Class Action: The Spell Sleuth

[NutterButter]

Hey guys. Okay, look. We've all had those times where we think of a crazy idea for a character, but have no idea how it works. So, I've decided that whenever I come up with a crazy idea for one of these, I'm going to try to get input or help in it's construction. I'm going to call these little things 'Class Actions.' Anyway, here's the premise.

So, I've always had an interest in detectives, inspectors, and investigators of all kinds. This created the drive for this character and idea. I want a character who's an investigator, using magic and his wits to solve every mystery he comes across. He's not very good in combat and prefers to use utility weaponry (A whip or some other exotic weapon).

This character has a couple of things I want to be set in stone (or at least pretty close to it.)

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral or Lawful Neutral (Or anything else you can make work.)
Weapon: A whip (Or anything else justifiably useful.)
Adventuring: The character can adventure for a couple reasons (money, challenge, etc.) but he has to be interested in mysteries and solving them. That's the whole idea.

Alright, and I've got a couple ideas for starting classes, but there's a lot to play with. The main three are Rogue, Wizard, and Ranger. Ranger seems like a really solid base, because of tracking and favored enemy (Which could be turned to Humanoids, making them easier to interrogate, intimidate, bluff etc.) but the possibility of Wizard (Spells, familiars, clothes, Int. dependency) is strong. My thoughts for Rogue are a little different. See, I thought they might also be a good fit because of their ability to disarm traps and other things. Not to mention the fact that they can fake wands and other magical objects. I've considered Multi-Classing, but at this point in my experience with this game, I'm just not familiar enough with the system. Anyway, I've laid down a couple things and established a few ideas. Let's get to work.

[Stealth Marmot]

I made a acharacter who was a detective-like wizard. One part detective, one part spy, one part wizard.

D&D 3.5

Classes: (In order progression levels 1-20)

Rogue 2/ Wiz(Diviner) 3/Unseen Seer 8/Arcane Trickster 7

(It was actually 2 levels in Wizard when I played it because the DM had looser rules on qualifying for prestige classes, but that's the progression that you would use RAW)

He was human and had an insanely high Intelligence score. Needless to say, first level he had a lot of skill points. I took the feat that allowed you to put skill points into cross class skills at 1 for 1 instead of 2 for 1 (though the limit was still 2 skill points at first level). He had so many skill points, I flooded my knowledges list.

Since many rogue skills are INT based, he focused on those. He was not a very good sneak due to his average dex, and his charisma was actually bad, leaving him a rather hard person to get along with. His wisdom wis high though, and he definitely used Sense motive a lot.

Because of the Unseen Seer class he was able to take some extra divination spells, including Divine Insight (2nd level) Divination (4th level) and Hindsight (6th level)

Divine Insight allowed him to get an INSANE bonus to any single skill check he wanted. He cast it beforehand and just chose a skill check. So He could perform nearly any skill with amazing proficiency at the drop of a hat.

Divination as a spell was a bit more of a useful "Hey DM want to throw us a hint but don't want to use a Deus Ex Machina?"

Hindsight was a Ninth level Sorcerers spell, but I got it at sixth level by transferring over the BARD version, which meant I could cast it using a 6th level slot.

While not exactly hard evidence, I could relive any event that recently happened at a location. Tell me if that wouldn't be useful as a detective.

On top of that he of course had spells like Scry, Detect Scrying, Nondetection, etc. All to keep his friends safe (He automatically had nondetection from Unseen Seer.)

On top of his skills, he also had almost full spellcasting progression (losing only 2 to rogue so he could get Evasion) and made sure to take practiced spellcaster so that he had full caster levels for his hit die.

So in the end, he was on part with a full wizard perhaps a level below him in straight casting capabilities. He knew how to use effective methods of using his Sneak Attack too (Normally invisibility plus ranged touch).

The setting was absurdly high magic, with a lot of powerful forces taking interest in the crew. My character ended up being essential because no one else was any good at keeping the group off the damn grid.

Were the DM a little better at keeping the number of threads and tangents from getting out of hand and spent less time jerking us around from cut scene to cut scene to show off his ideas and world and would be a llttle less stringent on having those multitdes of plotlines coming to bite us through no fault of our own (hard to finish something when you get pulled into other dimensions against your will and the world keeps having, I swear to ODIN, RETCON STORMS, the game might have been good.

Anyway the character was badass. I had him in a long grey trenchcoat and old style sunglasses. He even had a Russian accent so he was like a KGB agent.

Anyway, yeah, that build works great for making a spellcasting sleuth. (The feat that allows cross class skill spending easy is in Races of Destiny, Unseen Seer is in Complete Mage, and Practiced Spellcaster is in several of the Complete books)

[Grod_The_Giant]

The Investigator (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/investigator), perhaps?

[NutterButter]

Wow, Grod, that Investigator class looks really good for this character. And Marmot, I like the character, but it's not really what I'm going for, y'know? I think the only thing I'd need to do to make this work is multi class and add in wizard. I've been trying to research multi classing, and looking at this class, I think the two would work really well. The only problem I could see is I really want a dwarf investigator, and neither is the favored class. What do you guys think? Inv/Wiz sounds cool and fun to me, but I dunno.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Wow, Grod, that Investigator class looks really good for this character. And Marmot, I like the character, but it's not really what I'm going for, y'know? I think the only thing I'd need to do to make this work is multi class and add in wizard. I've been trying to research multi classing, and looking at this class, I think the two would work really well. The only problem I could see is I really want a dwarf investigator, and neither is the favored class. What do you guys think? Inv/Wiz sounds cool and fun to me, but I dunno.
Hmm? There is a special favored class option for Dwarf, though it's pretty crappy. But you can always get +1 hit point/level or +1 skill point/level for your favored class, regardless of race.

Given that both classes are heavy on spellcasting, I can't recommend multiclassing Investigator/Wizard. There are plenty of quite good Formulae, though, and they're really fun to use. Because they only take one minute to prepare, they feel very Batman-y. You can take a minute or three to prep exactly the Formulae you want for the upcoming encounter. If you don't like that, though, the Psychic Detective archetype gets you Psychic spells, which includes enough wizardly staples that you should be able to pass just fine. You could probably also switch to casting off the Wizard list without too much trouble, in all honestly.