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Here's my take on this:

We start with a custom prime material plane where the epic heroes were born and made a name for themselves.
For a feeling of epic scale we will borrow the Blood War.

Our epic adversaries will be:
Zoroth chaotic evil god with a realm on the 3933rd layer of the Abyss.
His titles include: Harbinger of Utter Despair, Unscheming Devourer, Volatile One
Zoroth will not be faced directly. He's here to provide an ever-present element of danger.

Vex'Yurieth, nascent demon lord(lady), favored general of Zoroth in his quest to extend his realm to Acheron through the river Styx.
When I say quest I of course mean idle fancy. He is a power of the planes after all.
Vex'Yurieth is a Marilith-based demoness beefed up to provide a challenge for the party. She can be thrown at them eventually.

Degohet, infernal duke, leader of an army of devils on Acheron.
He has a firm grasp on the territory which Vex'Yurieth aims to capture.
Degohet is a Pit Fiend, leveled up according to the bestiary guidelines. He also can be defeated at some point.

Zeluvithiel, undead dragoness in the service of Zoroth.
She is a Ravener with a lair in Zoroth's realm. Also Zoroth's Proxy so she might deserve a few levels.
Zeluvithiel will be the harasser. Zoroth has plenty of her kind in store.

First, run a few sessions where the players get comfortable with their characters and their world.
Let them enjoy their power for a while. Let them bond with the setting and get a feel for their place in it.
Remember, if you have no attachment to a world you won't feel the impact when it's threatened.
This would be a good starting point to weave in our big guns with some name dropping.
Throw in a cult worshipping Vex'Yurieth. The cultists should mention that "the shadow of Zoroth has fallen over this world".

Then run an adventure involving extraplanar agents gathering souls for Degohet's war effort.
While the party wraps up their operation, have Zeluvithiel pay the devilish agents a visit as well.
The characters shouldn't meet the Ravener at this point, they should only hear her, smell her and feel her presence as a disturbing force.
There should be enough stragglers left over from the infernal agents to keep things fun.
One or more of the stragglers should inform the party that "the War is already here" and that "soon they will be forced to choose a side".
The characters might engage in a conversation. In this case they should be offered a deal. Offer anything they could want for their soul.
"You'll need all the power you can get to survive what is to come."
The deal doesn't change much whether it is accepted or not.
Depending on your deviousness, the most the characters can get is immunity from Degohet's armies (above the boons).
Of course then Degohet will hire assassins from all over the planes and let the demons know about the characters allegiance with him.
If you can broker a really infernal deal then the characters get some boons at the cost of their souls and they still have to contend with both sides.

The next adventure could include Ukku, a Sensate from Sigil. She wishes to witness as the Blood War descends upon a new world.
She bring a bunch of artists with her, who will record the events in various forms of expression.
Many of them will want to use materials found on the world itself for authenticity, so they'll visit cities, causing no small amounts of commotion.
Ukku is an invaluable source of information, but she is also demanding of those who "waste her time with endless questions".
There should be many quirky requests that send the party across the planes, getting stuff for her and her artist friends.
A short list: Styx water from Arborea for a painter, living flame from the Elemental Plane of Fire for a potter, a feather from a deva's wings from Mount Celestia for a writer.
Don't make them too easy.

This is the part where you can put in anything you like involving agents from either side.

During or after dealing with Ukku and whatever you decide to add after that, the host of Zoroth arrives in style.
Zoroth throws an extra bend into the riverbed of Styx, making it temporarily flow through the party's home world. Choose a large river.
Stories of people on a riverbank losing their memories (perhaps a whole city for drama) as well as scores of rampaging demons abound.
Zeluvithiel begins feasting on the souls of anyone unfortunate enough to be in her path.
Vex'Yurieth enters on a massive battleship with an endless stream of smaller ships in tow, intent on crossing through the river into Acheron.
At this point Degohet is unaware of this maneuver. He will soon figure it out and launch a counter-attack.

