Investigator Handbook: PF2 Class Guide

Introduction

The investigator is a curious oddity in a dungeon fantasy game. Where typical characters are built for delving dungeons, slaying dragons, and facing the worsts horrors of the multiverse, the Investigator is a much more methodical class, built around finding clues, following leads, and investigating subjects.

Introduction
Disclaimer
Investigator Class Features
Subclasses – Methodologies
Ability Scores
Ancestries
Backgrounds
Skills and Skill Feats
- General Skill Feats
Feats
- Investigator Feats
  - 1st Level
  - 2nd Level
  - 4th Level
  - 6th Level
  - 8th Level
  - 10th Level
  - 12th Level
  - 14th Level
  - 16th Level
  - 18th Level
  - 20th Level
- General Feats
Weapons
Armor

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks.

Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichare extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
Orange: OK options, or useful optionsthat only apply in rare circ*mstances. Useful sometimes.
Green: Good options. Useful often.
Blue: Fantastic options, often essentialto the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Mechanically, the Investigator shares some concepts with the Rogue, sharing their unusually high number of skills and skill feats, as well as their light armor and 8+ hit points. In combat, the Investigator relies on Formulate a Stratagem, encouraging players to make a single high-damage Strike rather than flailing against their targets with numerous Strikes in the same turn. Like the Rogue, the Investigator fits into a party as a Scout and Striker, but thanks to high Intelligence and abundant skills and access to Advanced Alchemy, they can also serve as a Face, a Librarian, and potentially a Healer.

While the Investigator shares a lot in common with the Rogue, they work differently in some key ways. Managing your “subjects” is a crucial part of succeeding as an investigator, and where the Rogue needs to rely on makes foes flat-footed to be effective in combat, the Investigator just needs enough Actions to make Forumate a Stratagem work. As a player, expect to spend a lot of time asking the GM questions and scutinizing every word of what the GM says in order to find clues. In many ways, you need to be an investigator as much as your character is.

Investigator Class Features

Key Ability: Intelligence. With high Intelligence, you’ll have abundant skills and you’ll be well-equipped to succeed with skills like Arcana and Crafting. You can also use Formulate a Strategem in order to use Intelligence for your attack rolls.

Hit Points: 8+ hit points. Much like theRogue, you’re frail. However, you don’t have the Rogue’s Dexterity to pad yourAC, so the problem is even worse.

Initial Proficiencies: The Investigator’sproficiencies are excellent everywhere except their armor..

Perception: The best Perceptionprogression in the game, matching the Rogue.
Saving Throws: Terrible Fortitude saves,but otherwise fine. Reflex saves are common and between high Dexterity androughly average Dexterity save progression you should do fine. TheInvestigator’s Will saves are also good, but you should still put someresources into Wisdom if you can.
Skills: A total of 6+Int skills, and withIntelligence as your Key Ability Score you’ll likely exceed the totalstarting skills of every other character, including most rogues. TheInvestigator notably also gets the same number of Skill Feats that the Roguedoes, though the Investigator gets half of them via the Skillful Lessonsfeature, which is limited to skills which rely on mental ability scores(Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma) so they’re not quite as flexible as theRogue’s.
Attacks: The same progression as mostmartial classes like the Barbarian and the Champion, and you get up tomartial weapons.
Defenses: Only light armor, but yourproficiency progression is good.
Class DC: None of the Investigator’s Class Feats orfeatures depend on your Class DC. The Investigator doesn’t even get accessto Critical Specialization Effects on its own (you may be able to get themfrom your Ancestry or from multiclassing).

On the Case:

Pursue a Lead: Managing your two subjectsis central to how you play the Investigator. If you can keep your subjectsrelevant, you can benefit from a frequent Circ*mstance bonus, and Devise aStratagem becomes less costly to use. You can’t reasonably expect everycreature you face to be a subject, but try to make as many enemies aspossible a subject before you encounter them. As a general guideline, if theGM knows the creature’s name you should usually be able to make it a subjectbefore you fight it.
Clue In: A nice way to include partymembers in your investigations. The bonus isn’t huge, but it will occurfrequently and it costs you nothing except your Reaction to share it withyour allies.

