NPC Class -- Warrior -- Help Requested

[Redland Jack]

Since I received some helpful tips on my thread on Commoners http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=195581

I thought I'd solicit opinions on the other hireling that I've already been carting around for a couple of sessions (I've been pretty much wasting all of my scarce gold hiring this guy!)

In our game, hirelings don't 'take a cut' of xp, they just end up getting 50% of whatever the PCs get as a bonus (so they'll tend to be within 1 level of the PCs early on (through about level 5), falling back a bit more as the game goes on (2-3 levels back through level 11).

Anyhow, the 1st level Warrior I've been hiring has poor stats (12 strength, 10 everything else). His feats are Weapon Focus (Battle-Axe) and Martial Study (Shadow Blade Technique)... (Usually the DM selects the feats, but due to an oversight, he had me select one of the two feats, and I took the Martial Study).

Anyhow, I'm trying to figure out if there's a good way to make this guy useful.

I'm kind of thinking about grabbing Island of Blades when he gets to 3rd level, as that seems like a pretty handy stance (and then sort of making him a (turtle? hedgehog?) with the best armor and shield I can afford for him. Does that seem reasonable? Would Shieldmate maybe be a better pick (or something else entirely)?

When he gets to choose his attribute increase at level 4, should I take Str. so that he'll qualify for Power Attack at level 6, or is Power Attack even worth it for this kind of guy?

Any other good tips on how to develop a Warrior (especially one with wretched stats like this)?

[mabriss lethe]

give him a bow and have him unleash fountainhead and thundering arrows. Fountainhead arrows are area acid attacks that only need to hit an AC of 5 to hit their target square and thunder arrows function much like a thunderstone except a crapton cheaper.

Heck, a lot of my advice for your commoner thread will also apply to the warrior, except that the warrior will have some melee utility as well.

See about optimizing Intimidate and while using a reach weapon, see if you can't use him to debuff some adversaries.

[Redland Jack]

Fair enough. So basically, at the earliest levels the Warrior might be a bit of a contributor (especially relative to the Commoner), since he's pretty close to being a Fighter. Once you hit, say, level 4, however, he's basically just a Commoner with more hit points, since he doesn't have any actual class abilities (and he's now a lower hit point Fighter -3 feats, which is to say, not much of anything at all!)
Oh, I'll check out the Intimidate thing, since that's not something I've really looked at before.

[Telonius]

STR 12 ... he'll need to be at least 4th level (or be a half-orc, or some other Strength-bonus race) in order to take Power Attack.

On the plus side, he does have proficiencies in all martial weapons as well as all shields - including Tower Shields. (It lacks the usual "except tower shields" that things like Ranger have). Your Warrior could use a Tower shield to grant himself total cover as he moves across the battlefield. That makes him at least slightly more survivable than the Commoner.