Jack the Gladiator, aka "Jack of all Blades"
Human Fighter
Str 17, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 8 (15 PB with racial +2 to Str)
Stat Increases: 4th +1 Str, 8th +1 Con, 12th +2 Con, 16th +2 Str, 20th +3 Str
Stats at level 20 with a belt of physical might +6: Str 26, Dex 20, Con 20
Weapons: A one-handed Heavy Blade (Longsword, likely), Tridents (multiple, for throwing), a reach weapon (Glaive or Guisarme), Composite Longbow, Quickdraw Light Steel Shield, Gauntlets (automatic from armor)
Armor: Start with best AC he can afford (probably Chain Shirt or Scale Mail) and work up towards Full Plate, Quickdraw Light Steel Shield
Notable Magical Gear (other than the big 6): Efficient Quiver (Holding up to 60 Arrows, 18 Tridents, and the backup Composite Longbow and reach weapon if it fits), Glove of Storing (for the one-handed heavy blade), and eventually Winged Boots (or Wings of Flying at later levels). A custom Goggles of Night with a +5 perception skill bonus tacked on would be quite nice as well, if you can get them made (darkvision is always handy, and the perception bonus makes his perception checks feel like he has a class skill and 4 points higher in Wisdom).
Progression
1 - Point Blank Shot, Power Attack, Quickdraw
2 - Precise Shot, Endurance
3 - Shield Focus
4 - Missile Shield
5 - Blind-Fight, Weapon Training (Blades, Heavy)
6 - Bloody Assault
7 - Vital Strike
8 - Disruptive
9 - Critical Focus, Weapon Training (Spears)
10 - Improved Blind-Fight
11 - Improved Vital Strike
12 - Spellbreaker
13 - Staggering Critical, Weapon Training (Close or Bows)
14 - Ray Shield
15 - Diehard
16 - Stunning Assault
17 - Stunning Critical, Weapon Training (Bows or Close)
18 - Greater Vital Strike
19 - Critical Mastery
20 - Heroic Defiance
Skills:
Likely putting points into Perception would be a good idea. Not only does it help in general for going during a surprise round, it is needed for Improved/Greater Blind-fight, and will let him locate invisible opponents.
Other than that, he's not really focused on anything that needs skills (no intimidate, no ride, etc).
Nice alternate Human Racial Traits:
Heart of the Wilderness: This would increase how far into the negatives this guy can go. Combined with the eventual Diehard feat, it means at higher levels, when he gets overwhelmed, he can stay standing and drink that potion or let the healer get a Heal/Mass Heal off.
Favored Class: +1 to CMD vs Grapple and Trip would be good if you really, really don't need any skills. Those two are the worst offenders from monsters... Bite + Trip combos and Grapple + Constrict/Swallow Whole combos. As a frontliner, he's going to be facing those all the time, and having a +1/level bonus against them would make him pretty hard to affect.
Thoughts...
This guy would be a great Gladiator.
This build completely ignores the Weapon Focus line. Instead, he grabs feats to have more options in combat. This also leaves him open to use whatever weapon that comes up in the campaign as his primary weapon. By 20th level, he can pick his Weapon Mastery weapon as whatever artifact or plot-weapon it is that he finds himself using 90% of the time.
The quickdraw shield + quickdraw feat, along with the glove of storing, means that he can put away his weapon + shield combo as a free action, and draw a secondary weapon (trident, bow, or reach weapon) and still have a full round of actions. It also means he can put away his shield, fight two-handed during his round for the extra damage, and then bring back the shield to defend himself. He also has all his bases covered for damage types (slashing, piercing and shield bashing for bludgeoning).
The later levels keeps his feats being appropriate for higher level combat, such as deflecting Ray spells, two methods of Stunning opponents, and a way to counter being paralyzed/stunned/etc himself.
His weakness is obviously Will Saves, so even with a Cloak of Resistance he's looking at a +13 save by the higher levels. He will be reliant on his friends (or a permanent item) for Protection from Evil or Mind Blank later on if this becomes an issue. We did this in War of the Burning Sky after we hit 8th level spells (Mind Blanked an important player every day, although there were other reasons for it on top of it being a low Will save character).
I think this creates a well rounded, least-focused character, who can be good at many things. This means anyone that focuses in something specific (such as two-handed combat, ranged combat, or whatever) should be doing better than him at that one thing. I hope this is what you are looking for in a "baseline".
Added Note: If you were playing in a group where people weren't optimizers/powergamers, or were simply focused less on combat in their character building, then this would be a great build that would remain "powerful" in options, without being too powerful for the group. DPR isn't always everything, and this guy would fit well in a group of more rounded, less-focused characters.
You know... when one friend says he wants to play a Monk/Bard, and another says he's going to try out Mystic Theurge.
