I appreciate the responses Bronk.

Quote Originally Posted by Bronk View Post
4: Bane has a number of prestige classes dedicated to him, thematically including most Zhentarim classes, since that was a city that venerated bane. There's also a powerful 'Chosen of Bane' template.
Where would I find the Chosen of Bane?
7: I'd suggest switching to a new prestige class.
To keep advancing both spellcasting and manifesting the other option is Cerebremancer but it's pretty bland. I can live with the 2 dead casting/manifesting levels in Mind Mage due to the other perks so I would like to continue on with it or create something along the lines of it. One thought was merging Arch Mage and Arch Psion (or just alternate between levels of them I suppose) into a PrC that advances both sides at the same time (with a possible dead level or two to balance it out) while providing some of the options of the normal Arch Mage and Arch Psion class.
9: I'd suggest keeping this to strictly roleplaying. because it's basically your new plaything in the game. It can be staffed with leadership or thrallherd NPCs, or even hired NPCs... and the hired or leadershipped ones are affected by morale. I'd suggest they keep them well paid, and equipping them and leveling them up can be a fun minigame for the players. Then, the different groups can do whatever it is they do, or come under attack, and how well they do will be dependent on how well the players managed the group! You mentioned you played NWN2... this is a lot like buying all your guards upgraded weapons and armor in that game.
It will ultimately be 90%+ roleplaying. I just want to create some kind of unified framework to work from so the characters have direction in terms of advancing their goals and possibly see some (likely mild) tangible benefit to creating/running the various guilds, organizations, and businesses they are pursuing.
10: Stop it from sliding further... Well, if everyone's having fun, that's all good. I'd suggest not further restricting the players or their characters, but to have a number of ongoing threats. Not just individual monsters, but big organizations with a few powerful members (a mirror to the one you and your players are setting up in question nine, but more). These can be 'good', or rival evil organizations.
I have already started the set up for a few recurring threats. There were two different liches (with wildly different goals and outlooks) in their fight with the Cult of the Dragon (and the Cult themselves will almost definitely return for revenge) who will be reappearing.
14: Yes (although the example of evasion is more of a class feature). They have to make sure they always have the item if they want the later feat though.
I had assumed if it was the way things worked that it would require the item to be in use for them to get the benefit of the feat for which the item was providing the prerequisite, but thanks for pointing that out.

I have a new general question (which I will edit into the first post):

15) Given the high LA of the characters, would it (in general) be better for me to try to create monsters/characters to fight them by building similar things (high LA, similar class level) or by going with higher class levels or higher CR monsters? I have been trying the latter 2 and I am still not sure where the sweet spot is on that idea and I don't want to go way overboard. I'm thinking the former idea is best (make their challenges similar to how they were made) but any and all advice is appreciated.