New Dm advice

[Dungeon_Crawler]

I've been playing Dnd 3.5 for a while and have started a session. Help me!!!!! Most of my players are even bigger noobs than I am. I have to build 5 non-core PCs fast. What do I do?

[eggynack]

Well, the usual first thing to do is to ask these people what they want. It's an important question to ask, both on an individual level, so that you know what specific characters to design, and on a broader level, so that you know the general power level of the campaign. Offhand, I'd suggest some sort of tier three party. I like something akin to dread necromancer, factotum, warblade, bard, and maybe a crusader. You can basically pull anything off the tier, and you'll probably have a solid game.

[Dungeon_Crawler]

Thanks for that. Looking for more advice on building npc that will annoy my players yet will not get killed.

[Lafaellar]

If you are playing level 1, just pick the suggested startup characters from the Player's Handbook.
They are by far not the best you can build but they are playable and you can start learning the rules and build better characters on your own next time.

Avoid using too much books as your mind will get blown away by the sheer mass of stuff.

It would also be advisable to don't use spellcasters the first time you play if you all have no idea because they come in with special rules that add to the weight.

Regarding NPC:
In the Dungeon Master's guide you can find suggestion antagonists or you simply use the Monster Manual, turn it up on the last pages where you will find the monsters sorted by their Challange Rating und pick a monster with a CR that is the same or lower than the average group level.

[Dungeon_Crawler]

I actualy am running an ecl 3 campaign. Also I play tons of spellcasters and know how they work. My current charecter is a archivist/wizard mystic thergue dragonwrought kobold

[Namfuak]

If you are playing level 1, just pick the suggested startup characters from the Player's Handbook.
They are by far not the best you can build but they are playable and you can start learning the rules and build better characters on your own next time.

Avoid using too much books as your mind will get blown away by the sheer mass of stuff.

It would also be advisable to don't use spellcasters the first time you play if you all have no idea because they come in with special rules that add to the weight.

Regarding NPC:
In the Dungeon Master's guide you can find suggestion antagonists or you simply use the Monster Manual, turn it up on the last pages where you will find the monsters sorted by their Challange Rating und pick a monster with a CR that is the same or lower than the average group level.

I disagree that using other books is necessarily too complex for new players. ToB and Psionics are almost objectively simpler than the standard vanacian casting, and the classes mentioned by eggynack that have fixed list casting (Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, etc) are much easier to create and play than the standard wizard or cleric (and have a much higher skill floor while having a much lower ceiling). Beside that, guiding players toward splatbooks that support their character can be fun for them. If a person decides they want to play a sneaky character, they might have fun picking through Complete Adventurer and Scoundrel to see if there is anything there they like, for example. They don't have to if they don't want to, but I usually prefer adding options that aren't used to not having them available at all.

[RedF0x11]

The best advice I can give you is to start them as level 1s and to ease them into the various mechanics, from personal experience if you start them too high in level they learn none of the mechanics behind their lesser abilities. For example one of the players in my D&D group decided to play a sorcerer in a game starting at level 8 he never learned what spells he had, and answered every question with "Can I use Fireball?"

Or if you want to start at higher levels at least make them a summary sheet of all the things there characters can do, for example a quick description of the spells they know, the basic rules for sneak attack etc, and make encounters and environments that challenge their knowledge of what their characters can do.