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In preparation for a Kingmaker game I'm applying for, I'm interested in preparing a paladin who takes the Aldori Swordlord prestige class, and I was curious about how to best set such a character up for success.
The game is using a 20 point-buy for attributes, and I'm making the character Human. I know that obviously the feats I'll pick are Weapon Finesse and Exotic Weapon Proficiency with the Aldori dueling sword, but there's two main things I'm struggling with:
1) Should I throw any Archetypes into the mix? Some ones that stood out to me are Temple Champion, discarding the spellcasting that'd be hobbled by me taking a prestige class, Gray Paladin, because it makes some skills I need to take to become an Aldori Swordlord like Intimidate class skills, and Virtuous Bravo, which appears to synergize with Aldori Swordlord well. What do you folks think?
2) Paladins, by nature, are very MAD, and something I'm trying to do is have a high Charisma in addition to being a capable Swordlord, since this is for Kingmaker and I wanna be able to do kingdom things, whether as a Ruler or General or something that keys off Charisma, and I'm not sure how best to make this work with a 20 point-buy, especially since I'm making a paladin that uses finesse weapons rather big two-handed weapons that they appear to work best with.
Thank you all for your advice! : )
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1): My recommendation for archetype would be Virtuous Bravo - essentially Weapon Finesse for free, you don't want heavy armour anyway as a dex-based Paladin, and you get Opportune Parry and Riposte before you leave for the Swordlord prestige class. You'd be looking at:
1: Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Aldlori Dueling Sword)
Bonus Human Feat: Weapon Focus (Aldlori Dueling Sword)
3: Slashing Grace (Aldlori Dueling Sword)
5: Dazzling Display
Virtuous Bravo trades away little that you'd be using - mercies are the only thing lost of note. Gray Paladin trades away some very important abilities - CHA to saves, for example, and so I can't recommend it from an optimization perspective.
2): You're not too MAD - you want enough STR to carry your items, but not much required there. You need DEX, then CHA, then CON in that order, really. My recommendation would be a base of:
STR: 10 (0 points)
DEX: 16 (10 points)
CON: 14 (5 points)
INT: 10 (0 points)
WIS: 10 (0 points)
CHA: 14 (5 points)
With the racial +2 going into dex, if you're focused on fighting, or if you're not, CHA. The relative ratios of STR, INT and WIS are dependent on your choices - STR can be dumped if you're fine dealing with capacity issues, INT can be dumped if you don't care much about skills, WIS if you're fine to deal with a bit worse will save - you're still adding CHA in addition to it, so it'll be acceptable even with a lower WIS. As a d10 HD character, you can get away with 12 CON - I'd just put my first few FCB into HP at that point. The array I'd personally play with would be:
STR: 8
DEX: 18
CON: 12
INT: 12
WIS: 8
CHA: 16
But that's because I like skills a great deal - it's likely more optimal to switch INT and WIS in that situation, or indeed dump INT down to 7 if you've accepted you're not using skill ranks :P But it sounds like you want to be participating out of combat, so I'd recommend keeping INT at least at a +0 modifier.