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

[the Jester]

It quite obviously is true. Or do you have a "magical" MM that the rest of us don't have? CR 17 4/7 legendary, CR 18 1/1 legendary, CR 19 0/1 legendary CR 20 2/3 legendary, CR 21 4/4 legendary, CR 22 2/2 legendary, CR 23 4/4 legendary, CR 24 2/2 legendary. At high levels of your 6-8 fights per day MOST will be against legendary monsters and several can very well be against MULTIPLE legends.

I have to ask- is this the voice of experience, or theorycrafting? Because I don't think that a high-level party is actually likely to face multiple legendary monsters in a day, much less an encounter. More likely, before they reach that big old dragon, they'll be facing waves of minions and lackeys first. Bounded accuracy means that even orcs and kobolds are still a viable threat at high levels.

 

[SilverfireSage]

It quite obviously is true. Or do you have a "magical" MM that the rest of us don't have? CR 17 4/7 legendary, CR 18 1/1 legendary, CR 19 0/1 legendary CR 20 2/3 legendary, CR 21 4/4 legendary, CR 22 2/2 legendary, CR 23 4/4 legendary, CR 24 2/2 legendary. At high levels of your 6-8 fights per day MOST will be against legendary monsters and several can very well be against MULTIPLE legends.

Except, as Tormyr said, the way 5E works is that many of the creatures below those levels can still be viable encounters for high level PCs. Not to mention that most of those legendary monsters are dragons, aboleths, liches, and the like, where there will only be one of those in any given campaign, let alone in a single day. Or do you have a "magical" (by which we both mean ludicrous) DM who throws multiple dragons at 17th level characters in a single fight?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I haven't ran any legendary creatures yet, but I look forward to it.

Count me in as someone who'd like to know what legendary creature it was in the OP's example, 'cause it doesn't sound like it did enough, but it's impossible to know if it was mechanically capable of doing more or not, not knowing what it was.

 

[mcintma]

This is what I've been saying for awhile, and I anticipated it would take several months to a year for people to playtest High Level (HL) enough hours to start seeing/believing it - the LFQW 'wariness' is just that strong.

At HL, almost everything has Magic Res, Energy Res/Immunity, and then the bosses will have Auto-Save 3x. Also, only 1 slot of 7/8/9th (which lower-level spells that no longer scale will be competing for), so casters can't exactly barrage legendary enemies.

The net effect could be that only a very very narrow set of spells will be worth taking at HL. In past eds DR was the rough equivalent of SR, so that the fighter and wizard (for ex.) both had 'walls' to get through to kill bosses. But in 5e, DR is trivial to bypass at HL, from what I'm seeing it's just 'magic weapon required'.

 

[Celtavian]

I would like someone with actual experience against Legendary Creatures with legendary resistance at higher level...between 5th and 15th?

The opponent did have Legendary Actions. The Darkness was a legendary action. It attacked on other character's turns. Martials, especially fighters, can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time. Action Surge burst damage hammered it. We were level 5. 3rd level is the highest spell available. The creature did hit hard. So did the party. The monster is in a module. Not interested in giving away spoilers because it is unnecessary to answer the question.

A group with bless can hammer on a Legendary Creature missing very rarely. The bless spell is very, very powerful. A fighter can wander up use Feinting Attack with bless hitting for 2d6+13 with Great Weapon Mastery. Bless allows him to tee off with Great Weapon Mastery for a lot of damage. A smiting Paladin hammers for a lot of damage quickly and if he uses Vow of Enmity he gets advantage on every attack. Even the darkness reduced him to regular attacks rolls.

Buffing the party was highly effective. Casting spells on the creature not so much until its hit points were lot enough to be affected by sleep.

I'm asking people with experience if this is also what is happening at higher level. Do wizards or casters have to rely on no save spells waiting for the martials to do enough damage to put them in sleep or similar type magic range? Due to Legendary Resistance, I feel my natural tactical options are to hit the creature with low level save or suck spells hoping it fails and is forced to use Legendary Resistance to set up a higher level attack. It appears to force a player into a meta-gaming situation where he must use player knowledge to effectively use his character. It seems like a very strange mechanic forcing a certain type of player rather than character tactical choice that lessens role-playing well. A wizard or other caster must feel absolutely pathetic having his best spells resisted automatically every single time he faces a Legendary Creature. I expected Legendary Creatures to have high saves, and they do, but to auto-save is basically a message to casters that "Your spells will never work unless they don't allow saves against a Legendary Creature." Three saves is huge in a fight of that kind where every class is going all out with their class abilities to win.

 

[SilverfireSage]

I would like someone with actual experience against Legendary Creatures with legendary resistance at higher level...between 5th and 15th?

The opponent did have Legendary Actions. The Darkness was a legendary action. It attacked on other character's turns. Martials, especially fighters, can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time. Action Surge burst damage hammered it. We were level 5. 3rd level is the highest spell available. The creature did hit hard. So did the party. The monster is in a module. Not interested in giving away spoilers because it is unnecessary to answer the question.

A group with bless can hammer on a Legendary Creature missing very rarely. The bless spell is very, very powerful. A fighter can wander up use Feinting Attack with bless hitting for 2d6+13 with Great Weapon Mastery. Bless allows him to tee off with Great Weapon Mastery for a lot of damage. A smiting Paladin hammers for a lot of damage quickly and if he uses Vow of Enmity he gets advantage on every attack. Even the darkness reduced him to regular attacks rolls.