Devise a Strategem: Half of theInvestigator’s primary combat tactic. While the text of the Action isn’tespecially long, there is a lot of buried nuance here, and understanding thecomplexities of Devise a Stratagem will make you more effective in combat.

When you use Devise a Stratagem, the first thing that you do is to roll a d20. This will take the place of the d20 rolled for your first Strike against the target of your stratagem. The text specifies that you can use it “later in the round”, which is unhelpful since the Investigator doesn’t get Attack of Opportunity or a similar mechanism. Still, this allows you to roughly know the results of your potential Strike before you make it. If you roll terribly, don’t waste the Action to make your Strike.

If you then choose to make a Strike against the target of your Strategem, you make the Strike normally, except that instead of rolling a d20 you must use the roll from when you used Devise a Stratagem, and you may use your Intelligence in place of Strength or Dexterity for the attack roll (though you would be a fool not to do so, since Strategic Strike only applies if you use Intelligence for the attack).

Devise a Stratagem only works once per round (usually), which is an important limitation. It effectively limits you to a single effective Strike per turn, as your Strength or Dexterity will almost certainly lag behind your Intelligence. Rather than making numerous Strikes, the Investigator is expected to make singular, powerful strikes each turn.

The exception to the “once per round” practical limitation is when “you’re aware the creature you choose is the subject of a lead you’re pursuing”. Since you can only have two subjects at a time, expect that most creatures you fight will not be one of your subjects. When you do finally face a subject in combat, use the extra Actions for things like Recall Knowledge, Demoralize, and other single-Action options that tilt comabt in your favor.

Devise a Stratagem also supports the Strategic Strike feature (see below). As far as I can tell, they’re only separate features so that characters using the Investigator multiclass dedication feats can’t get Strategic Strike.

Methodology: See “Subclasses – Methodologies”, below.

Strategic Strike: A consistent and easydamage boost, and it automatically scales with level, adding dice at a similarrate to Runes of Striking. This additional damage boost makes up for theInvestigator’s preference for single Strikes over making multiple Strikes perturn.

Investigator Feats: See Investigator feats, below.

Skill Feats: Standard for everyone except the Rogue.

Skill Increases: Standard for everyone except the Rogue.

Subclasses – Methodologies

Alchemical Sciences

This isn’t quite so versatile and powerful as the Alchemist’s capabilities with alchemy, but it has some similar benefits. Proficiency in Crafting and the Alchemical Crafting feat get you set up to craft alchemical items early in your career, and Quick Tincture helps mitigate the cost of crafting high-level alchemical items while also allowing you to capitalize on alchemical items which aren’t useful enough to justify spending gold to craft them.

Because alchemical items can do so much (even if you only consider elixirs and tools), Alchemical Sciences is inherently a very capable and flexible subclass, far outpacing other investigator subclasses. Access to healing items like Elixirs of Life and buffs like Eagle Eye Elixir make the Forensic Sciences and Interrogation subclasses mostly obsolete. With a few skill feats (remember that the Investigator gets one at every level) you can completely replicate both subclasses, with the exception of the unique Pointed Question Action.

While you can still craft bombs normally, Quick Tincture notably doesn’t allow you to craft bombs, so you’ll need to spend time and gold to do so just like most other characters. If you’re really enthusiastic about alchemy, consider some Alchemist multiclass dedication feats.

Skill: Crafting: Versatile, helpful, andIntelligence-based so you’re really good at it. In addition to crafting yourown alchemical items, this can also make it easy to maintain shields andother equipment.
Alchemical Crafting^CRB: Alchemical items are numerous, versatile, and powerful. Between highIntelligence and Alchemical Crafting for free, crafting alchemical items tocomplement your other class features offers a powerful and versatiletoolset.
Quick Tincture: Assuming that you startwith 18 Intelligence (which you probably will), you can use this 4 or moretimes per day. A functionally free alchemical elixir or alchemical tool willallow you to quickly address a wide variety of challenges. Elixirs includepowerful options like Elixir of Life for healing, mutagens to buff yourselfand your allies, and utility options like Darkvision Elixir. Tools aregenerally more situational, but since you don’t need to craft them ahead oftime your options are as broad as the contents of your formula book.

Empiricism

Perhaps the most iconic version of the Investigator, Empiricism emphasizes knowledge and investigation. Expect to spend feats and skill increases to support and improve Recall Knowledge, and use your knowledge at every opportunity to gain advantages.

