I am playing a gestalt game, and on someone's advice from another thread, I am considering Mesmerist for one side. I enjoyed the Beguiler in 3.5 so I would like to give this a try. In particular the will save debuff and the ability to affect normally immune targets with mind affecting abilities is cool. I would prefer to compensate for the areas that the Mesmerist is weak (BAB, armor and weapon proficiencies, and fort saves). One option I considered is Paladin, Full BAB, good fort save, CHA to all saves, and immune to fear (huge for a psychic caster)
Other options?
Depends on what role you want to play. Defensively, (Unless you plan on being in the middle of combat), the BAB and proficiencies don’t really matter. My personal play style (which very well might be different than yours) would have me gestalt with a class that receives a companion, that can take me place in Melee and leave me free to debuff, buff, and support the team. In that regard, I’d gestalt with the Summoner (Unchained) and pick an Agathion companion (which gets Lay on Hands). The Summoner uses Charisma as well for spellcasting and you can even get hexes with the Spirit Summoner archetype.
Otherwise, Paladin is a good fit for what you are looking for.
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I'm going to focus on martial options, as it sounds like what you're after. But first I just want to emphasise that the Mesmerist works really well with almost any full caster, but particular shout-outs to the cleric. Cleric spells don't require particularly great wisdom and you can get some really nasty channel energy builds alongside this.
The Paladin has a bunch of small clashes (swift actions, towering Ego and Divine Grace), but the general package is very good. It also means you can more readily consider an archetype that ditches divine grace if you want. Fun Jedi feel overall.
Bloodrager (ID Rager) can cast psychic spells while raging from 4th level onwards. It's a bit of a strange package but a very resilient one and still has amazing saves. A lot of the emotional foci powers involve messing with enemies' minds, too.
Swashbuckler is really good with the Mesmerist. Painful Stare suits the flavour of the 'buckler, and the buckler makes a really good fighter with very little investment. You get level to damage from precise strike, easy dex-to-damage so you can still focus on fewer stats, and while your armour will still suck you will have a ton of panache for parrying and the dex to make up for it.
What about a Bad Touch Cleric/Mesmerist with the Madness domain and spontaneously inflicting? Would that be good? Gets a decent fort save and medium armor. How would you build that as far as stats and feats go? We start at level 5.
There's a case to be made for sorcerer. You can get additional spells known, increased DCs through bloodline arcana, and MOAR spell slots. If you really want to maximize an enchanter, kitsune sorc/mesmerist would be the tops.
What about a Bad Touch Cleric/Mesmerist with the Madness domain and spontaneously inflicting? Would that be good? Gets a decent fort save and medium armor. How would you build that as far as stats and feats go? We start at level 5.
Doable. Unless you take the separatist archetype (which is possible, but doesn't get starknife proficiency) worshipping Desna and using her divine fighting technique won't be possible with the madness domain. Spontaneous inflicting is right out.
If you follow The Lost Prince, a fey god, then the madness and nobility domains are a possible combo. Variant channeling (rulership, negative) is possibly overpowered. You're going to want the selective channeling feat (to avoid getting your ally) if you use negative channeling in any case. You'll probably want weapon finesse assuming your GM agrees it applies to touch attacks, weapon focus (dagger or sickle) & slashing grace assuming a human.
Str 8, Dex 16+2 race=18, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 15+1 level=16, Cha 14 would work (swap wis & cha if desired), I think you said 25 point buy.