Prestige class alternatives for 4th level fighter

[FrozenGnomes]

I'm playing a human fighter, currently 4th level with no additional frills. My current feats are Combat Reflexes, Expertise, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack and Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Scourge). The latter is an rp thing to use a cool flail.

The feat line I'm currently on can lead me to the 3rd ed Weapon Master prestige class, which is cool, but I'm wondering what other alternatives I could have going for me down the line. I enjoy not being hit and generally being a nuisance to deal with.

Equipment wise, I have a tower shield (enchanted with Deathward), +1 Breastplate (enchanted to look like a tunic), and a +2 Holy Scourge.

My stats are (rolled really well)
18 STR
17 DEX
17 CON
15 INT
15 WIS
11 CHA

Any suggestions would be appreciated. AFAIK the only things not allowed are dragon magazine things, everything else is consult the DM and he'll okay it or not.

[DeTess]

What's the power level of your group, and what are the things you do you not want? For being tanky, there's probably a super-optimized build involving levels in cleric and 3-4 esoteric prc's that'll give you AC in the triple digits, but is that what you want?

For fun martial stuff, I always recommend taking a look at Tome of Battle.

[FrozenGnomes]

What's the power level of your group, and what are the things you do you not want? For being tanky, there's probably a super-optimized build involving levels in cleric and 3-4 esoteric prc's that'll give you AC in the triple digits, but is that what you want?

For fun martial stuff, I always recommend taking a look at Tome of Battle.

The power level of the group is kinda low atm. We're only a three person group with a rogue (going assassin), a sorcerer (going elemental savant) and me, trying to find out if I still want to go weapon master. As for what I want to avoid if possible multi or cross classing, and I also want to avoid super optimization.

Let me know what else you need to know.

[DeTess]

Does your campaign have any particular theme? A PrC that focuses on fighting a particular foe (such as undead, dragons or sea-monsters) might be useful in a campaign featuring a lot of those, but would be useless in most others.

Also, is there any particular archetype/fantasy you see your character as? Are they an agile blademaster beating their enemies through pure skill? A heavily-armored juggernaut capable of taking a ton of punishment? Do they have latent magical powers enhancing their abilities, or is it pure skill and training?

In 3.5, there's a PrC for most character ideas, and since you're not looking to optimize heavily, you've got a lot of options open to you for flavor instead of power.

the Kensai class from the complete warrior book looks similar to weapon master, but more of its abilities are always on, instead of once per day, which might be nice.

[FrozenGnomes]

Does your campaign have any particular theme? A PrC that focuses on fighting a particular foe (such as undead, dragons or sea-monsters) might be useful in a campaign featuring a lot of those, but would be useless in most others.

Also, is there any particular archetype/fantasy you see your character as? Are they an agile blademaster beating their enemies through pure skill? A heavily-armored juggernaut capable of taking a ton of punishment? Do they have latent magical powers enhancing their abilities, or is it pure skill and training?

In 3.5, there's a PrC for most character ideas, and since you're not looking to optimize heavily, you've got a lot of options open to you for flavor instead of power.

the Kensai class from the complete warrior book looks similar to weapon master, but more of its abilities are always on, instead of once per day, which might be nice.

There hasn't really been any particular theme besides politics and gods (just really powerful demi gods really), and the most prevalent enemy type has been humanoid so far, but there's no signs of there being any particular theme with enemies.

As for my characters fantasy, he's just a guy whose so used to punishment from training with a bladed flail, he's kind of gotten used to avoiding attacks while being blazè about pain in general.

[DeTess]

I would suggest you take a look at the Crusader base class from Tome of Battle in that case. It has several features related to resisting/delaying damage, as well as things that can turn that into being more effective in combat. It also gets more skill-points per level, which could be a boon if this is a highly political game.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I've always been fond of Oriental Adventures' blade dancer. You'd have to dip into a casting class (I'd go with duskblade) and cover the other 4 levels between there and 9 but weapon master fits nicely there and happens to be in the same source book.

[Troacctid]

I keep a notepad list of prestige classes that I think might be interesting upgrades for martials that want to scale better. Here's what I have:

Beloved of Valarian
Black Blood Cultist
Bloodstorm Blade
Chameleon
Consecrated Harrier
Crusader
Deepstone Sentinel
Divine Crusader
Dragon Disciple
Eternal Blade
Fist of Raziel
Hellreaver
Horizon Walker
Ironsoul Forgemaster
Jaunter
Knight of the Raven
Knight of the Weave
Master of Many Forms
Master of Masks
Ordained Champion
Primeval
Ruby Knight Vindicator
Sanctified One
Soldier of Light
Suel Arcanamach
Swordsage
Telflammar Shadowlord
Thrall of Demogorgon
Thrall of Juiblex
Thrall of Orcus
Ur-Priest
War Mind
Warblade
Warshaper
Wildrunner

[Mike Miller]

I keep a notepad list of prestige classes that I think might be interesting upgrades for martials that want to scale better. Here's what I have:

Beloved of Valarian
Black Blood Cultist
Bloodstorm Blade
Chameleon
Consecrated Harrier
Crusader
Deepstone Sentinel
Divine Crusader
Dragon Disciple
Eternal Blade
Fist of Raziel
Hellreaver
Horizon Walker
Ironsoul Forgemaster
Jaunter
Knight of the Raven
Knight of the Weave
Master of Many Forms
Master of Masks
Ordained Champion
Primeval
Ruby Knight Vindicator
Sanctified One
Soldier of Light
Suel Arcanamach
Swordsage
Telflammar Shadowlord
Thrall of Demogorgon
Thrall of Juiblex
Thrall of Orcus
Ur-Priest
War Mind
Warblade
Warshaper
Wildrunner

Note, not all are prestige classes. Although I do agree that this is a good list of classes for martials to gain power