As I'm playing NWN, I seem to vaguely remember back in the day reading that Paladins in these games get a special Holy Sword when reaching 7th level? I seem to remember it being pretty nifty. There was also something about a special steed that could be summoned too. Anybody remember about this? Did the rules change in 3rd edition?

I saw this and answered it in the Neverwinter forum. It's rather a lenghty answer so...

here

I can only speak for 1st and 2nd ed, but the holy sword is essentially an artifact power weapon (I only once had a character actually find a full powered +5 holy avenger except in bg2 and that campaign was just insane, we outsmarted the dm so often he sent us against things we had not way to beat, ie a greater mummy at lvl 3, we were in his lair and our rangers first words were, I run for the horde (we had no magic weapons and greater mummy's are immune to nonmagical fire, so he got lucky and found a magical sword in the mummy's treasure pile)

as far as summoning a mount the paladin can summon a special mount {a 5+5hd heavy warhorse mv 18 (normal movement rate is 15) with LG alignment, and 2-3 higher int than normal for a warhorse}

a holy sword must be found, or specially made for a given paladin, either method involves huge risk and endless adventure possibilties