I am thinking of making a breton character that is kind of a cross between a paladin and a scout/ranger. I wanted to do a kind of roleplay where he is aided by his dead "female" friend, who he now calls phantom.

what skills should I go for and what roleplay reasons for them?

I figure 1 handed and light armor are required, but unsure of the rest.

Archery for the ranger aspect, restoration for the paladin side of it and perhaps sneak and alteration

You can pretend like he is two persons: Himself is a warrior side of the two, and his "dead female friend" is the mage side of the two. So a Spellsword/Magic Archer might work.

And sometimes, she might decide to manifest herself and turn into a... Flame Atronach! HAWT! ...But any Atronach, really. So I recommend investing in Conjuration, and maybe master Conjuration to get permanent Atronach thralls?

I was thinking of a spellsword. After all this is a paladin/Ranger hybrid type, and Conjuration for atronachs makes a lot of sense.

Do you plan to... talk to yourself?

lol, maybe if I was going to have a fanfic for it.

Don't forget a half mohawk (my Altmer female was able to get one, I'm not sure about Breton male) and two-face facepaint . If you're on PC, maybe you can change the color scheme of your armor into two different colors.

I do not think Bretons can get the half-mohawk. I am also having trouble with the mods on my laptop, so I cannot get anymore for some reason.

So far, I am looking at 1 handed, Light armor, Restoration, Sneak, Archery, Conjuration.

Unsure of Alteration or craft skills.

I used to play that very kind of character many times, now I'm trying to change and build a Mage for variation and experimentation sake.

What I can tell you is that the build you are planning gets REALLY powerful after level 30 or so.

I use to develop all the skills you mentioned with the exception of Restoration, replacing it with Enchanting and lately with Alchemy. Add smithing (unless you are a Pure Mage this is a given IMO) and there you have a multipurpose cannon.

What I'm doing now is play on Master and then Legendary (after level 25 or so) and I always smith, but I force myself to choose only one between Enchanting - Conjuration - Alchemy so to avoid being an overpowered demigod.

The rest is the same: One Handed - Archery - Light Armor - Sneak (Breton - Lord Stone - Agent of Mara) I put most perk points in Smithing, Archery and Sneak and just a couple in OH and LA.

Sneak and Archery use to develop very fast, Light Armor requires trainers (because you are not being hit) and One Handed levels up later in the game. The crafting skills obviously depending on your dedication as you may already know.

This character is almost immune to Magic and Dragon breath, even on Legendary, very stealthy and lethal as an assassin and also a very capable warrior fighter that also uses shouts. Preferred quests are Main Quest, Thieves OR Dark Brotherhood (not both), Dawnguard and Dragonborn, plus some Daedric and misc. quests. Never the Civil War.

His dead female friend has a name and it's Serana and his living female friend goes by the name of Frea.

Hope it helps.

I would go with: One Handed - Archery - Destruction - Restoration - Conjuration - Sneak - Alchemy. Skills that come to mind when I think of a Paladin and/or Scout.

Thanks for all the advice. Still confused on this.

Paladin and ranger... demonhunter build. Check this out: http://theskyrimblog.ning.com/group/character-building/forum/topics/character-build-the-demonhunter?xg_source=activity

I read that build, but it does not truly appeal to me for some reason.

Actually read your op and you could make a ghostly follower to act as the ranger dead wife and you can be the paladin (heavy armor, onehanded with bonebreaker, block, alteration, restoration, enchanting).