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If skills are important for your concept why not go inquisitor, which is more skill monkey divine class.
And I agree put the bonus in str if you’re going melee route, don’t need 16 wisdom. And figure how to raise that con to 14 if you’re going melee on a d8 class.
I like the character just seems like you’re trying to do too much and spreading yourself thin.

Circling mongoose is a great way to use sneak attack, which can be tricky in pathfinder. The earliest you can get it on a rogue is 8th level, I think. That’s a long time for everything to come together and you spend pretty much all your character resources on the pre-reqs, but it is powerful if you’re patient.

Something like:
1 fey foundling/power attack
3 greater mercy
5 step up
7 cornugon smash
9 improved critical
11 divine interference

weapon focus is still a solid feat you could swap in as well as intimidating prowess if you want to focus on intimidate more.
extra loh isn't bad either, but that's stronger on an oath of vengeance paladin because they can convert it into more smite evil.

Vital strike just isn’t that good. I’d never recommend furious focus on anything other than a mounted charge build. Furious focus only works on your first attack which is most likely going to hit anyway, especially against anything you smite. So get rid of both of those feats entirely. Greater mercy is solid especially when you swift action heal yourself, at 3rd level that would be 2d6+4 healing.
I think step up is an underrated feat, especially against the big bad trying to 5 foot step away from the smiting Paladin. And with high charisma and power attack getting Cornugon smash for free action intimidate for some debuffing.
I would also switch your dex and int. You don’t need intelligence, Paladin is not a skill monkey. Dex will improve saving throw, ac, and initiative, and ranged attacks flying creatures are a thing. And combat reflexes can be a good feat as well if you have the dex to benefit.

I don’t think you’d benefit from the intimidate skill unlock without also investing in intimidate. I’d just go all bard, think 6th level casting is better than anything you’d get from phantom thief. Taunt is a cool and flavorful, but how are you going to work the action economy of intimidate, it’s not hard to get your bluff/intimidate through the roof, but you need to improve it from a standard action to make it worth while. Neither class or archetype improve this and if you’re going gnome/small I’m going to assume you’re not strength based which most feats are based around for this kind of build with power attack being a pre-req. You can do the enforcer route but then that’s 3 feats including taunt. It’s just a lot of investment with not a lot of return.
I’m saying all this having run 2 halfling characters with taunt. One had a swashbuckler dip which gets a swift intimidate at 3rd level. Just pointing out it’s more flavorful and a serious character resource investment.
Also don’t forget to add the cruel enhancement to your weapon to stack sickened which stacks with shaken.

If a character dies in the first book of an AP I wouldn’t penalize them at all. And I agree with other comments about keeping the party same level. I’d talk about it with your group and your concerns about it getting abused. I just think you could limit a players fun if they have an ineffective character because they are underpowered. I think having some kind of penalty for deaths after the first book is fine, but like I said talk about it as a group and obviously you have the final word.

Check out the glass cannon podcast. They’re now the official actual play podcast for paizo and do an amazing job, with surprisingly great production quality. I haven’t heard anything that really compares.

With such low charisma won't thank gimp my ability to use my domain powers?

I keep getting more confused.

Bit of luck is 3+wisdom bonus uses per day

Vicon, you mention support as a role, but do you plan on being more of a caster or melee?
Dwarf cleric is kind of iconic/classic. They have some great racial weapons that have reach. A reach cleric is a great support build, and good use of action economy as well. You cast buffs as your standard action and position yourself for attacks of opportunities to get bonus attacks on the enemies turn.
I second steel soul as being a great feat, and with being a wisdom based class along with dwarven stat bonuses you’ll have great will and fortitude saves.
I’d say stat array of: Str 16 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 15 Cha 8
Feats
1 combat reflexes
3 improves initiative

Check out the glass cannon podcast, it’s an actual play podcast that is done really well. They make plenty of rules mistakes but so does everyone just try to do your best and have fun.
To help your GM, know your character and the rules that apply to playing your character, that’s your responsibility especially for a completely new gm and gaming group. Try not to get too cheesy and read the guides and just make the most mechanically powerful assembly of numbers, make a real character role play not roll play. It’s not you vs the gm. Most important rule is everyone have fun, work together, it’s collective storytelling.

