I have to stress that EQ isn't a game where solo melee are really intended to go toe-to-toe with opponents. Go into it understanding it's going to be slow and difficult. Nearly all the newer online role-playing games are different in this respect.
Paladins do low damage against undead and terrible damage against anything else. It's the class's primary weakness, and will be compounded using level-appropriate equipment. There are gaps in the level range where it's difficult to find undead to fight. When P1999 was pre-expansion (hence there was no "twinking") I was able to solo on my Paladin if I needed to, but again it was slow and I didn't find it all that fun. However that's me, not you, and you might find the pace more acceptable. If you want to primarily group as a tank type while having at least some solo capability when you can't find (or don't want) a group, the Paladin can do the job.
The Monk will do the job also, exchanging the Paladin's heals and buffs in favor of higher damage output. They push fewer buttons and tend to die less often (feign death), but have fewer options of dealing with things like unwanted adds or whatnot without having to feign off aggro and start over. The use of in-combat bandaging can significantly improve solo capability, at the cost of some platinum and much button-pushing. Monk weight limit gets annoying when solo. Monks can act in the tank role if necessary, but few to no groups will invite them as such.....better like pulling.
If solo is of purely secondary concern the Shadow Knight might be worth a second look. Ignoring fear-kiting takes away most of this class's solo power, but they can still solo to some degree by spamming lifetap spells. Doing that plays away from the class's strength but it's possible; the benefit is that the class gets around the game world more easily than a Paladin can thanks to having feign death and invisibility. Note that those spells are obtained only at level 30, so the early-mid levels can be quite rough, and overall I'm not convinced it's the best choice for the job you want to do. I tossed it out there anyhow in the interest of completion.
In either case frequent downtime when solo, while bad for leveling rate, will give arthritic hands a break between pulls. For this same reason you probably want to avoid classes--Bard and Shaman in particular--which demand near-constant button pushing. You said you want to level un-twinked, but do you mean that in the literal sense (ie, you'll use only what you obtain in your travels) or do you merely mean you have a very limited budget? That's an important distinction.
Danth
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