Note that this is a port over from the Gleemax boards. Eventually, I may do a shield wielder's handbook.
So, I decided to put this up after someone thought that you couldn't make a decent sword and board melee in D&D without a bunch of house rules. You can, but it requires using things that specifically require you to wield your shield... otherwise an Animated Shield will always be a better option. The best options I found are Shield Charge (if you hit an enemy at the end of a charge with your shield, the you get a free trip attempt against them), Shield Slam (if you hit an enemy at the end of a charge with a shield or use a full attack action to hit an enemy with your shield, they're dazed (fort save, DC 10+1/2 character level + strength mod) for one round), Shield Counter (Crusader manuever, hit an enemy during their attack so they automatically miss with their next attack), and Shield Block (add your shield bonus +4 to an adjacent ally). So, let me present an actually decent tank SAB melee (though technically the Sword part of that hardly matters, we're mostly going for the shield).
Build 1: The D&D Smiteadin
Wolf Totem Barbarian 2/Crusader 2/Fighter 2/Crusader +14, Human.
1: Improved Shield Bash, Power Attack
2: Improved Trip
3: Improved Bull Rush
5: Shield Charge
6: Shield Slam, Extra Granted Manuever
9: Shock Trooper
12: Leap Attack
15: Shield Specialization
18: Shield Ward
General strategy: Charge enemy using a charge manuever (Battle Leader's Charge, Warleader's Charge, Warmaster's Charge, Radiant Charge). Shield Slam and Shield Charge both activate, potencially tripping and dazing your enemy. If they get tripped, make an immediate attack again. Note that you have Shock Trooper, so you do a ton of damage this way (at level 20, it's +80 damage IIRC, which should apply to both attacks). At high levels when you have Warmaster's Charge, this probably kills the enemy. Even at lower levels it's dangerous as all heck. Keep doing this each round, charging a new enemy every time and taking them out of the fight for a couple rounds (one round due to dazing, one round to get back up when they only have a standard action left). Once per day you can Rage, boosting your to hit and the save DCs for Shield Slam (which are 10+1/2 character level + strength mod). Note that at a lot of levels you'll have two or three charge manuevers readied at all times, meaning the vast majority of the time you can charge with a manuever instead of just doing a regular charge.
If anyone attacks you or attacks a friend within range, Shield Counter them or Shield Block. The combination of Iron Guard's Glare and Shield Block gives a nearby ally +20 to AC, which should handle things quite nicely. If an ally is hurt, just smack one of your downed and dazed foes with a healing strike to bring them back up. You can heal yourself that way too... and any round in which you don't use counters, go with White Raven Tactics (when it's up of course).
Basically, charge the big threats on the battlefield, making sure to charge those that get to close to your party. If you can't charge, use healing strikes, Shield Counters, and Shield Blocks to bodyguard your party's squishy people. Both when charging and when bodyguarding, regularly use White Raven Tactics to keep your party at full speed.
Gear would be pretty straight forward tank stuff, though you'll want to go with medium armour (Mithral Full Plate, perhaps) to take advantage of Barbarian speed, or maybe a Chain Shirt and Dastanas if that's allowed. For the Shield, a nice Heavy Spiked Shield that's a Martial Discipline Weapon (Devoted Spirit) + Martial Discipline Weapon (White Raven) + Valorous... not sure about other boosts, but that will give a solid +6 to hit right there when in a Devoted Spirit stance (which is likely always) and making a White Raven strike (which is every time except with the healing strikes), plus double damage when charging. Your other weapon should probably be a light mace that's Undead Bane and Disruption, since undead are immune to your Shield Slams. The other option, if allowed, would be a Skillful weapon, either a Spinning Sword or Kusari Gama, thus allowing you to increase your reach (and your Iron Guard's Glare range). A Skillfull Defending Eager Spinning Sword of Warning would be incredibly useful, in fact.
Manuevers: [spoiler]Basic manuever load outs at a few assorted levels would be as follows, with starred manuevers ready normally (nonstarred manuevers are for utility, or because I might have use for them):
3: Leading the Attack*, Vanguard Strike*, Crusader's Strike*, Stone Bones*, Charging Minotaur*, with Iron Guard's Glare as the stance.
