Can you help me rate the CR?

[Name1]

Hello playground,

so I've been thinking about making a monster. The reason I didn't post this in homebrew is because the general monster is already finished (though if you have suggestions, they are appreciated) and I'm pretty much just looking for the right CR and what Skills it should have (well, ok, and a name) to give these things.

Legionnaire Splinter
Size/Type: Medium Outsider (Obyrith, Evil, Chaotic, Fire)
Hit Dice: 12d8+72
Initiative: +6
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares), climb 20 ft., fly 60 ft. (average)
Armor Class: 22 (+6 Dex, +6 natural armor), touch 16, flat-footed 18
Base Attack/Grapple: +12/+18
Melee: 2 Silver Swordarms +18 (2d6+5 plus 1d6 Fire Damage)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Abilities: Form of Madness, Legion's Advance, Heat, SLAs
Special Qualities: Improved Vulnerability to Cold, Improved Vulnerability to Force, Improved Vulnerability to Sacred, Immunity to Profane, Immunity to Electricity, Immunity to Poison, Immunity to Mind-affecting, Immunity to Sonic, Immunity to Fire, DR10/Lawful, Fast Healing 10, Resist Acid 10, True Seeing, Darkvision 60 ft., Quickness, Legion's Strenght, Legion's Defenses, Hive Mind, Legion's Battle Skill, Split, Evaluation, Telepathy 250 ft., Evasion
Saves: Fort +14, Ref +16, Will +14
Abilities: Str 22, Dex 22, Con 22, Int 22, Wis 22, Cha 22
Skills: Concentration +21
Feats: Lightning Reflexes, Power Attack, Martial Study: Insightful Strike, Martial Study: Shadow Jaunt, Martial Stance: Assassin's Stance
Organization: Pack (3-6) or swarm (20-50)
CR: 11

Heat (Ex): A Legionnaire Splinter’s body of molten silver deals 1d6 points of extra fire damage whenever it hits in melee, or in each round it maintains a hold when grappling.

Legion’s Advance (Su) As a move action, a Legionnaire Splinter can immediately teleport to a space adjacent to any other Legionnaire Splinter within 100 feet. The Legionnaire Splinter can continue its turn after using this ability as normal.

Form of Madness (Su) A creature within 60 feet that observes a Legionnaire Splinter must attempt a DC 22 Will save. Failure indicates the creature begins hallucinating that it is slowly consumed by silver flames. The victim takes a –1 penalty on skill checks and must succeed on a DC 10 Concentration check in order to cast any spells until the insanity is cured by heal, greater restoration, miracle, or wish. A creature that makes the save is immune to that particular Legionnaire Splinter’s form of madness for 24 hours. This is a mind-affecting ability that does not affect chaotic evil outsiders. The save DC is Charisma-based. Looking at multiple Legionnaire Splinter requires a separate save for each one’s form of madness, but the effects are not cumulative.

Spell-Like-Abilities (Sp): At will-Molten Strike, Flame Whips; 3/day-Fireball; 1/day-Glorious Master of the Elements. All spell-like abilities have a Caster Level of 12.

Improved Vulnerability to Sacred (Ex): Legionnaire Splinter take 100% more damage from sacred instead of 50%.

Improved Vulnerability to Cold (Ex): Legionnaire Splinter take 100% more damage from cold instead of 50%.

Improved Vulnerability to Force (Ex): Legionnaire Splinter take 100% more damage from force instead of 50%.

Immunity to Electricity (Ex): Legionnaire Splinter take no damage from electricity. Instead, any electricity attack used against a Legionnaire Splinter temporarily grants it 1d4 points of Constitution. The Legionnaire Splinter loses these points at the rate of 1 per hour.

True Seeing (Su): A Legionnaire Splinter is under the constant effect of true seeing. This effect cannot be dispelled.

Quickness (Su): A Legionnaire Splinter is supernaturally quick. It can take an extra move action during its turn each round.

Legion’s Strength (Su): Legionnaire Splinter combine their physical vitality into one single pool of strength. In many battles, Legionnaire Splinter seem to absorb blow after blow, fighting on despite massive injuries, until a single decisive attack against one causes all of them to fall to the ground, slain. Legionnaire Splinter combine their hit points into one large pool. Any damage that a Legionnaire Splinter takes comes from this hit point pool. If the pool is reduced to 0, all the Legionnaire Splinter in it immediately die. A Legionnaire Splinter gains the pool’s benefits as long as it remains within 100 feet of the rest of the group. If forced to move farther away, the Legionnaire Splinter reclaims some of its hit points. Divide the hit points in the pool by the number of Legionnaire Splinter in the group. The Legionnaire Splinter forced out of the group gains that many hit points, and the pool loses a like number. If the share is less than 1, the Legionnaire Splinter immediately dies and the pool does not lose any points. By the same token, if any Legionnaire Splinter receives healing apply it to the Legionnaire Splinter's total pool.

