Priest basic questions. The 7 base spells

[runequester]

So more like a warrior who happens to get some spells to diversify?

I imagine at least it'd be a little easier on the poor backpack as far as inventory spaces

[Raxmei]

Depends. You end up carrying 5-8 books. With warriors the things I end up carrying that a late game paladin wouldn't also have to carry are food, recall, rods of trap detection (optional, I've beaten the game without using them), illumination, detection, and some sort of identify. Either would have to carry phase door, teleport, teleport other, cure critical, speed (if permanent isn't high enough), and healing but a paladin wouldn't have to use them as heavily. The minimum 5% fail thing means they have to carry 0-fail items for emergencies when you absolutely must get that healing or teleport right this second, but they do get to lean on their personal magic for routine matters and save the supplies for emergencies. With warriors in the late game I tend to run short on cure critical whereas paladins tend to run a surplus. They have a few tricks that warriors can't reliably cover with equipment but the big difference I notice between paladins and warriors is resource flow. That and attribute dependency. Warriors have an easier time getting their important stats up to high levels because they have fewer stats to worry about and they have higher inherent bonuses to the ones that matter to them.

In the early-to-mid game the difference is you can light rooms and detect traps all day while a warrior in all likelihood only has scarce scrolls and you can simply outlast the enemy in certain sorts of fight by using endless cure light wounds. The warrior, for his part, is killier than you and doesn't worry about that spellcasting baggage.