I don't know if the various patches changed that but I think most firemages in Myrtana sold Paladin armor. I'm pretty confident about the one in Vengard in the room above the King.
The 3rd level of sword mastery had the same problem from the very beginning and apart from not learning the skill there's not much you can do. If however you were playing with Alternative AI knocking the orcs down would have been helpful as you cannot spam clicks due to their ability to block.