Paladin Mount Prestige Classes at lvl 12

[Jthw]

Hey im kinda still new to dnd so i need help classing out a character but with a few weird things for this certain campaign.

>Everyone playing is a paladin
>All of us get a dragon (Mine is a Battle Dragon but i can easily switch to brass dragon.)
>We are all half-dragons of our dragon's type but not getting a few things from half-dragon like visual changes, nat armor, any level adjustments, and a few others.
>We are required to get a feat for riding our dragon, with prerequisites being leadership feat and 11 lvls in paladin and/or classes that give bonus levels for the sake of the special mount.
>Starting level must be paladin.
>Our cohort from leadership is our dragon.
>We are starting at level 12 and 88,000 starting gold

My abilities rolled are: 12 16 8 13 14 17
My dragon is a Battle Dragon (as in Draconomicon) age young adult.
We all praise The Broken One.

I would prefer to be a sniper type ranger because thats what the party needs hearing what eveyone else is building. It would be so much fun to role play picking off orcs from the top of my dragon making passes across the battle field :smallbiggrin:.

Thanks to anyone that can help me in any way. I am, like i said, still new to dnd and am horrible at making characters and want a character to maybe live through more than a few sessions :smalltongue:.

[Urpriest]

Ok, questions:

Is your Dragon both your Cohort and your Special Mount? How is that being handled? (Normally, a young adult Battle Dragon is way too powerful to be a cohort for a 12th level character, ditto for a Paladin Mount, so I assume some houserules are in play). In particular, what level of Paladin do you count as for the Special Mount benefits? Does it get bonus hit dice like a normal Paladin Mount, and if so, how many? (Usually Paladin Mounts that are stronger than a typical warhorse get fewer Special Mount benefits, but young adult Battle Dragon is so powerful that by the normal rules it wouldn't be allowed at all.)

Battle Dragons are always neutral good. Just letting you know it's a different alignment from you, but it's within one step so it should be ok.

Can you use the Pathfinder Paladin, or just the 3.5 one? I ask because it's a lot easier to make an archery-focused paladin in Pathfinder.

If you can't use the Pathfinder Paladin, you've got two choices, and both of them fix your base race differently. If you want to be able to Smite Evil at range, you have to be an Elf, and take the Elf Paladin substitution levels from Races of the Wild. Normally Smite Evil can only be used with a melee weapon, so that's the only way to smite at range.

The other option would be to play a Halfling. You can't smite at range, but you can take Halfling Outrider, from Complete Warrior. Four levels of it gives the ability to attack with a ranged weapon while your mount is taking a double move or running at no penalty, which is great for mobility. Plus, it adds to Paladin Mount level, and if you can get your Paladin Mount treated as an Animal Companion it can progress that as well (google supermount if you want the details). Note that this will depend on how your DM is houseruling your Battle Dragon mount to work.

One other thing to consider is the feat Charming the Arrow (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20030815a). You need to be a fey, which means Killoren race (Races of the Wild) or the (cheesy) Unseelie Fey template (Dragon Compendium), but if you can it gives Cha to attack rolls with ranged weapons, letting you be heavily Cha-based.