Investigator

Description

Though Investigators are listed as thieves, they are usually in fact the antithesis of criminals. Investigators are enforcers of law and order, the people who know the skills of the thief intimately so that they can combat him.

Role

Investigators can play a number of roles. They may be private, their services for sale. Or they may be employed by a government or organization. In each case their skills and activities are similar, but their roles and attitudes may be divergent.
An Investigator may be a vigilante. obsessed with uncovering crime wherever it may be hiding, and stopping it. Or he may be the "private eye", a mercenary sort, or retained by an individual or organization, and may be willing to sidestep laws to better serve his client.
Some Investigators are of course in the employ of some government. This does not necessarily identify them as good, however. An Investigator may be portrayed as a sort of "good guy cop." if it suits the campaign. But if the players are running thieves (especially folk hero types), the Investigator could be sinister and evil. a perfect foil to the PC thieves' capers.
The relationship between Investigator thieves and guilds is not usually that of allies. An Investigator might be employed by a guild, however; though usually a Spy, or perhaps a Troubleshooter, would do the guild's "investigating." In fact, an Investigator might not even realize that he is employed by a guild, if his ostensible employer is a "front" business. Interesting cloak-and-dagger style adventures could be built around an Investigator discovering, in the course of his work, that the shadow he is following actually lurks behind his own employer.
And of course, Investigators ostensibly employed by the government, like other magistrates and officials, sometimes "go bad," and are bought off by a guild, either for information, or in exchange for a blind eye turned toward guild activities.

Weapon Proficiencies

Investigators are permitted the normal range of weapons open to thieves. They will normally carry two weapons, at least one of them concealed (knife, dagger, or something similarly small, perhaps in a wrist sheath).

Nonweapon Proficiencies

Bonus

Information Gathering, Observation

Recommended

Alertness, Appraising, Disguise, Fast-Talking, Heraldry, Intimidation, Local History, Modern Languages, Reading Lips, Religion, Trailing

Skill Progression

A balance of generalized skills serves Investigators well. Picking pockets is less important, of course, although you must remember that it may be useful for sleight-of-hand, which may serve an Investigator. Read language skills are a must for deciphering clues: some criminals write important information in obscure languages or secret codes, and being able to decipher it may mean success or failure for the Investigator. Other skills (lockpicking, trap detection and disarmament, and so on) are useful for penetrating and examining the hideouts and houses of suspects.

Equipment

A lot of the technological devices available to the modern Investigator (such as fingerprinting techniques, searches oi computer databases for information, and so forth) would of course not be available in the medieval fantasy setting. Still, it may be possible to duplicate some of the effects of such devices with magical items; or the DM can make liberal use of anachronism. Suppose Investigators are able to dust for fingerprints, for example. A magical device that identifies fingerprints might also exist, allowing the Investigator to learn whose prints he has dusted.

Special Benefits

None

Special Hindrances

None

Races

Investigators may be of any race. though they probably should be of the dominant race in their area of operation. A dwarf would probably be best at doing investigative work in the dwarf-dominated quarter of a large city, for instance. This means that most Investigators would be human (a reasonable enough assumption, since human governments would be the ones to use them most frequently). Operations that investigate guilds with many non-human members could of course make much use of non-human Investigators.

[Complete Thief's Handbook]