Buffing the party was highly effective. Casting spells on the creature not so much until its hit points were lot enough to be affected by sleep.

I'm asking people with experience if this is also what is happening at higher level. Do wizards or casters have to rely on no save spells waiting for the martials to do enough damage to put them in sleep or similar type magic range? Due to Legendary Resistance, I feel my natural tactical options are to hit the creature with low level save or suck spells hoping it fails and is forced to use Legendary Resistance to set up a higher level attack. It appears to force a player into a meta-gaming situation where he must use player knowledge to effectively use his character. It seems like a very strange mechanic forcing a certain type of player rather than character tactical choice that lessens role-playing well. A wizard or other caster must feel absolutely pathetic having his best spells resisted automatically every single time he faces a Legendary Creature. I expected Legendary Creatures to have high saves, and they do, but to auto-save is basically a message to casters that "Your spells will never work unless they don't allow saves against a Legendary Creature." Three saves is huge in a fight of that kind where every class is going all out with their class abilities to win.

I've thrown 4 Legendary monsters at my players from level 6-13, and I am not experiencing any of the challenges you have. Yes, the PCs are going to hit a single creature powerfully, they are going to do lot of damage, and they are going to kill it quickly if they are at full capacity. Remember that CR is not the best way to make a "challenging" encounter, but instead use the XP amount. I threw a beholder against 6Lvl 10 PCs and they massacred it, only realizing afterwards that it's barely a medium encounter for that many people.

My question is this: How are Legendary Resistances any different from 3 lucky rolls on the dice? It's 3 times when it gets to save, and the great thing about this edition is that a lot of the powerful spells still have effects even if you manage to save. I don't think any of the legendary creatures have the equivalent of "evasion" so even damage spells should be able to be effective after the creature saves against it. For me as a DM, I love Legendary Resistance as its a way to make a solo creature powerful without resorting to fudging the dice due to stun locking. Wow that Dragon was so powerful, until we used Contagion on it and stunned it every round until it died. That sort of tactic needed to die, and this is the solution they had.

Another question: Why would you tell the players that he used his "legendary resistance" and not just say that he saved? My players don't know the difference, all they know is that this thing is scary and is managing to save a lot.

Edit: Forgot one more thing. Your wizard cast a single spell. That is not even close to going "all out" against the monster.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I would like someone with actual experience against Legendary Creatures with legendary resistance at higher level...between 5th and 15th?

The opponent did have Legendary Actions. The Darkness was a legendary action. It attacked on other character's turns. Martials, especially fighters, can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time. Action Surge burst damage hammered it. We were level 5. 3rd level is the highest spell available. The creature did hit hard. So did the party. The monster is in a module. Not interested in giving away spoilers because it is unnecessary to answer the question.

A group with bless can hammer on a Legendary Creature missing very rarely. The bless spell is very, very powerful. A fighter can wander up use Feinting Attack with bless hitting for 2d6+13 with Great Weapon Mastery. Bless allows him to tee off with Great Weapon Mastery for a lot of damage. A smiting Paladin hammers for a lot of damage quickly and if he uses Vow of Enmity he gets advantage on every attack. Even the darkness reduced him to regular attacks rolls.

Buffing the party was highly effective. Casting spells on the creature not so much until its hit points were lot enough to be affected by sleep.

I'm asking people with experience if this is also what is happening at higher level. Do wizards or casters have to rely on no save spells waiting for the martials to do enough damage to put them in sleep or similar type magic range? Due to Legendary Resistance, I feel my natural tactical options are to hit the creature with low level save or suck spells hoping it fails and is forced to use Legendary Resistance to set up a higher level attack. It appears to force a player into a meta-gaming situation where he must use player knowledge to effectively use his character. It seems like a very strange mechanic forcing a certain type of player rather than character tactical choice that lessens role-playing well. A wizard or other caster must feel absolutely pathetic having his best spells resisted automatically every single time he faces a Legendary Creature. I expected Legendary Creatures to have high saves, and they do, but to auto-save is basically a message to casters that "Your spells will never work unless they don't allow saves against a Legendary Creature." Three saves is huge in a fight of that kind where every class is going all out with their class abilities to win.

I'm sorry, but to be perfectly honest, something just doesn't smell right. Firstly, knowing what opponent you fought is important because it could put a lot of things into proper context. Secondly, bless doesn't add damage. Thirdly, a fighter's superiority dice is d8, which you don't seem to have in your math there. Fourthly, your additions (it did hit hard, etc) were not part of your OP. Fifthly, I'm not familiar with a monster in an official 5e module that has darkness as a legendary action that a group of 5th level PCs would run across.

I'm not disputing you, just that something just doesn't sit quite right.

 

[Boarstorm]

Secondly, bless doesn't add damage.

No, but it does do a lot to offset the penalty for using Great Weapon Mastery's -5 to-hit, +10 damage mode.

 

[Boarstorm]

The monster is in a module. Not interested in giving away spoilers because it is unnecessary to answer the question.

Perhaps you could just tell us which module?

 

[Jack99]

It quite obviously is true. Or do you have a "magical" MM that the rest of us don't have? CR 17 4/7 legendary, CR 18 1/1 legendary, CR 19 0/1 legendary CR 20 2/3 legendary, CR 21 4/4 legendary, CR 22 2/2 legendary, CR 23 4/4 legendary, CR 24 2/2 legendary. At high levels of your 6-8 fights per day MOST will be against legendary monsters and several can very well be against MULTIPLE legends.

I thought you didn't play 5e?