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Drop cleave it is a trap trust me. Other than that it looks goo to me. A decent feat to consider for what u want might be Shield Focus for an extra ac point.
Also since u probably have not considered it what do u think about two-weapon paladin. There is an enchant called defending that u could put on one of ur weapons that converts it enhancement points to AC. So u could convert the +5 offense on the weapon to defense once u get it later on. Going this wrought though could b very feat intensive but smiting with 2 weapons would be awesome.
TWF is bad, full round attacks to get your full benefit of a feat is also a trap, since you will usually need to move first in order to get in melee range.
Cleave is only terrible because it requires that both of the enemies need to be adjacent to each other as well as adjacent to you. If your GM lets you house-rule it to both enemies just need to be adjacent to you (and not each other), Cleave would work anytime you're next to two enemies (even if you need to move to get there first). That's how it's been house-ruled in the games I've played, since it's a terrible feat otherwise.
Furious Focus is a great feat for power attack, since you don't take the Power Attack penalty to hit on your first attack roll for each round you use Power Attack.
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For you I would recommend the elven curveblade as your primary weapon. Replace Cleave with Furious Focus. Don't put any enhancements on your weapon other than flat attack and damage bonuses except for keen. When you can afford it it, Mithral breastplate armour is good for you. Get a composite bow as your second weapon.
I agree with the others on all accounts. Cleave is good at low levels and sucks at higher levels. Cleave should only be taken by fighters who have the ability to retrain their combat feats in my opinion. I also agree that TWF isn't the way to go with a paladin, I'd go with the Elven Curve blade as well and then you Power Attack w/ Furious Focus and get no negatives to hit with your first attack as well as 1.5x strength damage when you hit.
Basically you want to hit hard enough that the enemies will concentrate on you (power attacking/smiting/high crit weapon), have the ability to shrug off the damage (high AC - mithril plate), and the ability to take the damage they dish out (lay on hands).
Unsanctioned Knowledge is a staple feat at lvl 5 or 7, there are a ton of good options to choose from, for beginning players you're best options are Wrath, Blur, Haste, and Divine Power
i also agree that cleave isnt that great, i feel furious focus is better on later in levels
elven curve blade makes for some nice flavor, and has a decent crit range
if you really wanna keep tanking, toughness or extra lay on hands will do nicely for added HP, both are good choices to swap out cleave for
by the time you are lvl 5, you should have a +1 weapon, and you can use your divine bond to make your weapon keen allowing you to deal a lot more damage sooner than if you were to invest in a keen weapon, and it saves from from having to take imporved critical until later when you have more options with divine bond
full plate is your best armor because of the 12 DEX
critical focus and strike back are great feats at lvl 9 and 11
furious focus becomes better at lvl 13
personally i would not invest too much into archery since you dont have a lot of room for the feats to really be effective, you can pick up deadly aim or point blank shot, but you will never be as good as a full blown archer paladin, especially with only a 12 DEX
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I would skip Furious Focus, with your high Str and BAB you will be hitting on your first attack almost every time even with the Power Attack penalty (not to mention while using smite). Paladins are really lucky in that their abilities are fully independent from their feats so take anything you want. Maybe Weapon Focus, or shield focus as above. There are several LoH feats that you can look at. Or take a Combat Maneuver feat like Bull Rush or Overrun.
furious focus becomes better at lvl 13
A CR 13 monster should have an AC of about 28. A Paladin with starting with 18 STR at 1 should be at about 24 with items and a +3 or better weapon. That means his attack bonus is BAB 13+ STR 7+ Weapon 3-PA 4= 19 to hit. That means he is hitting on a 9 or higher. Weapon Focus isn't unreasonable, meaning he hits on a roll of 8. A +3 keen longsword costs 32k gp, but a paladin with appropriate WBL has 140k in gear. So it's more likely he could affort a +4 or even +5 weapon. If he's Smiting he'll be getting another +5 or more on top of that.
He only has 7 feats by level 13 and he's starting to get access to really nice crit feats etc. Skip Furious Focus, you don't need it.
