Paladin

About

• Genre: Fighter
• Races: Dwarf, Human, Elf, Half-Elf.
• HP Gain: 15 - 19 per level (Prestige: 16-21)
  • Prestige: 2 - 7 per level (Prestige 3-9)

Stats

• Primary: Strength
• Secondary: Wisdom
• Deficient: Intelligence

Max Warrior Stats

CLASS	Str	Int	Wis	Dex	Con	Cha	Lck
Paladin	25	18	22	20	20	20	20
Knight	26	18	22	20	20	20	20

Fighting

• Weapons: (95% Adept)
  • Bludgeons - "Crushing, Pounding"
  • Long Blades - "Slicing, Slashing"
  • Polearms - "Hacking, Thrusting, Raking"
  • Paladins get "Two-Handed" and "Dual Wield" weapon skills

• Tactics:
  • Shieldbash
    • Damage based on current WIS
    • Your primary alpha attack.
    • Requires wearing a shield.
    • Requires being the primary combatant engaged with a mob (i.e. tanking)
  • Two-Handed Weapons
    • Paladins can wear two-handed swords, such as the long sword "Nasr, Claymore of Sovereignty".
    • Wearing a two-handed weapon requires not wearing a shield, so Paladins will lose their ability to Shieldbash.
  • Rescue
    • In combat, rescue makes the rescuer the tank (primary target of the mob). Two characters rescuing each other can share tanking a difficult mob by simply healing to full, rescuing the other, and repeating back and forth. Note that while not-tanking, the Paladin will not be able to shieldbash.

Combat Passives

Level	Skill Name	Adept	MinPos
1	Enhanced Damage	90	fighting (berserk)
1	Parry	90	fighting (aggressive)
10	2nd Attack	95	fighting (berserk)
12	Dodge	75	fighting (aggresive)
20	3rd Attack	90	fighting (berserk)
32	Grip	95	fighting (berserk)
37	4th Attack	75	fighting (berserk)
50	5th Attack	49	fighting (berserk)

Combat Styles

Level	Skill Name	Adept
1	Standard	95
8	Aggressive	95
14	Evasive	70
23	Defensive	70
46	Berserk	40

Combat Actives

Alpha Attacks

Level	Skill Name	Adept	MinPos
2	strike	95	fighting (aggressive)
10	spurn	85	fighting (berserk)
15	punt	95	fighting
19	lunge	95	fighting (aggressive)
25	punch	90	fighting (aggressive)
40	tzadkiels touch	85	fighting (aggressive)
43	shieldbash	90	fighting (aggressive)

Combat Skills

Level	Skill Name	Adept	MinPos
9	bethsaidean touch	75	fighting (evasive)
9	rescue	80	fighting (berserk)
13	expurgation	85	fighting (defensive)
15	dispel evil	90	fighting (aggressive)
39	fortify	75	fighting
48	righteous stand	95	fighting (aggressive)
49	shieldblock	50	fighting (aggressive)

• Notes: A lot of these could fall under the Buffs or Utility Skills sections, or here, but I think it makes sense to highlight them here.
  • Bethsaidean Touch is 'cure blind'
  • Expurgation is 'cure poison'
  • Dispel Evil I have never used in my life and have no idea what it does
  • Fortify is highly unlikely to be used, but, technically falls in this category
  • Righteous stand is a Group Buff, but also listing here as its a common Pally combat function

Buffs & DeBuffs

Buffs

Level	Skill Name	Affects	Adept	MinPos
12	float	not walk	75	fighting
12	invis	invisibility	95	standing
1	armor	-20 AC	90	fighting (evasive)
5	bless	-6 Sv Spell, +6 HR	fighting
7	detect poison	Show poison flag	60	standing
9	detect hidden	Show hide flag	75	fighting (berserk)
22	breath of heaven	aqua breath	85	resting
30	benefic aura	Protection	85	fighting (evasive)
35	crusade	Group +10% healing	95	standing
35	sacral divinity	Sanctuary	75	standing
42	divine armor	-60AC, +5 R:UNHLY, +15 R:DRAIN	95	fighting
48	righteous stand	25% Damage Reduction	95	fighting (aggressive)