I agree she’s a pretty cool character, just not sure the mechanics and crunch of pathfinder can let you do her justice. I feel like a magus might capture the flavor a little better.
Or maybe a ninja instead of unchained rogue, and max all the climb and jump abilities.

Swashbucklers can do lots of damage and parry and riposte is great, but their saves are trash. Inspired blade gets everything online faster, it’s why it’s such a good dip for dex to damage, but you give up the best way to regain panache, and just seems shortsighted if you’re going full on swashbuckler.

Power attack, Cornugon smash, shatter defenses sanctified slayer would work pretty well.

Blade of mercy, enforcer would also work.

Great recommendations and for a two handed reach build I’d add lunge and pushing assault.

I like your enthusiasm, just think you have a bit of a kid in a candy store kind of thing going, I say that having been the same way. I don’t think any of the combos you are proposing are an improvement over straight Paladin. Also I really wouldn’t worry about level 20 abilities or planning out 14+. Most games do not get to level 20 play.
You mentioned oracle, which has some synergy with Paladin, look up oradin, which uses fey foundling that I mentioned before and life link of the life oracle and is a crazy combo. You also said getting 2nd level spells from oracle, but paladins already get spells. One thing you might be overlooking is ranger and Paladin spell lists account for the fact that they get spells so much later in the game than a full caster, and often get early access to spells. There are spells a cleric/oracle get as level 2 spells that a Paladin gets as level 1, such as ghost bane dirge. So 4 levels of oracle to get access to 2nd level spells might not be as beneficial as you think.
If you’re looking for a more complex from a game mechanic character maybe go full caster such as cleric or oracle, managing a full caster spell list for a new player is a lot of work. End of the day it’s all about having fun, and I’d be happy to have a new player with so much enthusiasm at my table.

Well if you’re going ranged Paladin then your feat progression is pretty much set until like level10 at the earliest.
1 point blank shot
3 precise shot
5 rapid shot
7 many shot
9 deadly aim
I recommend that order for Paladin, dr is less of concern with smite. And with smite getting more shots is more important. So at level 7 if you enchant your bow with an energy damage (acid or electricity would be best) you’re basically getting 4 attacks, so 4x 1d8+7+1d6+strength bonus and weapon enchantment.

With ranged you gotta be all in, paladins come on a little slower with the lack of bonus feats, but with smite evil are just nasty at higher level.

Is there something specific you’re wanting your character to do? Do you want more advice for an archer in general or just Paladin?
Are you playing a home brew game or an AP?

I would advice against multiclassing. Paladins are great on their own: swift action self healing, great saves and smite evil. Plus they get limited casting so you get to see how everything works. But multiclassing without something very specific in mind can be shortsighted, and can gimp your character when you delay getting certain class abilities or certain powers are less relevant because they scale off of level.
For a first time character just stay the course. Get a big 2 handed weapon, fey foundling at 1st and then power attack and you’re set.

Are the players having fun murder hoboing? Are you having fun running a murder hobo game? If no is the answer to either question just have a talk with your players and get everyone on the same page. That’s where I’d start, talk about it, I think just taking away their powers isn’t going to solve the problems and would just make it worse.

