Paladin

What this profession is

The paladin is a melee fighter with a holy spellbook bolted on. At its core it’s a warrior — weapon, Tactics, bandages — but Chivalry layers on self-buffs, light healing, curse removal, and free travel. Chivalry on this shard is real (the expansion stack includes AOS-era skills). Its spells run on tithing points — a resource warriors otherwise never touch — but each cast also spends ordinary mana (e.g. Enemy of One costs 20 mana + 10 tithing). Tithing is the gating cost; mana keeps you honest about how often you re-buff mid-fight.

Core skills

Chivalry — the holy school. Higher Chivalry means stronger, more reliable spell effects and longer buff durations.
A weapon skill — Swordsmanship, Fencing, or Mace Fighting. Chivalry is support; your weapon does the killing.
Tactics and Anatomy — the two damage multipliers, exactly as for a warrior; Anatomy also powers bandage healing.
Healing — bandages remain your bread-and-butter recovery; Close Wounds only tops it up.
Optional Focus or Resisting Spells for survivability against hostile casters.

Tithing points, not mana

Chivalry’s signature cost is tithing points. You earn them by donating gold at a shrine (use the shrine and choose to tithe). Each cast spends points from that pool; when it’s empty, re-tithe. But tithing is not the only cost — PaladinSpell.cs checks and deducts both Caster.TithingPoints and Caster.Mana on every cast (servuo: Scripts/Spells/Chivalry/PaladinSpell.cs, lines 45/85 tithing, 38/92 mana). Spell power also scales with Karma + Chivalry (int v = (int)Math.Sqrt(from.Karma + 20000 + Chivalry.Fixed * 10)), so positive karma makes your buffs stronger and longer. Keep a few thousand gold tithed so buffs are always available.

The build

There is no dedicated paladin template page on the wiki yet. Build it as a dexxer with a Chivalry slot: start from the Warrior Template for stats, weapon-skill order, and a hunting route, then swap one utility slot for Chivalry. A typical endgame spread is weapon + Tactics + Anatomy + Healing + Chivalry + Parrying + one more. For fitting seven skills under the 700-point cap see 7x GM Templates. (If you also want dark magic and life-leech, see the sampire, which fuses Chivalry with Necromancy and Bushido.)

How to play it

Read Magic Schools for where Chivalry sits among the casting schools, and Spellcasting for the cast mechanics. For the melee half, Combat Basics then Combat Advanced cover the swing loop and weapon special moves; Healing covers bandage timing.

The loop: tithe gold first. Before a fight, cast Consecrate Weapon (matches your damage type to the target’s weakest resist) and Enemy of One (big damage bonus versus a single creature type; the bonus scales with Chivalry and, on this SA/EJ-era shard, is a recastable toggle with no “take extra damage from everything else” penalty — that drawback was the old pre-SA behavior and is gone here, per EnemyOfOne.cs). Divine Fury adds swing speed, hit chance and damage at the cost of defense chance. In a pinch, Close Wounds heals and Cleanse by Fire / Remove Curse strip poison and curses; Holy Light is an area nuke; Dispel Evil scatters summons; Sacred Journey is the paladin’s Recall and gate. All of these are confirmed files under servuo: Scripts/Spells/Chivalry/.

Gear

Weapons and the weapon catalog — pick to match your weapon skill; mods that help dexxers (hit-leech, swing speed) apply normally.
Armor — favor balanced resists; a shield enables Parrying.
Magic item properties — Faster Casting matters little here (few casts), so prioritize melee and survivability mods. Carry bandages.

Making a living

Paladins farm like warriors: clear dungeon rooms and loot corpses. The Chivalry kit makes undead and “evil” content especially profitable — Consecrate plus Enemy of One shreds a graveyard or undead dungeon, and the holy buffs cost only the gold you tithe. Sell surplus loot via Vendors & Banking.