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View Full Version : DM Help One shot where players will have legendary actions - how big of a mess will this be?!



Darth Credence
2021-10-18, 10:04 AM
It's time in my campaign for another one shot (although I'm betting it takes 4 sessions). When something comes up that can make a major impact on the world, I like to let the players determine part of it by running a one shot with them playing different characters. We're doing one where they will play bad guys. In my world, there are coins like the Denarii from Dresden. The City of the Gods has been trying to collect them to take them out of play, and currently have 5 of the 20 sealed away. The one shot will be with level 15 characters, each of them with a coin they have fully bonded with.

The goal is for them to liberate the coins held by the good guys. I had been trying to figure out how the coins would work, and I finally came down to some abilities, but mostly they give legendary actions. As an example, one of the players is making a barbarian/fighter multi-class. I went down the list of coins, and decided that the best choice for him is Lakkos the Demon. Lakkos was an overpowered pit fiend before being trapped in the coin. The possessor of the coin gets the fiend's fire immunity and claw attack if attacking without a weapon as the basic benefit of the coin. The powerful benefit, however, are the legendary actions. Each coin grants three legendary action points to the character. For the Demon, the actions are a 4d10 firebolt for 1 action, an 8d8 fireball for two actions, or a 6d8 wall of fire for 3 actions (need to maintain concentration). I believe with five players all doing this, they should be able to handle massive waves of defenders. Win or lose, they should do massive damage to the city, which will have a long term impact on the game.

So, five players, all with legendary actions. I know that this is going to be incredibly chaotic, but I also hope it is going to be really fun for a short adventure. I'm thinking it will let them play out a super villain fantasy, where they will be unloading with massive powers and able to go toe to toe with some celestials that will be called on to fight them. In the end, any of these characters that survive will be something that the players will have to deal with later, which I like because it when the players realize that, they may scare themselves because of everything they did with the power.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to make this as smooth as possible, or to really up the chaos if we want to lean into that, I'd love to hear it. Or, if anyone has a cool idea for a coin, that would be great, too. I know the coin that I already mentioned, and the player running a bladesinger will have a coin called the Defiler, which is based off the Dark Sun defiler and draws life when they cast spells, plus has additional attack for one point, ray of sickness for one point, and finally Disrupt Life (from Acererak) for three points.

Grod_The_Giant
2021-10-18, 04:31 PM
Someone's been reading their Dresden Files :p

Particularly since it sounds like most of the abilities you're imagining are straightforward attacks, I'd try to simplify the structure a bit more. Say each player rolls initiative twice--once for themselves and once for their coin. They get their full set of actions on both turns, but they can't use coin abilities on their normal turn, and on the coin's turn they can ONLY use its abilities. That gives you a huge action economy boost and ensures everyone's making generous use of their demonic powers without total chaos.

Oramac
2021-10-19, 02:24 AM
If anyone has any suggestions on how to make this as smooth as possible, or to really up the chaos if we want to lean into that, I'd love to hear it. Or, if anyone has a cool idea for a coin, that would be great, too. I know the coin that I already mentioned, and the player running a bladesinger will have a coin called the Defiler, which is based off the Dark Sun defiler and draws life when they cast spells, plus has additional attack for one point, ray of sickness for one point, and finally Disrupt Life (from Acererak) for three points.

Ok, so first, let me just say that I freakin LOVE this idea. So much so that I might want to steal it for my campaign. I can just imagine the players faces when they finally see the bad guys they were playing as a few sessions ago and thinking "Holy ****!! Now we gotta fight these guys?!?" That's gonna be epic.


Particularly since it sounds like most of the abilities you're imagining are straightforward attacks, I'd try to simplify the structure a bit more. Say each player rolls initiative twice--once for themselves and once for their coin. They get their full set of actions on both turns, but they can't use coin abilities on their normal turn, and on the coin's turn they can ONLY use its abilities. That gives you a huge action economy boost and ensures everyone's making generous use of their demonic powers without total chaos.

