Legendary Resistance Unfun?

[Bjarkmundur]

I've seen a couple of people's opinion regarding this monster ability.


Legendary Resistance (3/Day)
If the creature fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.

Or as Schaden put it

The whole point of playing a caster is that you are always gambling with resources, but the ability of anything to automatically make its save removes the gamble entirely until those resistances are used up, which becomes the dominant pattern of battle, especially boss fights, at mid to high levels. It forces one to metagame and not use good spells until the resistances are gone, and diminishes a player's autonomy and decision-making.

Well now we have a chance to help our friend (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?585108-I-could-use-some-pointers-on-a-death-boss) by coming up with an alternative, since it's no fun either when a BBEG is insta-gimped by a well placed spell.

What do you suggest as a means of making bosses matter, without making spellcaster's big spells feel useless?

Possible Solution Compilation
Have Multiple Monsters. Balance the CR in such a way that when one dies, the other one gets stronger.
Let the monster save at the start of its turn against any ongoing effect.
Randomizer the number of uses.
Have Legendary Resistance only reduce the effect, instead of negating it.
Have it cost a Reaction
Have Legendary Resistance negate the effect, but using it affects the boss in another way.
Make it passive that increases save chance to 50%, and each time it's used the save chance lowers.
Give bosses a flat bonus to saving throws instead.
Change Legendary Resistance into advantage to saving throws.
Change it into “you can re-roll a failed save once”
Don't announce to your players when you use Legendary Resistance
Have Legendary Resistance cost a resource for the monster, such as a legendary action, spell slot or other.

[Lunali]

Multiple enemy boss fights.

[Bjarkmundur]

Multiple enemy boss fights.

Ah, yes, Voldemort and his twin brother Boldemort xD

[Galithar]

I've actually been thinking about this recently. It's not the best, but what I came up with is remove the 'auto' part.

First, the baddie uses 1 (or more) legendary actions. Now if they do this, your spell didn't do NOTHING, it disrupted the enemies action economy.
Second, the legendary resistance has either more, or unlimited uses, but isn't guaranteed. I personally have liked
"If the 'big bad' fails a saving throw they may choose to roll a d20. If the result is equal to or greater than 11+[number of times this ability has been used] 'big bad' instead succeeds in their saving throw."
Die size can be adjusted as appropriate for the level of resistance wanted. The smaller the die the fewer times they can use it.

These can be used separately, or together. If used together I would highly recommend it only costing 1 legendary action to use.

This makes it so at the start there is a 50% chance of failing, after success. I feel cutting a casters chance of landing something in half is pretty darn potent. And that chance is reduced as they use the ability more.

Now all of that can lead to metagaming more. Trying to track their uses of legendary actions to try to catch them without actions to resist your spell, etc. But if metagaming is an issue at your table this only changes the exact kind instead of introducing a whole new brand of meta.

[Rukelnikov]

Change LR

Method 1:

"Legendary Resistance:

When the creature starts it's turn under an effect imposed by a failed saving throw, it can choose to end it. It can end up to 3 effects per day using this ability. Whenever an effect is ended this way the creature gets advantage in all its saving throws until the beginning of it's next turn"

Still feels a little weak, I'd put some healing or temp HP there.

Method 2:

Make LR a legendary action costing 2.

"Legendary Resistance:

The creature ends a spell or effect affecting it."

EDIT: I don't really like the legendary action LR, but I'll leave it there.

[Sigreid]

How about keeping legendary resistance but having a random number of them having been used prior to the fight, say 1d4-1. And let the party know this is the way you're going to handle legendary resistance. Now, they don't know "he's going to auto succeed on 3 saves" they know "He might be able to auto save on 1-3 saves".

[Max_Killjoy]

Just brainstorming... what about giving these foes something like the "save for nothing, fail for half" that Rogues get for Dex saves, but for all saves instead?

[Unoriginal]

There's nothing wrong with Legendary Resistance. Though I'm not surprised some people think that having a limit to spellcasting that makes it a bad idea to just nova-burn your spell slots without thinking is bad for the game.

Creatures with Legendary Resistance are, as the name implies, legendary. They're supposed to be "oh ****" level enemies, at least on principle. Yet, when one has LR, one must always do gamble inverse to the casters: "do I LR this effect, or is the next effect going to be worse". Adding to the fact few creatures won't try to minimize the harmful effects put on them ASAP. A PC can play on that, and make the creature burns though their LR quick with seemingly nasty effects from low-level spells while keeping the really nasty stuff in reserve.

Having a fun description of the creature using their LR could help with the presentation problem, rather than just being told "lol your spell fail".



Just brainstorming... what about giving these foes something like the "save for nothing, fail for half" that Rogues get for Dex saves, but for all saves instead?

That's the Avoidance special trait.

[Great Dragon]

My idea was treating LR as Inspiration that applies only to Saves, and also grants Spell Resistance. Costs their Reaction to use.

[No brains]

From a narrative perspective, what is Legendary Resistance?

The fighter has a similar ability in Indomitable, where their fighting spirit can push them through what held them back before. Even so, it still has the same chance to fail as the original save.

Legendary Resistance is sort of like Indomitable on crack. The villain absolutely will not fall here. That speaks to a single-minded, almost berserk focus on not dying at a given time. Maybe we can do something with that.

Perhaps it can share a resource with another 'not dying' effect: Have Legendary Resistances deplete death saving throws. I've heard that this doesn't matter in most games, but if the DM likes having these NPCs roll for death saving throws, Legendary Resistance adds a dimension to a boss fight. This creature knows it is cornered and this is the end of the line. It's going to do everything it can to hold its ground and try to accomplish its goal, even if it means certain death.

This also works with the 'on crack' analogy, so I think this is a pretty good idea.

[Trask]

I agree that legendary resistances get old and arent very fun to play against, although they are VERY successful at what theyre supposed to do, which is keep the creature alive. Of the above listed suggestions I think the one I like best is making Legendary Resistance a permanent effect, but its no longer a sure thing. That seems to be a good compromise. Lets see if I can take my own crack at it.

Legendary Resistance
When a creature with legendary resistance is force to make a saving throw and fails, that creature can choose to roll 1d20 vs DC 10. On a success, the creature instead succeeds on the saving throw it originally failed, on a failure the creature is subjected to the effects of the failed saving throw as normal. Every time Legendary Resistance is used in this way, the DC increases by 2 to a maximum of 20. When this creature finishes a Long Rest its Legendary Resistance DC is reset to 10.


There's nothing wrong with Legendary Resistance. Though I'm not surprised some people think that having a limit to spellcasting that makes it a bad idea to just nova-burn your spell slots without thinking is bad for the game.

I dont think its really about people wanting nova to be more powerful, but the predictability and gamey "meta" aspect of Legendary Resistance makes it tiresome. We know this creature has x free saves so we have to deliberately use weak spells to and try and coax out the creature to "waste" those saves. The end result is that we end up make the battle drag out a long time, or we just beat the creature without having ever really used those spells we were saving and really just ends up feeling like a routine we have to play out every time we fight a big bad monster.

It does keep full nova from being a go-to strategy and it also lets single creatures be credible threats and those are good things but at the same time I cant help but agree that the implementation of Legendary Resistance feels routine and boring and doesnt so much add awe and fear as it does a groan of annoyance.

[Ritorix]

I finished running a 1-20 campaign recently, and the necessity of removing Legendary Resistances is one of my big take-aways from that experience. For the longest time it felt cheap using them as the DM. Worst, it reduced boss fights to HP races, since players wouldn't risk anything major that required a save. Towards the end I experimented with not having it on bosses, explaining it to the players as "now you are so powerful, they don't get that anymore". They thought it was a cool progression of power for their characters, but I'm thinking of doing it all the time now.

Now, I know why it exists. Action economy. Bosses have Legendary Actions and need Legendary Resistances to keep those actions going, or the fight becomes a 1-sided beatdown. So if you get rid of Legendary Resistances, Legendary Actions have to go, too. Bosses becomes closer to a normal monster. As a side effect, this makes fights smoother to run; legendary actions are a messy interruption. So now the boss CR math is reduced and you need more standard creatures in a fight. Bosses are still more powerful than a typical monster, and now they need a decent baseline for saves so they are not pushovers with +0 WIS. I settled on giving them a flat +5 to saves (or maybe scale it with level, but this was at 20) on top of whatever they have in the statblock. That way the boss saves are decent, but if a player ability gets through it sticks and they feel like their contribution matters. Meanwhile the fight won't fall apart as a result of the boss getting CC'd since there are more targets or even multiple 'bosses'.

[Mitsu]

I also don't like them for simple reason: they push Nova builds ever more as Nova builds dont give a dam about LR.

So when facing boss with LR - Xbow BM, Vengeance Pally, Sorcadins (god...), Hexadins, Bardins, PAM GWM builds etc all shine as their core mechanic (single target anihilation) ignore LR.

While pure casters can do some stuff, but only when it comes to direct damage.

Which again push them into nova builds like Sorclocks who spam E-Blast + Quicken E-Blast + Hex on enemy as they ignore LR and there is not point in using some Desinegrate or anything if you can do 8d10 + 40 + 8d6 dmg per turn ignore LR.

Save or Suck spells should lead to some epic moments on boss fights for casters.

I instead gave all Legendary Monsters an advantage vs spells saves 3x per day. Yes, it's still strong but doesn't eliminate "well, dam, I rolled 1..." moments which are imo as needed as Sorcadin saying "ow, crit, 20d8 damage from my first attack.. here comes 2 more!"

[Galithar]

I also don't like them for simple reason: they push Nova builds ever more as Nova builds dont give a dam about LR.

So when facing boss with LR - Xbow BM, Vengeance Pally, Sorcadins (god...), Hexadins, Bardins, PAM GWM builds etc all shine as their core mechanic (single target anihilation) ignore LR.

While pure casters can do some stuff, but only when it comes to direct damage.

Which again push them into nova builds like Sorclocks who spam E-Blast + Quicken E-Blast + Hex on enemy as they ignore LR and there is not point in using some Desinegrate or anything if you can do 8d10 + 40 + 8d6 dmg per turn ignore LR.

Save or Suck spells should lead to some epic moments on boss fights for casters.

I instead gave all Legendary Monsters an advantage vs spells saves 3x per day. Yes, it's still strong but doesn't eliminate "well, dam, I rolled 1..." moments which are imo as needed as Sorcadin saying "ow, crit, 20d8 damage from my first attack.. here comes 2 more!"

What do you do with the ones that already get that permanently from magic resistance?

Also I don't see how that would actually effect people's builds. Maybe it's just me, but in my experience the "I Nova once, and only once, and it dies or I'm out" builds don't do it to mitigate LR they do it because they like to kill that thing right there, RIGHT NOW. And the only counter to them is more smaller creatures or ungodly high health pools.

Also Quicken Agonizing Blast/Hex isn't a Nova build, it's a DPR build. As are Xbow BM and PAM GWM.

[Max_Killjoy]

That's the Avoidance special trait.


Would that be a better things than LR for those foes?

[Frozenstep]

Would that be a better things than LR for those foes?

What should happen if a boss fails against hypnotic pattern? Polymorph?

[Galithar]

What should happen if a boss fails against hypnotic pattern? Polymorph?

They get half dazed!
On their turn roll a d20 to see if they act or watch the pretty lights!

They get partially transformed. Dragon fails polymorph save against being turned into a sheep? Big ole white fluffy fire breathing lambchop.

[Frozenstep]

They get half dazed!
On their turn roll a d20 to see if they act or watch the pretty lights!

They get partially transformed. Dragon fails polymorph save against being turned into a sheep? Big ole white fluffy fire breathing lambchop.

See, that would be acceptable. I'd love it if status effects could have a weaker version of themselves so bosses aren't completely crippled by one failed save, but don't just no-sell it. Problem is you'd have to come up with an effect for almost every spell in the game, and that's more homebrew then what should be needed.

[Galithar]

See, that would be acceptable. I'd love it if status effects could have a weaker version of themselves so bosses aren't completely crippled by one failed save, but don't just no-sell it. Problem is you'd have to come up with an effect for almost every spell in the game, and that's more homebrew then what should be needed.

This is why in my system in designing all status effects have tiers (usually 1-5) and tier one is "inconvenient or situationally bad" where tier 5 is "you're dead ur almost dead"

[Angelalex242]

And this is why casters act as support in legendary battles.

Let the Paladin deliver the beatdown, you just keep him alive and/or buff him while he does so.

It's like the original final fantasy.

The Black Wizard isn't beating down Chaos, he's casting haste on his Knight and/or Master friend to beat down Chaos.

[Tanarii]

There's nothing wrong with Legendary Resistance. Though I'm not surprised some people think that having a limit to spellcasting that makes it a bad idea to just nova-burn your spell slots without thinking is bad for the game.



I dont think its really about people wanting nova to be more powerful, but the predictability and gamey "meta" aspect of Legendary Resistance makes it tiresome. We know this creature has x free saves so we have to deliberately use weak spells to and try and coax out the creature to "waste" those saves. The end result is that we end up make the battle drag out a long time, or we just beat the creature without having ever really used those spells we were saving and really just ends up feeling like a routine we have to play out every time we fight a big bad monster. You mean you have to use tactics instead of just casting your top spells in the same order? Oh no, how predictable and gamey.

[Trask]

You mean you have to use tactics instead of just casting your top spells in the same order? Oh no, how predictable and gamey.

Tactics meaning what? Faffing around purposefully casting weak spells to try and get a creature to waste 3 legendary saves. And its always 3 so once it fails the the third one we just go nova? How exactly is that any less routine and more "tactical".

[Great Dragon]

Tactics meaning what? Faffing around purposefully casting weak spells to try and get a creature to waste 3 legendary saves. And its always 3 so once it fails the the third one we just go nova? How exactly is that any less routine and more "tactical".

Especially if the Monster is smart (Dragons, yes - but quite a few others with LR aren't dumb) would see right through that tactic and save their LRs for effects they know are the most debilitating.

[JoeJ]

Tactics meaning what? Faffing around purposefully casting weak spells to try and get a creature to waste 3 legendary saves. And its always 3 so once it fails the the third one we just go nova? How exactly is that any less routine and more "tactical".

It's not always 3; some of the published adventures have creatures with 1 or 2 uses of LR.

[Laserlight]

I've been in a few boss fights that were "Cast, LR. Cast, LR. Cast, LR. Ca...nvm, the martials killed it. Gee, that was fun."

[Trask]

It's not always 3; some of the published adventures have creatures with 1 or 2 uses of LR.
My mistake then, but I've never played in or ran a published module so I wouldn't know. I think that making the amount of LR a creature gets more variable can help alleviate some immediate symptoms but after playing in D&D 5e campaigns every week for the past 3 years I can't say I think the mechanic is very fun or satisfying, although it definitely does work as intended in regards to making a single monster a credible threat.

[Tanarii]

Tactics meaning what? Faffing around purposefully casting weak spells to try and get a creature to waste 3 legendary saves. And its always 3 so once it fails the the third one we just go nova? How exactly is that any less routine and more "tactical".
But it doesn't always have to use its Lengendary save. The tactics come in figuring out spells that will make it use the LS before the one you want to stick. And will provide a solid benefit if it doesn't choose to use LS.

[StoicLeaf]

I get the feeling that everyone has a way too metay approach to LR.

Players reading stat blocks -> bad.
DMs announcing the use of LR -> bad.

Ultimately LR is just "the DM is allowed to fudge the dice 3 times but will probably do it more than that to make the fight exciting".

[Unoriginal]

And this is why casters act as support in legendary battles.

Let the Paladin deliver the beatdown, you just keep him alive and/or buff him while he does so.

It's like the original final fantasy.

The Black Wizard isn't beating down Chaos, he's casting haste on his Knight and/or Master friend to beat down Chaos.

Casters not being gods capable of doing everything while Martials drools? Outrageous!

[Dr. Cliché]

Honestly, Legendary Resistance just feels like 'DM Fiat' was given official rules.

[Darkstar952]

I reworked LR a little for my current game, monsters range from 1-6 LR and the LR have the effects below.

With regard to saves the LR now functions more like the Fighters Indomitable allowing them to reroll a failed save instead of automatically passing it.

I have also added a function to spend a LR to halve the damage for a single turn, this can give the monster some ability to survive Nova damage.

But it gives it a choice, if it spends too many to reduce the damage it is then vulnerable to save or suck spells. So far it seems to have worked well, all of the players seem happy with it.

[Rukelnikov]

I get the feeling that everyone has a way too metay approach to LR.

Players reading stat blocks -> bad.
DMs announcing the use of LR -> bad.

Ultimately LR is just "the DM is allowed to fudge the dice 3 times but will probably do it more than that to make the fight exciting".

I think it may work better if the DM doesn't announce it. That way metagame is lessened because players don't know when it has ran out of them

[Lombra]

I don't agree with the sentiment. The monster can choose to "gamble" as you say, or expend a very valuable resource. If the legendary resistance is used, the caster did a wonderful job at getting rid of a very powerful ability, otherwise he did his job anyways.

LR are resources as much as other resources, just think about Divination wizard's Portent, it's the same if not actually better. Just don't be lame when narrating what's happening.

[Dr. Cliché]

I don't agree with the sentiment. The monster can choose to "gamble" as you say, or expend a very valuable resource. If the legendary resistance is used, the caster did a wonderful job at getting rid of a very powerful ability, otherwise he did his job anyways.

Except that it isn't a gamble, because the monster always gets to try its save first and then decide whether or not to use Legendary Resistance.

[Lombra]

Except that it isn't a gamble, because the monster always gets to try its save first and then decide whether or not to use Legendary Resistance.

Right I didn't remember it correctly, but it's still a choice that depends on the monster's knowledge of the party, wether it would be better to succeed now or to save for later. I can very well see intelligent monsters saving LRs for what may come next, purposefully failing some saving throws.

[Unoriginal]

Also, Legendary Resistance doesn't work against spells attacks, spells that require ability checks (like many illusions) or the attacks of creature summoned by magic.

To act as if there was nothing a caster could do against LR, or that powerful spells are automatically worthless, is absurd. You just need to think beyond save-or-suck effects.

Hell, you could summon a monster that has an automatically on save effect, like a Fire Elemental, and spend a couple rounds letting the legendary monster burns their LR against it.



Except that it isn't a gamble, because the monster always gets to try its save first and then decide whether or not to use Legendary Resistance.

It's a gamble because the monster doesn't know what's next.

I'd wager most parties don't have only 3 effects or less that the legendary monster might want to avoid.

[Dr. Cliché]

It's a gamble because the monster doesn't know what's next.

I'd wager most parties don't have only 3 effects or less that the legendary monster might want to avoid.

I'd argue that it's a far simpler choice than you're making it out to be.

If the first spell cripples you, then any subsequent spells are irrelevant anyway.

[Unoriginal]

I'd argue that it's a far simpler choice than you're making it out to be.

If the first spell cripples you, then any subsequent spells are irrelevant anyway.

But what if the next spells cripple you more if you save the first?

Plus it's not like an effect to be high level to be crippling. One example: Vicious Mockery can make a boss waste their turn if they're not careful, or at least greatly diminish their effectiveness. But would a boss use LR against Vicious Mockery? When the enemy could have, say, Phantasmal Force?

It's all a question of risk assessment, which is always gambling on some level.

[Dr. Cliché]

But what if the next spells cripple you more if you save the first?

But that's the thing - if the first spell cripples you, then there's no need for the second spell to be cast. :smalltongue:




Plus it's not like an effect to be high level to be crippling. One example: Vicious Mockery can make a boss waste their turn if they're not careful, or at least greatly diminish their effectiveness. But would a boss use LR against Vicious Mockery? When the enemy could have, say, Phantasmal Force?

I wonder if we're speaking at cross-purposes as to the meaning of 'crippled'?

When I think 'crippled', I think of stuff like Hold Person - spells which remove most or all of the creature's actions/options and which can last for multiple turns.

I wouldn't describe a creature affected by Vicious Mockery as 'crippled'
- It can attack (albeit at disadvantage).
- If it has multiple attacks, only the first will have disadvantage.
- If it has other options - such as spells, powers, breath weapons etc. then it can use those normally.
- Attackers gain no advantage against it.
- It can still move normally, including disengaging (if the fight turns against it).
- The effect only ever lasts for a single turn.



It's all a question of risk assessment, which is always gambling on some level.

I think that would carry more weight if there was some meaningful sacrifice involved. Yes, it uses a Legendary Resistance, but those are resources that were given to it for this specific purpose. They are not used for anything else, they don't compete with anything else and there is no time cost in using them.

In contrast, if a boss had to sacrifice spell slots (or Ki points or Sorcery points) to use Legendary Resistance, then it would at least be competing with anther valuable resource.

[Unoriginal]

In contrast, if a boss had to sacrifice spell slots (or Ki points or Sorcery points) to use Legendary Resistance, then it would at least be competing with anther valuable resource.

And it would miss the point of the feature.

[Bjarkmundur]

I added all your suggestions to the first post for convenience.

[Dr. Cliché]

And it would miss the point of the feature.

As does describing a feature that is literally all-upside as 'a gamble'. :smallconfused:

[StoicLeaf]

As does describing a feature that is literally all-upside as 'a gamble'. :smallconfused:

But it isn't.
Granted it's pretty nifty, but you're still picking which spell you want to save against.
Unless you're meta gaming (or have an ingame reason) and know the entire prepared spell list of the PC wizards you can't rule out that they have something far worse up their sleeve.

Lichs, for example, have poor(ish) str, dex and cha throws. There are quite a few spells that can severely hamper a lich's movement that target those saves.
So: do you blow your LR to avoid being barbarian'ed or not? Do they have a feeblemind spell?

Another point of contention:
Divination wizards with feeblemind and a low roll.

[Unoriginal]

As does describing a feature that is literally all-upside as 'a gamble'. :smallconfused:

From the OP (apparently quoted from Schaden):



The whole point of playing a caster is that you are always gambling with resources,

Either you consider that using both LR and spell slots is "gambling with resources", in which case there is no problem because both side have to gamble how useful each ressource will be, or you don't consider the use of those resources a gamble, in which case there is no issue because LR is just a tactically-used counter against a specific set of abilities.

