Halfling Paladin Archer while mounted on a pony!

[Bane 09]

Hello everyone. I have decided to play what it says in the title. I am new to pathfinder (but know 3.5) so I don't k ow all the build combinations that work well. I am wanting this character to charge at the enemy with a high AC and do some okay damage along with my friend who is playing a mounted fury barbarian. So I started working on my character tonight with a 20 point build and so far I have:
13 Str
15 Dex
12 Con
9 Int
9 Wis
18 Cha
This includes all the racial bonuses. I have not played a paladin before and not sure what build to go with or how to make the mounted archery work. Any advice would be helpful. thanks

[Grangerer]

I would generally advice against a mounted archery build for a paladin.

The paladin is an awesome class that basically lacks only one thing: Bonusfeats.
A mounted build uses a lot of feats and so does an archery build.

Outside of that, with your current array of stats, you will have problems hitting enemies when you are not using your smite(evil) classfeature.

Furthermore you wrote, that you want to charge at enemies. An archer does not charge. Do you want to combine meleecharging with archery, all while mounted? I don't think the paladin is the right class for this.

And last but not least, dumping int on a paladin hurts a lot. Are you aware you only gain 1 skillpoint per level? For a mounted build this has to go into ride. So you basically don't ahve any skillpoints. Not even Handle animal for your mount, or any social skill.

I hope i didn't come off as to harsh, but this concept might spoil a lot of fun you can have in pathfinder.

[Mysterious Stranger]

If you are a mounted archer you don’t really need the mounted combat feats. You stay back and use the bow instead of charging into melee. This actually works pretty well because your mount can retreat and you can still get your full attack.

Your stats should be changed; I would suggest the following STR 12, DEX 18, CON 12, INT10, WIS 8, CHA 16. You will be taking a lot of penalties to hit especially at low levels so you need to be able to hit. Your CHA is important but your chance to hit is more important. There is not functional difference between a 9 and a 8 so dumping two stats by one point is a bad move. A Halfling paladin is going to have great saving throws once you get to second level so WIS is less important, but if you want the save swap INT and WIS.

A dog actually makes a better mount than a pony. It only gets a single attack, but the bite does a lot more damage. With a pony you have two attacks at +6 doing 1d3+3. The dog has one attack at +7 doing 1d6+6.

Your damage when you are not smiting evil is going to be low so you may want to go for an oath of vengeance to get more smites. Also keep in mind that this build takes a while to come online. Until about 5th level you will not be doing a lot of damage even with Smite Evil. After that you should be ok.

[The Human Diversion]

I agree with the sentiment: if you want to take the mounted combat feats, do melee. Smite + spirited charge = dead bad guy.

If you want to do archery from a mount, focus on the archery feats first and then MAYBE take mounted combat and mounted archery.

[Bane 09]

Okay this is great. What I wanted to do originally was have a halfling paladin with a very high AC that could do damage either in melee or archer. I am going to go towards archer and make those Stat changes. I would love for him to work in melee but rather use a bow or sling staff for this guy.