While the Investigator does get class feat options to improve Recall Knowledge, consider Ranger multiclass dedication feats to get the Ranger’s Monster Hunter feat tree.

Skill: Any Intelligence-Based: Arcana,Crafting, Lore, and Occultism are all Intelligence-based and they’re allgood choices.
Class Feat: That’s Odd^APG: See below, under Investigator Feats.
Expeditious Inspection: It’s only onceper ten minutes, and the fact that it’s a Free Action only really matters incombat. Seek will help to find hidden/invisible foes, which is situationalbut still helpful. Recall Knowledge may be the more important option here.If you take other feats which capitalize upon and improve Recall Knowledge,you can easily turn it into a powerful way to buff yourself and your allies,and the 10-minute cooldown means that you can usually use it once perencounter since post-combat activities typically take at least 10 minutes(see myPathfinder 2e – Practical Guide to Post-Combatfor examples).

Forensic Medicine

You can’t totally replace a spellcaster since Medicine alone can’t solve every ailment, but you can get very close, and with the ability to use Battle Medicine hourly you can even provide an impressive amount of hit point restoration in the middle of combat. If your party lacks a cleric or a similar spellcaster, this is a good choice.

However, the Investigator gets 6+Int Trained skills at level 1 and a Skill Feat at every level, allowing you to easily learn both Forensic Acument and Battle Medicine by level 3, allowing you to replicate the entirety of the Forensic Medicine subclass while playing a different subclass. If you want a mechanically simple investigator, this is a fine choice. But if you can handle complexity and want to be more effective, Alchemical Sciences is typically better choice.

Skill: Medicine: The Investigator getsplenty of Skill Increases and Skill Feats, so Medicine is a great choice ofskills that will be reliably useful for your whole party.
- Battle Medicine: An inexpensivehealing option that you can use in combat. It usually only works onceper target per day, but the Investigator gets to use it once per targetper hour, and with a decent additional bonus. This makes Battle Medicinean effective go-to combat healing option rather than an emergency optionfor when an ally is dying.
Skill Feat: Forensic Acumen^APG: Situational, but hopefully if there’s an Investigator in the campaignthere will be dead bodies for you to investigate that aren’t dead becauseyour party killed them.
Skill Feat: Battle Medicine^CRB: This can be hard to use in combat at low levels because your skill bonusisn’t high enough to reliably hit the DC of 15, and it only works once pertarget per day. Avoid using this until your skill bonus improves unlessyou’re desperate.

Interrogation

If you want to play a Face character, this is the apparently way for the Investigator to do it. Unfortunately, you’re saddled with No Cause for Alarm, and Pointed Question is neat but not useful enough to make up the difference. If you want to play a face but Interrogation doesn’t look mechanically appealing, consider the Alchemical Sciences subclass instead, and use the Silvertongue Mutagen to improve your Face skills or the Eagle Eye Elixir to improve your Perception checks.

Skill: Diplomacy: The king of Faceskills.
Skill Feat: No Cause for Alarm^APG: The Action cost is too high, the effect is too small, the range is tooshort, and the fact that it targets your allies’ (hopefully high) Will DCmeans that the more durable your allies are the less likely you are tosucceed. Unless getting your allies’ Frightened value down to 0 has somesignificant effect beyond the penalties of Frightened, this is not worth anentire turn worth of Actions to use. You can’t even move to positionyourself close to your allies, so you basically have to hope for them to beand stay within range for an entire round or to come running to you lookingfor reassurance.
Pointed Question: You can force acreature to answer a question, but they can still lie to you. You get abonus to detect the lie, but there’s still a chance of failure. This helpswith interrogations (or just questioning stubborn people), but it’s notamazing and you only want to use it sparing because you don’t want to riskthe Critical Failure effect against someone who you may want to remainfriends with.

Ability Scores

The Investigator is built around Intelligence, but the rest of your ability scores are more flexible. Adjust your ability scores to support whichever skills you want to emphasize, but don’t ignore Dexterity and Constitution.

Str: If you want to fight in melee, don’tdump Strength becuase it will affect your damage. If you want to fight atrange, dump Strength and grab a crossbow.

