First Time DMing

[Nabirius]

Trying to run a 3.5 campaign with some friends, one of the main themes of the campaign is fallen heroes, as the campaign continues they at first hear of then encounter later. Hopefully there will be 4 players, relatively well optimized (although not great as the players are not as familiar with the system as I am. The following are some of the major NPCs (and possible antagonists). The campaign takes place in a slightly changed Ebberon. What I am looking for it build help with certain characters, including race and specific feats or builds (including if they are to strong). But mainly I want to know when fighting these characters will be appropriate.

Level 31 [Boss fight]
Kalashtar (Psionic Monk, original idea was to be more psionic than monk (monk could also be unarmed sword sage or something))
Alignment: Neutral Good --> Lawful Neutral
Saw his former allies destroying everything and being evil, decided to hunt them down and stop them, there are few things that will stop him.

Level 30 [Boss fight, can be talked down, can be redeemed]
Human (Swordsage or Crusader/ Ur-priest)
Alignment: Lawful Good ---> Lawful Evil [-----> Neutral Good] [Maybe]
He is normally a nice guy and generally very helpful to the party (will not travel with them, but will help heal them if they come to him with someone dying, etc.). He acts almost Chaotic good, with his hatred of the gods and authority stopping him from being Neutral or Lawful. As the campaign continues he and his plan comes together the players see what he is truly capable of when his goals are on the line.

Level 24-25 [Friendly, unless Lawful Evil or certain flavors of Lawful Neutral]
Something (Duskblade/ ?)
This is an odd one, I want to build a dual wielding Duskblade that can channel spells in 2 swords at once. I'm essentially ruling that a Duskblade 13 that has dealt with somatic components (somehow) with the 'full attack' channel is capable of doing this. I like it because it fits with his chaotic nature, when he hits with that full attack most enemies drop instantly. Although this means he has to have a high Dex, Str, Con, and Int. He's probably going to get a few extra points to buy stats with or something to compensate. He spends a lot of his time toppling governments he feels are corrupt, but gives little thought to the results of creating that sort of power vacuum.

Level 21-22 [Enemy]
Something (May go straight crusader, may want to RKV, Preferably Cha based)
Lawful Evil
Once a good man, revealed for what he really was when he killed the bard his team was traveling with, now he is clearly a monster. At least its clear to his former allies, the most well spoken and the most active in the world at large he is typically well liked among the general populace, who does not see him as he truly is.

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These last 2 are recurring enemies, almost like Team Rocket (but taken seriously). As such they need to appear very threatening, but most importantly they need to be able to have highly variable tactics so that they don't become boring, so flexibility of classes are required. Both are drow, they travel together. They are not hugely relevant to the plot, so if the PC's kill them early its fine.

Sara [Drow female] First Appearance (Lvl 9) Last Appearance (Lvl 20)
Divine caster of some sort, possibly druid. Although an enchantress may not be a bad idea either.
True Neutral ---> Neutral Evil

Tabris [Drow Male] First Appearance (lvl 9-10) Last Appearance (Lvl 20)
Revenant Blade (+Dervish)
Lawful Good ----> Lawful Neutral
I know they are supposed to be for the Valenar only. His fighting style is not exactly the same and I'm re-fluffing it. He wields 2 scimitars that he can put together into a Double ended scimitar staff. He switches between the 2 forms so fast he does it in the middle of full attacks. He may only be a Drow fluff wise and have the stats of a different race.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Also should this go in Homebrew/World Building section?

[DoctorGlock]

What level are you starting at? I see CR 30ish enemies up there and rarely have I seen a game go from 1-30. Also planning an endgame means that the players have no agency to shape the world- whatever they do, X will happen, and then you are accused of railroading. This is the fastest way to run a game and one of the biggest first time DM mistakes (yeah, my advice is from personal experience here). This holds even more true with recurring bad guys without good justification for how they recur.

[Nabirius]

Really? A single level 30 character fighting a party of 4 level 30 characters is a fair fight?

I plan to start the team lvl 5-10 and increase the rate at which they gain exp. Also at no point are any of these characters required to survive, if the players kill off one of the the guy's "early" I plan to just role with it. In fact I want to have the paladin/crusader character die pretty early, but be a rather challenging fight.

Should the levels be toned down?

One of the main things that I wanted to be more subtle about them is that they are all somewhat gish. None of them are straight spell casters or fighters because they now have to be the entire team themselves, since they no longer trust other people.

