# Investigator *Source: Valda's Spire of Secrets p. 103* > [!tldr] Class and Feature Progression > > <table class="class-progression"> > <thead> > <tr><th colspan='4'></th></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><th class"level">Level</th><th class"pb">PB</th><th class"feature">Features</th><th class="value">Ritual Level</th></tr> > </thead><tbody> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">1st</td><td class"pb">+2</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Expertise (Level 1)' class='internal-link'>Expertise</a>, <a href='#Ritualist (Level 1)' class='internal-link'>Ritualist</a></td><td class="value">1st</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">2nd</td><td class"pb">+2</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Myths and Legends (Level 2)' class='internal-link'>Myths and Legends</a>, <a href='#Rushed Incantation (Level 2)' class='internal-link'>Rushed Incantation</a></td><td class="value">1st</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">3rd</td><td class"pb">+2</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Occult Specialization (Level 3)' class='internal-link'>Occult Specialization</a></td><td class="value">2nd</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">4th</td><td class"pb">+2</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Ability Score Improvement (Level 4)' class='internal-link'>Ability Score Improvement</a></td><td class="value">2nd</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">5th</td><td class"pb">+3</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Exploit Vulnerability (Level 5)' class='internal-link'>Exploit Vulnerability</a></td><td class="value">3rd</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">6th</td><td class"pb">+3</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Expertise (Level 6)' class='internal-link'>Expertise</a>, <a href='#Occult Specialization feature (Level 6)' class='internal-link'>Occult Specialization feature</a></td><td class="value">3rd</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">7th</td><td class"pb">+3</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Opportunistic Piety (Level 7)' class='internal-link'>Opportunistic Piety</a></td><td class="value">4th</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">8th</td><td class"pb">+3</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Ability Score Improvement (Level 8)' class='internal-link'>Ability Score Improvement</a></td><td class="value">4th</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">9th</td><td class"pb">+4</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Supernatural Resolve (Level 9)' class='internal-link'>Supernatural Resolve</a></td><td class="value">5th</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">10th</td><td class"pb">+4</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Occult Specialization feature (Level 10)' class='internal-link'>Occult Specialization feature</a></td><td class="value">5th</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">11th</td><td class"pb">+4</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Finisher (Level 11)' class='internal-link'>Finisher</a></td><td class="value">6th</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">12th</td><td class"pb">+4</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Ability Score Improvement (Level 12)' class='internal-link'>Ability Score Improvement</a></td><td class="value">6th</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">13th</td><td class"pb">+5</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Enigma Arcane (Level 13)' class='internal-link'>Enigma Arcane</a></td><td class="value">6th</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">14th</td><td class"pb">+5</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Occult Specialization feature (Level 14)' class='internal-link'>Occult Specialization feature</a></td><td class="value">6th</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">15th</td><td class"pb">+5</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Enigma Arcane Improvement (Level 15)' class='internal-link'>Enigma Arcane Improvement</a></td><td class="value">6th</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">16th</td><td class"pb">+5</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Ability Score Improvement (Level 16)' class='internal-link'>Ability Score Improvement</a></td><td class="value">6th</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">17th</td><td class"pb">+6</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Enigma Arcane Improvement (Level 17)' class='internal-link'>Enigma Arcane Improvement</a></td><td class="value">6th</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">18th</td><td class"pb">+6</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Exorcist (Level 18)' class='internal-link'>Exorcist</a></td><td class="value">6th</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">19th</td><td class"pb">+6</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Ability Score Improvement (Level 19)' class='internal-link'>Ability Score Improvement</a></td><td class="value">6th</td></tr> > <tr class="class-progression"><td class"level">20th</td><td class"pb">+6</td><td class"feature"><a href='#Spellbinder (Level 20)' class='internal-link'>Spellbinder</a></td><td class="value">6th</td></tr> > </tbody></table> ^class-progression ## Hit Points - **Hit Dice**: 1d8 per Investigator level - **Hit Points at First Level:** 8 + CON - **Hit Points at Higher Levels:** add 5 OR 1d8 + CON (minimum of 1) ## Starting Investigator - **Saving Throw Proficiencies**: Dexterity, Intelligence - **Skill Proficiencies**: *Choose 3:* Arcana, Athletics, Deception, History, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Persuasion, Religion, Sleight of Hand, or Stealth - **Weapon Proficiencies**: Simple weapons, hand crossbows, heavy crossbows, longswords, rapiers, and shortswords - **Tool Proficiencies**: One gaming set of your choice - **Armor Training**: Light armor **Starting Equipment:** You start with the following items, plus anything provided by your background. - A Leather armor - A dagger and (a) a longsword or (b) rapier - (a) a heavy crossbow and 20 bolts or (b) a hand crossbow and 20 bolts - (a)dungeoneer's pack or (b) one kit you're proficient with - A grimoire and component pouch ## Multiclassing Investigator **Ability Score Minimum:** Intelligence 13 When you gain a level in a class other than your