid Scholar, Demolitionist, Engineer, Forensic Physician, Guardian of Immortality, Hallucinist, Infiltrator, Lamplighter, Lepidstadt Inspector, Portal Seeker, Reckless Epicurean, Tekritanin Arbiter
(1) Sleuth’s Luck: Replaces alchemy and swift alchemy. No, no, no. I’m sorry. No. Losing out on all your extracts is a steep, steep price to pay for abilities that could ultimately be replicated by, you guessed it, extracts. Assuming you picked up Amazing Inspiration, it should be easy to regain your luck points, and deeds like Opportunistic Evasion or Make It Count would be worth it...if you weren’t trading away your most valuable possession in order to get them. This class feature singlehandedly sinks the archetype.
Nooooo. No, no, no. You should never give away your extracts without an extraordinarily compelling cause. This ain’t that.
The Star Watcher replaces your alchemy class feature with horoscopes. How does that work? Who knows! It’s magic. Whether you love or hate the archetype will depend in large part on whether you prefer the mechanics in horoscopes or extracts. Of perhaps special note, Star Watcher is by far the best option you have for a Startoss Style starknife build, and does surprisingly well on that front.
Versatility: +0
Power: -1
Stacks With: Bonded Investigator, Cryptid Scholar, Holomog Demolitionist, Guardian of Immortality
(1) Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Desna’s Divine Fighting Technique and Startoss Style come to mind as good adjuncts to starknife combat. You are worshipping Desna or Pulura as a Star Watcher, right? It only makes sense. Kinda stinks to lose access to the rapier, though—that’s a good weapon for the investigator.
(1) Astrology: Alters alchemy. It’s an interesting ability. As far as I can gather, you have to decide at the time of preparation who your horoscope applies to (including yourself) and only that person can be the beneficiary of your spell. This opens up a few interesting paths. First, it makes extracts function more or less like spells, negating the need for the Infusion discovery in order to pass out buffs to allies. Second, horoscopes made explicitly for allies can be passed out to activate on their turns, rather than yours. On the downside, you lose your Craft (Alchemy) bonuses, and can’t select any of the excellent alchemist discoveries, many of which apply to potions and poisons, not just extracts. I’d say Astrology gives you slightly more disadvantage than advantage, but your mileage may vary.
(1) Starfinding: Replaces trapfinding and trap sense. Let’s be clear: Knowledge (Geography) is pretty much garbage. It gets free inspiration, though, and benefits from your high Intelligence score. If you’re playing with the Background Skills ruleset, it’s also one of the best “trash skills” to invest points in, because it frees up all your ranks from Sense Motive. I’m honestly not sure this ability is worth it compared to trapfinding and trap sense, but it’s better than squat.
(3) Investigator Talents: Replaces swift alchemy, which is totally fine, because you gave away all your crafting bonuses earlier in the archetype. Here are my ratings:
If you’re comfortable with the upsides and downsides of horoscopes or desperately want to throw starknives at people, sure, Star Watcher will deliver. It’s not what I’d call an amazing archetype; it gives you back about what you gave away.
For new players, “dipping” describes the process of taking some small number of class levels in a different class than the class the player intends to end up in eventually. One-level dips are the easiest, and most players agree that after about three levels you’re not really “dipping” anymore, but going for a truer multiclass. Dipping usually accomplishes a few things—the more things, the better the case for the dip.
With the general parameters of dipping set up, what kinds of classes should we be looking into for our investigators?
Introduced in Pathfinder Unchained, Variant Multiclassing (or VMC, for short) allowed players to progress two classes in parallel, rather than in sequence. The price—there’s always a price—is most of your feats. Womp womp. For classes like fighter, where feats aren’t a problem, VMC can be an excellent adjunct to your class abilities, giving you new tools for little overall penalty. The issue with VMC and investigators is that investigators receive no bonus feats, and are already incredibly feat-hungry: you’ll be sucking down as many instances of Extra Investigator Talent as you can manage whenever you’re on a break from your main combat build priorities. Unfortunately, I simply can’t recommend VMCing away from the investigator for anyone. You’re just spread too thin. And because the investigator is a hybrid class, you can’t VMC into investigator, either! How fun.
Gestalt character creation is a process that essentially combines all the class features and casting capabilities of two classes, and is typically done when PCs need to be extra powerful, as when an adventure path designed for a four-person party is only being run by two or three PCs. Complete rules can be found here. It’s not terribly difficult to pick a gestalt class, because anything you choose isn’t a trade-off so much as an addition. That said, there are choices that maximize what investigators can already do, so in this section we’ll detail general precepts for what you should be looking out for in a gestalt pairing.
First, let’s start out with what you’re not allowed to do. The investigator is a hybrid of the alchemist and the rogue classes, so as fun as it would be to have an alchemist/investigator crossover, I don’t think it’s something that most GMs would permit at their tables. By all means, try! The alchemist’s bombs and discoveries plus the investigator’s inspiration and studied combat would make for an insane and volatile mixture. Moving on from those classes, there are any number of full casters that use Intelligence as their main casting stat: witch, wizard, arcanist, sage bloodline sorcerer, and psychic all fit the bill just fine. Here you begin running into a few problems, however. For starters, there’s arcane spell failure chance. Investigators aren’t huge on armor, true, and Dexterity-based investigators can make do with a haramaki, which has no spell failure chance. The slightly bigger problem, however, is one of feats. Casters generally need a lot of feats in order to be effective. Combat Casting, Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, various metamagic feats...it starts to add up. That’s not a big problem for casters, who have no other combat priorities, but because the investigator was built to be a striker class, you’re left suddenly doing double duty on feats—and you don’t have that many to begin with. Even with no investment, full casters will still be very powerful, but I wouldn’t call it an optimal choice.
With full casters a suboptimal choice, let’s move to the opposite side of the spectrum: full-BAB martial classes with no innate casting. The advantages here are numerous: martial classes often get bonus feats (one of the investigator’s biggest weaknesses), come with attack and damage bonuses that synergize extraordinarily well with studied combat, and boast higher HD and Fortitude saves than the investigator can bring by itself. Let’s start simple with the fighter. If that seems like a surprising pairing, just think about it for a second: fighters have poor out-of-combat utility, where investigators excel. Investigators are perpetually strapped for feats, which fighters provide in spades. Fighters struggle to compete when magic is afoot, but the investigator has extract casting to handle that. Investigators feel pretty squishy with a d8 HD, poor Fortitude saves, and light armor proficiency only, but the fighter neatly solves all of those problems. Weapon training and studied combat are a match made in heaven, letting you take four iterative attacks (+35/+30/+25/+20 without any attribute, gear, or spell bonuses) at 20th level, and the bonus feats let you build whatever the hell you want for your combat chassis. If you have no other priorities, select Extra Investigator Talent over and over and become the world’s best skill monkey. Oh, and advanced weapon training? You could just die from how good those are, right?
