Paladin Abilities | The Paladin

The Paladin

By Trevelyan, April 2010

 

Introduction

Paladins are noble warriors that use holy powers to help defend against, and combat, their foes. The Paladin is one who strives to help others and follows the paths of virtue.Since the introduction of Age of Shadows in 2003, Chivalry has been a trainable skill and a Paladin template is available that can be created by a new character. Although technically any character can be a Paladin, typically they are orientated towards a warrior template since many of the Chivalry skill abilities take advantage of – and require – an equipped weapon. The Chivalry skill is used to determine the success rate of Paladin abilities, accessed through a Book of Chivalry that contains 10 abilities that can be activate.

Note that in order to become a Paladin you must have the Age of Shadows (or any edition of UO since 2003) upgrade applied to your UO account.

Making your Paladin

There are two ways of starting out as a paladin during character creation; through a template or by specifying the skills to start with. Starting a character as a Paladin or Warrior will give you base skills and stats of:

	Paladin	Warrior
Skills	30 Tactics 30 Swordsmanship 30 Chivalry	30 Tactics 30 Swordsmanship 30 Healing
Stats	45 Strength 20 Dexterity 25 Intelligence	45 Strength 35 Dexterity 10 Intelligence
Additional Equipment	Ringmail armour and helmet, longsword, Book of Chivalry, cloak and sash	Studded leather armour and bascinet and katana

The logical choice for a Paladin would, therefore, be to create a Paladin template. However, it is important to consider why this may not be the best solution.

Many years ago, these templates would contain the skills and stats that a person would use as any given profession, with many more options available than today. Even if you selected a warrior, you then had a further option of selecting options to use Fencing or Mace fighting as skills. Through the years, these options have changed and been refined and, when Paladins were first introduced, each character type had a quest that they could do, with Paladins and Necromancers having very specific quests to their template based in the new cities of Luna and Umbra respectively.

However, all characters started now (regardless of whether or not the account is new) will start in Haven and not a town of the player’s choosing. In addition, there are no special quests for different characters and for this reason alone it is worth considering starting with a custom template.

Starting a character with an custom template allows you to specify your skills and stats that you start with and can allow you greater flexibility over which skill combinations to choose. You have a pool of 100 skill points to distribute into three skills and 70 stat points to put into your three stats of Intelligence, Dexterity and Strength. A quick look at the above chart will show, then, that starting a character as a Paladin would leave you with 10 points less than if you were to make a custom template yourself. However, you would also start with 20 stat points more in the Paladin template as well as some basic armour. Starting a character with the chivalry skill will give you a Book of Chivalry.

There is another option, which is that you can use an existing character (or start a new character that is not a Paladin) and train up the Chivalry skill from 0. This can be achieved through purchasing a Chivalry book. There are only two places to buy this from NPCs: The City of Luna, in Malas and the Chivalry NPC in New Haven

It would be advisable to select “Train Chivalry” from these NPC’s context menus too (accessed through clicking the NPC once), as it can be an expensive skill to train from 0. Typically this will also give you slightly higher Chivalry than if you were to start a Paladin template character, although it will cost 1 gold piece for every 0.1% you buy (it seems that it is usually always 33.3%).

The Tricks of the Trade

Spells/AbilitiesThere are 10 spells, or abilities, available to a paladin, some requiring more mana and skill than others. In order to use any of these abilities, you must have a Book of Chivalry – available from either starting a new character with Chivalry or by purchasing one from NPC paladins around Luna’s moongate. Unless you make a character with Chivalry, you will need to buy a book. There is only two placse to buy this from NPCs: The City of Luna, in Malas and the Chivalry NPC in New Haven. Inside the city near the city’s moongate, are Keepers of Chivalry. You can buy the Book of Chivalry, with all 10 spells inside, for 140 gold pieces from these NPCs.

In order to actually use these abilities, however, you need to have both the appropriate amount of tithing points (similar to reagents that Mages use) and mana. Each spell uses up a certain amount of tithing points and mana:

– Tithing points are accumulated through donation of gold coins at shrines.

