D&D 5E Legendary, Lair, and BOSS Actions

[trentonjoe]

I made a CR 4 with Legendary Actions.


My base formula was:

Cantrip/Extra Attack - 1 action
1st level spell- 2 actions
2nd level spell- 3 actions

 

[Savage Wombat]

How do you guys narrate auto-saves anyway? From a rules-fairness POV, you want to imply to the players that this is a special, limited use ability separate from "Wow, he just rolls really well".

 

[Paraxis]

Legendary resistance is just bad, not sure why anyone would want to see more of if.

If effect causing things like spells are just shrugged off, the fight comes down to a purely hit points, and effectively makes these legendary creatures sacks of hit points.

I haven't run a legendary monster yet, but I plan on changing it to something that ensures they have actions because that is another thing that makes boss fights boring, stun locks and things. So Legendary resistance becomes 3/day you can take your turn or actions despite other effects or conditions.

 

[Joe Liker]

It may be a little meta for your tastes, but I think the legendary save thing should be something the players can learn of in advance if they do some research.

That way, they can use a bit of strategy and some mind games, peppering it with less important, but still mildly debilitating, spells early in the fight, and if it wastes its free saves on those, THEN they pull out the big guns. If the monster chooses not to spend its free saves, those minor spells might just swing things to the players' advantage anyway.

Of course, this only works if you have multiple magic users with saving-throw type spells. And if it's a magic-resistant monster with advantage against all magic saves, you're not going to waste your time with that sort of spell at all, anyway.

 

[Nebulous]

How do you guys narrate auto-saves anyway? From a rules-fairness POV, you want to imply to the players that this is a special, limited use ability separate from "Wow, he just rolls really well".

In fairness to the players, i might tell them upfront, just to nix any unpleasant surprises: "Guys, some enemies have the power to make an autosave. More than once. I decide when and where. It makes them special, and really, really tough. They have other powers too, but the autosave is the one I'm forewarning you about."

Edit: yes, that is obscenely meta.

 

[Nebulous]

Legendary resistance is just bad, not sure why anyone would want to see more of if.

If effect causing things like spells are just shrugged off, the fight comes down to a purely hit points, and effectively makes these legendary creatures sacks of hit points.

I haven't run a legendary monster yet, but I plan on changing it to something that ensures they have actions because that is another thing that makes boss fights boring, stun locks and things. So Legendary resistance becomes 3/day you can take your turn or actions despite other effects or conditions.

But isn't that effectively like just making the saving throw anyway? Besides, I don't have any idea how much stun-lock figures into 5e. Is it as prevalent as it was in 4e?

 

[Tzarevitch]

Sounds like you could basically use the legendary action thing but not have the points renew each round (call it a short rest).

And I'd vastly prefer it a single legendary save than a bonus a couple of times. So much simpler.
Or the ability to get advantage, if you don't want it automatic, but not a fiddly bonus.

Or just give the the Luck feat.

I was also thinking of giving them the luck feat. I truly despise auto saves. I understand why they're there (because 5e reintroduced the auto-hit-save-or-be-incapacitated-for-the-full-fight mechanic from 3e and otherwise the PCs can end a boss fight with a single spell) but that doesn't mean I like the way the designers addressed it. Spellcasters quickly become trivialized against those creatures because they already have a very high chance of making their saves and they just use their autosave in the event they actually fail against anything significant.

 

[CM]

I like the idea of giving boss-type creatures the Lucky feat.

For creatures with Legendary Resistance auto-saves, as a DM I'd probably delay the auto-save a bit. Maybe make it its own legendary action? That way if a PC tosses a big save-or-suck debilitating effect on it, one or two other players might get to benefit from that effect before the creature overcomes it.

For other boss-type creatures, I'd make sure they have one or more of the following available:

• A useful bonus action
• A useful reaction
• A command aura that gives allies within 20 to 30 feet some sort of benefit
• Some sort of recharging ability
• Another useful feat such as Magic Initiate, Shield Master, Polearm Master, etc.
• A minor or one-shot magic item

 

[Viking Bastard]

What about giving them Inspiration? We're basically talking about the greater-than-the-average NPCs, much like the PCs.

 

[SilverfireSage]

Legendary resistance is just bad, not sure why anyone would want to see more of if.

If effect causing things like spells are just shrugged off, the fight comes down to a purely hit points, and effectively makes these legendary creatures sacks of hit points.

I haven't run a legendary monster yet, but I plan on changing it to something that ensures they have actions because that is another thing that makes boss fights boring, stun locks and things. So Legendary resistance becomes 3/day you can take your turn or actions despite other effects or conditions.

How is that any better? That actually seems even more incongruous to me than giving them three free saves. And besides, all of these creatures are high enough level that the wizard or magic user is going to have far more than just 3 spells to throw at them. The whole reason we switched back from 4e is because the solo monsters got massacred without even batting an eye because they were stunned the whole time. This is so much nicer.