Need a replacement for Legendary Resistance

[Eslin]

Legendary Resistance is, in its current form, stupid. There's no physical equivalent - it's something they stuck on high level creatures in light of the fact that casters are better than martials at high levels, it's an artificial control intended specifically to reduce caster power. If you need a demonstration, imagine creatures had no legendary resistance, but instead had a 3/day ability called legendary defense where they could treat the results of 3 actions a day as missing completely - no-one would bother bringing a barbarian ever again.

So, they acknowledged casters were more useful than martials and decided to add artificial constraints to the monsters to reduce the effects casters have on higher level fights. That's fine - casters are stronger, short of something crazy like giving martials an equal variety of combat options (can't do that, muh mundanes!) designing high level creatures with a specific anti spell measure beyond their high saving throws is the only choice. But... Legendary Resistance is stupid. It's a really boring and frustrating 'nope, your level 9 spell does nothing and there's nothing you can possibly do to change that happening' feature that does nothing after the first few times and still lets spells like contagion destroy the creature. The problems are:


It's just a flat 'no'. Regardless of the circumstances, effects or level of the spell, it turns it useless. In other cases if you want to try to make sure something succeeds you try to weaken the creature, get advantage, find temporary boosts etc but Legendary Resistance offers no counterplay other than setting fire to actions and spell slots until it runs out.
It's binary and limited. The flat 'no' continues until the creature runs out of charges, at which point it no longer has any special defenses, and then it gets turned to stone and the fight's over. Save or lose spells still exist, LR wouldn't be there if they didn't, and they either do nothing or win the fight.
It's boring and the only counterplay is burning spells. There is no way for the player to get around it if he wants to use a spell with a save. All he can do is throw spells at it until the creature burns three legendary saves, and sitting there for five turns slinging spells knowing nothing will happen either way is really dull.


So, how do I fix this? I don't want dominate monster ending every encounter I have, but for the reasons above I think Legendary Resistance is a terrible solution. Has anyone come up with a replacement? It needs to be always active, having it run out just by setting fire to spell slots is not fun for anyone, it needs to have some counterplay, some way to reward players for smart play and needs to not be a binary you win or you do nothing. Trying to figure something out, does anyone have any ideas?

[archaeo]

So, how do I fix this? I don't want dominate monster ending every encounter I have, but for the reasons above I think Legendary Resistance is a terrible solution. Has anyone come up with a replacement? It needs to be always active, having it run out just by setting fire to spell slots is not fun for anyone, it needs to have some counterplay, some way to reward players for smart play and needs to not be a binary you win or you do nothing. Trying to figure something out, does anyone have any ideas?

I mean, you're arguing yourself into a corner. The only real way to eliminate the need for Legendary Resistance is to completely overhaul the spell list, removing anything that ends an encounter or otherwise eliminates the "counterplay" you want to see.

I would suggest banning all full casters from your games. That would probably achieve what you're going for.

[Eslin]

I mean, you're arguing yourself into a corner. The only real way to eliminate the need for Legendary Resistance is to completely overhaul the spell list, removing anything that ends an encounter or otherwise eliminates the "counterplay" you want to see.

I would suggest banning all full casters from your games. That would probably achieve what you're going for.

Or instead of throwing up my hands and cutting out half the game I could ask for group input in thinking of a solution better than the derptastic Legendary Resistance.

Yeah, that one sounds like a better solution.

[GiantOctopodes]

Legendary Resistance is, in its current form, stupid. There's no physical equivalent - it's something they stuck on high level creatures in light of the fact that casters are better than martials at high levels, it's an artificial control intended specifically to reduce caster power. If you need a demonstration, imagine creatures had no legendary resistance, but instead had a 3/day ability called legendary defense where they could treat the results of 3 actions a day as missing completely - no-one would bother bringing a barbarian ever again.

