The primary problem isn't healing. Anyone who can use a wand of CLW can facilitate healing. You've got a ranger and a ninja (with UMD) that can do so. A paladin would be able to, as well.
The biggest thing to worry about is condition removal. Paladins are fairly good at this once they get their mid to high level mercies.
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Hospitaller is one of the top three healers in the game (arguably, but I strongly believe they are neck and neck with Life Oracle for #1). I strongly suggest taking the Fey Foundling feat from the Inner Sea World Guide as your first feat. The dice rolling from LoH and channel makes it a huge boost.
Stat Priority: Charisma>Con>Str>Int=Dex>Wis
Feats: Fey Foundling, Greater Mercy, Selective channel, the rest gets much more flexible. Extra channel/LoH is always useful. Power Attack if you have the Str will make you hit significantly hard when not smiting. Ultimate mercy, extra mercy, a few others. Quick Channel is quite handy.
Scrolls of shield other are your friend. Or ring if you can afford. The hospitaller focuses on the ability to be able to heal himself 3 times in a round, and AoE heal twice, and shield other allows him to spread the damage a ton, and with fey foundling you heal more, so damage on you is actually less than damage on allies, if you think about it the right way.
Bracers of the merciful knight are basically a requirement, and either headband of charisma or phylas terry of positive channel (most say headband, if your GM allows crafting and adding properties, add that phylas terry when you can!)
On top of all this you're a front liner in full plate with a weapon and amazing saves and smite,
Lay on Hands as a swift action when used to heal yourself is what you use to keep yourself in the fight. Using LoH on your teammates is a standard action and not the best use of your time in battle.
That's not to say that you can't be the primary healer, my Paladin has been so many times, but do it with wands out of combat.
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You don't use LoH to heal your allies. Hospitaller gets channel positive exclusive from LoH at 4th
While the channel is a bit weaker than a full cleric or oracle, the hospitallers amazing self healing and higher hit points makes a shield other strategy effect, such that his weaker channels will still fully heal allies, and while he take store damage, he can heal it all off himself.
Feats/traits: I strongly suggest Fey Foundling and blessed touch(trait from chaions of purity, adds +1 to all your heals pretty much, including channel)
Yup. Like others already said.
They are great healers in combat because of swift action lay on hands (self-only but if they tank and soak damage this still spares damage to others who would be harder to heal in terms of action economy. Better yet, use shield other to soak damage and heal yourself as a swift.)
They get condition removal and lesser restoration too.
Great healers.
Hospitaler Paladin works best with low enough AC to encourage/trick the GM into attacking you. A two-hander does that, since you won't have a shield. But - don't ingore your AC. You want to be hit enough that the GM isn't discouraged from attacking you but not so much that you drop in one turn. You use your LoH to keep yourself healed, and on turns you don't burn your immediate action - you have your saftey net spell Heroic Defiance ready.
Fey Founding is indeed the foundation Feat for any Paladin build. And - even though you're a healer/Paladin, you still need to destroy the bad guys, so take Power Attack. Pass on Furious Focus.
They get condition removal and lesser restoration too.
Great healers.
they gain access to lesser restoration at around the same level as clerics, and they aren't expected to as much with their magic. Just grab a wand of Cure Light Wounds, and maybe use up any remaining lay on hands at the end of the day to help reduce CLW wand usage, and you would be ok (probably not great, but ok)
I play a Paladin4/Bard7 is based off very high Charisma and Oath of Vengeance, and I think he's great fun and decent at healing. If you really want to maximize your capabilities as the party healer I guess that giving up Channel Energy might not be the best thing though. A single classed Paladin with a Phylactery of Positive Channeling, the Selective Channel feat, and maybe Extra Channel could probably be a pretty effective in combat healer. The Greater Mercy feat boosts your Lay on Hands by +1d6, which can be nice. Ultimate Mercy basically lets you use Raise Dead for free, which could be nice in a part without a Cleric. Bracers of the Merciful Knight let you count as 4 levels higher for LoH (2 extra uses per day and +2d6 healing per use)
One thing to be careful about is that you shouldn't let the party suck up your spells and LoH uses for out of combat healing. I'd suggest instituting a Wand Tax so the party can keep itself well stocked with wands of CLW and CMW. You should also encourage the Ninja to join the Monk in taking UMD since more PCs using wands means faster healing between combat. The Ranger will already be able to use Cure wands. If you're really into teamwork maybe somebody could look at setting themselves up to get a pet (familiar or eidolon) which can use wands. Getting CMW from a wand on top of Lay on Hands or Channel Energy might be enough to make up for your lack of big healing spells at higher levels.