Dex: With light armor and 8+ hit points,you need good Dexerity to keep your AC high.

Con: Hit points and Fortitude saves.Important if you want to be in melee, but if you plan to fight at range youcan afford a bit less so that you can boost other ability scores instead.

Int: Intelligence is everything for theInvestigator. Your attacks, your skills, and your class DC all depend onit.

Wis: Perception and many skills that willbe useful for investigating.

Cha: Investigations often involve a lot oftalking, so a bit of Charisma can do a lot to support Face skills.

Ancestries

Intelligence Boosts are crucial, but thanks to flexible boosts it’s easy to get one. Beyond that, consider which skills you want to emphasize and look for an ancestry with boosts which support those skills. Look for other ways to expand your capabilities, but generally avoid racial weapon proficiencies becuase they’ll have little impact since the Investigator typically only makes one attack per turn. You might look for a way to get weapon critical specialization effects since the Investigator doesn’t get them normally, but they’re not totally necessary.

Catfolk^APG: Great Boosts for a Investigator planning to be a Face, but the Wisdom flawcuts into your Perception, which is hard for the Investigator. The Catfolk’sAncestry Feats offer some interesting options like Persistant Damage andaccess to Critical Specialization effects, but you may get more use out of theCatfolk Luck feat chain.

Dwarf^CRB: Excellent Abiity Boosts and Flaws so long as you don’t want to play a Face,but very few Ancestry Feat options which support the Investigator. Considerthe Adopted Ancestry feat or a Versatile Heritage.

Elf^CRB: Perfect Ability Boosts, though be careful with a Constitution Flaw and 6hit points from your Ancestry. The Elf’s Ancestry Feats offer numerouscombinations of options, including access to some innate spells, weapons withcritical specialization effects, feats to improve your skills, and feats thatoffer better mobility.

Gnome^CRB: Excellent Ability Boosts and the Strength Flaw won’t hurt you. The Gnome’sAncestry Feat options are similar to the Elf’s, though not quite as numerousso you have fewer interesting options. You do have the option of a Familiar,and with the Gnome’s Charisma Boost your Innate Spells will be more effective(though you should probably still stick to utility options).

Goblin^CRB: The Boosts/Flaws work fine, but the Wisdom Flaw will hurt your CrucialPerception bonus, and the Goblin has very few Ancestry Feats which support theInvestigator’s capabilities.

Halfling^CRB: Good Ability Boosts/Flaws. Halfling Luck is an excellent feat chain onnearly any character, or you can get access to Critical SpecializationEffects.

Human^CRB: Two Free Boosts allows you to build your Investigator however you like, andbetween a great selection of Ancestry Feats and the Half-Elf and Half-OrcHeritages, the Human has a lot to offer. The Cooperative Nature feat chain isgreat if you want to use Aid when you have spare Actions (which can befrequent for the Investigator). Avoid the Clever Improviser feat, as it’sredundant with the Investigator’s class features.

Kobold^APG: Good for a variety of builds, the Kobold’s Ability Boosts are great for anInvestigator building to be a Face, and the Kobold’s Ancestry Feats offer avariety of exciting options. Kobold Breath offers an excellent offensiveoption in combat for turns where Devise a Stratagem gives you a bad roll, andalso offers a way to handle crowds which is normally very difficult for theInvestigator. The Dracomancer feat chain offers access to some spellcastingwhich offers useful utility options. Grovel combines well with Devise aStratagem, and Dragon’s Presence makes Demoralize slightly more effective.Kobolds are also uniquely well-suited to crafting Snares if you want toexplore Snares as an option.

Orc^APG: Strength is borderline useless, so that Free Boost is going a lot of workunless you use the Optional Flaw rule. The Orc’s Ancestry Feats offer verylittle that’s useful for the Investigator. You could turn tusks into a usefulweapon to keep your hands free for items, but I don’t think that’s enough tojustify the race since natural weapons are available on numerous other raceslike the Catfolk.

Ratfolk^APG: Perfectly Abiity Boosts and Flaws, several interesting Heritages, and someAncestry Feat options which will frequently prove useful while investigating,such as access to a familiar. However, the Ratfolk’s Ancestry Feat options arefew in number, and most of them relate to shoving items into cheek pouches.

