Good, Easily Crafted Paladin Items?

[Chilingsworth]

Hey guys!

I intend my planed telepath/wizard (probably diviner)/cerbermancer to dabble in crafting. One of the chracters I expect to do alot of crafting for is the Paladin leader of our adventuring group. What are the best easily crafted items for a paladin?

This paladin is illiterate and somewhat unhappy about it, but for background reasons can't use skill points to fix it. I therefore intend to craft him a helm of comprehend languages and read magic. I'll then probably put at least charisma (maybe the other mental stats, too) into it and call it a "helm of leadership." Beyond that, I'm not sure of the best options.

Edit: My DM doesn't like the profusion of item creation feats, so when I take one, I get both its magic and psionic equivilant: Wonderous Item + Universal Item (plus Cognizance Crystals get folded into this one); Magic and Psionic Arms and Armor; I'm not sure exactly what he's doing with the other creation feats, but I wouldn't be surprised if I could get more bang from them, too.

[holywhippet]

What level of characters are you talking about and how much gold do you have to spend for doing this?

Armour and weapons are always important to a fighter type character. You might want to consider something to give the paladin flight abilities since that's something non-spellcasters can't do.

Consider making a cloak of charisma instead of putting more magic into the helm.

[T.G. Oskar]

Phylactery of Faithfulness. Really. It's for the Paladin's sake.

Belt of Battle and Blindfold of True Darkness are a must (extra actions and blindsight will deal with some of the melee character's problems). Flight is also a must, so Winged Boots might do the trick, although it won't be as necessary during the first few levels (flight begins to gain importance between levels 7 and 10, where you'll find several flying enemies). Cloak of Charisma, Gauntlets of Ogre Power/Belt of Giant Strength and perhaps an Amulet of Health are a must, because he'll need as many benefits as he can get.

Give your Paladin a Stunning Surge weapon. Please, pretty please with a cherry on top. If your Paladin is getting lots of Charisma, it can stun an enemy fairly reliably (10 + 1/2 character level + Cha modifier) several times per day (with a Charisma of 22, that means a DC of 16 + 1/2 the Paladin's level AND about 7 uses per day). Since it gets better the higher the Paladin's Charisma is, and since it's a +1 enhancement bonus, it never loses its worth. Magebane is also nice: while nerfed to affect only characters that use arcane spells or invocations, that still covers quite a bit (wizards, sorcerers, bards, duskblades, wu jen, warlocks, dragonfire adepts and shadowcasters, plus any user of arcane magic, invocations or mysteries), and it all works for a +1 bonus. Keep it as a +1 magebane weapon of stunning surge so that you can make the bonus low AND you can add more stuff to it (Greater Magic Weapon should cover for the low enhancement bonus).

Aside from that...there are ways to get him to Comprehend Languages without having to craft a helm for it, and Read Magic is something he might not need (unless he's going for a scroll, but then again you might want to point him on how it works or keep a wand which is better).

While hardly possible to do (being an arcane spellcaster, you can't use Cure Moderate Wounds), making a Healing Belt is essential, not just for the Paladin, but for everyone else as well. One of the best methods of in-combat healing, actually, and very, VERY cheap.

[Coidzor]

If the paladin wants to fight on his mount but hasn't taken the necessary feats it's possible to make items that grant him the majority of the mounted combat feat line. The first two relatively cheaply via riding boots and battle bridle from Magic Item Compendium... which would open up the possibility of stacking the boots enchantment onto his current pair.

[Chilingsworth]

What level of characters are you talking about and how much gold do you have to spend for doing this?

Armour and weapons are always important to a fighter type character. You might want to consider something to give the paladin flight abilities since that's something non-spellcasters can't do.

Consider making a cloak of charisma instead of putting more magic into the helm.

I can't craft anything, yet. I'm planning for the future. I also have no idea how much gold I'll have available, hence looking for low cost items to craft. My party (actually two parties, comprising two distinct "squads" of a mercenary company, which can collaborate at will) has a lot of spellcasters, so spell access shouldn't be too much of a problem. I believe someone else will be taking the craft arms and armor feat, so I intend to focus on wonderous items.

For spellcasters (or at least potential spellcasters), we have:

My character: a telepath/to-be-wizard/to-be-cerbermancer
three clerics
a druid/to-be-wizard/to-be-Arcane Heirophant
a Psysic Warrior/Barbarian
a Shaman/Barbarian
a Water Shungenja
and a Paladin as overall comander

As for making a seperate cloak of charisma: We use the crafting rules in Magic Item Compendium. These allow adding charisma (all the mental stats, actually) to head slot items for the same price as building such stat items. Therefore, doing so costs no more, and saves on item slots.