D&D 3E/3.5 (3.5)Hexblade or perhaps another character?

[Theroc]

Could you sum up the iffy part of Changeling?

I forget the specifics, but the issue was that a Changelings shapeshifting wasn't worded quite the same way as thing such as Polymorph, Shifting, and Lycanthrope alternate form, thusly not qualifying for that particular PrC.

I personally don't see how it would break things, but I'm not precisely and expert. (I'd LOVE a game where I could play a Warshaping Lycanthrope.)

 

[pawsplay]

I love Hexblade, but if you don't focus on just two or three basic tactics, MAD will kill you. Personally, I like curse, reach, concealment and use Power Attack, and I typically dump Wis and live with a moderate Dex. The best way to do Hexblade is to either play it pure, dip just enough Blackguard to be evil and get aura of despair, or take enough Havoc Mage to be able to spam 4th level spells in melee. Daunting Presence is a damned fine feat for a Hexblade. To reiterate, Hexblade is a challening class, and in strength rates higher than the Soulknife, maybe even with a moderately optimized fighter or paladin. Definitely not a show stopper, but potentially very efficient against high BAB opponents like dragons.

For solid tankry, warblade is pretty good if you don't despise Bo9S.

I am pretty happy with straight up fighter, but I don't mind focusing on versatility and acting in more of a supporting role than damage dealing, which is not for everyone. Although Fighter is a bit behind the curve in terms of utility, over the course of a few rounds of combat that can catch up with a barbarian or warblade in damage output.

Otherwise, Fighter 4/X is very solid, where X could be warblade, psychic warrior, barbarian, rogue, or a dip that leads into a good PrC. Fighter 4/PsyWar/Warmind is the doorway to a pretty insane AC without any fancy party tricks.

 

[green slime]

Hexblades are extremely flavourful, but do require fixing, or at least a DM that is aware that they are below the normal power curve. Your stats, however, will likely make up for any short comings of the class. Go for it!

 

[krupintupple]

i've got a hexblade fix collected from crawling various boards. check the almost-link in my sig if you're interested.

edit:
or here, cause i shouldn't be so lazy:

http://smallredtable.blogspot.com/2010/09/hexblade.html

 

[Takhisis]

While I know what I'm about to recommend may not be exactly what your looking for, but you said you wanted to be good at melee and be able to tank so here is my strange suggestion.....

Dread Necromancer.

Yes, stare in shock.

A Dread Necromancer at lower levels can be one of the best melee classes in the game provided you take the right feats and skills. DN's don't rely on BAB and lots of damage to be good at melee, though. Rather, how they do melee is make creative use of class features and, feats and skills to utterly humiliate others in melee. What do I mean? If you take tomb tainted soul at 1st level, you get to be healed by negative energy. Dread Necros get a negative energy touch they can spam. Tomb-Tainted soul + Charnel touch = infinite out of battle heals. Take a lot of damage in battle? No worries, after every fight your back to full health. Not even a fighter can pull that kind of recovery. This out of battle heal alone makes you a decent tank type because while you have less HP then a fighter or some other melee class, you will be at full health at the start of basically every fight.

However, where DN's REALLY get nasty is fear effects. As you know, fear stacks. DN's get a fear aura that works wonders when combined with intimidate and a feat that I forget the name of which basically allows you to use intimidate in battle to keep fearing your opponents, or something similar. Basically, that feat plus your fear aura and a good intimidate skill will allow you to stack fear effects like crazy. So not only will you be able to enter every fight with full HP, but enemies who face you will most likely be cowering at your feet in a state of utter panic while you hack them up with the one martial weapon the DN class gives you. (For concept/flavor reasons I usually take the scythe when playing DNs, though there is lots of other good choices for martial weapons to pick up.)

Beyond this, there is the fact that your a tier 3 class with full spellcasting and at level 8 you become the best necromancer in the game who can at that point have undead hordes do all the tanking work while you use your save or dies and other such spells to take out enemies. While you said you wanted to take a melee roll, you don't have to take a tier 4 or 5 class to do that. Oh, and with the rest of the party being such opposite power wise(Druids are tier 1s and Ninjas, while I forget their tier are quite low on the totem pole) it seams like having a "balanced" tier 3 on the class would make things less of a 1 man show then if the party was say a ninja, druid and fighter.