Tengu^APG: Only getting two Ability Boosts can be difficult for many characters, butDex/Int is sufficient for the Investigator. The Tengu gets low-light visionand a natural weapon with Finesse by default, which is a great starting pointfor the Investigator. Scavenger’s Search can aid in finding clues, and Squawkis great on any Face character. You can get access to Critical SpecializationEffects, too, and you can choose staple options like the Rapier or more exoticoptions like the Wakizashi to work with the Tengu Weapon Familiarity featchain.

Backgrounds

If you’re having trouble deciding, here are some suggestions:

Cook (Alchemical Sciences)
Cultist (Any)
Refugee (Any)
Tax Collector (Any)

Skills and Skill Feats

You get Skill Increases at 3rd and 5th level to raise skills to Expert, increases at 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th level to raise skills to Master, and increases at 15th, 17th, and 19th level to raise skills to Legendary. That means that you can maximize at most three skills, and the rest of your skills might not advance beyond Trained.

You get Skill Feats at even-numbered levels, giving you a total of 10 Skill Feats (and maybe another from your Background) by 20th level. Generally, you want to invest these feats in the same skills which you are choosing to maximize, though in some cases you may want to grab feats from skills which don’t require that you be more than Trained.

Acrobatics (Dex): Only situationallyuseful, but Acrobatics lets you qualify for Cloud Step and ImplausibleInfiltration, both of which are spectacular.
Arcana (Int): Essential in any party.
- Arcane Sense: The Investigator hasfew options to handle magic, but Detect Magic for free will at leastallow you to detect it and potentially avoid it.
Athletics (Str): Potentially useful ifyou want to Shove or Trip, but Strength is the Investigator’s dump stat, sousing this without Assurance is hard, and even with Assurance it’s notessential since you’re not reliant on your targets being Flat-Footed.
Crafting (Int): The ability to craft magicand alchemical items and to repair your party’s geat is extremely helpful,and with high Intelligence and even the smallest investment you canaccomplish a lot. If you take the Alchemical Sciences Methodology, this iscrucial.
- Alcemical Crafting: Not quite as effective the Alchemical Sciences Methodology, butstill a great option. Alchemical items have a lot to offer.
Deception (Cha): A crucial Face skill,and you can easily combine Feint with Device a Stratagem to further imrpoveyour odds of hitting with your one Strike per turn.
Diplomacy (Cha): Essential for anyFace.
Intimidation (Cha): A great option for aFace, and Demoralize makes it a useful option in combat.
- Battlecry: Demoralize for free whencombat starts. It might not be a good option if you’re hiding, butotherwise it’s a free debuff at the beginning of every fight.
- Terrified Retreat: Counting on acritical success is hard, but if your Charisma is very high it mightwork.
- Scare to Death: Spend one Action topick out the creature in the room the lowest Will save and kill them orsend them fleeing. Repeat until the room is cleared. At this point youonly need weapons for things that are strong enough to threaten yourwhole party on their own, and even then this can still replace theDemoralize action almost entirely.
Lore (Int): You have the Intelligenceto back up Lore, so pick up a few different Lore skills if you have spareincreases.
- Warfare Lore:
  - Battle PlannerAPG: Investing heavily in WarfareLore to make this exceed your Perception is expensive since theInvestigator gets the best Perception progression, but with theInvestigator’s high Intelligence you may be able to improve yourInitiative checks.
Medicine (Wis): With no built-in healingoptions (Alchemical Sciences offers access to elixirs, but that doesn’t helpother investigators), Medicine is an easy and obvious choice. If no one elsein your party has better Wisdom, investing in Medicine will provide an easyand inexpensive healing resource, and you have plenty of Skill Increases andSkill Feats to improve it.
Nature (Wis): Despite being Wisdom-based,Nature may be an important skill for the Investigator so that you can useRecall Knowledge.
Occultism (Int): On par with Arcana, andyou have plenty of Intelligence to make it work.
- Disturbing Knowledge^APG: Similar to Demoralize. I don’t think this is worth the 2-Action costuntil you can affect multiple targets, but it does stack with theeffects of Demoralize so it may be worth the effort to get a target toFrightened 2, and since this uses Occultism it will use your highIntelligence rather than your Charisma so you may find this moreeffective than Demoralize.
- Root Magic^APG: If you’re already going to put Skill Increases into Occultism, aonce-daily save bonus is a decent benefit, and the Investigatorcertainly has enough Skill Feats to spend on this even if it isn’t goingto be constantly useful.
- Schooled in Secrets^APG: If you’re built to be a Face, don’t bother. But if you’re short onCharisma this can be a helpful way to gather information by relying onyour Intelligence.
Performance (Cha): Not particularlyuseful
Religion (Wis): Despite beingWisdom-based, Religion may be an important skill for the Investigator sothat you can use Recall Knowledge.
Society (Int): Helpful for knowing thingsabout human societies, and several of the skill feats look useful forinvestigating.
- Read Lips: Only situationally useful, but helpful if you want to spy onsubjects that you’re investigating.
- Streetwise: Using Streetwise in place of Diplomacy means using anIntelligence-based skill rather than a Charisma-based one, and usingRecall Knowledge instead of taking the time to Gather Informationmeans that you can quickly gain information that might take yourcharacter hours or days to find.
Stealth (Dex): While not so crucial forthe Investigator as it is for the Rogue, you’re likely filling the role inyour party normally filled by a rogue, so investing in Stealth is a goodidea. Investigators also get by in light armor, so you’ll have enoughDexterity to make Stealth effective.
Survival (Wis): Only rarely useful, butyou might make it Trained if you don’t know what else to take.
Thievery (Dex): Used for both openinglocks and disabling traps, no adventuring party is likely to succeed withoutsomeone passable at Thievery.

