I had fun playing a human paladin.
I went sword and shield and full plate once I could afford it.
I DID go super-healing, so I wasn't as focused on causing damage.
For traits, I took Magical Knack (paladin) and a campaign-specific one that gave me a +1 to hit with longswords. Basically Weapon Focus!
For feats:
1. Fey Foundling
1. (Bonus Human) Power Attack
3. Extra Lay on Hands
5. Mystic Healer (3pp feat that has a scaling boost to healing).
We did 15 point buy, so I think I was 14, 13, 12, 10, 10, 16 (includes +2 human). You could probably do 16, 14, 14, 10, 10, 16.
I also once did a half-elf paladin that went 2-weapon style with warhammer and shield. It was pretty feat intensive and required me to put all my ability boosts into Dex for the 2-weapon feats. I took the trait that makes Intimidate a class skill, Skill Focus Intimidate, took Bludgeoner (lets you do non-lethal with bludgeoning weapons with no penalty) and Enforcer (free Intimidate check when you cause non-lethal damage). So I could make multiple opponents shaken when I two-weapon fought with hammer and shield. And being Charisma-based with +3 from Skill Focus and +1 from the trait, his Intimidate skill check was pretty beefy. Might also be fun to combine with Weapon Focus and Dazzling Display.
Another popular way to go is half-elf paladin, using the Skill Focus to qualify for the Eldritch Heritage line of feats, which gives you some sorcerer bloodline abilities.
Also, check out the Paladin guides. I think there is a sticky link to the links....
SmiloDan's suggestions for first level feats are solid. I'd think about Greater Mercy pretty early on for additional healing instead of Mystic Healer, but I avoid third party feats.
With Fey Foundling and Greater Mercy you can swift-action Lay on Hands yourself for a lot of healing when needed. Power Attack and a big two-Hander goes a long way in terms of damage output. Might be worth using a Falchion and picking up critical feats to increase your damage output, or Cornugon Smash or similar to add extra debuffs to your damage.
It all serves to make you a nice big, easy-to-hit, hard to ignore damage-sponge. You look threatening and soak up incoming damage - which you can easily heal through - while dealing solid damage and keeping enemies away from your squishy friends.
SmiloDan's suggestion of the Enforcer feat is a good one - I'd pair it with the Blade of Mercy trait instead of Bludgeoner though. It costs a trait rather than a feat, gives you a damage bonus and is pretty thematic for a paladin. Need to worship Sarenrae IIRC though.
The Hospitalier archetype is definetely useful for healing. They are actually one of the best healers (besides Oracles of Life and shammys)
The Hospitaler for heals
Also, if you really don't care as much about your spells there is also the Warrior of Holy Light that pretty much works as a pseudo bard as well and heals and provides some cush little defensive buffs. The big thing also is that it grants a bunch more Lay on Hands uses.
These two archetypes can stack btw :P.
And you can also Layer on The Chosen Onearchetype that replaces your Bond with a Familiar and gets you a free Improved Familiar feat for a celestial familiar (as in an arbiter, a cassisian, a harbinger, or a silvanshee, but potentially any lawful neutral, lawful good, or neutral good outsider familiar depending on the patron). The cool thing with the familiar though is that it can actually Lay on Hands for you or Channel Energy for you. Pretty cool because now you can Lay on Hands twice in a single turn.
Is there a feat or anything that increases the Hospitaler's Channel Energy ability from equivalent cleric level of paladin level-3 to paladin level?
Corvino's Blade of Mercy idea is pretty awesome!
not that I know of but this feat is pretty useful for Paladins Clarifying Channel
A single level dip into Oracle is also nice if you Grab Lore or Lunar due to the ability to use CHA for AC which lets you push up your CHA a bit since you no longer really need Dex and that helps with Lay on Hands quite nicely.
Another feat you will want as soon as you get access to level 2 spells is Unsanctioned Knowledge.
The ability to cherry pick 4 spells from the divine lists is definitely worth it.
Building towards Ultimate Mercy so you can Raise Dead without spending material components is often appreciated by a party, but that's up to you.
Extra Mercy and Extra Lay on Hands are both very useful. More conditions is always nice to have.
==Aelryinth
For playing, I HIGHLY suggest one thing. Sit down with your GM, and actually write out a code of conduct. 5-10 rules, not a thousand.
You'll end every discussion about how Paladins should and should not behave before it starts.
Figure out now if Paladins can lie, omit information, make stealth checks, retreat, kill captives, or whatever else.
If you don't, it will one day destroy either the character or the campaign.
