D&D 5E Legendary monsters are not solo monsters

[TarionzCousin]

Also, if I were a dragon, beholder or other Legendary creature, I'd probably set up traps in and around my lair to make it more uninviting to adventurers too.

How do we know you're not a dragon, beholder, etc.?

Someone mentioned minions. Would adding them to a Legendary monster in its lair raise the CR? Say you add four or eight one hit point servant monsters, for example.

 

[Chocolategravy]

Right, but a CR 17 Legendary creature is worth no more XP than a CR 17 non-legendary creature. Since CR is a "you must be this tall to ride" sign, there's no difference between the two creatures when it comes to an encounter budget.

And that is exactly the problem. If you're filling in the encounter with other monsters, your XP multiplier kicks in and suddenly that legendary HAS to be several levels BELOW the party... which makes it easily shredded and anything BUT legendary... at least to the melee. The wizard still can't stick anything on it despite probably being able to melee it down themselves.

The further problem is that while low level monsters are probably overtuned, high level ones, including most legendary, are undertuned and don't really present the threat the encounter guidelines suggest. So if you're throwing a legendary 4 levels over the party to begin with so it has a chance of living long enough to do some damage, your XP budget is already blown.

 

[mcintma]

If you're filling in the encounter with other monsters, your XP multiplier kicks in and suddenly that legendary HAS to be several levels BELOW the party... which makes it easily shredded and anything BUT legendary... at least to the melee. The wizard still can't stick anything on it

This is my fear with hi-level casters, DM has to put in minions to give them a good chance to have an offensive impact. Good point about the (now XP budget reduced) BBEG being a joke for the 200 DPR martials.

I wish I could get in a time machine and see the weight of the evidence in a year when enough hi-level campaigns are going and the D&D community has playtested hi-level thoroughly.

 

[Fralex]

I want to try working up a replacement trait for Legendary Resistance. It's got to be something always active (unlike Legendary Resistance), is not binary succeed/fail so a spell can have *some* effect or perhaps the slot is not expended (unlike Legendary Resistance), and has flavor/specificity which encouraged creative thinking and unique strategy (unlike Legendary Resistance).

Any suggestions?

Oh! I thought of something! What if activating Legendary Resistance lets a monster take a Legendary Action, or maybe just a regular action, right before the effects of the thing it's responding to occurs? A sort of reverse-reaction. The idea is it uses the action to attempt to block or avoid the attack that's getting aimed at it and will hurt it otherwise. It could result in neat cinematic moments like the sorcerer blasting a red dragon with cone of cold, but then the dragon negates the ice with its fire breath! Call them Legendary Reactions, and have them be another way to spend a reaction. Maybe put some sort of limit on them like it can't take two Legendary Reactions in two consecutive rounds.

 

[Tormyr]

How do we know you're not a dragon, beholder, etc.?

Someone mentioned minions. Would adding them to a Legendary monster in its lair raise the CR? Say you add four or eight one hit point servant monsters, for example.

A couple of things are going on there.

4e minions don't exist anymore. If I recall correctly, minions had to take damage directly aimed at them to go down. So a fireball would leave minions alone. That doesn't exist in 5e, but you could work something up.

Adding minions who are just low level creatures does not change the CR of the boss /solo creature. It adds to the encounter XP budget. If the low level creatures (minions) are significantly lower CR to the point that they do not contribute or are completely wiped out by a fireball or two, then they do not contribute to the encounter XP budget.

For the thread in general:
I think that most people expect an encounter with a legendary creature to be epic. However, as has been pointed out, a creature of a given CR is still just a creature of that CR. If a DM chooses a single creature with a CR at the 4 person party's level, they must expect that it is just a medium encounter and the creature is going to go down quickly. This is even more true if there are more than 4 in the party. For an encounter to be epic, it really needs to be a hard or deadly encounter so that it makes it past 3-5 rounds. That means that the boss / solo has reasonably specced minions (and is no longer solo) or is a CR several levels higher than the party. An 11th level party of four would find a CR 14 Adult Black Dragon to be a hard encounter that would befit the dragon's status as a solo/legendary creature.

I have additional challenges to work through. I am converting a 3.5 adventure path. I also have 6-7 players weekly. For solo / boss combats I either have to add more minions or up the monster difficulty. On nice thing is that now that the DMG is out, I have the information needed to bump the CR of a creature up through increased HP to accommodate the additional PCs. By increasing only the HP, the creature still plays the same, but it lasts more rounds. For instance, I can take that adult black dragon and increase it by 180 effective hp to make it the same hard encounter for 7 11th level PCs. This makes the dragon last longer, but it doesn't hit any harder. So there is less chance of doing 1 shot knockouts with the creature. The beauty of this is that if you find your estimate of how much hp to increase turns out to be too much, you can always make the next hit by a PC be the 1 that takes the creature down. In this case, it isn't really fudging because you already fudged/adjusted hp up to make it a worthwhile encounter.

 

[Chocolategravy]

This is my fear with hi-level casters, DM has to put in minions to give them a good chance to have an offensive impact. Good point about the (now XP budget reduced) BBEG being a joke for the 200 DPR martials.

I wish I could get in a time machine and see the weight of the evidence in a year when enough hi-level campaigns are going and the D&D community has playtested hi-level thoroughly.

As history will probably be repeating itself, by then we'll have MM3 where they've finally gotten the math in the ballpark and the legendary mechanics have been replaced, along with lycanthropic damage immunity.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

4e minions don't exist anymore. If I recall correctly, minions had to take damage directly aimed at them to go down. So a fireball would leave minions alone. That doesn't exist in 5e, but you could work something up.

The way it worked in 4E was that they never died from damage-on-a-miss. In 5E-speak, they could take any number of Fireballs, as long as they kept making their saves. The 5E-equivalent would just be a kobold or something, which probably would die even if it succeeded on the save.

 

[Leatherhead]

The 5E-equivalent would just be a kobold or something, which probably would die even if it succeeded on the save.

Monsters with less than 9 HP.

 

[I'm A Banana]

And that is exactly the problem. If you're filling in the encounter with other monsters, your XP multiplier kicks in and suddenly that legendary HAS to be several levels BELOW the party... which makes it easily shredded and anything BUT legendary... at least to the melee. The wizard still can't stick anything on it despite probably being able to melee it down themselves.

It's still "legendary" because it can do more than a creature of the same CR. The very fact that it is tougher, but the same level, makes it legendary. It'll last longer and do more than the balor.

The further problem is that while low level monsters are probably overtuned, high level ones, including most legendary, are undertuned and don't really present the threat the encounter guidelines suggest. So if you're throwing a legendary 4 levels over the party to begin with so it has a chance of living long enough to do some damage, your XP budget is already blown.

CR is a "you should be this level to ride this ride" sign. If you're throwing a legendary 4 levels over the party, you're already off the territory where CR as the game uses it has any meaning for your group.

 

[Nebulous]

As history will probably be repeating itself, by then we'll have MM3 where they've finally gotten the math in the ballpark and the legendary mechanics have been replaced, along with lycanthropic damage immunity.

Yes, by then I fully imagine they will have tinkered with the Legendary mechanics into a completely new form. They're actively looking at US to tell them what doesn't work, and i've seen tons of complaints here (and more helpfully, actual advice and brainstorming) about how to change the rules. I sure hope they're listening. The Legendary mechanics are a great idea, it just needs some more massaging.