If you’re looking for something a little more lithe, the inspired blade swashbuckler also does very well for itself. A one-level dip in this archetype is classic for Dexterity-based investigators, but the rest of the archetype continues to do good work in a gestalt game. You don’t receive as many bonus feats as the fighter, and lose your good Fortitude save, but some will feel that the addition of nimble, charmed life, and your various swashbuckler deeds compensates you for the loss. Your inspired strike class feature’s bonus type unfortunately conflicts with studied combat, but that is what it is. Moving on from the swashbuckler, we’ve got the siege gunner gunslinger. Unfortunately, siege gunner just isn’t that great of an archetype. You’ll get to keep your Intelligence focus, but at the cost of much of what makes a gunslinger powerful. It wouldn’t be my first choice, because after all, who’s ever used a siege gun in Pathfinder? Slayer usually does well in gestalt match-ups, and the match-up with the investigator is no different. One problem that you’ll have to work around is the action input to use studied target and studied combat—both will require swift actions after a certain point, so it might take you a round or two to get fully buffed up against a single target. If you’re willing to make that sacrifice (or work around it with the Domino Effect investigator talent) the class rocks as hard as ever. Brawler is also an interesting choice, surprisingly stat-agnostic and extremely flexible. Between your extract casting and martial flexibility, this gestalt pairing is probably the heaviest on systems mastery that anyone could come up with; bonus feats and brawler’s cunning can do a lot to clear your path, though. Dark elementalist kineticist is an option for basing the kineticist off of Intelligence, but I don’t know enough about the kineticist class to make a call on whether it makes a good pairing or not. It’s restricted to evil alignments only; that might be more than enough to steer you away.
By this point, we’ve moved down into other ⅔ casting classes. These classes won’t provide any improvements in BAB or HP, but the addition of yet another casting chassis on top of the investigator’s can make for some potent combos. Let’s start with one of my favorites: occultist. Focus powers and implement schools can be monstrously powerful, and it’s generally agreed upon that there’s very little a well-prepared occultist can’t do. The addition of the Trappings of the Warrior panoply also introduces some potential for a full-BAB occultist. Very cool. Magus needs a shout-out, of course. Between qualifying for fighter feats, spellstrike/spell combat, magus arcana, scaling armor proficiencies, a good Fortitude save progression, and the many benefits of an arcane pool, magi are definitely equipped where investigators need it most. Magi also have some unique archetypes available to them—hexcrafter, bladebound, kensai, eldritch archer, greensting slayer, jistkan artificer...the list goes on. The living grimoire inquisitor and chronicler of worlds bard are archetype-specific options that change the normally Wisdom- and Charisma-based inquisitor and bard classes to an Intelligence-based class. Unlike the occultist or magi classes, which can be dealt with flexibly thanks to their reliance on Intelligence, only these archetypes will be viable for an investigator gestalt, which makes the pairing a little less exciting. Both archetypes give up important class features (judgment, cunning initiative, and monster lore for the living grimoire; versatile performance, bardic knowledge, and one or two good bardic performances for the chronicler of worlds) in exchange for features that you may or may not find useful. They’re still good, just not as good as an occultist or magus gestalt. Lastly, there’s the warlock or cabalist vigilante. Neither of these is a terrible pick, but they’re trying so hard to be a magus that I think you might be better off just going magus.
Jinyiwei bonus round! I won’t devote as much space to these jabronis, but moving the class over to a Wisdom base lets you consider some different pairings. Hunter, gunslinger, warpriest, inquisitor, ranger, druid, shaman, and cleric are all pretty wonderful pairings in their own ways. Shaman, druids, and clerics scratch the full casting itch, rangers can provide great bonus feats (although really, why not just go slayer?), and hunters, inquisitors, and warpriests all make good complements to the investigator’s innate talents. And hey, gunslinger can make a ranged investigator good, finally!
I’ve grown a bit tired of the extensive write-ups I do on prestige classes. They can be powerful, to be sure, but most newer players will never touch prestige classes, and veteran players usually know the relative merits of the prestige classes they’re investigating. Nevertheless, I’ll do a brief write-up here in the interest of completeness. We’re just gonna go alphabetically!
Brewkeeper is where we’ll start; you can enter by 6th level. The prestige class was designed almost exclusively for the alchemist class, and while the investigator can qualify for it through many of the same class features as the alchemist has, certain abilities like harmful homebrew don’t work out as well for investigators as they do for alchemists. The main draw of the prestige class is that it allows you to add metamagic effects to your extracts, then pass them out to allies for free; the potion master ability is also fantastic for crafting-focused investigators, as it acts as a free Enhance Potion anytime you want it. Five or six levels will be enough to get what you want from the class, taking Extend Spell at 2nd level, Heighten Spell at 4th, and Maximize (if you get there) at 6th.
Next up, Chernasardo Warden. This one was designed specifically for the Ironfang Invasion campaign, and it’s got some pretty heavy Nirmathas flavor—there’s no reason a Chernasardo Ranger would be in Osirion for a Mummy’s Mask campaign, for example. If you can work with that flavor, though, the prestige class is excellent, granting you bonus feats, SLAs, Will save bonuses vs. [mind-affecting] and (compulsion) effects, and, perhaps most importantly, five levels of investigator progression even as you gain ten levels of prestige class progression. Your extracts and talents will suffer, but what you gain from the class is more than worth it. I know I’m skipping here, but Mortal Usher is very similar to Chernasardo Warden—mechanically, at least—and similarly powerful. Mortal usher is a little easier to work into an average campaign than Chernasardo warden, which is always a perk. Chernasardo warden can be entered at 8th level (assuming you didn’t dip any other full-BAB classes) but mortal usher is doable by 7th.
Daggermark Poisoner is on deck. I don’t know a great deal about poisons, other than to say that investigators don’t receive all the necessary elements of a poison build on their own. Honestly, you’re probably best off building an alchemist if poisoning is your goal, but daggermark poisoner can help you ease the strain if you’re dead-set on having an investigator slip cyanide into someone’s dinner. I’ll leave a link to the poison section of this guide, which will refer you to other guides more specifically focused on poisoning. If you decide this prestige class is for you, entry is possible by 6th level, although you’ll surrender all your class features and casting to do so.
Evangelist is a fun prestige class, mostly because of the aligned class feature that it gets, which allows you nine full levels of your base class progression while also giving you ten levels of prestige class progression. The evangelist’s class features, BAB, saves, etc. aren’t anything to get excited about, so the real draw here will be the boons your deity grants from the Deific Obedience feat. If the boons are excellent, evangelist will be excellent; if they suck, evangelist will suck. Entry is easy by 6th level.
Hinterlander is a bit of an unusual choice, but one that I’m sticking by for ranged investigators, who are hampered more than anything by the vast bevy of feats they need to be effective. I can’t honestly recommend that you invest more than five levels in hinterlander—it’s enough to get all the bonus feats you need, and no more. You can take your pick for 1st-level archery feats (Rapid Shot would be best) but 3rd and 5th levels should be taken up with Improved Precise Shot and Point-Blank Master or Pinpoint Targeting, respectively. Entry isn’t super easy, given the Endurance and Weapon Focus requirements; you’ll probably need to play as an elf in order to get longbow proficiency, then spend your first three feats on PBS, Weapon Focus, and Endurance in order to enter by 6th level.
Master Chymist really only ever gets recommended to alchemists, and it’s a brutally effective prestige class for those who want to lean into mutagen usage and melee carnage. Investigators will mostly use master chymist levels to qualify for the Greater and Grand Mutagen discoveries, which aren’t normally on their list of allowed alchemist discoveries. Nimble, Growth Mutagen, Evasion, and Extended Mutagen are also great. You’ll be giving up most of your skill dominance as a master chymist, but the trade-off in Fortitude saves, BAB, HP, and scary damage in melee may be worth it to you. Entry is possible by 8th level, and you won’t want to wait too much longer after that to jump in—you have to suck the marrow out of this class ASAP.
Sleepless Detective, in spite of a name that makes it sound like it should be built for investigators, actually feels far more like a rogue prestige class. Eh, okay. This is a cool flavor match with many investigator archetypes, but unfortunately, I can’t recommend more than one level to scoop canny sleuth (Intelligence modifier to Perception and Sense Motive checks), forensic thaumaturgy (at-will detect magic), and +1d6 sneak attack. The Alertness prereq is a bummer, but otherwise, entry is easy by 6th level.
“Finish it, Flavisham!”