The only objection people could have would be "it's not fun to have your spells countered", but I bet most of those people also have no issue with Counterspell being in their spell list.

It's a good thing that sometime, a monster no-sell a save spell. It keeps casters on their toes without making them ineffectual. And LR are limited to exceptional monsters, for which it makes sense.

[Prince Vine]

I have also added a function to spend a LR to halve the damage for a single turn, this can give the monster some ability to survive Nova damage.


I like this and will steal it. It fixes the hole in my current system. What I like is to let Legendary Resistance to remove conditions/targeted spell effects on the creature's turn instead of auto-succeed. For most control spells this is functionally the same as succeeding on the second save, but I feel it lets people feel they have more impact. Combined with added a DR use it might be just right.

[Dr. Cliché]

Yep, clearly a caster expending his turn and a spell slot is exactly the same as a boss first failing a save and then using an ability to auto-pass instead, which doesn't use any action on his part (not even his reaction), and can be used even if he's surprised or unconscious. Oh, but he can only play god 3 times per day. Wow, you'd think bosses would have formed a union now to protest about how bad they have it.

Give me a break.

[Unoriginal]

Yep, clearly a caster expending his turn and a spell slot is exactly the same as a boss first failing a save and then using an ability to auto-pass instead, which doesn't use any action on his part (not even his reaction), and can be used even if he's surprised or unconscious. Oh, but he can only play god 3 times per day. Wow, you'd think bosses would have formed a union now to protest about how bad they have it.

Give me a break.

It's not exactly the same. No one is denying that Legendary Resistances is very powerful, as it is a perfect counter against save spells.

But it's still the same principle. Sometime the enemies have counters for abilities, and it's true for both PCs and NPCs.

I don't see any issue with Legendary Resistance, aside from the fact some people who favor save spells might not find it fun. That it's very powerful isn't an issue, it's intended that way to make bosses powerful.

[DeTess]

Personally, I think legendary saves are necessary against some parties. Without it, a monk or a sorcerer with hold person/monster could easily stun-lock what's supposed to be climactic boss fight. Even with the legendary resistances, if a DM isn't doing long adventuring days (only 2-3 encounters a day), the 'easiest' solution to a boss fight might still be to drop as many save-or-lose abilities as possible to burn through the bosses resistances.

As it stands, I don't think the current implementation is all that bad. It stops the boss from getting stun-locked turn 1, but the limited amount of resistances means that a determined party can still cripple a boss, it's just trickier and takes longer than with weaker enemies.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I have absolutely no problems with LR as it stands.

That said, I think it works best if the DM explictly, openly metagames it to deny fight-ending SoL/hard CC abilities, as legendary monsters are supposed to be capstone fights (at least of an arc if not a campaign). Something like

"Some monsters will have legendary resistances--the ability to auto-succeed on a failed saving throw a certain number of times per day. I will only use them to deny abilities that, in my opinion, would completely end the fight. Because getting beaten down like a chump on turn 1 isn't very legendary. Examples include stunning strike, hold person/monster, banishment, or other hard crowd control/complete action denial abilities. Since these monsters will almost always be solo, these spells completely remove them from the fight for their duration. I will not use LR against debuffs that do not remove them from the fight. If you want to use a hard CC, you'll have to work for it."

But that's just me.

[Max_Killjoy]

I have absolutely no problems with LR as it stands.

That said, I think it works best if the DM explictly, openly metagames it to deny fight-ending SoL/hard CC abilities, as legendary monsters are supposed to be capstone fights (at least of an arc if not a campaign). Something like

"Some monsters will have legendary resistances--the ability to auto-succeed on a failed saving throw a certain number of times per day. I will only use them to deny abilities that, in my opinion, would completely end the fight. Because getting beaten down like a chump on turn 1 isn't very legendary. Examples include stunning strike, hold person/monster, banishment, or other hard crowd control/complete action denial abilities. Since these monsters will almost always be solo, these spells completely remove them from the fight for their duration. I will not use LR against debuffs that do not remove them from the fight. If you want to use a hard CC, you'll have to work for it."

But that's just me.


At least in some fiction and legends, the "big bad" is able to resist those sorts of abilities for longer than the average opponent, and it's obvious that it's because of the character's greater willpower and toughness.

Just an observation.

[clash]

The big problem is that it promotes straight damage over strategy and takes away player agency. Why try something that has 0 chance of succeeding? If creatures also had the ability to negate damage 3 times then it would get aroundthe first problem but ultimately just make the fight take longer.

I like the half condition ability. I think it is is the most plausible for actually working well.

Another option is they automatically end conditions at the ends of their turn but it doesn't stop stun locking turn over turn.

[Unoriginal]

The big problem is that it promotes straight damage over strategy and takes away player agency.

Is the fact an Efreeti is immune to fire taking away player agency?

Also, figuring out how to apply straight damage while avoiding the bad consequences from the monster's actions is still strategy.

[Waazraath]

I get the feeling that everyone has a way too metay approach to LR.

Players reading stat blocks -> bad.
DMs announcing the use of LR -> bad.

Ultimately LR is just "the DM is allowed to fudge the dice 3 times but will probably do it more than that to make the fight exciting".

This. + a lot.

[stoutstien]

Action economy.
I think LR allows the DM to set up more meaningful encounters. At least you know your fight won't be over before the npc even gets a turn.

If we were going to remove LR then some npcs would need a big redesign so they could actually survive beyond the first round. If a fight with a Balor ends the first Round with a single spell it was fun for the wizard but not for the rest of the party And I would argue that even the wizard may feel cheated.

[Frozenstep]

Casters not being gods capable of doing everything while Martials drools? Outrageous!

Best part is even a bunch of spells that are really made to support martials by inflicting restrain, charm, slow, frighten, etc, but no, in a boss fight, a huge chunk of spells just aren't viable. Instead buff and then fireball spam, because that's the tactic pushed by LR.


Also, Legendary Resistance doesn't work against spells attacks, spells that require ability checks (like many illusions) or the attacks of creature summoned by magic.

To act as if there was nothing a caster could do against LR, or that powerful spells are automatically worthless, is absurd. You just need to think beyond save-or-suck effects.

Hell, you could summon a monster that has an automatically on save effect, like a Fire Elemental, and spend a couple rounds letting the legendary monster burns their LR against it.

It's a gamble because the monster doesn't know what's next.

I'd wager most parties don't have only 3 effects or less that the legendary monster might want to avoid.

I agree there are some spells that get around LR, but wiping out a bunch of spells from viable use just feels like wasted potential. It's just predictable and gamey...


The big problem is that it promotes straight damage over strategy and takes away player agency. Why try something that has 0 chance of succeeding? If creatures also had the ability to negate damage 3 times then it would get aroundthe first problem but ultimately just make the fight take longer.

I like the half condition ability. I think it is is the most plausible for actually working well.

Another option is they automatically end conditions at the ends of their turn but it doesn't stop stun locking turn over turn.

Absolutely agree. Why should I try to restrain enemies with watery sphere if I know it straight up has a 0% chance of working? I'll just fireball instead.


I'll admit I'm very biased, because I am not having a good time in my game. Been fighting the same damned arch-lich for like 2 months, and half my kit is useless because of LR, and the other half is useless because it's immune to restrain so telekinesis is useless, immune to non-magical damage so animate objects is useless, and can go through walls to wall of force is useless, and is still a 9th level caster so haste is very risky (eat a dispel, basically eat a stun. Can't risk my martial like that).

[Tanarii]

I'd argue that it's a far simpler choice than you're making it out to be.

If the first spell cripples you, then any subsequent spells are irrelevant anyway.
In which case the creature used its LS to maximum effect, by negating one of your most potent abilities.

First we have a poster saying it's not tactics because you always burn through LR using your weak spells and DMs apparently automatically counter them, now we have you claiming the monster isn't gambling because it's always using its ability to prevent being crippled and apparently players automatically use their best spells and don't play tactically.

It's almost like the problem here is LS is a problem when either or both DMs and players don't understand how the ability works.

[PhoenixPhyre]

At least in some fiction and legends, the "big bad" is able to resist those sorts of abilities for longer than the average opponent, and it's obvious that it's because of the character's greater willpower and toughness.

Just an observation.

As an example: CF Jabba the Hutt no-selling the Jedi mind tricks. This sort of "big boss immunity" thing is really really common.

Exactly. It's something I'd telegraph heavily when they encounter someone.


The big problem is that it promotes straight damage over strategy and takes away player agency. Why try something that has 0 chance of succeeding? If creatures also had the ability to negate damage 3 times then it would get aroundthe first problem but ultimately just make the fight take longer.

I like the half condition ability. I think it is is the most plausible for actually working well.

Another option is they automatically end conditions at the ends of their turn but it doesn't stop stun locking turn over turn.

Where's the strategy in "throw a SoL, auto win, just like any solo fight"? And the same issue applies to immunities and resistances. It doesn't take away agency, it modifies the strategy space. It also prevents a single caster from trivializing important encounters like in 3e. The alternative is for legendary to just have blanket immunity to such hard CC effects. And that's less fun. Or to never have solo encounters. Which also isn't fun.

Note that not all high-strength monsters have LR. Only those designed to be fought solo. Shutting down a single enemy out of 6 is good, but not an auto-win. Shutting down the only monster trivializes the encounter.

[Frozenstep]

Where's the strategy in "throw a SoL, auto win, just like any solo fight"? And the same issue applies to immunities and resistances. It doesn't take away agency, it modifies the strategy space. It also prevents a single caster from trivializing important encounters like in 3e. The alternative is for legendary to just have blanket immunity to such hard CC effects. And that's less fun. Or to never have solo encounters. Which also isn't fun.

Note that not all high-strength monsters have LR. Only those designed to be fought solo. Shutting down a single enemy out of 6 is good, but not an auto-win. Shutting down the only monster trivializes the encounter.

Pretty sure everyone understands why LR exists. We just think there has to be a better way that doesn't limit strategy space to only a few viable tactics.

[LaserFace]

Are people encountering Legendary Resistance every session or something?

I would think you encounter it once, maybe twice, over the course of an entire campaign. Players shouldn't even be aware of it until it's happening. They probably shouldn't know it has X/day uses. At best, I would just say the enemy is looking like they've dropped magic shields when it's used up.

If you want a better way of making a boss tough, you have plenty of options. I'm convinced LR is a product of convenience no different than saying "Advantage" means roll 2 dice, or "Vulnerable to Radiant" means take x2 damage. If you want something nuanced, that's cool, but complaints of casters losing agency make me wonder what the hell kind of D&D other people play, it's baffling.

[MaxWilson]

What do you suggest as a means of making bosses matter, without making spellcaster's big spells feel useless?

I dislike Legendary Resistance both for making big spells unfun and because it's weirdly gameable--spellcasters can just fall back to no-save spells like Wall of Force, Forcecage, or Maze. When the rules make it important to the game fiction whether the mighty demon is making a "saving throw" (e.g. vs. Banishment or Feeblemind) instead of an "ability check" (e.g. vs. Maze), something is wrong, especially since 5E is really poor at describing the logical difference between saves and ability checks. The mighty demon shouldn't care about what your magic is doing, it should just be strong against magic.

So my solution is to rewrite Legendary Resistance and 5E Magic Resistance (which have the same weaknesses) into old-school-inspired magic resistance, where magic rolls off you "like water off a duck's back" in the words of the 2nd edition PHB. Mechanically it basically works like a Counterspell with your reaction, but instead of happening when the spell is cast is happens when you first interact with the spell, and you only get one chance.

Writeup is here: http://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/2016/03/5e-magic-resistance-variant-rule.html


I'll admit I'm very biased, because I am not having a good time in my game. Been fighting the same ----- arch-lich for like 2 months, and half my kit is useless because of LR, and the other half is useless because it's immune to restrain so telekinesis is useless, immune to non-magical damage so animate objects is useless, and can go through walls to wall of force is useless, and is still a 9th level caster so haste is very risky (eat a dispel, basically eat a stun. Can't risk my martial like that).

That stinks. My condolences. In your shoes I'd probably want prepare as much as possible of the following, if I had these spells in my spell book:

(1) Tiny Servant V for five tiny servants that can Help the warriors attack, at no concentration cost to you. (Animate Dead works just as well if you know that instead of Tiny Servant.) Might also have them attempt to do things like grab or DMG Disarm the lich's spellcasting focus.

(2) Also, if you've got 9th level spells, True Polymorph (big rock into Nycaloth) to get a big beefy minion with magical attacks. Team up with another caster if possible to Planar Bind it (possibly via Wish, to avoid component cost) so you can make it permanent. Conjure Elemental V (Fire Elemental) or VII (Air Elemental Myrmidon) are similarly useful, especially via Planar Binding so that breaking concentration isn't a worry.

(3) Also, I'd be sort of tempted to use Seeming to scramble the lich's decision-making processes, because the lich's truesight only has 120' range (like most vision abilities in 5E it's very short-ranged), but this depends a lot on how realistically your DM treats space and distance. If 120' is effectively long-range at your table then this doesn't apply, but otherwise it could be useful to temporarily fool the lich into thinking that the cleric is the fighter and the fighter is the wizard, or that there you've got a young silver dragon in the party (Major Image or Programmed Illusion) when you don't really.

(4) Simulacrum of the party fighter.

(5) Otto's Irresistible Dance on the lich to give all of the warriors advantage, OR

(6) Bigby's Hand to give you a way to participate in the enemy beat-down.

(7) Rope Trick or Magnificent Mansion or Teleport to give the party a fall-back position for when things go bad, or to wait out bad spells from the lich.

(8) Antimagic Field to give the fighters a "safe zone" from which to shoot at the lich with their magic weapons. It blocks your own magic too, but you weren't using your magic against the lich anyway, and as the caster of the spell you can maneuver to make sure that your fighter buddies will still be able to use their magic weapons against the lich but also be relatively safe from its counterattacks. With any luck, it might even negate the magic items that make the lich immune to restraining and able to go through walls so that you can actually capture and defeat the lich permanently.

and of course also embrace your role as a member of the team and do

(9) Counterspell/Dispel Magic to play defense against the lich, which is apparently what the DM has in mind given that he's made the lich outright immune to so many things. I acknowledge that this isn't particularly fun or empowering, and it's one reason why I dislike vanilla Legendary Resistance.

[Frozenstep]

Are people encountering Legendary Resistance every session or something?

I would think you encounter it once, maybe twice, over the course of an entire campaign. Players shouldn't even be aware of it until it's happening. They probably shouldn't know it has X/day uses. At best, I would just say the enemy is looking like they've dropped magic shields when it's used up.

If you want a better way of making a boss tough, you have plenty of options. I'm convinced LR is a product of convenience no different than saying "Advantage" means roll 2 dice, or "Vulnerable to Radiant" means take x2 damage. If you want something nuanced, that's cool, but complaints of casters losing agency make me wonder what the hell kind of D&D other people play, it's baffling.

I have gone 8~ sessions so far where the only combat encounters have been things with legendary resistance. My bias is immense, and my spell list is unhappy.

[Unoriginal]

Pretty sure everyone understands why LR exists. We just think there has to be a better way that doesn't limit strategy space to only a few viable tactics.

In that case, we should start by listing which tactics are viable, then.

Here's the list, as far as I know:


-Use straight damage

-Summon creatures that can deal straight damage.

-Summon creatures that can cause the boss to burn through their LRs

-Use spells/abilities that don't rely on saves to affect their target

-Attract the boss's attention on you to let your team breath

-Buff allies so they can damage more

-Buff allies so they are hurt less/less critically

-Use spells/abilities to make the boss burn through their LRs so the whole team (you included) can affect them with their spells/abilities



And the list of tactics that don't work :



-Debuff the boss with spell/abilities that requires a save (at the cost of one of the boss's LRs)

-Entirely incapacitate the boss with spell/abilities that requires a save (at the cost of one of the boss's LRs)


Did I miss anything? Do you guys disagree with either of those lists?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Pretty sure everyone understands why LR exists. We just think there has to be a better way that doesn't limit strategy space to only a few viable tactics.

How is this any different than a flying monster "shutting down" a barbarian or paladin? The entire point of LR is to prevent a single character from trivializing the encounter on turn 1 with a hard CC. If that's all your character can do, that's your fault for being cripplingly overspecialized.

Sure, if you fight nothing but legendary monsters in single-encounter days, this gets bad. But don't do that. It's contrary to the intended design anyway. Legendary monsters are, well, legendary. They're not supposed to be cannon fodder. And against such creatures, you're supposed to have to work together. The casters can (under my plan) do any of the following:

* blast
* soft CC or debuffs (movement restrictions, faerie fire, etc)
* buff
* spend all the actions necessary to burn through the LR

This isn't a "few viable tactics"--the only precluded option is a turn 1 SoL win. None of the proposed changes fix that problem. If it takes an action, then you've succeeded in the action denial part (which is the problem). If they shake it off on their turn, they still can't use the legendary actions (and thus are action-denied and lose significant parts of their firepower, trivializing the encounter by giving the party an unpassable lead).

[Wilb]

My group dealt with this in this way:

We added 2 extra legendary resistance uses to every creature that has it. Every time the creature uses Legendary Resistance, they can't use legendary or lair actions until the end of the next turn of the caster who forced the save and non-spell Critical hits suffered by the creature are automatically reduced to normal hits, at the cost of an use of Legendary Resistance.

[DeTess]

I have gone 8~ sessions so far where the only combat encounters have been things with legendary resistance. My bias is immense, and my spell list is unhappy.

I'd say this is an issue with your GM, and not with legendary resistance though. It's called Legendary resistance because it's only supposed to be on some foes.

[loki_ragnarock]

One of the problems I had when I was running Pathfinder was the number of gentlemen's agreements that I had ongoing with the spellcasters in the game. Because, honestly, once they could cast polymorph there weren't really many things that could meaningfully challenge them. So they agreed not to do that most of the time, and I agreed not to make everything immune to polymorph by fiat because sometimes it's nice to polymorph things.
Except polymorph was far from the only instant win button in that system, and the gentlemen's agreements piled up as every encounter was easily trivialized by the expenditure of one spell or another.

When I first read about legendary resistance, I liked it. I liked it a lot. It's an ability that reads "this is not a trivial encounter, and therefor it will not be trivialized." And that was an underserved space for most of my time with D&D, outside of the handful of creatures with 250% magic resistance in 2e. It obviated the need for the dozens of gentlemen's agreements where they tied their hands behind their backs for the sake of drama, instead making the creature inherently a source of drama by giving them the weight needed to carry on in the face of "I win" buttons.

So, yeah, I like it lots. Casters still have options before them:
1. Waiting till after the open hand monk flurries or waiting till after the Battlemaster action surges, and then casting whatever win button they have up their sleeves, suffering only the inconvenience of having to wait an additional six seconds before then trivializing the encounter.
2. Casting something with a to-hit roll rather than a save.
3. Casting the various battlefield control spells.
4. Casting the handful of no-save, still suck spells.
5. Enabling other people's fun by making them better.
So, it doesn't really seem to be that limiting to me, except in that it kills the instant "I Win" button, doing a smidge to prevent things from descending into the game of rocket tag that previous editions fostered.

But if you wanted to change it, I'd try to keep it simple so that it doesn't slow down play too much.
Something like:
Legendary Resistance: When the creature rolls a saving throw, it succeeds on a 9 or better on the die even if it would otherwise fail.

It's passive, it requires no additional steps, it stacks with spell resistance, and it allows for that oomph even when something has a poor save. It can even scale.
You might want to move the number around based on the epicness of the creature in question, making it something that varies from creature to creature.
Say Tiamat, Avatar of Evil, auto saves on a 5 or better, Becky the Beholder auto saves on a 9 or better, and Geralt the Goblin King saves on a 12 or better.


I still don't like it as much as Legendary Resistance as it is now, but now it simply encourages options 2-5 on the list of options available to the caster, while still leaving at least a slim chance that they can trivialize an encounter that really shouldn't be trivialized.

[Frozenstep]

In that case, we should start by listing which tactics are viable, then.


Did I miss anything? Do you guys disagree with either of those lists?

I disagree with trying to inflate the viable list by listing out everything separately, and making the unviable list look as short as possible by ignoring the variety of ways it can be achieved. But whatever, I know I'm biased, it's close enough.

If there were more options for me available in the "viable" list, maybe I wouldn't be so annoyed with LR. Summoning is damned risky, because stun is extremely common for what I fight. Haste is great, but the risks of stuns and dispel magic (both very common in my campaign...) can make it actively detrimental. Burning through enemy legendary resistance is pretty tough, especially because our martial usually have things handled by round 3 (and if they don't, we're dead). So far the most success I've had is doing non-direct combat things to help the party, which is unreliable.

And this is 100% bias, but I've been very aware of having some spells to deal with LR. I got polymorph, animate objects, wall of force, and telekinesis for that reason. For several sessions I've been fighting an enemy immune to non-magical damage and restrain, and because it's a single target, wall of force isn't really giving an advantage.


How is this any different than a flying monster "shutting down" a barbarian or paladin? The entire point of LR is to prevent a single character from trivializing the encounter on turn 1 with a hard CC. If that's all your character can do, that's your fault for being cripplingly overspecialized.

Sure, if you fight nothing but legendary monsters in single-encounter days, this gets bad. But don't do that. It's contrary to the intended design anyway. Legendary monsters are, well, legendary. They're not supposed to be cannon fodder. And against such creatures, you're supposed to have to work together. The casters can (under my plan) do any of the following:

* blast
* soft CC or debuffs (movement restrictions, faerie fire, etc)
* buff
* spend all the actions necessary to burn through the LR

This isn't a "few viable tactics"--the only precluded option is a turn 1 SoL win. None of the proposed changes fix that problem. If it takes an action, then you've succeeded in the action denial part (which is the problem). If they shake it off on their turn, they still can't use the legendary actions (and thus are action-denied and lose significant parts of their firepower, trivializing the encounter by giving the party an unpassable lead).

My character can do plenty else, I just find it disappointing only using the same 3 spells every fight. I'm not saying a turn 1 SoL win should be a viable strategy, I'm just disappointed in how often haste and then fireball ends up being used over anything more interesting. Why can't hard CC spells only cause a soft CC on legendary monsters?


