How to best build a character with limited resources?

[Roth]

I have a 17 necro and an 18 mage with limited plat and so-so gear. I felt the urge to casually play a meelee since my necro I'm currently duo leveling with someone, so I made a dwarf paladin. My question basically comes down to, if you started on this server with no armor/plat as a meelee, what would be the best way to start gearing up?

As far as I know, the only two practical options would be to level smithing then make banded armor myself, or to try to scrounge up plat for the cheapest gear I can find in commonlands. Are there any other options I'm missing, and what would be the best way to go about doing this? Obviously a non gear reliant class would be better, but if you HAD to do this, what would you do and what would the cost be? Also, how would you start making plat? I'm not asking for specific plat farms, just some general areas that are fine would help a lot.