[PF] Dark Caster Chick?

[Dissonance]

I'm looking to make a new character for a game I'm playing in and have been okayed to use the LE prestige class Umbral Agent.

I'm now wondering how I should optimize this as the rest of the party is completely OP at the moment thanks to the shenanigans of my previous character.

Starting level is 13 and I have access to two free magic items + standard 13 starting gold. I have already okayed headband of mental perfection +6 as one of the free items, and I believe I can get away with getting one of the +4 tomes as the other. I also plan on using my starting gold to invest in a ring of mind shielding, as the party doesn't exactly take kindly to evils.

Right now I have this:

Xara LE drow Oracle 10 / Umbral agent 3 worships Norgorber

HP: 91 initiative +18

10 str, 14 dex, 10 con, 16 int, 18 wis, 22 cha after racial and level modifiers

Dark tapestry mystery with Cloak of darkness, many forms, wings of darkness
Haunted curse

feats: noble scion, skill focus stealth, eldritch heiritage: umbra, shadow caster, improved initiative, brew fleshcrafting poison, eldritch heiritage improved

spells: 0 lv mage hand, ghost sound, detect magic, read magic, light, create water, detect poison, mending, stabilize, spark, purify food and drink

1 lv entropic shield, inflict light wounds, infernal healing, protection from evil, protection from good, sanctuary, command

2 lv levitate, minor image, inflict moderate wounds, twilight dust, pilfering hand, instument of agony, hold person, calm emotions, desecrate

3 lv tongues, inflict serious wounds, dispel magic, bestow curse, chain of perdition, animate undead

4 lv black tentacles, inflict critical wounds, blessings of fervor, summon accuser, infernal healing greater

5 lv inflict light wounds mass, feeblemind, telekinesis, breath of life, plane shift

6 lv inflict moderate wounds mass, summon monster VI

The theme I'm going for is a shadow magic chick able to diplomance or bluff, as well as having access to some competent spies through summoning. In combat she will either be locking down or providing support thanks to her suite of magic. Fleshcrafting poison is an odd choice sure, but it actually fits her character as well as gives me an excuse to see how far I can take the vague RAW concerning the items. (My group are RAW freaks to the core, RAI is a foreign concept to them.)

So my question to you, dear playgrounders, is how can I make it better?

[Saidoro]

I really don't see what umbral agent brings to your build, you're mostly just throwing away a caster level for extremely small benefits. I'm guessing noble scion is being taken for scion of war, if it isn't know that that's the only one remotely worth a feat. You don't need nearly that much wisdom, consider dropping it a bit and upping your constitution. Shadow Caster is not a good feat. Consider dropping some feats on augment summoning and sacred summons. Crafting feats are almost never a bad investment, at the very least they double your starting gold and they can potentially do much more than that in game.
Purchase at least one Mnemonic Vestment (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/vestment-mnemonic) and possibly several more than that.

[avr]

What's with all the inflict spells? If you're somehow getting them for free, see if there's anything else you could trade that ability in for.

Infernal healing isn't as good as ordinary cleric healing; it's about the same amount cured but has limitations ("This ability cannot repair damage caused by silver weapons, good-aligned weapons, or spells or effects with the good descriptor."). It's really for arcane casters who can't get cure wounds spells. Plus it's a bad look if you're pretending to not be evil.

You're getting a belt to improve your CON, right?

Tap Inner Beauty (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/tap-inner-beauty) might be useful for diplomancing. A little refluffing might be in order.

Umbral agent seems to require the Deceitful feat as a prereq. You don't have it. This may lower the return/investment for taking that PrC.

[Dissonance]

@ saidoro, I think you might have missed the point a bit. Which is to optimize the Umbral agent PRC, not the Oracle base. If it involves changing up the Oracle base to, say, a cleric or something, I can do that. I just haven't worked with Umbral agent enough to be completely comfortable optimizing it yet.

@avr, I can trade the free inflict spells for free cure spells, but the party already has a healer. Although I now think that I should really change them out for the cure variety for "I'm not an evil Caster!" reason. Infernal healing would be unnessassary at this point, but it's also thematically appropriate (she works pretty closely with devils up until this point.) The feat got lost in translation when I had a new idea for a layout of feats I was going to take. :smalltongue:

[Saidoro]

Noted. The most optimized way to build an Umbral agent would be to take no more than four levels in the class since it doesn't really add much compared to the loss of caster levels, but if you plan on advancing in it fully I'd say actually advance in it fully rather than taking ten levels of your base first. I'm going to recommend switching to cleric base using the loss subdomain (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/cleric/domains/paizo---domains/darkness-domain/loss) as one of your two domain choices(This nabs you the invaluable modify memory spell and gives you a higher effective cleric level for your darkness abilities). The other domain can be whatever(though I'm fond of the Conversion Inquisition (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/inquisitor/archetypes/paizo---inquisitor-archetypes/inquisitions/conversion-inquisition) for this build). Head into umbral agent as soon as possible so you can grab the grasping darkness ability and pick up some grapple feats to make it better. That gives you a fair amount of battlefield control all on its own and you can get a fair amount more by combining shadow grasp and umbral spell with long-duration effects like ant haul or deadeye's lore. Everything that gets close to you will have to make multiple saves or be entangled and then you can grapple them with grasping darkness to take them out of the fight entirely. Note that tenebrous spell only cares about where you cast the spell. If you cast your long duration entanglers in dim light the save dc bonus sticks around even after daybreak.

Of course, being constantly surrounded by grasping darkness may tip off your teammates to the whole evil thing, but that's what the conversion domain and umbral courtier are for:smalltongue:.