I've been having an itch to start a cleric-type character who basically just uses Lydia or some other warrior type as a meat shield while I stand back and heal/buff them while also casting Illusion spells on enemies for crowd control purposes and some novice-level destruction. I would also use shield and enchanted weapon for support if I run out of mana or just feel like getting my hands dirty. Is it a viable build? Are there any quests where you can't bring along a companion or anything like that?

I'm thinking something like this for the skills:

Main Skills:

Restoration
Alteration
Illusion
Enchanting
Smithing (So I can deck my follower out in the best gear)
One Hand
Block
Destruction (probably wouldn't go any further than Novice/Augmented Flames)

What do you think?

I don't think there are any quests where you can't bring a companion.

It is definitely Viable, but I did not do a heavy restoration build yet, so are there any healing spells you can "shoot" at someone?
Also, if you get high in alteration, it will cancel out the shield because the shield adds armor, which makes the 3x boosting of skins spells irrelevant.

There are quests that you can't bring a companion on... but you can kind-of brute force your way through those. I think that 8 skills is too many for a character to "perk" successfully.... stick to five or six. I'd dump Destruction entirely and probably not perk Illusion either.

Its totally viable, even on master difficulty. You might try conjuration instead of Destruction, though. Pop out your minions and heal your follower, throw some buffs for added effect.

Plus you can invest points to reduce spell dmg taken in the Alteration tree! No "shooting" spells in restoration, but the undead will fear you!

I feel like it's especially viable on master difficulty because you're essentially dealing your damage through your follower, and correct me if I'm wrong but they aren't gimped by the difficulty increase like your character is.

Like someone above said forget about Alteration, the armor buff you get while wearing heavy armor is vastly decreased. You might want to add Conjuration to your build. Remember that the (evil) cleric can summon the undead to fight for him. Destruction is a bit out of context for a cleric if you ask me, it makes more sense for a battlemage or a spellsword.

I would go with:

Heavy Armor
Block
One Handed
Restoration
Smithing
Enchanting
Conjuration

I'm not sure about how difficulty affects followers, but the wiki has a nice list of "essential" followers that cannot be killed.

I think it would work better if it were co-op.

Illusion and alteration will both break the game. Paralyze and all the CC spells in illusion will make it stupid easy.one hand + block is all you need as well. You can solo with that build....its hard to make a build you could not do so with.

Of course, everything's better with co-op! Until then, if it gets to be a pain using followers, try a battlemage build. I am currently using something similar to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2bHk_3d5ec
Just work in some resto if you wanna switch back and forth to healer and damage dealer.

umm as long as you don't plan on finishing the main quest with this character it is fine

Why?

Stick with conjuration,you can always find staff's that do destruction damage,I have a simular build and also got me a war dog, with my meat shield and a fire elemental...we can take on anything.For times when it is just me i have staff's,scrolls,and potions to help.

May I suggest, restoration and illusion for buffing/healing your companion. Then conjuration for zombies/atronachs/dremora to help you with your battles, you can use the illusion spells to buff them to. You wouldn't need to perk illusion if you were only using the buff spells.

I think using robes would suit your character more, using alteration armor would be a good option. If you don't go with conjuration, get the atronach perk/stone to stop mages in their tracks.

Then you can just use the crafting skills as well.

Well, for RP purposes I'm not going to be raising zombies or summoning Dremora. I've kind of morphed this character idea into more of a support paladin, so raising dead to fight for me is out of the question.

I have decided to go for the Vigil of Stendarr look for my guy though, just because I think wearing robes and heavy gauntlets and boots looks really cool. Might even try a helmet if I think it looks good enough eventually. Probably just use steel plate.

I'm not going to be taking Alteration or block after all though. I'm gonna go Resto/Illusion/One-Handed with some support flame destruction for my combat type skills and then smithing and enchanting so I can give my followers the good stuff.

Not sure what you'd call it, but I think it will be fun. Inquisitor, Paladin, Battle-Mage, either way I think I'll like it.

Stay away from all offensive spells other than turn undead. Clerics use their mace or war hammer, heavy armor, and block in combat. Using restoration for fighting undead, healing and healing hands. I use courage a lot on my follower. Even low level turn undead spells will stagger high level undead making it usefull. As far as role playing the thane quests, companions, main quest, hunting down dragon priests, word wall hunting or just general dungeon crawling is your best bet. I made a "cleric" on my warrior playthrough and it's ok. It is more fun than a straight warrior with the added fun of buffs, and undead killing.

The best synergy comes from conjuration + illusion. Call to arms gives +HP, 1h, 2h and archery bonus, so you can use every single part of its effect on: follower + 2 dead thralls. Dont use magic followers nor atronachs.

I myself run with Lydia as tank, dead thralled Aela and Annekke (ranged dps, both archers, so CtA's +archery works on them). Leaving Lydia still alive as tank allows you to spam heals on her (healing doesnt work on undead unfortunately). Everything gets completely rofl-stomped by this team.

Roleplaying evil cleric is much easier as you see.

To me that is a classic "Cleric" build, but maybe without Enchanting and getting some training in Speech.

Destruction replaced with Conjuration as others have said, clerics were able to summon in classic RPGs (although it was usually somewhat evil.)

Conjuration is not cleric.

Tell that to my Baldur's Gate clerics that used to completely fill a room with 56 gently creaking skeletons.

He never said what kind of cleric!

I am fairly new to skyrim but would want to suggest healing hands