Legion’s Defenses (Su): If a spell, supernatural ability, or other effect that allows a saving throw targets more than one Legionnaire Splinter, all the Legionnaire Splinter use the highest d20 result rolled by the group. If three Legionnaire Splinter are caught in a fireball and the d20 rolls for their saves are 17, 5, and 8, all three Legionnaire Splinter use 17 as the result of their roll before adding any modifiers.

Hive Mind (Ex): Similar to formians, Legionnaire Splinter within 50 miles of the Great Queen are in constant communication. If one is aware of a particular danger, they all are. If one in a group is not flat-footed, none of them are. No Legionnaire Splinter in a group is considered flanked unless all of them are.

Legion’s Battle Skill (Ex) Trained and experienced in working together, Legionnaire Splinter gain a +4 bonus on attack rolls for every other Legionnaire Splinter within 60 feet.

Split (Ex): Slashing and piercing weapons deal no damage to a Legionnaire Splinter. Instead the creature splits into two identical Legionnaire Splinter, each with half of the original’s current hit points (rounded down). This interacts weirdly with the Legionnaire Splinter pool: The current pools maximum hit points do not change immediately upon a split, which means that the two new Legionnaire Splinter's maximum hit points are limited to half a regular Legionnaire Splinter's maximum hit points. This defect vanishes after 24 hours, after which they can heal up to a regular Legionnaire Splinter's full hit points as normal. A Legionnaire Splinter with 10 hit points or less cannot be further split and dies if reduced to 0 hit points.

Evaluation (Ex): The warped minds of Legionnaire Splinter evaluate and break down the strengths and weaknesses of enemies in mere moments. For each full round of combat that a Legionnaire Splinter can visually see a single opponent (magical means, including clairvoyance, do not work), each Legionnaire Splinter in contact with the hive mind gains a +1 insight bonus on attack rolls against that opponent. This effect is cumulative for each round of combat, but due to the chaotic nature of the experiments performed on them, is limited to a +10 bonus, unlike a regular Formian Evaluation. The effect lasts until the Legionnaire Splinter is killed, knocked unconscious, blinded, or cannot see the target for 1 full round. This bonus begins again as soon as the Legionnaire Splinter sees them again, starting at +1 per round. The bonus does not improve if multiple Legionnaire Splinter are watching the same target. Other Legionnaire Splinter can process the information from any number of Legionnaire Splinter watching multiple targets.

Telepathy (Su): A Legionnaire Splinter can communicate telepathically with any other creature within 250 feet that has a language. It is possible to address multiple creatures at once telepathically, although maintaining a telepathic conversation with more than one creature at a time is just as difficult as simultaneously speaking and listening to multiple people at the same time.

Evasion (Ex): A Legionnaire Splinter can avoid even magical and unusual attacks with great agility. If a Legionnaire Splinter makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, the Legionnaire Splinter instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if the Legionnaire Splinter is wearing light armor or no armor. A helpless Legionnaire Splinter does not gain the benefit of evasion.


LEGIONNAIRE SPLINTER LORE
Characters with ranks in Knowledge (dungeoneering*) can research Legionnaire Splinter to learn more about them. When a character succeeds on a skill check, the following lore is revealed, including the information from lower DCs.
DC Result:
21 This creature is a Legionnaire Splinter. These creatures of molten silver are foot soldiers of the Great Queen. They sometimes attack in packs of 3-6, but are more commonly found in swarms of 20-50 or even armies that number in the thousands. Their inherently chaotic nature sometimes has them raid villages and settlements on their own accounts. These settlements more often then not lack the manpower to push back without external aid and vanish from the map. This check result reveals their Type, Subtypes and all Immunities except for Immunity to Electricity.
26 Legionnaire Splinter have a strange, magical link between them that allows them to fight better when in each other’s company. It is rather questionable if their kind would be as effective as they are now without that link, given that demons rarely work together without any ulterior motives. They are also known to multiply rather quickly.
31 Legionnaire Splinter can teleport to each others’ sides to aid one another in battle. Their flanking and teamwork is one of the best (and few) examples of demons working together known to humanoids. It is known that they can release a burst of any of the major energy types, except for Sonic, and have been seen charging each other up before battle, but it appears that this ability is heavily limited.


So yeah, that's the creature. It's supposed to be an experiment created by taking Formians and Legion Devils and modifying them according to the desires of the Great Queen (a NPC). The experiments have rendered them a bit confused, but now rather powerful servants of her. I think they might be around CR 10 individualy, since most of their power comes from having allies, but I could be totally wrong on that one...

*Dungeoneering is used for all of the Great Queens minions, since they are mostly experiments and don't naturally occur.

[Efrate]

Caster level on the Sp? 10 looks okish provided they don't have time to get NI constitution from their at will SP if there are at least 2 of them. Maybe specify that they cannot use their spell-likes on one another? Else with a hive mind you can literally create NI con very easily. The real challenge is how close to the hive mind they are, 4 or 5 of those can get absurd bonuses VERY quickly and would scale differently I would think than most equal CR monsters.

edit: Also you may wish to tone down split, otherwise they become nearly unkillable to melee types. Make one of the kinds of damage (bludgeoning likely) not trigger split.

