Legionnaires - a new keyword?

[KidSnide]

In the Angels preview, "Angel of Valor Legionnaires" appears in the suggested encounter for the Angels of Vengeance. Also, both the Pit Fiend and the War Devil write-ups include the very oddly named "legion devil legionnaires."

I think that "Legionnaires" is a keyword that allows GMs to re-use old monsters in new ways. In the high heroic tier, your characters can face angels of valor or legion devils as standard monsters. They're tough, but level appropriate. At high levels, it is often story appropriate for characters to wade through dozens of the creatures that they used to fight one-on-one.

But it's just not fun to fight a dozen 8th level solders when you are 20th level. 8th level minions aren't very threatening because it is hard for them to hit the PCs, but they have way too many hit points. Instead, you want to fight 20th level minions. So, GMs can take the same old creatures, tack on a little military training (to give them some sort of swarm bonus) and then adjust the stats, increasing the attack bonus and defenses while decreasing the hit points and removing one or two more complicated rules that would be a pain to track when you're running 12 of them. Voila - your angel of valor is now an "Angel of Valor Legionnaire". It’s the same creature in-game, but now its stats are appropriate to its new role in the encounter.

I just wonderIn the Angels preview, "Angel of Valor Legionnaires" appears in the suggested encounter for the Angels of Vengeance. Also, both the Pit Fiend and the War Devil write-ups include the very oddly named "legion devil legionnaires."

I think that "Legionnaires" is a keyword that allows GMs to re-use old monsters in new ways. In the high heroic tier, your characters can face angels of valor or legion devils as standard monsters. They're tough, but level appropriate. At high levels, it is often story appropriate for characters to wade through dozens of the creatures that they used to fight one-on-one.

But it's just not fun to fight a dozen 8th level solders when you are 20th level. 8th level minions aren't very threatening because it is hard for them to hit the PCs, but they have way too many hit points. Instead, you want to fight 20th level minions. So, GMs can take the same old creatures, tack on a little military training (to give them some sort of swarm bonus) and then adjust the stats, increasing the attack bonus and defenses while decreasing the hit points and removing one or two more complicated rules that would be a pain to track when you're running 12 of them. Voila - your angel of valor is now an "Angel of Valor Legionnaire". It’s the same creature in-game, but now its stats are appropriate to its new role in the encounter.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

I think you're right, Mr. Snide.

 

[DandD]

In the Angels preview, "Angel of Valor Legionnaires" appears in the suggested encounter for the Angels of Vengeance. Also, both the Pit Fiend and the War Devil write-ups include the very oddly named "legion devil legionnaires."

I think that "Legionnaires" is a keyword that allows GMs to re-use old monsters in new ways. In the high heroic tier, your characters can face angels of valor or legion devils as standard monsters. They're tough, but level appropriate. At high levels, it is often story appropriate for characters to wade through dozens of the creatures that they used to fight one-on-one.

But it's just not fun to fight a dozen 8th level solders when you are 20th level. 8th level minions aren't very threatening because it is hard for them to hit the PCs, but they have way too many hit points. Instead, you want to fight 20th level minions. So, GMs can take the same old creatures, tack on a little military training (to give them some sort of swarm bonus) and then adjust the stats, increasing the attack bonus and defenses while decreasing the hit points and removing one or two more complicated rules that would be a pain to track when you're running 12 of them. Voila - your angel of valor is now an "Angel of Valor Legionnaire". It’s the same creature in-game, but now its stats are appropriate to its new role in the encounter.

Yeah, I think you might be on to something. The same as brute, controller, leader, skirmisher and minion, the keyword legionnaire might very well modify former monsters to become better level-appropriate enemies, without the hassle of having to keep track of them.
Hey, perhaps Legionnaire might even imply a gestalt-monster. Like, if you have say 5 Valor Angel Legionnaires, simply take a Valor Angel, with some modifications to make him somehow level 21, and add +1 for every additional angel, or something like that. Nah, something more complicated than that...

 

[Shroomy]

It would certainly explain the redudancy of legion devil legionaires, but it also could just be a coincidence. I would need to see more information before I could say for sure.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Could be, then again it could also be an artifact of the random name generator they use to create creature names. If you'll look back into the old posts from about November you'll see that someone spliced together a generator that aped their naming conventions surprisingly well in about a day.

Thing about it is the design philosophy of 4e is far more likely to just design a new related monster at the elevated power level than apply a template to the base monster. So while it could be a template to turn monsters into high level minions. I think it's far more likely that in the Angel entry you'll see multiple creatures in differing power levels and roles created out of what would have been a single baseline creature in previous editions.

 

[Xyl]

I'd guess that legionnaire is a template which takes a lower-level creature and produces a higher-level minion.

 

[Minigiant]

Sounds like legionaries is a template that turns a standard creature into a minion. Probably just jacks up their defenses and attack a up but drains their HP. That why they are more of a threat but easily wiped out.

Something like AC 24 and 88 HP to AC 29 and 21 HP for 10 levels. Raise their defenses and attacks by +X and their HP now equal their level.

Or legionnaire is a formula to turn anything into a 21st level minion.