I had a character concept for a Ravnica game, basically they were a reporter with a small but devoted guildless newspaper that tried to take the injustices perpetrated by the guilds to task in the public eye. Ideally I thought it would be cool if they could go Inquisitive rogue, because I find that as an investigative reporter is a fun twist on the typical "detective" archetype of the subclass, but it would also be cool to throw in some paladin into the mix, probably devotion to represent her dedication to her fellow guildless.
Unfortunately that would probably be the MADest character imaginable, needing good Dex (obvs), good WIS (inquisitive), ideally good Int (cause an inquisitive that can't Investigate seems wrong), and at least 13 Cha for the paladin perquisites.
And on top of that I wanted to use my level 4 feat for Ritual Caster to help with investigation stuff, so I wouldn't count on that ASI if I could avoid it.
I'm mostly just complaining, but if anyone has any cool ideas for ways this could work, I'm all ears.
So, on a whim, I decided to roll stats to see what the likelihood of getting good enough stats for this build to work would be, and may Pelor strike me down if I'm lying, on the FIRST try (using the standard method of 4d6, drop the lowest), I got 16, 16, 8, 15, 15, 17.
With 8 as a very healthy strength dump stat, those could very well work.
Now I just need to grapple with whether or not it's right to hang onto these stats on a notecard for whenever this character is needed in the nebulous future, or whether it's disingenuous and I should roll stats fresh when that campaign actually starts (since we talked about doing a spin-off campaign from our current Ravnica game with different characters as a bit of a break, but haven't mentioned it beyond 'yeah that'd be cool').
I wouldn’t bother with an intelligence above 10. Why? Because with expertise in investigation, you’re probably already the best at investigation on any given dnd team. Even a wizard would need to pick up expertise somehow to straight up beat you.
if you are really concerned with nailing investigation checks, 3 levels of fighter or the martial adept feat would give you access to tactical assessment maneuver, which lets you add a martial dice to an investigation check.
A one level dip into knowledge cleric can give you 2 extra expertises and the identify spell for your investigations. The guidance cantrip could also help, but I would save it’s use for special occasions to preserve role play and not gum up the flow of the game.
A final more out their option: 3 level dip into eloquence bard with 13 charisma. Your interrogation skills will be amazing, jack of all trades helps with a lot, some nice utility magic, and you ca role play the anti-bardic inspiration as distracting enemies with mind games or calling attention to a weakness for your allies.
Well, instead of paladin you could multiclass into wizard. Then the higher int for investigation actually pays off. And now you're not just inquisitive but also a researcher. Divination or Scribe would be on point thematically, but power-wise itd be Bladesinger.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I've got a Inquisitive Rogue/Gloomstalker Ranger built. I played them in a one-shot (which we may come back to in the future), and it felt like a good build. Inquisitor rogue wants wisdom, as does ranger. Gloomstalker also synergizes with rogue for turn 1 nova damage. Grab a hand crossbow and you can pump out 4 attacks on your first round, with bonus damage from both sneak attack and dread ambusher. I took 5 levels in ranger for multi-attack, and the rest will be rogue.
I'm sure other rangers could work as well. The main draw here is that both classes would want a bit of wisdom, and they both generally use ranged/finesse weapons. You can also grab expertise from both ranger and rogue (assuming you can use the optional features for ranger).
I mean, honestly my big piece of advice for this kind of thing is just "don't multiclass". Not everything about your character needs to be represented with class features, and depending what you've got your eye on it can take a long time for a multiclass build to come online if you're planning to level into it. Roleplay and feats are usually best for representing a secondary or soft character element.
Honestly, Paladin is not a great pick here since you need both a STR and CHA of 13 for it, so you'd end up with three points in what would basically be a dead stat. Really, I'm not sure it's worth dipping here; Ritual Caster and/or Magic Initiate would cover most low level spells that would lend themselves to investigation, and Skill Expert/Skilled help if you want to go wide on profs. Maybe if a specific level 1 or 2 ribbon catches your eye, but otherwise you're more likely to end up hindering your feature progression or spreading your ability scores too thin.