A level 9 Tiefling Paladin with Fey Foundling, Extra Mercy, and Bracers of the Merciful Knight using LoH will self heal on average for 47.5 healing* or 53 healing if Hero's Defiance's was used.
If the Paladin is a Hospitaler with the Magical Knack trait then he can channel Channel Positive Energy as a cleric of Paladin level - 1 using a separate resource from LoH. At level 9 with Fey Foundling this will self heal for 22 hp on average. Using all his actions, he could self heal for 117 hp in one round.
That said, if you need to heal that much at level 9, something is badly wrong. Ideally you should be full attacking and using LoH to keep your self up while you maintain Shield Other on a couple of team mates. Occasional use of quick channel is IMO useful (e.g. you 1 shot a mook and there's no enemy adjacent) although more situational.
* Math: (3.5 average d6 roll + 2 from Fey Foundling)*(4 from level 9 + 2 from bracers + 1 greater mercy) + 9 Favored Class = 47.5
** Math: (3.5 average d6 roll + 2 from Fey Foundling)*(4 for channeling as a level 8 cleric) = 22
Consider a halfling paladin with the Divine Hunter archetype (which sadly doesn't mix with hospitaler). Your archery is crazy damage output at range - don't let the enemies get near your teammates in the first place. Distant mercy to heal them at range and the favored class bonus to boost your LoH.
One thing, why go Divine Hunter when there's Oath of Vengeance?
If the Paladin is a Hospitaler with the Magical Knack trait then he can channel Channel Positive Energy as a cleric of Paladin level - 1 using a separate resource from LoH.
I didn't know that. Hero lab doesn't give that to me. Hmmmm. And - I'm not sure that's how it reads. Look again?
I like the Tiefling Oath of Vengence Paladin. Great "self" healer. Everyone else is on their own. :P
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Paladin make pretty solid healers, their biggest downside is limited access to curing conditions. You'll want to pick your Mercies very carefully if you're going to be the one putting the pieces of the party back together. Saving Shield is a smart feat line, damage prevented can often be better "healing" than damage healed after the fact.
Hospitaller is one of the top three healers in the game (arguably, but I strongly believe they are neck and neck with Life Oracle for #1). I strongly suggest taking the Fey Foundling feat from the Inner Sea World Guide as your first feat. The dice rolling from LoH and channel makes it a huge boost.
Stat Priority: Charisma>Con>Str>Int=Dex>Wis
Feats: Fey Foundling, Greater Mercy, Selective channel, the rest gets much more flexible. Extra channel/LoH is always useful. Power Attack if you have the Str will make you hit significantly hard when not smiting. Ultimate mercy, extra mercy, a few others. Quick Channel is quite handy.Scrolls of shield other are your friend. Or ring if you can afford. The hospitaller focuses on the ability to be able to heal himself 3 times in a round, and AoE heal twice, and shield other allows him to spread the damage a ton, and with fey foundling you heal more, so damage on you is actually less than damage on allies, if you think about it the right way.
Bracers of the merciful knight are basically a requirement, and either headband of charisma or phylas terry of positive channel (most say headband, if your GM allows crafting and adding properties, add that phylas terry when you can!)
On top of all this you're a front liner in full plate with a weapon and amazing saves and smite,
In terms of raw healing effectiveness in and out of combat.
