Prestige Classes/Build Ideas for a Friend?

[Revanmal]

I'm currently playing in a game set in Faerun, and we've just reached second level after a couple of sessions. One of my fellow players is playing a Lupin (wolf-man race from Dragon Magazine) Fighter, and is having a hard time deciding on a path he'd like to take that keeps in theme with his character.

Thus far, he's a fairly standard Two-Handed, Power Attack/Cleave based fighter who uses a glaive, and his primary motive for travelling with the group has been to protect his childhood friend, who is the group's bard. Can you guys perchance recommend any especially appropriate prestige classes or build ideas that can satisfy his character motives and also be effective at fighting in his preferred style?

Also of note, our DM is willing to bend lore a little bit for the sake of a good story and fun times, and will accept just about anything so long as it doesn't break the game and has documentation he can review and approve.

Please and thank you very much.

[Endelehia]

The Maquar Crusader from Shining South is a solid choice.Although he doesn't gain amazing offensive class features(smite/greater weapon focus/some special AoO),he is completely dedicated to protecting a specific person and he gains some very interesting abilities in order to do so.
Problems:
-3.0 edition ( you are right,it is 3.5 my bad :smallredface:)
-Lawful Neutral or Lawful Good
-Weapon focus (Falchion)
-Cannot own anything other than his clothes/weapons/armor

but since your DM is lenient he could adapt the specific weapon part,and perhaps work around the property problems by having the bard take his share of the loot,and use it to buy "gifts" for his protector.


Other than that,the base classes Knight (PHB2),Crusader (ToB) would be theme appropriate.

[Moak]

Shining South is 3.0? Sure?

I was going to suggest the Devoted Defender PRC, but looking around for a 3.5 conversion (it was a Sword&Fist class) I've stumbled upon a topic on EnWorld
who said this:

"Ok, there is a reprint of Devoted Defender in Shinning South. I just picked it up yesterday. It is called the Maquar Crusader. It is a 10 level progression. They scaled back bonuses on both Deflect Attack and Defensive Strike to just +2. "

Also, take a look to ToB? A splash in crusader and some good stance can help him with his task to defend space around him.

[eggs]

Drow of the Underdark has two feats - Consistent Guardian and Dutiful Guardian - that essentially let a character take a bullet for another. It could be interesting if he went some route that picks up decent defenses like Hexblade, Paladin, Pious Templar, Factotum, Deadgrim/Death Knight, Champion of Gwynharwyff or Death Delver.

It doesn't take a whole lot of resources to hit a baseline of effectiveness with a power attack fighting style, which is most of the appeal - there's a good chance a wand chamber of Rhino's Rush and a Law Devotion feat will cover it, so as long as he sticks with high BA classes, he's not going to be missing out on much.

[Moak]

If you go with paladin/pious templar, also, you can use Shield Other (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shieldOther.htm) to protect his childood friend.

Obviously, remember him to AVOID great cleave, unless your dm love HORDES of minion type enemy.

[Gwendol]

I'd look to introduce the player to a lock-down build of his choice: crusader, fighter, knight are all classes that can be used for making a lock-down build. The knight also offers some means to attract (weak-willed) opponents, but relies on CHA to do it which your player friend may have dumped.
Essentially, feats like combat reflexes, stand still, mage slayer, hold the line, defensive sweep, etc, combine to make it harder for opponents to take any action in the threatened area (and as you can guess, for some fights you will want to increase in size to threaten a larger area).