Our current story-line is coming to a close and for my next character I want to play a paladin. Having never played one and being the person I am I proceeded to read as much as I could about the class and its abilities
So I read a few of the guides in the "Guide to the Class Guides" thread and they all seemed to say that Lay on Hands is basically a waste if you use it on anyone but yourself and that you should only take mercies for things that you aren't or will soon be immune too. And that channel energy was basically never to be used
I had this idea to play the Hospitaler Archetype which basically halves the amount of uses of Smite Evil you get but adds Channel Energy as its own class feat (instead of burning up Smite Evil uses).
Also in the guides they advocated archer paladins or two-handed paladins. Where as I was going to go the route of full-plate + tower shield.
Would this just wreck my char and make him a nonviable character as the guides seem to insinuate?
Viable and optimized are completely different things. Your character sounds unique and interesting, and provided you dont go out of your way to kneecap yourself you should do fine, even if you arent pumping out damage like its going out of style.
Some useful items for you might be the bracers of the merciful knight and the magical knack ability to reduce your paladin CL penalty.
Pathfinder sets up perfectly for a Hospitaler build. You only need to smite the boss...usually. And for this you get a separate channel pool from your LoH pool. If you find a FEAT spot for quick channel, you can channel as a move action and LoH as a swift...then attack! How cool is that?
As to shield...meh - you totally don't need it on a hospitaler...but that's your decision. You'll already be really hard to kill as it is.
...just remember to make Fey Founding your first level feat!
Alright thanks for the advice! Right now my two first level feats (playing a human with the +2 in CHA) are Weapon Focus (bastard sword) and Tower Shield prof.
He's a paladin of Ragathiel and our house rule is any divine anything gets proficiency with the deities favored weapon. Or could I do something better that's more in keeping with the "healer of the land" type flavor I'm going with?
Grab a reach weapon and be the rally point on the battlefield. Your survivability is top notch, so you can take a low Con and grab some Sec to use with combat reflexes. Get your casters and archers to stand behind you with your fight beside and let everything impale itself on your spear, while you chant hymns to your god.
Or just hack things apart with your bastard sword and enjoy the cover bonuses of the tower shield. Other than the crippling lack of skill points its hard to make a paladin suck.
For stats, I like
Str > Cha > Dex = Con = Int > Wis
Your class skills blow mostly, I suppose you can grab diplomacy and Knowledge (Religion)