first, you gain only some of that class's starting proficiencies. - **Skill Proficiencies**: *Choose 1:* Arcana, Athletics, Deception, History, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Persuasion, Religion, Sleight of Hand, or Stealth - **Weapon Proficiencies**: heavy crossbow, hand crossbow - **Armor Training**: Light armor ## Investigator A collage of diagrams, maps, and small items litters the wall, pinned with nails and connected by a spiderweb of colorful strings. An elf stands nearby, contemplating the mystery splayed out in front of her and readying her crossbow for work. A half-orc wearing a wide-brimmed hat leafs through a thick tome, double-checking the preparations: a sturdy net trap, holy symbols on the doors, cloves of garlic, and several dozen wooden stakes. The preparations made, the half-orc slinks into the shadows and readies himself for the bloodshed. Hastily tracing symbols in chalk, a human wearing a long coat whirls about in a wide arc, completing a rough magic circle in mere seconds. A monstrously fat demon, blood dripping with its drool, lunges at him, but instead impacts off an invisible magical barrier, a cylinder raised from the circle's edge. The fiend howls with rage, and the inquisitor breathes a sigh of relief. Supernatural detectives and monster slayers, investigators are always on the hunt for malevolent outsiders. Whenever evil seeps into the world—be it fiends, undead, or strange abominations from beyond the stars—investigators will be the first to locate them and banish their foul corruption from the mortal plane. ### Paranormal Investigators There are forces more ancient than time, foes more sinister than the foulest men, and beings more titanic than gods. The world stands at a precipice of woe and terror, being threatened nightly by dark agents and hordes of monsters. At risk to their own lives and sanities, investigators penetrate the evil that creeps in the shadows and banish it from the world. Their battles are never-ending, for victory only delays doomsday another night. Investigators track supernatural threats ranging from incorporeal spirits, to nefarious vampires and lycanthropes, to incursions of demons and devils. Often in their investigations, they often uncover secret cults and maligned individuals who bring these supernatural threats to bear. It is always their goal to impede these evildoers by any means necessary, resorting to trickery, guile, magic, and bloodshed when necessary. To an investigator, no tactic is unthinkable when the world is at stake. ### Exorcists and Occultists Even as they strive to contain its influence from the world at large, investigators dabble in forbidden magic to give themselves an edge against supernatural threats. Prepared investigators keep a well-stocked grimoire of magical secrets, containing rituals, incantations, notes on monsters' powers and weaknesses, recipes for poisons, and arcane diagrams—everything needed to confront their foes on an even footing. Even so, an investigator's occupation is perilous. A grimoire might spell out a vampire's fear of sunlight and aversion to silver, but it does little to hinder their fangs. ### Creating an Investigator As you build your investigator, consider what sort of supernatural threat first drove you to investigating and combating the occult. Did one of your family members strike a bargain with a fiend? Were you kidnapped by a cabal of vampires or a pack of lycanthropes? Did you stumble across evidence of an eldritch abomination, such as a Great Old One? The type of creature you first did battle with likely shaped your tools and methods later on. Did you apprentice under a seasoned monster hunter, learning the ropes of tracking a threat, uncovering its weaknesses, and setting a trap for it? Or did you strike out on your own, compiling your own grimoire from hard-earned research? Perhaps you learned everything about monster hunting from someone else's grimoire, a masterwork containing an abridged library of occult knowledge and a lifetime of experience. It's even possible that you signed a contract with a minor fiend and turned to supernatural investigation in a last-ditch effort to save your soul. #### Quick Build Follow these suggestions to build an investigator quickly: Intelligence should be your highest ability score, followed by Dexterity or Strength. Choose any background. Then, select the rituals [clue](/3-Content/Compendiums/spells/clue-vss.md), comprehend languages, detect magic, and [transient bulwark](/3-Content/Compendiums/spells/transient-bulwark-vss.md) to add to your grimoire. ## Class Features ### Expertise (Level 1) At 1st level, choose two of your skill proficiencies; your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies. At 6th level, you can choose two more of your proficiencies to gain this benefit. ### Ritualist (Level 1) You maintain a grimoire brimming with magical rituals, your most potent tools to defeat supernatural threats. #### Grimoire At 1st level, you have a grimoire containing four 1st-level spells of your choice that have the ritual tag from any class's spell list (the spells needn't be from the same list). You can't cast spells in your grimoire except as rituals, unless you've learned them by some other means. Whenever you gain a level in this class, you can add an additional ritual spell from the Investigator Rituals list to your grimoire at no cost. The Ritual Level column on the Investigator table shows the maximum spell level you can add to your grimoire. Additionally, whenever you find a ritual spell on your adventures, you can add it to your grimoire if it is on the Investigator Rituals list of a level you can add to your grimoire. For each level of the spell, the transcription process takes 2 hours and costs 50 gp for the rare inks needed to inscribe it. #### Bonus Rituals As an investigator, you can treat specific spells as if they had the ritual tag, allowing you to add them to your grimoire and cast them as rituals. These spells are listed on the Investigator Rituals table to the right. #### Spellcasting Ability Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for your ritual spells, since you master your spells through deduction and cunning. You use your Intelligence whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, when you cast an investigator ritual or a spell offered to you by a feature in this class, you use your Intelligence modifier when setting the saving throw DC and making an attack roll. <span class='abilityDc'>**Spell save DC**: Intelligence + Proficiency Bonus</span> <span class='abilityAttackMod'>**Spell attack modifier**: Intelligence + Proficiency Bonus</span> ### Myths and Legends (Level 2) At 2nd level, you are extremely adept at uncovering knowledge which pertains to eldritch threats and forgotten legends. You have advantage on Intelligence checks related to researching creatures, spells, and other ancient or secret lore. ### Rushed Incantation (Level 2) Beginning at 2nd level, you can hastily perform any ritual spell in your grimoire that has a casting time of 1 action, completing the ritual as a bonus action. If the ritual requires spell components worth 100 gp or less, you cast it without using spell components. