In my campaign, an (extremely) powerful empire has a legion of supersoldiers, Warhammer 40k spacemarine/Halo Spartan style. (Not the superheavy armour, the madly skilled and cyborg enhanced soldier part). I'm the DM, but recently in our group we've had issues with DMs fiatting things into GMPC and railroad issues, so everything I do should be largely RAW (but I can make judgement calls, of course, and tweak things for the campaign.) because we (myself included) are fed up with DM cheating.
Here's the premise: A mighty empire whose military is largely decentralised has an army of elite soldiers loyal directly to the emperor, which keeps the country in line- nobody is willing to challenge the Legion. At first, I was going to just make them fairly high level warriors, but now I'm thinking I want something a little cooler.
Is there a good race/class combo (possibly template?) for an effective primarily melee fighter? I'm thinking somewhere in the vicinity of ECL 10, but that can change for a beautiful build that needs a few more levels. The empire has pretty good access to magic, so is there any decent way to spell-enhance them permenantly? The best I can come up with are a few minor utility buffs using permenancy, like darkvision.
A few restrictions: no tome of battle (my group hates it stylistically and we don't have it anyways), preferably the soldiers shouldn't have much if anything in the way of spellcasting, no polymorphing, and nothing particularily silly. Coolness is important.
Also, we play Pathfinder, so if you aren't familiar it's pretty similar except with a feat every odd level instead of every three. There are some more new feats, too. You can check it out here if you want, but feel free to assume that it works the same way if you don't know.
Any ideas? I don't need entire builds, just some concepts, classes, and such and I can flesh out the rest.
Try Living Blades
Ha, just joking...
Try many different specialists, all working well together.
One example, one Group of trippers attacking before one group of Power-Attackers... or some Teleporting, Sneak-Attacking Rouges?
Anyway, I would equip them with magic Items rather than using permanency because magic Items are far more versatile
Keep in mind, they aren't actually going to have to fight mass battles, really. They're going to be encountered in very small groups (because they are so powerful and so few), so I want them to be as generalised as possible- and also, picture this situation. The PC's encounter a grizzled old veteran of the Imperial Legion. the village he is staying in gets attacked by demons, becuse the blood wars spilled over into the material plane- so the veteran buckles on his old armour and finds his mothballed weapon from the attic and goes to help the PC's organise a defense.
PC: okay, you were an elite soldier feared far and wide- take out the Hezrou over there.
Legionairy: I can trip him for you
PC: I was thinking something more final.
Legionairy: sorry, I just trip. The legionairy next to me is trained to kill- he gets bonus dice on a SA
PC: okay... train the militia, then
Legionairy: I can train them to trip.
PC: *sigh*
I get the example is taken to hyperbole and is filled with numerous flaws, but its a little impractical to specialise your soldiers to that extent. Under flawless conditions, it will work excellently, but anything else (or something you never planned for) and you are totally screwed. Like playing Eldar in WH40k.
Ah, I see...
Forgot to say I don't know Pathfinder very well but If you're using most of the normal D&D books, I might have something for you...
Try Duskblades, even if you dislike casting in this issue, because most of their spells either last long enough to cast before Battle and still use it the whole time or just improve the Damage they deal via Arcane Channeling.
If the Legion is Good Aligned, use dragonborn of Bahamut, mostly with the Heart supernatural Ability and one in each group with Mind for scouting
If nothing of this is of use, go ahead with fighters and customize them with alternate Class abilities.
As a Race for Fighters, Warforged is always a good choice.
Try anything at all with the Feral template from Savage Species. It's not something I would normally let players use, but it fits for elite super soldiers.
Stacking feral and mineral warrior templates would make a powerful base. 1 lvl of barbarian for pounce and whirling frenzy variants with extra rage feat for 3 uses per day. Possibly use a goliath for race for the mountain rage variant which probably won´t work with both the other 2 however.
For a human with 1 barb and the 2 templates you have 7 lvls left for classes. Hmm what to do here....
Standstill, and imp trip feats for huge control capability especially if you can be or become large and wield a spiked chain. Probably look for something that doesn´t make you a sitting duck to spellcasters with glitterdust or other disables.
For this type of thing tome of battle would be rally cool so reconsider that.
Well, for me the words "Barbarian" and "Legion" do not fit together...
I mean, chaotic, loyal Legions are surely rare...
Would you settle for CR 10? CR is the normal measure for NPCs.
The lycanthrope template can give substantial improvements in strength and hit points for the CR adjustment. A lycanthrope with 20 animal HD gets +5 CR relative to the base humanoid. A were legendary bear (Monster Manual II) gets +26 in hybrid form and +230 HP from his 20 animal HD.
For the cyborg aspect, you might consider the half-golem template (Monster Manual II). That not only improves combat ability, it gives spell immunity.
A human half iron golem were legendary bear fighter 2 would be CR 10, be immune to anything allowing spell resistance, have +38 strength, and have a lot of hit points.
When he "goes bear" on the full moon, (I know there are ways to prevent that) does he keep his half golem template? that would be the freakiest army ever (except for the pseudonatural gnome anima mage army)
On a slightly unrelated note, I had an idea for a sort of D&D-mecha. Mechanically, it's a suit of large full plate (probably decked out with magic and such) that casts enlarge person on the wearer, bringing them up to the size necessary to wear it. Fluffwise, it's a clockwork magitech monstrosity that the person inside controls. Just add laser eyes.
A Psychic Warrior, or Ardent, would be my suggestion.
You might use this guy to give you an idea. I played a couple different versions of him as a PC. He was built around the idea of being a magically enhanced "bodyguard" that could take a huge amount of punishment, take damage instead of his "charge", actually stop people from moving around the battlefield, and be able to get to the enemies when necessary (lots of mobility).
When he "goes bear" on the full moon, (I know there are ways to prevent that) does he keep his half golem template?
Going into animal or hybrid form is accomplished by the alternate form ability. It doesn't effect the template directly, but some abilities are lost. You'd need to look up alternate form in Monster Manual I and the errata for the complete list. A half golem makes out pretty well. He keeps his spell resistance and breath weapon.
I can't believe I brought up robot bears and didn't link this.
If your thinking Legionaires then make them Legionaires. brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.p... Teamwork can make for deadly foes when they all focus on it. Sure that thread uses Crusaders, but even Fighters could be good with it. I'll agree with Mineral Warrior too, DR 8/Adamantine alone is enough to make an army feared!
Another option if you don't mind using alternative races would be using Legion Devils from the Fiendish Codex II-- they're built for operating in groups with a number of interesting abilities along those lines. Whether it is in large groups (which can be quite nasty) or small, they still work out decently. They're CR 3 or ECL 8, depending on how you want to handle building the legion out.
If you add in the half-golem template mentioned earlier, it could make for an incredibly effective fighting force.
That spartan thread is pretty awesome... I'll check out the legion fiends, too. thanks guys!