Needing a 9 or higher to hit is terrible at level 13. in the example jb 200 used above, NOT taking the penalty from Power Attack on the first swing means you would hit on a 5 or higher. So instead of missing 40% of the time on the 1st swing, you would only be missing 20% of the time on the first swing.
Furious Focus is fantastic. Every time your Power Attack -hit/+damage changes due to your BAB, your percentage to hit on your first attack each round increases by 5% compared to identical builds that didn't chose Furious Focus.
I have to agree about Furious Focus being a must have. It's also a vast improvement on your first strike. Further, it allows you to actually gain positive benefit from Power Attack. Believe it or not, with the static bonus from Smite Evil, you can sometimes lose more than you gain from Power Attack.
its also not good to assume that you will have any items, especially +6 items at lvl 13, most gms ive played with refuse to let us have nice things unless we make them ourselves, then we always have to be on the look out for rogues that steal our stuff
we quit one of his campaigns because he stole all the party's gp, and our "community pot" and then put us in a situation where if we dont kill the BBEG we die, but if we do kill him, all our stuff gets turn to stone, and cannot be reversed
i dont play with that gm anymore
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its also not good to assume that you will have any items, especially +6 items at lvl 13, most gms ive played with refuse to let us have nice things unless we make them ourselves, then we always have to be on the look out for rogues that steal our stuff
we quit one of his campaigns because he stole all the party's gp, and our "community pot" and then put us in a situation where if we dont kill the BBEG we die, but if we do kill him, all our stuff gets turn to stone, and cannot be reversed
i dont play with that gm anymore
I wonder did this DM also kill off all ur horses as well. I played with a DM like this and we ended up started naming our horses Rations, Water Skin, Beef jerky, ext. The people i know that use to play with this guy dont play with him any more and we all have gone through the troubles of telling his players and DMs of what he has done when ever we get whiff of him. Havent heard of him in a long time so i think he does not play any more and if he does it is nowhere near me.
I wonder did this DM also kill off all ur horses as well. I played with a DM like this and we ended up started naming our horses Rations, Water Skin, Beef jerky, ext. The people i know that use to play with this guy dont play with him any more and we all have gone through the troubles of telling his players and DMs of what he has done when ever we get whiff of him. Havent heard of him in a long time so i think he does not play any more and if he does it is nowhere near me.its also not good to assume that you will have any items, especially +6 items at lvl 13, most gms ive played with refuse to let us have nice things unless we make them ourselves, then we always have to be on the look out for rogues that steal our stuff
we quit one of his campaigns because he stole all the party's gp, and our "community pot" and then put us in a situation where if we dont kill the BBEG we die, but if we do kill him, all our stuff gets turn to stone, and cannot be reversed
i dont play with that gm anymore
its my cousin and i highly doubt its the same guy
he has a very harsh view on Dming and he told me "if your guys arent constantly scared of getting their stuff stolen, you're a bad DM" which i disagree with, i feel it takes away from the campaign and puts too much focus on gear and wealth, rather than the story and characters
he also was way too worried about balance issues, but was very bad at controlling balance
he was our main GM, but now that ive played in other groups with different ideas on gaming its insane to think of what i used to put up with at the old table, it was unthinkable to play my paladin characters in the past because of all the stupid chaotic evil crap the other guys used to pull, i was constantly having issues with alignment and meshing well with the party
i find groups that focus on CN selfish jerk characters are often the least fun to play with, but im ranting about play style now
back on track, Weapon Focus is an okay choice, assuming he is going to stick to one weapon, but the nice thing about being a paladin and having that divine bond is that he can invest in better armor, or more magic gear and he can just boost whatever weapon he's carrying
switching from a greatsword to an earthbreaker depending on what kind of enemy you are fighting can be quite useful, and furious focus boosts the first attack with any weapon
you also cant argue that getting +5 to attack from a feat is nothing to sneeze at, especially on the first (and most important) attack that is at full BAB
i dont know about you, but i want to be able to hit on a 2, guaranteed