So next week me and my group will be starting a campaign and it's the first time that I actually play Pathfinder or any other d20, unless you count CRPGs like NWN 1 and 2 (which I don't), and I would be really grateful if I could get some help and pointers on my build.
The build I have gone for is a THW Half-Orc Paladin, and I know that neither THW nor Half-Orcs are optimal choices but I really like Half-Orcs and I didn't feel like being an archer or a tank.
Everyone else in my group managed to roll insane ability scores, I counted the one who got the "worst" rolls to be worth 28 points, and since my rolls were horribad our GM gave me a 25 point buy instead.
I went for:
STR 16
DEX 10
CON 14
INT 12
WIS 8
CHA 18(with the racial +2)
I took Power Attack as my feat and for my traits I went with Hunter's Blood (picked survival a class skill) and Strength of the Sun. Not if those are actually any good but they seem ok and the RP stuff is pretty cool.
Skill Point wise I went with Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Survival and Knowledge (Religion) (used my favoured class bonus for an extra skill point).
I've sort of envisioned her being very anti undead and her family's had some big-shot undead slayers so I was considering taking the Undead Scourge archetype. I'm just not sure losing the immunity to charm is worth it, to me it seems like a pretty big thing to give up (also don't vampires have a bunch of charm spells and spell-like abilities?).
Any kind of pointers or input would be awesome, especially any advice you can give me on the whole Undead Scourge thing.
Wellcome.
My personal opinion is, first and foremost, that I love that you go by the rule of cool. Now, my honest opinion is that I would lower int and raise wis. Yes, you have only 2 skillpoints as an h-orc paladin, but your strength is in your abilities not your skills. I would also change str and cha as I am of opinion that every bit of hit is good. But if you want to be a bit more charming and have better safes later that´s awesome too.
Hunter´s blood is a great trait and strenght of the sun is just not good imho. But you go by rule of cool and that trumps the idea of every little bit of maxing. I like the idea of undead scourge by the way.... but you put your money on one stick. You feel stupid if it´s not an undead heavy campaign. Otherwise coool!
Just my opinion
THW is not suboptimal. A BFS is actually quite effective. That said, you will want more STR to take advantage of that THW; being such I would recommend switching CHA and STR around.
In fact, I would actually recommend something like:
STR 18
DEX 12
CON 14
INT 13
WIS 7
CHA 15
With your stat bumps all going towards CHA. Less WIS is required because you already have good will saves and you have Divine Grace. If you really want more WIS, you can drop DEX back down.
INT 13 gives access to Unsanctioned Knowledge and those extra skill points are very useful to you considering you aren't human.
Being a Half-Orc, I would actually recommend an Intimidate build which would mean look at the feats Furious Focus and Cornugon Smash followed up by Dreadful Carnage later on. Demoralize is a very strong option because it acts as an AoE buff that isn't magical.
When it comes to traits, Extremely Fashionable let's you get a +1 on both Diplomacy and Intimidate, and it let's you get Intimidate as a class skill. I wouldn't bother with Survival because you don't have a lot of skill ranks to play with. Focus on Intimidate, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, and if you wanna spend your Favored Class this way, I would spread the last skill rank around making sure you have something in all of your class skills including the important ones like Spellcraft and Knowledges.
Undead Scourge is only useful in an Undead Heavy Campaign. If there isn't a lot of undead, most people will tell you to just run Oath of Vengeance so you can smite all the things.
I'd recommend straight paladin or oath of vengeance. Mechanically I like marshmallow's ability scores although if you decide not to dump wis so much I'd recommend dropping to 12 con. Considering you have lay on hands this perfectly safe to do.
There's also an argument that UMD is better than unsanctioned knowledge. Paladins don't get many spells per day and the paladin spell list is pretty awesome anyway especially if you're oath of vengeance.
I'd recommend straight paladin or oath of vengeance. Mechanically I like marshmallow's ability scores although if you decide not to dump wis so much I'd recommend dropping to 12 con. Considering you have lay on hands this perfectly safe to do.
There's also an argument that UMD is better than unsanctioned knowledge. Paladins don't get many spells per day and the paladin spell list is pretty awesome anyway especially if you're oath of vengeance.
Dimension Door opens up the Dimensional Savant feat chain later on which I like.
Another thing to look at is the Sacred Tattoo which takes away your Ferocity and picking up the Fate's Favored trait which gives another +2 on your saves, and improves your Divine Favor spell and (should you pick it up later with Unsanctioned Knowledge) Divine Power.
Big thing about Unsanctioned Knowledge is picking up Haste because Haste. The reality is that it is a very good buff and you can cast it so your wizard/bard can cast something else.
Hospitaler lets you clear undead with better channeling that has utility even when not facing undead.