Depending on the tone you and the players prefer, their world could be saved through various ways:
- A power with enough local followers could be asked to revert the Styx (risks leaving the outsider armies stranded)
- The 3 big guns could be defeated one by one, forcing some pretty grim choices regarding what to save and what to let die.
- Ally with one side to get the whole thing done sooner (Ukku can tell them that this is feasible and while it won't get rid of the danger it will get the big guns and most of the armies out).
- Introduce a third side (depending on the world the Higher Planes might be interested in helping).
- Any creative way the players come up with, roll with it.

At this point the party is either orphaned to the planes or celebrating their victory among the ruins of their world.
Whichever it is, the planes are not done with them.
Whoever is left from the big guns will keep hounding the party until they kill him/her.
If nobody is left then Zoroth raises Vex'Yurieth from the dead to fill the void.

All the party has accomplished is giving one or more powerful beings a new obsession.

If the world was saved:
Every society is now corrupted by infernal agents. Every male ruler tempted by succubi.
The outsider influences drive the world's nations together in an orgy of conflict.
Cults are working on opening gates for the armies and generals of both sides.
If one side gains the upper hand, the world slides into either the Abyss or Baator.
This allows for plenty of hard choices and unlikely alliances.

If the world was lost:
Here's your chance for a Planescape campaign. The Planes can handle epic level adventurers.
If that's not your cup of tea, then the characters can gather allies (provide plenty of clues about where to look) and lay siege to either side's fortress.
The big guns will be aware of this and will make every attempt to foil the party's plan.

Hi Yuki

1) If I understand correctly, the player is disrupting the game with making guesses and declaring them out loud.

In this case you should talk to this player and figure out why they're doing it. Maybe they want a more comedic or lighthearted game style. There's no easy answer on how to deal with a situation where the group's expectations are too diverse to match, but you can try alternating the mood of the game. In the end if the majority finds such out-of-character exclamations too distracting then this player will have to adapt or find another group.

2) Using the knowledge the player gained by reading rulebooks instead of the knowledge the character gains by interacting with the game world is pretty close to a definition of metagaming.

First is again talking to the player. Also, to help them avoid this behaviour you should refrain from using the same words the rulebooks use to describe the item. For example, instead of saying 'You find four tanglefoot bags on the table' you could say 'on the table there are four small pouches with a drawing of a tied foot on each of them'. Of course you only need to do this the first time they encounter the item. Once the character knows what it is and how to use it, it's not a problem anymore.

3) See my advice on 1).

4) See my advice on 2). Additionally, monsters are easiest to present differently than what's written in the bestiary. Unless you tell the exact name of the monster, there should be no way for the player to tell which one it is. Plus you are under no obligation to use the stats as written. Nothing stops you from rewriting kobolds to be CR 3 creatures for example.

The player has no right or basis to make assumptions based on player knowledge until the character has interacted with the object/monster/etc within the game world. Just remember to be fair and keep things the same way once the character has interacted with them!

so while my use of the railroad will be rare and as light as possible I am also not going to let a player say "oh.. you have a whole story line about us going to that castle over yonder on kings orders but I would rather kill the king and own this castle instead now make it happen"

If this happens then you either

A and B can and should be fixed before the game starts.

however the whole reason they were in the dungeon was to get information which the deathknight was going to give them along with a special boon in exchange for a task which would free his soul. (a series of clues had pointed them to the tomb but not the source of the information or even the full understanding of what information they would recieve)

Why not remind them? "You are here to gather information, remember?". And you could stress that the deathknight is behaving non-threateningly.

Also, who cares if they kill it? Whatever information it has should be available elsewhere in the tomb. Or you could use a ghost instead of a deathknight, then you don't have to worry about it getting killed. Or you could turn the deathknight into a ghost once it was killed. The list goes on.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses. If you know you can't come up with something on the spot or don't want to (for whatever reason) then the solution is the three-clue rule.

Every plot point should have at least three clues pointing to it in three different places.

What you describe here is a classic choke point. You had a number of clues pointing to this encounter but you only have one clue here pointing to the next. Furthermore it isn't absolutely sure the party finds this clue. Truth be told, it never is but at least make it more permanent than a destroyable entity.

