So, someone in my noobs DnD group wanted to run a game, and we're at an easy pausepoint in my current game, so I went for it. (I vastly prefer playing to running).
The basic idea of the setting is that the world was blown up. Nucleomagical war, that left the world thoroughly irradiated, half the gods dead and the rest insane/deranged/mutated/given up, and humanoid races ekeing out an existence in tiny pockets throughout the world. We start in one pocket, a decent one, population maybe 200,000 people all up (as a relic of my campaign - accurate countryside/city population totals - far more people live on the land than in cities or towns), but stuff is getting worse. The radiation is seeping down from the north, as is cold, and barbarians, etc. Anyway, we're all level 2. As an addendum to that, with my help, the new GM designed some 'good' mutations that people could start with, where you roll separately for benefits, detriments, and easiness to hide/visibility. He knew what this would do to party balance, and he's okay with that.
Party -
The Maidens-
Treebrother(5' move speed, bit of nat AC, fortification)/Dead Eyes (can see the spirits of the dead) female human Druid 2 w/ improved animal companion for a Dire Badger
Blind Eyes (True seeing, bonuses to Spot, can't be flanked (2 nat. 20's))/SuperIntelligence (3/day 'Oh, I brought along a ladder, btw', fairly weak compared to higher rolls of SupInt) Warlock 2 with great stats(18s all up ins) female tiefling with a Devil Pact (has to sacrifice people, do tasks for devils, gets Beguiling Influence and Entropic Warding invocations for free.. DM really wants to screw someone over with clever mafia style 'pulling you in deeper and deeper' devil pact but probably won't do it to this player as it would be like shooting a duckling)
Me - (Regeneration (1hp/hour fasthealing)/Regeneration (1hp/rnd fasthealing) female human Paladin 2 (no variants, yet), with one chosen feat, Endurance.
The Monsters-
Spines (zombie actions, 2d4 damage on all natural weapons, 2d4 damage to all attackers, if does a full round action takes 2d4+str damage)/Extra Arms (1 set of extra arms with it's own primary and secondary attack routines (!) (not multiweapon fighting.. acts like a second set of primary/sec routines in and of themselves), but due to 1 on detriments, will roll on chart to do things character doesn't intend them to do every round) male Half-Minotaur (!)(only the +4 str version.. gains nothing from size increase except Large size, which is still pretty amazing) Monk 1
Tentacles (gains 1 tentacle natural attack, 10' reach that doesn't provoke AoOs, but every round rolls on chart to do things doesn't want, entirely visible... tentacle beard, hair, tentacles all up ins)/Black Eyes (can see magical radiation, remove magical radiation where looking(not permanently), and lower bad effects of mutations (detriments) by up to 2 steps (nat 1's and nat 20's each cost 2 steps, otherwise 2-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-19) (!) which can be made permanent with a feat at level 3 (!!!)) male human bard 2
Right now i'm doing decently well, as I have a suit of full-plate and a shield and I sit on a horse (although our only combat so far has been against 4 entirely outclassed mutated barbarians) and I have far more DnD experience than pretty much anyone at the table, but as the party levels up, and the minotaur gets rid of some detriments, i'll need a bit more oomph to keep up.
Stats at the moment (rolled, in order);
Str: 12
Dex: 11
Con: 16
Int: 8
Wis: 12
Cha: 13
Feats: Endurance, ?? (unpicked)
ACFs: None
A couple of provisos; I don't want to gish. I have gished. I've won gish competitions. I'm just not interested in going palasorc or whatever at the moment.
I don't want to 'roflpwn those noobs with my mad numbars' - I could very easily do that, and i've chosen not to. What i'm looking for are interesting ideas that I wouldn't know about or synergize in my mind normally.
I'm aware of the chargeadin, the battle bless cleric, and the serenity apostledin. I'm not looking for those builds for this character, at the moment.
I have more DnD experience than anyone at the table by a large margin. I don't want my numbers to even be as close to good as the other characters, as I will be taking more of the limelight in roleplaying/tactics probably anyway.
That said, I don't want to be the 'useless member of the party'.
I have essentially unlimited 'this is balanced' cred with the GM, so homebrew or whatever is probably on the table.
A custom feat at level 3 is in the offing that can make your benefits one step higher. For my good regen mutation, that would probably translate into fast healing 2 + immunities/saves against ability loss/level loss, or fast healing 5.
I'm especially interested in odd synergies with short dips into base classes, or oddball paladin prestige classes that are actually usable. (as opposed to most, which are crap)
I want whatever I mechanically build to reflect the character, which i'll detail below.
I realize Crusader is way better than paladin 2 for what i'm kind of looking for. However, I wanted a class that was obviously not-cheesy so that the other players wouldn't think I had a broken character (they know I have insane rules-fu). So I won't be 'retraining' into Crusader. I might dip into crusader, but it's not currently on the cards (so hey, convince me, maybe i'm missing something).
The character is essentially my view of how a paladin should be - certain/strongminded, but not righteous - strong, but not overbearing - Good, without being preachy or smug - protective, without being smothering or making others feel weak.
At this point in the campaign (first session), i've hurled myself in front of the mutant party members to avoid them being shot by town guards going 'AHH MONSTERS', negotiated with a mutantphobic duke to send help to the party's beleaguered home village, and got cut down by the half-minotaur while trying to put out a fire he'd set to burn down the inn the party was sleeping in, and then when brought to consciousness by the druid (in the middle of a scattered about hay and oil fire with the fire-phobic part-tree druid making a will save to ride in on her badger and heal me) used my 2 points of Lay On Hands to stabilize the half-minotaur at -9 before falling unconscious(at 0, doing a standard knocked me to -1). (due to Spines thing and low hp, 2hitKO'd himself trying to run away and then full attacking me). (group had a chat after the session - apparently the minotaur player thought his character was basically gimped by mutations and low hp, and thought that being a minotaur/low charisma meant that he wasn't allowed to roleplay or say anything because the GM would demand a skill check and then screw him over because he doesn't have like +15 diplomacy/bluff (like the warlock does) - so hopefully that's sorted out now).
Oh, and I also added a couple of minor points of interest in insisting we ride all night, taking the barbarians who weren't rabid prisoner(half minotaur later killed them while I negotiated for replacement horses with an already scared farmer.. sigh..), having her get like really muggy/tired even though with endurance/high con she's like the best in the party at resisting tiredness, and really enjoying a bowl of good beef stew.
Incidentally, she worships Soren, pre-holocaust a minor god of beauty, now an internally deformed outwardly pretty/untouched god who has risen to prominence on the 'cleanse all mutants' platform, which my paladin, due to reading an old book and not getting out much, thinks means 'heal all mutants of their mutation if it's healable' as opposed to what it actually means, which is 'witch hunt, burn at stake, odd coloured eyes = mutation'.