One thing I want to say, I 100% know my campaign is kind of unusual and not ideal. However, being in my position where I'm constantly encountering legendary resistance is showing me the cracks of it all too well. Just because it's only supposed to come up rarely doesn't mean the system couldn't be better.

[Unoriginal]

I have gone 8~ sessions so far where the only combat encounters have been things with legendary resistance.

Did one of your PCs piss off Hera or something?

[stoutstien]

A surprising amount of NPCs with LR are not immune to solf Cc like blind and prone.

[Unoriginal]

I disagree with trying to inflate the viable list by listing out everything separately, and making the unviable list look as short as possible by ignoring the variety of ways it can be achieved. But whatever, I know I'm biased, it's close enough.

There has been no artificial inflation. All what is listed separately is separate in-game.

Otherwise I could have just listed debuffing and total incapacitation in the same line, when we both know it's not.



If there were more options for me available in the "viable" list, maybe I wouldn't be so annoyed with LR. Summoning is damned risky, because stun is extremely common for what I fight. Haste is great, but the risks of stuns and dispel magic (both very common in my campaign...) can make it actively detrimental. Burning through enemy legendary resistance is pretty tough, especially because our martial usually have things handled by round 3 (and if they don't, we're dead). So far the most success I've had is doing non-direct combat things to help the party, which is unreliable.

Don't summoning at least provide additional targets for stuns or dispel magic, costing the boss resources ?

[TyGuy]

Great point I never considered as I haven't gotten to the point of running or fighting a big bad with legendary resistance.

I guess I would treat it like mirror image or luck/elven accuracy.

mirror image you get charges that you have to roll to use with diminishing chances of use as they are expended. There's always a chance that something could stick but the chances are lower at first and get higher. I like this because it has a "wearing him down" feel.

luck/super advantage when the monster fails, simply roll another d20 or two, or three. Maybe a pool of a set number of extra rolls, and no limit on how many can be rolled to resist a single effect. Can be used for the first resist attempt or resist attempts to break an effect. The DM can choose how badly they don't want an effect to stick and a bad run of luck for the DM means a single PC cast can expend a lot of the legendary resistance resources.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I disagree with trying to inflate the viable list by listing out everything separately, and making the unviable list look as short as possible by ignoring the variety of ways it can be achieved. But whatever, I know I'm biased, it's close enough.

If there were more options for me available in the "viable" list, maybe I wouldn't be so annoyed with LR. Summoning is damned risky, because stun is extremely common for what I fight. Haste is great, but the risks of stuns and dispel magic (both very common in my campaign...) can make it actively detrimental. Burning through enemy legendary resistance is pretty tough, especially because our martial usually have things handled by round 3 (and if they don't, we're dead). So far the most success I've had is doing non-direct combat things to help the party, which is unreliable.

And this is 100% bias, but I've been very aware of having some spells to deal with LR. I got polymorph, animate objects, wall of force, and telekinesis for that reason. For several sessions I've been fighting an enemy immune to non-magical damage and restrain, and because it's a single target, wall of force isn't really giving an advantage.

My character can do plenty else, I just find it disappointing only using the same 3 spells every fight. I'm not saying a turn 1 SoL win should be a viable strategy, I'm just disappointed in how often haste and then fireball ends up being used over anything more interesting. Why can't hard CC spells only cause a soft CC on legendary monsters?

One thing I want to say, I 100% know my campaign is kind of unusual and not ideal. However, being in my position where I'm constantly encountering legendary resistance is showing me the cracks of it all too well. Just because it's only supposed to come up rarely doesn't mean the system couldn't be better.

Hard cases make bad policy. Yes, you're biased because your campaign is well outside design parameters. But that's not because the system is cracking, any more than a pitchfork not being a good shovel is a flaw of the pitchfork.

You've got the following issues with your campaign that cause these problems:
* Only single target, legendary fights.
* Probably only 1 fight per LR.
* Always against the same opponent (so no diversity).

Any systems would show cracks there. The same tactics are optimal each time because the situation never changes. That's bad scenario design causing the entire issue. Legendary monsters are a spice, not a staple. And like any spice, LR gets annoying if used heavily or predominantly in everything. But that's not a flaw of the spice, that's an inherent part of overuse.

And the idea of having hard CC morph into soft CC against legendary targets runs into two big issues (IMO):
* Bloat. You'd have to list every possible hard CC and find viable "soft" versions that fit the fiction and don't have broken interactions. You'd have to do this on a monster-by-monster basis, since different monsters have different tactical options.
* Complexity. You'd have to run these mappings every time you wanted to do something.

Both of those are damning in my opinion--I don't want stat blocks that are several times longer with information that will rarely come up (because of a diversity of classes). I especially don't want things that slow down the play at the table.

My meta-game suggestion, IMO, is the minimal solution. It fits the fiction, it doesn't take extra time, and it preserves the value of the fight. IMO hard CC should never be an option within the first few rounds. Otherwise you cause all sorts of problems and make a boring fight.

[Unoriginal]

Hard cases make bad policy. Yes, you're biased because your campaign is well outside design parameters. But that's not because the system is cracking, any more than a pitchfork not being a good shovel is a flaw of the pitchfork.

You've got the following issues with your campaign that cause these problems:
* Only single target, legendary fights.
* Probably only 1 fight per LR.
* Always against the same opponent (so no diversity).

Any systems would show cracks there. The same tactics are optimal each time because the situation never changes. That's bad scenario design causing the entire issue. Legendary monsters are a spice, not a staple. And like any spice, LR gets annoying if used heavily or predominantly in everything. But that's not a flaw of the spice, that's an inherent part of overuse..

Yeah, it's kinda saying a Star Wars system is breaking because you've been fighting a Darth Vader each session, and only a Darth Vader.

[Frozenstep]

There has been no artificial inflation. All what is listed separately is separate in-game.

Otherwise I could have just listed debuffing and total incapacitation in the same line, when we both know it's not.



Don't summoning at least provide additional targets for stuns or dispel magic, costing the boss resources ?

Whatever, I don't feel like arguing how many spells are actually available in each list.

Summoning turns me into a target for a stun, sure, but if I fail and get stunned, I've just produced new enemies for my party to deal with in an already deadly fight. Also if the summons are too small, the next lair action will just AoE kill them all even if they make their save.

[Frozenstep]

Hard cases make bad policy. Yes, you're biased because your campaign is well outside design parameters. But that's not because the system is cracking, any more than a pitchfork not being a good shovel is a flaw of the pitchfork.

You've got the following issues with your campaign that cause these problems:
* Only single target, legendary fights.
* Probably only 1 fight per LR.
* Always against the same opponent (so no diversity).

Any systems would show cracks there. The same tactics are optimal each time because the situation never changes. That's bad scenario design causing the entire issue. Legendary monsters are a spice, not a staple. And like any spice, LR gets annoying if used heavily or predominantly in everything. But that's not a flaw of the spice, that's an inherent part of overuse.

And the idea of having hard CC morph into soft CC against legendary targets runs into two big issues (IMO):
* Bloat. You'd have to list every possible hard CC and find viable "soft" versions that fit the fiction and don't have broken interactions. You'd have to do this on a monster-by-monster basis, since different monsters have different tactical options.
* Complexity. You'd have to run these mappings every time you wanted to do something.

Both of those are damning in my opinion--I don't want stat blocks that are several times longer with information that will rarely come up (because of a diversity of classes). I especially don't want things that slow down the play at the table.

My meta-game suggestion, IMO, is the minimal solution. It fits the fiction, it doesn't take extra time, and it preserves the value of the fight. IMO hard CC should never be an option within the first few rounds. Otherwise you cause all sorts of problems and make a boring fight.

There's also the argument that pushing a system to its limits exposes where it has flaws, and those flaws can still be present, just less noticeable, in the usual case of running the system.

I understand keeping the game simple is important, so I wouldn't accept any solution that involves complex remapping of stuff. But I think there's design space that can still exist to fit. Something like a minor debuff that happens after a legendary resistance is used, with very limited options depending on what it was.

Failed a save against any mind-controlling effect? Legendary resist it, but doing so wasn't easy and it disorients them for a moment (fit something here, like disadvantage next attack/unable to cast above x level spells next round). Fail against a restrain or body-altering effect? Same deal, body is sluggish for a moment, giving a one turn debuff. It doesn't need to be one spell to one effect, I just think there's room for a simple system.

[Unoriginal]

There's also the argument that pushing a system to its limits exposes where it has flaws, and those flaws can still be present, just less noticeable, in the usual case of running the system.

There's a difference between pushing something to its limits and pushing it into something it's not made to do.

A limousine is a bad race car.

[stoutstien]

Hard cases make bad policy. Yes, you're biased because your campaign is well outside design parameters. But that's not because the system is cracking, any more than a pitchfork not being a good shovel is a flaw of the pitchfork.

You've got the following issues with your campaign that cause these problems:
* Only single target, legendary fights.
* Probably only 1 fight per LR.
* Always against the same opponent (so no diversity).

Any systems would show cracks there. The same tactics are optimal each time because the situation never changes. That's bad scenario design causing the entire issue. Legendary monsters are a spice, not a staple. And like any spice, LR gets annoying if used heavily or predominantly in everything. But that's not a flaw of the spice, that's an inherent part of overuse.

And the idea of having hard CC morph into soft CC against legendary targets runs into two big issues (IMO):
* Bloat. You'd have to list every possible hard CC and find viable "soft" versions that fit the fiction and don't have broken interactions. You'd have to do this on a monster-by-monster basis, since different monsters have different tactical options.
* Complexity. You'd have to run these mappings every time you wanted to do something.

Both of those are damning in my opinion--I don't want stat blocks that are several times longer with information that will rarely come up (because of a diversity of classes). I especially don't want things that slow down the play at the table.

My meta-game suggestion, IMO, is the minimal solution. It fits the fiction, it doesn't take extra time, and it preserves the value of the fight. IMO hard CC should never be an option within the first few rounds. Otherwise you cause all sorts of problems and make a boring fight.

You could just add immunity as long as the NPC is above half health. Kind of like you have to weaken them before you drop the big bad spell on them

[Frozenstep]

There's a difference between pushing something to its limits and pushing it into something it's not made to do.

A limousine is a bad race car.

Sure. DnD isn't exactly great at boss encounters, or at least the kind that people want to run, in my personal, biased experience. Maybe it's just not good at teaching DM's how to run them.

[Unoriginal]

Sure. DnD isn't exactly great at boss encounters, or at least the kind that people want to run, in my personal, biased experience. Maybe it's just not good at teaching DM's how to run them.

D&D 5e isn't made to fight only one solo legendary monster every session and nothing else.

If it was somehow great at it, it'd be entirely accidental.

[Frozenstep]

D&D 5e isn't made to fight only one solo legendary monster every session and nothing else.

If it was somehow great at it, it'd be entirely accidental.

Even fighting one once ends up feeling a bit off because of how it works. That's why I think small changes that help it feel better, or alternative ideas are interesting. They don't even need to replace LR's or change them, just provide an alternative way to have a boss encounter that doesn't get crippled round 1 and encourages different tactics then the current LR system.

[Damon_Tor]

My houserule on this cribs from 4e:


Legendary Resistance
At the end of this creature's turn, end one spell or ability effecting this creature

So if you land a crippling spell, it will take effect, but it will only cripple that enemy for one turn.

EDIT: But it should be noted that if multiple party members land crippling spells, the enemy would only get to end one of them.

[MaxWilson]

Whatever, I don't feel like arguing how many spells are actually available in each list.

Summoning turns me into a target for a stun, sure, but if I fail and get stunned, I've just produced new enemies for my party to deal with in an already deadly fight. Also if the summons are too small, the next lair action will just AoE kill them all even if they make their save.

Depends on the summoning spell. Conjure Elemental + Planar Binding? No concentration requirement = no problem when incapacitated. Danse Macabre? Lost concentration = minions go away.

Most legendary and lair actions have fairly weak damage and small AoE. Liches have no lair actions that would AoE undead minions, but even if it's something else like e.g. an Ancient Red Dragon has a 5' radius 6d6 magma burst that would have approximately 0% chance of killing a Necromancer's Danse Macabre skeletons the first time it hits them, and something like a 50% chance of killing them the second time it hits the same skeleton. (Either it has to fail both DC 15 Dex saves, or it has to fail one save and the other lair action has to have a higher-than-average damage roll.) In practice this means that any lair action used against one or two skeletons is a complete waste.


My houserule on this cribs from 4e:


Legendary Resistance
At the end of this creature's turn, end one spell or ability effecting this creature

So if you land a crippling spell, it will take effect, but it will only cripple that enemy for one turn.

EDIT: But it should be noted that if multiple party members land crippling spells, the enemy would only get to end one of them.

Elegant. Nice! If I weren't already using a different system I'd adopt your solution. Both of our solutions have the nice property that multiple wizards/warlocks/etc. can effectively gang up on a monster, analagous to how multiple swordsmen can gang up on a swordsman.

[PhoenixPhyre]

My houserule on this cribs from 4e:


Legendary Resistance
At the end of this creature's turn, end one spell or ability effecting this creature

So if you land a crippling spell, it will take effect, but it will only cripple that enemy for one turn.

EDIT: But it should be noted that if multiple party members land crippling spells, the enemy would only get to end one of them.

But when there's only a single monster, one turn crippled is enough. A single turn of hold person means that the creature is likely dead, if not so severely hurt as to not pose a significant threat.

Remember, most solo fights only last 4-5 turns at most. Unless a solo can act (including legendary actions) every turn, it's dead meat with no significant threat to the party. Which is the antithesis of legendary or exciting.

[MaxWilson]

But when there's only a single monster, one turn crippled is enough. A single turn of hold person means that the creature is likely dead, if not so severely hurt as to not pose a significant threat.

Which means... that a PC who manages to land an unlikely Hold Monster on a scary monster just did something awesome! Either letting other PCs kill it or at least weaken it enough to flee (for now). I don't know why you think this is a bad thing.

(Well, actually I probably do--from what you've said on other threads, it could be because you run a completely different style of campaign than I do, very casual and episodic and with less buildup before combat and less followup afterwards, so in context of your campaign it might feel less awesome to land that lucky Hold Monster and force the scary monster to flee or die. But that's just a educated guess, because I don't actually know why you think it's a bad thing.)

[PhoenixPhyre]

Which means... that a PC who manages to land an unlikely Hold Monster on a scary monster just did something awesome! Either letting other PCs kill it or at least weaken it enough to flee (for now). I don't know why you think this is a bad thing.

(Well, actually I probably do--from what you've said on other threads, it could be because you run a completely different style of campaign than I do, very casual and episodic and with less buildup before combat and less followup afterwards, so in context of your campaign it might feel less awesome to land that lucky Hold Monster and force the scary monster to flee or die. But that's just a educated guess, because I don't actually know why you think it's a bad thing.)

How can they flee when they're burst from 100-0% in a single round (due to auto-crits)? How does a single lucky action feel awesome and justify the buildup? If legends were that easy to kill (hold person is a 3rd level spell), then they wouldn't be legends. It doesn't fit the fiction. It prevents anyone else from risk. It also prevents the DM from having fun, because then they get to just sit there. Trivializing non-trivial encounters is a problem, because it totally sucks all the tension and care out of the room. Especially when such action-denial/stun-lock spells are (relatively) cheap and common. It becomes a simple "I win" button, pushed without thought.

I don't like hard cc on anyone, but can tolerate it when there are lots of other things to run. It's not fun for players to be denied all actions, so I rarely use them against the players. It's not fun for the DM to be denied all actions (which is the case on a solo monster). Hard CC/SoL spells generally are a relic of the past.

Having a big scary thing shrug off your best effort the first few times seemingly without result? That fits the fiction. Being able to wear down the enemy's resistances? That also fits the fiction. The other option is just blanket immunity. And that's just lazy.

[Zuras]

I’m not sure that having a spellcaster incapacitate a boss is particularly epic. I’ve heard plenty of complaints from “back in the day” about martial characters feeling left out, and I don’t know that turning the boss into a piñata for the rest of the party to beat down in a round of tactics-free button mashing is fun for the rest of the party.

The actual 5e solution is to use multiple monsters/problems, so instead of just an archlich, it’s an archlich riding a young Shadow Dragon. Now instead of the caster’s save or suck spells being either a wet squib or an encounter ender, it becomes a key part of winning the battle.

Fundamentally, anything that can take out a boss in a single action risks being anticlimactic, at least for the rest of the party. A Vorpal Sword can do exactly the same thing, it just doesn’t come up as much, since martials don’t have many such abilities.

Legendary resistance is just a handy way to take nukes off the table and preserve narrative drama without needing to resort to DM fiat. It’s literally telling the players “this guy is harder to kill, he has plot armor”, while making the plot armor a measurable thing that players can actually work at getting around.

[Damon_Tor]

But when there's only a single monster, one turn crippled is enough. A single turn of hold person means that the creature is likely dead, if not so severely hurt as to not pose a significant threat.

Remember, most solo fights only last 4-5 turns at most. Unless a solo can act (including legendary actions) every turn, it's dead meat with no significant threat to the party. Which is the antithesis of legendary or exciting.

It's rarely their only defense, and shouldn't be. They have bomb-ass save bonuses. Many of them have anti-magic spells or spell-like effects. And as others have noted, if you're facing a boss who is actually alone, what, exactly, is he supposed to be the boss of? Someone lands a hold on the boss, the minions are going to pile on that guy to break his concentration.

And I'll note this version isn't always weaker than Legendary Resistance as printed: I implemented it in part because the party included a fighter/monk who was specialized in landing Stunning Strikes, and on a good turn could burn through Legendary Defense all by himself before anyone else had a chance to act, which meant the sorcerer was free to lock down on his turn. Vs a single spellcaster in a white room, yes, this seems like a downgrade, but in practice my solution has resulted in more interesting encounters.

[Unoriginal]

Which means... that a PC who manages to land an unlikely Hold Monster on a scary monster just did something awesome!

It wouldn't be more unlikely than any other Hold Monster made on someone without Legendary Resistance, if one was to use Damon_Tor's version.

[Max_Killjoy]

Seems to me its the plethora of binary effect states that makes this a tough nut.

Not sure it could be done without undue complexity, but maybe what a system needs is a resistance or endurance against things like Hold and Stun that can be worn down, or numerical Action, Speed, etc that can be reduced -- rather than a pass-fail binary state -- so that the players can feel like they're accomplishing something AND the "big boss" can still be a threat even after having it's "Action" reduced some.

[MaxWilson]

How can they flee when they're burst from 100-0% in a single round (due to auto-crits)?

Well in that case they can't. But you said it yourself: "if not so severely hurt as to not pose a significant threat". That's not 0%.


How does a single lucky action feel awesome and justify the buildup? If legends were that easy to kill (hold person is a 3rd level spell), then they wouldn't be legends.

In a Combat As War campaign, there's a lot of buildup before that Hold Monster spell goes off. Hold Person is 2nd level in 5E, not 3rd, but it doesn't matter because most things with legendary saves aren't humanoid anyway. But for the sake of discussion, sure, let's postulate a hypothetical Mad Archmage who's a 20th level wizard with legendary saves somehow.

In a Combat As War campaign, if your party hypothetically infiltrates the citadel of the Mad Archmage by posing as his servants via disguise kits and illusions, sends his bodyguards off on a wild goose chase by planting false rumors, secretly kills his hidden Clone, and then, at his birthday party, suddenly turns your coats and attacks him in open combat--you're the ones who created the opening for a "fair fight" against the Mad Archmage, so if you manage to land a lucky Hold Person and win the fight in the first round, it feels awesome! Especially because it guarantees that the Mad Archmage definitely won't teleport away on round 2, gather those bodyguards, and come back to squash you. Rather, you just killed the Mad Archmage (you think)! Now all you need to do is accomplish any secondary goals (rescue your sister from his dungeon? whatever made you want to kill him in the first place) and escape to safety.

But in a Combat As Sport campaign where the DM sets up all the fights for you, where the DM is the one responsible for ensuring that the Mad Archmage is a level-appropriate Hard encounter without any 20th level bodyguards or summoned demons around to help him--in that context, of course it doesn't feel awesome, because the DM didn't give you very much to do, and what he did give you to do ended quickly. The issues you have with first-round kills are created by a playstyle which trivializes the Mad Archmage before the players even get involved.


It doesn't fit the fiction. It prevents anyone else from risk. It also prevents the DM from having fun, because then they get to just sit there.

Only in Combat As Sport, where the stuff that happens after rolling initiative is the main event. In Combat As War this isn't true.


Trivializing non-trivial encounters is a problem, because it totally sucks all the tension and care out of the room.

Tension: "Was that really his clone we killed? Are all of the bodyguards really gone? When we actually attack, are we going to kill him or will he get away?"

I don't mean this as an attack, but I often wonder how there can be any tension at your table, because the way you describe it, it seems that you consider it your job as DM to ensure that your players (students at your school) only encounter challenges they will beat. You've said that your players have zero interest in challenge, so you make sure they win. The fact that you're worried here in this thread about an absence of tension when the fight ends on round one strikes me as curious: either way, there was some minor tension for a few minutes and then it went away, but in no case was there tension for hours or weeks. What's the difference between a round one kill and a round three kill from your perspective?

[PhoenixPhyre]

You have understood my position. I expect that they will win. Unless they ignore the warnings and dive in over their heads. I don't guarantee that they'll win, or survive the victory. I had a group end up fleeing from an encounter recently (a good decision). It wasn't a plot-critical fight, so it's not a substantive issue. And my players find tension in things that yours may not. They don't take being at low HP as a common thing. Someone goes to zero HP? That's a hard fight. Multiple people go to low/zero HP? It's a sign we need to pull back and reconsider. That is, they act like people, not game pieces.

And there's lots of tension getting to that point. My most recent session was full of it. But I don't run solo combats, and rarely run Legendary monsters except as capstones.