General Skill Feats

Assurance^CRB: With 6+ total skills at level 1 and Intelligence as your Key AbilityScore, you’re going to have a lot of skills. Unfortunately, Ability Boostsare limited, which means that you’re inevitably going to be bad at someskills. If you still need a skill, but your ability scores don’t support it,consider taking Assurance in that skill to remove your Ability Modifier fromthe equation.
Disceet Inquiry^APG: If anyone is going to use this to good effect, it’s the Investigator, butthis will rarely be useful in a typical campaign.
Shield Block^CRB: An excellent choice for investigators planning to dive into melee. ShieldBlock can do a lot to compensate for your relatively poor AC and low hitpoints.
Thorough Search^APG: Great for looking for clues.

Feats

Investigator Feats

For the full list of Investigator Class Feats, see the Investigator Feats page on Archives of Nethys.

1st Level

Flexible Studies^APG: You get 6+Int starting skills and a Skill Increase at every level. Youreally shouldn’t need more skills in the vast majority of cases.
Known Weaknesses^APG: Since there’s no Action cost to use this it’s very easy to fit into yourtactics, and it’s easy to combine with other options which capitalize onRecall Knowledge. Unfortunately, the +1 bonus is small and inconsistentsince you need to critically succeed on your check.
Takedown Expert^APG: Use a sap.
That’s Odd^APG: If you as a player aren’t great at investigating things, this is a greatway to make the Investigator actually good at finding clues.
As a GM, this feat is a nightmare because your player is going toconstantly ask you for something “out of the ordinary” every time theyenter a room. As a player, please just accept it when the GM says “thereis nothing out of the ordinary here”.
Trap Finder^APG: Situational by design. I would never take this at first level unless yourcampaign features a huge amount of dungeon crawling.
Underworld Investigator^APG: Situational by design. In the right campaign this could see a lot of use,but you need to know the nature of your campaign before you decide to takethis.

2nd Level

Athletic Strategist^APG: Situational. These are all good maneuvers, but typically you want tofollow them up with a Strike and you’re probably not well-equipped to dothat between low Strength/Dexterity and a Multiple Attack Penalty.
Red Herring^APG: I hate that this needs to be a feat, but it’s hard to argue with howimpactful this is. You can only pursue two leads at once and can’t return toa lead once you drop it until you complete daily preparations again, sodropping a lead to focus on something pointless can handicap you quite abit. It’s also nice for the GM because they can just tell you when you’rewasting your time and the GM doesn’t need to repeatedly pretend that somemundane descriptive detail is somehow a clue.
Shared Statagem^APG: Consistently useful in any combat situation.
Solid Lead^APG: Excellent for long-term subjects like your campaigns primaryantagonist.

