Courses of Study

Courses of study are broad fields that manifest in abilities that aid in the investigator’s adventures. The DCs for any abilities gained from a course of study is 10 + 1/2 the investigator’s class levels + his Intelligence modifier.

ANTHROPOLOGY
A study of anthropology is a study of societies, languages, social structures and communications therein.
Focus Skill: Linguistics

Studied Conversationalist (Ex): At 1st level, you are so trained in your study of cultures that if you have correctly identified a creature wit
h their corresponding Knowledge skill, you may apply your Intelligence modifier instead of your Charisma modifier to Disguise and Influence checks against said creatures, or of such creatures for disguise.
Quick Rundown (Ex): At 4th level, you can take your ally aside and give them a pep talk on what to look out for, what to say and how to hold themself in an upcoming conversation. You can spend 10 minutes preparing an ally for upcoming social encounters. For the next 24 hours, the ally uses the higher of either their total or your total skill bonus on skills affected by studied conversationalist. This ability may be used on a number of skill checks equal to your Intelligence modifier. You may expend a point of inspiration to grant your inspiration die to those rolls made by the ally and to extend the number of skill checks by the inspiration die result.
Parse Language (Ex): At 8th level, your knowledge and understanding of the roots of languages allows you a baseline understanding of a language you may not have encountered before. When encountering an unknown language either written or spoken, you may attempt a Linguistics skill check. If you succeed at the skill check (use the DCs listed in the skill description), you are treated as being able to read, write, understand and speak the language for 10 minutes.
Behavior Prediction (Ex): At 12th level, your understanding of the sociology and cultures of creatures around you increases. If you have successfully identified a creature as per the studied conversationalist ability, you may add your Intelligence modifier to your initiative if combat is initiated with the target creatures involved. Additionally, beginning at the start of combat, or the round in which you identify the creature successfully and continuing for a number of rounds equal to your Intelligence modifier, you gain an dodge bonus to AC and a circumstance bonus to saves and attack rolls against the target equal to your Intelligence modifier. This benefit may only be applied once per creature, per combat. The identification skill check for this ability is a free action but may only be performed once per round.
Compelling Understanding (Ex): At 16th level, you have a deep understanding of the psychology, social structures and stories of the cultures you come into contact with. If you have successfully identified a creature as per the studied conversationalist ability you may fascinate creatures as per the fascinate bardic masterpiece or guide them in a course of action per the mass suggestion spell. This ability does not require any inspiration to use, but you must concentrate on the ability to keep it active and the subjects are allowed a new Will saving throw each minute.

ASTROLOGY
A study in astrology is a focus on the interaction of the planes and stars and their effect on creatures on the material plane. It entails tracking the placement and direction of astral bodies and using their interactions to your benefit.
Focus Skill: Knowledge (planes)

Ill Portents (Su): At 1st level, your knowledge of the placement of astral bodies allows you to quickly identify when a particular set of signs is an evil portent. As a standard action you may expend a point of inspiration to direct this bad alignment against a single target. They must make a Will save or take a -2 penalty to AC, ability checks, attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks. This bad luck lasts for a number of rounds equal to 3 + your Intelligence modifier. A successful save reduces this to just 1 round. Once a creature has been affected by this ability, they are immune to it for 1d4 days when the astral bodies align in a different pattern.
Prediction of Danger (Su): At 4th level, your consultation of your astrological implements has warned you of an impending danger for you or your allies in the coming day. You may expend a point of inspiration as an immediate action to add your studied combat bonus to you or your ally’s AC or saving throws until the beginning of your next turn. If you apply this benefit to yourself, double the bonus for your intimate knowledge of the impending danger.
Chart the Day’s Course (Sp): At 8th level, you have figured out how to determine the outcomes of certain courses of actions based on the positioning of the planes and the aspects of those involved. Once per day, you may perform a charting and cast augury as a spell-like ability using your investigator level as your caster level. At 13th level, this becomes divination.
Shifting of the Signs (Su): At 12th level, you have learned ways in which to make subtle changes in your environment to shift astral positioning. As a standard action, you may expend a point of inspiration to reverse the bonuses or penalties a target is affected by to the opposite. For example, if used on a creature benefiting from heroism, you would change the +2 morale bonus to a -2 penalty. This effect lasts for a number of rounds equal to your 3 + your Intelligence modifier. A successful Will save reduces this to just 1 round. Once a creature has been affected by this ability, they are immune to it for 1d4 days when the astral bodies align in a different pattern.
Curse of the Stars (Sp): At 16th level, you can make minor adjustments to the cosmos to bring incredibly poor luck to an individual. By expending a point of inspiration as a standard action, you may afflict a target with a curse as per the spell bestow curse if they fail a Will save. If you expend 2 points of inspiration, this is increased to greater bestow curse. This curse cannot be removed by remove curse, but it does expire after a number of days equal to your investigator level. Limited wish, wish, or miracle can end this effect. If the target succeeds on their Will save, they are still affected by the curse, but only for 1 day and the penalties from the curse are halved. The target of this ability may not be subject to the effects of this ability again until the duration of the ongoing curse of the stars expires.