As much as I’d love to give you a detailed run-down of every magical item in Pathfinder, I don’t have to, because I already did! I released The Armamentarium a while back that surveys every unique weapon, unique armor, and wondrous item available in the game, then adds content tags to them so that you can easily search for bonuses, ability boosts, and more. It’s a fun little document that will help you build the investigator you want and need in your own game, instead of the one I could recommend to you from the outside. I will call out a few especially good wondrous items for investigators, though, and do a thorough review of weapon and armor enchantments that you should be trying to get your mitts on.
Boro Beads and Preserving Flasks, 2nd Level (None, CL 16/17, 4000 gp): You will need literally as many of these as you can get in order to expand your ability to keep using alchemical allocation. Seriously. Spend all your money on boro beads and preserving flasks.
Admixture Vial (None, CL 8, 5000 gp): Combine Extracts is a phenomenal alchemist discovery, so it’s really nice to be able to get its powers for a few thousand gold. Take a look at the text of Combine Extracts in this guide for some suggestions on which combos to go with.
Blackwick Cauldron (None, CL 7, 8850 gp): Brewing potions can be so time-consuming. Not with this item! This is perfect for whipping up every brew you could ever need.
Chalice of Communal Dweomer (None, CL 7, 3750 gp): Simple way to buff the entire party with things like barkskin, heroism, etc. Because they’re typically crafted at low caster levels, many potions wouldn’t last long enough for more than one fight anyway. So why not take advantage of that by really making it last only a minute or two, but buff multiple people on the team?
Formula Alembic (None, CL 3, 200 gp): If you can find potions, you can turn ‘em into the formulae you’ll need to prepare those potions as extracts. A fabulous (and cheap!) way to expand your spellcasting options. Note that there’s a Regional trait (Merabian Mentorship) that does something very similar.
Lepidstadt Investigator’s Hat (CL 8, 7000 gp): In addition to granting you a modest bonus to all your Knowledge checks, this item also lets you reuse inspiration rolls you got for free on Knowledge checks for normally-costly saves or attack rolls. Lovely, and really incentivizes you to roll those Knowledge checks.
Shifting Jerkin (Armor, CL 3, 5965 gp): Swapping out an investigator talent once per day with only one hour of work completely negates the need to retrain. Just try a new talent out, and if you don’t like it, toss it! The at-will disguise self sure isn’t bad, either.
Sipping Jacket (Chest, CL 7, 5000 gp): Great for portioning out short-duration potions that you might not need all the time; vanish is a perennial favorite.
Investigator’s Pipe (None, CL 5, 9000 gp): It’s battlefield control, it’s utility, it’s skill bonuses...it’s an investigator item. You may already have some of the benefits of this item if you’re getting it at higher levels (Eidetic Recollection, Expanded Inspiration, etc.) but your lil’ smoke buddy never goes out of style.
Bountiful Bottle (None, CL 6, 4000 gp): The point of alchemical allocation is that it keeps the potion in its original container, ready to be used over and over again. This would be a great item that doubled your potions if you didn’t have that spell.
Neverspill Goblet (None, CL 3, 1000 gp): Cheap and good for ensuring that your potions are accessible underwater. How? Who knows, it’s a fantasy universe.
Volatile Vaporizer (None, CL 4, 2200-3800 gp): These pills are okay, but you’re better off with a chalice of communal dweomer, which accomplishes much the same thing but without needing to be rebought every time you use it.
Dueling: We’re interested primarily in the initiative bonus, which is really good. Dexterity-based investigators won’t have any trouble making this enchantment work in their line-up.
Concealed, Lesser: Not a bad idea to turn a rapier into, say, a cane, or a longspear into a crutch. Could nail a lot of surprise rounds like that.
Glamered: As lesser concealed.
Liberating: It’s better than nothing, but your CMB score is unlikely to make a dent in high-level casting unless you’re heavily Strength-based or you’re burning tons of inspiration on the roll.
Transformative: An interesting way to work around DR/Type, but otherwise not worth it for the investigator.
Concealed: Lesser concealed or glamered will work just as well, and for less money.
Exclusionary: We’re not clerics.
Impervious: Not unless your GM really, really loves the sunder maneuver.
Prehensile: Investigators don’t use whips.
Resizing: Weapons resize when you use a polymorph extract, so there’s not really a need for investigators.
Sacrosanct: We’re not clerics.
Shrinking: We’re not rogues. Let’s just leave our weapons the size they are.
Sneaky: We’re not rogues.
Transformative, Greater: No better than transformative, which is already fairly dubious.
Inspired: Required for pretty much any investigator. Everyone will get Combat Inspiration, meaning the inspired quality can be anywhere from a +2 to +16 damage bonus. Hell, it’s double that at 20th level.
Limning: Concealment of the types beaten by faerie fire are all too common. This doesn’t just benefit you, it benefits your entire team!
Agile: If you’d rather not spend a feat to buy Fencing Grace, there’s agile. I prefer just to spend the feat; as long as I’m dipping inspired blade swashbuckler, it’s not too much of an imposition.
Answering: Most Dexterity-based investigators will dip inspired blade swashbuckler, which means they’ll have Opportune Parry and Riposte. This wouldn’t be my first choice of enchantment, but it’s nice if you find yourself needing to parry a lot. It probably goes down in usefulness as levels go by, both because you’ll be able to afford higher enhancement bonuses on your own and because the deed will start to take penalties against larger enemies.
Cunning: It’s kinda like a free (and even upgraded) Critical Focus for skill ranks you’ll already have! Now, crit confirmation bonuses aren’t the best things in the world, but they’re still better than nothing.
Distracting: Good for magehunters.
Fortuitous: With enlarge person, long arm, the potential to benefit from Combat Reflexes, etc., investigators are pretty well adapted to take AoOs. Why not take even more?
Ghost Touch: Everybody needs a means of dealing with incorporeals. Maybe keep a +1 ghost touch rapier around for these purposes.
Growing: Quite decent for Strength-based melee investigators.
Keen: Much of an investigator’s damage will come from studied combat, which doesn’t multiply on crits. This makes crit-fishing a little less useful in this class than it is elsewhere. But, if you have Butterfly’s Sting or any critical feats, it jumps right up to blue.
Menacing: Kinda like Outflank in an enchantment. Good stuff.
Mimetic: It’s kinda like an adaptive resist energy whenever you need it. I wish the duration were longer, but it is what it is.
Pitfall: Nice bonuses to initiative, but I think I’d rather have dueling, on balance.
Training: Investigators are strapped enough for feats that you might well need to use training.
Bane: How useful bane is will depend entirely on how common the enemy is that you picked. Giants in Giantslayer? Yeah, that’s a good bet. Undead in Carrion Crown? Also a good bet. Dragons in Iron Gods? Maybe not so much.
Benevolent: Thanks to the Effortless Aid talent, the Battlefield Disciple trait, and items like rings of tactical precision, investigators can make decent Aid Another specialists. Benevolent is perfect for them.
Bloodsong: I guess if you have a skald on the team?
Cruel: If, for some reason, you’re playing a demoralize build but didn’t pick up Sickening Offensive, cruel is always good. But why would you not pick up Sickening Offensive? It’s a free sickened effect with no save.
Flamboyant: Interesting. A 1/day reroll on a Nat 1 is fun.
Heartseeker: Not bad, but I think I would prefer the Shadow Strike feat or Blind-Fight.
Injecting/Virulent: Only for poison builds.
Merciful/Sapping: Some of the best options for Enforcer builds. You need nonlethal damage to proc them, so go to.
Planar: If you face a lot of outsiders in your campaigns, yup, this will be good.
Seaborne: For Ruins of Azlant campaigns.