But even so, there's a huge difference between a legendary monster going down like a chump, getting taken out by a single low-level spell and the resulting boring "I swing, I crit, I smite" fest that ensues, and a hard-fought victory. If hold X or stunning strike (or whatever hard CC there might be) always works, then there's no tactical decisions left. You always open with that against a single monster. It means that the only one whose actions matter is the one who can cast the first hard CC, and if you don't have a hard CC, you're just batting cleanup on a foregone conclusion. Why even play at that point? You've won, why waste time on the rest of it? Combat is fun in and of itself. If it isn't, that's your problem. The journey at all points should be the point. Not winning or losing. Legendary creatures folding at the first blow isn't fun for anyone. It's hollow. It also doesn't fit the fiction--if they were that vulnerable, someone would have offed them long ago. The image of a big demon starting to freeze up under your spell, but then bursting the spectral bonds with a roar (a description of saving vs hold monster) is a classic one. The image of the boss walking out unscathed from the fireball or breaking the spell with a wave is also a classic one.

Hard CC has a place. Against hordes (or non-legendary boss + minions), it's a wonderful tool. But against a solo monster that's built up to be a real threat, hard CC is a cheap shot, an "I win" button. "I win" buttons are bad design, because they'll get pushed relentlessly and suck all the fun out of things.

As an aside, Combat as War is a lie. Because if it really were a war, and the DM really wanted to kill your characters, you'd already be dead. The DM always will win if he wants to. For you to even have a chance of success, he has to pull his punches. I'd rather he do so in an orderly fashion designed to allow everyone to have fun, instead of pretending that we're putting one over on him or being clever (especially when that boils down to rules-lawyering, meta-gaming, and abusing broken rules interactions instead of acting like real characters in a fictional setting).

[Damon_Tor]

If hold X or stunning strike (or whatever hard CC there might be) always works, then there's no tactical decisions left. You always open with that against a single monster. It means that the only one whose actions matter is the one who can cast the first hard CC, and if you don't have a hard CC, you're just batting cleanup on a foregone conclusion. Why even play at that point? You've won, why waste time on the rest of it?

As noted, Legendary Resistance as written was causing my table this exact problem. It's designed against casters, but it seems like they forgot about Stunning Strike entirely when they wrote the ability. My solution fixed the problem.

[Unoriginal]

Well, one of the assumptions of Combat as War, as far as I know, is that the DM sets up the opposing forces in advance and then don't increase their numbers or powers to counter the PCs' efforts.

Unless the enemies have in-universe a way to do so, like asking for reinforcement from the main base, and the PCs give them the opportunity to do it (which generally involves fumbling and being found out beforehand).

[DeTess]

As noted, Legendary Resistance as written was causing my table this exact problem. It's designed against casters, but it seems like they forgot about Stunning Strike entirely when they wrote the ability. My solution fixed the problem.

How did it fix stunning strike? It ends at the end of the turn anyway, and doesn't protect you against it, whereas legendary saves work on saves against all abilities, including stunnings trike.

[stoutstien]

As noted, Legendary Resistance as written was causing my table this exact problem. It's designed against casters, but it seems like they forgot about Stunning Strike entirely when they wrote the ability. My solution fixed the problem.
I see stunning strike as 'THE' LR burning feature in the game. It is low cost and can be attempted multiple times a turn. Stun immunity comes up how many times, twice?

[Urukubarr]

I used that feature and instantly didn't like it. its really not cool to be like "oh you actually made your really hard roll / DC check. . .nope"

solutions?: build better encounters (especially boss encounters!!!)

-if you need examples look at good raid encounters in MMO's, or break down why they were fun and how they worked. have the big bad resistant to damage or have large passive healing due to totems around the area that are buffing him, have magic portals summoning in minions, all of a sudden players have WAY more things to do / take care of other then beat down a boss. run around and destroy totems to weaken him, CC, kil, or banish the minions. closing the portals could just require a spell or they could have a physical item keeping them open depending on if your party is melee or caster heavy.

-USE TERRAIN, even just putting a massive pillar in the middle of your boss lair can change up the fight, but players have a lot of options for moving. perhaps some ledges can only be flown too, incorporate some areas requiring vertical movement, maybe spider climb. perhaps there are icy floors or lava or acid creating rough or hazardous terrain. areas of darkness, is the darkness normal or magical, if its magical whats doing it? is it some kind of pre cast persistent effect that can be just dispelled? or is it some kind of reverse torch object that needs to be destroyed or specifically targeted to dispel by a caster?


-lots of variation in enemies levels and types. the boss can be epic sure, but have other peons ranging from worth a challenge to random fluff just thrown in to give PC's something to kill or deal with. weak goblin archers, imp minor casters, etc. can be small annoyances that the group can have fun dealing with. perhaps you also put in things that the group will also have to avoid? like some sort of large paladin of conquest baddie, that just walks around being a menace. but this can also change based on party, if you have a murder hobo barbarian player, make sure you give him fluf to carve through, a controller caster? ramp of the weak fluf in your encounter a bit in the assumption that the caster is probably going to control or mess with a lot of it. archers / ranged characters? have some of your own on perches taking shots at the party.


so yeah, don't use LR, build better encounters, really having fun doing it, make each one memorable.

[stoutstien]

I used that feature and instantly didn't like it. its really not cool to be like "oh you actually made your really hard roll / DC check. . .nope"

solutions?: build better encounters (especially boss encounters!!!)

-if you need examples look at good raid encounters in MMO's, or break down why they were fun and how they worked. have the big bad resistant to damage or have large passive healing due to totems around the area that are buffing him, have magic portals summoning in minions, all of a sudden players have WAY more things to do / take care of other then beat down a boss. run around and destroy totems to weaken him, CC, kil, or banish the minions. closing the portals could just require a spell or they could have a physical item keeping them open depending on if your party is melee or caster heavy.

-USE TERRAIN, even just putting a massive pillar in the middle of your boss lair can change up the fight, but players have a lot of options for moving. perhaps some ledges can only be flown too, incorporate some areas requiring vertical movement, maybe spider climb. perhaps there are icy floors or lava or acid creating rough or hazardous terrain. areas of darkness, is the darkness normal or magical, if its magical whats doing it? is it some kind of pre cast persistent effect that can be just dispelled? or is it some kind of reverse torch object that needs to be destroyed or specifically targeted to dispel by a caster?


-lots of variation in enemies levels and types. the boss can be epic sure, but have other peons ranging from worth a challenge to random fluff just thrown in to give PC's something to kill or deal with. weak goblin archers, imp minor casters, etc. can be small annoyances that the group can have fun dealing with. perhaps you also put in things that the group will also have to avoid? like some sort of large paladin of conquest baddie, that just walks around being a menace. but this can also change based on party, if you have a murder hobo barbarian player, make sure you give him fluf to carve through, a controller caster? ramp of the weak fluf in your encounter a bit in the assumption that the caster is probably going to control or mess with a lot of it. archers / ranged characters? have some of your own on perches taking shots at the party.


so yeah, don't use LR, build better encounters, really having fun doing it, make each one memorable.

All the fun elements you can add as the DM can be shut down with a portent, cutting words or round of a monk spamming SS. So far they haven't released a printed NPC that has saves high enough to automatically pass 100% of the time.

[Great Dragon]

As an aside, Combat as War is a lie. Because if it really were a war, and the DM really wanted to kill your characters, you'd already be dead. The DM always will win if he wants to. For you to even have a chance of success, he has to pull his punches. I'd rather he do so in an orderly fashion designed to allow everyone to have fun, instead of pretending that we're putting one over on him or being clever (especially when that boils down to rules-lawyering, meta-gaming, and abusing broken rules interactions instead of acting like real characters in a fictional setting).


Well, one of the assumptions of Combat as War, as far as I know, is that the DM sets up the opposing forces in advance and then don't increase their numbers or powers to counter the PCs' efforts.

Unless the enemies have in-universe a way to do so, like asking for reinforcement from the main base, and the PCs give them the opportunity to do it (which generally involves fumbling and being found out beforehand).

The first (PhoenixPhyre) really only applies if the DM is not doing the second (Unoriginal).

If I change the abilities or powers of a Creature/Villain; I do so in advance, and don't change them spur-of-the-moment just to counter one or more PCs.

An unlucky roll, is just that, for both PC and Foe. Higher CR threats that have LA and LR are meant to last longer than a round or three.

Also, I see your "Special Student's" to be an exception to the usual play style. Like you wrote, they have different expectations for tension.

[jh12]

have the big bad resistant to damage

Maybe even legendarily resistant?

[Damon_Tor]

How did it fix stunning strike? It ends at the end of the turn anyway, and doesn't protect you against it, whereas legendary saves work on saves against all abilities, including stunnings trike.

Stunning Strike burns through LR, spellcaster follows with hard control. 1 round, the enemy is on the ropes already.

LR as published, the npc can choose to accept the stun from stunning until end of turn in expectation of staving off another longer lasting incapacitation, but that's a losing move too. As soon as the enemy accepts a stun with LR remaining the Monk stops spending Ki on additional strikes, and can simply begin the process again his next turn, keeping him locked down for the whole fight. If he fights off the monk's stunning strikes using LR the sorcerer puts him down.

With my version, the monster doesn't have the ability to auto-defeat the stunning strikes, but at least he can auto-end hold monster at the end of his turn.

If you don't think this is powerful enough deterrent, consider the following solutions:

Make Legendary Resistance trigger at the start of the npc's turn.
Make it wipe any number of spells/effects, not just 1
Make it available as a Legendary Action (so they can wipe 1 effect at the end of any creature's turn using one of the 3/round actions)

I think those are all overkill, but I'd still like them better than the gamey "force field" against status effects that exists currently.

[Damon_Tor]

The monk is question is a monk/fighter for the record. Action Surge helps.

[MaxWilson]

I see stunning strike as 'THE' LR burning feature in the game. It is low cost and can be attempted multiple times a turn. Stun immunity comes up how many times, twice?

It's low cost but also gated behind double success requirements (needs an attack roll AND a saving throw) and goes against a save that is strong for most monsters (Con). It's great against vampires (+4 to Con saves) but against dragons, empyreans, liches, etc. you'd have better luck just casting a spell that targets a weak save.

Dex 20 Wis 20 monk 17 with Flurry of Blows vs. a CR 20 non-spellcasting ancient white dragon (Con save +14): DC 19 Stunning Strike, 4x +11 to hit vs. AC 20 means 2.4 hits per round on average, with a 20% chance of success on each Stunning Strike. 2.4 * 0.20 = 0.48 legendary resistances burned per round at an average cost of 3.4 ki per round, and you have to be in melee with the dragon first.

Int 20 Enchanter with Tasha's Hideous Laughter, DC 19 vs. the dragon's +7 Wis save: dragon needs to roll 12+ to save, which means 55% chance of saving throw failures, therefore 0.55 legendary resistances burned per round at a cost of 2 spell points. More resists burned at lower cost, and usable at 30' range (can even knock a low-flying dragon out of the sky!). Web would be slightly more expensive and give a marginally higher difficulty (60% chance of failing the Dex save), but is somewhat harder to exploit (dragon can use legendary actions to fly out of the AoE before its turn so it doesn't have to make the save). If you can think of a good illusion for the situation, Phantasmal Force would be even better (it needs to roll 19+ to make the Int save) but illusions aren't as straightforward to exploit as Wis save spells like Tasha's/Hold Monster/Hypnotic Pattern/Slow usually are.

TL;DR Stunning Strike is really quite good but requires overcoming both AC and Con save, so against many monsters it isn't as good as it seems at first. It's definitely great against vampires and beholders though.

N.b. as always, which of the spells you pick depends less on which has marginally better math against a given foe and more on which ones you happen to know and have prepared. If you've got Web memorized but not Tasha's, because you like using it for crowd control, then Web is what you use against the dragon--you just might choose to hold the Web until the dragon has already used its legendary actions. I'm not assuming Schrodinger's wizard here, and in fact I'm focusing mostly on spells that IME see a lot of play.

[stoutstien]

It's low cost but also gated behind double success requirements (needs an attack roll AND a saving throw) and goes against a save that is strong for most monsters (Con). It's great against vampires (+4 to Con saves) but against dragons, empyreans, liches, etc. you'd have better luck just casting a spell that targets a weak save.

Dex 20 Wis 20 monk 17 with Flurry of Blows vs. a CR 20 non-spellcasting ancient white dragon (Con save +14): DC 19 Stunning Strike, 4x +11 to hit vs. AC 20 means 2.4 hits per round on average, with a 20% chance of success on each Stunning Strike. 2.4 * 0.20 = 0.48 legendary resistances burned per round at an average cost of 3.4 ki per round, and you have to be in melee with the dragon first.

Int 20 Enchanter with Tasha's Hideous Laughter, DC 19 vs. the dragon's +7 Wis save: dragon needs to roll 12+ to save, which means 55% chance of saving throw failures, therefore 0.55 legendary resistances burned per round at a cost of 2 spell points. More resists burned at lower cost, and usable at 30' range (can even knock a low-flying dragon out of the sky!). Web would be slightly more expensive and give a marginally higher difficulty (60% chance of failing the Dex save), but is somewhat harder to exploit (dragon can use legendary actions to fly out of the AoE before its turn so it doesn't have to make the save). If you can think of a good illusion for the situation, Phantasmal Force would be even better (it needs to roll 19+ to make the Int save) but illusions aren't as straightforward to exploit as Wis save spells like Tasha's/Hold Monster/Hypnotic Pattern/Slow usually are.

TL;DR Stunning Strike is really quite good but requires overcoming both AC and Con save, so against many monsters it isn't as good as it seems at first. It's definitely great against vampires and beholders though.

N.b. as always, which of the spells you pick depends less on which has marginally better math against a given foe and more on which ones you happen to know and have prepared. If you've got Web memorized but not Tasha's, because you like using it for crowd control, then Web is what you use against the dragon--you just might choose to hold the Web until the dragon has already used its legendary actions. I'm not assuming Schrodinger's wizard here, and in fact I'm focusing mostly on spells that IME see a lot of play.
Math is spot on but the fact the monk can possibly get 4 chances to stun a turn mean that monk can have a good chance of getting at least on SS to land even if they only have 20% chance per attack

[MaxWilson]

Math is spot on but the fact the monk can possibly get 4 chances to stun a turn mean that monk can have a good chance of getting at least on SS to land even if they only have 20% chance per attack

Yes, especially if the monk has some way to gain advantage (e.g. Empty Body at 18th level, or an already-restrained/prone/stunned enemy).

It's definitely one of the monk's best abilities; I just don't think it's a real outlier when it comes to burning through legendary saves, and it can actually feel pretty frustrating to succeed on only 20% of your Stunning Strikes so in practice I'd probably just focus on depleting the dragon's HP instead of burning through saves.

[stoutstien]

Yes, especially if the monk has some way to gain advantage (e.g. Empty Body at 18th level, or an already-restrained/prone/stunned enemy).

It's definitely one of the monk's best abilities; I just don't think it's a real outlier when it comes to burning through legendary saves, and it can actually feel pretty frustrating to succeed on only 20% of your Stunning Strikes so in practice I'd probably just focus on depleting the dragon's HP instead of burning through saves.
I'll look at it more from the theatrical side. Even an ancient dragon/lich will be wary of that grandmaster monk walking up

[Angelalex242]

Well, as we all know, vampires have legendary resistance.

It doesn't help him in the slightest when my Paladin novas his ass into next week.

My party wizard plays a diviner, knows this, and feeds me a 20 on his portent.

Goodbye, vampire. You weren't very legendary.

[thereaper]

LR is there because high level spellcasters have too many slots. Removing or nerfing them would just make high level spellcasters even more overpowered.

[Armok]

Crazy idea: why not tie Legendary Resistance to a recharge mechanic? For example, let's say Vlitras the Vile would have 3 resistances under the normal system. Why not give him one, which recharges if you roll a 6 on a d6, similar to how dragon's breath weapons work?

In this way, epic enemies could have the resistance to effects that could cripple them and undo the epicness of the moment, but whether or not they have it available is another story, and both sides not knowing might make it more fun for everybody. Sort of a fun mechanic, rather than a flat resource to be burned.

[MeeposFire]

Crazy idea: why not tie Legendary Resistance to a recharge mechanic? For example, let's say Vlitras the Vile would have 3 resistances under the normal system. Why not give him one, which recharges if you roll a 6 on a d6, similar to how dragon's breath weapons work?

In this way, epic enemies could have the resistance to effects that could cripple them and undo the epicness of the moment, but whether or not they have it available is another story, and both sides not knowing might make it more fun for everybody. Sort of a fun mechanic, rather than a flat resource to be burned.

I think something like this could be a good compromise if you find that your more solo creatures survive just fine with only one legendary resistance and you do not mind long term on the fight you could have more uses of it than the normal. For me probably not worth it but I could see how it could work for some.

[Mitsu]

The other way to fix LR is to remove the usage after a save thorw.

So LR creature has to either chose to use LR up front or decide it will gamble and take it's chances to save.

So let's say Sorc casts Hold Monster. Now Legendary creature has to chose: either it risks a save throw or use LR to succed but without first making normal save.

So this makes it more like "ok, I don't want to see what will happen if I eat that" then "I will see what happens if I failed. Huh, ow well, I succeed anyway".

[MaxWilson]

The other way to fix LR is to remove the usage after a save thorw.

Still doesn't fix the weird interactions with Wall of Force, Otto's Irresistible Dance, Maze, Conjure Elemental, etc. Just rewrite it instead into old school Magic Resistance.

[Shuruke]

I replace legendary resistance with the feature that makes them immune to spells of x level or lower.

[Lord Vukodlak]

LR is there because high level spellcasters have too many slots. Removing or nerfing them would just make high level spellcasters even more overpowered.

LR is there so the climatic battle with the BBEG doesn't fizzle out from one poor roll

[DeTess]

I replace legendary resistance with the feature that makes them immune to spells of x level or lower.

How does that work out in practice? In theory I can't see it working as it either doesn't stop hard cc like hold monster, or alternatively it makes the spellcasters completely useless as they can't affect the monster with anything.

[Darkstar952]

I replace legendary resistance with the feature that makes them immune to spells of x level or lower.

I would hate that as a player, would make a spellcaster feel useless against it, its fine for a rare enemy like a Rakshasa but not all the time.

[Damon_Tor]

Math is spot on but the fact the monk can possibly get 4 chances to stun a turn mean that monk can have a good chance of getting at least on SS to land even if they only have 20% chance per attack

More than that if multiclassed. Two levels of fighter means 6 attacks in one round. A specialist monk 9/fighter 11 can get 8 attacks in a round. If they use Battlemaster and Open Hand they can force additional saves at the same time.

[MeeposFire]

I would hate that as a player, would make a spellcaster feel useless against it, its fine for a rare enemy like a Rakshasa but not all the time.

It also constrains action choices even more than legendary resistance. Cantrips become useless (warlock becomes pretty sad). If you want to affect someone directly you have to use your very limited high level spells for that purpose because nothing else will ever work whereas with legendary resistance any ability could be useful but you may have to use some abilities before hand to wear down the creature before it will work on them. It takes a bit of effort but eventually you will break through and with help you could do it pretty fast.

[MaxWilson]

It also constrains action choices even more than legendary resistance. Cantrips become useless (warlock becomes pretty sad).

Bladelocks become happy though. Finally Blade Pact is yielding dividends over blastlocking!

Overall though I dislike Rakshasa-type spell resistance. The cutoff point is too arbitrary.

[Great Dragon]

Overall though I dislike Rakshasa-type spell resistance. The cutoff point is too arbitrary.

I tend to agree. While Legendary Resistance can make the Spellcasters feel less special, outright immunity to spells below a certain level (tier) makes their Players feel like there was no point in even playing that Class in the first place. YMmV.

One encounter with a Raksasha might make the Spellcasters be more group focused, but all LR monsters being this way would most likely be the end of the game.
Especially if there were more Spellcaster PCs than Martials in the group.

[Jerrykhor]

My DM did away with Legendary Resistance. He acknowledges that its an unfun mechanic. My experience with other 'vanilla' DMs are not high level enough to encounter monsters with LR, so I have not experienced just how unfun it can be, but in theory it does look like the DM's cheat button, making save or suck abilities quite useless.

What he did instead is that the boss would break the CC after a few turns or after taking certain amount of damage. I don't really know the mechanics, but I recall even though no boss was immune to Hold spells, but they very quickly broke whatever debuff that was cast on them.

Also, his solo bosses could take multiple turns per round, so that could mean the debuff breaking much sooner than expected.

[Wildarm]

LR is meant to not trivialize big boss fights with a save or suck effects. If you don't like the LR feature of epic monsters, perhaps you want to change it into a Legendary action instead:

Shrug it off:

The creature can spend 1 Legendary action to get another save attempt against a currently ongoing effect or condition. The save DC is equal to the initial effects DC. Effects without a save DC allow an ability check based on the primary stat of the attacker.

The effect should be that when you land a good effect on the creature, it should be able try and shrug it off. These monsters are just that tough that they can do things through sheer power or will. Eats a legendary action and only allows another save chance. Result should be that a creature like a dragon can struggle for a legendary action or two to break that hold monster spell. It comes at the cost of those extra attacks or movement though.

The second section is something applied to allow big monsters to do extraordinary things like break a grapple off turn. A small tactical boon to balance out the fact that they can no longer just straight up ignore a failed save.

[DrLoveMonkey]

My experience with not having LR is not good.

I had a big boss monster that was the culmination of a big story arc in one of my games, I forgot to give it LR, so the wizard casts Hold Monster on it first turn, it fails the recovery save 3 turns in a row, and everyone else is just sitting there auto-critting it to death before it ever got to act. It was extremely anticlimactic and a total waste of a bunch of home brew monster effects and stuff.

[Bloodcloud]

I do think a legendary action "shrug it off" allowing to disregard a condition could be better. If he's spending his legendary action on removing debuff, that monster ain't throwing around extra attacks/spells/watever. The dbuff did something. But it didn't end the fight outright. Seems to work more as intended actually.

[J-H]

I like the "Shrug it off" idea, which works mostly because there are very, very few "save or just be dead" options.
I would also take a "reroll with advantage" instead of "just make the save."

[Man_Over_Game]

I've seen a couple of people's opinion regarding this monster ability.



Or as Schaden put it


Well now we have a chance to help our friend (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?585108-I-could-use-some-pointers-on-a-death-boss) by coming up with an alternative, since it's no fun either when a BBEG is insta-gimped by a well placed spell.

What do you suggest as a means of making bosses matter, without making spellcaster's big spells feel useless?

