I've been reading up some magus guides and stumbled upon the Prescient Attack Arcana, which would be ridiculously useful for an Arcane Trickster build. Making enemies flatfooted by simply hitting them with a weapon attack.
According to this thread http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2uvgh?Prescient-Attack-and-weapon-attacks, any attack that requires you to make an attack roll (other than spells that have you roll for an attack of some other entity, like Black Tentacles).
By the way, we play without Weapon Finesse, every character is just assumed to have it. You'd have to pick that up if you go the Whip Route, and it would be great for your touch spells as well.
Half Elf for Paragon Surge
25 PB (+2 INT)
8 16 12 18 10 14 (if you can get a Headband of Mental Prowess, INT and CHA +6, the Starlit Caster boon would give you +5 to overcome Spell Resistance)
or
10 16 12 19 12 8
Traits:
Magical Lineage (Fiery Shuriken)
Bifurcarted Magic (if it works with Alchemist, otherwise Magical Knack and Reactionary)
Elf Racial Trait: Multidisciplined
Favorite Class: Wizard
1. Vivisectionist, SA 1d6
Improved Initiative
Accomplished Sneak Attacker (retrain at level 3)
3. SA 2d6
2-4 Wizard, Void School (opposition Fire)
Emissary Familiar of Luck Domain, for that one round to go Nova with a bit of luck). Also having guidance cast on you every round should come in handy as well.
3.
Arcane Pool -2
5. Arcane Trickster
Deific Obedience (Desna)
6.-15.
Evangelist (Aligned Class Arcane Trickster)
7. SA 3d6
Prescient Attack
9. SA 4d6
Heighten Spell
11. SA 5d6
Spell Strike (maybe for a River Whip, to deliver touch spells at 15 feet distance, like Vampiric Touch).
13. SA 6d6
Preferred Spell: Fiery Shuriken
15 SA 7d6
Bane Blade or Arcane Accuracy, Accurate Strike, Quicken Magic or Maximized Magic
That choice depends whether you want to go with an actual whip, in which case you'd want to get give it spell storing. This would necessitate a Wayfinder with an Opalescent White Pyramid Ioun Stone (10500 GP). That would be the Accurate Strik, Bane Blade Route.
Not sure how Reveal Weakness would interact with a conductive weapon since it doesn't require a touch attack, but that would be great of course.
Arcane Accuracy and probably Maximized Magic (for when you deliver that Vampiric Touch with sneak attack) would probably work better if you just wanna stick to your spells.
16-20 Wizard
17
Quicken Spell
Wizard Bonus Feat: Elemental Spell (Acid?)
So you have enough Metamagic Feats to pick up Spell Perfection with Paragon Surge.
19
Bane Blade or Arcane Accuracy, Accurate Strike, Quicken Magic or Maximize Magic
20
The main problem of this build is that you're gonna be starved for feats, but getting the prescient attack is really worth it. Paragon Surge also allows some flexibility, for example in getting Dampen Presence against an enemy with blindsense...but then again, thanks to Prescient Attack you could sneak attack them anyway.
I would also recommend playing this build with Fractional BAB and saves.
Thoughts, recommendations?
I see a few problems. First remember VMC steals your 15th and 19th level feats too, not just 3, 7 & 11. Then there's using evangelist to advance a prestige class; if you can talk your GM into it thats fine but apparently it's not supposed to work. Accomplished sneak attacker won't give you more sneak attack dice than half your level, so getting it at 1 and retraining it at 3 won't help. Also I'm not sure how you're getting both improved init and ASA at level 1 anyway. Maybe it was an earlier draft and you meant to put in skill focus (stealth) rather than improved init? You'd need the skill focus for paragon surge to get dampen presence, which you suggest doing later.
That's why 15 and 19 are Magus Arcana Feats to which the character otherwise has no access. Sorry that I didn't make that much clearer.
Well, the point is to get Improved Initiative at first level and only at level 3 retrain it (that is Improved Initiative) to Accomplished Sneak Attacker in order to conform with the rules.
In retrospect, I might have worded that poorly.
Your number of sneak attack dice cannot exceed half your character level (rounded up).
Aka: 2d6 at level 3.
Can I retrain a feat to replace it with a feat I didn’t qualify for at the level I originally gained that feat?
Yes. As long as the new feat is a valid feat for your current character, you can retrain the old feat and replace it with the new feat.
For example, if you are a 3rd-level rogue who took Improved Initiative at 1st level, you can retrain that feat and replace it with Weapon Focus. Even though Weapon Focus has a prerequisite of “base attack bonus +1” (which means you couldn’t take it as a 1st-level rogue), it is a valid feat for your current level (3rd), and is therefore a valid choice for retraining.)
As for aligned class not working with a Prestige Class, I haven't seen anything indicating that it wouldn't work. It just says you pick a class you have at least one level in.
At 2nd level, the evangelist must choose a class she belonged to before adding the prestige class to be her aligned class.
A class does not necessarily mean a base class. And having one level in Arcane Trickster it seems to qualify. But maybe you're privy to information that I'm not.
Oh yeah, the half elf Skill Focus would indeed go into stealth.
These things aside, what would you recommend? Arcane Accuracy and discard any notion of using Arcane Pool for weapons? Maybe a Crossbow for when you run out of spells...