I agree with mondragon. 12 con seems a bit low for a frontliner and will make it very challenging. I know you are making flavorful choices but being able to take the feat raging vitality for a bloodrager or barbarian really helps survivability, it requires 15 con btw.
For the cleric switch dex and wis. Clerics can be great at range, but that means making the entire focus of your build, since range combat has so many feats to be effective. Trying to add feats for dex for melee on top of range, just doesn’t work. You can do it but you’d be level 15 before it all comes together, clerics don’t get any bonus feats. There are other divine classes like inquisitor, and especially war priest who could be more effective at the combat styles you described, but at the cost of going to 6th level casting. Going off the flavor choices you selected it seems like you’d rather go more of a caster cleric, and hence both mondragon and myself suggesting switching dex and wis. Unless you’re fully committed to range combat it’s kind of diminishing returns. Having high dex might make level 1 easier but higher levels you’ll really miss the wis, especially if you plan to cast any spells that require a saving throw.
Anyway both characters sound good and like the flavor choices, have fun.

Not being optimized is fine, just think you’re spreading yourself thin and a little too focused on your backup plans. I’d work a little more on your primary focus. Do you want to swing a big weapon and kill stuff? I’d skip the two weapon fighting and non lethal stuff. if your main weapon is an earthbreaker power attack at 1 not 9, and just pick up Cornugon smash at 6. You could also take the bruising intellect trait, to get int to intimidate instead of cha and swap your charisma and wisdom starting scores for better will save and wis skills like perception ie stonecunning.
I agree with another poster’s recommendation for the dwarf only feat steel soul, which can really help a fighters big weakness. You can also add the glory of old racial trait for a total of +5 to saves against a lot of spells and spell like abilities.

Lune my comments weren’t directed at you, and actually agree that your hunter build is quite effective, hunters in general kick ass. There were other builds that had like 4 classes dips in rogue and urban rage dips, which first I think are overly complicated for first time player and second just don’t fit the concept. And agree you can flavor things how you want, I just thought what the op was describing was exactly what a cavalier is, and in pathfinder there’s always many different ways to achieve the same thing.
And yes perception is most rolled skill in the game, I was just pointing out that with 9 int the op would only have 3 skill ranks a level 2 of which are pretty much required ride/handle animal and if op wants to be a face and max out diplomacy there’s no room for anything else.

Saevus, looks good you’re pretty set at being a mounted knight at level 6 after getting the spirited charge feats and power attack. With your int at 9 your skills a level is down to 3, which means they’re pretty much spoken for with ride, handle animal and diplomacy. And with 14 dex and being small just have a sling or short bow to have a range option.
Order of the dragon can make for a really cool build, too, just a totally different style, more of the ultimate bodyguard.
And like you said earlier it can be a bit of a 1 trick pony, but like any character it’s what you make of it. You need to work with your group to have charge lanes, you have great mobility and can flank for a rogue. Before ride by attack if something survives your charge, the next round, it’s you and your wolf attacking who gets a free trip attempt whenever it hits. And it’s a little 3ft halfling on a wolf just wrecking stuff. You won’t always be able to charge, but oh boy when you do you’ll be able to one shot most level appropriate things.
I don’t know why people are recommending crazy complicated builds and other races, the damage is crazy and almost overkill and the to hit is pretty ridiculous on a charge as well. On most builds furious focus isn’t as big a deal, but once you power attack at 8th the penalty is -3 and since you are only doing 1 attack a round it’s more important. So I’d recommend it at 7th or 9th.
Equipment you want a ranged option, other types of damage besides piercing with your lance, and since you’re going power attack a big 2 handed weapon works better than a long sword go greatsword. Upgrade to fullplate when you can like around 3rd. Get a good cloak to keep your saves up. One cool option is rhino hide armor which adds an extra 2d6 damage on a charge, but is only medium armor and might not fit the knight concept.

So, we've settled on an Order of the Sword Gendarme, correct?

I prefer vanilla cavalier over gendarme, while fast tracking the feats is nice, eventually you have everything you need and the ones left are lackluster. I prefer keeping tactician especially when selecting escape route, allowing you and your mount to charge the big bad with no aoo.

