[Blade]

As for the armor question, yes if you select the feats you can use any weapon or armor but the downside is that shields and armor give you a percentage change of spells failing on you unless you use metamagic feats, like still spell, to compinsate. For instence the dragon armor i just came across had a 45% spell failure rate and if you added a light shield it would be a 50% failure rate. Although this doesn't anyone elece but mages and socerers. Personally i found the pixe a good familiar at the start to open the locks and traps. Your stats are good but remember you will have to have 19 Int. to cast 9th level spells by the end of the game and you can only increase a stat every 4 levels.