For each gold coin you donate, in multiples of 100 (up to a maximum of 100,000), you will receive 1 tithing point. Your current tithing points are displayed in your Book of Chivalry or at a shrine under the “Tithe Gold” menu, although your points are attached to your character (in other words, your book simply displays your points and does not contain them). Once tithed, points will stay with your character, even after death, making Chivalry a useful skill to have for characters who engage in combat regularly. Shrines can be found at each of the Shrines of Virtue across Britannia, each of the gates in Ilshenar, within Luna and at a few other locations.

– Mana is derived from your character’s intelligence (as well as any other mana increasing items that your character may have equipped). Mana regenerates over time and is consumed each time you use an ability In addition to Mana and Tithing points, Karma affects how effective your abilities can be, both in terms of power and duration. Details of each of the abilities, with their skill, Tithing and Mana costs can be found Here. These can also be found at http://www.uoherald.com/guide/guide.php?guideId=66

All spells have a minimum skill requirement, meaning you cannot possibly succeed if you have less than the required skill. However, even with that skill, you still have a good chance of failing. The higher your chivalry, the higher chance you have to succeed. To succeed 100% of the time, you need 50 skill points above the minimum skill required.

Training
If your desired skills are under 30, it may well be worth while buying those skills up higher from an NPC, as mentioned earlier under “Making your Character”. This can save considerable time and money in the case of Chivalry, although the other skills will naturally increase for free through combat.

It is worth considering which complementary skills you would want alongside Chivalry. Popular choices for a weapon skill are archery and swordsmanship, although the latter could be any weapon skill. Each combat skill allows characters to use different weapons, although since Age of Shadows, many weapons can have a “Use Best Weapon Skill” property, allowing the weapon to be used by any weapon skill (excluding archery).

• Parrying will increase defense chance when used with a shield
• Lumberjacking increases damage when used with an axe (a two handed weapon).
• Anatomy and Tactics provide a damage increase bonus
• Healing and Anatomy together let you use bandages to heal, cure and resurrect others
• Magic Resistance increases the chance to resist certain spells like Poison, Curse and Paralyze as well as providing some basic resistances.
• Focus allows you to passively regenerate Mana and Stamina (this skill is only useful at every 20 points).
• Finally, it is worth noting that certain skills like Lumberjacking and Parrying cannot really be used together, rendering a whole skill useless at one time.

Most of these skills are passively trained

• Attacking something will raise your weapon skill, Anatomy and Tactics
• Using bandages to heal yourself (or others) will raise Anatomy and Healing
• Being attacked by spells raises Magic Resistance
• Being attacked by melee attacks raises Parrying (when a shield is equipped)
• Focus will raise when mana and stamina are low

However, you can only gain chivalry by casting chivalry spells and the more that these abilities are used, the more that needs to be tithed. You cannot gain skill from an ability if you cannot succeed, or if you have 100% success chance. So you will need to cast spells that you have a chance to succeed and a chance to fail at. Using the above list of abilities should give an indication of what can be used when, but below is a list of roughly what should be concentrated on at each skill range;

30 – 50	Consecrate Weapon
50 – 65	Divine Fury
65 – 75	Enemy of One
75 – 85	Holy Light
85 – 115	Noble Sacrifice

Some spells overlap, for example you can still gain Divine Fury after 65. However, at this high skill level, more gains may be had from casting Enemy of One. It is also worth pointing out that Chivalry cannot be gained beyond 115 without the use of other skill gaining means, such as Scrolls of Transcendence. However, this is perhaps a waste of skill points as a character would have a 100% success rate with every ability anyway and it would likely only be useful for a small boost to the effect of abilities, or for the “Legendary Paladin” paperdoll title.

Skill training in UO has changed over the years. At the time of writing, there are no methods of “power” training skill (such as through the old 8*8 system or Power Hour). Instead, there is now a “Guaranteed Gains System” method implemented which insures that characters will gain in a skill if they have not done so for a given period of time. More can be found here (along with a chart showing how long you have to wait maximum) – but essentially the higher your skill, the longer it may be before you are guaranteed a skill gain. It is also worth pointing out that characters with a high skill total must wait longer, which means that gaining of skills may well slow down as all of your skills become more trained.