Skewering: Nice to have the option, but I’d prefer cunning most of the time so you can keep recovering panache.
Summon Bane: Summons are pretty common, especially in later levels. Something to keep in mind.
Thundering: Sonic damage is at least resisted only rarely; the deafened condition will never stick beyond early levels.
Vampiric: The HP cap is low, but free healing is free healing.
Allying: The two enhancement bonuses don’t stack, so I’m failing to see how this would be worth it. Maybe, maybe a cryptid scholar who was going for a non-combat build but wanted to contribute anyway (see the Herr Doktor build) could make use of this, but I doubt it.
Bewildering: Low, static Will save to negate. Even if it’s fairly good in lower levels, its days are numbered.
Blood-Hunting/Spirit-Hunting: Kill enemy sorcerers or oracles very often?
Brawling: Don’t use combat maneuvers.
Breaking: Don’t sunder.
Called: No thrown weapons.
Catalytic: Low Fortitude save DC negates.
Compassionate: You’re better off dealing nonlethal damage if you want to take someone alive.
Conductive: Investigators don’t get touch attacks.
Confounding: Don’t use combat maneuvers.
Corrosive/Flaming/Frost/Shock: Even small amounts of resistance will negate this entirely.
Countering: Not necessary unless your GM really likes disarm maneuvers.
Courageous: You have a good Will save already—trust in that.
Dazzling Radiance: Bad even for demoralize builds; you have a chance to blind allies, and the Fortitude save DC to negate is low anyway.
Deadly: None of an investigator’s weapons deal nonlethal damage by default.
Debilitating: Not an unchained rogue.
Deceptive: Investigators have the skill ranks to feint effectively, but not the feats to buy their way into it. Skip.
Defending: There are other, cheaper sources of AC.
Disjoining: Mythic.
Dispelling: No dispel magic.
Drowscourge: How often do you fight drow?
Dueling (PSFG): Don’t use combat maneuvers.
Fate-Stealing: You won’t fight swashbucklers or gunslingers enough.
Fervent: Meh bonuses to meh things.
Furious: Not a barbarian.
Grayflame: Not a cleric.
Grounding/Neutralizing/Quenching/Thawing: Niche effects.
Guardian: As allying.
Guided: Your Wisdom modifier isn’t likely to be large.
Huntsman: Meh.
Jurist: Not an inquisitor.
Ki Focus: Not a monk.
Kinslayer: Maybe don’t kill your family members? Just a thought.
Leveraging: Don’t use combat maneuvers.
Mighty Cleaving: Don’t cleave.
Miserable: Too niche.
Mythic Bane: Mythic.
Ominous: The bonus to Intimidate checks is interesting, but ultimately the low Will save DC kills it.
Patriotic: Meh bonuses to meh things.
Rusting: Don’t destroy your own loot.
Sacred: Not a warpriest.
Slithering: Niche.
Smashing: Don’t sunder.
Spell Storing: You’d have to go begging for spells from your allies.
Sticky: Don’t use combat maneuvers.
Throwing: Don’t use thrown weapons.
Unaligned: Too niche.
Underwater: Seaborne is better for our purposes.
Valiant: Not a cavalier.
Vicious: No reason to use this on yourself.
Furyborn: Thanks to the way that studied combat works, investigators will nearly always focus their attacks on a single enemy until that enemy is dead. Furyborn is therefore a great way to get improved accuracy, damage, and DR penetration abilities wrapped up in one package.
Anarchic/Axiomatic/Holy/Unholy: Essential for bypassing DR/Alignment, and the damage bonuses are quite nice, too. You’ll go with holy if you go with anything.
Distracting, Greater: The primo magehunting enchantment.
Impact: If you somehow got your hands on a better weapon (a scythe for a gravedigger, greatsword through a fighter dip, etc.) then impact is a pretty nifty damage boost.
Negating: Great enchantment that helps your team out against outsiders and other enemies with DR/Alignment.
Phaselocking: Great for stopping those freaking outsiders from teleporting away.
Planestriking: Similar to negating, but only for you.
Truthful: Plenty good, but limning will do as well, and for a lower cost, and for the whole team.
Vampiric, Greater: The HP cap is higher this time, but I’m still concerned that you can’t control when you get the healing. It’s good, but just fails to attain that top tier.
Advancing: Anything that grants more mobility is interesting, but this is expensive for that purpose.
Invigorating: Decent bonuses, but expensive at a +2.
Lifesurge: Pretty OP in undead-heavy campaigns, but limited in use elsewhere.
Toxic: Good for poison builds.
Wounding: Damage is damage, but you’ll have a hard time stacking up enough bleed to meaningfully hurt an enemy.
Anchoring: At some point, most creatures will be able to move it, go ethereal and ghost out of it, teleport from it, etc.
Burning: Jeez, what are you trying to do, start a pogrom?
Corrosive/Flaming/Icy/Shocking Burst: Again, low damage that will be negated by even small amounts of resistance.
Culling: Don’t cleave.
Defiant: Decent bonuses, but too expensive.
Dispelling Burst: No dispel magic.
Disruption: DC is way too low.
Glorious: Dazzled is weak, and the blinded DC is far too low to stick.
Harvesting: Mythic.
Heretical: Super niche.
Igniting: Resist fire 5 will beat this every time.
Ki Intensifying: Not a monk.
Legbreaker: Effects don’t stack.
Liberating: Niche.
Obliviating: Low Fortitude DC to negate.
Peaceful: If you’re dealing nonlethal damage, you’re using Enforcer. Just use that to cause the shaken condition.
Potent: Mythic.
Quaking: Don’t use combat maneuvers.
Sharding: Don’t use thrown weapons.
Shattering: Don’t sunder.
Silencing: Doesn’t prevent casters from doing their thing, which is all we want.
Stalking: Not really our style.
Treasonous: Very niche.
Unseen: Too finicky.
Redeemed: The sheer number of bonuses here make it worth your while. Particularly good in campaigns heavy on evil outsiders.
Exhausting: A +3 bonus is a huge price to pay, but lacking many better things to do with all your critical hits, exhausting is a really good choice.
Gory: More bleed damage is good. You can also count on some really effective demoralize attempts this way. The +3 cost is still keeping it back from blue.
Spellstealing: Fun for magehunting.
Flamboyant: I don’t think the increased cost quite merits investment, but YMMV.
Nullifying: Even a couple of hits might help the full casters do their job better. Again, though, this is a big price to pay.
Speed: More attacks are always, always good, but you have haste and channel vigor on your extract list. Maybe stick with those.
Repositioning: Don’t use combat maneuvers.
Umbral: Benefits aren’t worth the expenditure.
Brilliant Energy: Of course, ignoring any amount of AC is a big deal, but at this point, you’re paying a huge amount for a weapon that can’t affect undead or constructs at all, and won’t grant you its effects if your opponent has no shield or armor bonuses. That’s...not great.
Dancing: Nah.
Flying: Not for a +5, no.
Spell Siphon: Maybe just use spellstealing?
Vorpal: Investigators have no particular means of taking advantage of vorpal weapons, barring shenanigans with a cyclops helm. Just ignore it.
Coming soon!
In case you’re not jazzed about making your own builds, I’ve created eight sample builds that attempt to showcase the best of what the investigator can do. You’ll notice there’s a lot of dipping and prestige class builds here; although this might be more difficult to new players to grok, I meant what I’ve said throughout this guide that the investigator class is very strapped for feats. Because their armor and weapon proficiencies aren’t exactly hot-ticket items, either, many times a one-level dip makes sense where it can gain us outsized benefits for little lost in studied combat bonuses or extract casting. I’ve again arranged these builds by what combat role they’re meant to fulfill: Dexterity-M indicates a melee build that uses Dexterity to attack via Weapon Finesse and Fencing Grace; Strength-M indicates a melee build that dons heavier armor, pumps Strength, and attacks the old-fashioned way; Dexterity-R indicates a ranged build. Ranged builds are really hard for investigators, but I am going to try to put up my take on a firearm investigator at some point. Spoiler alert: it will not feature the steel hound archetype.