However, in the end it's your decision on what to play and if you want to be a fighter, go right ahead, nothing is stopping you. I'me guilty of playing some "crappy" classes(I actually used a True Necromancer once..*gasp*..yes..I did just say I used a True Necromancer...) myself and I'm not ashamed because the game is all about fun, in the end, and if the fun of being a fighter or barbarian is enough to satisfy you despite the fact you will be significantly weaker then your party's druid, go right ahead. I just thought I would pose the idea to you that you don't need to play a pure melee class who's weaker then most others to actually be good at melee...

Oh, and I know that somebody would eventually do that with a cleric, but I decided not to because clerics and druids are better then everybody at everything and it's really kinda annoying to have somebody tell you to "Just play a Cleric(or Druid)" when you ask for a good class for X thing.

 

[Magesmiley]

A paladin might be kind of fun with those sorts of stats. A 24 on Charisma would make for some disgustingly high save bonuses, a pretty hefty lay on hands pool, a couple of extra spells per level, plus lots of turn attempts to fuel divine feats. For added fun pump ranks into Diplomacy.

 

[Dandu]

A paladin might be kind of fun with those sorts of stats. A 24 on Charisma would make for some disgustingly high save bonuses, a pretty hefty lay on hands pool, a couple of extra spells per level, plus lots of turn attempts to fuel divine feats.

No it wouldn't.

 

[Takhisis]

Espcially with a Druid in the party. While I myself am guilty of sometimes taking "sup-par" classes like True Necromancer(though it was a fixed version which gets 9ths on both sides via making it advance both the arcane and divine side at every level.) and Pale Master, I tend to be equal parts optimizer and RPer because while first and foremost I have a character concept, I secondly want to have fun and if I'm substantially weaker then the rest of the party, I'm frankly not having fun.(Though I can handle being somewhat weaker if the character in question has a cool concept.) In your case, however, the party is already horridly unbalanced since you have a tier 1 class in your druid and a very low tier class in your ninja. Thus, if you decide to take a lower-tier class(which to me is anything lower then tier 3.) at higher levels the campaign will eventually start to become a one man show where the druid outshines all the other party members, and relegates the rest of you to being a supporting cast rather then part of the heroic team.

If you like being supporting cast, go ahead. Do what you want, but if you want to remain relevant at higher levels then you may want to consider a fullcaster who can melee well such as my aforementioned Dread Necromancer or some other "gishy" class like maybe a PsyWar. TOB classes like the warblade or crusader also work for this.

Lastly, a class I should have mentioned earlier but forgot about completely is the Binder. The Binder is a great class with awesome versatility via it's vestiges, and many of those vestiges are especially nice for a melee character. I am extremely unfamiliar with this class so I don't know what vestiges to recommend or anything like that, but I know there are quite a few which give nice melee bonuses ranging from weapon proficiencies, stat boosts ect.. A Binder can also fill other rolls beyond the melee fighter with it's vestiges. Some of them have scout-ish/rogue-ish powers, and while you won't really need them with a ninja they are still nice to have. Others can let you be the party face, and since binders like to have high charisma you can fill the "party talker" roll just as well as you can the melee fighter with a binder and having a druid and ninja on your team means that you are likely to be better at being a party face then either of them. Some of the vestiges also give you stuff that can make you a spellcaster of sorts. One extremely powerful one gives you some summon powers which are enough to push a binder from it's normal tier of 3 to tier 2, though not all DMs allow that vestige from what I have heard.

Oh, and if you want even more variety, there are lots of vestiges online. Some of those are also tier 2 level, so again, your DM may not be cool with some of it. However, chances are if he allows a druid, some powerful vestiges should be fine by him as well.

 

[Magesmiley]

No it wouldn't.

I meant per spell level. Ah, the joys of the original game designers not using a thesaurus.

 

[Dandu]

Last I checked, Charisma didn't factor into the Paladin's casting at all.