Before this sections finishes, a quick word on Stats. There are three main stats – Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence from which are derived your Health, Stamina and Mana respectively. Strength increases damage and carrying capacity and Dexterity increases swing speed of weapons as well as the speed at which the character can heal with bandages. Mana is consumed by spells and stamina (when reduced through being hit) will reduce a character’s swing speed. Stats are gained randomly through use of other skills but are limited to a total of 225 (up to 250 through a stat scroll) points total. So, stats will gain steadily but you may wish to cap a stat once it reaches a certain point (or a maximum of 125 in any one stat and a minimum of 10).

Suggested Templates

Given the range of complementary skills that could be used, and with more skills being added through the years, it is impossible to suggest a single template that is perfect. The use of Bushido may also be of interest as that, too, is a combat complementary skill. However, the suggested templates here are a good starting point and provide some aim for anybody wishing to make a new Paladin.700 points, no Powerscrolls
100 Swordsmanship
100 Tactics
100 Anatomy
100 Magic Resistance
100 Chivalry
100 Healing
100 Parrying or 100 Lumberjacking

The above template relies on no powerscrolls and assumes that the characters have no extra skill points other than a first year account would. Substituting swordsmanship for archery would remove any use for Lumberjacking and Parrying, meaning that a skill such as Focus can be used.

720 points, Powerscrolls – Parry/Lumberjacking
120 Swordsmanship
100 Tactics
100 Anatomy
100 Magic Resistance
80 Chivalry
100 Healing
120 Parrying or 100 Lumberjacking and 120 Tactics

The use of powerscrolls starts to change the balance of skills somewhat. Above 100, skills have higher success chances and can become more potent, doing more damage and enhancing the effects of abilities. Notice that Chivalry has been decreased; this is because many of the abilities may not be used that often and the skill can be increased through the use of skill items. It can be argued that the benefits of having Chivalry any higher are outweighed by the benefits of higher weapon skill. If you are using Lumberjacking, you cannot go over 100 and therefore may wish to go with 100 Chivalry, although more benefit may be found from 120 Tactics (to get the most damage increase out of using an axe)

720 points, Powerscrolls – No Parry/Lumberjacking
120 Swordsmanship / Archery
120 Tactics
120 Magic Resistance
100 Anatomy
100 Healing
80 Chivalry
80 Focus

Since Age of Shadows, many melee characters found their templates imbalanced. The introduction of Chivalry meant that room had to be made somewhere. In addition, raising multiple skills over 100 proved difficult and the lack of Focus could hinder some from being able to regenerate Mana properly. For some, this was not too difficult as they did not have any Parrying or Lumberjacking skill, such as archers. For others, this meant having to drop some skills below 100 or remove them entirely. Depending on your playstyle, this may even be Magic Resistance, since this no longer protects against spells that do direct damage

The above template increase the weapon skill, Tactics and Magic Resistance to 120, which provide more damage and allow the character to receive less negative effects from many higher level creatures in newer areas of the game. The extra room made by no Parrying or Lumberjacking and reducing Chivalry to 80 allows for multiple skills to go over to 120 and to fit Focus in. More focus may be desirable but mana regeneration items can be found on items and armour. In addition, it is worth noting that human characters have an effective base 20 skill in all skills, so Focus may not even be used at all.

It is, of course, entirely up to who is playing the character. Chivalry may wish to be the focus of a character, or it may instead be used to boost the effective abilities of a warrior.

Journeying Onward

New Haven is the current starting point for all new characters. This is a good place to train for a while and there are accelerated gain quests around the town for all of your combat skills you may use. Eventually, however, you will want to progress outside of Haven. To the south west of the town is a moongate to the rest of Britannia. From here also, you can access the City of Luna, where you can purchase your Book of Chivalry if you have not already got one.

