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Epic characters brought back to beginning levels
- Thread starter Altamont Ravenard
- Start date
vulcan_idic
Explorer
I like this idea a lot... seems quite reminiscent of Rand al'Thor and Co. from the Wheel of Time... particularly in terms of Birgitte of the Silver Bow
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Jdvn1
Hanging in there. Better than the alternative.
So, um, what happened to their Knowledge skills and such? I've seen this done in the past and one of the PCs demanded that he know everything about every monster because he had fought them before.
It's a neat idea for a backstory, but easily abused.
It's a neat idea for a backstory, but easily abused.
JoeGKushner
First Post
After reading the edit part, it could be fun. Exatled is a bit like though, although you're still playing powerful characters.
Hunting down old items.
Noting how the lands have changed.
Finding out who, if anyone survived from your time.
Learning about the death of different races...
Learning about the eviloution of some races... did the drow exist? Did the duergar?
Learning that your wyrmling friend is now an elder dragon on the verge of death or immortality...
Very great deal of potential...
I did something like this for a SF campaign where the characters were "The Hidden Sword", like Space Marines in a Star Trek setting who were brought back to save the world from a massive invasion. Worked well.
Hunting down old items.
Noting how the lands have changed.
Finding out who, if anyone survived from your time.
Learning about the death of different races...
Learning about the eviloution of some races... did the drow exist? Did the duergar?
Learning that your wyrmling friend is now an elder dragon on the verge of death or immortality...
Very great deal of potential...
I did something like this for a SF campaign where the characters were "The Hidden Sword", like Space Marines in a Star Trek setting who were brought back to save the world from a massive invasion. Worked well.
Aeric
Explorer
I had an idea for a campaign once where time flowed backwards, to the effect that the PCs lost a set amount of XP every session. This would be offset by any XP they earned during the session, but not so much that they didn't lose some in the process. The goal of the campaign was to fix time before the PCs ceased to exist (i.e. when time regressed to before they were born). I could never work out how the PCs would retain the memories of what they had done and what they were supposed to do while still justifying the XP loss, so I stopped developing the idea there.
jollyninja
First Post
I've actually been a player in a couple of campaigns themed like this. first example, we had been getting stagnant as a gaming group, just playing retreads of a few old characters ittermittently and we finally just decided to bring the characters back, the dm agreed. there had been a reall strange accident in my wizard's lab at level 9 so that was our starting point, all the characters had been there so it worked, we played the characters from that day on. two paladins and my cn pyromaniac mage. in the cataclysmic battle described at the beginning of the next one, all the gods of the world had perished in a struggle against some freakishly powerful entities so the pantheon needet filling out. all three characters became gods. one was a law, justice, tyrish type, one a diety of order, protection and the slaying of unnatural beasts (undead, lycanthropes, demons ect...) and finally, my boy, the chaotic evil god of destruction, rage and hatred. a lifetime of constantly being preached at and told how terrible he was despite his equal effort and sacrafice had darkened the soul of my mad wizard, one magic item of undetectable alignment later they had no idea and probably would have killed anyone who had the audacity to accuse my little man of anything, he had a higher charisma then either of the others and made great efforts to keep them appeased. the fact that i remember it leads me to believe that it worked swimmingly.
the other time i tried it, my level 18 2e character with three classes, translated roughly into a level 27 3e character by the wotc conversion doccument, oh look, the guy i started at lev 1 and played to 18 is not playable in the campaign anymore. he becomes a diety in a solo game and sacrafices himself and the entire pantheon to stop a war among dragon's, men who had learned to absorb the souls of dragons and the gods themselves that he believed would destroy the world. later, the dm decided to bring the gods back as mortals (i also got to play bane at one point woo hoo. undead armies don't backtalk and you only need clerics to keep them in line, once you regain enough power to have them, the world falls in line pretty quickly if you can dig up enough bodies) from their purgatory and i got to play my character again starting at level one. he had only vague recollections of his former life, barely even remembering his own name, remnembering only that he was a bard (2e blade) and favored mithral great swords, two of them. monkey grip is a great feat for flash over substance fighting. i regained godhood, though in a much less cool fasion. going from protector of the universe to strategy, leadership and cunning is a bit of a step down but hey, i took what was there and fit.
the other time i tried it, my level 18 2e character with three classes, translated roughly into a level 27 3e character by the wotc conversion doccument, oh look, the guy i started at lev 1 and played to 18 is not playable in the campaign anymore. he becomes a diety in a solo game and sacrafices himself and the entire pantheon to stop a war among dragon's, men who had learned to absorb the souls of dragons and the gods themselves that he believed would destroy the world. later, the dm decided to bring the gods back as mortals (i also got to play bane at one point woo hoo. undead armies don't backtalk and you only need clerics to keep them in line, once you regain enough power to have them, the world falls in line pretty quickly if you can dig up enough bodies) from their purgatory and i got to play my character again starting at level one. he had only vague recollections of his former life, barely even remembering his own name, remnembering only that he was a bard (2e blade) and favored mithral great swords, two of them. monkey grip is a great feat for flash over substance fighting. i regained godhood, though in a much less cool fasion. going from protector of the universe to strategy, leadership and cunning is a bit of a step down but hey, i took what was there and fit.