NG Tiefling Inspired Blade Swashbuckler 1 / Lamplighter Investigator 14
Strength: 10 Dexterity: 16 (+2) Constitution: 14 Intelligence: 15 (+2) Wisdom: 10 Charisma: 8 (-2)
Primary Weapon: Rapier
Racial Traits: Mostly Human
Traits: Ambush Training (Combat), Pragmatic Activator (Magic)
Favored Class Bonuses: HP 1-4, Extracts 5-20
1: Inspired panache, inspired finesse, inspired parry and riposte
2(1): Lamplighter, alchemy, inspiration, trapfinding
3(2): Alchemical illumination (light, continual flame)
4(3): Ready for the revelation (Intelligence/Dexterity initiative)
5(4): Studied combat, studied strike +1d6, swift alchemy
6(5): Alchemical illumination (daylight, discovery torch)
7(6): Ready for the revelation (draw weapon during initiative), studied strike +2d6
8(7):
9(8): Alchemical illumination (searing light), studied strike +3d6
10(9): Ready for the revelation (not flat-footed in first turn of combat)
11(10): Studied strike +4d6
12(11): Alchemical illumination (judgment light)
13(12): Ready for the revelation (Intelligence+Dexterity initiative), studied strike +5d6
14(13):
15(14): Studied strike +6d6
1: Bonus (Weapon Finesse), Bonus (Weapon Focus: Rapier), Fencing Grace
2(1):
3(2): Step Up
4(3): Talent (Extend Potion)
5(4): Extra Investigator Talent (Quick Study)
6(5): Talent (Mutagen)
7(6): Following Step
8(7): Talent (Sickening Offensive)
9(8): Extra Investigator Talent (Atheist Inspiration)
10(9): Talent (Combat Inspiration)
11(10): Improved Critical (Rapier)
12(11): Talent (Amazing Inspiration)
13(12): Butterfly’s Sting
14(13): Talent (Tenacious Inspiration)
15(14): Focused Disbelief
1st Level: reduce person, shield, anticipate peril
2nd Level: see invisibility, resist energy, bear’s endurance
3rd Level: channel vigor, fly, heroism
4th Level: freedom of movement, fluid form, greater invisibility
5th Level: delayed consumption, defensive grace, spell resistance
6th Level: walk through space, true seeing, heal
The Illuminator is the deadliest Dexterity-based melee build I could come up with for the investigator chassis. Let’s start with initiative: ya boi’s freaky fast. Between Ambush Training, a high natural Dexterity score, and the later iterations of ready for the revelation giving you your Intelligence to initiative in addition to your Dexterity, you’re primed to act before most enemies, guaranteed. If you get your surprise round, quaff your mutagen, then charge an enemy on your first round, using Quick Study as a swift action to bring your studied combat bonuses online. Full-attacks with Fencing Grace and studied combat should have the enemy panting before long! If your opponent is a spellcaster or ranged attacker, you’re in for even more fun: there’s a good magehunter baked into this build. Step Up and Following Step give you all the mobility you need to follow 5-foot steps and take AoOs, and Atheist Inspiration and Focused Belief beef up your defenses. If they try to fly away, you have fly; if they try to invisibility away, you have judgment light (justice); if they toss down darkness, you have daylight. Throw into the mix Sickening Offensive, Sapping Offensive, and your 30% critical threat chance—you’ll pass those crits off to another melee buddy via Butterfly’s Sting—and you’ll cut down foes with alarming alacrity. But that’s the point of this build: hit hard, hit fast, and get out before anyone can deal serious damage to you.
N Half-Elf Inspired Blade Swashbuckler 1 / Empiricist 14
Strength: 10 Dexterity: 15 (+2) Constitution: 14 Intelligence: 16 Wisdom: 10 Charisma: 8
Primary Weapon: Rapier
Racial Traits: None
Traits: Bruising Intellect (Social), Precise Treatment (Magic)
Favored Class Bonuses: Inspiration rolls 1-20
1: Inspired panache, inspired finesse, inspired parry and riposte
2(1): Alchemy, inspiration, trapfinding
3(2): Ceaseless observation
4(3): Keen recollection, trap sense +1
5(4): Studied combat, studied strike +1d6, unfailing logic +2
6(5):
7(6): Studied strike +2d6, trap sense +2
8(7):
9(8): Studied strike +3d6, unfailing logic +4
10(9): Trap sense +3
11(10): Studied strike +4d6
12(11):
13(12): Studied strike +5d6, trap sense +1
14(13):
15(14): Studied strike +6d6
1: Bonus (Weapon Finesse), Bonus (Weapon Focus: Rapier), Bonus (Skill Focus: Linguistics), Fencing Grace
2(1):
3(2): Orator
4(3): Talent (Extend Potion)
5(4): Dazzling Display
6(5): Talent (Quick Study)
7(6): Signature Skill: Intimidate
8(7): Talent (Underworld Inspiration)
9(8): Disheartening Display
10(9): Talent (Combat Inspiration)
11(10): Enforcer
12(11): Talent (Amazing Inspiration)
13(12): Esoteric Linguistics
14(13): Talent (Tenacious Inspiration)
15(14): Measure Foe
1st Level: tears to wine, heightened awareness, shield
2nd Level: acute senses, focused scrutiny, investigative mind
3rd Level: channel vigor, fly, paragon surge
4th Level: freedom of movement, fluid form, greater invisibility
5th Level: delayed consumption, defensive grace, spell resistance
6th Level: heal, statue, true seeing
The Socialite build is meant to turn investigators into the party face and debuffer through the demoralize action. The first build goal is to get everything we can keyed off of Intelligence, and empiricist makes this criminally easy: between our traits, ceaseless observation, and Orator, we can use our Intelligence modifier in one way or another on Disable Device, Perception, Sense Motive, Use Magic Device, Intimidate, Heal, Diplomacy, and Bluff checks by 3rd level. Not bad, eh? From there on out, we use our investigator talents and favored class bonuses to buff or expand our inspiration rolls, mostly with the goal of improving how we use Intimidate. Why? Well, the next half of the build focuses on being very, very scary in combat. Dazzling Display is the immediate need in order to debuff crowds of enemies, although we quickly follow it with Signature Skill: Intimidate and Disheartening Display in order to escalate fear conditions as quickly as we can. Enforcer is a nice, late-game pick that will pair with a merciful rapier to enhance your single-target demoralization game. In social scenarios, we’re pretty much guaranteed dominance thanks to Orator, Skill Focus (Linguistics), and our various inspiration buffs: by my calculations your Linguistics bonus should be around +40 by 10th level (10 ranks + 3 class skill + 6 Skill Focus + 5 Intelligence + 6 average inspiration/FCB + 5 custom magic item, 2,500 gp, that grants +5 competence bonus to Linguistics + 5 tears to wine) which should be more than enough for any of your interaction needs.