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum once), and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. As you gain higher levels in this class, you can use this feature additional times. You can use it once more at 5th level (Intelligence modifier + 1), 9th level (Intelligence modifier + 2), 13th level (Intelligence modifier + 3), and 17th level (Intelligence modifier + 4). ### Occult Specialization (Level 3) At 3rd level, you choose a specialization, an area of expertise in handling eldritch threats. Your specialization choices are detailed at the end of the class description. Your specialization choice grants you features at 3rd level and then again at 6th, 10th, and 14th level. #### Trinkets Investigators of each specialization also collect a number of supernatural trinkets. Once you use one of your trinkets, you can't this feature again until you finish a short or long rest. As you gain higher levels in this class, you can use your trinkets additional times: You can use them once more at 5th level (2 uses), 11th level (3 uses), and 17th level (4 uses). ### Ability Score Improvement (Level 4) When you reach 4th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature. ### Exploit Vulnerability (Level 5) Most supernatural creatures have some form of weakness, a gap in their armor that allows them to be defeated. Starting at 5th level, once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, it is treated as if it has vulnerability to the weapon's damage. Vulnerability from this feature only doubles your weapon damage dice and your ability modifier; do not double additional sources of damage, such as spells and other class features. Additionally, the attack, as well as all other attacks made against the creature until the start of your next turn, are considered magical for the purposes of bypassing damage resistance and immunity. ### Expertise (Level 6) At 6th level, you can choose two more of your proficiencies to gain this benefit. ### Occult Specialization Feature (Level 6) At 6th level, you gain a feature from your Occult Specialization. ### Opportunistic Piety (Level 7) By 7th level, you always keep a wide array of holy symbols and blessed items on your person, even if you aren't particularly pious. When you use your Opportunistic Piety, you choose which effect to create from the list below. You must then finish a short or long rest to use your Opportunistic Piety again. #### Banish You cast the spell banishment without using a spell slot. If the target is a fey, fiend, or undead and fails its saving throw against this spell, it also takes radiant damage equal to your level. #### Miracle Healing As an action, divine light from your hands knit the wounds of a willing creature you touch. That creature regains a number of hit points equal to twice your investigator level. This ability has no effect on undead or constructs. #### Warding As an action, you trace a holy symbol on a creature within 5 feet of you, warding it from harm. For the next minute, aberrations, celestials, fey, fiends, and undead which touch the target creature or hit it with a melee attack take `d12` radiant damage. ### Ability Score Improvement (Level 8) When you reach 8th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature. ### Supernatural Resolve (Level 9) At 9th level, you gain an extreme resilience to the attacks and effects of the creatures you regularly investigate. You can't be possessed or charmed, and you gain resistance to both psychic and necrotic damage. ### Occult Specialization Feature (Level 10) At 10th level, you gain a feature from your Occult Specialization. ### Finisher (Level 11) Beginning at 11th level, you know exactly how to bring a monster down. When you take the Attack action and hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can deal an extra `2d8` damage to the creature. If the creature has less than half its hit points remaining, you can instead deal an extra `4d8` damage to the creature. ### Ability Score Improvement (Level 12) When you reach 12th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature. ### Enigma Arcane (Level 13) At 13th level, you uncover a magical secret connected to a wellspring of potent magic. You can cast one of the following spells once without expending a spell slot: mirage arcane, plane shift, reverse gravity, sequester, or teleport. You must finish a long rest before you can do so again. ### Occult Specialization Feature (Level 14) At 14th level, you gain a feature from your Occult Specialization. ### Enigma Arcane Improvement (Level 15) At 15th level, you can also cast one of the following spells without expending a spell slot: antimagic field, glibness, maze, or mind blank. You must finish a long rest before you can do so again. ### Ability Score Improvement (Level 16) When you reach 16th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature. ### Enigma Arcane Improvement (Level 17) At 17th level, you can also cast one of the following spells without expending a spell slot: astral projection, gate, or weird. You must finish a long rest before you can do so again. ### Exorcist (Level 18) Beginning at 18th level, you can cast the spell protection from evil and good without using a spell slot or spell components. ### Ability Score Improvement (Level 19) When you reach 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature. ### Spellbinder (Level 20) By 20th level, many rituals you perform have become second nature to you. Select five ritual spells in your grimoire with a casting time of 1 action. You can cast these spells as a bonus action without using a use of Rushed Incantation, and you can do so without your grimoire on hand. If the ritual requires spell components worth 100 gp or less, you cast it without using spell components.