D&D 5E Experience with Legendary Resistance: How is it working for you?

[Celtavian]

My group fought our first legendary creature. This legendary resistance mechanic has me somewhat concerned. I'd like to hear what others experiences have been with this mechanic. It seems to devalue casters as anything other than buff bots and make martials king of the all the key combats against the toughest creatures.

The sequence of events for us went like this:
1. Bard casts bless (probably the most powerful group buff spell in the game now).

2. Fighter heads into room, engages creatures, hits it with two attacks with one using feinting maneuver, then action surges hitting it with two more attacks. He does 48 points of damage in a single round at level 5.

3. Opponent hits fighter. Fighter uses reaction to parry portion of damage.

4. Monster casts 15 foot radius darkness.

5. Remaining party can't do much because he can't see anyone.

Round 2:
1. Fighter Disengages and backs out of room.

2. Paladin smites creature doing 4d8 and 2d6 with thunderous smite for 28 points.

2. Wizard casts Fireball for 31 points. Creatures uses Legendary[/I] resistance to save automatically saving taking 15 points.

3. Bard casts sleep causing legendary creature to fall since its hit points now below threshold dropping darkness.

Round 3:
1. Party keys off fighter using ready action to all strike creature while it is prone.

Legendary creature dead.

1. Fighter 48 points plus killing blow.
2. Paladin 28 points.
3. Wizard 15 points with 3rd level spell.
4. Bard buffs and sleeps target since Legendary Resistance won't stop a no save spell.


Is this how it is working for most groups? Seems to make spells with saves pretty pointless against creatures with Legendary Resistance. On top of the save every round mechanic and Legendary Creatures having better stats, resistances, and saving throws, does this seem like overkill to limit casters forcing us to choose a very narrow selection of spells to be useful in fights against legendary creatures?

 

[Blackwarder]

Well, my biggest problem with the OP is the fact that sleep managed to put it down... What did you guys fought?

Warder

 

[Minigiant]

Well that is all equivalent to ~130 damage if you do a level 3 sleep.

That's is also bi bombing with 4 PCs too.

 

[Nebulous]

There's some problems with Legendary Resistance, but i don't think your example highlighted them. It looks like everyone contributed. Take away LR, the monster can STILL make a save as normal, so nothing would have been any different.

And if you think back to early editions of the game, many of the tougher monsters had 50% or higher magic resistance for a spell to even allow a saving throw at all.

 

[Gadget]

I don't really have a problem with what you described. Huge boss monsters have been notoriously vulnerable to Save or Suck spells in the past, and even a save every round type of spell could be devastating to boss solos. There are other things the spell casters can do with their spell slots, and even in this example it was sleep that brought the monster down after the martials had softened it up.

 

[Celtavian]

That's precisely what I'm getting at. Legendary Resistance pretty much forces casters to use spells that don't allow a save like sleep. Is this happening at higher level as well? A caster certainly would never want to waste his 9th level spell on a creature that gets to auto-save. He wouldn't want to waste his 6th, 7th, or 8th either.

I'm asking people with experience if casters at higher level are pretty much forced into no save spells or buffing against Legendary Resistance creatures? Are all their save spells pretty much pointless to cast against a Legendary Creature? Do you have any experience with this? I'm not looking for theory. I'm looking for experience, examples. How is Legendary Resistance affecting caster choice as higher levels are reached?

 

[Tormyr]

No, the casters can also use their save spells, knowing that there is the possibility of the enemy shrugging it off. Don't forget the legendary resistance only kicks in after the creature initially fails the saving throw. So if the creature is unlucky, it will have burned through its legendary resistance quickly. It also has the choice of not using LR if it does not feel it needs to do so.

I think you ran into a much bigger problem with 5e in your description. Solos get splattered quickly. This creature had legendary resistance but no legendary actions? What were they fighting?

 

[Boarstorm]

I think you ran into a much bigger problem with 5e in your description. Solos get splattered quickly.

This has been my experience as well.

 

[AmerginLiath]

As spellcasters get used to the possibility of Legendary Creatures being effectively immune to a certain number of 'Save' spells/day, I wonder if they'll return to the mentality of casting their high-level magic to indirectly harm the Creature, as a sort of mid-space between Battlefield Control and Direct Damage.

I'm reminded of the "Power Word: Whale" that I refer to in my signature here. Back in 2e, we were fighting a powerful red dragon who was shrugging off my spells due to Spell Resistance. So, instead, I cast a Summons directly above him (back in the day when a random roll allowed for double your own level in HD), gambling that I'd be summoning something big and (at that HD level) unable to fly. A large appeared, plummeted out of the sky onto the smaller-than-him dragon's back, and apparently broke the boss-monster's spine as he died. Draconic hexapeligia is a good substitute for Hold Monster...

 

[Minigiant]

One thing to note. Level 5-9 on monsters are weird.area. Big enough to be legendary but small enough to get alpha striked by a whole party.

But the point of Legendary Resistance is to prevent a monster from being KOed in 1-2 spells/attack sequences. 4 of them is fine. Especially all high level. A good legendary monster can wreck a PC's face easily in one turn and kill them in two if given the chance.