7: Leading the Attack*, Vanguard Strike*, Crusader's Strike*, Stone Bones*, Charging Minotaur, Battle Leader's Charge*, with Iron Guard's Glare and Martial Spirit as stances
10: Battle Leader's Charge*, Crusader's Strike, Stone Bones, Leading the Attack, White Raven Tactics*, Revitalizing Strike*, Covering Strike*, Shield Block* with Iron Guard's Glare and Martial Spirit as stances
15: Battle Leader's Charge*, Stone Bones, White Raven Tactics*, Covering Strike, Shield Block*, Radiant Charge*, Elder Mountain Hammer, War Leader's Charge*, Shield Counter*, Rallying Strike, with Iron Guard's Glare, Thicket of Blades, and Martial Spirit as stances
20: Warmaster's Charge*, Strike of Righteous Vitality*, Ancient Mountain Hammer, Battle Leader's Charge, White Raven Tactics*, Shield Block*, Shield Counter*, Warleader's Charge* Radiant Charge, Elder Mountain Hammer, with Iron Guard's Glare, Thicket of Blades, Immortal Fortitude and Martial Spirit as stances. [/spoiler]
Stat priority is of course strength above all... that's the primary thing you need. A little dex for higher initiative and better AC is certainly handy, and con for hitpoints too, but really it's all about the strength. You might as well have a nice high Charisma and dump Wisdom, allowing you to rock out with Diplomacy. Intelligence is basically unneeded too, so this is a pretty SAD build.
Build 2: The Bulldozer
The other option is to combine Dungeoncrasher with War Hulk, using Improved Trip, Knockback, Shield Slam, Shock Trooper, Improved Bull Rush, Power Attack, and Shield Charge. Weild a skillfull spiked shield of some kind and go nuts. Charge and shield slam/charge... now you can attack every enemy within reach at the end of the charge. If you can get your strength up to about 50 (easily done with a War Hulk) the save to avoid being dazed by your attack is DC 40... yehaw. And you trip them from the hit... which lets you attack again due to Improved Trip. Then the enemies fly away from you from two bull rushes due to Knock Back, and you can direct them into each other (if any of them somehow didn't get tripped, that gives you another trip attempt against them). Then if they hit a wall they take a bunch more damage. If they hit more enemies, those get tripped and are now in a dangerous spot indeed. The guys you hit directly can't act next turn, so charge them again (and if you can get more enemies into the group, so much the better... Shock Trooper makes that very possible). You can sweep through countless enemies this way, pushing groups of them in front of you like a psychotic spikey bulldozer from hell. And of course you'll average about 400 damage to all enemies within your reach when you charge, not including damage from bouncing them off walls.
EDIT: Just to show the actual build, it's Feat Varient Rogue 2/Wolf Totem Barbarian 2/Dungeoncrasher 6/War Hulk 10. Race is anything large with LA paydown, or a Human with Permanent Enlarge Person. Feats for the human version would be:
1: Improved Shield Bash, Shield Specialization, Power Attack
2: Improved Bull Rush
3: Knockback
4: Improved Trip
5: Shield Charge
6: Cleave
8: Shield Slam
9: Shock Trooper
12: Leap Attack
15: Shield Ward
18: Weapon Focus (Spiked Armour)
If flaws are allowed, go for Blood Spiked Charger. If you do a race other than human, just bump the feats down by one. Use a Skillfull Valorous Spiked Shield with whatever other mods you like (Skillfull is a huge one, a +2 enchantment that provides +6 to hit for this build. Valorous helps with damage). If your DM allows both Lion Totem and Wolf Totem on the same Barbarian (they do replace different things) then go for it and watch your charge damage skyrocket. The really awesome thing about this is that it's a combination charger, lockdown, and tripper, and can do all three of these things at once without losing anything. Plus, the usual weakness of chargers is multiple enemies... but that's a strength of this build. It could sure use more reach though.
So yeah, SAB characters are totally doable.
JaronK