Possible Solution Compilation
Have Multiple Monsters. Balance the CR in such a way that when one dies, the other one gets stronger.
Let the monster save at the start of its turn against any ongoing effect.
Randomizer the number of uses.
Have Legendary Resistance only reduce the effect, instead of negating it.
Have it cost a Reaction
Have Legendary Resistance negate the effect, but using it affects the boss in another way.
Make it passive that increases save chance to 50%, and each time it's used the save chance lowers.
Give bosses a flat bonus to saving throws instead.
Change Legendary Resistance into advantage to saving throws.
Change it into “you can re-roll a failed save once”
Don't announce to your players when you use Legendary Resistance
Have Legendary Resistance cost a resource for the monster, such as a legendary action, spell slot or other.

Could just change it into a special HP type that's hidden from the players.

Call it "Legendary Endurance"

The Boss can expend this Legendary Endurance to automatically save against an effect.

The value lost is equal to the Spell level +1. If it was not from a spell, then deduct a value of 3. If the Boss uses this Legendary Endurance to resist an effect that they cannot afford, the effect is still resisted but the boss takes damage equal to 5x the leftover value in unmitigated Force damage (so blocking a level 9 spell with 2 resistance will mean the boss takes (9+1-2=8, x5=) 40 unmitigated damage and have 0 resistance left).

A boss might have a Legendary Endurance value of 10, which can be broken by a single level 9 spell, or a series of five spammed level 1 spells.

[SanguisAevum]

Especially if the Monster is smart (Dragons, yes - but quite a few others with LR aren't dumb) would see right through that tactic and save their LRs for effects they know are the most debilitating.

Sounds to me like many of you are simply using it incorrectly.

The sequence of play here is...

1 - Player announces they are casting a spell, and informs the DM he needs to make a saving throw of the appropriate type.
2 - DM rolls save, and if failed, decides whether to use LR
3 - If the spell is successful, the player announces the spell that was cast, and what the effects are.

A creature (OR player character for that matter) DOES NOT automatically know what spell is being cast at it by RAW.

Identifying a spell as it is cast requires a reaction. Players may opt to do this, but since the monster manual clearly indicates what actions and reactions a monster can take, this is not possible for most 5e monsters.

A DM must decide to use LR BEFORE the consequence for failing is announced.
If the players are shouting out, "I cast banishment, make a save" then of course the DM is going save LR for the spells that matter.

It's perfectly fair and balanced when used in the context of RAW. Its a gamble between PC and monster, a mind game. With players trying to bait them all out with minor spells.

[Great Dragon]

@SanguisAevum
Ah. PC skill use vs Monster abilities is a good point.

[PhoenixPhyre]

@SanguisAevum
But, since identifing the spell is an Arcana check as a Reaction, and LR has no action cost - I can see the Adult Dragon being able to decide if it uses it's LR - or not.

At the cost of not taking any other reactions that turn. Which is a significant cost.

[JoeJ]

Identifying a spell as it is cast requires a reaction. Players may opt to do this, but since the monster manual clearly indicates what actions and reactions a monster can take, this is not possible for most 5e monsters.

The fact that identifying spells is not mentioned in the MM doesn't mean anything, first because the rule hadn't appeared yet and second because the Reactions part of the stat block only includes special reactions that are not available to every creature (just like the Actions part of the stat block).

So the dragon could try to identify the spell if it wants to use it's reaction that way.

[MeeposFire]

Yea it is not like it needs to tell you in each monster entry that they have a reaction ability to let them make an opportunity attack though they do need to tell what their individual attack actions are.

[Great Dragon]

At the cost of not taking any other reactions that turn. Which is a significant cost.

Humm. I'd have to look to see if 5e Dragons have any other Reactions (other then AoO) to use.
If not, then no real cost. Since knowing what your enemy is casting is usually better then just hitting (and not killing) the tank again.

But then, allowing the Dragon to do that is Homebrew?

[stoutstien]

i think a lot of the problem with trying to run a solo npc fight is so many of the 'big' spells are all or nothing. outside of damage spells we have no degree of impact with spells so we have no way to mechanical show that some spells are less effective on targets. maybe a banishment doesn't succeed but it does cause it to have disadvantage on dex saving throws due to strain to stay on this plane?

[J-H]

Sounds to me like many of you are simply using it incorrectly.

The sequence of play here is...

1 - Player announces they are casting a spell, and informs the DM he needs to make a saving throw of the appropriate type.
2 - DM rolls save, and if failed, decides whether to use LR
3 - If the spell is successful, the player announces the spell that was cast, and what the effects are.

A creature (OR player character for that matter) DOES NOT automatically know what spell is being cast at it by RAW.

Identifying a spell as it is cast requires a reaction. Players may opt to do this, but since the monster manual clearly indicates what actions and reactions a monster can take, this is not possible for most 5e monsters.

A DM must decide to use LR BEFORE the consequence for failing is announced.
If the players are shouting out, "I cast banishment, make a save" then of course the DM is going save LR for the spells that matter.

It's perfectly fair and balanced when used in the context of RAW. Its a gamble between PC and monster, a mind game. With players trying to bait them all out with minor spells.
What prevents a stinker of a player from saying "I'm casting a spell" and then on the failed save saying "Eh, it was just Ice Knife."?

[MaxWilson]

Humm. I'd have to look to see if 5e Dragons have any other Reactions (other then AoO) to use.
If not, then no real cost. Since knowing what your enemy is casting is usually better then just hitting (and not killing) the tank again.

But then, allowing the Dragon to do that is Homebrew?

Basic 5E dragons don't have any other interesting reactions, but spellcasting variant dragons can have Shield or Counterspell.


Sounds to me like many of you are simply using it incorrectly.

The sequence of play here is...

1 - Player announces they are casting a spell, and informs the DM he needs to make a saving throw of the appropriate type.
2 - DM rolls save, and if failed, decides whether to use LR
3 - If the spell is successful, the player announces the spell that was cast, and what the effects are.

A creature (OR player character for that matter) DOES NOT automatically know what spell is being cast at it by RAW.

Identifying a spell as it is cast requires a reaction. Players may opt to do this, but since the monster manual clearly indicates what actions and reactions a monster can take, this is not possible for most 5e monsters.

A DM must decide to use LR BEFORE the consequence for failing is announced.
If the players are shouting out, "I cast banishment, make a save" then of course the DM is going save LR for the spells that matter.

It's perfectly fair and balanced when used in the context of RAW. Its a gamble between PC and monster, a mind game. With players trying to bait them all out with minor spells.

You're confusing optional rules like Xanathar's spell identification rules with the vanilla game. Xanathar's spell identification rules are no more mandatory than feats, DMG Disarm, or DMG spell points are.

Furthermore, you're also confusing what the monsters are allowed to know with what the DM is allowed to know.

There's nothing wrong with the procedure you're describing, but it's not the only procedure which is compliant with RAW. It is perfectly RAW for the DM to say, "I need you to tell me what spell you're casting when you cast it," not least so that everyone knows the player is being honest about spell slots. A third alternative, at tables where neither the DM nor the players completely trust each other, would be for the player to play index cards (face-down) which indicate which spell is being cast, and to reveal them only after the saving throw is resolved. All three of those options are perfectly RAW-compliant because the Rules As Written are completely silent on how/when PCs/monsters reveal which spells they're casting. It's completely up to the DM and the players.

[Galithar]

Furthermore, you're also confusing what the monsters are allowed to know with what the DM is allowed to know.

Indeed. The line of thinking that the players can and should hide information from the DM can very quickly breed a DM Vs Player mindset at the table. The DM should be making decisions for NPCs with the knowledge the character has, just as a player should make decisions for their character based on what the character knows not what they as a player know.

Also why shouldn't the monster know what the effect is? If a spell is already fully cast and taking effect why wouldn't they know? Do you not tell players what spell they're affected by if they fail a save?

DM: Bob, can you make a Wisdom saving throw?
Bob: Sure *looks worried* it's a 12?
DM: Ouch, not high enough.
Bob: So what hit me?
DM: I'm not telling, but it's your turn.
Bob: Okay I cast...
DM: No you can't do that.
Bob: I move over to....
DM: nope, can't do that either.
Bob: What can I do?
DM: Nothing, you're paralyzed.

Now that's exaggerated obviously, but if the spell is already taking effect, and they have the power to shake it off they should know what they're shaking off. I would feel differently if this were talking about countering the spell. Though I'm that case I still think the DM should know what the spell is ahead of time, in all situations except one where it's a group of long time friends that everyone knows no one is going to "suddenly be casting a look level one spell" everytime something gets countered.

[SanguisAevum]

What prevents a stinker of a player from saying "I'm casting a spell" and then on the failed save saying "Eh, it was just Ice Knife."?

If you are playing with players who would do that, then i'm sorry for you, and your gaming experience.
In 25 Years of playing with the same group, not once has that ever been a concern at our table.
If it's a concern at yours, then i can only hope the situation improves for you.
To answer your question, though... you could insist that the player write down or otherwise mark what spell they actually cast before it is revealed.



You're confusing optional rules like Xanathar's spell identification rules with the vanilla game. Xanathar's spell identification rules are no more mandatory than feats, DMG Disarm, or DMG spell points are.


This is true, i concede.
But without THAT xanthars rule, by RAW, there is NO way for a target of a spell to know what spell is being cast until the effect takes place and they either succumb, or resist. (IE - they make a save and either pass or fail)
This fact even further demonstrates that using Meta-knowledge to decide whether to use LR is at best, a disingenuous act by the DM. The creature must chose to use LR at the point they fail the save... before they know what the effect will be.




Indeed. The line of thinking that the players can and should hide information from the DM can very quickly breed a DM Vs Player mindset at the table. The DM should be making decisions for NPCs with the knowledge the character has, just as a player should make decisions for their character based on what the character knows not what they as a player know.

Also why shouldn't the monster know what the effect is? If a spell is already fully cast and taking effect why wouldn't they know? Do you not tell players what spell they're affected by if they fail a save?

DM: Bob, can you make a Wisdom saving throw?
Bob: Sure *looks worried* it's a 12?
DM: Ouch, not high enough.
Bob: So what hit me?
DM: I'm not telling, but it's your turn.
Bob: Okay I cast...
DM: No you can't do that.
Bob: I move over to....
DM: nope, can't do that either.
Bob: What can I do?
DM: Nothing, you're paralyzed.

Now that's exaggerated obviously, but if the spell is already taking effect, and they have the power to shake it off they should know what they're shaking off. I would feel differently if this were talking about countering the spell. Though I'm that case I still think the DM should know what the spell is ahead of time, in all situations except one where it's a group of long time friends that everyone knows no one is going to "suddenly be casting a look level one spell" everytime something gets countered.

Once again, if you regularly have to deal with a vs mentality at your tables, then i feel sorry for you. DM/Player trust is a vital part of the gaming experience.

Things like Counter spell and LR are exactly the reason that DMs and Players should not be announcing spells as they are cast.

BY RAW (if we ignore the optional rule in xanthers as someone else suggested) there is no way for character or NPC to know what a spell is as it is being cast. They must choose to use resources to defend against that spell, and take the risk of wasting a LR or counterspell on an insignificant spell.

The issue here is that doing it any other way involves no resource risk at all, if you don't follow the RAW here then you end up in a situation where counter spell and LR are only ever used on significant threats... and thus the title of this thread.

[Angelalex242]

Here's a silly idea:

The monster MUST use Legendary Resistance on the first 3 saves it fails, and gets no say in the matter.

Further, the DM must announce, "He chooses to succeed!"

Then the players have that countdown in their head...

[mephnick]

What he did instead is that the boss would break the CC after a few turns or after taking certain amount of damage. I don't really know the mechanics, but I recall even though no boss was immune to Hold spells, but they very quickly broke whatever debuff that was cast on them.

Also, his solo bosses could take multiple turns per round, so that could mean the debuff breaking much sooner than expected.


I do think a legendary action "shrug it off" allowing to disregard a condition could be better. If he's spending his legendary action on removing debuff, that monster ain't throwing around extra attacks/spells/watever. The dbuff did something. But it didn't end the fight outright. Seems to work more as intended actually.


This is basically how it works in Darkest Dungeon. Monsters recover from stuns on their turn. Boss monsters often have more than one turn per round, making stuns less useful. However if you land a stun, it will invalidate one action and abilities that do extra to stunned monsters still might have a chance to activate if you go before their next action.

It's not a bad idea to have a LA used to end effects on a creature. It loses the action (or its turn depending on when the debuff lands) and the party gets a chance to capitalize on stuns etc before it has a chance to end the effect, but doesn't get crippled for the whole fight.

[Frozenstep]

LR is meant to not trivialize big boss fights with a save or suck effects. If you don't like the LR feature of epic monsters, perhaps you want to change it into a Legendary action instead:

Shrug it off:

The creature can spend 1 Legendary action to get another save attempt against a currently ongoing effect or condition. The save DC is equal to the initial effects DC. Effects without a save DC allow an ability check based on the primary stat of the attacker.

The effect should be that when you land a good effect on the creature, it should be able try and shrug it off. These monsters are just that tough that they can do things through sheer power or will. Eats a legendary action and only allows another save chance. Result should be that a creature like a dragon can struggle for a legendary action or two to break that hold monster spell. It comes at the cost of those extra attacks or movement though.

The second section is something applied to allow big monsters to do extraordinary things like break a grapple off turn. A small tactical boon to balance out the fact that they can no longer just straight up ignore a failed save.


This is basically how it works in Darkest Dungeon. Monsters recover from stuns on their turn. Boss monsters often have more than one turn per round, making stuns less useful. However if you land a stun, it will invalidate one action and abilities that do extra to stunned monsters still might have a chance to activate if you go before their next action.

It's not a bad idea to have a LA used to end effects on a creature. It loses the action (or its turn depending on when the debuff lands) and the party gets a chance to capitalize on stuns etc before it has a chance to end the effect, but doesn't get crippled for the whole fight.

I like this idea a lot. A boss too eager with their legendary actions soon after their regular actions is an opportunity for player casters. Darkest Dungeon bosses did have a good feel to them, maybe I'll have to get some ideas from it on what to do.

[Blood of Gaea]

How about giving them the Lucky Feat?

[Lailoken42]

The sequence of play here is...

1 - Player announces they are casting a spell, and informs the DM he needs to make a saving throw of the appropriate type.
2 - DM rolls save, and if failed, decides whether to use LR
3 - If the spell is successful, the player announces the spell that was cast, and what the effects are.


If you are playing with players who would do that, then i'm sorry for you, and your gaming experience.
In 25 Years of playing with the same group, not once has that ever been a concern at our table.
If it's a concern at yours, then i can only hope the situation improves for you.

I don't understand. Your scenario assumes the DM is not to be trusted (players should hide information from the DM), but the players are? I would turn your statements around and posit that if you are playing with a DM who is out to screw you than you are screwed whether or not you announce your spells ahead of time, and the players are not likely to have much fun.


BY RAW (if we ignore the optional rule in xanthers as someone else suggested) there is no way for character or NPC to know what a spell is as it is being cast. They must choose to use resources to defend against that spell, and take the risk of wasting a LR or counterspell on an insignificant spell.

Actually, since both Xanathar's optional spell detection rules and counterspell both require reactions you cannot do this. Whereas without this optional rule, the RAW doesn't say anywhere that you don't know what spell you are countering when you cast counterspell.

But back on track, my solution to this is to have BBEGs that have multiple turns per round and HP thresholds that remove all status affects (per paragon rules by The Angry GM). And I add to this, that save or suck spells only affect one turn per round, and instant death affects don't work (or drop them to the next hp threshold, depending on the enemy). This is essentially taking multiple enemies and squishing them into a single enemy. This has the benefit of save or suck mattering, without making them debilitating, and also ensuring they don't last for the rest of the fight.

You also can't nova past a single hp threshold in one turn, but that is not terribly relevant to this topic.

[MaxWilson]

BY RAW (if we ignore the optional rule in xanthers as someone else suggested) there is no way for character or NPC to know what a spell is as it is being cast. They must choose to use resources to defend against that spell, and take the risk of wasting a LR or counterspell on an insignificant spell.

This isn't true. There is no RAW here. The rules as written neither require nor forbid spell identification as the spell is being cast, so it's up to the DM to make a reasonable ruling, in exactly the same way it's up to the DM whether you can smell a wet horse in the dark.

It's very common, and a good experience for the players and the DM, if there is at least some cue to what the spell is as it is being cast and before saves are made. For some DMs this will be "the Flameskull casts Fireball; make a DC 14 Dex save" and for others it will be "the demonic creature gestures and murmurs a word, and an incandescent globule streaks from its finger and detonates in a spectacular explosion; make a Dex save to see if you can get out of the way fast enough." Both of these methods are pretty good in practice, and much better than the DM saying, as Xanathar's rules propose, "The monster casts a spell. Make a Dex save," but not even saying what the character is experiencing or what the save represents. That rule is a mess and it's not good for roleplaying.

[Rukelnikov]

This isn't true. There is no RAW here. The rules as written neither require nor forbid spell identification as the spell is being cast, so it's up to the DM to make a reasonable ruling, in exactly the same way it's up to the DM whether you can smell a wet horse in the dark.

It's very common, and a good experience for the players and the DM, if there is at least some cue to what the spell is as it is being cast and before saves are made. For some DMs this will be "the Flameskull casts Fireball; make a DC 14 Dex save" and for others it will be "the demonic creature gestures and murmurs a word, and an incandescent globule streaks from its finger and detonates in a spectacular explosion; make a Dex save to see if you can get out of the way fast enough." Both of these methods are pretty good in practice, and much better than the DM saying, as Xanathar's rules propose, "The monster casts a spell. Make a Dex save," but not even saying what the character is experiencing or what the save represents. That rule is a mess and it's not good for roleplaying.

I agree that Xanathar's method is awful, but there definitely is RAW. There's no rule telling me I can't fly, but there are some that tell me that I can, thus I need one of those to be able to fly. Its the same here, there's no rule telling you whether you automatically know which spell is being cast or not, but there's a rule for identifying spells midcast, thus you need to de the check in order to know by RAW.

[Lailoken42]

but there's a rule for identifying spells midcast, thus you need to de the check in order to know by RAW.

No because the rule for identifying spells midcast is an optional variant.

If Xanathar's had an optional variant for using intelligence (knowledge nature) to see if you can smell wet horses in the dark, would you take that to automatically mean that nobody could smell said horses without this new variant? Or that any DM who was just asking for perception rolls was just homebrewing it?

I can't link, but here's a quote from Jeremy Crawford on the subject:

The optional rule in no way dictates how players and DMs describe spellcasting at their table. If your group always says what spell you're casting, ignore this rule. This option exists for the DM who wants a formalized way of identifying spells.

[Rukelnikov]

No because the rule for identifying spells midcast is an optional variant.

If Xanathar's had an optional variant for using intelligence (knowledge nature) to see if you can smell wet horses in the dark, would you take that to automatically mean that nobody could smell said horses without this new variant? Or that any DM who was just asking for perception rolls was just homebrewing it?

I didn't remember it was a variant, in that case, anyone using the variant, should assume that without making the roll you don't know what's being cast, otherwise you are just rolling to spend your reaction in something, since no matter what you roll you know the spell anyway.

[Segev]

Consider it from the perspective of playing, say, Magic: the Gathering. If you have a card in hand that will negate one ability used against you, you want to save it for an instance where it's useful.

Or think of it in terms of Gloomhaven, if you're familiar with that game: in it, there are abilities you can set up which passively trigger the next N times their trigger happens (e.g. "reduce damage from the next 5 attacks by 1, and retaliate 1," which means that if it came from a melee source, the attacker takes 1 damage).

In the first case, you want to save your card for that devastating KO move you fear might be coming. So do you use it on the "this sucks, but doesn't cripple you" card, hoping he isn't saving a "now you lose" effect for after he baits out your defense? Or do you let the sucky effect impair you, fearing the stronger effect later?

In the second, you just don't have a choice about it: it goes off the first time its triggering conditions are met, so you hope it goes off against something where it's meaningful. "Oops, your legendary save prevented you from suffering 5 damage instead of 2! Sucks that it's gone, now."

I forget which is the default rule for Legendary Saves.


Now, if you think of the monster - and the DM - as having one of those decision sets in play, the Legendary Save becomes a strategic thing. Let's assume the monster - and the DM - can choose when to use it.

You often have a number of save-or-suck and save-or-lose spells. Don't open with the best of them! Open with lower-ranked things, things you can afford to have them save against (automatically or otherwise) but which slowly build the pressure. Ramp it up until the DM actually uses the Legendary Save. You've now used the minimum effective power to force the monster to give up its trump card. Blast it with your nastiest save-or-lose thereafter.

[Tanarii]

This isn't true. There is no RAW here. The rules as written neither require nor forbid spell identification as the spell is being cast, so it's up to the DM to make a reasonable ruling, in exactly the same way it's up to the DM whether you can smell a wet horse in the dark.
That is correct. There was no RAW (written rule) that says you know a spell being cast or from observing it's affects prior to Xanathar's.

DM can choose to rule that it's possible prior to the Xanathar's rule, but there was certainly no written rule that states or even implies it was possible.

Also, does the Xanathar's rule explicitly state it's optional? AFAIr it's the rule now, but I'm AFB so could be recalling wrong.



Also why shouldn't the monster know what the effect is? If a spell is already fully cast and taking effect why wouldn't they know? Do you not tell players what spell they're affected by if they fail a save? Because the written rules say they have to see it cast or a visible effect from it and use a reaction and make a check to learn what spell was cast.

And in theory no. Players may learn what effects their under, if they are grossly apparent. Being paralyzed or teleports somewhere for example. But some spells like Bane or Hex or Bestow Curse give no hint until they come into play. Or until you cast Detect Magic or Identify.

I say in theory because I have a horrible habit of blurting out "the evil cleric casts Bless", followed by a hail of javelins as the PCs try to disrupt concentration. (Probably not for bless but you get the idea.)

[Kane0]

Using it causes hit point damage, or better yet a level of exhaustion

[MaxWilson]

Also, does the Xanathar's rule explicitly state it's optional? AFAIr it's the rule now, but I'm AFB so could be recalling wrong.

