Path to a Hellknight and Chellish Cavalier Ordes

[Baron Ulfhamr]

So I am thinking of creating a hellknight, noting I can join at character level 6. The two most logical classes to take for 1-5 I see as fighter or cavalier (paladin would be ideal, but I plan to roll him Lawful Neutral). That said, what cavalier in your opinion orders best fit the Cheliax motif? (I'm not 100% sold on the cavalier, so alternate build ideas are welcome). Thanks!

[Belryan]

Since you won't get enough levels of Cavalier to get the Level 8 order ability.

If you plan to not dump Charisma, Order of the Cockatrice might be a good fit. You get Dazzling Display as a standard action through speech, which you could flavour as a Chelaxian law enforcing Hellknight type.

Order of the Dragon increases your Aid Another actions.

Order of the Sword gives you a +2 to one saving throw.

If you plan to make use of the mount, I suggest taking the Horse Master feat from UC if you can use it as a source, which will keep your mount scaled with your character level. Also I strongly suggest going with a small race if you plan to be mounted as much as possible.

[KainPen]

Dazzling Display is a bad choice even as a standard action. When you can just use Cornugon smash and do it demoralize with every hit and do damage.

Combine it with dreadful-carnage and you have the exact same effect as dazzling display. only more effect because you never stop doing damage.

if you do intimidate build do fighter because you can use all the extra feats. to get the most out of intimidate. You almost need to specialize in it for it to even work. Almost everyone end up taking power attack so Dreadful-carnage is the logical choice if you want to intimidate.

but if you want to go Cavalier Order of the Sword as Belryan suggested and focus on mount feats. The whole point of Caviler is to be a mounted knight/Leader. IF your not really interested in being mounted just go fighter you can then customize your hell knight better.

you also want to make sure your GM will let you complete your hell knight quest before level 5, or just get rid of that requirement for the PrC with the recent FAQ you can't retrain base class into hell knight levels so if you are planing to try and get all 10 levels in hell knight check with GM. Double check GM rulings on hell knight before hand, the PrC need a heavy Errata but I doubt it will ever come. The TXT and level up table for the class contradict each other in terms of hell knight armor movement ability and some of the ability just have really crappy and confusing wording in the discipline section.

Last thing you want is your GM to rule one way a in the middle of a game when you are expect it be another way. So get these ruling a head of time. I am playing one now and had to do all this before hand.