CRIMINOLOGY
The study of the criminal mind requires the understanding of not only the horrible things that can be done by people, but also the horrible things that can be done to people.
Focus Skill: Sense Motive

Forensics (Ex): At 1st level, you may spend 1 minute examining the scene of a crime or accident, and then use your deductive skills to learn information about the event. You may spend 1 point of inspiration to ask a question, similar to the spell divination, but with a probability of correctness equal to 50% + 2% per class level (maximum 90%) and with the limitation that you can only ask questions about what happened at the crime scene, such as: “What crime/accident occurred?”, “who was involved?”, “what tools or equipment were used?”, “what was the timing of events?”, “what sort of people were involved?”. Answers will tend to be vague, and will not be useful for identifying specific people or objects beyond a very basic description. If a scene is disturbed, then the chances of using this ability successfully can be reduced by 10%, 20% or more. Only crimes of a physical nature can be examined this way.
Detective Skills (Ex): At 4th level, you become skilled in the techniques of crime fighters. You gain an insight bonus equal to half your class level when doing the following: threatening criminals with legal punishments, misleading people about the law, detecting signs of criminal activity, learning about or gathering information about the black market or the criminal underworld, detecting criminal intent, finding the value of illicit goods, detecting forgeries, and examining or treating the victim of a crime.
Mantracker (Ex): At 8th level, when you study a target via any means, they remain your target until you choose a different target or until you rest for 8 hours. In addition, you can add your inspiration die to Perception, Sense Motive, and Survival checks attempted against that target without spending inspiration. You can move at normal speed while using Survival to follow the target’s tracks without taking the normal –5 penalty, and when moving at up to twice your normal speed while tracking, you take only a –10 penalty instead of the normal –20.
Unconventional Methods (Sp): At 12th level, you can expend one use of inspiration to use the spell speak with dead, discern next of kin, or blood biography as a spell-like ability. In the case of speak with dead, you are limited to speaking to those who died within 24 hours.
Restraints (Sp): At 16th level, as a standard action, you may spend 1 inspiration and make a melee touch attack to conjure restraints around a target made from material in the vicinity. Spell resistance does not apply. The creature becomes entangled by restraints that are anchored to the ground (though they can be cut loose from the ground easily enough). If the target is flying, then the restraints become anchored if the target falls to the ground at any time. In addition, the restraints gag the target, making it impossible for them to speak. The restraints last for 1 hour per class level before disintegrating. A restrained creature can escape by making a Strength or Escape Artist check with DC equal to 10 + half your class level + your Intelligence modifier.

ENGINEERING
A study in engineering is a focus on structures and machines, how they are put together, how they stay together, and how they are taken down.
Focus Skill: Disable Device

Hazard Anticipation (Ex): At 1st level, you are so studied in your chosen field that you can sense the tell-tale signs of danger of hazards and traps. You may automatically roll a Perception check, with a bonus equal to your investigator class level, to notice a natural hazard, such as loose rocks or a possible mudslide, or traps within 20 feet. Additionally, you may disable magical traps as a rogue can.
Rote Engineering Memory (Ex): At 4th level, your skill and understanding of engineering concepts becomes second nature to you. You need not expend inspiration to reactivate studied combat against a structure, object, construct, or construct-like creature (like an inevitable). Additionally, you may take 10 on Disable Device and Knowledge (engineering) checks.
Resonance (Ex): At 8th level, you have learned the resonant frequencies of various materials and have learned to use sound to cause physical changes in the objects. you can use a tuning fork or any other resonant item (crystal glasses, lute, etc.) to affect a target item, construct or predominantly construct-like creature, like an inevitable within 30 feet. To do so, you expend a point of inspiration as a standard action that does not provoke an opportunity. The target construct, structure or item (including magic items) takes 1d6 sonic damage per class level that ignores hardness (if applicable). Alternatively, the resonance created can remove any immunity or spell resistance to magic the target may have for 1 minute. The target creature or magic item may attempt a Fortitude save to half the damage or duration of the effect. This ability does not work within or on a target within an area of magical silence.
Applied Engineering (Ex): At 12th level, you have learned to apply mundane methods to creating the magical and technical marvels usually relegated to masterful spellcasters. You gain Craft Construct as a bonus feat. You are considered to have any spell required in the creation of the construct and may substitute a Knowledge (engineering) check for any Craft check in the construction requirements.
Quick Building (Sp): At 16th level, you have the magical ability to quickly build engineering marvels out of raw materials. You may cast fabricate once per day as a spell-like ability. You may cast it additional times per day by expending inspiration for every use after the first. For the purposes of this fabricate spell, you automatically succeed on any Craft check, even ones you have no ranks in.