Yes and no. It's in a section which says it contains "optional rules... meant to make your life easier. Ignore anything you find here that doesn't help you..." and then reiterates again just before giving the new spellcasting rules that "This section expands on the spellcasting rules presented in the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide, providing clarifications and new options." However, the "Identifying a Spell" subsection does not reiterate for a third time that it is explicitly optional.

This puts it on the same footing as the DMG options for Honor and Sanity ability scores (in addition to Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha), which are likewise within a section introduced as "optional" but do not explicitly repeat that they themselves are optional. I don't think any reasonable person would claim that "by RAW 5E characters have eight ability scores", just because the rule text for Honor doesn't say "And remember that Honor is an optional variant." That's not what the term "RAW" is meant to communicate.

[Boci]

This isn't true. There is no RAW here. The rules as written neither require nor forbid spell identification as the spell is being cast, so it's up to the DM to make a reasonable ruling, in exactly the same way it's up to the DM whether you can smell a wet horse in the dark.


I don't think any reasonable person would claim that "by RAW 5E characters have eight ability scores", just because the rule text for Honor doesn't say "And remember that Honor is an optional variant." That's not what the term "RAW" is meant to communicate.

Don't these two positions contradict each other? If the default assumption is varient rules are not part of RAW as the sectond position seem to indicate, then there isn't a way by RAW to identify a spell, if the only way to do so is an optional rule, but the first position disagees with that statement.

[qube]

I've been in a few boss fights that were "Cast, LR. Cast, LR. Cast, LR. Ca...nvm, the martials killed it. Gee, that was fun."You're absolutely right


Cast save or suck spell . BBEG fails save. Combat practically over before half the players get their turn

Waaay more fun combat

The run down is quite simple: . Legendairy resistances aren't there by accident - they are a mechanism introduced to protect BBEGs from effects that would ruin the combat.

People don't want legendairy resistances? OK. No problem. But take away all save or suck spells as well. 'because you can't have 'm both

... because I seriously hope nobody here is complaining how they should be allowed the one-shot the BBEG - as though that would be benificial to the game.

[Rukelnikov]

You're absolutely right


Cast save or suck spell . BBEG fails save. Combat practically over before half the players get their turn

Waaay more fun combat

The run down is quite simple: . Legendairy resistances aren't there by accident - they are a mechanism introduced to protect BBEGs from effects that would ruin the combat.

People don't want legendairy resistances? OK. No problem. But take away all save or suck spells as well. 'because you can't have 'm both

... because I seriously hope nobody here is complaining how they should be allowed the one-shot the BBEG - as though that would be benificial to the game.

I like LR, but I still don't like how fragile most monster are, a few changes I applied for most "boss" monsters were, adding proficiency -2 to their ACs, making passive resistances not be surmounted by magic weapons. Otherwise they fall too fast.

[Boci]

People don't want legendairy resistances? OK. No problem. But take away all save or suck spells as well. 'because you can't have 'm both

See wouldn't this mean WotC dropped the ball by having SoS spells in the game? Not many monsters have legendary resistance. There are a lot of monsters who lack legendary resistance that could serve as a quest's boss fight. So if LR is required because of SoS spells, hasn't WotC severly limited how DMs can plan the final encounter by cutting a good 90% of the MM out of the main role?

[Rukelnikov]

See wouldn't this mean WotC dropped the ball by having SoS spells in the game? Not many monsters have legendary resistance. There are a lot of monsters who lack legendary resistance that could serve as a quest's boss fight. So if LR is required because of SoS spells, hasn't WotC severly limited how DMs can plan the final encounter by cutting a good 90% of the MM out of the main role?

If you want your boss to have LR grant it to it. Also giving Legendary Actions, like 1 per round instead of the standard 3, and only for a move action, is sometimes necessary for them not to be kited so easily. If it makes the encounter better go for it.

[Boci]

If you want your boss to have LR grant it to it. Also giving Legendary Actions, like 1 per round instead of the standard 3, and only for a move action, is sometimes necessary for them not to be kited so easily. If it makes the encounter better go for it.

I'm well aware the DM can change anything they want in a stat profile they want. I'm asking why, if 5th ed by design require boss encounters because of SoS/D as has been the opinion of some in this thread, is it only given to a few? Its a pretty big ask to expect a new DM to realize that LR is integral to a boss monster and give it to them themselves.

[Rukelnikov]

I'm well aware the DM can change anything they want in a stat profile they want. I'm asking why, if 5th ed by design require boss encounters because of SoS/D as has been the opinion of some in this thread, is it only given to a few? Its a pretty big ask to expect a new DM to realize that LR is integral to a boss monster and give it to them themselves.

Because you can make any creature you want the BBEG. Then they would have to put LR to every creature in order to cover every possibility.

I assume they only gave it to what they thought were the ones that needed it the most?

[Boci]

Because you can make any creature you want the BBEG. Then they would have to put LR to every creature in order to cover every possibility.

And new DMs will know this how? They see legendary resistance on a finite example of monsters, then decide for their quest the BBEG will be a drow priestess. How exactly will they know that they are meant to give her LR?

[Rukelnikov]

And new DMs will know this how? They see legendary resistance on a finite example of monsters, then decide for their quest the BBEG will be a drow priestess. How exactly will they know that they are meant to give her LR?

Wait, wait, wait, I never said they're meant to do that. They most definitely are not meant to, or the system would say such a thing.

I said it's easy to do, and you should do it if you think it's something that will improve the encounter. In my case it's generally buffing AC and resistance's.

[Boci]

Wait, wait, wait, I never said they're meant to do that.

That was the premise of my comment you responded to. If, as has been said in this thread bosses need LR because of elements of 5th ed's system, specifically SoS, didn't WotC screw up by only giving it to a finite, short list of monsters and not indicating it should be auto added to any monster that serves as a final boss?

[Galithar]

That was the premise of my comment you responded to. If, as has been said in this thread bosses need LR because of elements of 5th ed's system, specifically SoS, didn't WotC screw up by only giving it to a finite, short list of monsters and not indicating it should be auto added to any monster that serves as a final boss?

No. They put it on the ones most likely to need it to enhance the combat experience. Then in the DMG they give the tools to the DM to modify creatures and create things for their campaign. A new DM may not "know to give their BBEG LR" but they may not need to. The DM that doesn't give the BBEG LR and then it dies in round 1 because of a save or suck will learn that next time they want the LR. or they may decide they liked how powerful it made their party feel and never do it. It's not in anyway a failing to not give a defense to every creature. They were showing that SOME creatures should be powerful enough to do things like this, but that not everything should be that powerful.

[Boci]

No. They put it on the ones most likely to need it to enhance the combat experience. Then in the DMG they give the tools to the DM to modify creatures and create things for their campaign. A new DM may not "know to give their BBEG LR" but they may not need to. The DM that doesn't give the BBEG LR and then it dies in round 1 because of a save or suck will learn that next time they want the LR.

Seems like in such a scenario a DM could find themselves wishing someone, say, the book, had told them that in advance so they didn't have to learn it the hard way. If WotC gave some monsters LR to "enhance the combat experience", they might have wanted to mention that so new DMs would know beforehand to give their own boss monsters LR so they don't get the unenhanced combat expirience.

[qube]

And new DMs will know this how?That's a false problem, because a new DMs shouldn't be composing his own encounters to begin with - as you can only do that succesfully if you know what you're doing - regardless of LR.

[PhoenixPhyre]

IIRC, the monster creation section does talk about LR and when to use it. It's not for all BBEGs, only those designed to be used as solo monsters. If you have minions, you need it a lot less if at all.

[Boci]

That's a false problem, because a new DMs shouldn't be composing his own encounters to begin with - as you can only do that succesfully if you know what you're doing - regardless of LR.

There is absolutly nothing wrong with a new DM composing their own encounters if they want to. They probably shouldn't be homebrewing their own monsters, but leafing through the MM and going "okay, I want you, two of you, and maybe you" is fine. Sure they'll make mistakes, its part of the learning process. Doesn't mean you can'y anticipate some of the more obvious ones, like LR and its importance/combat enhancing eggect for boss monsters.


IIRC, the monster creation section does talk about LR and when to use it. It's not for all BBEGs, only those designed to be used as solo monsters. If you have minions, you need it a lot less if at all.

That's fair enough then. I could maybe think of a better location for the rule in the encounter building section of the DMG, but that's a minor nitpick.

[Galithar]

Seems like in such a scenario a DM could find themselves wishing someone, say, the book, had told them that in advance so they didn't have to learn it the hard way. If WotC gave some monsters LR to "enhance the combat experience", they might have wanted to mention that so new DMs would know beforehand to give their own boss monsters LR so they don't get the unenhanced combat expirience.

That's what the published adventure modules are for. You run yourself through things others have created to get your feet wet and then develop your own methods to make the game yours. Plus as others have mentioned a diligent DM will find these things in the DMG and can implement them immediately if they so choose.

I for example have never used LR on any of my bosses, including removing them from some. This is because I built to my party who don't use save or suck often if ever. They like raw damage over effects.

[Boci]

That's what the published adventure modules are for.

Sure, those certainly help, but I reject them as a must. "Sorry new DM with a cool idea for a game they are eager to try and make work. I'm afraid your not allowed to use too many of your own ideas until you've run a pre-made adventure".

[Rukelnikov]

IIRC, the monster creation section does talk about LR and when to use it. It's not for all BBEGs, only those designed to be used as solo monsters. If you have minions, you need it a lot less if at all.

LR aside for a second, my players at least tend to focus damage, and if bosses are not tough enough, or the battle is not set up so getting to the boss is very complicated, they are gonna go for it with all they have, and thus the boss will be down equally fast. sure the PCs may end up falling to the minions, but then the boss ends up being a minion buffer instead of a terrifying presence, and while that fits some bosses perfectly, I'd rather most of them were a threat on their own, and have minions help them, than it being the other way round.

That's why I buff bosses durability, so going for them first isn't such an appealing strat.

[PhoenixPhyre]

LR aside for a second, my players at least tend to focus damage, and if bosses are not tough enough, or the battle is not set up so getting to the boss is very complicated, they are gonna go for it with all they have, and thus the boss will be down equally fast. sure the PCs may end up falling to the minions, but then the boss ends up being a minion buffer instead of a terrifying presence, and while that fits some bosses perfectly, I'd rather most of them were a threat on their own, and have minions help them, than it being the other way round.

That's why I buff bosses durability, so going for them first isn't such an appealing strat.

If you run a proper adventuring day, they don't have resources to go full nova.

That aside, here's my opinion.

Bosses should live long enough to be able to use their "special attacks" at least once. A dragon's breath weapon, a spell-caster's flashy spells, etc. This means that ~3 rounds of life is usually enough for this to happen.

Bosses should live short enough that the fight doesn't drag on. How long is too long depends on the players, the environment, and how much they enjoy tactical combat.

I just ran an encounter where the boss had LR. Never used them even though 2/3 players were primary casters (warlock/wizard), because the players went for damage spells. They were short a couple people (normally 5 of them), so it dragged on a bit. 9 rounds. I was playing him mostly for show, not for challenge--he didn't take the party seriously until about half-way. But he got to show off his big abilities (mainly a changing terrain/environmental/resistances/vulnerabilities effect that cycled as a reaction when he took damage, which allowed them to set up damage combos and avoid what he was resistant to). So it all depends on what the players like and how they work. If they're optimizers, have good stat rolls or strong magic items, sure. You have to beef things up quite a bit (using max health is often a good place to start). The baseline is designed to be forgiving and fun, while not feeling like padded sumo combat.

[Rukelnikov]

If you run a proper adventuring day, they don't have resources to go full nova.

That aside, here's my opinion.

Bosses should live long enough to be able to use their "special attacks" at least once. A dragon's breath weapon, a spell-caster's flashy spells, etc. This means that ~3 rounds of life is usually enough for this to happen.

Bosses should live short enough that the fight doesn't drag on. How long is too long depends on the players, the environment, and how much they enjoy tactical combat.

I just ran an encounter where the boss had LR. Never used them even though 2/3 players were primary casters (warlock/wizard), because the players went for damage spells. They were short a couple people (normally 5 of them), so it dragged on a bit. 9 rounds. I was playing him mostly for show, not for challenge--he didn't take the party seriously until about half-way. But he got to show off his big abilities (mainly a changing terrain/environmental/resistances/vulnerabilities effect that cycled as a reaction when he took damage, which allowed them to set up damage combos and avoid what he was resistant to). So it all depends on what the players like and how they work. If they're optimizers, have good stat rolls or strong magic items, sure. You have to beef things up quite a bit (using max health is often a good place to start). The baseline is designed to be forgiving and fun, while not feeling like padded sumo combat.

9 rounds sounds perfect for a boss fight that ended with a couple PCs down.

However, how come he lasted that long? I understand he had some kind of adaptive resistance, but was that what made it survive long enough, or did the players decided to clean up minions first and focus boss second?

[Boci]

[QUOTE=Rukelnikov;23839922]9 rounds sounds perfect for a boss fight that ended with a couple PCs down.

However, how come he lasted that long?/QUOTE]

PhoenixPhyre mentions that the party was short a couple of people.

[PhoenixPhyre]

9 rounds sounds perfect for a boss fight that ended with a couple PCs down.

However, how come he lasted that long? I understand he had some kind of adaptive resistance, but was that what made it survive long enough, or did the players decided to clean up minions first and focus boss second?

They were running around not being very effective for the first few rounds. And they're super not optimized. Like the fighter (at level 5) has 15 STR and nearly as much DEX. He missed nearly every attack. But it was still tons of fun. And that's what's important.

And they weren't down PCs because they got killed...it was because 2 of the players didn't show up (school club situation). They're level 6, facing a CR 11-ish boss (Horned Devil + LR + adaptive aura, 200 HP). I'd have nuked them if I played it to its fullest, but I pulled punches. Because that's what they individually find fun.

[Frozenstep]

You're absolutely right


Cast save or suck spell . BBEG fails save. Combat practically over before half the players get their turn

Waaay more fun combat

The run down is quite simple: . Legendairy resistances aren't there by accident - they are a mechanism introduced to protect BBEGs from effects that would ruin the combat.

People don't want legendairy resistances? OK. No problem. But take away all save or suck spells as well. 'because you can't have 'm both

... because I seriously hope nobody here is complaining how they should be allowed the one-shot the BBEG - as though that would be benificial to the game.

I'm pretty sure everyone understands why legendary saves exist, and that it does do its job to some extent. But it's predictable, gamey, and clumsy. If you checked out some of the responses in this thread, you'll see there are other ideas on how to have bosses that don't get crippled by save or sucks, but also don't make a control-type character roll their eyes as they break character to start using damage spells/abilities.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm pretty sure everyone understands why legendary saves exist, and that it does do its job to some extent. But it's predictable, gamey, and clumsy. If you checked out some of the responses in this thread, you'll see there are other ideas on how to have bosses that don't get crippled by save or sucks, but also don't make a control-type character roll their eyes as they break character to start using damage spells/abilities.

If you're overspecialized...you pay the price. Seriously, it's that simple. Same if you're a paladin and have nothing to do on a flying fight. Don't put yourself in that position and everything's fine.

[Boci]

If you're overspecialized...you pay the price. Seriously, it's that simple.

And yet people are offering alternative ways of handling LR, suggesting there is an interest in ways beyond your simple solution.

[PhoenixPhyre]

And yet people are offering alternative ways of handling LR, suggesting there is an interest in ways beyond your simple solution.

People offer alternative ways to do everything, so that's not so simple. The complaint was that LR makes a control-focused character "break character and start doing damage". But every adventuring caster should be doing damage all along--no one has the resources to do nothing but control spells. If you're that cripplingly overspecialized and things break...the problem is you, not the system.

[Frozenstep]

If you're overspecialized...you pay the price. Seriously, it's that simple. Same if you're a paladin and have nothing to do on a flying fight. Don't put yourself in that position and everything's fine.

And so what? My control wizard spams fireball literally every time there's a boss? Man, what an exciting tactical choice. I exaggerate, of course, but if literally every boss has LR, your tactics will look the same almost every time and it just feels out of place and out of character. I don't mind needing to switch up tactics, but it just feels like a loss because you take a huge number of spells and chuck them out of the window of ever being a tactical choice in a boss fight. I feel like that's a loss in creative solutioning.

[Boci]

People offer alternative ways to do everything, so that's not so simple. The complaint was that LR makes a control-focused character "break character and start doing damage". But every adventuring caster should be doing damage all along--no one has the resources to do nothing but control spells. If you're that cripplingly overspecialized and things break...the problem is you, not the system.

I mean, that's technically true, but isn't it really petty?

Most groups can probably find something about 5th ed they can tweak to enjoy it better. Most groups would probably find that when comparing notes, they don't match up. What's wrong with a group tweaking the rules to accomodate a damage-less caster?

[Rukelnikov]

They were running around not being very effective for the first few rounds. And they're super not optimized. Like the fighter (at level 5) has 15 STR and nearly as much DEX. He missed nearly every attack. But it was still tons of fun. And that's what's important.

And they weren't down PCs because they got killed...it was because 2 of the players didn't show up (school club situation). They're level 6, facing a CR 11-ish boss (Horned Devil + LR + adaptive aura, 200 HP). I'd have nuked them if I played it to its fullest, but I pulled punches. Because that's what they individually find fun.

Oh ok, my group generally has SOME baseline optimization, and years of tactics.

I get the impression monsters in the MM are balanced around no feats and no multiclass, and it had to be that way, cause those were made optional rules. Maybe the reasoning went like "if they are using multiclass and feats, they probably have a grasp on the system and can tweak monsters to fit the adventure. While newer players need to be able to run monsters straight from the MM"

Later MMs though I get the impression were assigned CRs a bit lower than comparable monsters from the MM (maybe taking feats an MC into account since that became the norm for AL?)

[Galithar]

Sure, those certainly help, but I reject them as a must. "Sorry new DM with a cool idea for a game they are eager to try and make work. I'm afraid your not allowed to use too many of your own ideas until you've run a pre-made adventure".

Again you're the only way saying it's a must. They gave people the resources to learn this stuff. It's in the DMG. It's in published modules. If you choose to DM for your first time without the guidance of the resources they provided, then yes, you are likely to make mistakes. I for one made lots of mistakes in my first sessions as a DM even WITH reading through the DMG thoroughly and using a published module.

I'm simply stating that you can't say WotC failed to give new DMs the resources to learn these things before making the mistake. They can print the books, but they can't make you read them.

In the DMG creating a monster section it goes through all the specials you can give creatures (the as written abilities at least!) and how it affects their CR. Legendary resistance gives between 10 and 30 effective HP per use available according to them. The accuracy of this is up for debate of course, but the information is there.

Since no encounter NEEDS legendary resistance there's no reason to make a big deal about it. They put it in the books. They gave it to who they think are powerful monsters. Then they put information about applying it to other creatures. That's all the information a DM needs. It's much better this way then implying, or outright stating, to a new DM that bosses must have this ability or they aren't bosses.

[Boci]

Again you're the only way saying it's a must.

Nope. I was responding to another poster:


That's a false problem, because a new DMs shouldn't be composing his own encounters to begin with

I disagree. New DMs should absolutly be doing that, if that's what attracted them to trying it out.

[Rukelnikov]

People offer alternative ways to do everything, so that's not so simple. The complaint was that LR makes a control-focused character "break character and start doing damage". But every adventuring caster should be doing damage all along--no one has the resources to do nothing but control spells. If you're that cripplingly overspecialized and things break...the problem is you, not the system.

That is a pretty foolish complaint, unless dominated or similar, you choose what your character does. If you don't want your character to deal damage and focus exclusively in debuff and CC LR is not forbidding you to do it.

I had a character whom I decided would never do an attack roll, and I didn't even when it would have been beneficial, it was a cleric, spiritual weapon would have meant free damage. The only time I used it was when a high up from our small order was killed in front of me, and his desire to avenge her was enough to move him out from his lazyness.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Oh ok, my group generally has SOME baseline optimization, and years of tactics.

I get the impression monsters in the MM are balanced around no feats and no multiclass, and it had to be that way, cause those were made optional rules. Maybe the reasoning went like "if they are using multiclass and feats, they probably have a grasp on the system and can tweak monsters to fit the adventure. While newer players need to be able to run monsters straight from the MM"

Later MMs though I get the impression were assigned CRs a bit lower than comparable monsters from the MM (maybe taking feats an MC into account since that became the norm for AL?)

It's definitely (and explicitly) balanced around no feats/no multiclass/no +X items.

My rule of thumb:

For every combat feat, increase the effective level of the character by 1.
For every +X weapon (ie for every +1, so a +3 counts as 3), increase the effective level by 0.5, 1 if under tier 3.
For every +X armor, increase the effective level by 1.

Wands of the war mage count as +X weapons.

[Rukelnikov]

It's definitely (and explicitly) balanced around no feats/no multiclass/no +X items.

My rule of thumb:

For every combat feat, increase the effective level of the character by 1.
For every +X weapon (ie for every +1, so a +3 counts as 3), increase the effective level by 0.5, 1 if under tier 3.
For every +X armor, increase the effective level by 1.

Wands of the war mage count as +X weapons.

Yeah, but just balancing fights around higher CR monsters has the result of players getting much more XP and levelling faster, and now you need stronger monsters and it becomes a vicious cycle.

That's why I buffed monsters instead of throwing higher CR ones.

Next time I DM I'll do milestone levelling. However that's a change that runs contrary to some of the core of what DnD is, kill monsters, gain XP, loot stuff, and may not fly in every group.

[Frozenstep]

That is a pretty foolish complaint, unless dominated or similar, you choose what your character does. If you don't want your character to deal damage and focus exclusively in debuff and CC LR is not forbidding you to do it.

When I made that complaint, I meant it can be weird and meta-gamey. Hey, our wizard who usually uses restrains and charms is suddenly spamming fireballs on this enemy. While before he tried to figure out what spells the enemy would struggle to resist, now he's just going straight damage from round 1 or 2. Why? Because the player wants to participate in the boss battle and help his party.

I mean, you can find a way to justify the narrative with it (I need to weaken the beast before my charms will work!), but I personally like the idea of trying something else out that makes more sense, instead of making spellcasters rely on the same few spells every time a boss shows up, and switch back to old tactics once 3 legendary saves get used up. Feels like meta-gamey and silly to me.