So, they acknowledged casters were more useful than martials and decided to add artificial constraints to the monsters to reduce the effects casters have on higher level fights. That's fine - casters are stronger, short of something crazy like giving martials an equal variety of combat options (can't do that, muh mundanes!) designing high level creatures with a specific anti spell measure beyond their high saving throws is the only choice. But... Legendary Resistance is stupid. It's a really boring and frustrating 'nope, your level 9 spell does nothing and there's nothing you can possibly do to change that happening' feature that does nothing after the first few times and still lets spells like contagion destroy the creature. The problems are:


It's just a flat 'no'. Regardless of the circumstances, effects or level of the spell, it turns it useless. In other cases if you want to try to make sure something succeeds you try to weaken the creature, get advantage, find temporary boosts etc but Legendary Resistance offers no counterplay other than setting fire to actions and spell slots until it runs out.
It's binary and limited. The flat 'no' continues until the creature runs out of charges, at which point it no longer has any special defenses, and then it gets turned to stone and the fight's over. Save or lose spells still exist, LR wouldn't be there if they didn't, and they either do nothing or win the fight.
It's boring and the only counterplay is burning spells. There is no way for the player to get around it if he wants to use a spell with a save. All he can do is throw spells at it until the creature burns three legendary saves, and sitting there for five turns slinging spells knowing nothing will happen either way is really dull.


So, how do I fix this? I don't want dominate monster ending every encounter I have, but for the reasons above I think Legendary Resistance is a terrible solution. Has anyone come up with a replacement? It needs to be always active, having it run out just by setting fire to spell slots is not fun for anyone, it needs to have some counterplay, some way to reward players for smart play and needs to not be a binary you win or you do nothing. Trying to figure something out, does anyone have any ideas?

Just spitballing, so forgive the grossness-

Why not give the spell equivalent to evasion? Give em good, but not overpowering, resistances, then make it so that "on a successful save, the spell has no effect. On a failed save, the creature suffers the effects normally suffered from the spell, had they successfully saved" or something worded in a more eloquent fashion. Most save or lose spells do *nothing* on a successful save, this will shut them down completely, and force PCs to either look for spells that offer no save (going through without hindrance on a failed save at that point) or that have great effects on a failed save (such as heat metal). It makes them think more tactically, albeit while gaming the system a bit, and from your previous posts I think that we would both consider that an acceptable, perhaps even desirable, end result.

[archaeo]

Or instead of throwing up my hands and cutting out half the game I could ask for group input in thinking of a solution better than the derptastic Legendary Resistance.

Yeah, that one sounds like a better solution.

I mean, apologies, but it seems like the only way to accomplish what you want. You want casters to remain basically unchanged, but you don't want them to dominate encounters, but you don't want to just shut down spells, but you want them to not be able to just win encounters with spells, but...

That's why I said "arguing yourself into a corner." It seems really hard to meet all your needs while even coming close to the elegance and simplicity of Legendary Resistance, a mechanic that basically just means "spellcasters must land numerous blows against an enemy's magical defenses before breaching them."

How about this: monsters with LR get advantage on all saving throws. If a monster with LR loses a saving throw, X happens, where X is a thematically appropriate action tailored specifically for the monster. So, if the Tarrasque loses a saving throw, the effect lands, but, I don't know, every other creature in range must make a DC 25 saving throw against the relevant attribute or receives the same condition. Or every creature in range loses all non-divine bonuses.

[Eslin]

I mean, apologies, but it seems like the only way to accomplish what you want. You want casters to remain basically unchanged, but you don't want them to dominate encounters, but you don't want to just shut down spells, but you want them to not be able to just win encounters with spells, but...

That's why I said "arguing yourself into a corner." It seems really hard to meet all your needs while even coming close to the elegance and simplicity of Legendary Resistance, a mechanic that basically just means "spellcasters must land numerous blows against an enemy's magical defenses before breaching them."

How about this: monsters with LR get advantage on all saving throws. If a monster with LR loses a saving throw, X happens, where X is a thematically appropriate action tailored specifically for the monster. So, if the Tarrasque loses a saving throw, the effect lands, but, I don't know, every other creature in range must make a DC 25 saving throw against the relevant attribute or receives the same condition. Or every creature in range loses all non-divine bonuses.

That last one's actually a great idea. LR only appears on high level, unique kind of stuff - it's workable around, it makes saving throws not as encounter ending, it's thematic and non binary in its effects. I'd love more solutions, but that one is really good.

[Baptor]

LR works well for us, but I can see where you're coming from.
Personally, I think giantoctopodes idea works best for what you want, but to me its even more powerful than LR.
Advantage to all saves seems a safe, if not nerfed bet.
for us, our casters have found that working around LR is the challenge. They never just throw spells until the charges run out, they try and bait the creature into blowing them on lesser effects then land the big one. It makes the fights fun for them and me.

