Villains!

[Strormer]

Right, so I'm slowly switching over to 4e from my 3.5 game and one of the things which concerns me is my lack of NPC villains. Sure, I've got NPCs to spare in 4e, but PvP combat, or PCvNPC as the case may be, is worthless in 4e. I was a big fan of heroic villains in 3.5, with most of the real bosses being people and not monsters, though they often had unique powers from magical items they carried.
My question is this, how can I make my blackguard leading an army of unwitting paladins work in 4e when having a blackguard as a villain would result in a whole lot of nova and dead PCs?
I'm still reading, but is there somewhere where I can build NPC monsters or do I just sorta need to fake it and make a monster and slap some NPC fluff on him?
The reasoning behind this is if one of my players sees something the villain can do and says that he wants to learn that, I don't want him to hear "sorry, that's a villains only thing." I always hated that as a player. And I don't want to just create a ton of new powers that the PCs may or may not meet the prerequisites for because I'm new and I don't want to unbalance 4e just because I'm used to 3.5.
Thanks for any help and sorry for the big, long explination.

[LaZodiac]

Right, so I'm slowly switching over to 4e from my 3.5 game and one of the things which concerns me is my lack of NPC villains. Sure, I've got NPCs to spare in 4e, but PvP combat, or PCvNPC as the case may be, is worthless in 4e. I was a big fan of heroic villains in 3.5, with most of the real bosses being people and not monsters, though they often had unique powers from magical items they carried.
My question is this, how can I make my blackguard leading an army of unwitting paladins work in 4e when having a blackguard as a villain would result in a whole lot of nova and dead PCs?
I'm still reading, but is there somewhere where I can build NPC monsters or do I just sorta need to fake it and make a monster and slap some NPC fluff on him?
The reasoning behind this is if one of my players sees something the villain can do and says that he wants to learn that, I don't want him to hear "sorry, that's a villains only thing." I always hated that as a player. And I don't want to just create a ton of new powers that the PCs may or may not meet the prerequisites for because I'm new and I don't want to unbalance 4e just because I'm used to 3.5.
Thanks for any help and sorry for the big, long explination.

Call him a Blackguard, you don't need to use strait up Blackguard stats to make him work.

My first instinct is to take either a Deathknight esque class, or a paladin enemy and refluff it to necrotic.

Also, I personaly don't see anything wrong with building NPCs that are just made of PC class to be enemies. Maybe debuff em abit so they don't utterly waste everything.

[Tiki Snakes]

I never used them myself, but I believe there are guidelines for exactly this in the DMG, somewhere.
Generally, I'd just use the monster building process because parity in the sense you are concerned about was not really an issue in my group.

[Haberdashery]

Yeah, the DMG says the best way to make a villain with a class is to simply add in a few powers from the class to the villain's monster stat block. Enough to give it the feeling of having the class. But of course, using the normal method of calculating the monster's attack rolls and damage rolls. You shouldn't use a power's specified attack and damage lines for monsters.

[Yourshallowpal]

I believe the Dungeon Master's Guide 2 actually some guidelines for converting an off-the-shelf NPC to a player class-esque character. It involves tweaking their stats and giving them a couple powers from that class. (The number/level of the powers is determined by a handy chart, as are the stat modifications)

I believe this is near a section on "monster templates," which generally beef normal monsters to elites, and elites into solos. (Though the process of giving an NPC a player class automatically makes it elite, using the rules given.)

I'd reccomend you find a class/theme-appropriate NPC, beef it into an elite/solo (since he IS the boss) and use the paladin class template provided, with necrotic substituting radiant in any powers you use.

[Strormer]

Thanks guys. I'm working on getting my hands on DMG2 so I'll look into that. I get the feeling that for non-boss human villains I'm just going to create a monster using the given monster-maker rules and fluff it to look like what I want. I just hope that the players feel the way I intend for them to feel. 4e is still so new to me.