I've been looking over the Master Spy prestige class and I suspect it might be replicable using abilities from the unchained rogue and Eldrich Heritage Rakshasa.
Master of disguise and quick change get surpassed by the disguise skill unlock and the quick disguise rogue talent.
Glib lie is replicated by the first tier of Rakshasa's bloodline.
Nonmagical aura can be taken as major magic rogue talent.
Superficial knowledge can be made up with esoteric scholar, though not identically. (And I kinda like the cartoonish idea of quick changing into a university professor to rant on about a subject for thirty seconds and then change back.)
Elude detection can be taken as the 9th level Rakshasa ability for constant nondetection.
Slippery mind is just slippery mind.
Death attack comes with assassin, although that comes with an evil alignment. The assassinate ninja trick is comparable.
Features I haven't been able to replicate without magic: concealed thoughts (bluff skill unlock falls short), mask alignment, shift alignment, fool casting (great for an npc, but for a player? Maybe against vampires.) hidden mind, and assumption.
I'm a little behind on the books, mostly anything after ARG. I think alchemists can replicate some of these abilities, but it still requires magic.
Has anyone ever used the master spy as a PC?
The only time I've seen master spy used was in a pretty unoptimized Kingmaker game where the player played a master-spy/rogue and I heard that he really enjoyed the character.
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Master Spy isn't a mechanically strong prestige class.
That said, it is flavorful and could be very fun in the right campaign.
Your build replicates much of the power they get, but requires you to make very specific choices to do so.
You have to have high charisma, which isn't something that the unchained rogue really finds useful. You no longer have access to the rogue talent ki power to get ki, and other talents that were based on charisma aren't (for the most part).
Your build requires having eldritch heritage which requires charisma to be useful. It also requires additional feats to replicate other abilities. You need Eldritch Heritage, Improved Eldritch Heritage, and two spend two rogue talents.
Ultimately, if you want to build your character in this very specific way that's fair. But it shoehorns a bunch of things and really means your build isn't very flexible with choices.
I don't think PCs ever really used master spy in the first place, it was always more of a really cool NPC class.
Ultimately, it's neat that you can replicate much of the prestige class without actually taking it, but I don't think that makes the Master Spy obsolete. Rather it proves that the Master Spy has a purpose, since you otherwise have to invest many of your character options into replicating what is given with the prestige class.
Master Spy is one of those prestige classes that utterly oozes flavor, but its actual abilities are rather weak. For the most part you're just getting class features that reproduce utility spells that spellcasters have already had access to for several levels. While some of these abilities can be used at-will, the spells they replicate have durations measured in hours and since the Master Spy is only coming online at the 9th level we're already talking all-day duration for the spellcasters anyways. All this comes with a rather nasty feat tax, a very late qualification due to high skill requirements, and getting pretty much nothing combat-relevant.
Master spy can be a nice follow up/mixer for assassin. 9 levels of master spy 6 of assassin. Investigator would be a decent start.
Not great honestly but I guess you could kirin style to have reason to increase your intelligence.
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As said earlier, Master Spy is a great NPC. The thing that we have to remember is that Disguise and spying is like Stealth and scouting: something handy to have in your bag of tricks, but not something most sessions can revolve around because it means one PC does things while the rest of the party sits and waits.
Plus, as mentioned before, MS has little in terms of extra combat potency. Which again puts it at odds with most adventuring parties.
I pondered rolling one up for PFS, but soon discovered that a Kitsune Unchained Rogue with Realistic Likeness and Vanish as a rogue trick will give you the majority of what you want while keeping you tuned for dungeon runs AND taking far fewer levels to come online.
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As said earlier, Master Spy is a great NPC.
The Mythic Master Spy Succubus NPC in Wrath of the Righteous was just plain scary;
'So... you're a succubus?
And... you want to join the Mendevian Crusade?
And... you're trained as an infiltrator?
So... there is absolutely no way we could determine whether you are evil... or lying?
What could possibly go wrong?'
The fact that a base succubus has all the qualifications for the prestige class except the 'Deceitful' feat was also amusing.
I'm a charlatan unchained rogue in hell's rebels, so the charisma is useful. I'm almost certainly going into the prestige. It looks like every feat I have is going into two weapon fighting. Thankfully the DM vetoed combat expertise, so I can take two weapon feint without it and use my enhanced bluff score in combat. The adventure path also gives the prerequisite feats out as the game progresses, so that's another boon. It seems like the only chance I'll ever get to try it, do I am.
Thanks for the input folks!