MATHEMATICS
A study in mathematics is a focus on numbers, statistics, and geometry. It entails using your understanding of arithmetic and how it interacts with physics, space, and time.
Focus Skill: Sense Motive

Calculate Trajectory (Ex): At 1st level, your ability to quickly calculate the geometry and physics of your situation is beyond compare. You may as a move action apply your Intelligence bonus to your next attack roll made during the round. This bonus is in addition to the normal ability bonus applied to the roll. If the bonus is not used before the end of your turn, it is lost due to the changing circumstances of the battlefield.
Never Tell Me the Odds (Ex): At 4th level, your ability to quickly know the probability of events allows you to intuitively shift factors in your favor. By spending a point of inspiration as an immediate action you may shift the result of a d% roll up or down by up to your investigator class level. For example, if you are an 8th-level investigator and you are attacking a creature with concealment, you roll a 45 on your d100 which would be a miss due to concealment, you may expend inspiration to add your level to the roll making the result a 53. Conversely, if an enemy were affected by the spell confusion and on their turn they roll an 80 on their d100 to attack the nearest creature, you could expend a point of inspiration as an immediate action to reduce the result to a 72, causing them to deal damage to themself.
Absolute Number (Ex): At 8th level, You have found small ways to impact your environment to change your understanding of the various numbers affecting your environment. You may expend a point of inspiration to reverse a penalty you are suffering from into an insight bonus. This benefit lasts for a number of rounds equal to your class levels minus the absolute value of the penalty or the duration of the penalty, whichever is shorter. For example, A 10th-level investigator with this ability could take the -2 penalty to skill checks from the shaken condition and turn them into a +2 insight bonus for 8 rounds.
Applicable Geometry (Ex): At 12th level, your ability to calculate trajectories, paths of travel and force needed to make shots normally thought impossible. You may spend a point of inspiration as a free action to ignore partial and total cover as long as there is a solid surface that has an unimpeded line of effect from the center of its face. For example, if an enemy is around a corner of a hallway, the investigator could shoot a crossbow bolt at the wall that faces down the hallway ignoring the cover provided, and allowing them to be targeted. Creatures that have total cover instead have total concealment, still requiring the 50% miss chance, or less if ‘never tell me the odds’ is used.
Golden Ratio (Su): At 16th level, your understanding of mathematics has reached a supernatural height allowing you to adjust the geometry of certain spells. As an immediate action that expends a point of inspiration, you may move 5 feet of an existing wall spell, like wall of force, or spell that affects a geometric area, like an aura, burst, cone or line, to another square within 30 feet of the original square, by rolling a relevant Knowledge check (DC 10 + spell level + caster's spellcasting ability score modifier) corresponding to the nature of the spell affected. For every 5 by which you exceed the Knowledge check DC you may move an additional 5 feet of the spell. For example, if you are looking to exclude some spaces from a fireball spell cast by an enemy wizard, you would roll Knowledge (arcane). If your roll exceeds a DC 17 (10 + 3rd level spell + the Wizards +4 Intelligence modifier) you may shift 5 feet of the spell to a square occupied by an enemy goblin 25 feet away. If you exceed the DC by 5, you may also move an additional 5-foot square, say occupied by your ally. Squares of a spell moved in such a way cannot be moved to the same location.

MEDICINE
A study in medicine is a focus on the body, how it functions, how to fix it and how to cause pain if the need arises.
Focus Skill: Heal

Expert Medicine (Ex): At 1st level, your training and knowledge of the medical arts helps you instead of your intuitive knowledge of the workings of a body. You may use your Intelligence modifier in place of the normal ability modifier for Heal checks. You also gain a bonus equal to half your class level to Heal checks to identify any tampering in medical evidence (like hiding wounds on a corpse or removing the evidence of a poison in a body) and checks to identify poisons.
Competent Treatment (Ex): At 4th level, you are so sure in your medical knowledge that you can perform your duties quicker and more skillfully than your peers. The time required to perform the various Heal skill actions is halved. The actions only requiring a standard action become a move action. Additionally, when treating deadly wounds or performing long-term care you may expend a point of inspiration to apply 1d6 plus your Intelligence modifier as additional healing. At 7th level and every 4 levels thereafter, the healing added by the inspiration increases by 1d6 to a maximum of 5d6 + your Intelligence modifier at 19th level.
Heal the Whole Patient (Ex): At 8th level, your understanding of physiology and ailments of the body allow you to use your medical expertise to treat other debilities besides poisons, disease and wounds. You gain the following additional uses of the Heal skill; each usage below requires one use of a Healer’s kit:

