Divine hunter is a great archetype for making a ranged paladin.
Typical ranged feats include Precise Shot, Point-Blank Shot, Manyshot, and Deadly Aim. Archery builds are some of the strongest in the game from a damage perspective, so you should have no problem doling out impressive punishment, especially with smite.
If you decide to take divine hunter, keep in mind you eventually are able to grant you / your allies archery related feats, so it's worth taking into account as you stat up the character.
For spells, deadeye's arrow is particularly thematic for a paladin worshiper of Erastil. Other good choices include longshot and divine favor for first, and weapon of awe and eagle's splendor for 2nd.
Hope this helps. :) I'm actually tempted to make a statblock for a character like this, maybe it will help you to figure what to build for. May or may not be forthcoming!
Unfortunately slings are not as good an option as bows. They suffer from action economy issues of reloading (unless you invest in some feats), and won't match the sheer damage or range a bow accomplishes. Of course, if you're more interested in the flavor of it, it can work perfectly acceptably!
Alrighty! I took some time and rolled up a character fitting your criteria, as both a thought exercise for myself and as something that I hope can help you create your own character!
F Halfling paladin (divine hunter) of Erastil 9
LG Small humanoid (halfling)
Init +4; Senses Perception +10
Aura care (10 ft.)
AC 22, touch 15, flat-footed 17 (+4 armor, +5 Dex, +2 natural, +1 size)
hp 85 (9d10+18)
Fort +16, Ref +16, Will +14; +2 vs. fear
Immune disease
Speed 20 ft.
Melee small masterwork longsword +12/+7 (1d6+1/19-20)
Ranged small +2 composite longbow [1 Str] +18/+13 (1d6+3/x3)
Special Attacks channel positive energy 7/day (5d6, DC 18), smite evil 3/day (+4 attack, +6 AC, +13 damage)
Paladin Spell-Like Abilities (CL 9th; concentration +13)
At will - detect evil
Paladin Spells Prepared (CL 9th; concentration +13)
2nd – communal protection from evil, divine arrow
1st – divine favor (2), hero's defiance
Str 12, Dex 20, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 18
Base Atk +9; CMB 9; CMD 14
Feats Deadly Aim, Manyshot, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus (longbow)
Skills Diplomacy +13, Heal +5, Knowledge (religion) +8, Linguistics +1, Perception +10, Ride +10, Sense Motive +5, Spellcraft +4, Stealth +12 Racial Modifiers +2 acrobatics, +2 climb, +2 perception, +4 stealth
Languages Celestial, Common, Halfling
Traits Deadeye Bowman, Seeker
SQ aura, divine bond (weapon +2, 2/day), divine grace, distant mercy (45 ft.), favored class paladin (+9 skills), lay on hands 8/day (4d6), mercies (shaken, nauseated)
Combat Gear wand of cure light wounds (50 charges)
Other Gear amulet of natural armor +2, bracers of the avenging knight, cloak of resistance +3, headband of alluring charisma +2, paladin's kit, silver holy symbol of Erastil, small +1 champion studded leather, small +2 composite longbow [1 Str] with 40 arrows, small masterwork longsword, small masterwork light wooden shield
Deadeye Bowman (Trait) When using a longbow, if only a single creature is providing soft cover to your target, the target does not receive the +4 bonus to AC.
Seeker (Trait) Gain a +1 trait bonus on Perception, and Perception is always a class skill for you.
I hope this helps you! Her weight is even at 29.5 lbs, which is a few pounds under her light load. Fair warning, I'm not a crazy optimizer and forgo certain items, traits or feats for flavor. For anyone who stops in this thread and feels they want to critique this build on this or that thing that isn't the most optimal option, I'm honestly not too interested unless there's some massive flaw I've made in logic or numbers.
Most of Nargemn's advices are spot on (maybe up Strength to 14 and drop Charisma to 16? It makes a big difference with all the arrows you'll be shooting, and it help with carrying capacity), but I would advise against Divine Hunter. It's a deceptively good archetype.
It does give you Precise shot as a free feat, but it effectively downgrades your auras: you trade away your normal auras (useful to pretty much every character), for auras that are only useful to other ranged attackers. It's unlikely that there are more than two characters focused on pew-pewing enemies to death, while it's much more likely for you to have another character (or more) with you on the frontline.
The other abilities are nice, but nothing to write home about.
In short, you can do everything a Divine Hunter does with a normal paladin, without trading away half of your class abilities.
I think the big benefit of Divine Hunter is obviously the allied-archer friendly auras, and as others have said normal paladin can fit the bill you want just as well. One ability not to discount from the Divine Hunter is the ability to cast Lay on Hands at range (I believe it's 5 feet per level). I think it's a great way to stay at a distance even if a friend needs a heal or the removal of a status effect. Worth noting is that if you DO choose to go with normal paladin, you end up being immune to fear effects, so the innate halfling +2 vs. fear isn't worth much, and it would be a good idea to look into alternate halfling racial traits that can replace it for something else.
