Legionaire template

[Simm]

I don't know if anyone has brough this up but I think Legionaire is a MM template whose existance has been previously assumed. It increases a monsters level greatly but turns it into a minion. The Angel exerpt has on of the angel of vengence encounters as haveing an number of angel of valor legionaires. Similarly a pit fiend encounter includes the minion leigion devil legionaires. Even with their weak naming I don't think that monster could have been created without an unfortunate conincidence in template name.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't know if anyone has brough this up but I think Legionaire is a MM template whose existance has been previously assumed. It increases a monsters level greatly but turns it into a minion. The Angel exerpt has on of the angel of vengence encounters as haveing an number of angel of valor legionaires. Similarly a pit fiend encounter includes the minion leigion devil legionaires. Even with their weak naming I don't think that monster could have been created without an unfortunate conincidence in template name.

I am not convinced yet it is a fully fledged template (since according the the preview, those seem always supposed to move a monster up to Elite or Solo), but I suspect one might extract a guideline for creating them.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It seems interesting that both of those minions are Level 21...

If it is a template, i am wondering about that Level increase...

Lvl 8 normal ---> Lvl 21 minion...

actually the minion gives more xp...

what i would have expected is following:

Lvl 8 normal ---> Lvl 16 minion

 

[MindWanderer]

Considering templates are supposed to be really easy to apply, perhaps even on the fly, I don't think a minion template will work, although there may be loose DMG guidelines on how to turn a monster into a minion. To turn a monster into a minion, you'd have to:

- Eliminate HP (easy)
- Increase attack modifier, AC, and saves (fairly easy)
- Convert damage into a static value (doable but takes a minute)
- Eliminate most special attacks and abilities (hard--you have to keep iconic abilities but not go into choice shock)
- Determine a new level (very hard, based on which abilities you kept and how "smoothly" the monster improves)

 

[ThirdWizard]

I think the easiest way for it to work would be that there's a generic Legionnaire creature and that you can freely give it the special abilities of other creatures to make a X Legionnaire.

So it would be something like (simplified):

Legionnaire
Level 21 Soldier
HP 40; Bloodied 20
AC 36; Fortitude 35, Reflex 30, Will 30
+30 vs. AC; 20 damage

With no special abilities. Then you could take any random monster, say a Hobgoblin Soldier and add on his abilities like Formation Strike and the ability to mark and end up with a Hobgoblin Soldier Legionnaire.

Or something like that.

 

[Kunimatyu]

I suspect all you'll have to do to turn a monster into a minion is drop its HP so that they're equal to its level.

 

[ZetaStriker]

I'm not convinced that iconic abilities are kept, nor that no abilities are kept. It seems like it keeps RACIAL abilities... for the Kobold, it's the 'shift as a minor action' power, and for a skeleton, it would be its immunities, resistances and vulnerabilities, just to make a couple examples.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Would not, say a skeleton or zombies iconic abilities be kept. The racial abilities would only apply to monsters like, kobolds, goblins, orcs, etc. that are races and come in different flavours based on role. Like warriors, archers, magic users of various types.