Deicide: The slaying of Cyric. 3.

5 Epic -------------------------------------------------------------------------------I've been toying with this idea for the past few days. Concept: The Spellplague. It ravaged Faerun and completely transformed the land and the laws governing both mortals and Gods alike. It was the second time the twisted deity Cyric caused irrepairable damage to the world, by slaying the Goddess of magic Mystra. Wizards and Sorcerers went trough a catharsis, but many lost their lives in their process, and those who survived found their power to be largely inferior to what they wielded before. Magocracies lost their influence and virtually everything about the world changed. This prompted several groups, who were very unlikely allies, to work together. The Elven High Mages of Evermeet, the Red Wizards of Thay, the Witches of Rashemen and the Chosen of Mystra, complete with Elminster and all his allies, the Harpers and the Chirch of Mystra. Trough Elminster's help, the most prominent members of each group met and discussed the options, and after long debate and quarreling (and the near outbreak of violence) it was settled that champions would be sent trough the currents of time, to mend the events that reshaped the lands. An enormous burden would lay upon them, as their task is to slay none other than Cyric, the black God and the greatest Assassin to ever exist. Via a very taxing spell, accomplishd by the laying of several mythals by Elminster, the Chosen and the Elven mage lords, the Red Wizards and the Witches of Rashemen used hundreds of their ranks to form a devastating Magic Circle, and using the still unstable current of magic after Mystra's death, they managed to open a gateway, back to the time prior to Cyric's vile deed. Due to the nature of the spell, only four would be able to enter, but those four would have to be the best of the best. As one group would not trust the leaders of the others to go in, such as the Red Wizards not wanting the high-ranking Witches to go back and stage an assault on Thay and vice versa, the four champions chosen were neutral to each organization, but still amongst the most powerful heroes of Faerun. And so the story begins, as they equip themselves and step trough the portal. Significant power would be lost in the process of time travel, as they would merge with their former selves, but the heroes would have to manage their task regardless. Q: WOOO COOL! CAN I JOIN? A: Sorry, but I'll have to be the meanie here nad say NO. I will only accept people i have played with and that i know. Player selection will be completely biased. Q: BUT ML, YOUR OTHER GAME IS RUNNING EVER SO SLOWLY! HOW CAN YOU COPE WITH THIS?: A: Yes. PbP is slow by default, and I am not one with abundant free time. PbP is fun, relaxing roleplaying and it also allows for grand and epic storylines to unfold. Over the course of months of course. There are some things I will do to help speed this up:

I will use the publisehed material to help me with monster/npc stats. As in, unlike my homebrew VOTD game, this is vanilla Forgotten Realms. Also, the party will have to do a lot of asking around and roleplaying, as Cyric (being a a God and all) will know several weeks in advance that they are planning to kill him. The major part of this adventure will be finding ways to circumvent his Salient Divine Abilities. That being said, the game may progress slowly. Sometimes I just go away for several days. Still, RP heavy games are very easy for me to DM, and I intend the PCs to have fewer but more meaningful battles than grinding trough hordes of goblins. Unless they want to just jump right in to Cyric's home plane and attack all the Outsiders, Proxies and other things there are. But that would probably be suicide. But be forewardned: this probably will be slow, not due to DM burnout but due to my lack of time. If you are not depending on your Insuline deliveries on this game, and have other stuff to do besides refreshing this particular adventure, you are welcome. Details and the crunch: Your characters were very powerful to begin with, Epic levels for sure. But the time travel made sure you all regress to level 20. Level 21 will be attained trough roleplaying and maybe some fighting. I'm not a big fan ot measuring out XP with a cup. So the rules: 32 point buy, 20th level chars, 1,000,000 gp. Max HP per level. 5000 XP to "burn" for crafting stuff or enchanting or making contingent spells etc. All 3.5 sources, maybe 3.0 if you want. Banned stuff: Infinite Loops and Wish abuse naturally. No permanent race changing via PAO. No Ilithid/Beholder or other races that get insane PrCs. Please no Psionics and unless you really love it, no Incarnum. Those just hurt my head... Things to note: Spellcasters are broken. A 20th level Fighter is useless compared to a 20th level Wizard. As Epic Spellcasting comes in to play, the gap widens considerably. Since I will be playing Cyric as a reallly intelligent Deity expect a highon-impossible fight. So in that regard, crunch your characters well, espeically if you are going the non-caster route. I might throw in something to help pure non-casters in the form of itemry. We'll see how it goes. Check the list below on power ratios of class if you are not familliar with them: Class Tier System THIS IS A REPOST FROM THIS LINK: The following is a repost of something I made over on the WotC forums. I'm not exactly sure which forum to put it on, as it's intended for a variety of purposes. It's here mostly because I'd like to get some feedback from knowledgeable minds, but it's also a useful tool, much like a handbook, and available for use. My general philosophy is that the only balance that really matters in D&D is the interclass balance between the various PCs in a group. If the group as a whole is very powerful and flexible, the DM can simply up the challenge level and complexity of