[DoctorGlock]

Generally when boss building, I have an ide of who the boss is and then build his stats within 2-3 sessions from the fight. It also helps that I have a compendium of premade NPCs of all levels so I can yoink something from it on short notice. Having CR 30 NPCs running around and interacting with players at level 5-10 breeds a resentful "why ain't they saving the world then" or "why aint the epic level good guys dealing with them" mentality. if the PCs start at 5-10 (i prefer 5 as a start usually, the PCs have developed unique cohesive builds by then) expect the game to go to around 12-17th, maybe low 20s if you give very fast XP. Likewise, post 20th, level doesn't actually matter anymore as epic spells are busy breaking campaigns in half anyway.

No, one CR 30 enemy is not a fair fight against 4 EL 30 PCs, he will get roflstomped before his turn. The rules still put him at CR 30 because he is expected to burn 1/4 of party resources for the day. He will not. Boss fights should be around 4 levels above the party, more depending on optimization (I've had EL 21s crush a CR 30 encounter, even with minions), and add minions to help with the action economy.

[Nabirius]

Generally when boss building, I have an ide of who the boss is and then build his stats within 2-3 sessions from the fight. It also helps that I have a compendium of premade NPCs of all levels so I can yoink something from it on short notice. Having CR 30 NPCs running around and interacting with players at level 5-10 breeds a resentful "why ain't they saving the world then" or "why aint the epic level good guys dealing with them" mentality. if the PCs start at 5-10 (i prefer 5 as a start usually, the PCs have developed unique cohesive builds by then) expect the game to go to around 12-17th, maybe low 20s if you give very fast XP. Likewise, post 20th, level doesn't actually matter anymore as epic spells are busy breaking campaigns in half anyway.

No, one CR 30 enemy is not a fair fight against 4 EL 30 PCs, he will get roflstomped before his turn. The rules still put him at CR 30 because he is expected to burn 1/4 of party resources for the day. He will not. Boss fights should be around 4 levels above the party, more depending on optimization (I've had EL 21s crush a CR 30 encounter, even with minions), and add minions to help with the action economy.

I understand the whole "level 30's" running around and interacting with the level 5-10's. I had an infuriating DM who did that all the time. I am trying to avoid that feeling as much as possible, mostly because all of the former heroes are much worse people now than they used to be. The player character have to save the world from the former heroes.

The Crusader was always the worst of them, he enjoys power over people. He killed the group's bard after the bard committed a crime against the Crusader's god. Since the group disbanded he has devoted himself to witch hunts against any 'heretics' as an excuse to bully the weak.

The Duskblade is still in many ways a hero, but his chaotic nature gets the best of him. He wants to help the weak and the downtrodden, but doesn't think about the consequences of say, toppling a government. He's to wrapped up with his own quests to do much else.

The Ur-Priest also wants to do the right thing. However his version of right involves direct war against a god (albeit an evil god), which will cost and enormous number of innocent's lives.

The monk mostly just wants to stop the others, at any cost.

Is there anything else I should do to prevent the resentment effect?

I intend for the PC's to be well prepared and rested for any of the fights. What level is appropriate to fight them solo, when is a group of enemies (particularly for the Crusader, who travels with some much lower level NPCs) a better idea?

[DoctorGlock]

.

Is there anything else I should do to prevent the resentment effect?

I intend for the PC's to be well prepared and rested for any of the fights. What level is appropriate to fight them solo, when is a group of enemies (particularly for the Crusader, who travels with some much lower level NPCs) a better idea?

Ok, it looks like you are building off pre existing lore (previous campaign). This causes the high level NPC problem very often (Forgotten Realms). The better question is how much do the players already know? Has the game started? Did they have stats for these characters/were they level 24-30 in the previous game?

It can be done, just minimize any interaction they have with the plot until they become viable as challenges. A full caster can challenge a group of PCs 4 levels lower solo, depending on optimization of both parties (and level- lvl 12 wiz vs 3 lvl 8 anything is a probable TPK, prepared and optimized lvl 15s can take on a lvl 19 caster provided he isn't using flowing time astral projection crafted contingent time stop type stuff. The non caster side generally does not contribute as much though, so a gish with 19HD but only 16 true casting levels should probably be counted as a CR 16, a powerful foe at level 13 or so (but will probably TPK an unoptimized group, I don't knw where yours stands).

Solo fights are very difficult though because of action economy. The party gets 4 turns per every turn the boss gets. Casters can mitigate this somewhat but are still horribly disadvantaged.

Post 20th, the CR system goes to heck anyway.

Also, if this is a first time DMing, try not to get attached to a the given story, play reactively. The PCs do something, how does the world respond rather than how does the story respond.

Ideally, let the players contribute to the world building, it is the best way to get them invested in the story and suddenly care that mr BBEG is about to nuke town c

Also determine (if the game has not started yet) what game the players want. My last game started by running 3 one shots in different settings then having the players pick which one to continue in for a full length game. They loved it.