NE Half-Elf Inspired Blade Swashbuckler 1 / Cryptid Scholar-Mastermind 14
Strength: 10 Dexterity: 15 Constitution: 12 Intelligence: 16 (+2) Wisdom: 14 Charisma: 7
Primary Weapon: Benevolent Rapier
Racial Traits: None
Traits: Precise Treatment (Magic), Battlefield Disciple (Combat)
Favored Class Bonuses: HP 1-4, Extracts 5-20
1: Inspired panache, inspired finesse, inspired parry and riposte
2(1): Mastermind’s inspiration, a quiet word
3(2): Intuitive monster lore
4(3): Mastermind defense
5(4): Opportune advice +1, knowledgeable strike +1d6, mastermind defense
6(5):
7(6):
8(7):
9(8): Opportune advice +2, knowledgeable strike +2d6
10(9): Impregnable mind
11(10):
12(11):
13(12): Opportune advice +3, knowledgeable strike +3d6
14(13):
15(14):
1: Bonus (Weapon Finesse), Bonus (Weapon Focus: Rapier), Bonus (Skill Focus: Heal), Fencing Grace
2(1):
3(2): Healer’s Hands
4(3): Talent (Effortless Aid)
5(4): Signature Skill: Heal
6(5): Talent (Infusion)
7(6): Extra Investigator Talent (Extend Potion)
8(7): Rogue Talent (Got Your Back)
9(8): Extra Investigator Talent (Enhance Potion)
10(9):
11(10): Insightful Advice
12(11): Talent (Combat Inspiration)
13(12): Extra Investigator Talent (Eidetic Recollection)
14(13): Talent (Tenacious Inspiration)
15(14): Open Conduit
1st Level: tears to wine, shield, reduce person
2nd Level: investigative mind, acute senses, focused scrutiny
3rd Level: channel vigor (infusion), fly (infusion), communal resist energy
4th Level: freedom of movement, caustic blood, greater invisibility
5th Level: defensive grace, dust form, communal stoneskin
6th Level: statue, true seeing, analyze dweomer
A neutral evil doctor? Huh? Well, this doctor learned long ago that the easiest way to get all the rewards of an adventuring life with little of the danger was to let others do the hard work. To that end, everything here is based on buffing the team. Let’s dive in. The first element I’d like to bring your attention to is our aid another capabilities. The Battlefield Disciple trait is a good place to start, as is the Effortless Aid talent and the Got Your Back rogue talent; you’ll purchase a benevolent rapier, benevolent armor, and ring of tactical precision as soon as you can to start adding even more bonuses onto your aid another checks. Your basic move in combat will be to flank with an ally, use Got Your Back to consistently pass out aid another bonuses, and use a combination of Knowledge checks and opportune advice/knowledgeable strike to eviscerate opponents when you need to. If anyone ever attacks you, use mastermind defense and Combat Inspiration to shrug it off. Pretty soon the enemy will focus back on your allies, and that’s what you want: remember, let others do the work. Of course, that motto also synergizes nicely with the mastermind and cryptid scholar archetypes: cryptid scholar takes away all of your studied combat and studied strike bonuses, only to give them back to your team, and mastermind lets you use teammates as pawns that benefit from your skill bonuses. We’ll pass out buffs liberally through Infusions of alchemical allocation, then let others do the heavy lifting. The last piece of the puzzle to fall into place is our non-magical healing abilities, which are in full force by 5th level. I’ve written about the Healer’s Hands + Signature Skill: Heal combo previously. It’s devastatingly good for repairing teammates’ wounds without ever touching a wand of cure light wounds.
LN Elf Inspired Blade Swashbuckler 1 / Questioner 14
Strength: 10 Dexterity: 15 (+2) Constitution: 14 (-2) Intelligence: 16 (+2) Wisdom: 12 Charisma: 7
Primary Weapon: Rapier
Racial Traits: Fey-Sighted, Fey Thoughts
Traits: Monster Scholar (Social), Acadamae Neophyte (Magic)
Favored Class Bonuses: HP 1, Inspiration pool 2-20
1: Inspired panache, inspired finesse, inspired parry and riposte
2(1): Spells, inspiration, trapfinding
3(2): Know-it-all, poison resistance +2
4(3): Keen recollection, trap sense +1
5(4): Studied combat, studied strike +1d6
6(5): Poison resistance +2
7(6): Studied strike +2d6, trap sense +2
8(7):
9(8): Studied strike +3d6, poison resistance +2
10(9): Trap sense +3
11(10): Studied strike +4d6
12(11): Poison immunity
13(12): Studied strike +5d6, trap sense +1
14(13):
15(14): Studied strike +6d6
1: Bonus (Weapon Finesse), Bonus (Weapon Focus: Rapier), Fencing Grace
2(1):
3(2): Fey Obedience (Magdh)
4(3): Talent (Expanded Inspiration)
5(4): Breadth of Experience
6(5): Bonus Talent (Eidetic Recollection), Talent (Quick Study)
7(6): Wanderer’s Fortune
8(7): Talent (Sickening Offensive)
9(8): Flickering Step
10(9): Talent (Combat Inspiration)
11(10): Extra Investigator Talent (Amazing Inspiration)
12(11): Talent (Empathy)
13(12): Extra Investigator Talent (Sapping Offensive)
14(13): Talent (Tenacious Inspiration)
15(14): Extra Investigator Talent (Applied Engineering)
1st Level: Tears to wine, charm person, heightened awareness
2nd Level: Glitterdust, heroism, invisibility
3rd Level: Good hope, major image, haste
4th Level: Freedom of movement, greater invisibility, dimension door
5th Level: Greater dispel magic, greater heroism, greater grease
6th Level: Waves of ecstasy, dance of a thousand cuts, permanent image
The Emeritus build isn’t fundamentally different from the other Dexterity-based melee builds you’ve seen on display here, but it is my attempt to create an investigator that truly knows everything...about everything. Between know-it-all, Breadth of Experience, Fey Obedience (Magdh), tears to wine, and heightened awareness, this build can rock a +23 bonus to all Knowledge skills by 5th level (5 ranks + 3 class skill + 3 Intelligence + 2 Breadth of Experience + 4 Fey Obedience + 2 heightened awareness + 2 tears to wine + 2 know-it-all) with the option to take 20 on the check for the low, low cost of 1 inspiration. (Thanks, free Eidetic Recollection!) By 10th level, that number has gone up to +34 (10 ranks + 3 class skill + 5 Intelligence + 2 Breadth of Experience + 4 Fey Obedience + 2 heightened awareness + 5 tears to wine + 3 know-it-all). Crazy, right? Apart from that neat party trick, the Emeritus acts as a back-up buffer, providing support through heroism, good hope, haste...you know, all the bard’s golden oldies.
