Detective Build Help - Inquisitive Rogue / Warlock

[SMURFP0CALYSE]

My party is just starting a new campaign and I'm trying to flesh out a PC build, but am not sure how to optimize it. For the concept, I'd like this character to be a Human Private Investigator/Detective of the Occult and all things dark, think Sherlock Holmes combined with John Constantine.

I was planning on him being an Inquisitive Rogue, but would like to MC into something else to provide me with a bit more utility in and out of combat.

Thematically I think Warlock would work great. I'm imagining he's been investigating the occult for so long that he's trained himself in some of their practices, in order to better understand how to fight against necromancers/undead/etc. If I were to do this, would anyone recommend a particular Warlock Pact? Or what levels exactly I should be taking in them to make it the most effective? Suggestions on Feats would also be appreciated.

Thanks!

[Easy_Lee]

Great Old One pact, normally a crappy choice, fits this theme well. You can make observations and communicate those silently to your party. If your DM is cool with this, which he should be, there's a lot of potential.

You want Eldritch Sight and Devil's Sight. With this combination, you'll see just about everything. Two levels in Warlock will get you these while three will get you better spells and a pact (probably chain for the familiar - imp for invisible aerial scouting).

I would consider making rogue the dip instead of warlock. All you really need is expertise in Investigation, the Inquisitive starting features, and either expertise Stealth or Perception (perception is overkill, especially if you take the Observant feat). From warlock you can get all kinds of spells that are good for scouting and can even work toward True Seeing, the ultimate detective spell.

[Sinon]

I like chain pact, and an imp who’s there to torment you as much as to serve you seems fun. (Like you went in to deep and it followed you back, or you ticked off the wrong devil and this is his punishment.)

But tome gives you access to Book of Ancient Secrets, and that can give you a familiar (albeit less cool) and lots of divination rituals that could fit your concept.

If you went that way, it would be another good reason to go warlock with a rogue dip, as Easy Lee suggested.

[solidork]

Between access to a bunch of extra cantrips and rituals from every class via Book of Ancient Secrets, a Tome Warlock is a great complement to any arcane detective build. I'm currently playing an Eldritch Knight/Celestial Tome Warlock who is a detective, and I wanted to execute a concept of someone who dabbles in a lot of different types of magic. I'm not a damage powerhouse, but I bring a ton of utility to the party.

[Vogie]

Raven queen will give you a Raven familiar with a plethora of benefits, as well as work well with all the pacts. You also get Speak with Dead as a 3rd level spell option (also available with the Undying, and an invocation at level 9).

Pact of the Tome, however, gives you the Chronicle of the Raven Queen invocation, which allows you to get information from corpses without using Speak with the Dead, which is awesome for your concept.

Another option, since you're going the occult route, is Seeker Patron. That one has the unique Star Chain pact, allowing you to cast Augury as a ritual and provides an Intelligence advantage. You also get Locate Object as a 2nd level spell option. It also gives you the Shielding Aurora, which acts as a supersized version of Uncanny Dodge once per short rest

If you want to actually use the Insightful Fighting rogue feature, you'll likely be going pact of the blade, probably a crossbow. However, Chain, Tome, & StarChain locks can also use Shadow Blade to do so as well.

[8wGremlin]

UA variant concept: (if allowed)

Human Mystic - Order of the Awakened. (https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/UAMystic3.pdf)

Access to good skills as a Private Investigator, Int as main stat,
at 3rd level you get to psychically read items, to gather clues.

Feat: Ritual caster: (wizard)
learn ritual magic and gain a familiar (which are spirits; fae, celestial, or fiend based)
as well as some utility spells.

There are some good disciplines to question suspects, and any of the more supernatural visual abilities can be explained by your investigations into the cults' practices.

just a thought

[Keravath]

The challenge and fun is to make the character both an amazing investigator and an effective party member.

The observant feat is a nice start. The only problem is that it is very DM dependent since it only increases passive perception and investigation and a lot of DMs will use almost exclusively active rolling to resolve investigation DCs. Passive perception gets used a lot for noticing hidden creatures, secret doors and traps (if you are actively searching or doing something that would indicate that you are paying attention to your surroundings) but I've noticed that for things like finding treasure or noticing clues, many DMs will ask for a roll even if the character has time to look around and the passive value (which represents the average result) could be used. So if you are thinking of the observant feat, check with your DM ... in any case, however, it should make it very difficult to surprise you.

