New Player from 2000

[Kajaen]

Hey, all! I played EQ back from '99-2000 and got a necromancer, shadowknight, and cleric to 60. Fantastic times as far as I remember. Anyway, I'm currently downloading everything and getting it all set up and I have to say that I'm really excited. However, I have a couple of questions.

First of all, I really want to play a paladin. I never did for whatever reason, so I want to remedy that. I'm torn between the Half Elf and the Dwarf for races. I looked on the wiki and there seems to be a huge disparity between their starting stats. How big of impact does this have on their viability? I remember Half Elf paladins not being too rare back in the day, so they can't be too gimped, but I want to make sure before starting.

Other than that, any tips for a newbie?