[Rukelnikov]

When I made that complaint, I meant it can be weird and meta-gamey. Hey, our wizard who usually uses restrains and charms is suddenly spamming fireballs on this enemy. While before he tried to figure out what spells the enemy would struggle to resist, now he's just going straight damage from round 1 or 2. Why? Because the player wants to participate in the boss battle and help his party.

Ok, maybe an Arcana check could let your character know about dragon's legendary resistance to magic, and that's why he goes for damage spells since those tend to at least have some effect on them?

[Boci]

Ok, maybe an Arcana check could let your character know about dragon's legendary resistance to magic, and that's why he goes for damage spells since those tend to at least have some effect on them?

And if they fail the roll? They have to use the spells they normally would open with, which has never before been fireball?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yeah, but just balancing fights around higher CR monsters has the result of players getting much more XP and levelling faster, and now you need stronger monsters and it becomes a vicious cycle.

That's why I buffed monsters instead of throwing higher CR ones.

Next time I DM I'll do milestone levelling. However that's a change that runs contrary to some of the core of what DnD is, kill monsters, gain XP, loot stuff, and may not fly in every group.

I've been doing milestone leveling (more precisely "fiat leveling") for my entire career except for the one I'm a player in (which is a published adventure). And it's totally my favorite. They level up approximately every few meaningful sessions, where "every few" is up to me and "meaningful" is up to them. Did they do something that advances whatever plot they're working on? It's meaningful.

For my school groups (which are limited to 1.5 hours 1/week during the school year at most), I try to get from levels 1-5 or 6. Quick through levels 1-2, slower from there.

I don't care about XP or the incentives it brings.

[Boci]

I don't care about XP or the incentives it brings.

I played with a DM once who only awarded trap XP if you took damage from it. It was wierd, hearing how a fellow PC fell into a spiked pit and thinking "Lucky bastard".

[Frozenstep]

Ok, maybe an Arcana check could let your character know about dragon's legendary resistance to magic, and that's why he goes for damage spells since those tend to at least have some effect on them?

And how does he know exactly when 3 legendary saves have been used up, and starts going back to control spells? Either it feels meta-gamey, or it feels like you're forced to play in a way you know is worse. That's fine sometimes, but not every boss fight.

[Rukelnikov]

I've been doing milestone leveling (more precisely "fiat leveling") for my entire career except for the one I'm a player in (which is a published adventure). And it's totally my favorite. They level up approximately every few meaningful sessions, where "every few" is up to me and "meaningful" is up to them. Did they do something that advances whatever plot they're working on? It's meaningful.

For my school groups (which are limited to 1.5 hours 1/week during the school year at most), I try to get from levels 1-5 or 6. Quick through levels 1-2, slower from there.

I don't care about XP or the incentives it brings.

We mostly never did that in DnD because it was the one thing making dnd different. In WoD, SW, TBZ, most other systems we play/ed, combat doesn't translate to XP, you gain basically as much or little as the DM wants to hand out (except in TBZ, but well, its such a different concept of "xp" that its hard to compare). That was unique of dnd, and it worked ok since it was the most combat oriented of all. I don't fully like turning it into into every other "DM chooses when you get what", but I really didn't like how our 5e campaigns have been working XP wise, and there are no built in XP sinks as there were in 3e to lure them into creating magic items/casting spells with XP component to slow their leveling a bit.

[Rukelnikov]

And how does he know exactly when 3 legendary saves have been used up, and starts going back to control spells? Either it feels meta-gamey, or it feels like you're forced to play in a way you know is worse. That's fine sometimes, but not every boss fight.

That's 100% metagame I'm sorry to tell you but its the case, btw the DM doesn't need to tell you when he uses LR, ours didn't, and I think its fairer for everybody, since you won't know when he has used up all his LRs, and then you get real choice without feeling like you are cheating.

[Boci]

That's 100% metagame I'm sorry to tell you but its the case, btw the DM doesn't need to tell you when he uses LR, ours didn't, and I think its fairer for everybody, since you won't know when he has used up all his LRs, and then you get real choice without feeling like you are cheating.

Except for the whole cheating by switching to damage spells despite them not being a first choice for your character because you somehow magically know the creature has LR.

[PhoenixPhyre]

We mostly never did that in DnD because it was the one thing making dnd different. In WoD, SW, TBZ, most other systems we play/ed, combat doesn't translate to XP, you gain basically as much or little as the DM wants to hand out (except in TBZ, but well, its such a different concept of "xp" that its hard to compare). That was unique of dnd, and it worked ok since it was the most combat oriented of all. I don't fully like turning it into into every other "DM chooses when you get what", but I really didn't like how our 5e campaigns have been working XP wise, and there are no built in XP sinks as there were in 3e to lure them into creating magic items/casting spells with XP component to slow their leveling a bit.

I find that when people are focused on advancement and pushing every advantage, every system breaks down. Basically, unless you want a fiat leveling system you need a gentlemen's agreement not to push the envelope.

But then I'm kind of an anti-challenge person--I don't care for it. I play on easy mode in most games, more for the story than anything. I don't compete, nor do I push competition or "numbers". Most of my combats, taken objectively, are pretty darn easy. But I focus on providing more of what the players like and less of what they don't, and so far I've been very blessed to have like-minded people at my tables. People who are character driven and don't really care about numbers. Sure, rolling big dice is fun. But it's more about the "look, I can do cool thing!" than about optimizing effectiveness. And since I don't require optimization to succeed, I don't get the feedback loop. They steamroll many encounters (thinking a hard encounter is one where one of them gets below 10% health and a really hard one is one where 1 or more people go to 0 at least once), but have tons of fun doing so. And the ones that come back are still playing (in many different systems) years later. So :shrug:

[Rukelnikov]

Except for the whole cheating by switching to damage spells despite them not being a first choice for your character because you somehow magically know the creature has LR.

Nothing magical in that knowledge, if you pass an Arcana check, it means you studied the creatures and know about their LR.

[Boci]

Nothing magical in that knowledge, if you pass an Arcana check, it means you studied the creatures and know about their LR.

And if you don't pass the arcane check?

[Rukelnikov]

I find that when people are focused on advancement and pushing every advantage, every system breaks down. Basically, unless you want a fiat leveling system you need a gentlemen's agreement not to push the envelope.

But in other systems not all characters are combatants, those who are, are gonna get stronger, those who aren't may be as apt at combat in session 1 as they are in session 10. And as I said, every other system is a fiat DM one, dnd's thing, was giving the players more agency in that regard.


But then I'm kind of an anti-challenge person--I don't care for it. I play on easy mode in most games, more for the story than anything. I don't compete, nor do I push competition or "numbers". Most of my combats, taken objectively, are pretty darn easy. But I focus on providing more of what the players like and less of what they don't, and so far I've been very blessed to have like-minded people at my tables. People who are character driven and don't really care about numbers. Sure, rolling big dice is fun. But it's more about the "look, I can do cool thing!" than about optimizing effectiveness. And since I don't require optimization to succeed, I don't get the feedback loop. They steamroll many encounters (thinking a hard encounter is one where one of them gets below 10% health and a really hard one is one where 1 or more people go to 0 at least once), but have tons of fun doing so. And the ones that come back are still playing (in many different systems) years later. So :shrug:

I play games in hard/very hard, and play the least useful in combat characters of my party (for the last 10 years or so at least, and i'm easily the best optimizer of my group). But I don't see what that has to do, we do a single fight a night on average, generally only 20-25% of the night is combat, but if the CL/CR/XP system is busted, as it is when playing with "optional" (but actually official in AL) rules of feats and multiclass, it doesn't matter how much or little importance is put into combat.

[MaxWilson]

Don't these two positions contradict each other? If the default assumption is varient rules are not part of RAW as the sectond position seem to indicate, then there isn't a way by RAW to identify a spell, if the only way to do so is an optional rule, but the first position disagees with that statement.

Nope, no contradiction--those paragraphs are both saying the same thing: RAW is silent on the matter. Whether your DM chooses to permit spell identification automatically or forbid it entirely or do something on an ad hoc basis, all three approaches are RAW-compliant.

[Rukelnikov]

And if you don't pass the arcane check?

Then you should roleplay as your character and not metagame, but there's lots of people who don't like their characters not performing at 110%...

[Boci]

Nope, no contradiction--those paragraphs are both saying the same thing: RAW is silent on the matter. Whether your DM chooses to permit spell identification automatically or forbid it entirely or do something on an ad hoc basis, all three approaches are RAW-compliant.

Yes, but just because they are all RAW-compliant doesn't mean they are equal. A lot of illusion spells would get punded hard into the ground with auto identification for example.


Then you should roleplay as your character and not metagame, but there's lots of people who don't like their characters not performing at 110%...

A control wizard trying to stunlock a LR boss is going to end up being a little more than just "not performing at 110%".

[Rukelnikov]

Yes, but just because they are all RAW-compliant doesn't mean they are equal. A lot of illusion spells would get punded hard into the ground with auto identification for example.

A good chunk of the enchantment school is rendered useless by RAW, since a mere Suggestion requires saying arcane words beforehand, my target may not be able to do much about it, but everyone else in the room when I casted the suggestion knows that something fishy happened.

[Rukelnikov]

A control wizard trying to stunlock a LR boss is going to end up being a little more than just "not performing at 110%".

Its going to end up useless you mean? Thats perfectly ok. That's how learning works, you fail and adapt. Next time he's gonna try something new. Same that happens with the DM that gets his boss shut down first round, next time, he's gonna do something different.

[Boci]

A good chunk of the enchantment school is rendered useless by RAW, since a mere Suggestion requires saying arcane words beforehand, my target may not be able to do much about it, but everyone else in the room when I casted the suggestion knows that something fishy happened.

And that makes suggestion useless how? You have to be careful when you use it. Its still a very useful spell.


Its going to end up useless you mean? Thats perfectly ok. That's how learning works, you fail and adapt. Next time he's gonna try something new.

Next time? You mean, next time against that same boss monster? That might not happen. Next time against an LR monster? How will they know that?

[PhoenixPhyre]

I play games in hard/very hard, and play the least useful in combat characters of my party (for the last 10 years or so at least, and i'm easily the best optimizer of my group). But I don't see what that has to do, we do a single fight a night on average, generally only 20-25% of the night is combat, but if the CL/CR/XP system is busted, as it is when playing with "optional" (but actually official in AL) rules of feats and multiclass, it doesn't matter how much or little importance is put into combat.

It's not busted, it's just easier than it otherwise could be. Which is normal--the DMG even says it will be. But the other option would be to balance around maximal optimization and kill all those newbies that they're trying to attract. It's easier to make an easy baseline harder (you can do it iteratively and slowly, getting a feel for it) but much harder to do so in reverse. And much more frustrating.

[Frozenstep]

That's 100% metagame I'm sorry to tell you but its the case, btw the DM doesn't need to tell you when he uses LR, ours didn't, and I think its fairer for everybody, since you won't know when he has used up all his LRs, and then you get real choice without feeling like you are cheating.

In that case, it feels like you don't get to make many interesting choices as a player. A choice isn't a choice if one option is clearly far less desirable then the other. It just isn't worth the risk to try a spell that already has a huge risk of making you waste an action and a valuable spell slot. I mean, sometimes exceptions will come up, but for something as important as boss fights, I think we can do better then to offer the player no interesting choices.

[PhoenixPhyre]

In that case, it feels like you don't get to make many interesting choices as a player. A choice isn't a choice if one option is clearly far less desirable then the other. It just isn't worth the risk to try a spell that already has a huge risk of making you waste an action and a valuable spell slot. I mean, sometimes exceptions will come up, but for something as important as boss fights, I think we can do better then to offer the player no interesting choices.

That's not true. Mechanical power is only part of the equation. And again, if all you're fighting is LR bosses, once per day, no minions...you're well outside the system parameters and can expect breakage no matter what you do. So don't do that. It's that simple. No other solution will work, but this one will. Don't do that.

[Boci]

That's not true. Mechanical power is only part of the equation. And again, if all you're fighting is LR bosses, once per day, no minions...you're well outside the system parameters and can expect breakage no matter what you do. So don't do that. It's that simple. No other solution will work, but this one will. Don't do that.

Tweaking a system is a totally acceptable solution that often works. There's varient rules that do just that, and you're not restricted to only using them. So no, "don't do that" is not the only solution. I don't know why you keep insisting on it.

[Frozenstep]

Its going to end up useless you mean? Thats perfectly ok. That's how learning works, you fail and adapt. Next time he's gonna try something new. Same that happens with the DM that gets his boss shut down first round, next time, he's gonna do something different.

Yeah, like spam fireball, every time. So interesting...

[PhoenixPhyre]

Tweaking a system is a totally acceptable solution that often works. There's varient rules that do just that, and you're not restricted to only using them. So no, "don't do that" is not the only solution. I don't know why you keep insisting on it.

Even the variant rules don't let you do "nothing but the same solo LR boss, all the time" gracefully. Nothing does. You're completely changing the whole balance point of the game when you do that.

Things devalued:
* Control
* AoE
* Adaptation to new situations
* Longevity (ie many of the capstones)
* healing
* debuffing
* etc.

Basically anything but straight nova damage is minimized in this case. Of course it's not going to be fun--you're using a pitchfork as a shovel. You're going against everything the system tells you to do and doing everything it tells you not to do. Breakage in this case is expected. To which the only answer is "stop breaking it".

[Rukelnikov]

In that case, it feels like you don't get to make many interesting choices as a player. A choice isn't a choice if one option is clearly far less desirable then the other. It just isn't worth the risk to try a spell that already has a huge risk of making you waste an action and a valuable spell slot. I mean, sometimes exceptions will come up, but for something as important as boss fights, I think we can do better then to offer the player no interesting choices.

Knowing the result of an action beforehand is one the things I find farthest from interesting, so I guess it depends from person to person what an "interesting choice" is.

If you are fighting a creature with no LR and it just makes every save, you are in the same spot as if it made those saves using it. The difference being "it feels cheap", well, when a monster is immune to some status is it cheap? Because that's basically the same as having infinite LRs against effects with that descriptor. However if you as a player know it is immune and don't use such spells on it, even when your PC doesn't then the DM, and the story for that matter, are the ones being cheated.

That's one of the reasons I seldom use any printed creature for important enemies, unless I heavily modify them, cause otherwise the player gets put in the ****ty situation of "I know that fiend is immune to acid, and I always spam vitriolic sphere, but my character doesn't... so do I waste my round and slot already knowing the result beforehand or do I metagame?", and it also puts the DM in a ****ty situation of "These creatures would be fitting here, however, we fought one of those already at some point in the past, so my players know its powers, so now do I put this creature in the story, thus putting the players in the situation described above, or do I just never use it again to prevent that?"

That's why keeping LR use secret is better, because it negates the player "choice" of whether to metagame or know beforehand that what they are trying is not gonna succeed.


Yeah, like spam fireball, every time. So interesting...

If that keeps working everytime, seems like the DM is not learning much from previous encounters.


And that makes suggestion useless how? You have to be careful when you use it. Its still a very useful spell.

Making it overt, and thus turning what is supposed to be the "social" school of magic into ust another school of magic


Next time? You mean, next time against that same boss monster? That might not happen. Next time against an LR monster? How will they know that?

Next time maybe they make the arcana check, or they did research on what they are gonna be fighting, instead of kicking in the door?

[Boci]

Even the variant rules don't let you do "nothing but the same solo LR boss, all the time" gracefully. Nothing does. You're completely changing the whole balance point of the game when you do that.

Things devalued:
* Control
* AoE
* Adaptation to new situations
* Longevity (ie many of the capstones)
* healing
* debuffing
* etc.

Basically anything but straight nova damage is minimized in this case. Of course it's not going to be fun--you're using a pitchfork as a shovel. You're going against everything the system tells you to do and doing everything it tells you not to do. Breakage in this case is expected. To which the only answer is "stop breaking it".

What?

"PCs wake up in a mist shrouded city. They are equipt well, and at mid level. They have no idea how they got there. Ancient, massive and seeming abandoned at first three types of creatures show themselves when the PC begin to explore:

Pitiful wretches deakt with in a cut scene because theres no point rolling
Miserable creatures capable of speech and not aggresive, some of whom can shed light on just what this place is, or who they can expect to face ahead, or just pass the time talking about the crumbling rocks and the plants that grow in the cracks
Traditional boss monsters alone in an arena"

I can totally make that work (part of it would be removing LR from the monsters that usual have it, because by nature of the game they aren't special on their own so it doesn't matter if a lucky spell drops them). I dare say I can find players who will like it. So, no, I will not "stop breaking it". D&D is adaptable, if you are willing to try.


Making it overt, and thus turning what is supposed to be the "social" school of magic into ust another school of magic

No, it just requires some creativity, and proficiency in deception doesn't hurt. Here's one way you can mask casting suggestion, off the top of my head:

"Hey, is your sword magical? Let me check. Galzi-ronta-shiir. Nope, my mistake. Hey, could you..."

[Rukelnikov]

It's not busted, it's just easier than it otherwise could be. Which is normal--the DMG even says it will be. But the other option would be to balance around maximal optimization and kill all those newbies that they're trying to attract. It's easier to make an easy baseline harder (you can do it iteratively and slowly, getting a feel for it) but much harder to do so in reverse. And much more frustrating.

If its not busted, why don't you use it?

And I don't think the game should be balanced around Sorlocks, Sorcadins, or Portent fishing divinators, but if AL plays with feats and MC, uts because that's what they want/expect the game to be played like. Same thing with magic items, "they are totally optional", every single published adventure has lots of them, random magic item tables are still there, and in AL you can actually get them with 100% certainty as long as you play X module and X amount of times. The say one thing, but do everything pointing in another direction, and thus they end up having to balance for vanilla, but expecting the game to be played with 3 "add-ons" that will make vanilla monster a cakewalk.

[Rukelnikov]

"Hey, is your sword magical? Let me check. Galzi-ronta-shiir. Nope, my mistake. Hey, could you..."

Yeah, I guess casting overtly in the middle of a social meeting doesn't raise suspicions at all.

[Boci]

Yeah, I guess casting overtly in the middle of a social meeting doesn't raise suspicions at all.

What's suspicious about casting detect magic because you thought an item might be enchanted? Or magically communicating with a friend because you wanted to check something. "Yes, it was the nation of Taulak. Speaking of, can I ask..."

Yeah, suggestion would be way more powerful with built in subtle spell built in, but its not useless without it.

[MaxWilson]

We mostly never did that in DnD because it was the one thing making dnd different. In WoD, SW, TBZ, most other systems we play/ed, combat doesn't translate to XP, you gain basically as much or little as the DM wants to hand out (except in TBZ, but well, its such a different concept of "xp" that its hard to compare). That was unique of dnd, and it worked ok since it was the most combat oriented of all. I don't fully like turning it into into every other "DM chooses when you get what", but I really didn't like how our 5e campaigns have been working XP wise, and there are no built in XP sinks as there were in 3e to lure them into creating magic items/casting spells with XP component to slow their leveling a bit.

One idea for broadening play which I'd like to try out some day is to have each PC choose an Archetype in addition to Race/Class, and this Archetype controls how you gain XP. Something along the lines of:

Archetype XP

This optional rule variant is designed to motivate players to be proactive about pursuing character-driven narratives, and to de-emphasize hack-and-slash combat for most PCs. Under Archetype XP, you gain XP not for killing monsters but for

(1) fulfilling your PC's Archetype, and

(2) encountering DM-generated challenges that prevent you from achieving your goals.

Fulfilling Archetypes:

The DM will work with the player to design an appropriate Archetype for the PC, one which descibes who this PC is and what motivates them. Some example archetypes could include:

Benefactor: you are driven to help others and make a positive difference in their lives.
Major achievement: change someone's life permanently for the better, e.g. provide funds and training to lift a pauper out of poverty.
Minor achievement: do a good turn for someone who can't return the favor.

Brute: you seek physical conflict and excel at imposing your will on others
Major achievement: single-handedly defeat an opponent more powerful than yourself (by level = CR)
Major achievement: work with others to defeat an enemy force whose total levels or CR exceeds your own total
Minor achievement: win a fight

Treasure-Hunter: you seek wealth and treasure and the good things that come with it
Major achievement: acquire a magic item unlike any you have ever owned before
Minor achievement: increase your net worth by at least (your level x 100 gp) by acquiring gold or other valuables

At the end of every game session or adventure, each PC who has achieved something major for their Archetype gains XP equal to their level times 500 XP. This should be fairly rare. A PC who has only achieved something minor instead gains only their level times 100 XP, and for most PCs this should happen in most adventures. Otherwise no XP is awarded at the end of the adventure.


DM-generated challenges and ad hoc XP

In addition to the XP you acquire for fulfilling archetype goals, the DM may also award you ad hoc XP for obstacles placed unfairly in your path through no fault of your own (to make your life more interesting). For example, if you are a Treasure-Hunter working with a pair of Brutes to kill owlbears and sell their eggs on the black market, you might run into unexpected complications if a key bridge on your way home collapses and you are forced to detour through giant country, and discover a caravan being attacked by four hill giants. This detour wasn't the result of any choices you made--the DM just did it to make the game more interesting--and it would be appropriate for the DM to award you XP for your unwilling adventures.

One method I personally like to use is to grant XP as soon as a challenge appears, and that XP is proportional to the second-easiest method I can think of for the PCs to overcome the challenge. If the challenge is a simple one with only two resolutions, e.g. "give up, turn around, and run away from the hill giants or kill them", well, running away is easy when the giants are distracted, so clearly killing the giants is only the second-easiest way to resolve the situation. Killing four hill giants is worth 7200 XP, so as soon as the PCs see the giants, I'd announce that there has been a complication and their way forward is blocked by this caravan under attack, and the party gains 7200 XP (split three ways for three PCs), and then ask what they want to do. They're already gained XP for the challenge so there is no temptation to metagame and kill every single monster for more XP, but if they don't overcome the challenge they won't achieve their Archetype goals and may suffer other consequences. Furthermore, the scale of the difficulty in front of them is roughly telegraphed by how much XP they gain, which serves as fair warning to players when they might be about to engage with something fearfully deadly.


These are just my design notes, not playtested, and I don't know if I've struck the right balance between rewarding PCs who tenaciously stick to their goals vs. encouraging realistic threat assessments and smart play/strategic withdrawals/Combat As War, but that's the rough idea anyway. Choose an archetype independent of class and get XP largely based on that explicit choice you made.