I wouldn’t multiclass, especially for first character and all those dips, while maybe strong mechanically(which is debatable) don’t really fit the concept of halfling knight.
I’d go pure cavalier or paladin, and worship chaldira zuzaristan, a NG halfling god that’s all about charging into battle.
For cavalier stats I’d go str 14 dex 14 con 14 int 10 wis 12 cha 13, traits lessons of chaldira and either reactionary or maybe seeker to make perception a class skill. Take order of the sword.
Feats
1 mounted combat/ escape route
3 power attack
5 ride by attack
6 spirited charge
7 iron will
8 retrain one of the mounted chain and take risky striker
9 furious focus

At 2nd order of sword gets a +2 to one save, take will. With a +2 cloak at level 9 your will save is +11 (1 halfling luck, 1 wis, 2 by my honor, 2 iron will, 2 cloak, 3 class) and with lessons of chaldira you also get a once a day reroll on a save.
Even off your mount from power attack and risky striker you are getting +15 damage, against large or bigger opponents and anything you challenge you add your class level to damage as well another +9. I’d take power attack at 3rd which is big damage increase and helps if you’re ever off your mount. Without spirited charge you are still doing x2 damage on a lance charge.
You can easily switch up the stats a little and up charisma to be a face or if you go Paladin. And for feats for Paladin id go similar drop iron will and go furious focus or risky striker depending on situation, risky striker isn’t as good if your foes are medium or smaller

Builder a halfling charger is actually pretty good.

The lance is designed to be the best weapon for this, you just have to understand where the damage comes from. You're gonna want flat bonuses, so a paladin or a cavalier would be ideal. I would'nt worry too much over STR being the highest it could possibly be, so long as you get enough for Power Attack. Investing into a 14 would probably be the sweet spot.

Building for the lance can give you some of the best consistent damage in the game, but I would make sure you take a mount that is maneuverable. I would focus on the Spirited Charge chain for that sweet triple damage. Ultimately, you'll want one of these, as it saves you money from having to invest in your own STR, and you can instead focus on your mount's.

That lance is cool never saw that before, but why not both? You can add both your own str bonus and your animal companions. At 8th level order of the sword cavalier gets to add their mounts str bonus to damage on a charge.

Small-sized characters mounted on Medium-sized mounts are great! It mitigates the slow speed most Small-sized have, and they can still operate on 99% of dungeon crawls. There are even some exotic mounts that can provide some additional movement modes, such as climb, swim, fly, and even burrow (?)!

For high-level chargers, is Vital Strike worth taking after Power Attack, Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack, and Spirited Charge? How does it interact with lead blades?

Unfortunately vital strike does not work with a charge. There’s a way to make it work with a great sword if you worship gorum and use his divine fighting technique.

Dwarf with the racial trai hardy, the five kings mountains regional trait glory of old and steel soul= +5 to most saves. Combine that with Barbarian or vanilla Paladin or even the dwarf archetype stonelord.
Half elf/orc or human Barbarian with the superstitious rage powers and human fcb.

As mentioned cavalier or Paladin are great for this. Take the Halfling alternate racial trait outrider, and then the mounted charging feat tree: ride by attack, mounted combat, and spirited charge. You’ll be able to avoid 1 attack a round against your mount by making a ride check, continue moving on a charge after an attack to get out of full attack melee range, and most importantly x3 damage on a mounted lance charge.
The advantage of a small rider is your mount is medium, which allows you to ride most anywhere a party goes. Make sure your strength is at least 13 after the -2 racial modification for power attack. Any damage bonus you can get really adds up since it’ll be x3 on a charge.
For cavalier order of the sword is best for a charging lance build, but there might be something newer I’m overlooking. Cavalier also gets teamwork feats and grab escape route for no aoo on a charge.
Paladin is probably better overall just takes a little longer to come together.