[Jlooney]

LR works well for us, but I can see where you're coming from.
Personally, I think giantoctopodes idea works best for what you want, but to me its even more powerful than LR.
Advantage to all saves seems a safe, if not nerfed bet.
for us, our casters have found that working around LR is the challenge. They never just throw spells until the charges run out, they try and bait the creature into blowing them on lesser effects then land the big one. It makes the fights fun for them and me.

How do your players know when it's out? I'd never tell my pcs oh btw the monster used its x/day. That would be like telling the group how many spells the enemy has left.

[MaxWilson]

It's boring and the only counterplay is burning spells. There is no way for the player to get around it if he wants to use a spell with a save. All he can do is throw spells at it until the creature burns three legendary saves, and sitting there for five turns slinging spells knowing nothing will happen either way is really dull.
[/LIST]

That's not the only counterplay. Your options are:

* Use spells with no saves (Forcecage).
* Use spells under circumstances that don't allow saves (Wall of Stone when it's already used a reaction--probably requires someone to purposefully eat an opportunity attack, some kinds of illusions).
* Use summoning spells.
* Use spells to buff party members (Greater Invisibility or Bless) so that the Sharpshooters can kill it.
* Use spells with attack rolls (Repelling Eldritch Blast across Spike Stones terrain).
* Make it burn multiple legendary resists with one spell (Web, Contagion).
* Burn spells to burn legendary resists.

That's six options plus your original option of "burn spells." Hope that helps.

[Eslin]

That's not the only counterplay. Your options are:

* Use spells with no saves (Forcecage).
* Use spells under circumstances that don't allow saves (Wall of Stone when it's already used a reaction--probably requires someone to purposefully eat an opportunity attack, some kinds of illusions).
* Use summoning spells.
* Use spells to buff party members (Greater Invisibility or Bless) so that the Sharpshooters can kill it.
* Use spells with attack rolls (Repelling Eldritch Blast across Spike Stones terrain).
* Make it burn multiple legendary resists with one spell (Web, Contagion).
* Burn spells to burn legendary resists.

That's six options plus your original option of "burn spells." Hope that helps.

I played the hell out of 3.5, I'm used to finding ways around not being able to use save spells. My annoyance is that it provides a great deal of frustration for no benefit when there has to be a better way of doing it. Once again, thanks to Archeo for suggesting a much better way of doing it which I will have great fun implementing.

[Giant2005]

I don't know how people can complain about martials not being able to keep up with casters and then buff casters...
Legendary Resistance doesn't just apply to casters btw - martials suffer for it too. Hell I doubt a caster would even have too much of an issue because that Tarrasque would have blown all of his Legendary Resistances trying to stop the Halfling Monk knocking him on his ass each round because he finds the whole idea too humiliating not to do everything he can to resist.

[Eslin]

I don't know how people can complain about martials not being able to keep up with casters and then buff casters...
Legendary Resistance doesn't just apply to casters btw - martials suffer for it too. Hell I doubt a caster would even have too much of an issue because that Tarrasque would have blown all of his Legendary Resistances trying to stop the Halfling Monk knocking him on his ass each round because he finds the whole idea too humiliating not to do everything he can to resist.

By and large casters cause saves more and martials attack more. Each get some of the other, but in general anti attack measures hurt martials and anti save measures hurt casters.

[SharkForce]

perhaps legendary monsters can use the link between a spell cast on themselves and the caster to mentally strike out at the caster somehow? (possible effects might include some small amount of psychic damage and/or increased chance of breaking concentration - both things which gener

perhaps simply grant some extra legendary actions for dispel magic that don't require conscious thought on the part of the monster?

perhaps allow the monster to use a signature attribute to resist effects, defying logic? eg you land a hold monster on them, and they can X/day use their incredible strength to force their body to move in spite of the paralysis? (this one is a fair bit more work, i would suspect, unless you just ignore fluff entirely pretty much... it's hard to figure out how to even illogically but slightly plausibly use your muscles to escape a charm or something like that).

edit: actually, i think my second proposal may do a fairly good job... if you like, replace dispel magic with the ability to dispel conditions, treating non-spell conditions as being a spell of CR or level /2, round up, max 9. you could even have it optionally limited... for example, if i have the unstoppable juggernaut which is legendary for being an unstoppable force, it could use the ability to remove any condition that alters it's speed, or to ignore any orders given by charming it that would prevent it from moving in a specific direction it has chosen (eg if it's headed towards some city, it can use a legendary action to remove an effect that allows a being to order it to not move towards that city). you'd need a special rule that the dispel conditions ability can be used even while incapacitated to have this work though...

