Best “Spellsword” Class?

[Onsight]

I want something like a medium armored “spellsword” that might use a short/long sword coupled with battle magic. Any suggestions for this that aren’t warlock or paladin?

[Zangetsu]

Valor bard gets medium armor, shields, and martial weapons. They also get extra attack at 6 to keep up with martials. Thats kind of spell swordy.

[[Heretic]Rivga]

Ranger, Bard especially valor or Sword Bard, war cleric or make your own mutli-class.

[Lord Adorable]

War Domain Cleric.
Eldritch Knight.
College of Swords Bard.
Maybe Arcane Trickster Rogue.

Probably the closest you,ll get unless I missed something.

[Thorley23]

Originally posted by Onsight:

I want something like a medium armored “spellsword” that might use a short/long sword coupled with battle magic. Any suggestions for this that aren’t warlock or paladin?

I'm not too familiar with 5E but I believe sword coast introduced a "Swordmage" character and I think Tasha's brought back the Bladesinger, though I am unclear if either of these are in BG-3.

As a general rule it's a long standing D&D tradition that arcane spell casters generally do not get to wear armor. The reason being is that if you allow them too much defense, especially at lower levels, it becomes almost impossible to disrupt their casting and so on, which makes it too easy to dominate the game with that sort of magic. Mages are squishy because with reliable, consistent, defense and/or reasonable durability their versatility and power would make them close to unstoppable.

Now I do get a lot changed with 5E but I mostly do 1E Pathfinder and have only tinkered with 5E D&D.

My recommendation for the kind of thing you probably want, which would be for the magic to be a factor along with the melee, would be to give up the idea of being armored and rely on defensive spells and using whatever you get later for item attunement options. Generally speaking you should see such a character as offensive, and have someone or something else tanking for you.

In 2E AD&D it was possible to compensate for no armor with block/trap manuvers using the combat and tactics book, but not so much in 5E. The thing to remember is your never going to be perfect in D&D in particular and if the idea of wanting to be a "spellsword" is to make a spellcaster who isn't generally fragile without prep, that generally shouldn't be happening. Things like the "Eldritch Knight" people suggested can do that to some extent, but come with severe deficiencies in what you likely want them to do by design.

[Dragon Master]

If you make a Githyanki caster you automatically are proficient with medium weapons and short sword, longsword and greatsword proficiency.