Multiple Post Pages through Template

I am building a blog, and this blog has an archive page. The archive page should display all previous posts, excluding the most recent one.
I’ve seen how to exclude the most recent post through the offset parameter, but I am confronted with a different issue:

If I tell wordpress not to specify a “posts” page, and assign the archive page to a template, I can get the offset to work, but then I see no navigation below the posts for multiple pages.

I.e. the archive page should display 3 – 5 posts at a time, and have links at the bottom for going back in time to look at more posts.

I have no idea how to do this in my template. It simply lists all posts, or lists a certain number and has no navigation for viewing more posts. I need to generate multiple pages of posts based on how many are in the database.