Hello all. I will soon have the rare opportunity to participate in a level 20 campaign. Everyone is playing incarnations of previous characters they have invested a fair amount of their ego into. I am playing a character that has been infected with the manifestation of a dark kundalini. As such, I found the Umbral Court agent very appealing. The DM has let me reflavor the shadow chains as a manifestation of my serpentine kundalini leaving my crown chakra and wrapping around an enemy. I am pretty dead set on all ten levels of Umbral Court agent.
Now, for campaign specifics. 25 pt. buy. Two traits allowed. One template may be applied for free up to CR +2, otherwise the CR adjustment comes out of your levels. Up to 20 pts. spent on a custom race, which must have the human subtype. DM is letting the possesion by an evil entity represent a +5 "demonic" bonus to an ability score(among other possiblities, this is the main one I am interested in) Also, a bad pact with a devil is worth a +5 "infernal" bonus to an ability score(he basically said it was worth what wishes could do). Was thinking of using those to boost WIS, as that is what all of Umbral Court Agents abilities base off of.
Theme is Darkness and Shadow. I am wondering if Cleric 10 is the best other half to this build, or if I should take fighter as my last two levels so I can pick up the Final Embrace line, which would up the constrict granted at lvl 17 to 10d6. Not sure if that is worth giving up 9th level spells. Another possibility is taking two levels of Monk, to get what I hope will be a massive bonus to WIS to my otherwise horrible AC.
The DM is asking us to bring powerful builds to the table, as he will be throwing very taxing encounters at us. I am open to any suggestions as to how to make a cleric/Umbral Court Agent into an effective character. The main thing I am worried about is the saving throws, and AC. If I play him right, sticking to the shadows and stealthing whenever possible, it should work. Umbral Court Agent lets me grapple at range(while avoiding the grappled condition) along with inflicting concealment vs. the party(and everyone else for that matter), and the other player I am playing with also likes to stealth and wait for opportune moments, so we should mesh well.
Mainly wondering as to what feats I should take, and whether stacking both elemental foci and spell foci on one perfected spell would be worth it for the purposes of Greater Shadow Evocation(my DM has ruled that the clause about not granting domain slots or extra spells from Umbral Court Agent is for those who entered the class without having the Darkness domain). Is theologian worth it for extra access to shadow spells? Thanks for any reply, honestly. I am at a loss at to how to make this build worthy of the powergaming that my DM is requiring. Also wondering if Shadowcaster 10 is a better half to this build, what for the 100% real Shades spell and all.
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You want to be a shadowy character, that's cool. What was this character like in their original incarnation, though? Class?
Umbral Court Agent is cool and it may be your most powerful choice, I'm not sure, but it's not the only one. There's also...
- Shadowcaster archetype for Wizard, as you said
- Shadow [and wildblooded Umbral] bloodline for Sorcerer
- Shadowdancer Prestige Class
- Night, Caves, Smoke, Memory, Curse, Nightmare, etc subdomains
- Dirge Bard
- Mooncaller druid
- Several Oracle mysteries, such as Dark Tapestry
- Summoner could easily be flavoured to make your Eidolon a shadowy creature
- Witch has access to several patrons that give shadow/illusion spells
Then there are feats that are just really flavourful and suitable
- Arcane Heritage for the Shadow/Umbral bloodline
- Nightmare Fist line for monks
- Tenebrous Spell / Umbral Spell / Shadow Grasp, the metamagic feats the Umbral Court Agent was extrapolated from
You have choices -- lots of them -- depending on what type of character you want to build. You could enter Umbral Court Agent as 10 cleric, or as 5 monk / 5 Umbral Sorcerer with a Robe of Arcane Heritage to boost you up to 9th level Bloodline Powers for Shadow Well; it depends on what you want to do.
I will say that, if you choose to do Shadowdancer, Antipaladin is the best entry class.
Thank you for those ideas. Definitely a lot more than I thought to ruminate over. The character was the first Druid/Stormlord in the original game he came from, before he switched to a Master of Many Forms build for an undefeated PvP arena career. The story this time is that in the transit to this current campaign world, he fell through the cracks as it were and into the Outer Darkness for nine years(the number of completion). While there he slowly succumbed to the empathic communication he started receiving from the void. This has manifested itself as a form of possession, and my first evil character. Will be challenging to roleplay one of my favorite champions as a twisted pawn of Greater Evil, but that is why we went with this on this time 'round.
I have high doubts that the grappling shadow chains will ever successfully grapple an opponent, as with Clr10/UCA10 I have a paltry +20 to my grapple CMB so far. Even though my DM is allowing me various homebrew options to boost my character, would like to stick to as much official options as possible, so that I don't have to lose too much when I eventually bring this toon to the PvP table.
If the character was a druid originally, there's no reason for them to not be a druid again, if you want them to be.
Firstly, you could take the Darkness domain as a druid, if you wanted to, and have an effective level of 20 for it, or you could take a different domain and have two of them at 10th level.
There are some really cool Druid archetypes, as well. Urban Druid is awesome when it's appropriate to the campaign. With 10 levels in Urban Druid, you'd receive A Thousand Faces and immunity to charm and compulsion spells.
Blight Druid is cool, as well, and your DM may allow you to reflavour it to be less disease-centric and more ... madness, darkness, etc.
Mooncaller is neat and though its 13th level ability is very werewolf-flavoured, the lower level abilities are less so, including a bonus on saves against insanity effects.
In addition, there's nothing wrong with taking the Storm druid archetype before advancing into the Umbral Court Agent.
Or being something else. Whatever you want to do :]
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