Are monsters with legendary and or lair actions supposed to be boss monsters/

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[MENTION=6866720]Bootlebat[/MENTION] If you're interested in the inspiration for legendary monsters in 5e D&D, you might check out Planescape origins of legendary monsters where I tracked down what I believe is the first AD&D reference to "Monsters of Legend" (long before 4e's solo monsters). Imagine the Nemean Lion of Hercules myth and its impenetrable hide, and you've got the right idea.

Borrowing the boss (video gaming) definition from Wikipedia. Emphasis mine.

In video gaming, a boss is a significant computer-controlled enemy. A fight with a boss character is commonly referred to as a boss battle or boss fight. Boss battles are generally seen at a climax of a particular section of the game, usually at the end of a stage or level, or guarding a specific objective, and the boss enemy is generally far stronger than the opponents the player has faced up to that point. For example, in a combat game all regular enemies might use pistols while the boss uses a machine gun. A boss enemy is quite often larger in size than other enemies and the player character. At times, bosses are very hard, even impossible to defeat without being adequately prepared and/or knowing the correct fighting approach. Bosses take strategy and special knowledge to defeat, such as how to attack weak points or avoiding specific attacks. A final boss is often the main antagonist of a game's story.

Right away one possible point of difference between D&D 5e's legendary monsters and video game bosses is that D&D legendary monsters don't necessarily require special preparation and/or knowledge; a DM can introduce that into the battle, but it's not really part of the Monster Manual.

The closest thing D&D seems to have to this is whether the legendary monster is encountered in its lair or not, which can make a huge difference in how the confrontation plays out. It was for this reason that AD&D monsters stats had an entry for "Frequency encountered" which listed "% chance in lair", because lairs meant limited flight for dragons & presence of treasure hoard. What's cool in 5e is that they've balanced this by making lairs more of an environmental challenge/hazard.

Expanding on the idea of special preparation and/or knowledge... consider this trait of some video game bosses...

Some bosses require the player to defeat them in a certain way that may be unusual compared to normal attacks, such as using a certain weapon, hitting the boss in a certain area, or creative use of the environment (e.g. dropping a hanging chandelier on the boss, or pushing the boss off of a high ledge). Story-centered boss fights may include objectives other than simply defeating the boss, such as protecting a computer-controlled partner during the battle or sequence.

Again, this is not part of any D&D legendary monster I've read or run. A good DM can include such elements, but that's on the DM. Interestingly, this really feeds back into the Planescape origins of legendary monsters, wherein "monsters of legend" had one very strong mythical defense against which players had to puzzle a workaround (e.g. lifting that cyclops immune to damage while in contact with the earth off his feet).

Furthermore...

A number of bosses can also become harder to defeat after taking damage, whether by becoming invulnerable to a certain attack, able to use different or stronger attacks, capable of moving faster, and so on in order to prevent players from using a static strategy. Battles against such bosses are typically described as being divided into multiple "phases", with each phase after the first being triggered after the boss' health drops below a certain threshold.

Definitely not part of D&D legendary monsters. Certainly there hints of this during 4e with blooded condition triggers, and there were fans during 4e who incorporated phases and defense changes, but that was all fan effort, nothing official.

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I've only run a handful of legendary monsters so far, but I've slowly been incorporating these ideas such that when I do run my next legendary monster, I'll make a handful of tweaks:

• Legends. IMHO, there could be more of a narrative focus for legendary monsters – what sort of legends are told about these legendary monsters? or what hooks/inspiration can we offer DMs to craft their own legends? I'll be introducing legends and rumors the PCs can learn in advance.
• Mythic defense. I'll be looking for a way to incorporate a more mythic defense into the legendary monster that is tied to its story, rather than something generic like "Legendary Resistances." I really like the idea of conditions being reduced in effectiveness rather than being totally shutdown by "Legendary Resistances" (e.g. paralyzation preventing reactions/bonus actions/legendary actions rather than total paralyzation), but implementing that will depend on each monster's story.
• Weakness. A special weakness of some kind that the PCs can use to bypass the monster's mythic defense, and possibly some kind of personality/behavioral flaw they can exploit. Possibly coming up with a called shot ruling when appropriate. This rewards advance preparation and/or clever thinking.
• In-Lair vs. Out-of-Lair. If there's a chance the legendary monster will be encountered out of its lair, I'll think about how its strategies will differ, and in both cases will think up how the environment can be used both by PCs and by the monster.
• Something Changes. At some point, the encounter should change at least once, requiring the players to think on their feet and adapt to a new situation, objective, environmental hazard, introduction of minions, or changed stat block (e.g. triggered when reduced to half hit points) of the legendary monster. This is useful because legendary monsters tend to have lots of hit points, meaning longer fights, so keeping it fresh is important. This also can be used to drive home a monster's theme (e.g. a blue dragon causing the floor of a ruined temple to slope precipitously, spilling debris and PCs along the flagstone toward a yawning chasm of hissing sands, with ancient ruins of the city the blue dragon destroyed below).

 

[Blue]

Are monsters with legendary and or lair actions supposed to be boss monsters?

No, they are not.

Primarily because the video game idea of boss monsters, where you cap with a single overwhelming boss, isn't a great fit for 5e.

Are they meant to be solo monsters? Sure, more than anything else, though as many others have pointed out 5e encounters generally work better with more enemy combatants. This is for a variety of reasons, a non-exclusive list would include the damage output of characters, the large amount of action denial and save vs. suck that can shutdown a solo that 5e parties have access to, or even just the action economy leaving solos behind even with lair and legendary actions so they are all-or-nothing threats, the lack of mutliple threat axis - locations, different types (attacks, saves, etc.)

