Favoured Soul tank character? (3.5)

[iElf]

I was currently brainstorming for a church of the silver flame favored soul (allowed to take spells of two domains of the silver flame) , and stumbled over the protection domain. I was wondering how one would go about building a Favored Soul who's purpose is to protect the party

[Almaseti]

I would assume self-buffs for meleeing, and some crowd-control stuff for keeping the baddies away from your buddies.

[Psyren]

Favored Soul 8/Sacred Exorcist 1/Prestige Paladin 2/Fist of Raziel 9

SMITE ALL THE THINGS

[Urpriest]

If you want to be a "tank" as is commonly conceived, rather than focusing on protecting the party efficiently (BFC spells) or just being good at melee (Psyren's suggestion), then you probably need Ruby Knight Vindicator. Crusader maneuvers are one of the few sources of effective "tank"-like behavior, and the only one that won't dramatically slow down your spellcasting.

[Manateee]

The Exemplars of Evil ACF that gives claws and a bite instead of weapon focus are usually a good choice for Favored Souls of dubious moral standings. (I don't *think* they require evil alignment. And I don't know Eberron well; Silver Flame's the one that might be a demon, right?)

Knight of the Raven is about as good of a prestige class as you can get. It gives full BA, a bunch of solid tanking abilities with its Raven and Turn Undead. Turning is the important thing. It's what lets you get things like Domain feats (Protection and Law would be good for this role) and Divine Feats (Divine Might can be worth some pretty hefty damage if you have a decent Charisma).

Then stack on some of the Cleric's awesome buff spells and you should be good to go (though you should try to find a way to get them up without eating into the actions you need to move around and smack stuff. Extend Spell, Divine Persist, Craft Contingent spell or just getting somebody to scout ahead can all work).