Mystic Paladin

[Thurbane]

Hey, I was wondering if you guys could help me homebrew a class variant. I want a variant paladin that trades a lot of his martial prowess for increased spellcasting ability. Here goes:

BAB: Cleric
Saves: Good Fort & Willpower; bad Reflex
HD: d8
Skills: 4 per level, from Paladin list plus Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (The Planes) and Spellcraft

Armor Proficiency: Medium Armor, all shields (except tower shields), all simple and martial weapons

Spell Progression: as Bard

Spells: Levels 1-4 as is Paladin List; Levels 0, 5 & 6: from the Cleric list, but only spells of the Conjuration (Healing) and Abjuration schools. Any spell duplicated on the cleric and paladin spell list uses the lower spell level. The Mystic Paladin still memorizes spells as normal, but uses the Bard's spells per day progression.

All other class abilities (detect evil lay on hands, special mount) remain the same.

Core spells:

0 - Cure Minor Wounds, Resistance
5 - Atonement, Break Enchantment, Cure Light Wounds (mass), Raise Dead, Spell Resistance
6 - Antilife Shell, Banishment, Cure Moderate Wounds (mass), Dispel Magic (greater), Forbiddance, Glyph of Warding (greater), Heal


...does this look balanced, or worthwhile?

[Starsinger]

Why not try Cleric entering The Paladin Prestige Class (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/prestigiousCharacterClasses.htm#prestigePaladin)

[Thurbane]

Good point, but not exactly what I'm going for...anyone else?

[AstralFire]

Honestly, if you leave out Spell Compendium (which took a lot of pages from later 3.5 design and gave Pallies and Rangers more unique spells that are useful to them in combat) then... well... Paladins don't really have that much martial prowess to give up in the first place. They get a nice d10 and a full BAB, and that doesn't do much. Pallies probably should have been a six level caster in the first place.