Treasure Hunter Paladin - A revision of my older posts
Stats
If I was restarting the character at 225: 100 STR, 75 DEX, 50 INT (plus skill bonuses from equipment - reduce strength to 100 after equipment, and move the points into Dex, for 100 STR, so 92(100) STR, 75(83) dex, 50(58) int)
At 255 with my equipment: 104 (96+8) STR, 100 DEX, 67(59+8) INT
Skills at my current 720, with equipment raising it to 793 (was at 805 till my special moves got crippled by the tactics requirement)
Weapon Skill (in my case, Swords): 101 natural, 120 with equipment
Anatomy: 100
Tactics: 90 natural, 109 with my equipment (stupid special move changes made me have to move points out of other skills, and remove the arms)
Healing: 90
Parry: 74 natural (89 with equipment - this is where the points came from to get tactics up to 90 natural, mostly)
Chivalry: 65 natural, 85 with equipment (and I miss the 5 points that had to move to tactics)
Cartography: 100
Lockpicking: 100
(Humans get the effects of 20 Focus and 20 Med, even at 0 points in skill, so no med or focus.)
Must-have equipment: Soul Seeker, or other high-mana leech weapon
Equipment suggested: Ancient Samurai Do (Tokuno minor), Stormgrip (Tokuno major), Totem of the Void (ML minor), Brightsight Lenses (ML minor), weapon (As noted above), Voice of the Fallen King (decent resists plus lots of regens - a cursed one will be fine if you only do Trammel maps), Arms of Tactical Excellence (Tokuno minor) if you got room for it while still maintaining 90 tactics for special moves(I no longer have), and legs & shield (dupre's is good for the +5 parry, so I use it after having to raid my other skills to raise Tactics) to round out the resists to 70s. Suit is medable. Resist or luck robes are suggested as well. Cape/quiver as needed.
My current resists are 70/68/70/70/70, with casting of Magic reflect and Reactive armor (gives a total of 0/5/5/5/5 with GM inscription, which you can soulstone onto the character long enough to cast, and both spells can be cast from scroll by a 0 magery human)
Modifiers my character personally has from Jewelry: Add +19 each Tactics & Swords, and +20 Chivalry, and other minor mods (finding 2 pieces with +29 total each in the same three skills for your template is awesome, regardless of template).
Modifiers From Minor (tokuno & ML) and Tokuno Major Equipment: +8 STR, +8 INT, +10 Parry (15 with dupre's shield), 10% LMC, Mana regen 3, HP Regen 7 (8 with dupre's), Stam Regen 3, DI 25%. Should be possible to get further regens and attribute bonuses from the other equpment (especially if one uses a Dupre's Shield or bloodwood-enhanced wooden shield). If you can fit the arms of tactical excellence into the suit, that would give +12 tactics and +5 dex.
Suggest skill layout for a fresh build (without my ungodly jewelry):
Lockpicking 100
Cartography 100
Weapon Skill: 100
Tactics: 102 (90 + Tokuno minor Arms)
Healing: 90 (minimum for 100% HP healing chance)
Anatomy: 100
Parry (melee types only): 100 (85 plus Tokuno minor Do & dupre's shield)
Chivalry: If an archer, 80 to 90 chiv after equipment (dropping parry to 0), putting remaining points into magic resist. For a melee warrior like myself, go for 80+ points in chivalry after equipment (35 to 55 real, based on skill cap, plus Chivalry from jewelry or additional real skill points from lowering parry, healing or anatomy real totals as a result of jewelry bonuses that offset).
In all cases, stat scrolls, skill scrolls and jewelry that boosts 2 or more skills in the template will give you much more flexibility.
Suggested Virtues as boosters: Knight of Sacrifice (you'll gain fame easily enough to sacrifice it, and get even more sacrifice doing the Hag Quest for maps to train Cart & LP), Knight of Compassion (rezzing a crowd of people at once to 80% of HP is a sight to behold at a champ spawn or level 6 map - just make sure one of them has nearby bandages to heal you back up right after they rez), at least Seeker of Honor (to survive the initial monster spawn of the highest level maps by invoking during the dig, then walking clear of the spawn - then separate the monsters, honor them one at a time and kill them, to raise your Honor back!)
Additional suggested "consumables" would be potions (invis if you can get the timing down right for digs), petals (orange and Trinsic rose - the orange petals further reduce the need for magic resist skill), and spell scrolls for a human - a human can cast level 5 spell scrolls (27% chance of success), so a human with 0 magery can use blade spirit scrolls to give them a lower-power alternative to the two EVs or Earth eles that mage T-Hunters use. Mind Blast scrolls also are options, as they are the only damage spells that check vs. Int instead of Eval (though you're probably better off just using holy light, in melee)
Pros: Ability to take groups on Treasure hunts, even solo level 5s - solo level 6s were possible before the Wyrms got buffed. Instead of invis, one uses Honor, or use Sacred Journey to a different spot on the island, without crossing the server line, to prevent probable death. Additional income and loot sources, from chests and maps you collect while hunting monsters (the hag quests, plus doing about 10-20 level 1-2 maps over a 1-2 hour period a good source for regs to donate to brit library). Ability to spam with holy light and to easily rez entire party at once main reason for going with 85 chivalry, but I wish I could have it higher once more.
Cons: Lack of Magic Resist, in its melee form. To an extent, this is a little redundant IMO for a Paladin.
Typically if you get paralyzed with a melee paladin, you're not going to be paralyzed very long, and remove curse takes care of the cursing spells (including mortal strike from the Miasma, when you go hunting for more level 6 maps in the Labyrinth); you typically won't be using any equipment so heavy it could "fall off" from a curse, either. High mana regen & leech will replace mana lost to mana vampire, and a soul seeker will give you back obscene amounts of stamina. Only against very high end creatures will lack of resist be an issue (the ones that hit for almost enough to 1-hit kill in addition to their spell effects), but that's to be expected in a hybrid template.