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vulcan_idic
Explorer
Jdvn1 said:
I could easily see an amnesia type clause being included in this sort of backstory to prevent this... the character can gradually remember elements of his former existance... the DM's discretion what he remembers when. This could be a very handy bit if, for instance, the group is working on a problem, or fighting a monster with few weaknesses, and can't come up with a solution for a long enough period that the "fun factor" begins to drop, one, or more, such characters could "remember" a little snibbet which while not giving the solution, gives the group, as a whole, sufficient information, when taken in combination with other known quantities, to come up with a good solution. The only pitfall I could see with with is to be cautious the exact piece of information they are given - you can't make them "unlearn" something... at least not as easily as you can give it to them in these circumstances.
Alternatively, using Wheel of Time as a template, as the concept seems roughly analogous, you could have a character with "swiss cheese" memory like Matt's (many memories, but not complete), something like Rand (who has it proven that he is such a reincarnation, but knows only what he has heard about himself in the stories every one hears... (or hears voices of himself and starts talking to himself - could make for a ver interesting roleplay... especially if the other players only "hear" what the character says, not the DM...) or something along the lines of Birgitte (who remembers nearly everything - but many things have changed over the millenia, and who is somewhat bound - first by the laws of the universe, and later by being such a famous persona - to be limited to what they can say and do) This is the sort of thing that I can see being solved many ways depending on the demands of the specific world... though all depend, to varying degrees, on how much the players involved are dedicated to playing the character as opposed to simply using the abilities of the character.
Maerdwyn
First Post
didn't read the above post carefully, with regard to Birgitte's story, basiclly what I suggested below. 
If you make the time period long enough, let them have a bunch of their knowledge - but make much of it irrelevent to their current incarnation. Civilizations have fallen, new magics (magic itself?) discovered. If the PCs were once the folk heroes of an Bronze or Stone Age agrarian people, but emerge reborn into a heavily urbanized society with a tech level equivalent to the Renaissance, their knowlege of coppersmithing isn't going to to do them much good. Their skills can still be there as background (maybe degraded a bit, swiss cheese style), and might even give them some various synergy bonuses as they learn new, more relavent skills.
If you make the time period long enough, let them have a bunch of their knowledge - but make much of it irrelevent to their current incarnation. Civilizations have fallen, new magics (magic itself?) discovered. If the PCs were once the folk heroes of an Bronze or Stone Age agrarian people, but emerge reborn into a heavily urbanized society with a tech level equivalent to the Renaissance, their knowlege of coppersmithing isn't going to to do them much good. Their skills can still be there as background (maybe degraded a bit, swiss cheese style), and might even give them some various synergy bonuses as they learn new, more relavent skills.
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Caius
First Post
I'm not sure if you are the DM or player in this situation. Everyone has commented on how a DM should handle this and they are good suggestions. I've always felt DM's should "railroad" players but if these senarios are some your players suggested I think it's rare you'd find players willing to do that.
Now I'm a player who has actually done this. My second edition characters where in the now know as Epic level range. When third came out I sat down with the DM and we worked out how we would go about the change. It was clear that we all loved the second edition characters and wanted to change them over, but they would have only been 20th level and lost a fair bit. So we decided of a restart of sorts. We used the same characters basically from first level. But instead of the characters following the same paths we had a few changes like wizards becoming fighters/arcane archers, clerics learning psionics etc. It's been commented it's almost like another dimension for this group. We often make jokes along similar lines. Like "hmm didn't this happen before?"
I would think however you wanted to approach it if you were a player and you wanted this to happen there should really be no problem. In your senario's it is not like the PC's have access to the epic level items they once had nor the NPC contacts they made throughout their lives. So there doesn't seem to me to be anything wrong with it and it would actually sound like a fun character to play. One who knows he's this great hero but has to start again. Especially if he's with new PC's who know the hero in legend, but for some reason he can't tell them who he really is. Although like anyone would believe that, lol.
Now I'm a player who has actually done this. My second edition characters where in the now know as Epic level range. When third came out I sat down with the DM and we worked out how we would go about the change. It was clear that we all loved the second edition characters and wanted to change them over, but they would have only been 20th level and lost a fair bit. So we decided of a restart of sorts. We used the same characters basically from first level. But instead of the characters following the same paths we had a few changes like wizards becoming fighters/arcane archers, clerics learning psionics etc. It's been commented it's almost like another dimension for this group. We often make jokes along similar lines. Like "hmm didn't this happen before?"
I would think however you wanted to approach it if you were a player and you wanted this to happen there should really be no problem. In your senario's it is not like the PC's have access to the epic level items they once had nor the NPC contacts they made throughout their lives. So there doesn't seem to me to be anything wrong with it and it would actually sound like a fun character to play. One who knows he's this great hero but has to start again. Especially if he's with new PC's who know the hero in legend, but for some reason he can't tell them who he really is. Although like anyone would believe that, lol.
