Stereotypical Dwarven warrior type and follower of Moradin.
Paladin [...] Wis (and Cha) at 10
With those mental ability scores, Moradin isn’t doing much for this dwarf. Detect evil works, Aura of Courage applies, and Turn Undead functions but won’t work on anything meaningful. Smite evil adds a tiny damage bonus, and misses out on its most significant aspect. Divine Grace does nothing, Lay on Hands does nothing, spells do nothing.
Paladin as a class fails to accurately portray this character, as is. This looks more like a warrior that Moradin has abandoned than Moradin’s chosen champion. You could use an Alternate Class Feature or an overpowered 3rd-party feat to salvage spellcasting, as others have recommended, but it does nothing for the smorgasbord of class features that do nothing with those mental ability scores.
There is a sad fact in 3.5, particularly in core, where the descriptions of classes are frequently not well supported by their actual class features. The text says that taking a particular class will make you into a certain kind of character, but the class doesn’t really do it. This is an excellent example. A new player reading the book gets the impression that if he wants to play a devout warrior, he has to pick paladin.
I think this player should consider retconning this character’s class
Obviously, with your permission, and in discussion with the entire group; retcons are big deals. But for a brand-new player to get to fix some of the issues with their character that largely stem from 3.5’s failures, to enjoy the game better, if done carefully it can dramatically improve the game. There are classes that better capture the “high concept” of this character, to steal a Fate term, than the paladin.
For example, even fighter would simply work better for this character, and fighters can pray just as hard as paladins if they want to. There is nothing stopping a fighter from believing that their strength and skills are divine gifts. It could even be true.
For that matter, historically and in folklore, most berserkers were believed to be divinely blessed with their frenzy – Cu Chulainn was “known for his terrifying battle frenzy, or ríastrad,” quoth Wikipedia, and many versions of the tale attribute this to the influence of his godly father, Lugh. Norse berserkers were “sometimes described as Odin’s special warriors,” again says Wikipedia. Thus barbarian could be an eminently appropriate class as well.
But the most appropriate class in 3.5 for this character is, without a doubt, the crusader from Tome of Battle. Written towards the end of the 3.5 lifecycle, Tome of Battle is far-and-away the most tightly-designed book for the system, and its three base classes are, in many ways, the paladin, monk, and fighter as they were meant to be. Those three core classes had serious design flaws from the very beginning, and with Tome of Battle Wizards offered better versions.
The crusader is inspired and inspirational, following his faith through every step of the battle, moving as his god wills it. He calls his allies to ever-greater heights of glory, and he just does not stop. His sublime martial maneuvers are perfected attacks and defenses, honed through centuries of development and years of training and prayer. The class does not get spells, gets only a few supernatural class features (though he does get smite), but his martial maneuvers, many of them supernatural, are potent and enjoyable abilities. He also gets Steely Resolve, which allows him to delay some damage for a round, and Furious Counterstrike, which improves his attack and damage when he does.
The three disciplines the crusader accesses are excellent: Devoted Spirit allows the crusader to heal allies as he attacks his foes, Stone Dragon allows him to push through any and all defenses while hardening himself to any retort, and White Raven organizes his allies into a cohesive whole.
And while the class has some use for Charisma (Cha to Will saves, smite), it is not nearly as crucial to the class as it is to the paladin. A crusader of Moradin has many gifts from his god, and they don’t rely on his sunny disposition.
But the best part of crusader is that it is one of the most new-player-friendly classes they ever wrote. Unlike feats and spells, which vary wildly in their power and are therefore very difficult to choose well, martial maneuvers are all pretty well designed and useful. A player can just pick what sounds cool, and rest assured that it will be. This is not something that can be claimed about any other set of options in the game.
And in combat, the crusader has a strange – but effective – system. He readies a certain number of maneuvers, 5 to begin with, but 3 of them (2 with a feat) are withheld from him, at random, and he gains access to one each round he continues fighting. In effect, he has a deck of cards, each one with a maneuver on it, and at the start of the fight, he draws 2. Each round, he draws another 1, until he goes to draw a card and there are none left. At that point, he reshuffles the deck and can draw 2 again, starting fresh – and each shuffle recovers his maneuvers, so he can use them again.
While this system may seem overly complicated, it does an excellent job of portraying random flashes of inspiration, and it is extremely simple in practice. It also is very effective, as the crusader never has to stop to recover maneuvers, as other initiators do. And Wizards even offers free Maneuver Cards for download, which makes it easy to turn this into an actual deck.
And that is why the class is so good for new players: their abilities are right there on cards in front of them. They draw from the deck, and they know exactly what their options are. They can turn a card over to show it’s been used. They always have a few options; they never have too many that will paralyze them.
I have recommended crusader to many new players, and that has gone very well for me. This character seems a perfect match for the class anyway, and I strongly recommend at least considering switching the player to it. Retconning a character’s class is a big deal, I realize, but the benefits here are immense.