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I had a character concept for a Ravnica game, basically they were a reporter with a small but devoted guildless newspaper that tried to take the injustices perpetrated by the guilds to task in the public eye. Ideally I thought it would be cool if they could go Inquisitive rogue, because I find that as an investigative reporter is a fun twist on the typical "detective" archetype of the subclass, but it would also be cool to throw in some paladin into the mix, probably devotion to represent her dedication to her fellow guildless.
Unfortunately that would probably be the MADest character imaginable, needing good Dex (obvs), good WIS (inquisitive), ideally good Int (cause an inquisitive that can't Investigate seems wrong), and at least 13 Cha for the paladin perquisites.
And on top of that I wanted to use my level 4 feat for Ritual Caster to help with investigation stuff, so I wouldn't count on that ASI if I could avoid it.
I'm mostly just complaining, but if anyone has any cool ideas for ways this could work, I'm all ears.
So, on a whim, I decided to roll stats to see what the likelihood of getting good enough stats for this build to work would be, and may Pelor strike me down if I'm lying, on the FIRST try (using the standard method of 4d6, drop the lowest), I got 16, 16, 8, 15, 15, 17.
With 8 as a very healthy strength dump stat, those could very well work.
Now I just need to grapple with whether or not it's right to hang onto these stats on a notecard for whenever this character is needed in the nebulous future, or whether it's disingenuous and I should roll stats fresh when that campaign actually starts (since we talked about doing a spin-off campaign from our current Ravnica game with different characters as a bit of a break, but haven't mentioned it beyond 'yeah that'd be cool').
I wouldn’t bother with an intelligence above 10. Why? Because with expertise in investigation, you’re probably already the best at investigation on any given dnd team. Even a wizard would need to pick up expertise somehow to straight up beat you.
if you are really concerned with nailing investigation checks, 3 levels of fighter or the martial adept feat would give you access to tactical assessment maneuver, which lets you add a martial dice to an investigation check.
A one level dip into knowledge cleric can give you 2 extra expertises and the identify spell for your investigations. The guidance cantrip could also help, but I would save it’s use for special occasions to preserve role play and not gum up the flow of the game.
A final more out their option: 3 level dip into eloquence bard with 13 charisma. Your interrogation skills will be amazing, jack of all trades helps with a lot, some nice utility magic, and you ca role play the anti-bardic inspiration as distracting enemies with mind games or calling attention to a weakness for your allies.
Well, instead of paladin you could multiclass into wizard. Then the higher int for investigation actually pays off. And now you're not just inquisitive but also a researcher. Divination or Scribe would be on point thematically, but power-wise itd be Bladesinger.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I've got a Inquisitive Rogue/Gloomstalker Ranger built. I played them in a one-shot (which we may come back to in the future), and it felt like a good build. Inquisitor rogue wants wisdom, as does ranger. Gloomstalker also synergizes with rogue for turn 1 nova damage. Grab a hand crossbow and you can pump out 4 attacks on your first round, with bonus damage from both sneak attack and dread ambusher. I took 5 levels in ranger for multi-attack, and the rest will be rogue.
I'm sure other rangers could work as well. The main draw here is that both classes would want a bit of wisdom, and they both generally use ranged/finesse weapons. You can also grab expertise from both ranger and rogue (assuming you can use the optional features for ranger).
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Dip in Knowledge Cleric...
I mean, honestly my big piece of advice for this kind of thing is just "don't multiclass". Not everything about your character needs to be represented with class features, and depending what you've got your eye on it can take a long time for a multiclass build to come online if you're planning to level into it. Roleplay and feats are usually best for representing a secondary or soft character element.
Honestly, Paladin is not a great pick here since you need both a STR and CHA of 13 for it, so you'd end up with three points in what would basically be a dead stat. Really, I'm not sure it's worth dipping here; Ritual Caster and/or Magic Initiate would cover most low level spells that would lend themselves to investigation, and Skill Expert/Skilled help if you want to go wide on profs. Maybe if a specific level 1 or 2 ribbon catches your eye, but otherwise you're more likely to end up hindering your feature progression or spreading your ability scores too thin.