Thank you everyone for the answers to my questions. You bring up another point I have trouble with. Skill practice. How do you manage it without leveling up? I had a good run with Malagmyr because of a skill learning bonus while ranking, but other than that I feel my skills are very sub par compared to the way people talk about their chars and maxing X skill before passing Y level or whatever. By the way, thank you to the mages and folks that kept learning with me despite having to hold my evil hand a bit. I'm getting there!

I've played a mud that had training dummies you could practice on, is there something like that I just haven't found? Is that what Barovia and the camouflaged shrub are for?

I tried to switch to a few classes with healing which were human. I noticed my skill gains were WAY worse with them, so I really don't see how I'd ever max something without leveling. Unless maybe you just don't kill the mob? I could do that with the ranger that can hide in the forest, but the paladin doesn't seem likely to accomplish that.