| XMorsX |
One of my players got interested in Umbral Agent. We have figured aout that he build should probably be a bad touch cleric as described in Tark's holy book, probably a progression of Cleric 8 / Umbral Agent 10 / Cleric 2 and that Moonlight Stalker is going to be useful for such a build, given that he fights in the dark and has blind-fight as a free feat from Darkness domain. Every thing else is up in the air though. Any ideas greatly appreciated.
| XMorsX |
The build started to take a shape. Asura-Spawn Tiefling, 25 pb
Evangelist Cleric 10 / Umbral Agent 10
STR 12
DEX 14
CON 12
INT 10
WIS 20
CHA 10
Alt racial traits: Beguiling Liar, Prehensile Tail, see in darkness instead of spell-like
1 Cleric Lingering Performance, Blind Fight (bonus)
2 Cleric
3 Cleric Spell Focus: Enchantment
4 Cleric
5 Cleric Spell Focus: Necromancy
6 Cleric
7 Cleric Deceitful
8 Umbral Agent
9 Umbral Agent Tenebrous Spell (bonus), Spell Penetration
10 Umbral Agent
11 Umbral Agent Discordant Voice
12 Umbral Agent
13 Umbral Agent Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment
14 Umbral Agent
15 Umbral Agent Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy
16 Umbral Agent
17 Umbral Agent Quicken Spell
18 Cleric
19 Cleric Improved Initiative
20 Cleric
skills, perform (oratory), bluff, knowledge (religion), knowledge (mobility)
Plays as a primary caster, uses the spontaneous enchantment spells and the various debuffing spells. The bad touch cleric feats tark suggests actually do not work well in my case, as Umbral Agent increases the range of the domain touch attack, making both domain strike and guided hand for a conductive weapon irrelevant.
I don't see an easy way to optimize the Umbral Agent class features other than having high Wisdom.
| TarkXT |
It looks solid except that I don't think it's wise to spread your focus among two schools. I think it might be easier to drop enchantment and free up a couple of feats.
That would mean grabbing Improved initiative at 3 since you want to be debuffing ASAP before your heavy hitters move in.
With two feats left what else is there? I'd honestly consider grabbing Whip Proficiency wiht this build. Why? Mainly because it's a dex based weapon without weapon finnesse that you can stick spell storing on. Sitting back 10ft-15ft. in an area of darkness and periodically dropping a harm on someone is a very good way to deal damage without fear of reprisal.
With one feat left I'd consider Umbral spell to add an additional darkness effect to your debuffs.
| XMorsX |
Thanks Tark. You prefer Necromancy I see. What particular spells do you have in mind? I though of Enchantment spells because Evangelist can spontaneoudly cast them. Improve Initiative is certainly very useful and we will probably take it at 3rd lvl. Umbral Spell is also nice, the prereq is free too.
I didn't understand though how can I use dex for attack rolls with a whip without weapon finesse. As I read here, finesse is mandatory in order to use the dex modifier. What am I missing?
| TarkXT |
That was a mistake on my part. My brain went back to the 3.5 days when the whip was resolved as a ranged attack. Still, it's an okay option. Hitting opponents shouldnt be too hard when its dark, foggy, and they're blind with inspire courage going.
If not consider that a free feat to do pretty much anything with.
| GozrehTime |
The suggestions so far have been quite good, and your plan of going full cleric is probably the "best" in terms of optimization. Just a few ideas and possible dips to add to the discussion, since I love the class and would also like to assess people's views on how to use it. I like to think of it as a caster/ melee class which is only mediocre at each of these tasks, but really shines with special abilities (gaze attack, Shadow Chains). With that in mind, here are my thoughts:
1) Grasping Darkness is interesting in that it allows you to attempt a grapple after a successful touch attack, the range of which increases as you take levels in the class. Since you're taking the Evangelist archetype and it's already been suggested to increase charisma, why not try Eldritch Heritage: Aberrant for the usual reason? You get to increase your melee touch range even more! The flavor seems solid: Zon-Kuthon is all about beauty in malformation--you could even spin it as a limb-extending body modification. At character level seventeen, when you conveniently attain your final level of Umbral (Court) Agent, your shadow chain reach increases to twenty feet and your touch attack augmentation from Aberrant increases to fifteen. The language all seems to comport with the view that you would be able to use shadow chains at a range of thirty-five feet and initiate grapple attempts! Between moonlight stalker and the +5 to the grapple check for being in darkness, you would stand a good chance of succeeding on a grapple from a huge distance.
2) On that subject, why not get a bit better at grappling? You could enter the class with only three levels of cleric. Tetori 4 is a nice break point, as you get good bonus feats, no hit to your BAB for the purposes of CMB, and amnesty from most of the normal grappling penalties (although you don't gain the grappled condition with Grasping Darkness, so that doesn't matter much). Monk (Tetori) 4/ Cleric 3 still allows earliest entry.
Most monk archetypes could work, actually; you will miss out on free Stunning Pin, but nothing is stopping you from taking it as a normal feat once you have Improved Grapple and IUS from your monk bonus feats. Monk three for maneuver mastery gives you four levels of a casting class. I agree that cleric is best (probably better than Inquisitor or Sorcerer (Empyreal), which are the other wisdom-based casters I have considered for this prestige class), although, given that Zon-Kuthon has a druidic sect dedicated to him, I wish the class didn't require a lawful evil alignment.
The monk levels drastically reduce casting ability, so I understand if this route looks unappealing.
3) A last point: I considered ways (Conductive weapon property, Domain Strike feat) to try to attach Shadow Chains as a rider to other attacks. My idea was something like this: get a conductive spiked chain, smack someone with it, then conduct Shadow Chains through and grapple a more distant opponent, imagining that you've put your spiked chain right through an opponent and are projecting your shadow chain through him/ her. However, the language for all such abilities seems to indicate that the conducted ability affects the opponent struck, so no dice. I just wanted to throw that out there in case anyone can make it work.
I hope something here appeals to you. Let us know what is decided on!
| XMorsX |
Thanks for your suggetions, here are my issues:
1) This is the one I like. Not only for grasping darkness, but for any touch spell. The problemms are:
- 10 in Cha, lowering Wisdom will probably be counter-productive and lowering any other stat will leave weaknesses (Dex-AC, Str-touch attacks, Con is already too low, Int is need for skills, I use the suggeted houserule for +2 skill points per lvl, dumping it to 7 like most clerics do is not desirable)
- 3 feats, one of them is an almost useless skill focus. If I could have the skill focus for free (human with focused study, half-elf) it would be much more interesting. But Tieflings have permanent see in darkness, which is too good to pass up with this build
- I am not sure my player wants to play an ugly deformed guy. The flavor is certainly there, but what he likes from the class is the coolness factor of shadow abilites, not the spooky ones.
2) Too many lost caster lvls as you say. Will end up as a 13lvl caster. This charcater is for The Way of the Wicked campaign, he is starting from lvl one and he will reach lvl 20. The grappling benefits of a tetori will not synergise with Umbra Agent until very late into the game, when having high lvl spells will be certainly more beneficial.
3) This was the first thing I tried to pull out, but as you conclude it is probably not working this way. That is why I gave up on trying to combine the touch attack with a regular weapon attackand semi-dumped Str in favor of higher Wisdom and increased DCs.
Any suggestion for a perfected spell? Also, I just noticed that Umbral agents receive a +2 caster lvl when castin illusion (shadow) spells in darkness, should I capitalise in that with skill focus: illusion or something else?