You want to smite undead not tickle them :)
Thanks for all the responses, it's really helpful. I got some more things to consider now. Not sure about dumping my wis to 7 though, I think the campaign will be pretty RP heavy and my GM will probably expect me to roleplay that WIS 7 to justify that much dumping.
It can be fun to play a 7 wisdom - always leap before you look.
And who doesn't like a good tickle once in a while...
I'd recommend straight paladin or oath of vengeance. Mechanically I like marshmallow's ability scores although if you decide not to dump wis so much I'd recommend dropping to 12 con. Considering you have lay on hands this perfectly safe to do.
There's also an argument that UMD is better than unsanctioned knowledge. Paladins don't get many spells per day and the paladin spell list is pretty awesome anyway especially if you're oath of vengeance.
I gotta ask, what is "UMD"? Remember I'm sort of a newbie here so I don't know all the abbreviations and stuff yet.
Also, I think I'll probably stay away from Unsanctioned Knowledge mainly because I find dealing with the paladin spell list as it is to be overwhelming enough so I'mma try to get the hang of that one before I go into anything more advanced.
As for the intimidate related feats that marshmallow mentioned... I think they're kind of cool, and they're probably really good but they do kind of clash a lot RP-wise with how I've imagined my character (and also how I've described her to my GM, not sure he'd like me changing stuff at the last minute). I have however started giving some thought to maybe skipping survival and picking intimidate up as a skill, though I'm not a huge fan of the Extremely Fashionable trait.
In terms of future feat picks the ones I've looked at a bit are the cleave line and I've also considered getting the surprise follow-through feats though I'm not sure how useful they actually are.
Edit: Wow, I just looked at the Sacred Tattoo/Fate's Favoured combo and I'm really tempted to go for it. The only thing I don't like about it is losing Orc Ferocity and thus losing the ability to LoH myself while on the brink of death... Hmm...
UMD = Use Magical Device. It's the skill that lets you activate wands, scrolls, and basically trick any magical item into working for you. Very powerful, but usually requires a reasonable investment into in order to make it worthwhile.
Fey Foundling looks good but sadly it doesn't work at all with the backstory I've already handed in to my GM.
The more I think about it though, the more I like the Sacred Tattoo+Fate's Favoured thing. Not only does it give me even better saves (which I love for some reason, no idea why... the idea of having totally insane saves just makes me giddy) but it also means my character has a tattoo, which I think could be kinda cool.
I've took what y'all have said about ability scores into account and I switched them around a bit. I'm still pretty much adamant about starting with CHA 18 (because saves and stuff) and I'm still not sure if I'm comfortable dropping my wis to 7 so this is what I was thinking now:
STR 17
DEX 10
CON 12
INT 12
WIS 8
CHA 18(with the racial)
Thoughts?
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I like the stats.
Btw, if you are okay with a level dip into Oracle, one of the nature revelations allows you to add Cha to AC and CMD. The Lore version is AC and Reflex, but as I understand it, that does not result in Cha being added twice. Since the curses improve with non Oracle levels, you can pick up some interesting abilities like immunity to fatigue.
As I have never played a paladin my comments may not be relievant, but I agree with the choice of charisma as a high stat, the fates favored trait is good even without the sacred tattoo, as later you can get a custom item crafted to add it to hit and AC and such (or just a luckstone, but it's benefits aren't great compared to a custom one)
I think this link will work , this is where you find the cost for custom items, but always ask the DM about it ahead of time
http://paizo.com/prd/magicItems/magicItemCreation.html
If your worried about combat effectiveness, the intimidate line takes a lot of feats, but is a awesome debuff
Another issue with the intimidate line is that quite a few enemies will be immune to fear (namely undead, BBEGs, constructs, plants, eat.)
BUT it does work v.s demons
In my last game my bard was using the fear based song to chase around the lower ranking demons while the rest of the party handled the pit fiends and such coming out of the gate
Hmm. Ok, thanks. That Oracle thing sounds like it'd be insanely good, I'll think about it. Not sure though I'd probably do it after gaining a few levels so I get the hang of things before throwing myself into multi-classing.
Another question, if I were to not use my favoured class bonus on skill points what would be recommended? Just going for the HP? Or should I take either of the Half-Orc or Human options?
I think if you don't need the skill points, then HP are a good choice for a class that can heal themselves has a swift action.
Be careful of those oracle revelations - at least one of them (if not both) are limited by your max dex on your armor. Meaning if you're planning on getting plate they won't help you anymore. I think they're great, but for lightly armored character and/or those with the armor training ability. Depends on what you want to do.
While totally legal, an oracle dip will set some GMs power gamer detector off. Especially if you also take noble scion of war to get dex to initiative.