4th Level

Alchemical Discoveries^APG (Alchemical Sciences): Asignificant improvement to your versatility with alchemy.
Detective’s Readiness^APG: An easy, consistent bonus. The subject of your investigations istypically a foe significant enough to justify commiting one of your two“subject of a lead” slots, so having a consistent bonus to resist thetarget’s abilities is very helpful.
Lie Detector^APG: Situational by design. Helpful in highly social campaigns, but in gamesthat don’t involve a lot of interrogations and the like you’ll rarelybenefit from this.
Ongoing Investigation^APG: Combining Exploration Activities is a huge benefit while moving throughdangerous places.
Scalpel’s Point^APG: Persistant damage is really good, but it’s hard to score critical hitswhen you’re making very few attacks.
Strategic Assessment^APG: This seems totally redundant with Known Weaknesses, and Known Weaknessescan reveal considerably more information.

6th Level

Connect the Dots^APG: This makes a lot of sense thematicall for the Investigator, but I don’ttrust this to have a clear mechanical benefit. You could also just figurethis information out on your own without spending a class feat on it.
Predictive Purchase^APG: Free consumables can include things like potions and scrolls. Sure, theyonly be common and a level no higher than half your level, but that canstill get you some very expensive things like healing potions, elixirs oflife, antidotes, poisons, talismans, and all manner of other things whichare too expensive to dump money into constantly but might solve an immediateproblem. Using scrolls of low-level spells with situational uses can solve alot of problems, and means that spellcasters in your party don’t need tolearn or prepare those spells.
Thorough Research^APG: Significantly improves the effectiveness of Recall Knowledge.

8th Level

Blind-Fight^APG: Situational by design, but without spells the Investigator has few otherresponses to invisibile foes.
Clue Them All In^APG: If your party all has skills that can help investigate things(Perception, knowledge skills like Arcana, relevant Lore skills, etc.)they’ll likely all help investigate rather than standing around staring atyou while you do the work. In those cases, the bonus can be very helpful. Incombat this won’t see much use unless your allies are all built aroundRecall Knowledge for some reason.
Whodunnit?^APG: Only works once per day, and the list of questions is extremeleylimiting.

10th Level

Just One More Thing^APG: In combat it will be hard to fit the Action cost for this into a turnwhere you’re using any of the actions which allow you to use One More Thing,but if you’re heavily dependent on those actions it may be worth the effort.Outside of combat this is helpful insurance for social skills where failuremight be a major setback for you and your party.
Ongoing Strategy^APG: The damage bonus is small, and since you’re not using Device a Stratagemyou’re not attacking using Intelligence so your attack bonus will be poor.If you have a spare Action and need to cause trouble, consider Demoralize orsomething along those lines.
Suspect of Opportunity^APG: This allows you to make one creature a temporary subject, enablingnumerous other Investigator options. With a 1-hour cooldown, you can usethis repeatedly throughout an adventuring day, and your party stopping to dothings like Refocus and Treat Wounds will quickly eat through the cooldowntime so you may be able to use this in back-to-back encounters.

12th Level

Foresee Danger^APG: With the best Perception progression in the game but only middling armorproficiency progression, your Perception DC should be much higher than yourAC. However, you only get one Reaction per turn so you’ll still need toinvest in your armor to keep yourself alive.
Reason Rapidly^APG: Known Weaknesses should suffice in the vast majority of cases.

14th Level

Plot the Future^APG: Essentially a divination. There is no usage limit or cooldown, so givenenough time you could spend hours plotting various possible futureoccurances, annoying your GM beyond belief, but gathering tons of usefulinformation.
Sense the Unseen^APG: A helpful counter to hidden or invisible enemies, but I would takeBlind-Fight first.
Strategic Bypass^APG: Situational by design, but damage resistances are common, and since yourely on weapons offensively it’s often very difficult to change damage typesto get around resistances.