- Heal 1 point of ability damage. You may use a point of inspiration to increase this to 1d4 points of ability damage. Doing so is a DC 20 Heal check.
- Remove the following conditions: fatigued, stunned, paralyzed, sickened. Doing so requires a DC 20 Heal check.
- Reduce the following conditions: nauseated to sickened and exhausted to fatigued. Doing so requires a DC 25 check, however, if you exceed the check by 10 or more, the condition is removed instead of reduced.
- Remove blindness or deafness from a creature. If they have either condition naturally or stemming from a class ability such as an oracle curse, they are not removed. The DC to do so is 30.

Masterful Healing (Ex): At 12th level, your skill in the medical arts surpasses all of your peers, so long as your mind stays sharp. As long as you have a point of Inspiration remaining, all healing dice results of Heal skill usage, the competent treatment ability, or other abilities/feats are maximized. You also gains the following additional uses of the Heal skill; each usage below requires expending 1 point of inspiration and one use of a Healer's kit:

- Heal 1 point of ability drain. Doing so requires a DC 20 Heal check. If you expend 2 points of inspiration, you instead heal 1d4 ability drain.

- Remove petrification as if using the spell stone to flesh. Doing so requires a DC 40 Heal check.

- Remove a curse from a target. Doing so requires a Heal check against the DC of the curse.

Bring Back the Dead (Ex): At 16th level, your competence with medicine and your understanding of anatomy and physiology extends beyond the realm of living bodies. You can spend a point of inspiration to perform a special Heal check using 2 uses of a healer’s kit. You can bring a creature that has recently died back to -1 hit points and stable by making a Heal skill check against a DC equal to the number of hit points below -1 they are. Doing so is a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunity and may only be performed on creatures that have died within the last minute. You may expend an additional inspiration to affect creatures that have died within the last hour, but the DC for such a Heal check is doubled. This ability is effective on creatures killed by a death effect, but their body must be intact enough for the creature to live normally; e.g., a disintegrated creature cannot be affected, but a creature might have their head reattached.

SPIRITUALISM
A study in spiritualism is a focus on souls and spirits, on the ethereal which borders the real and the effects these two concurrent worlds can have on one another.
Focus Skill: Knowledge (occult)

Ether Sight (Su): At 1st level, you gain the ability to see things as they might appear on the ethereal plane. By focusing your attention on a single creature within 30 feet as a standard action you can determine if they are alive, undead, an outsider, or possessed. You see a vague outline of the creature’s true form but otherwise glean no additional information. At 7th level you can see invisible creatures within 5 feet of you, at 11th level this range extends to 15 feet, and at 15th level it extends to 30 feet. In any case, this is considered a divination effect with a caster level equal to your own for the purposes of overcoming nondetection and similar magic and can be blocked by other methods which block divination effects.
Disrupt Ether (Su): At 4th level, you have learned some of the secrets of how incorporeal creatures maintain their form and how to bypass their defenses. When you study an incorporeal target any weapon attacks you make against it are treated as though they had the ghost touch weapon property.
Speak to the Disembodied (Su): At 8th level, you understand more about the veil between the corporeal and the incorporeal. You gain the ability to speak with creatures and spirits that others may overlook. This allows you to contact the actual spirit of a dead creature if you have some of its remains, speak directly to trapped souls, and communicate with incorporeal creatures that otherwise have no ability to speak. You can attempt to force a spirit targeted with this ability to answer a question but otherwise you engage in normal conversation with them. When attempting to force a creature to answer a question they make a Will save: failure means they answer you truthfully to the best of their knowledge. A soul generally only knows what it knew in life but an active spirit or a soul that somehow maintained awareness of its surroundings might know more.
Master of the Unseen World (Su): At 12th level, you are able to extend your knowledge and experience with spirits to others. As a full-round action you grant all allies within 30 feet of you your studied strike ability, though it is only usable against incorporeal creatures, outsiders, possessed creatures, and creatures benefiting from shapechanging or illusion magic. Each of these allies also benefits from your disrupt ether ability.
Banish the Ephemeral (Su): At 16th level, whenever you deal studied strike damage to an incorporeal creature, an outsider, or a possessed creature, that creature must make a Will save or be banished. Incorporeal creatures become unable to interact with the material plane for a number of days equal to your investigator level; outsiders are banished to their home plane for this same number of days. Possessed creatures become free of their possession, and their spirit is immune to further possession for the same amount of time; in addition, when a possessing creature is forcibly removed from a target in this way that creature also takes your studied strike damage.