Paladin Dieties
 

Two questions for this post, one specific, the other more general.

What are people's thoughts on playing a Half-Elf paladin who doesn't worship Tunare? Especially for a casual, non-twink play style (and when I say non-twink, I don't mean "no Fungi," I mean no twinking at all).

The reason I ask is because that was the first character I ever created back in late '99/'00, and I had the original name (which I had forgotten) come up in the name generator at creation here on p99, so it's a bit of a nostalgia attachment for me. I'm wondering if not being able to get the Nature's Defender in the long run will make an obvious disadvantage, especially for a non-min-maxxer. I know the ultimate answer is "play what you like" but I'm interested to hear other people's thoughts.

The other question is related: what are people's favorite paladin dieties? I feel like Mithaniel Marr is the best fit for a paladin, to the extent that choosing Tunare for the ND almost doesn't make sense. I mean, nothing in the description for Tunare sounds relevant to a paladin, and also, like, c'mon, nature paladins?

you can complete the regular paladin epic regardless of yer diety, so sure its fine to play a half elf who doesnt worship tunare, although youd be missing out on one of the big reasons to play a half/high elf in the first place which is the fairly easily attainable natures defender.

playing a non twinked paladin from the best of my understanding by what you described is gonna be a rough road. my first toon on p99 was a paladin, granted i chose dwarf so the low starting strength of high/half elf didnt really impact me too much, but its gonna effect you for sure. half elf paladins start with 80 str iirc, that aint alot. yer gonna be overweight pretty fast when you start to get to the point where yer buying/farming bronze, im not saying its not doable, plenty of folks have done it but its something to consider wanting to roll a untwinked melee of any type really.

farm some +3 str rings, maybe stick to some banded instead of bronze to cut down on some weight. depending on yer leveling path you might be able to afford/get a rot on a ee bag or a light burlap sack from lguk fairly early and that should help you keep yer weight down a bit.

Pros: The ND is very cool looking. It’s easy to get (if you raid or buy the MQ) and checks some of the boxes of the epic. It’s a great 6-man tank or even small raid tank weapon since the stun proc is aggro and -100 Magic SV check like the FD. The AC will be handy for a casualty geared pally.

Cons: AC withstanding the stats are kind of bland and not having bash makes it like any other normal 2h. If you eventually have a ND, 1h and shield, and something like a Narandi’s Lance I’m not sure you would use the ND much. Comparatively I use my Fiery Defender all the time even if just for a quick bash swap. Though, the FD is a real pain of a quest in comparison. Both are wayyy harder than selling enough fine steel to buy a narandi.

Lore wise that is your call. I think there is a lot to be said for righteous indignation due to the abuse of a world, real or fictional. If it’s a little too Greenpeace for you by all means mix it up. I’m heavily biased towards Prexus.

What about Prexus interests you for a paladin?

Mine is an erudite (hence the bias) but other than that the lore the maritime adventuring. A bit of King Arthur meets Waterworld :D .

Also the epic is very Deepwater Knight centric with Inte Akera in Plane of Air/Sky and also later with Irak Altil being a cursed paladin needing his gear blessed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/project1999...ignment_chart/

What would you choose if every deity had their own specific alternative to the epic? Go with that. Build around the actual character you want, more so than the gear that will be available to it. Plus, there are other 2H options thanks to Velious that a casual player can obtain with plat once they're of level. Besides, for some time now there has been speculation surrounding possible custom content, even talk of upgraded epics; that alone makes the Fiery Defender the better option, along with the ability to bash. ND is cool and all, but it isn't a definitive item for knights.

You won't get access to a lazy group tanking weapon.
the proc causes decent agro.

For an erudite paladin, prexus offers some of the best fashion quest.

Go for it! Worse case you reroll, but give it a go.

I had the same question thinking about making a dwarf paladin.

ND is nice but it’s not exactly a free weapon by any means. There are also a lot of alternatives that are far from impossible to acquire even as a semi-casual. With a bit of PP you can MQ the epic.

So if tree hugging Tunare doesn’t do it for ya, I’d skip it.

As for races as far as I’m concerned

Erudite: Hipster choice but is hardly rare anymore and your stats are mediocre, you’re also blind without any easy item to fix it

Human: Respectable stats. Blind.

Dwarf: Strongest stats outside of low charisma, you’ll still have strong stats even with 15pts into charisma. Males have barrel roll.

High elf: Best charisma, if you want to lull/pacify with ease and without 738383 item swaps this is the race to go with. Other races do okay though with some points into cha and don’t have crippled melee stats.

Half-elf: Nice dex but terrible wis and mediocre stats otherwise.

So in my book it’s HE for the charisma or Dwarf for the melee stats with humans being close third.

All the paladin options are pretty cool. My buddy was a half elf paladin in 1999 the worst race choice but it was still cool and back then they were pretty popular