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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ryryguy" data-source="post: 4178245" data-attributes="member: 64945">rituals, etc.?I can see where humble minion (and others) are coming from on this.  The old style "make something really terrifying/difficult/awesome by breaking the usual rules, making up new ones" did have a certain dramatic power... troubles at the table aside.But a few counter-thoughts...This is just a stat block, primarily for use in an encounter, so asking it to provide plot hooks may be asking it to pull a little too much weight.  One thing in particular - rituals are the 4e mechanic for impressive effects outside the scope of an encounter, right?  Might an epic baddie like the phane have access to some impressive rituals allowing, let's say, the creation of evil twins, or the ruining of an entire kingdom's harvest by causing the seasons to skip summer, or whatever?These wouldn't be mentioned in the phane's stat block, and perhaps not necessarily with respect to the phane specifically.  But maybe some general guidelines in a section in the DMG about "making BBEGs"?  (Actually I wonder, has there been any mention about monsters/NPCs using rituals at all?  Maybe it's just out of scope so far.)Another issue: would that poor phane really be reduced to eliminating the town guard one at a time with its none-too-impressive melee attacks?  Of course, we all know that the DM could easily wave the story wand and have the phane turn all one hundred guards into withered corpses in a single round.  But in addition, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some general mechanics and/or guidelines about how creatures are extra effective against foes that they completely outclass.  "Outclassed" could be determined by that whole "PCs of destiny" thing, level or tier comparisons.  Perhaps heroic-tier characters get no saves at all against epic-tier powers?  Perhaps it is still "save or die" if you're 10 or more levels lower than the power?  That sort of thing seems to me like it would be a much better way to handle the situation rather than having to put specific "also, it instantly kills wimps" language in every epic creature's power descriptions.  If it's not covered in the official house rules it would seem to be easy and obvious to house rule.  (I guess the advantage of some rules for this over the story wand is to give PC's a chance to save those town guards before they crumble to dust and blow away...)</blockquote>

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