Although I am not the experienced player you will want to give his $0.02 here at least I can give you an insight on the paladin.
The paladin tries to impersonate the mage as well as the warrior. As for the mage he totally fails. No higher magic, no mage, period. He can accumulate quite a bit of intellect and damage spells do work until mid-game but its the end of the line. He doesn't fail that much as a warrior. Leadership is not so much decreased in comparison to spell power and 50% castings per turn. So it's not that much of a big deal.
You've already gotten it right. Rune Stone in fact IS the key to this class improving his wannabe mage/warrior skills. You can in fact reach the final tier of all three trees before ~20 with it which gives you a lot of alternatives to build your character on. Ever thought of full Onslaught+Dark Commander and Destroyer (theoretically of course, for it makes no sense) AND Rune Stone ? You thought right. It's doable, with ease. But as I said, Destroyer is as wrong as can be. But feels good to know you could ^^
Especially on hard/impossible you have to rely on army builds viable regardless of what items/spells you can get randomly. That's where tolerance comes into the game. If nothing works out with "pewpew lazergunz"-Items that rule the game you still can go with undeads and demons along with anything you want. It's not a talent you aim for primarily but later on you don't know where to put mind runes anyway...
Having the Might and Magic talent trees accessible makes very much up for the lesser leadership/lvl offered on lvl ups. What it doesn't compensate is the rage gain that is in fact remarkably lower than on the warrior and not too much better than with the mage. You have to think of alternatives and rage decrease lvl up choices on spirits is ALWAYS the right choice. But you will know that from your mage.
Prepare for a change, a paladin is so nothing like the mage. At least from my point of view the paladin immitates the warrior remarkably better than the mage. 60ldr/lvl vs 50ldr/lvl is by far less of a penalty than 1 instead of 2 casts per turn. This must be clear to everyone rolling a paladin ^^
Nevertheless, the paladin is a KB:TL hero like the others to. Basic rules like: "go for atk and int, hope on good luck with spells (fortunately ressurection is provided :> ) and items and try to find the best setup you can get at your stage" apply to him as well as to the other classes.
Sidemarks: especially on impossible the gold talents finally make (minor, but not neglectable) sense. As you must pick them anyway to get to Rune Stone and Tolerance and they're cheap. Holy Anger can do his part since it's cheap as well and you have tons of mind runes to spare once Rune Stone is maxed.
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