On another note, I am glad to see you take constructive feedback well. This is the advice board and everything people write here (even if it seems to be presented as the One-True-Way) is just what it is: advice.

1) The game system doesn't have any built-in safety measures to explicitly prevent TPK. This is left to the GM.

2) The main tool you have to ensure the challenge fits the party is the Challenge Rating and Average Party Level system. It isn't perfect though, so you should take care when introducing new monsters. Check that their damage output can be handled by the characters and that the party has the necessary tools to defeat it (for example the damage reduction of lycanthropes can be unexpectedly hard to counter at lower levels).

My advice would be to start out with weaker enemies and experiment with raising the difficulty until you and your group find a level you are comfortable with.

You should also be aware of the limitation called 'Action Economy' here on the boards. Often a single big opponent can be easier to defeat than a few semi-big ones. This is important because you might think that if the party took down a single opponent of APL+2 in a single round, they could take 2 or 3 at the same time. And then you risk TPK.

The most important thing is that you discuss this with the group and reach a common understanding.

Forget about plot as a set series of events and start thinking of it as a set of connected scenarios that the party can engage on their own terms and in the order they wish. Use hints and clues to guide them along.

You think it would be cool if the party fought a dragon? Design the dragon and its lair, then hint at its existence at a time when the party is ready for it.

You would like to see a jailbreak? Design a jail, put an important/rich NPC in it and have someone approach the party asking them to get him/her out. They might just get themselves captured as part of their own plan. The same prisoner could be the only one who knows where the lair of the beast is which has been terrorizing the locals (it's the dragon).

Is it extra work with possibly no payoff? Might seem so if the players don't take the bait, but here is what Selgard said about going left or right comes into play. You can reuse any content easily with some adjustments to the level of baddies.

Also, if you use enough clues and connect scenarios appropriately, the party will follow the trail of breadcrumbs to all of them.

@ShinHakkaider: Hmm, your post was only two lines when I started writing. It seems to me like you've given ample resources for your players to make up for bad rolls and such. I don't see how characters could ever die under such rules.
Was it because they ran out of action points or did they decide to just let it go?
In the first case it's simply just that I'd go one step further and not tie it to a game mechanic. A small but fundamental difference.
In the second case it would seem like the player was ready to end their character's story there. It's fine in both our views.
As for the example case with the Ogre barbarian, that would definitely be jarring for sure. The GM would simply have to do better than that.

@wraithstrike: Yes, it seems we fall on different sides of the fence between simulationist and narrative game styles. The best we can realistically achieve here is agree to disagree.

@ShinHakkaider: We are in agreement on your first statement. It was a metaphor, since both a good game and a good book share at least one thing in common. They both deliver a story.
I explicitly stated that the story is not the GM's, which was meant to avoid the "why don't you just read a book then" argument. It seems it has failed.
As for the relationship between story elements and random mechanics, please see my answer to wraithstrike.

(I'm not a player if that helps clarify my position on this.)

I see my advice was not to everyone's liking.
For those interested, please allow me to clarify a few points.

I opt not to include the usual "In my opinion, just my 2 cents, etc." phrases since they should be treated as given on these boards.

Obviously everyone plays differently and some GMs and players prefer a gamist or simulationist approach. More power to them, I say.

I operate under the assumption that:
- players spent a long time nursing their characters into living, breathing parts of the game world
- there is an organic story, which is not the GM's story, but the PCs'

Removing a PC from the story without the player's advance consent is akin to taking a good book away from someone without any chance of ever finishing it.

Yes, the player may make some unexpected bad decisions. But rendering them unable to participate (unconscious) for a short time should be penalty enough.

Yes, the rules provide ways to bring a dead character back. If it adds to the story and you expect the player to be fine with it, go ahead. If it would mean taking that character out of play for the rest of the session then you've just ruined someone's fun. That is unless you allow them to participate in another way (like play a henchman).

From a GM's point of view, it's never okay to kill a player character for the reasons Petty Alchemy mentioned.

There are basically two scenarios where the characters get killed.

1. The rule of large numbers (or luck if you prefer) doesn't favor the character(s) and the challenge suddenly becomes too great through no fault of your own.
2. You set the encounter difficulty too high to begin with.