• To start with, you will want to get your character in order. First, tithe some gold at an Ankh, which can be found in the same building as the Chivalry NPC in Haven. It may be worth tithing as much as you can now, although you may wish to hold some gold back for buying other things later.
• With any gold you have left, you may want to buy any extra skill points in skills that you want to train to their maximum. This may require some collecting of gold from monsters but, while you train, you can get quests from each of the NPCs that are relevant to your skills.
• Naturally you will want to engage in combat at some point. If you want to train Parrying or Lumberjacking, you may wish to buy a shield or an axe and if you want to train Healing or Archery you may want to buy consumables, such as arrows and bandages (which can be bought at the respective bowyer and healer NPCs). Armour, weapons and equipment can be found as loot (as well as gold) on monsters that you can kill and are always better than those that you can purchase from an NPC. In fact, player crafted equipment may be even better and this can typically be bought from a player created vendor, although shopping and items are beyond the scope of this article
• Extra things like a horse you can buy at a stables from the stable master. They cost about 500 gold and are worth investing in for speed and travel.
• If you are thinking of using bandages to heal, you will want a way to efficiently produce bandages. At some point, it may be cheap to buy them but for now it may become pricey. There are many ways to get bandages, but the fastest and fairly cheap way to buy bandages is to go to a tailor’s shop and buy scissors and cloth (cut the cloth bolts into yards of cloth, then the yards of cloth into bandages). Carrying about 150 to 200 bandages is advisable, but if you are relying on Close Wounds, you may not need so many. If you are starting out, 50 to 100 should do fine. Note: Using bandages over and over will not heal the character – you must wait until you see a message telling you of your success or failure. The time will decrease with an increase in dexterity (it can take from 2 to 15 seconds).

Before you set off into the wilderness, you will want to know how to cast your Chivalry spells. Just open your book and double click the icon of that spell. Instead of having to keep on opening your book, you can just click and hold your mouse on the icon, and drag it out of the book onto your screen area. You can do this with all your spells, and then just double click the icon which is now on your screen.

Now you’re ready to set out. Other than creatures on the island, to the east is Old Haven, which contains the ruins of Haven as it used to be. This is a good area for new characters to train as the spell casting monsters do not inflict damaging spells and provide a good way to train Magic Resist.

Because your weapon skills are likely to rise quicker than your chivalry, you might want to move on to harder creatures when you start hitting the 60s in some of your combat skills. Try and venture further outside of Haven and tackle Ettins and Harpies. If you get too trashed, run away – this tactic will ensure that you survive longer (and should not necessarily be dismissed as cowardly!). Go back to lesser monsters until you’re think you are good enough to try again. When your chivalry gets to about the 60/65 mark, then start attempting Enemy of One. This spell is very useful if you’re hunting a group of creatures like Lizardmen or Ettins or undead – but beware, because if you are fighting in an area with many different creatures at once, you will only hit one for extra damage and all the others will inflict more to you.

Once you have grasped the basics, all you need to do is to keep on training. The better you get, the more you can kill, and the more tithing points you can get. You will be able to judge for yourself how much you need to tithe and be able to pick up your own style of combat manoeuvres with Chivalry. There is no right or wrong way to cast spells, it’s what suits you. Maybe you prefer using Holy Light for groups of enemies, or just using divine fury to fight with increased speed against a particular foe.

Gaining from 70 to 120 couldn’t be simpler. In terms of what gains best, you should use Enemy of One to gain up to about 75, at which point switch over to Holy Light up until around 85. From 85 you can get all the way up to 115 by using Noble Sacrifice. Two points to note here; the first is that you need a Powerscroll in order to attain above Grandmaster (100.0) skill and the second that Noble Sacrifice sets your Mana, Stamina and Hit Points to 1 – so don’t use this if you’re engaged in combat unless you have to (for the good of others!).

You may want to vary a bit from using Noble Sacrifice on the way up. If you want to gain in combat, you could use Holy Light up to about 100 (Grandmaster) which uses only 10 tithing points per casting. However, since it becomes easier to cast as you get nearer to 105, you’ll gain far less than if you were to cast Noble Sacrifice. Noble Sacrifice is certainly a lot more cost effective – so if you really want to gain fast, your best bet is to cast Noble Sacrifice.

As you progress, you may develop your own style and you might stop after deciding that your chivalry skill is high enough. Remember that there is no “perfect” template and your “class” is what you define it to be!