I agree with the other responses that it’s a bad idea, and might not even have the effect you want. If you’re having a session 0, and you should, that’s the time to discuss what kind of game you want to run, and also make sure the players are on board. There’s plenty of ways to encourage more role playing.
And getting into crazy cinematic detail for all of combat can really slow down the game and limit other rp opportunities. If someone is going off on their attack on goblin 4 of 8 and doing 2 damage or something that would get old quick. But if it’s a long hard fought battle against a mini boss and there was great teamwork and they rally and maybe a pc hits for 10 damage and the big bad only had 11hp left and no minions left, fudge it a little and ask them how the killing blow landed. If they’re new, you can do the description the first time or two and edge them along.
Or if a pc has been doing some great rp there’s always loot to reward them, if they use a rapier and the loot lists a +1 longsword, switch it up. There’s so many ways to reward them, I don’t think telling them a mechanical benefit will help, I think it’d just get cheesy and abused. I think a little more subtle nudging in the right direction.

Hunter with a reach weapon and combat reflexes.
If you like rogue, slayer just does it better in the pathfinder system.
Bloodrager is a great frontliner and has some spell casting and bloodline powers that can give some versatility.
Warpriest is just a better battle cleric, 6th level casting with swift action buffs and as many feats as a fighter.
And druid, cleric and oracle all can make good melee builds with 9th level spell casting.

I question any character with 10 con, let alone a front liner. I would decide to go either strength or dex, not both it hurts your overall effectiveness. And I agree with avr the update really nerfed the archetype.

Halfling rogue is a classic and you can have fun, but I think pathfinder core has some serious design issues. All classes are not created equal and core rogue or monk are the worst of the bunch. As a core rogue you have the worse saves in the game, low bab and no class bonus to hit, no magic, average ac and hp, but you have sneak attack.
If you go rogue make sure you understand the sneak attack rules, cause it’s not always easy to get your character to use it and if you go dex based you need the damage boost. Another problem with halfling rogue is their lack of dark vision if you’re trying to stealth everywhere.
You can do it, but unfortunately the game’s design doesn’t make it easy.

I don’t think I’ve seen 18 character deaths in all my gaming let alone in one campaign 2 books in, that’s crazy.

You mention crazy damage with their fcb but it says: When raging, add +1/4 to the barbarian’s swarming trait’s flanking bonus on attack rolls. So that’s +1 to attack every 4 levels when raging and flanking using your racial trait swarming, which RAW is a very specific circumstance.
I like the concept of ratfolk barbarian, if you’re going to be playing with your friend all the time just both take outflank, and use a high crit range weapon to provoke aoo for your friend.

The answer to your question is yes. I never heard of that feat, seems pretty bad, you need to invest 10 skill ranks and a luck/panache point to sometimes get a +1 ac bonus vs 1 opponent for one round. The thing that makes party/riposte so good is the free counter, not only do you block their attack you get a free attack. I think there’s better feats, even dodge that’s +1 almost all the time vs everyone without all the prerequisites.

I think the printing out the Paladin’s code and going over it with your player is a great idea, and make sure you both agree on it and what will be fun.
You definitely should push your players to go longer with out resting. Your Paladin can smite in every combat and spell casters are full spells and everyone has full hp. You can up the consequences of their actions, or make the 2 encounters harder like maybe combining a future encounter. Also reward them for pushing on, and don’t be afraid to ease off if you have to. It’s not fun if the game is too easy and characters have no danger of dying.
If they have full resources for every encounter it really lowers the cr.

You’ll never be the big damage dealer but with your spell selection and parry and riposte you can be strong defensively. Remember with parry any increase in your attack bonus increase your defense. You have to be mindful of your swift action with using luck and your parry. I always thought of my character as a spell casting rogue with out sneak attack. Great skills, especially knowledge, perception, disable device and stealth, was a good scout/face and just always something to do in and out of combat. It’s a fun archetype.
Yeah I tended to go ranged early levels, or flank and aid another with my +4 from helpful.