The inquisitive rogue relies on insight to get sneak attacks so you probably want both a high wisdom and expertise in insight. The other expertise could be for investigation. Proficiency in perception with a wisdom of 16 and observant will give you a passive perception of 20 at level 1 in any case. A wisdom of 14 will give you 19.

Starting as a variant human would allow you to take the observant feat at level 1. You will need a charisma of at least 13 to multiclass to warlock so your starting stats (assuming point buy) would be something like
8/16/12/12/14/14
assuming you want at least a +1 from int for investigation and other intelligence based skills.

As for character progression, it depends on your campaign and what level you expect you might reach. There are advantages for different level combinations between rogue and warlock and a lot of them should work very well.

From an investigator point of view, starting variant human rogue with the observant feat and expertise in investigation and insight plus proficiency in perception should give you most of the role play elements from first level. You shouldn't actually need many more features to round out the investigator aspect of the character.

2 levels of warlock gives you devil's sight (perfect vision into any areas of darkness within 120' but no help for dim light) and Eldritch Sight which is at-will casting of Detect Magic.

3 levels of warlock gives you the pact and 2nd level spell slots
4 levels of warlock is an ASI
5 levels of warlock is another invocation and 3rd level spells (If you choose blade lock then one of the invocations gives an extra attack which is very useful to help deliver sneak attack reliably)

In addition, there are the specific benefits associated with different patrons. GOO might work well as mentioned since you can project your thoughts. On the other hand, that might not be such a big deal for this character. Other options would be Fey or Hexblade (the Fiend seems to be more combat focused).

If you are looking for increased combat effectiveness you could take bladelock at level 3 and swap invocations to take the Improved Pact Weapon which gives you a +1 pact weapon that can be any melee weapon as well as bows and crossbows (including a heavy crossbow). It requires an action to swap the weapon to whatever you need at the moment and you can dismiss it if you don't want to appear armed.

If you go bladelock to level 5 you can also pick up the Thirsting Blade invocation which gives you an extra attack with your pact weapon. This greatly increases your chances of landing a sneak attack since you will have two opportunities ... and it works with your pact weapon, including ranged.

However, taking the warlock to 5 early delays some of the cool rogue abilities like uncanny dodge, additional expertise and evasion until a higher level. The trade off is 2 attacks, and 3rd level spells slots.

If you want other role play options the at-will disguise-self invocation is great for changing your appearance in seconds.

Other feat options could include Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter to use a 120' range hand crossbow with a bonus action attack. However, keep in mind that Improved Pact Weapon can't be used for a hand crossbow.

Your choices depend on whether you envisage the character as leaning towards either melee or ranged damage. If melee, then you might want to consider the hexblade patron for proficiency in medium armor and shields.



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I have a very similar character so I've thought a bit about the options :)

Mine is currently arcane trickster 3/ fey warlock 2, variant human with the observant feat.

If you want more combat focus, warlock 5 with Improved pact weapon and thirsting blade will maximize chances of landing a sneak attack. The hex spell from warlock can substitute for one of the sneak attack dice though there is some conflict with cunning action. You also get some decent spell utility. This will delay uncanny dodge, additional expertise and evasion.

A possible Rogue focused progression
rogue 1,2
warlock 1,2
rogue 3, 4, 5 or 6 or 7 (uncanny dodge/extra expertise/evasion)
warlock 3,4,5 (? depends on whether the additional features are useful)

The inquisitive rogue level 9 ability is exceptionally situational.

A possible Warlock focused progression
rogue 1,2
warlock 1,2
rogue 3
warlock 3,4,5
rogue 4,5,6,7

You could take warlock to level 7 if there are 4th level spells that might be useful (Fey gives greater invisibility which is particularly good for a rogue).

[Daithi]

If Unearthed Arcana is an option, then I'm going to second the Raven Queen recommendation. You can go deep in warlock or just few levels (although just a few levels is probably best).

The Raven Sentinel gives you +5 on perception, and if you take the Observant feat as a variant human then you get another +5. If you get your WIS up to 20 that's another +5. A single level of rogue let's you get expertise in perception. Your base perception check start at 10, so you're over 30 in no time. This means you're walking into a room and just noticing stuff, all Sherlock Holmes like.

The key is a high WIS score. This could easily get MAD, so you might want to stick to high scores in DEX and WIS. Without putting a lot into your CHA score this would mean that only taking 2 or 3 levels of Raven Queen warlock as the way to go. You could go to 3 levels of rogue to get the Inquisitive subclass, but do you really need it? Maybe it would be better to just take a the 2-3 levels of warlock, a level of rogue, and then concentrate on a class that focuses on WIS. Monk would make a pretty good detective.