[Name1]

Ok, thanks for the suggestion. I changed Mystic Whip to Flame Whips so it doesn't trigger the Immunity anymore. I also removed Bludgeoning as a damage type that triggers Split. As a result of that, I increased the AC too, which means split will trigger less, but they have a chance of avoiding bludgeoning.

[Efrate]

I tone AC back by around 3-6. A 10th level barbarian with 18 base strength and +2 gloves and a +1 magic weapon has a +16 to hit, which means they only hit 50% of the time, seems a bit low for a melee, plus the DR/lawful will be an issue, especially combined with split. I go for a 60-75% chance for my melees to hit on average when calculating AC, especially with all their other abilities. As a combination bruiser/caster it needs to be ok on each front but not great at both, and 26 seems a bit high when it wants to get into melee, either using the Spell likes as an opener or when melee isn't working. Since the minimum group is 3 (missed that before), before split, I'd bump CR up about 1. 2 might be a bit much.

Ac 23 at cr 11 feels good, you could even keep it at 25-26 if you bump the CR. I'd err on the weaker side and scale up, since its much easier to add an AC or something else than to take it away mid-combat.

For name, they seem like slivers from Magic the Gathering to me, so I'd go with Legion Slivers but thats just me..plus most my group plays MTG so they'd get it. Legion Splinters possibly? So its not quite so obvious if you have MTG players in your group? I feel like legion should be in their name somewhere.

[Name1]

Ok, I reduced the AC by 4 down to 22 and listed the CR as 11. I also made their natural weapons silver and called them "Legionnaire Splinter".

[Beheld]

SO uh... the CR on this is basically undefined.

So here's the thing, the split+Shared HP pool thing basically means that unless I know exactly how you use knowledge rules, I can't possibly tell you what the actual threat is.

Sure, it could be the case that they fight one creature with a really weak attack routine that splits in two a few times during the fight. But it could also be the case that they fight 24 of those things at the same time that all auto hit on 2. And have no idea that all of them are individually at 6HP and can be murdered with a single Kelgore's Grave Mist that they may or may not have access to.

So the problem is, that if your PCs don't know about Split, they will never realize that the only possible way to deal with an ambush of 24 +70 to attack monsters showing up out of no where is to AoE them with cold or force or maybe acid.

Off the top of my head, the first thing to do is cap the insight bonus at +10 because there is no possible reason to ever hand out +50 bonuses to attack rolls ever at all.

The second thing is to recognize that using split is, of course, something that the Splinters are going to both do to themselves, and have done to them by non PCs, so you absolutely need to make it not the defining question of every fight whether that already happened.

All in all you made a monster that benefits from minions, can turn into a pile of minions, and has basically every single defense a minion could ask for to protect against AoE attacks.

All of this is aside from the fact that arguably each splinter that splits with Split can then fast heal back to full HP and then split a 24 more times until you have a single CR 11 encounter of 5000 CR 11 creatures. You should probably make the "half current HP" thing clear that it's a new maximum that the creature carries forever, not a new current HP total to be healed up with fast healing.

[Name1]

Alright, thanks for the tip. I gave them a little knowledge table.

I changed the Evaluation to a maximum bonus of +10 and changed the Split ability so that the resulting creatures have half max hp for the first 24 hours after they've been Split. That way they can still be mass-produced, but won't become overpowering during a fight.

I also added the sacred vulnerability I had forgotten about...

[denthor]

A DC of 10 to casts spells is low my 8th level wizard spellcraft at max is 8 plus 3 plus stat bonus. Just a maxed out spellcraft makes it a no roll.

I suggest spellcraft roll of 15 plus twice spell level

17 for 1st

19 for 2nd

21 for 3rd

23 for 4th

[Beheld]

A DC of 10 to casts spells is low my 8th level wizard spellcraft at max is 8 plus 3 plus stat bonus. Just a maxed out spellcraft makes it a no roll.

I suggest spellcraft roll of 15 plus twice spell level

17 for 1st

19 for 2nd

21 for 3rd

23 for 4th

If you literally ignore that ability, the monster is already, if anything, too strong for it's CR. Best it stays a non factor, since the Wizard is the only character that can ever actually kill the creatures at all.

[Roog]

(1) A setting and mechanics interaction question:

With 126 hp each, these creatures can split into 16 duplicates in a day.
What limits their numbers in the setting?
(This is without the effect described in point 3, which does not appear to intended)


(2) Given that their splitting is a very obvious power, why is that not included in the lore.


(3) Splitting + Temporary CON bonus + 1/day Glorious Master of the Elements => Infinite Splitting
This is because the temporary CON bonus gives up to +14 hp, which can pay for one or two splits, and every new creature allows the group another use of the spell-like ability.

[Beheld]

Okay yes, the CR of this monster, given your knowledge entry and the fact that you actually intend splitting+fast healing to be a way for legionaires to create an infinite army of themselves on their own without anyone else being present is CR 99999999999.

If you party doesn't die to an infinite wave of replicating monsters that literally just stash one somewhere on day 1 and on day 5 have 8 million of them to swam the plane with, then your party is just way too strong for it's level.