D&D 5E Legendary Resistance shouldn't be optional

[I'm A Banana]

I'll agree with you that players don't NEED to know what abilities work in combat, but I just think it makes the game more fun if they do.

When you sit there for what seems like eternity waiting for your turn to finally get to do something, only to have the DM negate your entire turn with a legendary resistance, that suuuuuucks. There's just nothing fun to me about having your entire agency taken away by an invisible mechanic. I'd rather keep the unpredictable "try it and see what happens" moments to the exploration and social pillars where player creativity can be rewarded much more easily, and where you can immediately just try something else if your idea doesn't work.

Well, that's a bit of a different problem!

I like the idea of legendary resistance causing some monster-specific debuff to happen, which solves one of the major problems without having to get a specific list of permissions. It means your entire turn doesn't feel negated (you can't paralyze the dragon, but it did something more than decrease an invisible counter by 1).

I'm less precious about having agency taken away. It's OK if a player has a turn that's not very effective (or even completely ineffective!). I want combat to be unpredictable, I want my players to engage enemies with creativity and not rely on "I win" buttons, I want them to feel challenged and to try things that don't always work. Failure needs to be a meaningful possibility in a fight, and I don't like the idea of a static "list of don'ts" that just reward system knowledge over actually playing the game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is always the first question to ask about proposed rule modifications. I agree 100% with the OP and I use this as a homebrew rule modification, because I do think it solves an important problem.

For me, the problem that it solves is that players no longer have to guess whether they are going to waste their entire turn doing something pointless because the DM decides to use legendary resistance. Players know what abilities work and which don't work, and they can plan accordingly to make sure they are always doing something fun and fulfilling (I also always tell them which monsters have LR and which don't, there is no guessing or metagaming required).

But what logical reason do the PCs have to have that information? Have they done research and know what would be effective and what wouldn't, because if they have I could be on board with this.

 

[deadman1204]

Let's be honest, the issue is that certain spells are just too powerful and turn a fight that could have been challenging or interesting into something easily breezed through. Legendary Resistances exist to try to mitigate that, but whether you think they are good way to do that or not, the core root of the problem is that the game wants to give that interesting or challenging experience but also includes a bunch of abilities, mostly spells, that directly does the opposite of that.

As a DM and player, I've seen the upside and downside of LRs. Players do feel bad when they blow their highest level spell slot and it had no chance of doing anything because there was a LR in the monster's back pocket. On the other hand, fights that could have been a tough fight just fall apart because of a single Slow or the like with some bad rolls on the opponent's side. It's a very difficult balancing act.

As for the proposed idea, I don't think it really solves the problem. The idea of baiting out LRs on less impressive abilities doesn't change, it in fact becomes more reliable. It also doesn't help the player who does throw a big impressive thing turn 1 that ends up doing nothing.

A good way to counter the LR problem is to not have the bbeg be 10x stronger than her minions. Have a more complex fight instaed of just 1 person for the party to surround and stomp. It feels terrible as a caster to get to the BBEG and know you will spend most the fight doing nothing and being ineffective. Not just 1 round but most the fight. While there are usually 3 LRs, BBEGs have good saves so they will have alot of normal saves in there too. Turning off casters for most of the important encounters is trash game design.
The dm can try to design encounters so that the casters aren't worthless most the fight, but thats the dm trying to make up for system failures in game design. Which also assumes a good dm, and many are not.

 

[Zaukrie]

The real problem here is conditions .... Some of them make the game less fun, imo.

 

[deadman1204]

The real problem here is conditions .... Some of them make the game less fun, imo.

whats the alternative? The game bends over backwards to try and make melee as powerful as magic (when logically it should not be). Just take away all conditions? That makes casters just damage dealers, more homogination and loss of fun in the game as everything gets dumbed down even more?

 

[Zaukrie]

whats the alternative? The game bends over backwards to try and make melee as powerful as magic (when logically it should not be). Just take away all conditions? That makes casters just damage dealers, more homogination and loss of fun in the game as everything gets dumbed down even more?

Stun just kills a combat against a solo.... I should have been more precise.

I'd suggest if you want to engage in a conversation with me, that staring everything is stupid isn't the way to do it in the future...

 

[dave2008]

I miss Spell Resistance (and it's TSR predecessor, Magic Resistance) a great deal. Ever since 4e that idea has been weakened in the name of making players feel better about using their superpowers.

Well magic resistance (and immunity) is a thing in 5e. I think they work well as a simplified approach. I have even used limited magic resistance (advantage on spells of X level or lower) and cantrip immunity to good effect at times.

 

[dave2008]

A good way to counter the LR problem is to not have the bbeg be 10x stronger than her minions. Have a more complex fight instaed of just 1 person for the party to surround and stomp. It feels terrible as a caster to get to the BBEG and know you will spend most the fight doing nothing and being ineffective. Not just 1 round but most the fight. While there are usually 3 LRs, BBEGs have good saves so they will have alot of normal saves in there too. Turning off casters for most of the important encounters is trash game design.
The dm can try to design encounters so that the casters aren't worthless most the fight, but thats the dm trying to make up for system failures in game design. Which also assumes a good dm, and many are not.

It should be obvious, but since you don't mention it, casters can affect combat without casting spells that could get impacted by LR. They do not have to do nothing. Also, martials can cause monsters to spend LR too.

 

[deadman1204]

Stun just kills a combat against a solo.... I should have been more precise.

I'd suggest if you want to engage in a conversation with me, that staring everything is stupid isn't the way to do it in the future...

I agree that keeping something stunlocked isn't that fun. However do note your statement was to turn casters into only damage dealers...

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well magic resistance (and immunity) is a thing in 5e. I think they work well as a simplified approach. I have even used limited magic resistance (advantage on spells of X level or lower) and cantrip immunity to good effect at times.

I feel it doesn't go far enough. Many spells have an effect even on a successful save, and no monster is invulnerable to that, no matter how much it would make sense for them to be. It's similar to my issue with resistance, in that I feel DR worked better to represent a "lesser immunity" where small amounts of damage are ignored, as opposed to the half or nothing approach of 5e.

I like cantrip immunity as a concept though.