Is Sword of the Arcane Order/Mage of the Arcane Order viable?

[Sir_Chivalry]

Sword of the Arcane Order is a feat from Champions of Valor which allows rangers and paladins to cast wizard spells with all that entails (preparing them from a spellbook, arcane spell failure)

With a paladin or ranger having Sword of the Arcane Order (and thus casting arcane spells) is Mage of the Arcane Order ever a not-terrible option for a prestige class?

The spell pool of Mage would seem to counter the smaller spells known list of a Sword character (who must add spells to the spellbook by paying each time without gaining any on level up) but the low hit dice and poor attack bonus might cripple a frontline fighter type.

I know Mystic Ranger would get the most from this but would a paladin (preferred) or ranger end up unplayable or can I safely take the hit to some already low tier classes?

[Unavenger]

It's all right, but I'd honestly rather play a straight-up SotAO paladin, especially because the Mystic Fire Knight alternate class feature gets you a bonus spell slot of each level you can cast which improves your magical abilities significantly. You can also maybe use battle blessing to cast wizard spells as a swift action (ask your DM, because it's not entirely clear whether spells cast from the wizard list by a paladin are wizard spells, paladin spells, both or neither).

That said, there are generally more useful prestige classes to go into, such as abjurant champion, although nothing about abjurant champion stops you going into MotAO later. Since you also can't use the higher-level spellpool spells, I would advocate only bothering with a single MotAO level, or perhaps two, since that way you only lose out on a single point of base attack bonus.

[Blackhawk748]

As a dip it's fine. It costs you a feat, some money and one BaB. In exchange, you get access tthe Spell pool, which is what you wanted.