1. Life Oracle and Healing Domain cleric are pretty close.2. Hospitaler Paladin and Normal Positive Domain Caster Cleric
3. Battle Cleric.
The Hospitaler's not the best healer out there, but they are a much better switch hitter option for someone who wants to be able to swap between healing and combat.
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I'm playing a Paladin as our party's main healer.
I looked at Hospitaler, but really didn't think the lower healing dice was worth the extra pool.
I started out with Str 14 Dex 14, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 8 Cha 18 (human), and took Fey Foundling, Power Attack and Devestating Shot (extra feat as a gift from the DM for taking some penalties), and decided to be a very simple switch hitter (ranged or melee). When not smiting, she is a very average combatant. But since everything is going into Charisma, smiting is pretty impressive.
I took Greater Mercy (we have a barbarian, so the fatigue mercy was a no brainer!), and plan to mostly take Extra Mercy.
A question on Channeled Revival: Have there been any updates on it? As is, if your ally is more than a 5 ft. step from you, it's useless to bring them back from death, correct?
Altho condition removal is critical, along with Restoration, in-combat healing is indeed critical in many campaigns. Not to mention, a scrupulous DM might keep track of wands, etc for WBL, and you might find it costs you a lot of cool magic to always be pouring the parties funds down the rathole of CLW wands.
Fey Founding may not be allowed in all campaigns, and costs a feat. Sandpoint faithful is half as good but only costs a trait.
I am not sure Magical Knack works like you think it does.
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I think you guys aren't giving Sacred Servant its due. Hospitaler has it beat in shear number of channels and LoHs, but the separate pool of channels can be as much of a hindrance as a help. You have to consider quality over quantity.
For example, lets consider a level 12 PFS Paladin with 22 Cha. For feats we will take Extra LoH and Extra Channel*. We will have a phylactery and bracers too.
* I would say that Extra Channel does nothing for a Hospitaler, since they do not convert LoH uses to channels. This is reflected below.
Hospitaler: LoH - 16 uses @ 8d6, Channel - 9 uses @ 7d6
Sacred Servant: LoH - 16 uses @ 8d6, Channel - 2 uses @ 8d6 (from Extra Channel)
That's not looking like any contest, I will admit. But Sacred Servant also gets Divine Bond, which at 12th level can be used twice a day to give either 3 extra uses of LoH, 3d6 additional healing per channel, or some combination of the two.
For the purposes of comparison, we will assume that channels affect two party members, and we will assume that the sacred servant opts to take the extra 3d6 healing on channels and uses his LoH to channel.
Hospitaler: 16x8x3.5 + 9x7x3.5x2 = 448 + 441 = 889 avg healing
Sacred Servant: 10x(8+3)x3.5x2 = 770 avg healing
Probably closer than you thought, but a clear advantage to the hospitaler still, right? But I am sure you thought that hitting only 2 people with a channel seemed kind of low before. Let's say you hit 3 people with your channels and redo the math.
Hospitaler: 16x8x3.5 + 9x7x3.5x3 = 448 + 661.5 = 1109.5 avg healing
Sacred Servant: 10x(8+3)x3.5x3 = 1155 avg healing
If you hit 4 or 5 people, the gap really starts to widen. However, it's not realistic to assume all LoH uses will go to channels since some will be needed to heal the Paladin himself. I don't think I can prove that one is better than the other all of the time, but I hope that I showed that the healing gap between the two isn't that wide, and can be in the favor of the Sacred Servant in some situations.
Since I should at least have you considering this archetype now, we should move on to its other abilities. It gets a domain which can be used for Healing for even more...healing. It could be used for Protection to free up your neck slot and get an extra casting of Shield Other. Or you could pick up a utility domain like Travel. It also gets to summon a Celestial entity that can be very useful for extra combat support and SLAs like the Hound Archon's at-will Aid.
Hospitaler is not the only healing Paladin Archetype.
One thing, why go Divine Hunter when there's Oath of Vengeance?
Distant mercy, for when in-combat heals are necessary, you don't have to close to melee range.