I ran a similar character but with a halfling. I did a dip at level 3 into inspired blade swashbuckler for the dex to damage feats. The parry and riposte deed makes you hold your own in combat and with mirror image can be a bit of a tank. My stats we’re almost same I had 14 in int for the skills.
I think my feats were something like this:
1 additional traits (I had fates favored, vagabond child for disabled device, helpful, and lessons of chaldira)
3 fencing grace (finesse and weapon focus from swashbuckler)
5 lingering performance/ combat reflexes (with combat trick rogue talent)
7 bodyguard
9 lunge

Evangelist cleric with the heroism subdomain

What’s your strength modifier? -1 or -2? A 7th level full caster using a standard action to attack with a sling with most likely a -8 penalty for the very low chance of hitting and dealing 1d3-1 or -2 damage is just not a good tactical decision. A sling is great for most melee builds since its free and they can apply their strength modifier on ranged attacks, whereas a composite longbow is a few hundred gold. For a low level melee two hander a sling is a good ranged option. Most full spell casters go with whatever crossbow they are proficient with since the damage dice is higher d6 or d8 and no strength penalty like the sling, but after level 3 or so a caster probably won’t be using that crossbow much.

There's also the merciful scimitar trait which allows you to deal nonlethal damage at no penalty, which works with the dervish panache as well. Add the enforcer feat, which allows a free action intimidate whenever dealing nonlethal and adds shaken equal to points of damage done, and adds frightened for 1 round on a critical.
Also dazzling display since you already have weapon focus as well.
Power attack is probably most optimized but doesn't seem to fit the concept as much for me and is kind of boring might as well be playing a max str with big two handed build.

After looking at the archetype again and your character concept, I'd think about improving her intimidate. I think there's some nice synergy between the dervish modified panache and the 3rd level deed menacing swordplay, which allows for a swift intimidate. She doesn't regain panache from a killing blow but instead from getting opponents to surrender. I think it would make sense to make her better at intimidate with skill focus.

Besides the improving your will save feats that every swashbuckler needs, combat reflexes and lunge combined with swordmasters flair-blue scarf.

Yeah you won't even be able to use quicken spell for a few levels, it's a great feat but later. Also arcane trickster gets a limited use of silent spell as a class feature, so I'd skip that too. If you're going admixture are you looking at a blaster build? I would read up on blaster builds and in particular the meta magic feat progression. A good level 5 feat would be spell focus evocation to start you on that path.

I like the brawler dip, and overall concept. I'd be a little worried about the will save.
I feel like I heard of a bastard named John somewhere

The first part of the pirate module plunder and peril has a chase mechanic in it. It's a race but should be easily adapted to what you're doing.

Daw wrote:

It sounds like you are going to have the Ratfolk swarming out of their nice safe warrens where they have all the advantages. Why?

Well, in this particular case, the PC's have done some things to warrant a VERY high interest with one of the big bads. Who more or less has a bounty on them now. So these ratfolk are more mercenaries/assassins for coin. It was going to be a different, more normal encounter with a mix of humans and whatnot, but as stated, I recently got Blood of the beast, and saw all those swarming feats that I wanted to experiment with a bit.

Though I suppose a lure MIGHT work to get them into a warren, It's more likely they are just going to run and run to a more safe area.

Yeah sounds like a great idea and a lot of fun/deadly

The ratfolk witch fcb is great too extends the range of their hexes.

Definitely need a rogue in there, with swarming they're considered to be flanking

You could look at the cleric evangelist archetype, combined with the heroism subdomain and you can be putting out some serious buffs and 9th level divine casting.

I agree with the previously mentioned archaeologist bard. It's basically a rogue that trades sneak attack for 6th level casting and a luck pool. It's a really fun archetype, I played a halfling one in hells rebels game. I dipped a level in inspired blade swashbuckler for dex to damage and parry/riposte. Made for a very survivable character and always had something to contribute with high knowledge skills, disable device, stealth, and the bard spell casting is great for beginners.