16th Level

Didactic Strike^APG: This is absolutely fantastic. In many combat encounters you’ll use Devisea Stratagem every turn, allowing you to provide this bonus to your alliesrepeatedly throughout the encounter.
Implausible Purchase^APG: The way this feat is worded is easy to misunderstand, but it essentiallyhas two functions. The first function expands upon Prescient Planner,allowing you to use the feat an unlimited number of times to producenon-consumable adventuring gear. This effectively means that any piece ofadventuring gear is available to your with a single Action, provided thatit* weight wouldn’t make you encumbered (Consider purchasing a bag ofholding).
The second function improves upon Prescient Consumable. PrescientConsumable doesn’t get the unlimited uses per day like Prescient Plannerdoes, but you get 5 uses per day and the level cap on items is raisedconsiderably, allowing you to produce numerous high-level consumableitems.
Reconstruct the Scene^APG: Situations where this is useful are rare in a typical campaign, butreconstructing a scene like this is a powerful investigative tool infictional crime media, so in a game well-suited to the Investigator it mayallow you to gather huge amounts of information very quickly.

18th Level

Lead Investigator^APG: In a typically party your allies probably won’t have the skills to back upinvestigating the subject of your lead, and the bonus from Pursue a Leadwon’t make up the difference.
Trickster’s Ace^APG: Spells cast this way are very powerful, and can save you from a lot ofvery serious problems. If you can’t think of a better option, a 4th-levelHeal cast with two Actions when you’re seriously injured is a good optionthat could save your life.

20th Level

Everyone’s a Suspect^APG: The vast majority of the creatures that you interact with won’t requireyou to use this, but the possibility of an unlimited number of subjects iscertainly tempting. Major NPC villains will often be exposed to the playersin some way long before any sort of final confrontration, allowing you tofree up your two regular subject slots while still keeping major antagonistsas a subject.
Just the Facts^APG: If you’re build to capitalize on Recall Knowledge, this is a hugebenefit. If you take Dubious Knowledge, you’ll still gain information on afailure and since Just the Facts prevents you from critically failing youalways get information even if you don’t successfully trigger any otherbenefts from using Recall Knowledge.

General Feats

Shield Block: Investigators are frail,and a shield can go a long way to keep you alive in melee. In melee you’lltypically rely on one-handed weapons, so you have a free hand for a shieldunless you need that hand free for other items, and since Devise a Stratagemand a single Strike take up two of your Actions, you’ll frequently have athird which you could spend to Raise a Shield.
True Perception: Excellent for any character fortunate enough to get Legendaryproficiency in Perception, but it feels especially fitting on theInvestigator.

Weapons

The Investigator’s effective weapon options are dictated by the Device as Stratagem action. Since Devise a Stratagem works once per rounds, and only with certain weapons, you want to stick to weapons which qualify.

The Investigator gets only light armor, which normally means that you should favor Finesse weapons, but Divise a Stratagem allows you to attack using your Intelligence score instead of Strength or Dexterity, so using a Dexterity-based weapon is less crucial. It’s still a good idea for circ*mstances where you can’t use Divise a Stratagem, such as when you can’t manage the Action cost to use it before making a Strike.

Crossbow: Your best ranged option.Investigators typically only need two Actions to attack in one turn, so the1-Action Reload time for the Crossbow is less of a problem for theInvestigator than it is for other martial classes like the Fighter and theRogue.
Dagger^CRB: Lower damage than your other melee options, but the ability to throw adagger may make it appealing.
Rapier^CRB: Your go-to melee option. Better damage than the shortsword, deadly d8,and Disarm. You don’t need Agile because investigators almost never makemore than one Strike per turn, and while Versatile would be nice it’s notessential.
Shortsword^CRB: Decent damage, Finesse, and it’s Light Bulk so it’s likely easier toconceal than a rapier.
Shortbow: Decent damage at range withdeadly d10.
Sword Cane^CRB: Trade the shortsword’s Versatile for Concealable. In most situationsthat’s not a useful improvement over other weapons.

Armor

Explorer’s Clothing^CRB: There is little reason to raise your Dexterity past 18, so there islittle reason to take Explorer’s Clothing.
Leather^CRB: Upgrade from Studded Leather to Leather if you ever manage to get to 18Dexterity, but generally it’s fine to stop at 16 since you’re not going touse Dexterity for attacks.
Studded Leather^CRB: The Strength Threshold is higher than Leather armor, but 16 Dexterity isa great Dexterity for the Investigator, so if you can handle the minorpenalty for having less than 12 Strength you’ll be fine.
Chain Shirt^CRB: Noisy.

Investigator Handbook: PF2 Class Guide – RPGBOT (2024)