LE Half-Orc Fighter 1 / Bonded Investigator 7 / Master Chymist 7
Strength: 15 (+2) Dexterity: 12 Constitution: 14 Intelligence: 16 Wisdom: 10 Charisma: 7
Primary Weapon: Falchion, greatsword, or greataxe
Racial Traits: Sacred Tattoo
Traits: Fate’s Favored (Faith), Pragmatic Activator (Magic)
Familiar: Greensting Scorpion → Imp
Favored Class Bonuses: HP 1-3, Extracts 4-8, HP 9-20
1:
2(1): Alchemy, inspiration, trapfinding
3(2): Familiar
4(3): Keen recollection, trap sense +1
5(4): Studied combat, swift alchemy, inspired familiar
6(5):
7(6): Studied strike +1d6, trap sense +2
8(7): Improved familiar
9(1): Bomb-thrower, mutagenic form, mutate 2/day
10(2): Advanced mutagen: extended mutagen
11(3): Brutality +2
12(4): Advanced mutagen: greater mutagen
13(5): Mutate 3/day
14(6): Advanced mutagen: nimble
15(7): Brutality +4
1: Spirit-Ridden, Bonus (Power Attack)
2(1):
3(2): Chaos Reigns
4(3): Talent (Mutagen)
5(4): Extra Investigator Talent (Quick Study)
6(5): Talent (Extend Potion)
7(6): Extra Investigator Talent (Enhance Potion)
8(7): Talent (Sickening Offensive)
9(1): Improved Critical (Falchion)
10(2):
11(3): Improved Initiative
12(4):
13(5): Critical Focus
14(6):
15(7): Staggering Critical
1st Level: enlarge person, long arm, shield
2nd Level: resist energy, bear’s endurance, alchemical allocation
3rd Level: channel vigor, displacement, heroism
4th Level: freedom of movement, caustic blood, stoneskin
5th Level: delayed consumption, defensive grace, resurgent transformation
6th Level: legendary proportions, statue, heal
Wow, this might be the weirdest build I’ve ever cooked up. I want to be clear that this build will only marginally resemble the investigator class you’ve come to know and love—there’s nothing particularly finessed about it. It’s an unholy whirlwind of claws, teeth, and mutagenic death. If we start with combat, well, combat is what this build is meant to do. Dealer’s choice about which weapon you’ll primarily use—greatsword, falchion, and greataxe all have their respective advantages and disadvantages, or you could use a longspear if you want the reach and eventual bonuses from your brutality class feature. We’ll go with medium or heavy armor to compensate for our generally poor Dexterity score, then smash away with Power Attack and Chaos Reigns; if your GM rules that Chaos Reigns won’t work with a two-handed full-attack, just take Improved Initiative earlier. Simple enough. As the build progresses, we’ll grab Quick Study and Sickening Offensive for a little single-target debuffing before segueing into Improved Critical, Critical Focus, and Staggering Critical for even more insane damage; because this build isn’t particularly reliant on studied combat for its damage, it can crit-fish much more effectively. All our extracts and master chymist abilities will go toward this same goal of growing huge and smashing things, so prioritize things like enlarge person and long arm that your familiar will use on you.
Oh, yeah, that’s the other half of this build! Since you’re trading away a lot of your skill prowess for fighter and master chymist levels, it makes sense to let a familiar to much of the work for you. Your imp can eventually detect good, detect magic, and invisibility at will, use all your skill ranks, and use wands of various spells on you. I gave the build Spirit-Ridden to try to work a little versatility in—your familiar in particular will benefit from that feat.
N Human Gravedigger 6/Mortal Usher 9
Strength: 15 (+2) Dexterity: 12 Constitution: 14 Intelligence: 16 Wisdom: 10 Charisma: 7
Primary Weapon: Traveler’s Any-Tool (shovel form, activate!)
Racial Traits: None
Traits: Surprise Weapon (Combat), Student of Philosophy (Social)
Favored Class Bonuses: HP or Skills 1-3, Extracts 4-6, HP or Skills 7-20
1: Alchemy, limited alchemy, grave magic, relic focus (necromancy), inspiration
2: Deny death +2, read the bones
3:
4: Studied combat, studied strike +1d6 (+0 vs. non-undead), kill the dead, grave lamp (conjuration)
5: Deny death +4
6: Studied strike +2d6 (+1d6 vs. non-undead)
7(1):
8(2):
9(3): Nosoi plague mask
10(4): Studied strike +3d6 (+2d6 vs. non-undead), deny death +6
11(5): Catrina’s calm
12(6):
13(7): Morrigna wrappings
14(8): Studied strike +4d6 (+3d6 vs. non-undead)
15(9): Vanth wings
1: Bonus (Medium Armor Proficiency), Bonus (Catch Off-Guard), Shikigami Style
2:
3: Shikigami Mimicry, Talent (Psychic Fog)
4:
5: Shikigami Manipulation, Focus Talent (Quick Study)
6:
7(1): Bonus (Vital Strike), Power Attack
8(2): Talent (Sickening Offensive)
9(3): Extra Investigator Talent (Chronicler’s Insight)
10(4):
11(5): Extra Inspiration
12(6): Bonus (Improved Vital Strike), Talent (Combat Inspiration)
13(7): Extra Investigator Talent (Focus Talent: Side Step)
14(8):
15(9): Extra Inspiration
1st Level: enlarge person, long arm, shield
2nd Level: resist energy, bear’s endurance, alchemical allocation
3rd Level: channel vigor, displacement, heroism
4th Level: freedom of movement, caustic blood, stoneskin
5th Level: delayed consumption, defensive grace, resurgent transformation
6th Level: legendary proportions, statue, heal
Get ready for a bit of a strange build, y’all. This one is based around the question: “How deadly can a shovel be?” The answer might surprise you! To start off with, the gravedigger archetype lets you use shovels as if you had the Catch Off-Guard feat, which I believe any reasonable GM would interpret as meaning that you qualify for feats that require Catch Off-Guard as a prerequisite, so long as you’re using that feat with one of the improvised weapons listed. No problem; we’ll grab a shovel, which per its text deals damage as a club (1d6/x2, if you’re Medium-sized). But the Shikigami feat line will eventually provide us with three effective size increases! Based on Paizo’s clarification of how these size increases work, you can’t stack Shikigami increases with other effective size increases—for example, with Improvised Weapon Mastery—but you can stack them with real size changes like enlarge person. So, per this chart, four size increases from 1d6 → 1d8 → 2d6 → 3d6 → 4d6 will get us some very nice damage. At 5th level, we’ll upgrade to a traveler’s any-tool, which is a CL 9 magical item that Shikigami Manipulation will let us treat as a +2 shovel. Casters get to choose which caster level they craft items at, so you can feel free to upgrade to a +3 traveler’s any-tool at CL 12, a +4 traveler’s any-tool at CL 16, etc., or do it earlier if you can find a high-level caster who’s willing to take your commission.
Things really jump into the deep end when we enter the mortal usher prestige class, which happens to be one of my favorites in anything Paizo has published. It helps that it’s extraordinarily powerful, of course! Right off the bat, you get Vital Strike, so at 7th level you should be attacking at your highest BAB for about 8d6+11 damage (average 39 damage; +2 from enhancement bonus, +6 from 1.5x Strength, +1 from studied combat, +2 from Power Attack). You’ll still want to full-attack whenever you can to take advantage of your passive damage bonuses, but Vital Strike and Improved Vital Strike are wonderful consolation prizes when you need to do something with your move action. And the later abilities are amazing, too: nosoi plague mask gives you at-will invisibility; catrina’s calm slaps a calm emotions aura on you for dealing with barbarians, bloodragers, and bards; morrigna wrappings grant absurd AC bonuses (not specified as an enhancement bonus, so they stack with your amulet of natural armor!) and the benefits of a +5 whip that you don’t have to use a hand to wield; vanth wings give you a 60-ft. fly speed and surprisingly good cold resistance; and yamaraj-feather cloak gives you immunity to both death effects and electricity, plus healing if you ever get hit with electricity. There’s probably some munchkinry you could pull there by having a teammate taze you over and over outside of combat to heal you. Jolt? Shocking grasp?
