3.5e prestige class for a paladin who wants to go pure defender?

[Kwinza]

hey guys i havent got access to my books atm(a friend took them on holiday) and i need a prestige class for my pali, if you could post the lvl by lvl stats that would be great too

thanx guys :)

[Malacode]

Can't really go into full stat, abilities, etc as I'm away from books too, and it would probably be illegal or somesuch, but Grey Guard is an alright choice. Paladin code can be bent and later, completely broken, you gain a few cool abilities and best of all, paladin code can be bent/completely broken. I know I said that earlier, but it's the best feature of the class by a long way. You finally get to remove the stick!

[Suedars]

There's a partial preview of the Gray Guard available for free on the Wizards site here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070320

[Bosh]

Being a defender doesn't really work in 3.5ed. If you have high AC, there isn't much to stop people from walking around you and attacking the squishier people instead.

The best way of being a defender in 3.5ed is probably going the trip monkey route, which paladins are very unsuited for.

[Irreverent Fool]

I second third the Grey Guard. I feel he's more of what the paladin is meant to be.

If you're looking for something more defensive (as in defending your party members), I'm afraid the most viable options involve the Tome of Battle. In general, defensive play in D&D 3.5 doesn't work. A clever (or evil) DM will assume that his monsters play by the same rules and realize that they can easily walk past the unassailable fortress of steel in the shape of a man (UFSSM) and eat his less-armored friends (an attack of opportunity from a guy with a shield? Oh no!). Afterward, they will flood the room with water to get the UFSSM out of his crunchy shell so that they can eat him too.

Some maneuvers in the Tome help keep the enemy focused on you.

If you're just concerned with personal Armor Class, all you really need is an enchanted shield (I like tower shields, myself. You'd have to burn a feat or take a level in fighter though), enchanted full plate, a good deflection bonus, five ranks in tumble and weapon expertise.

obnoxious
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[AslanCross]

If you really want tactical options to prevent enemies from walking around you, there's two choices:

-Knight (PHB2), which specializes a lot in the 4E-ish "Attack me, not them" mechanic. It also makes your surrounding area difficult terrain, plus it has d12 HD.

-Crusader or Warblade (ToB), which have access to the White Raven discipline. White Raven has a lot of maneuvers that deal with allowing your allies to either get extra moves or bonuses to their attacks.

[Kwinza]

I thought knight was a normal class though not a prestige class...

[Eldariel]

Also, Devoted Spirit (Crusader's exclusive school) offers some stuff like Shield Block (allows you to give ally your Shield-bonus + 4 to AC for a turn) and some attack cancelling maneuvers. Other option is the simple Reach Weapon plus Stand Still + Thicket of Blades-stance. It's the classic Battlefield Control setup; allows you to basically stop everyone within 10' of you from moving (20' if you're base Large or Enlarged).

But yea, these are all normal classes. 3.0 Sword & Fist has Bodyguard, which sounds like what you're interested in. Really though, you don't need PrCs for that stuff in 3.X.

[AslanCross]

I thought knight was a normal class though not a prestige class...

It is, I forgot to mention that. All of the classes I mentioned are base classes. I have no PrCs to offer except maybe the Deepstone Sentinel. That's also a ToB-specific PrC, and is kind of an improved Dwarven Defender.

[Thurbane]

Tactical Soldier (MH)
Defender of Sealatiel (BoED) (and yes, this IS 3.5)
Knight Protector (CW)

http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/rules...s-Prestige.pdf