Sentinel Comics RPG Core Rulebook

Creating Lieutenants
Lieutenants are similar to minions in that they are
represented by a single die, but they are harder to
knock out in combat, and also have more and better
special abilities than minions. Lieutenants can be
used to represent such foes as the most powerful
followers of a villain — including superpowered
underlings — but they can also represent all kinds
of fearsome monsters such as large dinosaurs,
terrifying engines of war, or highly-armored threats,
like a heavily-plated tractor rig covered with gun
nests and flamethrowers.
You create lieutenants by following the same
steps for creating standard minions, but with some
notable differences:
Name Your Lieutenant
Lieutenants aren’t necessarily individual people, but
they tend to be unique or at least special in some
way. Give your lieutenant an evocative name to
instill fear in the hearts of the heroes. For individuals,
give them a full name and possibly some sort of
title, like: “Ember Shadow, Ninja Queen”, “Admiral
Zrill, Ur-Commander of the 17th Galactic Fleet”, or
“XL78, Rogue Warbot.”
Lieutenant Die Size
Lieutenants are most commonly ranked from
to . Their die represents how massive, armored,
or skillful they are. Remember that lieutenants are
considerably more hardy than their basic minion
counterparts since they don’t degrade a die size
when they successfully save against an Attack.
Lieutenants are more rare, but could be used
in a circumstance where the threat, while not being
terribly deadly, is hard to defeat and keeps coming
back for more, such as a swarm of insects crawling
out from the sewer.
Massive Scaled Opponents
Lieutenants aren’t bound by any specific size
scale, although they should be threats that heroes
can realistically deal with in an action scene. If
you want heroes to face truly colossal foes (like
skyscraper-sized statues or a sentient, flying island)
consider representing them as a combination of
an environment to represent its action, several
challenges to “beat it”, and some threats that strive
to prevent heroes from defeating it.
Adding Abilities
Lieutenants should have one or more abilities
to flesh them out. You can refer to the standard
minion’s list of suggested abilities or create your
own based on the following:
• A bonus to two or more basic actions if certain
conditions are met
• A bonus to Boost actions
• Target multiple allies in the same location with
one Boost action
• A bonus to Hinder actions
• Target multiple enemies in the same location
with one Hinder action
• A bonus to Defend actions
• Target multiple allies in the same location with
one Defend action
• Attack or Defend a target AND Boost an ally
with the same die roll
• Attack or Defend a target AND Hinder an
enemy with the same die roll
• A special action:
– Create a number of standard minions based
on die roll
– Recover a villain’s Health by value of die roll
– Bring an environment threat or twist into play
– Bring a hero to another location
• The capacity to sacrifice itself to:
– Let a villain escape
– Let a villain take an action during a lieutenant’s turn
– Advance the scene tracker by one space
Jennifer expects the heroes to confront Proletariat
and his team Perestroika at a repurposed Russian
bunker in Siberia. She thinks about what would be at
a mothballed Soviet era military base, and decides
that some tanks would be believable. She doesn’t
want to spend too much time, so she just jots down:
Soviet-Era Battle Tanks
Description
It’s an older tank, but it checks out.
Lieutenant
Ability
Spreadfire: It can use its machine gun to Attack
a second enemy each turn.
Creating Lieutenants
Intro
Playing
the Game
Creating
Heroes
Moderating
the Game
B ullpen
the
Adventure
Issues
The
Archives
Appendices
207