Suggestions For Persuasive Paladin?

[captainslinky]

Okay, so here's what I want to do with my super-charismatic Paladin.

I want to see the group of Goblins (or Bandits or what-have-yous) charging at us, and I want to point at one of them as I lock eyes with it. I want to yell "YOU! LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPON AND YOU MAY LEAVE UNHARMED. USE YOUR WEAPON TO JOIN ME IN BATTLE AND YOU SHALL HAVE MY PROTECTION!"

I want to use this tactic to amass an army of "Followers" who will worship me as a Cult Leader.

Suggestions for skills/feats I should take to accomplish this? I'm thinking Intimidation and/or Intimidating Prowess, what else?

 

[Empirate]

You're not talking about a Paladin, you're talking about a LG Celestial Bloodline Sorcerer who loads up on Charm Person, Suggestion, and later, Dominate Person.
Make your Mage Armor spell look like you're wearing golden-hued scale mail, and carry a sword for no reason other than to look cool, and you're set.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

You're not talking about a Paladin, you're talking about a LG Celestial Bloodline Sorcerer who loads up on Charm Person, Suggestion, and later, Dominate Person.
Make your Mage Armor spell look like you're wearing golden-hued scale mail, and carry a sword for no reason other than to look cool, and you're set.

Go one further and be an Aasimar who gets +2Wis/+2Cha to the starting stats and then grab some of the cool traits/feats that they can get to become angels.

 

[Salthorae]

I +1'd the comment above, but as I think about the OP, it seems he already has a character and wants to do the Paladin.

if possible I would still recommend switching to Aasimar if you can and grabbing the Blood of Angels supplement (while not quite as good as Blood of Fiends, it still has some awesome tidbits to it).

Intimidating Prowess is awesome. I took that as my level 1 Feat with a Half-Orc Paladin of Sheyln that I ran through Second Darkness... basically I had 1 rank in Intimidate the whole game, but at the end of the AP (level 15) I have +23 Intimidate (+7 Str, +7 Cha, +3 Class Skill +2 Half-Orf +3 Circlet of Persuasion +1 Rank), took 2 levels of Ranger, side benefit was getting Intimidate as a class skill.

If you couple that with a high Diplomacy score, there are very few situations that you won't at least have a chance of intimidating/diplomacy'ing your way out of.

Goal #1 is to get a Circlet of Persuation (+3 to all Cha skills). Goal #2 is to either get a Cloak of Charisma (3.5) or get your DM to allow you to combine a Headband of Cha & your Circlet of Persuasion.

Goal #3 is to figure out a way to get an "awe" type aura, similar to Draconic Fear or the Divine Fear. I can't remember if that is an option in Blood of Angels or not... but it would be very helpful.

The rest is just Role Play and getting your DM to work with you on the idea.

I don't think you need spells to accomplish it really, though a nice Mass Suggestion ability or Mass Charm would certainly help!

Also - Persuasive Feat: +2 to Diplomacy and Intimidate

 

[Herobizkit]

Also, see the Leadership feat and discuss with your DM how feasible it would be - this feat is essentially what you're asking about.

 

[Ramaster]

Skill focus (Diplomacy) is the best choice (+3 at first, then +6 when you have 10 ranks on the skill). Gnome is a good race for this, +2 Cha and Con (Useful for those times when the diplomacy doesn't work!).

First things first, IMO, talk to your DM about this character concept. Find out how is he going to implement the diplomacy rules (most people I know of don't use the RAW setting). Some DMs won't like it that you try to talk your way out of every fight (at least with intelligent opponents), their reasoning is "Ok, I'm sick of this, I want them to actually FIGHT the monsters for once!". This might also be the reasoning of other PCs.

Talk to the other players and the DM and ask them what they think, it will help you avoid many and awkward situation.