the encounters. If it's weak and inflexible, the DM can lower the challenge level and complexity. Serious issues arise when the party is composed of some members which are extremely powerful and others which are extremely weak, leading to a situation where the DM has two choices: either make the game too easy for the strong members, or too hard for the weak members. Neither is desireable. Thus, this system is created for the following purposes: 1) To provide a ranking system so that DMs know roughly the power of the PCs in their group 2) To provide players with knowledge of where their group stands, power wise, so that they can better build characters that fit with their group. 3) To help DMs who plan to use house rules to balance games by showing them where the classes stand before applying said house rules (how many times have we seen DMs pumping up Sorcerers or weakening Monks?). 4) To help DMs judge what should be allowed and what shouldn't in their games. It may sound cheesy when the Fighter player wants to be a Half Minotaur Water Orc, but if the rest of his party is Druid, Cloistered Cleric, Archivist, and Artificer, then maybe you should allow that to balance things out. However, if the player is asking to be allowed to be a Venerable White Dragonspawn Dragonwrought Kobold Sorcerer and the rest of the party is a Monk, a Fighter, and a Rogue, maybe you shouldn't let that fly. 5) To help homebrewers judge the power and balance of their new classes. Pick a Tier you think your class should be in, and when you've made your class compare it to the rest of the Tier. Generally, I like Tier 3 as a balance point, but I know many people prefer Tier 4. If it's stronger than Tier 1, you definitely blew it. Psionic classes are mostly absent simply because I don't have enough experience with them. Other absent classes are generally missing because I don't know them well enough to comment, though if I've heard a lot about them they're listed in itallics. Note that "useless" here means "the class isn't particularly useful for dealing with situation X" not "it's totally impossible with enough splat books to make a build that involves that class deal with situation X." "Capable of doing one thing" means that any given build does one thing, not that the class itself is incapable of being built in different ways. Also, "encounters" here refers to appropriate encounters... obviously, anyone can solve an encounter with purely mechanical abilities if they're level 20 and it's CR 1. Also note that with enough optimization, it's generally possible to go up a tier, and if played poorly you can easily drop a few tiers, but this is a general averaging, assuming that everyone in the party is playing with roughly the same skill and optimization level. As a rule, parties function best when everyone in the party is within 2 Tiers of each other (so a party that's all Tier 2-4 is generally fine, and so is a party that's all Tier 3-5, but a party that has Tier 1 and Tier 5s in it may have issues). The Tier System

Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played well, can break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party. Examples: Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Archivist, Artificer, Erudite Tier 2: Has as much raw power as the Tier 1 classes, but can't pull off nearly as many tricks, and while the class itself is capable of anything, no one build can actually do nearly as much as the Tier 1 classes. Still potencially campaign smashers by using the right abilities, but at the same time are more predictable and can't always have the right tool for the job. If the Tier 1 classes are countries with 10,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenal, these guys are countries with 10 nukes. Still dangerous and world shattering, but not in quite so many ways. Note that the Tier 2 classes are often less flexible than Tier 3 classes... it's just that their incredible potential power overwhelms their lack in flexibility. Examples: Sorcerer, Favored Soul, Psion, Binder (with access to online vestiges) Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time. Examples: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder (without access to the summon monster vestige), Wildshape Varient Ranger, Duskblade, Factotum, Warblade, Psionic Warrior Tier 4: Capable of doing one thing quite well, but often useless when encounters require other areas of expertise, or capable of doing many things to a reasonable degree of competance without truly shining. Rarely has any abilities that can outright handle an encounter unless that encounter plays directly to the class's main strength. DMs may sometimes need to work to make sure Tier 4s can contribue to an encounter, as their abilities may sometimes leave them useless. Won't outshine anyone except Tier 6s except in specific circumstances that play to their strengths. Cannot compete effectively with Tier 1s that are played well. Examples: Rogue, Barbarian, Warlock, Warmage, Scout, Ranger, Hexblade, Adept, Spellthief, Marshal, Fighter (Dungeoncrasher Variant) Tier 5: Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. Has trouble shining in any encounter unless the rest of the party is weak in that situation and the encounter matches their strengths. DMs may have to work to avoid the player feeling that their character is worthless unless the entire party is Tier 4 and below. Characters in this tier will often feel like

one trick ponies if they do well, or just feel like they have no tricks at all if they build the class poorly. Examples: Fighter, Monk, CA Ninja, Healer, Swashbuckler, Rokugan Ninja, Soulknife, Expert, OA Samurai, Paladin, Knight Tier 6: Not even capable of shining in their own area of expertise. DMs will need to work hard to make encounters that this sort of character can contribute in with their mechanical abilities. Will often feel worthless unless the character is seriously powergamed beyond belief, and even then won't be terribly impressive. Needs to fight enemies of lower than normal CR. Class is often completely unsynergized or with almost no abilities of merit. Avoid allowing PCs to play these characters. Examples: CW Samurai, Aristocrat, Warrior, Commoner And then there's the Truenamer, which is just broken (as in, the class was improperly made and doesn't function appropriately). Now, obviously these rankings only apply when mechanical abilities are being used... in a more social oriented game where talking is the main way of solving things (without using diplomacy checks), any character can shine. However, when the mechanical abilities of the classes in question are being used, it's a bad idea to have parties with more than two tiers of difference. It is interesting to note the disparity between the core classes... one of the reasons core has so many problems. If two players want to play a nature oriented shapeshifter and a general sword weilder, you're stuck with two very different tiered guys in the party (Fighter and Druid). Outside of core, it's possible to do it while staying on close Tiers... Wild Shape Variant Ranger and Warblade, for example. Note that a few classes are right on the border line between tiers. Duskblade is very low in Tier 3, and Hexblade is low in Tier 4. Fighter is high in Tier 5, and CW Samurai is high in Tier 6 (obviously, since it's pretty much strictly better than the same tier Warrior). I require everyone to use my custom character sheet, designed for easy reading here in ENWorld. Complete with a level advancment. Sorry, I'm putting my foot down. On Epic Spellcasting: note that in this game you are running against a deadline, because ol' boy Cyric is heading to assasinate Mystra and bring on the damnation of us all by introducing 4E! So you probably won't have days, let alone weeks to burn away.