[Frozenstep]

Knowing the result of an action beforehand is one the things I find farthest from interesting, so I guess it depends from person to person what an "interesting choice" is.

On the flip side, having no information means you cannot make a real choice.




If you are fighting a creature with no LR and it just makes every save, you are in the same spot as if it made those saves using it. The difference being "it feels cheap", well, when a monster is immune to some status is it cheap? Because that's basically the same as having infinite LRs against effects with that descriptor. However if you as a player know it is immune and don't use such spells on it, even when your PC doesn't then the DM, and the story for that matter, are the ones being cheated.

See, if something is immune to something, you can often have a clue of it before you do anything. Enemy is made of fire? Let's not try fireball, there's a higher chance then not it has resistance if not immunity. There are a lot of things the characters should be able to see or ask about. As for other things, I find it works best if a single try is enough to inform you that the enemy is immune. You splash acid on the black dragon, but it doesn't seem to leave any burns whatsoever. You try to charm the enemy, but realize your charm spell doesn't even properly target them, there's no brain to target.




That's one of the reasons I seldom use any printed creature for important enemies, unless I heavily modify them, cause otherwise the player gets put in the ****ty situation of "I know that fiend is immune to acid, and I always spam vitriolic sphere, but my character doesn't... so do I waste my round and slot already knowing the result beforehand or do I metagame?", and it also puts the DM in a ****ty situation of "These creatures would be fitting here, however, we fought one of those already at some point in the past, so my players know its powers, so now do I put this creature in the story, thus putting the players in the situation described above, or do I just never use it again to prevent that?"

That's why keeping LR use secret is better, because it negates the player "choice" of whether to metagame or know beforehand that what they are trying is not gonna succeed.

I also homebrew the hell out of a lot of things, but I'm trying to create a game where players learn and change their tactics. If you hide LR, then I assume you also hide saving throws made by monsters? How are players supposed to figure out what kind of spells they should be using? Even if they target the weak saves, you can LR them and throw them off the trail. At some point they'd learn to just not use saving throws against anything that looks vaguely important.



If that keeps working everytime, seems like the DM is not learning much from previous encounters.

It's not players VS DM here. And the point is you take like 50% of the spell list and make it useless. What is there to learn when everything is hidden? Play evocation, or just play a gish/martial.

Look, we run different kinds of games, so what works for you works for you and I'm not saying you should change. But I think as it stands, LR could be done better and work better in many other cases with a few tweaks.

I run a game where I feel an important part of my players having fun is the feeling of doing your part. Having a player feel useless for several rounds in a row happens sometimes, and while not ideal, it's just part of the game. Having that forcibly happen to certain players every time a boss encounter comes around is unacceptable in my eyes. That's why I think it doesn't work.

[Rukelnikov]

One idea for broadening play which I'd like to try out some day is to have each PC choose an Archetype in addition to Race/Class, and this Archetype controls how you gain XP. Something along the lines of:

Archetype XP

This optional rule variant is designed to motivate players to be proactive about pursuing character-driven narratives, and to de-emphasize hack-and-slash combat for most PCs. Under Archetype XP, you gain XP not for killing monsters but for

(1) fulfilling your PC's Archetype, and

(2) encountering DM-generated challenges that prevent you from achieving your goals.

Fulfilling Archetypes:

The DM will work with the player to design an appropriate Archetype for the PC, one which descibes who this PC is and what motivates them. Some example archetypes could include:

Benefactor: you are driven to help others and make a positive difference in their lives.
Major achievement: change someone's life permanently for the better, e.g. provide funds and training to lift a pauper out of poverty.
Minor achievement: do a good turn for someone who can't return the favor.

Brute: you seek physical conflict and excel at imposing your will on others
Major achievement: single-handedly defeat an opponent more powerful than yourself (by level = CR)
Major achievement: work with others to defeat an enemy force whose total levels or CR exceeds your own total
Minor achievement: win a fight

Treasure-Hunter: you seek wealth and treasure and the good things that come with it
Major achievement: acquire a magic item unlike any you have ever owned before
Minor achievement: increase your net worth by at least (your level x 100 gp) by acquiring gold or other valuables

At the end of every game session or adventure, each PC who has achieved something major for their Archetype gains XP equal to their level times 500 XP. This should be fairly rare. A PC who has only achieved something minor instead gains only their level times 100 XP, and for most PCs this should happen in most adventures. Otherwise no XP is awarded at the end of the adventure.


DM-generated challenges and ad hoc XP

In addition to the XP you acquire for fulfilling archetype goals, the DM may also award you ad hoc XP for obstacles placed unfairly in your path through no fault of your own (to make your life more interesting). For example, if you are a Treasure-Hunter working with a pair of Brutes to kill owlbears and sell their eggs on the black market, you might run into unexpected complications if a key bridge on your way home collapses and you are forced to detour through giant country, and discover a caravan being attacked by four hill giants. This detour wasn't the result of any choices you made--the DM just did it to make the game more interesting--and it would be appropriate for the DM to award you XP for your unwilling adventures.

One method I personally like to use is to grant XP as soon as a challenge appears, and that XP is proportional to the second-easiest method I can think of for the PCs to overcome the challenge. If the challenge is a simple one with only two resolutions, e.g. "give up, turn around, and run away from the hill giants or kill them", well, running away is easy when the giants are distracted, so clearly killing the giants is only the second-easiest way to resolve the situation. Killing four hill giants is worth 7200 XP, so as soon as the PCs see the giants, I'd announce that there has been a complication and their way forward is blocked by this caravan under attack, and the party gains 7200 XP (split three ways for three PCs), and then ask what they want to do. They're already gained XP for the challenge so there is no temptation to metagame and kill every single monster for more XP, but if they don't overcome the challenge they won't achieve their Archetype goals and may suffer other consequences. Furthermore, the scale of the difficulty in front of them is roughly telegraphed by how much XP they gain, which serves as fair warning to players when they might be about to engage with something fearfully deadly.


These are just my design notes, not playtested, and I don't know if I've struck the right balance between rewarding PCs who tenaciously stick to their goals vs. encouraging realistic threat assessments and smart play/strategic withdrawals/Combat As War, but that's the rough idea anyway. Choose an archetype independent of class and get XP largely based on that explicit choice you made.

You should really really look into Tenra Bansho Zero.

The system has a lot of that. Basically, you have motivations, in varying degrees, players hand each other "Aiki" when they do something narratively meriting, then between scenes, you can roll to turn "Aiki" into "Kiai" (which is the closest to XP the system has), the highest motivation you have influeces the roll. "Kiai" is spent for permanent increases to your character, or to improve rolls. Thing is, every "Kiai" point you spend gains you Karma, if you go above 108 karma you character basically becomes an NPC. The only way to reduce Karma is changing or removing motivations, note that removing doesn't necessarily mean fulfilling, specially cause motivations doesn't mean goal, "Respect for my sensei" can be a motivation, time may make you see foolishness were you once saw honor, and thus that motivations may turn into "Try to get my sensei to see his bad decisions", or disappear entirely.

Its a pretty different system from what I was used to (for instance, you cannot die unless you allow it). But the "xp" system works wonder, and makes for great narrative.

[Kurt Kurageous]

I've been in a few boss fights that were "Cast, LR. Cast, LR. Cast, LR. Ca...nvm, the martials killed it. Gee, that was fun."

Aaaaaaand...your DM sucks at building interesting encounters?

[PhoenixPhyre]

If its not busted, why don't you use it?

And I don't think the game should be balanced around Sorlocks, Sorcadins, or Portent fishing divinators, but if AL plays with feats and MC, uts because that's what they want/expect the game to be played like. Same thing with magic items, "they are totally optional", every single published adventure has lots of them, random magic item tables are still there, and in AL you can actually get them with 100% certainty as long as you play X module and X amount of times. The say one thing, but do everything pointing in another direction, and thus they end up having to balance for vanilla, but expecting the game to be played with 3 "add-ons" that will make vanilla monster a cakewalk.

I do use it. I just don't award XP to the players. I use CR (and XP/adjusted XP) as a guide to expected difficulty, adjusting for my particular circumstances. That's all it's supposed to be--a first step.

AL is not the default. It's not the design. It's a particular mode, with particular weirdnesses. You can't extrapolate from AL to the system itself. As a note: it's really only +X magic items that seriously skew things. A +0 flametongue would have basically no effect on difficulty.

As I've said many times on many occasions--it's best and easiest to set the baseline as "simple and easy". Moving upward on the complexity and difficulty scales is easy and safe, moving down from a complex or difficult baseline is difficult and frustrating for new people. As well, you have to have some balance point. You can go like 3e and do WBL and still screw it up (3e's CR judgements are just as screwed up or more than 5e), or you balance in the baseline and allow upward variation at the DM's discretion. There really aren't other baselines available unless you really lock down the treadmill and remove all discretion about optimization of character or gear from the game. And that won't fly at all.

[patchyman]

When I made that complaint, I meant it can be weird and meta-gamey. Hey, our wizard who usually uses restrains and charms is suddenly spamming fireballs on this enemy. While before he tried to figure out what spells the enemy would struggle to resist, now he's just going straight damage from round 1 or 2. Why? Because the player wants to participate in the boss battle and help his party.

I think that if combat starts and the control wizard immediately switches to damage spells, then it is meta-gamey, but that is ON THE WIZARD, for somehow knowing a monster has LR before combat starts.

Otherwise, is it really a problem? If the wizard realizes that the monster has LR because it just used it, then the monster has 2 uses of CR left, and in most parties, the wizard isn’t the only party member inflicting nasty debuffs. By the 2nd round, the monster might be done to 1 or 0 LR.

Even in the case where only the wizard is inflicting debuffs, in many cases by the 3rd round the LR are used up, as is it really so bad if a boss fight takes 4 or 5 rounds to complete?

[patchyman]

Yeah, like spam fireball, every time. So interesting...

And yet, somehow martial characters survive swinging a sword each turn...

[Frozenstep]

I think that if combat starts and the control wizard immediately switches to damage spells, then it is meta-gamey, but that is ON THE WIZARD, for somehow knowing a monster has LR before combat starts.

Otherwise, is it really a problem? If the wizard realizes that the monster has LR because it just used it, then the monster has 2 uses of CR left, and in most parties, the wizard isn’t the only party member inflicting nasty debuffs. By the 2nd round, the monster might be done to 1 or 0 LR.

Even in the case where only the wizard is inflicting debuffs, in many cases by the 3rd round the LR are used up, as is it really so bad if a boss fight takes 4 or 5 rounds to complete?

In my experience, fights are decided by round 3, one way or another. Once people see the LR come out, they do what they can to avoid it, because giving the boss 5 rounds of action is enough to spiral into a party wipe. By the time LR's have been burned up (and this can take a while because boss monsters can have high saves, and you may not get information on what save is the best target!), the enemy hp is low and you would have been better off using something else. And yes, in a party where everyone can spam saving throws, it's less of a problem, but I think we can do better then a system as important as boss fights using mechanics punishing specific team compositions while being extremely vulnerable to others.

Edit: Also, often legendary saves and legendary actions go hand in hand. If I see a legendary action before my first turn, well what am I supposed to think?


And yet, somehow martial characters survive swinging a sword each turn...

They signed up for it, and there are plenty of martial options with more complexity and things to manage if they want it. I don't find limiting tactical options across all boss fights to be a good idea, each specific boss fight will already have their own traits that limit/encourage different strategies.

[patchyman]

Once people see the LR come out, they do what they can to avoid it, because giving the boss 5 rounds of action is enough to spiral into a party wipe.

Except they aren’t. If there is only one partymember inflicting status effects, then 4/5ths of the party isn’t impacted by the boss’ LR. In that case, the fact that the 5th party member has to use a back-up spell isn’t the end of the world.

Conversely, if multiple characters are attempting to inflict serious status debuffs, LR will not last for 5 rounds.



I don't find limiting tactical options across all boss fights to be a good idea, each specific boss fight will already have their own traits that limit/encourage different strategies.

Not all boss fights use LR. And limiting tactical options can often up the HSQ of a fight, as well as discouraging players from simply spamming the same attacks each fight.

[Frozenstep]

Except they aren’t. If there is only one partymember inflicting status effects, then 4/5ths of the party isn’t impacted by the boss’ LR. In that case, the fact that the 5th party member has to use a back-up spell isn’t the end of the world.

Conversely, if multiple characters are attempting to inflict serious status debuffs, LR will not last for 5 rounds.

Not all boss fights use LR. And limiting tactical options can often up the HSQ of a fight, as well as discouraging players from simply spamming the same attacks each fight.

The thing is I notice that all the casters switch to back-up spells. Spamming debuffs to burn LR isn't even worth it because the bosses have high saves and after 5 rounds, you finally get one status to stick after figuring out what saves are actually worth targeting. Meanwhile, you've not done any damage and probably have 2 people down. It's just a much better strategy to use back-up stuff that just does damage...every fight. Even if it is just 1 person in a 5 person party being affected, why is it every time a boss fight comes around the system isn't prepared to deal with their kit in an interesting way?

I don't know what HSQ is.

Plenty enough boss fights use LR, and trying to defend LR by saying it isn't always used feels kind of corny. Maybe if it was replaced with a better system, it wouldn't be a problem if every boss used it. Yeah, limiting tactical options does that, I agree. Limiting it in the same way every fight, in a way that encourages the same tactics every time? I think we can do better. I know I'll be trying to create better stuff for my players in my game.

[Rukelnikov]

Plenty enough boss fights use LR, and trying to defend LR by saying it isn't always used feels kind of corny. Maybe if it was replaced with a better system, it wouldn't be a problem if every boss used it. Yeah, limiting tactical options does that, I agree. Limiting it in the same way every fight, in a way that encourages the same tactics every time? I think we can do better. I know I'll be trying to create better stuff for my players in my game.

Trying to attack LR by saying it forces you to change strategy is as valid as saying crits are bad because they induce a damage spike.

[Frozenstep]

Trying to attack LR by saying it forces you to change strategy is as valid as saying crits are bad because they induce a damage spike.

I'm not attacking it because it forces you to change strategy, I'm attacking it because it encourages the same few strategies every time and discourages many strategies every time. Would it be ok if every boss enemy ever was immune to all piercing damage, somehow? You can just change your strategy, so it's fine right? Stop using bows, just take out those scimitars. Doing that once would be interesting. Doing it every time would be eye-rolling.

[Galithar]

I'm not attacking it because it forces you to change strategy, I'm attacking it because it encourages the same few strategies every time and discourages many strategies every time. Would it be ok if every boss enemy ever was immune to all piercing damage, somehow? You can just change your strategy, so it's fine right? Stop using bows, just take out those scimitars. Doing that once would be interesting. Doing it every time would be eye-rolling.

Actually it's more akin to give 3/Day uses of Legendary Immunity. When hit by an attack the creature may choose to instead not be hit by the attack.

Your comparison is more like giving every boss immunity to the Stunned condition. (Which I actually do... Nothing worse for a boss fight then a monk stun locking the badguy because it's a spammable ability)

[Frozenstep]

Actually it's more akin to give 3/Day uses of Legendary Immunity. When hit by an attack the creature may choose to instead not be hit by the attack.

Your comparison is more like giving every boss immunity to the Stunned condition. (Which I actually do... Nothing worse for a boss fight then a monk stun locking the badguy because it's a spammable ability)

It's not akin to 3/day legendary immunity. Spells are less accurate (unless the DM gives away the enemy's weaknesses) because bosses generally have pretty good saves in multiple areas, and you're using your entire action and a limited resource for one attempt. The difference in risk vs reward is important. And either way, it being akin wasn't even the point, it was that just because it forces you to change strategy doesn't make it interesting. The fact that every boss is near immune to one tactic is limiting in a really silly way.

Maybe another way to look at it is a classic rpg game, except this one has lots of status-inflicting skills. But then every boss is resistant to status effects to the point where you always just end up using straight damage skills instead. There's something wrong with the design there.

I'm still sticking by the suggestion that was made earlier. Legendary resistance works as such: A boss may use a legendary action to repeat a saving throw against any effect they're under. This way high-risk debuffs still net you something if you get lucky, but usually you're just trading an action for a legendary action, which is valuable but doesn't cripple a boss like they would be without LR's. Could tweak it a bit further.

[Galithar]

It's not akin to 3/day legendary immunity. Spells are less accurate (unless the DM gives away the enemy's weaknesses) because bosses generally have pretty good saves in multiple areas, and you're using your entire action and a limited resource for one attempt. The difference in risk vs reward is important. And either way, it being akin wasn't even the point, it was that just because it forces you to change strategy doesn't make it interesting. The fact that every boss is near immune to one tactic is limiting in a really silly way.

I'm still sticking by the suggestion that was made earlier. Legendary resistance works as such: A boss may use a legendary action to repeat a saving throw against any effect they're under. This way high-risk debuffs still net you something if you get lucky, but usually you're just trading an action for a legendary action, which is valuable but doesn't cripple a boss like they would be without LR's. Could tweak it a bit further.

A +9 save versus a +5 stat high level caster gives a DC of 19.
That's a 50% chance to Inflict the status.

A Warrior with +5 stat high level versus an AC 25 gives a +11 to hit. Or a 35% hit chance.

Pulled from the Tarrasque with no magic items. The spell is more likely to hit.

Ancient Black Dragon has 22 AC increasing hit chance to 50% and has better saves. Who targets Con on massive creatures? Which the Dragon gets +14 on. So let's go to the most commonly targeted save or suck, Wisdom. Which it has +9. Or the same 50% chance.

I reject your hypothesis that spells are less accurate when the most commonly targeted save has only +9 from the two random high level mobs I pulled. Will this vary from creature to creature? Yes, but bounded accuracy will keep those numbers close because it was a design goal of the game.

Going to the other Dragons the best Wisdom save is a 10. Giving the melee attacker a 5% greater chance then landing a Wisdom based save or suck.

Also it's often relatively easy to learn the bad saves. Unless your DM never lets you learn anything about the creatures you might fight, but that sounds like a whole different issue.

Also it doesn't FORCE you to use a strategy any more then giving an enemy Shield forces you to not attack them.

[Frozenstep]

A +9 save versus a +5 stat high level caster gives a DC of 19.
That's a 50% chance to Inflict the status.

A Warrior with +5 stat high level versus an AC 25 gives a +11 to hit. Or a 35% hit chance.

Pulled from the Tarrasque with no magic items. The spell is more likely to hit.

Ancient Black Dragon has 22 AC increasing hit chance to 50% and has better saves. Who targets Con on massive creatures? Which the Dragon gets +14 on. So let's go to the most commonly targeted save or suck, Wisdom. Which it has +9. Or the same 50% chance.

I reject your hypothesis that spells are less accurate when the most commonly targeted save has only +9 from the two random high level mobs I pulled. Will this vary from creature to creature? Yes, but bounded accuracy will keep those numbers close because it was a design goal of the game.

Going to the other Dragons the best Wisdom save is a 10. Giving the melee attacker a 5% greater chance then landing a Wisdom based save or suck.

Also it's often relatively easy to learn the bad saves. Unless your DM never lets you learn anything about the creatures you might fight, but that sounds like a whole different issue.

Also it doesn't FORCE you to use a strategy any more then giving an enemy Shield forces you to not attack them.

Oh man, are we really going to have to do this?

First off, the enemy is the one that succeeds on a saving throw if the numbers match. So it's actually a 45% chance to inflict the status on your Tarrasque example.

Second, Tarrasque has magic resistance. So it's actually like a 20% chance to inflict the status effect.

Third, it's much, much easier to get advantage on an attack roll compared to imposing disadvantage on an enemy saving throw.

Fourth, no magic items? Kinda crazy. If you're fighting Tarrasque without at least +2 weapons, you're insane. It's kind of an unfair assumption. +2 weapons are only rare grade, the only thing that increases your spell save DC in the book is robe of archmagi, afaik. Legendary item.

Fifth, what if your warrior is an archer with the archery fighting style? What if it's a barbarian with another +2 str from their level 20 capstone? Or using one of many class features that can increase accuracy? These aren't uncommon, but things that make saving throws harder for enemies are rare.

The only two cases of 25 AC are Tarrasque and Tiamat, CR 30 monsters. Even in this case, the spell is less accurate.

[Galithar]

You're right. My math was off by 1 because I did it quickly. My point about game design and bounded accuracy had been invalidated. Enjoy your day because I'm not going to teach you about abilities/items casters can use in these situations because you don't know about them. Hate on LR all you want I'm done engaging you.

[MaxWilson]

I'm still sticking by the suggestion that was made earlier. Legendary resistance works as such: A boss may use a legendary action to repeat a saving throw against any effect they're under. This way high-risk debuffs still net you something if you get lucky, but usually you're just trading an action for a legendary action, which is valuable but doesn't cripple a boss like they would be without LR's. Could tweak it a bit further.

That's pretty decent, but my concern is that you may still wind up using the same old spells against "bosses" as before: spells which don't allow saving throws, like Forcecage/Wall of Force/Maze.

(Yes, I know, Forcecage has a saving throw to teleport through it, but that's not what I mean.)

At minimum I would expand it to work against ability checks so that Maze and grappling are hampered just as much as Slow and Confusion are.

[Frozenstep]

You're right. My math was off by 1 because I did it quickly. My point about game design and bounded accuracy had been invalidated. Enjoy your day because I'm not going to teach you about abilities/items casters can use in these situations because you don't know about them. Hate on LR all you want I'm done engaging you.

Whatever dude. I didn't even want to dive into the math, it's barely relevant at all to the idea of changing LR from being a limited use free action to an unlimited legendary action attempt.


That's pretty decent, but my concern is that you may still wind up using the same old spells against "bosses" as before: spells which don't allow saving throws, like Forcecage/Wall of Force/Maze.

(Yes, I know, Forcecage has a saving throw to teleport through it, but that's not what I mean.)

At minimum I would expand it to work against ability checks so that Maze and grappling are hampered just as much as Slow and Confusion are.

That's probably true. Maze with legendary action ability checks is probably balanced enough, weak if anything, though I guess it's strong enough against dumb enemies. The force walls...well, I'll have to think about it.