Skills

Level	Skill Name	Adept	MinPos
2	fountain of faith	80	standing
3	vitality	90	fighting (aggressive)
5	continual light	85	fighting (evasive)
9	bethsaidean touch	75	fighting (evasive)
10	aid	80	fighting (aggressive)
13	expurgation	85	fighting (defensive)
13	hezekiahs cure	85	fighting
14	refuge	90	resting
15	dispel evil	90	fighting (aggressive)
16	identify	75	fighting (evasive)
18	remove curse	85	fighting (evasive)
27	bind wounds	85	fighting
39	fortify	75	fighting
45	tend	90	standing

• Notes:
  • Vitality: Heal (self) 24-32hp
  • Bind Wounds: Heal (others) 24-27hp
  • Hezekiah's Cure: Heal (any) 80hp
  • Tend: Heal (any) 100hp
  • Bethsaidean Touch: Cure Blind
  • Expurgation: Cure Poison

Equipment & Align

Equipment Info: Paladin EQ

Shieldbash (primary alpha attack for avatars) is based on Wis, so dress to max Wis first and foremost. Then HP. After that, AC is probably most important, along with additional stats that impact fighting in general (Con, Dex, Lck).

Align:

Paladins must be Devout or they lose access to some skills/spells.

• Neut/Evil align Paladins lose access to the following:
  • Feast of faith
  • Fountain of faith
  • Vitality
  • Bethsaidean touch
  • Solomonic invocation
  • Expurgation
  • Hezekiahs cure
  • Refuge
  • Dispel evil
  • Breath of heaven
  • Bind wounds
  • Benefic aura
  • Ward of divinity
  • Crusade
  • Sacral divinity
  • Fortify
  • Tzadkiels touch
  • Divine armor
  • Tend
  • Righteous stand

It's basically all the spells for a Pally, so neut/evil pallys become just a straight fighter tank with basically no special sauce.

Gameplay

Quests:

• Fighter Genre Quest: Dragonlord's Battle Armor
  • None of this gear is super useful, especially given the effort, and is easily outclassed by other stuff.

Mobs & Runs:

• Paladin's are great for solo killing of a ton of lowbie or entry level AV mobs. Great gear-fetcher for lowbies and basic av equipment.
• Pally's need to be the primary target of a mob to shieldbash, so mobs which change tanks render Pal's useless in a group (unless they rescue the new tank to resume tank position)
• Rescue tactics are possible, so two Pal's can share tanking.
  • Only downside is the guy who isn't tanking is worthless, since they can't shieldbash, so in this case the 2 Pal rescue tanks would be strictly limited to ONLY healing, rescuing, tanking, repeating.
• Pally can solo Justice, tank Beholder, and other mobs like that where you just need 1 tank to focus on tanking the whole time.

• When to not use a Paladin:
  • If the mob changes tanks, it's likely not worth your time to try to tank on a pally and keep rescuing the 'new tank' so you can shieldbash again, you will waste time and dps doing that so better to just use chars that can both tank and hit.
  • Mob align might matter, if its a dev mob that progs devout, or if the mob has the 'defense against devout' spell affect (protection for evils).
  • Warriors/Rangers get higher Dex, which helps Dodge/etc land more. Rogue Genre chars get 25 dex which is even better, plus get things like tumble in addition to dodge. Ultimately if you need to avoid more melee hits then something with higher dex should be considered. Paladins do eat the majority of melee - and they can take it, but only to a point. Something that is more agile may allow you to avoid more damage and get more hits in while tanking.

Summary

A paladin is a brick shit house. They can walk into mobs and stand there and shrug off most the impact.

I use mine mostly for non-runs, when I need to go fetch some lowbie gear or basic av gear where I know the mob is a grind, I'll throw a Pally in there and let him tough it out.

What they suck at is navigation - they don't get scry or scan or track or anything like that. Walking around or leading a group through some tricky paths can be annoying.

Full Skills List and other info: Rodpedia Page

Prestige

A Paladin may prestige into a Knight

• Knight:
  • Max Str 26
    • Max carry weight 1100 while at 26 str.
  • Slightly faster shieldbash.

There are undoubtably more 'under the hood' improvements for them, but not any hard-facts I know of. Overall, my knight is definitely a bit more stout than when he was a regular Pally. The faster shieldbash is only slight, not major.