Let's see now, Miha is quite the thing. As opposed to Beguiler though, there's another option: make her an Unseen Seer! That works with her default chassis, gives her those vaunted skill points and lets her Advanced Learning for Divine Insight, which seems quite worthwhile. As a devoted of Tiamat, she could also make use of Arcane Disciple to further expand her spell list. In any case, Aranea 3/Sorc 2/Unseen Seer 2 would probably be quite solid for her. Sadly this still leaves out 4th level spells; I'd probably just add them in with 1 more level. Mindbender 1 would also fit in really well and I'd be sorely tempted to use just that. Her spell list definitely needs a rework unless you do change the innate casting. And yeah, unless she knows Undetectable Alignment, Ring of Mind Shielding is beyond obvious.
It might be worth it to specialize her list a bit. Currently it contains a bunch of clutter; Mount, Hideous Laughter, Mage Armor, Acid Splash are all quite weak for her intended purpose. For her task she should definitely have:
- Prestidigitation: Seems beyond obvious.
- Amanuensis [Spell Compendium]: Seems extremely useful.
- Magic Aura: Hide your items, spells and stuff.
- Power Word: Pain if you want her to kill people. Though the spell is kinda broken strong.
- Instant Search [Spell Compendium]: When snooping around, you want to search a place fast.
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- Baleful Transposition: Great with familiar, great with enemies you wish to drop. Since she can only know one she should probably pick this.
- Detect Thoughts: This seems beyond obvious and it's very surprising that it isn't on her list.
- Alter Self: Magical Beast prevents using this to masquerade as a humanoid but she already has her Change Shape. This spell allows her to access numerous fast flying forms like Pegasus, Griffon, Spider Eater, etc. for 10 min/level. Also some pretty good fighting forms though you'll have to give her Strength if you want her to pull that card.
- Shrink Item: For grand theft door, wall, etc.
- Spymaster's Coin [CS]: One of the best ways to get your eyes to any place. Combine with ranks in Sleight of Hand to slip this on people.
My own notes on deploying her in Elder_Basilisk's journal:
Spoiler
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Miha Serani activity clues:
- Changes shape; spider form is inconvenient in a town, as is hybrid. I'd assume she mostly uses humanoid forms and takes disguises. Webs at her home are too much of a dead giveaway and she isn't that dumb - some spiderous shapeshifter having lured and killed someone of consequence in a back alley might be more interesting. Preparing back alley traps for her prey with her spider powers is more than logical and of course, the usual "tempting femme" card gets you great many male victims of some significance.
- Invisibility; most notably this means she'll be sneaking around places she shouldn't be. Detect Magic might catch a glimpse of an illusion aura occasionally. In places where this is actually not okay, that might tip someone off.
- Charm Person and Suggestion; someone new of little account getting accepted quickly in certain circles causes word to go around. She's probably used any number of personas she's Grand Theft Persona'd and charmed and suggestioned people into giving extra information occasionally - particularly the ones she's killed. But people she's kinda stolen into will cause others to perhaps feel jealous and perhaps notice people acting weird at places.
- She has a Fiendish Viper familiar that can do all sorts of eavesdropping a humanoid cannot. However, someone spotting a viper in e.g. royal halls slipping between rocks or whatever is quite the tip. Of course, others may or may not laugh it off, particularly with some choice words from a Miha persona.
- Disguise Self grants a massive but not insurmountable bonus. Someone may have seen through it.
Other than that, yeah, definitely play her as a spy and one that's likely to get into the party. Or at least one who isn't entirely hopeless. Divine Insight or similar is almost a must-have I think (thus Unseen Seer), since there's no way she can manually pump all the relevant skills up enough with the Magical Beast HDs shackling her down to 2+Int per level for her first level leaving her fairly low even with 18-20 Int. PF version is actually likely way more competent as a consequence. Obviously she should have the Diplomacy/Bluff/Sense Motive/Disguise quadfecta and Intimidate wouldn't go amiss. At least basic Knowledge (Local) & Knowledge (Nobility & Royalty) is also a gimme and some skills in Search/Spot/Listen are likely also quite necessary, and Sleight of Hand is a must-have. She could use Wands and magic items in general to bypass much of the other skillifying that needs doing though.
One of her feats should likely make some of the social stuff class skill for her HD and Sorc-levels and the others could be stuff like Invisible Spell, etc. The feats warrant closer scrutiny, which I won't do right now. I didn't ever really think about those too closely but they are indeed all worthless, and there's a lot of stuff she could do. Mindsight seems great for her.
Re: The 3.5 Red Hand Of Doom Handbook for DMs [Major spoilers!] - WIP, PEACH!