And that's why they aren't boss monsters - because a final big encounter deserves to have enough opposing combatants to be both interesting and challenging. Places with different foes so you can be tactical about engaging, ones that every round are doing multiple different types of threats. There may be a few solos, especially if they are in the deadly+ encounter for a party, that can give that level of challenge, but generally your memorable setpiece encounters are better with more combatants. These can definitely be part of it, but not it by themselves.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Just curious, for folks saying "solo monsters don't work*"--what exactly do you mean by this? In my experience, there are three ways in which a solo monster can fail to work:

• It dies too quickly, because it doesn't have enough hit points and/or LR. I feel that this is on the DM to manage: If you know that your players are skilled tacticians/optimizers, you should expect to have to beef up a boss monster's defenses.

• 
  
  That's what I mean. If I have to alter the stats of a monster to work in a normal way, then it "doesn't work".
  
  Despite the fact that I make house rules, I consider every rule I make that isn't purely about aesthetic or thematic preference to reflect a design flaw of the system. I do not agree with the angle of D&D being a tool-kit and a suggestion box. RPGs should be fully functional experiences right out of the box. If I buy a car or a jacket or a sandwich, and I want to add a better stereo, sew in an extra pocket, or add horseradish, that's preference, not a design flaw of the product I bought. If on the other hand, I have to replace the wheels to make the car drive straight, sew on a zipper or buttons because the ones it came with break the first time you use them, or add condiments because the sandwich comes with none and lacks flavor, that is a design flaw in the product I bought. I consider D&D to have several of the latter type of elements.
  
  

  D&D's out of the box experience is, and should be, geared toward the casual player.

  
  I consider this a minor design flaw, because the learning curve of going from casual player to experienced player seems rather trivial to me, meaning that the experience seems geared to the "starting player". Now, maybe the majority of D&D players are casual players who never increase their skills, but that sounds doubtful to me, especially given that people seem to be reporting a lot of optimizers in AL. (I'm not making a binary distinction between casual players and optimizers. I think the majority of players fall into a middle category.)
  
  It seems to me that a game ought to be designed to work as written for the average player, not the starting or expert player.

 

[the Jester]

I disagree with that. I can't say for your group, but they work fine for mine. In my experience you just have to have a good understanding of your parties capabilities and the monster's capabilities.

It really depends. It's very difficult for a solitary monster to threaten a party that is above a certain size- for instance, one of my groups routinely fields 8 pcs and sometimes an animal companion, familiar, paladin's mount, or other, similar companion. It's pretty hard for a single creature to keep up with that action economy.

Now, you *could* do it, if you gave it crazy hit points and a ton of legendary actions per round, but you'd really be going out of the normal monster builds to do so. And it would be almost impossible to do so if you didn't make it capable of one-rounding at least some of the pcs via multiple legendary attacks and the like.

 

[dave2008]

It really depends. It's very difficult for a solitary monster to threaten a party that is above a certain size- for instance, one of my groups routinely fields 8 pcs and sometimes an animal companion, familiar, paladin's mount, or other, similar companion. It's pretty hard for a single creature to keep up with that action economy.

Now, you *could* do it, if you gave it crazy hit points and a ton of legendary actions per round, but you'd really be going out of the normal monster builds to do so. And it would be almost impossible to do so if you didn't make it capable of one-rounding at least some of the pcs via multiple legendary attacks and the like.

Yes, they get more and more difficult the further you are from 4 PCs. I have seen suggestions of +25% HP + one legendary action for each PC above 4. That seems logical. Thus, for 8 PCs you would have 2x teh HP and 7 total legendary actions. That seems a bit much to me. I would probably go with the 2x HP, but up damage rather than add more actions.

 

[S'mon]

I find it is not that hard to not give them time if they camp too close they either get ambushed or the target flees during the rest, if they camp far away new beasties notice the now empty residences of the just cleared monsters and move in.

Yeah. My boss monsters aren't idiots. They'll either attack the camping PCs, leave, or at very least shore up their defences for the coming attack.

 

[Quartz]

That's the impression i get.

Why shouldn't a mook get a Lair Action? Of course, not all Lair Actions are equal: the Lair Action that a mook can take may be different from the Lair Action the boss can take.

For example: the PCs are investigating a lair of giant rats. In their lair an individual giant rat may have 'Dive into a hole and reappear out of another' as a Lair Action but the wererat leader may have 'Summon X giant rats' as a Lair Action.

 

[CydKnight]

Are they supposed to be? In your game, you should decide.

Is it what WoTC intended? I am sure they at least had an idea they could be used that way.

 

[FrogReaver]

Anyways the problem with solo creatures is the turn system. Solution is to give them multiple turns. Legendary actions help with that but don’t give extra saves like A while additional turn would.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Yes, but also add minions to the fight because solos don't work in 5e.

Unless the minion can take a hit for the boss, it generally doesnt fix the main issue with running boss encounters in 5E - their pathetic amounts of HP compared to a party's ability to focus fire. I give anything I want to live more than 2 rounds an extra 50hp per party level, a fistful of re-rolls, and if they don't already have legendary actions, 1-2 action points they can use as a reaction to take an extra turn.

I don't like running filler encounters in the little bit I get to play, just to waste resources, so the bizarre 6-8 encounter day is never going to happen organically in a game I DM for.