When playing a Sorcadin, I usually go with armour and a greatsword at the low levels. Usually a breastplate, mithral if I can get it. Twilight if I can get that as well. I use most my spells for pre-combat buffs, and detect magic. Since I have 6+ spells per day, I don't care that I have a 25% chance of missing the spell, I'll just cast it again if it is not in combat.
Sorcadins require quite decent stats though, you'll want a high dex because you wont be wearing lots of armour, a good con because sorc loses you a lot of hit points, a high Cha for both saves, lay on hands and spells, and a high strength because you want to hit stuff.
So if you have the stats for it, Sorcadin can be quite decent at level 5, hit things with your greatsword, get some armour and use your spells for buffing. If you can get the instant metamagic sorcerer variant, you can take two feats to make all your spells work in armour, namely still spells and easy metamagic still spell IIRC. If not, you'll have to take a feat for each spell you want to cast in armour, Arcane thesis, which is why it wont be worth it.
If you can get access to the Races of Stone Dwarf prestige class (runecaster or something) you can cast all your spells without somatic components, making you wanting to wear that full plate all the time.
In any case you could just use shield, mage armour and Alter Self, but it is the simple solution.