Building the Town Sheriff/Marshal/Captain of the Watch

[Toilet Cobra]

In a sandbox campaign, my players have founded themselves a town in the middle of a massive desert. It's expanding rapidly with refugees from a neighboring totalitarian city-state, and they're getting to the point where they need to establish law. They chose an npc who's been with the party a while, a rogue (used to be a PC but the player dropped out). She's the highest level character who spends most of her time in the city instead of roaming around the desert, but she's not really suited to the task as it stands... more of a law breaker than enforcer.

What I'd like to know is, are there any feats, classes or prestige classes that I can look into to make a more effective officer of the law? I feel like there was a strongly Bounty Hunter-themed one in 3.5 somewhere but I have been unable to find it. Obviously I don't need anything close to an optimized build, but anything that helps you investigate crimes, see through lies, or incapacitate suspects would be helpful.

Bonus points if it's something that can be multiclassed with a rogue at all well. The first thing I thought of was Inquisitor but with her abysmal Wisdom and total lack of religion it seems like a stretch. Our game is casual and allows retraining each level so I can swap her feats around somewhat, but I'd rather not rebuild her entirely using DM powers.

[grarrrg]

Slayer (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/slayer) would probably be a good start.
As a hybrid Rogue/Ranger it fits well enough. 6 Skills/level, Bonuses to Tracking, still gains some Sneak dice.
There's even a Bounty Hunter (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/slayer/archetypes/paizo---slayer-archetypes/bounty-hunter) archetype.

[avr]

There's the Shieldmarshal, but it requires quite a bit of investment in guns.

The Bellflower Tiller has some relevant abilities if you're willing to refluff it.

[Calimehter]

I feel like there was a strongly Bounty Hunter-themed one in 3.5 somewhere but I have been unable to find it. Obviously I don't need anything close to an optimized build, but anything that helps you investigate crimes, see through lies, or incapacitate suspects would be helpful.

Complete Adventurer has the prestige class Bloodhound, which IIRC gives you lots of bonuses and SLAs to use against a "mark" if you are looking to find (other?) evil-doers. Vigilante is another PRC from the same book that gives you a more batman-esqe version of the assassin.

For a simpler setup, the Urban Tracking feat from Unearthed Arcana allows you to use Gather Information checks to find individuals in town (in place of Survival-based tracking).

All of this assumes that you are okay importing 3.5 material of course. :smallsmile:

[Barbarian Horde]

Swashbuckler

[watchwood]

A Character doesn't necessarily need to be a super lawful type to enforce the law. See a lot of wild-west type sheriffs, such as Bart from Blazing Saddles. I'd suggest modelling the character around that kind of theme.

[arkangel111]

I say do not change up the character. As a rogue she can be run like an honorable type thieves guild leader. She understands that laws sometimes need to be bent but that doesn't require cold-blooded murder. She can even have the attitude of not crapping where you eat, so she is very law-abiding in her own city, and doesn't tolerate it, but often quite the opposite in other cities. This is especially fitting since your PC's founded the city, or at least made it their home. This would be a great hook for future story arc's, perhaps having a rival city thieves guild "attacking" the city. Its in quotes cause thieves don't actually attack, but perhaps try to raid the coffers or go on a mass killing spree, eliminating officials and "electing" their own. Bonus points if you keep all of this in the background, only dropping small hints here and there but not revealing the ex-PC's actual involvement, or how deep the corruption is.

Also check out some Kingmaker materials for idea's on creating the city.

[NightbringerGGZ]

How was the character played? A rogue can be anything from a cheerful con artist, a highwayman or that scary assassin who never says anything. Take that later type going all "I am the law" and you've got a pretty scary person put in power.

[incarnate236]

Give the players a sense she does other things in the town as well if he his a quest giver. Works cases she doesn't assign etcetera. I always hate the sense the sherriff is doing nothing but farming stuff to adventurers but for some reason I can't have the badge.

[ThisIsZen]

The 3.5 class you were thinking of is Bloodhound, from either Complete Scoundrel or Complete Adventurer (I think the latter). It was very much a bounty hunter themed class but I can see it working really well for a detective or watch captain, since it lets them track specific targets very, very effectively.