As for your question concerning mithral chainmail, you're right in that mithral only boosts the Max Dex by 2, meaning it would only offer a Max Dex of 4. On a mithral chain shirt the max dex goes to 6, but is still not high enough for the full +8 Dex bonus to apply. This leads me to believe they were talking about Celestial Armor specifically. The reason I didn't include it in my build above was that it would've taken up half of the character's budget that was allotted for items, and I felt that there were other bases that needed covering.
And the original ability scores for the build above were Str 14, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 14, using a 25-point buy. Halfing racials added +2 to Dex and Cha, and a -2 to Str. At levels 4 and 8 I added +1 to Dex to bring it up to 20, and she's wearing a headband of alluring charisma +2 to bring the Cha up to 18. Hope this helps clarify things! :)
This page should help! Scroll down to the "alternate racial traits" section. The website this is on is super useful for Pathfinder information not relating to the Golarion campaign setting.
Only addition i can think of to Nargemns build is to take clustered shot for the times where you dont smite. Change deadeye bowman for fates favored favored and get the adaptable luck alternate racial trait.
And i second marc in a dislike for MMORPG lingu:) and welcome to the game, it is great.
If you want to be a buffer that can also shoot a bow, and cuteness is very important there are other options than paladin, to consider.
I actually avoided Fate's Favored intentionally because I get frustrated with how mandatory many people feel it is, and it's nice to see some other traits in builds (even if they're not the most optimal). But either way, it is a good option, of course, due to the luck bonuses from both halfling AND some paladin spells (particularly divine favor).
I also just realized the link from before just brought you back to this thread. I'd meant to send you this link instead, which is the halfling page on the D20PFSRD. Here's the paladin page as well. The oath of vengeance and other paladin archetypes are way down at the bottom. Hope this helps Mindfever! :)
This page is what you want. These are traits, and if you're unfamiliar with them, Pathfinder characters choose two traits to begin with at level 1. They cannot be the same type of trait (IE you cannot have two combat or two religion traits, but you can have one combat and one religion trait).
Just flavor. I'm not a fan of dumping stats low, particularly Wisdom on a paladin. Of course, it can always represent a very foolhardy, charge in without thinking sort of crusader, so if it works out for you all the better! If you're going for a very optimal route, then replacing one of those two traits with fate's favored will really boost a lot of numbers.
For example, you'll get an additional bonus of +1 on attack and weapon damage rolls when using divine favor. Like Cap. Darling said above, you can also change the halfling luck racial trait into adaptable luck, which instead of gaining a +1 to all saves, you can instead gain a +2(+3) bonus on ability checks, attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks 3 times per day (only +1 [2] if made after the roll).
And the traits page I linked come from numerous books, more than can be listed. Inner Sea Primer, Advanced Player's Guide, Advanced Race Guide, Advanced Class Origins, any book about a particular region or race, and any adventure path's players guide are all examples.
And, though it may be confusing, Traits and racial traits are two different things. You couldn't replace the halfling luck trait with deadeye bowman for example. An unfortunate case of two different systems having the same names.
A 9th level Paladin gains, at base, two 1st level spells and one 2nd. A Charisma of 18 grants a bonus 1st and a bonus 2nd level spell (this information is gained from the chart on this page , scroll down a bit - Titled "Abilities and Spell Casters".
Like Cavall said, I chose to go with +2 on the bow as opposed to +1 flaming, frost, or another +1 ability to make up for the accuracy loss you'll be suffering from manyshot, rapid shot, and deadly aim.
Since you seem to be new to archer builds, I'll help to break down how your typical attack pattern in a turn will look.
To begin, Rapid Shot allows you to make an additional attack when making a full attack action at a -2 penalty on all of your attacks.
With the statblock given above, this becomes small +2 composite longbow [1 Str] +16/+16/+11 (1d6+3/x3)
Next up, using Manyshot allows your first attack in the round to fire two arrows. If you miss, both arrows miss, but if you hit, both hit.
Factoring in rapid shot and manyshot, this becomes small +2 composite longbow [1 Str] +16/+16/+16/+11 (1d6+3/x3)
Finally, we factor in Deadly Aim , which functions as a ranged power attack. With a BAB of 9 this translates into a -3 penalty to hit and a +6 bonus on every successful attack.
Factoring in rapid shot, manyshot, AND deadly aim, your full attack would be small +2 composite longbow [1 Str] +13/+13/+13/+8 (1d6+9/x3)
Assuming every attack hits, this deals a minimum of 36 damage, and a maximum of 60 damage (assuming no critical strikes). Now, paladins really shine when they've used smite on an enemy, so assuming you've successfully smited an enemy, this becomes small +2 composite longbow [1 Str] +17/+17/+17/+12 (1d6+22/x3).
Again, assuming every attack hits and doesn't critically strike, this deals a minimum of 92, and a maximum of 112. Even more if it's an evil outsider, evil dragon, antipaladin, or undead!
The big thing is making sure the attacks hit. I'm not amazing at math and I'm sure someone could come in here and give you an exacting formula for the exact point where damage outweighs accuracy, but unfortunately I'm not that person. I do hope I've helped to clarify where your damage will be coming from, however! :)
What is overpowered in a evil campaign for 1000 Alex