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I'm considering for my PC the epic destiny Keeper of the Everflow, in part, because of the level 30 epic destiny feature turning the wheel that, among others, grants the following ability:

When you reduce an enemy to 0 hit points, you can choose to have that enemy reincarnated in the world as a natural creature with no memory of its past life. You have no control over where and how the enemy reincarnates. (Heroes of Shadow 154)

The reason that I want this ability is that I hate game elements like this iron golem juggernaut power:

Toxic Death (when first bloodied and again when the iron golem juggernaut drops to 0 hit points) ✦ Poison
Close burst 5; +31 vs. Fortitude; 3d10 + 6 poison damage, and ongoing 10 poison damage (save ends). (Monster Manual 2 135)

I'm kind of sick of monsters that I already killed still trying to kill me, and stopping them from doing that will make me happy, even if it's only for a few encounters. However, before I take this destiny, I want to make sure of something: Do the rules offer an order of operations for how game elements like the two game elements above interact?

For example, when I reduce the golem's hp to 0 does the golem's toxic death power activate then my turning the wheel ability kicks in? Or does the turning the wheel ability essentially negate the toxic death power because when I reduced the golem to 0 hp it was immediately "reincarnated in the world as a natural creature with no memory of its past life" therefore the golem's now a giraffe, platypus, or axolotl that (presumably) can't explode into a cloud of poisonous gas?


Note: I know that Keeper of the Everflow isn't a great epic destiny for my battlemind, but my 2 years of weekly D&D 4e gaming leads me to believe that the game is awfully forgiving of players making for their characters merely average choices, and the Keeper destiny is at least an average battlemind choice according to this guide, the most comprehensive battlemind guide I can find. However, that guide refers to the turning the wheel feature as a "flavour-only capstone," and I'm not sure if that's because the guide's author just never fought exploding dead monsters (so it sounded like "flavour-only" to the author) or because the rules say somewhere that monsters first explode (or whatever) then reincarnate (or whatever). By the way, if there're alternatives to this level 30 epic destiny class feature that my human battlemind can take that'll prevent dead monster explosions at a lower level or with a lower resource cost, answers are free to point those out.

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Turn the Wheel has no effect on any on-death abilities a foe may have.

From the description of Keeper of the Everflow:

A constant stream of spirits passes through the Shadowfell—part of a grand procession of life, death, and rebirth known to a few ascetics as the everflow. Those who believe in the everflow also believe that it was once intended to return souls back to the world for a new lease on life. According to legend, the dread god Nerull usurped the everflow by hoarding the spirits of the dead. His successor, the Raven Queen, only partly undid the damage done by the fallen god, cutting the everflow short and passing judgment on mortal souls as she sees fit.

The select few who have glimpsed this truth have chosen to correct the course of the everflow. ...

Turn the Wheel allows you to choose an alternate destination for a foe's soul when you kill them. If they would normally explode on death, they still do that. If they would normally get to punch someone with their dying breath, they still do that. You merely prevent their soul from traveling on into the hands of the Raven Queen.

This aspect of Turn the Wheel is almost always pure fluff, except for the rare occasion when you're fighting liches or other opponents who have made arrangements for their soul to do something special after their defeat, in which case you get to argue with the DM about which effect takes precedence.

Unfortunately, I was not able to find any rules covering the order in which triggered effects that share a trigger resolve (assuming that both resolve as interrupts or both resolve as reactions; obviously interrupts resolve before reactions). Thus if a Keeper of the Everflow destroys a lich's body, or a character with a "reaction: when you reduce an enemy to 0hp, spend a healing surge" power defeats an iron golem juggernaut, there are no set rules about what happens. The matter is entirely up to the DM.

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    \$\begingroup\$ …In which case, this answer's concluding parenthetical becomes the actual answer to the question that I need. :-) That is, what the question describes could still be a thing—it's just not as common as I thought. If the question's situation isn't covered by the rules, can that concluding parenthetical be expanded upon to a more definitive Ask the DM? standalone section? \$\endgroup\$ Jun 23, 2021 at 20:20
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    \$\begingroup\$ @HeyICanChan I couldn't find any rules covering the ordering of multiple abilities reacting to the same trigger; it looks to be purely up to the DM. \$\endgroup\$
    – Oblivious Sage
    Jun 23, 2021 at 20:45

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