I would agree with this. As cool as legendary actions are, they're going to be a royal pain in the ass to run, especially if all the players get them. With a party of 5, that's basically 20 turns assuming they each use a 1 point legendary action 3 times during the round.

Giving them the turn per coin would be a LOT smoother and prevent bogging down the combat any more than necessary.

As for coin ideas, they're evil, right? You've got a Demon Coin and an Undead Coin it sounds like, so maybe add coins for each monster type? An Aberration Coin that gives Beholder Eye Rays, maybe, or a Dragon Coin that gives flight and chromatic resistance plus a wing attack, or something. And you could really lean into the good/evil conflict with a Celestial Coin that gives the Empyrean's Trembling Strike or Innate Spellcasting, but is the polar opposite of the Demon Coin and urges its wielder towards Good.

Darth Credence
2021-10-19, 08:51 AM
Someone's been reading their Dresden Files :p

Particularly since it sounds like most of the abilities you're imagining are straightforward attacks, I'd try to simplify the structure a bit more. Say each player rolls initiative twice--once for themselves and once for their coin. They get their full set of actions on both turns, but they can't use coin abilities on their normal turn, and on the coin's turn they can ONLY use its abilities. That gives you a huge action economy boost and ensures everyone's making generous use of their demonic powers without total chaos.

Hmm. This is a good point. My biggest issue here is balance - I can find existing legendary actions to give everyone, and it is easy to balance everyone having about the same extra power. But this would seem to be a lot easier to run. Must think more, but I've probably got two months before we get to this stage, so I can do that.


Ok, so first, let me just say that I freakin LOVE this idea. So much so that I might want to steal it for my campaign. I can just imagine the players faces when they finally see the bad guys they were playing as a few sessions ago and thinking "Holy ****!! Now we gotta fight these guys?!?" That's gonna be epic.



I would agree with this. As cool as legendary actions are, they're going to be a royal pain in the ass to run, especially if all the players get them. With a party of 5, that's basically 20 turns assuming they each use a 1 point legendary action 3 times during the round.

Giving them the turn per coin would be a LOT smoother and prevent bogging down the combat any more than necessary.

As for coin ideas, they're evil, right? You've got a Demon Coin and an Undead Coin it sounds like, so maybe add coins for each monster type? An Aberration Coin that gives Beholder Eye Rays, maybe, or a Dragon Coin that gives flight and chromatic resistance plus a wing attack, or something. And you could really lean into the good/evil conflict with a Celestial Coin that gives the Empyrean's Trembling Strike or Innate Spellcasting, but is the polar opposite of the Demon Coin and urges its wielder towards Good.

I like the beholder coin quite a bit. I think that could work, with the character pointing the coin itself for the eye beams. I've been trying to work out how to do a dragon coin, too - flight speed seems like an obvious basic benefit, and I could make things work doing it as legendary actions, but if I just have them playing as a "dragon" as Grod suggests, I'm not sure how to keep that from just being the most powerful of the group. Plenty of time to work it out, though, so I'll update when I finalize coins.

Grod_The_Giant
2021-10-19, 09:40 AM
Hmm. This is a good point. My biggest issue here is balance - I can find existing legendary actions to give everyone, and it is easy to balance everyone having about the same extra power. But this would seem to be a lot easier to run. Must think more, but I've probably got two months before we get to this stage, so I can do that.
To be honest, I'm not sure how much balance you'll find in published legendary actions. It sounds like you were already thinking along spell lines (Fire Bolt, Fireball, Wall of Fire); that's probably a better way to go about it. You don't have to stick to explicit exactly-as-the-spell powers, but using the spell level framework gives you a much more robust way to estimate an ability's power.

Chronos
2021-10-19, 03:30 PM
One point: Most monsters with legendary actions seem to have some sort of movement ability as one of them. You might consider that for your players, too.

Also, be prepared for a whole bunch of legendary actions to go off at once, and be prepared to adjudicate what order they happen if, if it matters.