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

[Grognerd]

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".

He didn't say to alter the stats (at least not in the quoted portion). He said to "beef up a boss monster's defenses." That does not have to have anything to do with stats. Just offhand, that is: traps, lair design that prevents focus fire from PCs, mooks, mirrors/illusions, protective items, or decoys. None of which touch the base stats (except perhaps protective items, which if you can't add a modifier for a magic item, you shouldn't be running Legendary monsters anyway...). Defenses are far more than individual power. But the problem is that it seems like a lot of DMs see "Legendary" on a stat block and therefore think the monster is an idiot who will only engage in a face-to-face "fair fight". If you (a person, not you as an individual. No ad hominem) can't divide, disperse, and deceive a PC with RAW Legendary Creatures, then yeah... it's your fault, not the game's.

 

[Quartz]

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.

I would solve that by turning 'Passing a saving throw' into a Legendary Action as below:

Legendary Resistance: you may succeed at a saving throw by immediately using a Legendary Action.

 

[FrogReaver]

I would solve that by turning 'Passing a saving throw' into a Legendary Action as below:

Legendary Resistance: you may succeed at a saving throw by immediately using a Legendary Action.

Game isn’t fun for wizards when everything can guarantee it passes the save. Better to give enemies more chances To end save effects. And have them impact some actions but likely be gone before the next normal enemy turn

 

[Quartz]

Game isn’t fun for wizards when everything can guarantee it passes the save. Better to give enemies more chances To end save effects. And have them impact some actions but likely be gone before the next normal enemy turn

But it uses their Legendary Action. Which means they can't take another LA before the next PC goes.

 

[FrogReaver]

But it uses their Legendary Action. Which means they can't take another LA before the next PC goes.

I’m sorry but 7th level wizard spell shouldn’t have the same effect on a high level enemy as a 2nd or 3rd.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

He didn't say to alter the stats (at least not in the quoted portion). He said to "beef up a boss monster's defenses." That does not have to have anything to do with stats. Just offhand, that is: traps, lair design that prevents focus fire from PCs, mooks, mirrors/illusions, protective items, or decoys. None of which touch the base stats (except perhaps protective items, which if you can't add a modifier for a magic item, you shouldn't be running Legendary monsters anyway...). Defenses are far more than individual power. But the problem is that it seems like a lot of DMs see "Legendary" on a stat block and therefore think the monster is an idiot who will only engage in a face-to-face "fair fight". If you (a person, not you as an individual. No ad hominem) can't divide, disperse, and deceive a PC with RAW Legendary Creatures, then yeah... it's your fault, not the game's.

Yeah that works. I'm all for playing foes intelligently, rather than having them just march up to the PCs to get slaughtered in a fair fight.

I tend to think that normally involves not getting into a fight by themselves (ie, minions), so "use minions" is a simplified answer, but there are other things you can do in addition to or instead of minions.

 

[dave2008]

RPGs should be fully functional experiences right out of the box.

The issue with D&D is that it appeals to such a wide audience that I don't think it can be fully functional out of the box as you say. I haven't read all your posts, but I am guessing you think 5e monsters are poorly designed. Personally, I think some have major flaws as well and I routinely modify or make my own (of course there are great RAW tools to do this - even out of the box). However, I can challenge both the groups I play with (one going on 30 yrs of D&D) with the monsters RAW from the MM. In fact, I can't use all the beefed up monsters I make on my groups because it would be a TPK every time they face one of my "boss" monsters. The point being, the MM monsters, legendary included, work great for a certain subset of players. I'm guessing that WotC thinks that is the largest segment of players. Personally, my issue is not with the MM, but that the DMG did include more information about how to modify monsters for groups of different size and/or capability, A CR 20 monsters doesn't present nearly the same challenge to 3 PCs as it does to 6 PCs. Some simple modifications can change that though.

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.

I don't know what the average player is; however, my group has played D&D for 30 yrs and we started with 5e a few months after it came out (we converted our 4e game to 5e). So we have played it a long time. I still routinely challenge them with RAW monsters from the MM. It works for us "out of the box."

So is monster design a "design flaw" as you mention? I don't think so. I just think they have done a poor job of explain how they intended it to work and adjust.

 

[dave2008]

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.

Yes, that is one reason I am revising my epic monsters to have extra turns instead of legendary actions. Lair actions are still good though.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

The issue with D&D is that it appeals to such a wide audience that I don't think it can be fully functional out of the box as you say. I haven't read all your posts, but I am guessing you think 5e monsters are poorly designed.

I don't think the design is too bad (although the monsters in the supplements have more interesting features, and unfortunately are sometimes artificially inflated in power compared to the MM monsters, which is a real shame because it makes the baseline MM monsters seem underwhelming), it's more this:

I just think they have done a poor job of explain how they intended it to work and adjust.

However,

I don't know what the average player is; however, my group has played D&D for 30 yrs and we started with 5e a few months after it came out (we converted our 4e game to 5e). So we have played it a long time. I still routinely challenge them with RAW monsters from the MM. It works for us "out of the box."

We've played 5e since the beginning, and I do find it difficult to come up with challenges that are "right". At low-levels I routinely have the problem that fights either risk one-shot hits killing PCs, or the PCs steam-roll it. I like both of those types of fights--I don't like every fight to be a sporting fair fight--but I also sometimes want a "balanced" fight for a certain degree of challenge between those extremes. The space between the extremes seems significantly smaller in 5e than in other editions I've played, and can be difficult to find. As they get to higher levels, the one-shot space starts shrinking, and the steam-rolling space starts increasing. While the space between the extremes does increase with levels, it doesn't increase as much as I'd like it to.

...and that paragraph is probably the best statement I've yet made of the actual issue as I perceive it.

 

[Eis]

That's the impression i get.

do you mean the Mighty Mighty Boss Monsters?

I mean....

My players aren't cowards, they've just never been tested
I'd like to think that if they were they would pass