What attributes do I want? As of now I have paralyze and a sword in both hands.

I've invested in Alteration, 1h sword, and the novice restoration skill. What else should I want?

Armor skill.

Well, if you already have paralyze I'd say you're pretty far along.

I'd say working on your Restoration might be a good way to go. I have a mage character who operates like a spellsword (wears robes; sword or staff in one hand, Ward or destruction magic in the other). Wards work well for him most of the time. If you're not casting offensively while trying to keep up a Ward, you'll find it much more viable.

Destruction seems like an obvious route too, but you likely won't see much use out of Impact with a sword in your right hand.

I have a 'blitz' type character who uses a destruction spell in one hand and a sword in the other. Destruction gives a short ranged attack as they close, then straight into swinging. Uses it to exploit e.g. fire weakness to add on to melee damage. It's a lot of fun. Vulnerable against counter attack, but that keeps things interesting.

my main is a level 67 spellsword, i would say the most important skills for one would be heavy armor, smithing, enchanting, one handed, and restoration/destruction depending on weather you want to use potions more often or not. if you combine enchanting with smithing and one handed you can make godly weaps, same goes for armor.

If you're a speedy character (ie you invest in Light Armor) then with a little practice you can dodge the counter attacks fairly easily.

That's what I do, and it works great.

Well you are going to need to make a big decision about playstyle. Do you want to go sword and board and switch to spells when you need them, or are you going to go with a spell in one hand and a sword in the other. Obviously you can switch back and forth between the two styles, but one or the other will dominate. If you are going to use a shield more often than not, then take the block perks. Elemental Protection will be invaluable. On the other hand, if you plan on using a spell in one hand most of the time, then you might want to forego the block perks for something else, and you will need to go for the Ward Absorb perk in the Restoration tree.

I just made a character that uses Heavy armor, block, restoration, conjuration, and enchanting.

I basically wanted to "tank" enemies while my companion and summons kill enemies and be unkillable with high armor and awesome healing spells to heal myself and my followers... so far it has been amazingly fun.

My one-handed skill is fairly high also from using bound sword when I feel like changing the pace a bit also, I'm trying to avoid using destruction for the most part, except for rune and cloak spells.

I powered leveled alteration as soon as I left for riverwood:P

My idea for a spellsword, take it or leave it: http://skyrimcalculator.com/#76079

If I'm wrong (perking one-handed to benefit conjured blade) I'm sorry, I haven't played with bound weapons before. Basically the idea is to benefit from Alteration armor/magic resist, taking Restoration solely for the eventual "avoid death" perk, and playing with a bound sword in one hand and a destruction spell in the other, wearing only robes (to benefit from the related perk in Alteration).

This is just my own idea

I like that build! I might substitute Illusion for Destruction because you don't need to perk Destruction to spam Destruction spells with a good set of enchanted gear the way you have enchant perked (easy free casting), but Illusion is pretty much useless at higher levels without the perks. With the perks, Illusion could be a lot of fun for a character that wears no armor and uses bound weapons.

Damn! Now you got me wanting to play this build, and I got four Skyrim characters running right now and just started a new one in Oblivion.

I have a spell-sword with impact.... It helps with interrupting (staggering) enemies at range (primarily dragons breath attacks)

In retrospect... I think I may have preferred Archery and bound bow though.

Am I mistaken into believing that a Battlemage is someone who uses heavy armour/magic/1H and a spellsword uses light armour instead? Probably. Anyway you should choose your armour skill and that depends on whether you want to tank the damage or avoid it. I'd currently say that going light armour and trying to avoid damage is a safer option. Either way points in the illusion school helps for versatility and crowd control and the same goes for the conjuration school. Enchanting should also be you preferred choice of enhancement if your going with the whole magic thing.

Well going by Oblivions classes It's: Spellsword uses spells, heavy armor, one handed weapons, and shield. Battlemage's are the same except no armor/shields.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Classes

By that chart I'd be described more as a nightblade than a spellsword.

Can't really compare Oblivion too much since there was nothing to do with your off hand but hold a shield or the haft of a two handed weapon and there was no discinction between one and two handed weapon skills. But yeah, now that I think about it, a spellsword would probably wear armor, rather than go for the mage armor perks. That saves three perks that can go into armor. It is pretty easy to hit the armor cap in Skyrim, so I would go heavy armor and put four perk points into it to get the weightless armor and reduced falling damage. But light armor with four perks to get weightless armor and increased stamina regen would also be a good option.

spellsword simply refers to a 1 hand user who makes use of magic in the offhand instead of shield.

Battlemage refers to someone who only uses magic, but wears heavy armor.

Battlemages sometimes make use of bound axe occasionally but not typically as their primary form of damage (more like giving themselves time to recharge). (They use destro instead of bound bow. Bound Sword is more spell-sword)

Spellswords will wear light or no armor typically...

but a heavy armor 1hander with magic could be considered spellsword still.

There really are no concrete rules to the archetypes.... they're just ideas for gameplay concepts.