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Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 4178338" data-attributes="member: 5948">This is a worthwhile point.  It occurs to me that, stepping back from the phane for a minute to get a wider perspective, my major problems with 4e (based on what I've seen thus far) centre around its seeming combat-centredness and the lack of any ability to create lasting effects or changes in anything.  Rituals may well be a mechanism to counterbalance this, but we haven't seen a ritual in any preview yet, so it's pretty hard to judge.  C'mon Wotc, show us one!  It's pretty much the deciding factor for some of us...My other concern is that the phane doesn't have any unique capability about it.  It just relies on a combination of speed and insubstantiality and inflicting minor penalties along with its hp damage to create the phane 'flavour'.  There's not really a trademark ability there.  I kinda worry that if this philosophy (building critters from a limited palette of abilities and status penalties and never, ever going outside that toolbox) will mean a certain sameness in how combat feels, and give both WotC and 3rd-party publishers problems in creating new monsters (post-MM1) without having them feel like retreads.  Kinda early to be worrying about it admittedly, but that's the impression I get from the monster stat block we've seen so far.An application of the mook rules to good guys.  Interesting thought.  It does make certain plotlines more difficult to run ("We must protect the 10-year-old noncombatant prince from the phane sent by an evil wizard to assassinate him ... oops, he's dead through proximity.  Bugger.") but it's not a bad idea.</blockquote>

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