D&D 5E Multiple reactions replacing Legendary Actions?!

[Pedantic]

How different is this, really, from ablating through a monster's hit points before you finally land a killing blow (other than scale)? In both cases, it's taking actions to whittle something down while the monster is largely unhindered. And in both cases, if mobbed by a bunch of attacks - either legendary resistance ablating spells or hit point ablating attacks - the monster goes down fast.

Sure, but then you're dealing with two separate HP tracks, and your party has uneven access to both of them. Assuming it works out to approximately 6 actions worth of stuff either way, then if the monster goes down to SoS spells, then every action spent on damage was wasted, or if it goes down to damage, then every spell was wasted. You don't really want two parallel games that don't interact going on at the same time.

 

[billd91]

Sure, but then you're dealing with two separate HP tracks, and your party has uneven access to both of them. Assuming it works out to approximately 6 actions worth of stuff either way, then if the monster goes down to SoS spells, then every action spent on damage was wasted, or if it goes down to damage, then every spell was wasted. You don't really want two parallel games that don't interact going on at the same time.

In a number of ways, they do interact. It's not like most spells are save or die anymore as much as they inflict damage (like disintegrate) or temporarily hinder. Monks and battle master fighters can help ablate saves and damage inflicted can make targets vulnerable to power word spells. It's not like the two are separated by a wrought iron fence made of tigers.

 

[Stalker0]

How different is this, really, from ablating through a monster's hit points before you finally land a killing blow (other than scale)? In both cases, it's taking actions to whittle something down while the monster is largely unhindered. And in both cases, if mobbed by a bunch of attacks - either legendary resistance ablating spells or hit point ablating attacks - the monster goes down fast.

So generally control doesn't kill a monster, you still have to get through its hitpoints at the end of the day. There are a few exceptions like banishment that "remove the monster", but most control effects still require someone to finish the job.

But it is a fair point that right now boss monster are skewed towards imbalanced parties. A party with a lot of control or a lot of damage does well, but a "balanced" party of some damage and some control is a lot weaker, which is quite odd considering a balanced party is normally the desire.

 

[James Gasik]

One problem with legendary saves I've noticed is that it's not "cast three spells and then the fourth spell hits". LR is decided after a save is failed, so if the monster has a halfway decent save against whatever you're using on it (or it has Magic Resistance or Counterspell or is just immune to the spell effect), you're in for a tough time.

Like, let's say a monster has a 50% chance to save against an effect to begin with. So you'd normally have to toss out two spells to expect one to land. With the ability to turn the failed save into a save, it might take 7 attempts!

I know someone will say "well, stock a lot of spells with different saves" but the reality of that is you can only prepare so many spells, and your lower level spell slots quickly become obsolete as the game progresses (and the amount of higher level spell slots is sharply limited). So unless your entire party is in on the "save or suck" game, you're better off just switching to cantrips.

It doesn't help that the threat level of legendary monsters is such that you really need to do something to slow them down, as the longer they live, the lower the chances of survival get, but they're designed to resist things outright.

Honestly, I think the solution here would be for most spells to be "serious effect if saved failed, minor effect if save succeeds" instead of all or nothing (or, as suggested, using LR imposes a penalty of some kind to the enemy for using it).

Or even better, don't use just one monster. Give the boss minions the casters need to lock down so the heavy hitters can just focus on the big guy.

 

[Micah Sweet]

One problem with legendary saves I've noticed is that it's not "cast three spells and then the fourth spell hits". LR is decided after a save is failed, so if the monster has a halfway decent save against whatever you're using on it (or it has Magic Resistance or Counterspell or is just immune to the spell effect), you're in for a tough time.

Like, let's say a monster has a 50% chance to save against an effect to begin with. So you'd normally have to toss out two spells to expect one to land. With the ability to turn the failed save into a save, it might take 7 attempts!

I know someone will say "well, stock a lot of spells with different saves" but the reality of that is you can only prepare so many spells, and your lower level spell slots quickly become obsolete as the game progresses (and the amount of higher level spell slots is sharply limited). So unless your entire party is in on the "save or suck" game, you're better off just switching to cantrips.

It doesn't help that the threat level of legendary monsters is such that you really need to do something to slow them down, as the longer they live, the lower the chances of survival get, but they're designed to resist things outright.

Honestly, I think the solution here would be for most spells to be "serious effect if saved failed, minor effect if save succeeds" instead of all or nothing (or, as suggested, using LR imposes a penalty of some kind to the enemy for using it).

Or even better, don't use just one monster. Give the boss minions the casters need to lock down so the heavy hitters can just focus on the big guy.

That would go against a lot of narrative tropes people seem to value though.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

One problem with legendary saves I've noticed is that it's not "cast three spells and then the fourth spell hits". LR is decided after a save is failed, so if the monster has a halfway decent save against whatever you're using on it (or it has Magic Resistance or Counterspell or is just immune to the spell effect), you're in for a tough time.

A monster doesn't have to have legendary resistance for it to be pretty much immune to whatever you are trying to cast at it.

 

[Zaukrie]

Legendary monsters should be almost impossible to beat. IMO. I've got no issue then brushing off spells or damage.

 

[Pedantic]

Honestly, I think the solution here would be for most spells to be "serious effect if saved failed, minor effect if save succeeds" instead of all or nothing (or, as suggested, using LR imposes a penalty of some kind to the enemy for using it).

This is definitely the best solution if you want to keep something like standard LR in the game, and if you want to preserve the full effectiveness of spells like Dominate Person and Finger of Death and so on. Anything to make the economy at play more engaging; it might also be valuable to differentiate between resistance/escape moves. If the enemy is spending something to get out of an effect after suffering from it for at least a round or even just an action, that feels significantly less punishing than just ignoring it outright.

Or even better, don't use just one monster. Give the boss minions the casters need to lock down so the heavy hitters can just focus on the big guy.

I'm all for encounter design advice, but I think it's mostly important to make sure that DM knows the likely outcome of any given setup, which is why I think an analysis of action economy needs to be a part of the CR/EL calculations.