So, are paladins just the bane of evil clerics?
I am playing my first ever cleric now (yes yes, I went shaman before cleric..heh) and I find that paladins give me more trouble than even most BLM's or Monks.
Any advice? I have tried several spell setups with varying success but nothing has been consistent.
I would have actually said the advantage should be more on the side of the Evil Cleric - However if your talking about Pamiyn remember Dey has played 154612418432 Paladins, and Pamiy is an Avatar.
Remember your first Paladin Dey? I used to feel like such a badass on my first ever character fighting you 
Shame you got so very much better than me!
Edit - Oh and I'd recommend setting up Svs Aff to 35 or so (to stop Firebreaf blind) and then going Hps/AC.
A paladin with good saves can do very well against all but the most well-equipped evil clerics, but will find it very hard to finish them off without curse. We have superior melee, so we can make it hard for you to land spells and damage us easily (saves) whilst we have melee to land on you, and also drain your mana and/or damage you by dropping spell-turning and landing wrath.
Try to keep that curse from landing for as long as possible, and in the process keep yourself well healed so you can stay in combat and land/cast your spells. Good saves will help in that respect, as it will lessen the damage from our prayers whilst bolstering your protection to curse and flamebreath, which is what gives us nightmares.
Dey
EDIT:
Remember your first Paladin Dey? I used to feel like such a badass on my first ever character fighting you
Verniere VS Loric, those were the days. You bullied hell out of me. 
If I would have had my old PC still I could have gotten the log of our first battle...
Holy hands. Paladins are often at disadvantage vs Paladins.
is path of deceit considred afflictive?
I know dispel and summon are mental....spells that do damage and proc for effects however...quite confusing .
Path of Deceit has 2 saves checks - an afflictive and a maledictive. The Aff for direct damage, then if following that the maledictive for Poison/Plague/Blasphemy.
EDIT
A few spells are like that, Flamestrike is another bit of a weird one, two aff saves, one for damage and then an easier one to save against for Firebreath.
hmm so a certain arena helm would hinder part but buff the other...interesting.
I'm not 100% sure, but from what I remember It seemed like the Maledictive check didn't happen if you saved against the Afflictive one.
Pretty sure that's not true. I'm fairly certain I've had people save against the damage yet still be blinded.
Are we talking path or flamestrike?
Path won't do a mal unless they fail the aff save. I think the blind from flamestrike has a chance regardless.
I was talking about flamestrike.
Correct:
Flamestrike can blind even after you saved for damage.
Ray/Path appear to not mal, if you save the damage.
Also Ray of Thruth was broke many years, and that is probably the main reason why Good Clerics never got the reputation of Evil ones. Adding to the fact that sermon was also broke, but in a good way to evil Clerics.
Only thing i still dont know is if ray does Light damage or just basic magical one. 
Ray does light/holy damage.
Light and holy aren't the same.
Yeah, sorry... I mistyped that. I meant to say it does EITHER light or holy... I can't remember which. Either way, it's a bitch to undeads/illithids. (EDIT: Which I suppose would probably make it light damage... either way, it's not basic magic damage)
Ray does light damage again these days...
from my understanding of path, you get two saves for it, and both are independant.
You have to fail the aff save for the mals to have a chance. Its not exactly difficult to test anyways...
Yeah I was talking about Ray/Path as thats what the original question was about.
I always used spell turning against a paladin. That way they could blind themselves 
Although a good paladin would use dispel evil until it drops.
