paladin, sword sage advice

[chaotician375]

So our game got pushed back a week and I've had to much time to mull over character ideas for my own good. I got to thinking about a Paladin, Sword Sage build, here's what I've got so far:
1:Half-Orc Paladin substitution 1-Feat:Serenity (Wis replaces Cha on paladin abilities)
2:paladin 2-divine grace, lay on hands
3:Sword sage-Feat:? maybe powerattack
4:Swordsage-Wis to ac in light armor
5-12:is where I'm stuck. As is obvious im looking at wisdom synergy and trying to be awesome, but I don't know where to go from here, and base classes that I could continue with, or a PrC I'm not seeing.

[Douglas]

Just straight up more Swordsage would be pretty good.

[andromax]

Pure Swordsage after 2 level dip in Paladin would keep you pretty tier 3.

A couple levels in Psi Warrior with practiced manifester could open up a few options with low level powers.

Vigor and Expansion as obvious choices.

[Soranar]

I get that half-orc paladin righteous fury is more useful than normal smite evil but

-what's the point if you're just dipping in paladin?
-does your DM ignore multiclassing penalties?
-does your DM ok that Serenity works with righteous fury? (the feat doesn't specify righteous fury so you'd need his approval for this to work)

I'm all for half-or paladins but, with only 1 use per day, righteous fury doesn't warrant taking a subpar race

now, as to which class to pursue more

paladin dip (with serenity) nets you WIS to saves, very limited healing (lay on hands), no spellcasting, no mount, no turn undead

swordsage dip (depending on when you take it) nets you WIS to AC in light armor, maneuver and stances (possibly assassin's stance or the like if taken at higher levels, a free weapon focus

since swordsage requires light armor for the WIS to AC to work, the paladin armor proficiencies are mostly useless, they also share most of their weapon proficiencies so that's irrelevant too

fully progressing Paladin nets you

-spellcasting
-healing
-turn undead (with travel devotion that effectively grants you pounce)
-righteous fury progression
-a mount

fully progressing swordsage nets you

-way more/better maneuvers
-better stances
-less BAB
-less hitpoints
-way more skillpoints

Basically, you need to figure out what role you want to fill.

While there is synergy in the WIS thing, both classes have very different roles.

-A paladin is normally a tank/backup healer / buffer (through the smite to song feat)

-a swordsage is normally a striker (damage dealer)/ skillmonkey

personally I'd just check what my teammates are doing and fill whatever role is not covered by the party composition