[Knaight]

It's just a flat 'no'. Regardless of the circumstances, effects or level of the spell, it turns it useless. In other cases if you want to try to make sure something succeeds you try to weaken the creature, get advantage, find temporary boosts etc but Legendary Resistance offers no counterplay other than setting fire to actions and spell slots until it runs out.

The entire class of indirect spells which are targeted at the environment work just fine still, plenty of them have offensive uses. Legendary resistance is something that can just be bashed through, but it can also be worked around.

[pwykersotz]

I think you're looking at this wrong. Legendary creatures tend to have high AC as well. It's not targeted at casters, all forms of their defense are high. That said, the issues you brought up still exist.

Another way to handle it is to give them a super-powered version of the Paladin's Cleansing Touch.


Legendary Persistence. Any time you are subjected to an effect that lasts longer than 1 round or find yourself in an unfavorable situation, you may use this ability. You may take an action to remove the effect or spell, or relocate yourself as though with teleport. You may use this particular action under any condition, including but not limited to Paralyzed, Petrified, or Restrained.

This means that spellcasters or grapplers, or whatnot could set up control and beat on the creature for a single round at a time, giving a short advantage to the party. This has the advantage (or disadvantage I guess) of being incredibly cinematic. You have that moment where the villain has been turned to stone and the party is catching their breath, then glowing cracks begin to appear and it shatters like an eggshell and he cries out "I cannot be contained!" or somesuch.

Round 2...FIGHT!

[Person_Man]

Honestly, you could probably just remove Legendary Resistance entirely and be done with it. It exists as a kludge because the designers wanted to give DMs and official "no" button. But that just encourages bad DMing in a variety of ways.

[Z3ro]

Honestly, you could probably just remove Legendary Resistance entirely and be done with it. It exists as a kludge because the designers wanted to give DMs and official "no" button. But that just encourages bad DMing in a variety of ways.

I disagree with this entirely; LR is basically required when you build a bounded accuracy system, but keep spells (or any affects) that can end or significantly alter fights with a single missed saving throw. You can argue they should have dropped the spells/affects, but then it wouldn't be D&D. In the times it has come up in my group, LR has made the fights more dramatic and tense.

[pwykersotz]

Honestly, you could probably just remove Legendary Resistance entirely and be done with it. It exists as a kludge because the designers wanted to give DMs and official "no" button. But that just encourages bad DMing in a variety of ways.

I suppose it COULD, but I love Legendary Resistance. I know there are some playstyles that view it as a cheat, but I love that the big monsters aren't going to be insta-gibbed. Not without extensive planning, and if they pull THAT off they earned it.

It's better than higher saves and AC's because it's a small pool of 'nope' that runs dry as opposed to just making an untouchable boss, which is what many DM's default to when they feel challenges are too easy. I think this hits a happy medium.

[Galen]

"This creature has a +10 bonus to all saving throws. Whenever this creature rolls a saving throw, reduce this bonus by 1 to a minimum of +0. After a long or short rest, the bonus resets to +10."

Edit: the numbers are negotiable. It can, for example, start at +20 and reduce the bonus by 4 each time.

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Constructive solution: Legendary creatures start with anywhere from 1-4 Resistance charges. Every time the monster fails a save, it can choose to roll a d4; if it rolls above its current number of Resistance charges the effect applies normally, and if not it resists the effect but loses one charge. That way a creature with 3 charges has a 75% chance of resisting the first spell you land, but only a 50% chance of resisting the second, etc. Basically a non-binary version of the existing system.

Bickering: I disagree that LR exists because mages are more powerful. It exists because they (and some martials like open hand monks and assassins) have a lot of their effectiveness lumped into daily, binary save or suck effects. A legendary monster's resistance against fighters and barbarians is its huge number of hp.

[Jakinbandw]

All this talk of LR makes me think that it would actually be a pretty cool thing for all characters to get as they leveled up. A fight between lvl 20 characters would change quite a bit if all characters could lolnope a failed save 3 times a day.

[Baptor]

How do your players know when it's out? I'd never tell my pcs oh btw the monster used its x/day. That would be like telling the group how many spells the enemy has left.

They guess. Sometimes they are right, sometimes not. That's part of the fun.