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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lizard" data-source="post: 4202139" data-attributes="member: 1054">Then why not use, well, epic orc warriors? Just level an orc to 25 and be done with it. He'll have more cool powers and equipment.The thing is, there's nothing about the swordwing which makes it epic, other than the numbers. I could take the same basic mechanics and use it at 5th level, or 15th, just scale it. There's nothing there which players need epic-level powers to match or counter -- even the fact it flies is not relevant, since it has to close to melee range to do any damage.In theory, a reasonably large number of commoners could kill one. Compare to high level 3x critters, which usually had DR, incorporeality, or something else which basically made them invulnerable to 'mundane' weapons, or special attacks (death ray, life drain, whatever) which only high-level characters could face or recover from, etc.I think the swordwing is an interesting enough monster, and I can see using it -- see above -- but there's nothing "epic" about it. It's the obvious downside of "extending the sweet spot" -- gameplay changes very little between level 1 and level 30. Instead of orcs attacking the village, it's swordwings attacking the nation, but if you did a statistical analysis of damage as "% of hit points lost/attack", I'm guessing you'd find the battle plays out pretty much the same. Do D&D players WANT the same basic play across 30 levels? WOTC thinks so. The market will decide.</blockquote>

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