In either case you should either fudge rolls, or if that's not possible/desirable you should do a deus ex machina.

Both methods must be used carefully. You must assure that the players can't detect you messing with the dice rolls and a deus ex machina must never entirely remove the threat. Simply give the party (or even just the one in trouble) a few rounds to recover. Environmental hazards are probably the most acceptable for this. Or throw in a third party, or whatever you think fits.

This all assumes you know your players, their characters and can think on your feet / have extra material prepared for such occasions.

If you have new/inexperienced players you should just lower the difficulty until you are confident in your knowledge of what they can handle.

I'd advise against penalizing a player for using smart tactics.

Having said that, this particular tactic can work against the team by limiting their options.
For example in a situation where the other PCs on the ground would like to run or regroup farther away from the tree, they'd have to abandon the archer.

Also, trees tend not to stand alone in an open field. The other trees will provide cover to enemies as Mauril pointed out.

Ruling that the tree itself provides cover for everything against his ranged attacks is dangerously close to saying "silly player, you thought the world was 3D? you'll stick to the flat battlegrid and like it!"

There aren't rules for this particular situation but there are tools which the GM can use to simulate it. How the GM uses these tools is up to them.

If you think the archer is gaining unfair advantage over you with this tactic, then talk to your GM about it. Maybe next time your party rests there will be a nicely defensible cave instead of a copse of trees.

Every player has to have their chance to shine and if the archer keeps getting his/her limelight much more than you, then you have a very valid case to bring to your GM.

In 2nd ED Planescape the plane of negative energy dealt a few d6 negative energy to everything on it every round. Pretty thematic, you should consider adding it. It really drives home the plane's aversion to life in general. It would also heal all the undead baddies, too (probably like +1 CR to them).

For higher-end opponents you should look at the Nightshades in bestiary 2.

To add some variety to the dreary landscape, you could throw in castles, cities and other structures/places that slid onto the negative plane from one of the infinite number of prime material planes due to powerful magic.
These places could still have their original inhabitants as undead of various types. That way you can avoid the PCs meeting "just another wight" with no backstory.

Also to consider is the addition of living or at least half living enemies to spice things up. Anything that is healed by negative energy would be fine. For example dhampirs, also from bestiary 2.

If you can find an old Planescape setting book lying around somewhere, it has pretty nice descriptions of each plane, including the inner planes that you're looking for.

I love this line of products and will continue to buy them as they come out.

No preference in order of appearance or balance of alignments, just keep them coming.

The system is very alluring to me and the way it is presented in UC is pretty simple and easy to use (obviously the designer's main goal IMHO).

Obviously this system is for those who cringe when they see a giant's maul "bounce off" a warrior's armor, their suspension of disbelief shattering as the warrior's armor should.

However, the "size override" rule is so simple that it's nonsensical. For example, a storm giant is a huge creature. According to the bestiary, they use armor. Unless they all wear adamantine armor, they all ignore each other's protection by default. Makes no sense. A "+1 size difference in favor of attacker ignores mundane, +2 size ignores magic" modification solves this without much added complexity. I personally think a +2 size difference should ignore shield as well.

As for the problem with dagger v. full plate... simply allow a "called shot" for "gap in armor", basically letting people use the original AC system when it benefits them solves this. Probably this should be limited to light weapons to avoid high-BAB characters abusing it.

That last thing kinda solves a lot of hidden issues as well. So far I've found that the "armor as DR" system inflates the value of power attack, while simultaneously decreasing its negative effect, since defense is usually much lower than AC and thus a few points off the attack bonus (which itself takes a great hit in value) doesn't count for as much.

I also take issue with magic weapons ignoring armor regardless of their bonus. Since you can make your weapon magical already with a 1st level spell, this devalues mundane armor way too much. I'd propose something like: +1 magic weapons ignore 3 DR/armor. +2 halves DR, while +3 and above ignores it as in UC.

Uhh, I probably wrote too much already.

TL;DR: The system as presented in UC should not be used as-is. It does, however provide a solid foundation for refinement.