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[thecasualoblivion]

I was tired, and I wanted to finish things so I was cutting corners. I decided the BBEG and his minions were going to ambush the PCs shortly after they entered his tower, instead of drawing it out like I planned. I left in the orb trap though, a simple trap that asked "wow, what is that?" when people looked at it in the center of the arcane study, and did nothing but explode when tampered with in any fashion for 5d6+8 plus 10 ongoing fire. A bit nasty for 7th level, but I had originally planned for rest to be available afterwards. In this case, the enemies were coming. They, tired(players) and desperate(characters), tried messing with the orb a second time. After two blasts of the orb, 5-22hp remaining, taking 10 ongoing fire, and half their encounter healing already spent, they had basically zero chance to survive a 9th level encounter.

So, not wanting to kill them because I was tired and cutting corners, their boss/mentor showed up, who just happens to be a level 22 Fighter/Kensei/Demigod. The effect of an Epic character on a heroic game was breathtaking, far more so than I would have ever expected. She opened the fight with weaponsoul dance, which boosted by a +5 Reckless sword, dealt 3d10+29 against three targets plus prone/immobilized. After the third hit, she spent an action point for shift the battlefield against 3 adjacent targets for another 2d10+29. This killed 1 enemy and left another with 5 hp. She also had the good old Fighter marking and opportunity attacks for more 2d10+29 insanity, or at least preventing the enemies from touching the dying party. She killed a 200hp Elite in two rounds(with small help from the party), and even got to fire her Longbow for 2d10+18 with a basic attack to kill the last enemy. It did help that with a +28 attack bonus, she really couldn't miss aside from a 1.

I must say that an Epic character truly appeared Epic in this instance.