Okay, I've been racking my brain since this morning to see what I could do with the above idea, and I'm frustrated a little.
Perameters:
25 point buy
All Paizo allowed
3rd level Arcane Casting of full casters (wizard, sorcerer, witch, or arcanist)
VMC Battle Oracle - 3rd level revelation: Skill At Arms
2 traits or 3 with drawback
Feat Taxes are in effect
Background skills are in effect
Rather than overwhelm myself with ideas, I'm going to need some Jolly Cooperation from you folks so I can figure out what I should do.
Honestly, I don't want damage(s) builds. I see gish everywhere on the forums. I'd like a melee arcane battlefield controller mixed with support who CAN make things hurt if he absolutely needs to.
Note: The party has yet to be established so I know not of whom I will be supporting. Thank you guys and gals, in advance.
Melee arcane BFC. I guess that means using arcane magic to buff yourself to make combat maneuvers easier? Straight arcane magic is an easier route to BFC, combat maneuvers are easier with a bunch of bonus feats (not losing a few to VMC), and buffing yourself is easier when you have some form of action economy advantage (e.g. magus or bloodrager), but it's not actually impossible. Support as an arcane caster is easy enough, just make sure you have the odd spell like haste, protection from evil, (communal) resist energy etc.
The shapechanger sorcerer bloodline can extend a 1 min/level polymorph like enlarge person to 10 min/level. Its 1st level bloodline power is unusually bad even as such go, and you don't want blasting so bloodline mutations are out - an archetype which trades it for something else sounds good. Eldritch Scrapper gives you martial flexibility (a floating feat), or Tattooed Sorcerer gives you Varisian Tattoo and a familiar. Either could be useful here but you're desperately short of feats to do combat maneuvers, go with the scrapper.
Feat tax fixes vary in their exact details so I can't really advise you further from there.
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Halfling Blade Adept Arcanist 6, Eldritch Knight X
STR: 8 DEX: 18 CON: 12 INT: 16 WIS: 10 CHA: 15
Mystery: Battle
Curse: Tongues
Feats:
1) Weapon Finesse
3) VMC: Revelation: Skilled at Arms
5) Dervish Dance (Scimitar)
7) VMC: Orison: Purify Food or Drink OR Create Water
7) Bonus Combat Feat: Weapon Focus: Scimitar
9) Extra Arcane Exploit: Spell Strike. Consider Toughness or Arcane Armor Training, too.
11) VMC: Curse Focus
11) Bonus Combat Feat: Arcane Strike
13) Improved Critical
15) VMC: Revelation: Resiliency
15) Bonus Combat Feat: Greater Weapon Focus
After level 16, go back to Arcanist and do whatever you want, really.
Exploits:
Arcanist Exploit 1 (replaced with Sword Bond, giving you an Arcane Bond with a Scimitar for you to use with Slashing Grace later)
Arcanist Exploit 3 (replaced with Sentient Sword, giving you a great scaling weapon)
Arcanist Exploit 5 Dimensional Slide*
Arcanist Exploit 6 - Halfling gets +1 arcane exploit from favored class +1/6 arcanist exploit progression, which will be used to get the Blade Adept's special offer exploit: Eldritch Blade (uses caster level instead of her class level for the bonded sword's powers)
*Dimensional Slide will let the Halfling engage by burning an arcane point and getting a 60ft teleport around the battlefield.
Isolate enemies with spells like Wall of Force to give yourself favorable positions. Bonus points for Dimensional Sliding yourself in and challenging an enemy to single combat.
Small Size will help offset your earlier weak BAB progression with an extra +1 to hit, go for Dex based combat with Weapon Finesse. Extra AC is nice since you will be using light armor to offset that spell failure chance.
Raise DEX at 4 and 8, raise INT for 12/16/20
Feel free to use Arcane Reservoir to increase spell DC a little if need be.
At level 16 you can crit fish in order to activate EK's capstone to swift-cast spells with your scimitar.
Greater Invisibility, Haste, Heroism are all spells that give you a boost in your melee fighting (and your allies). True Strike will let you do targeted disarm or other combat maneuvers.
Create Pit, Ice Spears, Walls (esp. Wall of Force/Wall of Stone), the various cloud spells all provide area control that largely won't affect you thanks to dimensional slide, which can also get you out of a dangerous situation.
Feel free to teleport into a flank for an ally with Dimensional Slide.
I'm not sure if it's worth the VMC Oracle unless you are really planning for the late late game. You give up a painful amount of feats that don't really have a lot of payback until later, mostly to save a single level of spell progression by not having to multiclass to something that provides martial weapon proficiency. Still, since you are not looking for damage, but control, it is doable. Feats feel really anemic.
Sorry for the late reply.
I'm guessing that the Skill at Arms entry to EK is something best left for late game?
Even with feat taxes taken into account, I'm getting the vibe that it'd simply be best to take a one level martial dip, and then build around that rather than sacrifice half of your feats just so one can gain early entry.
The rest of this thread can be for discussion. I am satisfied.
@sunnychoco and avr - thank you for your help. I appreciate it.