NE Human Gravedigger 15
Strength: 15 (+2) Dexterity: 10 Constitution: 14 Intelligence: 16 Wisdom: 12 Charisma: 7
Primary Weapon: Scythe
Racial Traits: None
Traits: Bruising Intellect (Social), Denial of Fate (Religion)
Favored Class Bonuses: HP 1-3, Extracts 4-20
1: Alchemy, limited alchemy, grave magic, relic focus (necromancy), inspiration
2: Deny death +2, read the bones
3:
4: Studied combat, studied strike +1d6 (+0 vs. non-undead), kill the dead, grave lamp (conjuration)
5: Deny death +6
6: Studied strike +2d6 (+1d6 vs. non-undead)
7:
8: Studied strike +3d6 (+2d6 vs. non-undead), deny death +4
9:
10: Studied strike +4d6 (+3d6 vs. non-undead)
11: Deny death +8
12: Studied strike +5d6 (+4d6 vs. non-undead)
13:
14: Studied strike +6d6 (+5d6 vs. non-undead)
15:
1: Bonus (Medium Armor Proficiency), Divine Fighting Technique (Urgathoa’s Hunger)
2:
3: Power Attack, Focus Talent (Necromantic Servant)
4:
5: Extra Investigator Talent (Quick Study), Focus Talent (Soulbound Puppet)
6:
7: Cornugon Smash, Talent (Sickening Offensive)
8:
9: Hurtful, Talent (Combat Inspiration)
10:
11: Extra Inspiration, Focus Talent (Side Step)
12:
13: Extra Inspiration, Talent (Tenacious Inspiration)
14:
15: Extra Inspiration, Talent (Prolonged Study)
1st Level: enlarge person, long arm, shield
2nd Level: resist energy, bear’s endurance, alchemical allocation
3rd Level: channel vigor, displacement, heroism
4th Level: freedom of movement, caustic blood, stoneskin
5th Level: delayed consumption, defensive grace, resurgent transformation
6th Level: legendary proportions, statue, heal
The Revivifier is my take on an undead minion master with the investigator chassis. How is that possible? It’s all thanks to the marvelous gravedigger archetype, without which none of it would work. Let’s start with just what the investigator is capable of: you start off with medium armor and scythe proficiency, which opens you up nicely to worship Urgathoa in order to collect on her amazing Divine Fighting Technique. After you upgrade to a keen scythe, you’ll have a 10% chance on every hit to get that sweet, sweet x4 crit—and all the temporary HP that come with Urgathoa’s Hunger crits. (Your Wisdom modifier is lowish, so you won’t be able to pull this off all that often—springing for a +2/+2 Wisdom/Intelligence headband isn’t the worst idea in the world.) In later levels, I’ve tacked on the basics for a demoralize build, with Cornugon Smash and Hurtful complementing Sickening Offensive to give you solid single-target debuffing. If you’d rather focus on other priorities, strip out the two feats and your Bruising Intellect trait and replace them with Outflank and Charnel Soldiers.
Now the fun part! Your occultist powers. This build’s main draw is Necromantic Servant, Soulbound Puppet, and Servitor, all of which let you fill the battlefield with summoned meatshields. I’ve made the build as tanky as I reasonably can, but truth be told, your minions should be soaking most of the blows, not you; you’ll sic your minions on the boss while you and the team mop up low-CR trash mobs before swooping in for the final kill. Because Necromantic Servant in particular is extraordinarily hard on your inspiration pool, most of your feats after 10th level go toward expanding that pool. If you really want to lean into the caster role and not do much melee combat, ditch Urgathoa’s Hunger, Power Attack, Cornugon Smash, and Hurtful, then replace them with three instances of Extra Inspiration and the Extra Investigator Talent (Focus Talent: Psychic Fog) feat. It’s a bizarre cleric/psychic/occultist/investigator hybrid that I’m in positively in love with!
LG Half-Orc Fighter 1 / Cartographer-Natural Philosopher 4 / Hinterlander 5 / Investigator 5
Strength: 12 Dexterity: 15 (+2) Constitution: 14 Intelligence: 16 Wisdom: 10 Charisma: 7
Primary Weapon: Longbow
Racial Traits: Shaman’s Apprentice, Sacred Tattoo
Traits: Fate’s Favored (Faith), Magical Knack (Magic)
Favored Class Bonuses: HP or Skills, 1-20
1:
2(1): Alchemy, natural philosopher’s inspiration, track
3(2): Studied terrain
4(3): Herbalism, geographic lore
5(4): Studied combat, studied strike +1d6, swift travels
6(1): Favored enemy +2
7(2): Fast movement, favored terrain (hinterland) +2
8(3): Hinterland stride
9(4): Chosen kin
10(5):
11(5):
12(6): Studied strike +2d6
13(7):
14(8): Studied strike +3d6
15(9):
1: Bonus (Endurance), Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot
2(1):
3(2): Weapon Focus (Longbow)
4(3): Talent (Infusion; required by natural philosopher archetype)
5(4): Ranged Study
6(1): Bonus (Rapid Shot)
7(2): Focused Shot
8(3): Bonus (Point-Blank Master)
9(4): Clustered Shots
10(5): Bonus (Improved Precise Shot)
11(5): Hammer the Gap, Talent (Quick Study)
12(6):
13(7): Snap Shot, Talent (Sickening Offensive)
14(8):
15(9): Improved Snap Shot, Talent (Combat Inspiration)
1st Level: Reduce person, anticipate peril, shield
2nd Level: Acute senses, see invisibility, invisibility
3rd Level: Channel vigor, fly, communal resist energy
4th Level: Freedom of movement, greater invisibility, echolocation
5th Level: Delayed consumption, overland flight, spell resistance
6th Level: Heal, statue, true seeing
Y’all, ranged investigators are really hard to build. Ranged builds are hard enough as it is, but then throw on the Weapon Focus and Ranged Study requirements, and you might as well kiss your dreams goodbye. But fortunately for us, hinterlander exists, and it front-loads its bonus feats in the first five levels. So we’re going to take advantage of fighter levels, hinterlander levels, and anything else that we need to get this build off the ground. Thanks to some clever racial trait selection and a fighter dip, even the humble investigator is able to satisfy all the hinterlander prerequisites by 5th level, and by 6th level you have the core elements of a ranged build all in place: PBS, Precise Shot, and Rapid Shot. The 7th-11th level band is a time of enormous growth for this build, with Point-Blank Master, Clustered Shots, Improved Precise Shot, and Hammer the Gap all falling into place quickly. Point-Blank Master and Improved Precise Shot in particular are amazing pulls, as you wouldn’t be able to access IPS until quite a bit later in the build without hinterlander levels, and you wouldn’t be able to get PBM at all. Throw in Snap Shot and its Improved cousin for good luck, and the build is done.
Unfortunately, damn near everything gets sacrificed on the altar of ranged combat: your studied combat and studied strike bonuses lag behind other investigators, you can’t pick up any talents until 11th level, and even then you have to prioritize combat taxes like Quick Study and Combat Inspiration, rather than skill buffs. Your extract casting escapes relatively unharmed, thanks to hinterlander’s spell progression, which is nice. The combat flow is simple: pop a fly, study an enemy as a swift or move action, then loose full-attack after full-attack as soon as you can; if you only have a standard action, Focused Shot will compensate your damage a bit. Should any enemies try to go invisible, toss down darkness or obscuring mist, etc., and remember that you have both see invisibility and echolocation to find them again.
“So this is the mind palace, huh?”
—Dr. John Watson
Well, my beloved fellows, the time has come for us to part ways. My goal in writing this guide was to spread my love of this excellent class to the broader Pathfinder world, and if you found yourself excited to roll one up and try it at your next game, then by that measure I have succeeded! Remember that I’m always available to answer questions at my Reddit account, and if you’ve enjoyed my work in past and want to support my future guide-writing efforts, I do have a Patreon page! No need to try to cram twenties into the floppy drive anymore.
As a preview of coming attractions, I have a comprehensive guide to Pathfinder’s Obedience feats slated for release later this year, and after that, who knows? I may revisit my Armamentarium project to update slotless items; I may move on to the Shaman or Occultist classes, both of which I’ve been dying to take a closer look at; or I may start writing content for 2e, if the demand is there. I suspect it’s not there yet. If you’d like to weigh in, please reach out and contact me! I’m always happy to hear from fellow enthusiasts. Until we meet again, may all your rapiers find their mark!
Best,
Allerseelen
