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

[Stormonu]

Hard disagree. The DM is a player too, let them use their own judgement for when it should be most dramatic to implement. Besides, after all it is Legendary. Why should it be squandered on something like an acid splash?

 

[jayoungr]

So, he can still mitigate the impact of a save-or-suck spell. But, doing so eats up his reaction for the round, and his action on his turn, since turning back into his human form takes a full action to do. You don’t get to restrain or charm him, but you do get to waste his action economy, so there’s still a lot of value in targeting him with such effects.

I like the idea of a flavorful explanation for why the monster makes the save, but this seems way too punishing to me! It's actually worse than just a damage mitigation reaction. My players would win faster against a monster who did this than one who didn't have the legendary action replacement. I basically can never use any of the monster's entire-action non-damage-dealing abilities as it is, and this would eat the reaction as well.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Legendary Resistance should specify triggering conditions, and not require a GM judgement call. Instead of choosing the saves to avoid, LR should have text like "the first X times a failed saving throw would cause Y or more damage, or inflict conditions A-G, treat this monster as if it succeeded instead."

The exact conditions could vary from with monster CR, but making it not an active choice, players can much more consistently engage with LR as an alternate health pool, and feel like they're burning resources towards defeating their targets.

What's the problem this is trying to solve? IMXP, letting the DM make the call is elegant and straightforward. A list of conditions or a damage number are easily forgotten about.

But, there’s no flavor to legendary resistance. The DM just gets to say “nope” to a failed save 3 times. Heck, if the DM doesn’t directly tell the players the monster failed but it’s using a legendary resistance, it might even be completely invisible. But if they do that, it makes the player feel like the action was wasted. I much prefer something visible, flavorful, and ideally, specific to the monster.

I like your thinking here. Flee Mortals! has a similar thought, where a legendary resistance use often comes with some other kind of minor debuff that works with the flavor of the monster. No, you can't paralyze them, but you can force them to put effort into resisting your paralysis, and that means that they'll, say, lose their reaction or lose access to a legendary action or deal less damage for a turn or something. It's an idea with legs, I think!

 

[Pedantic]

Q: What is the primary purpose of Legendary saves?

A: To keep the creature up and active when action economy is stacked against him/as a solo.

We're in solid agreement here.

Q: Does this change enhance, reduce, or is neutral to the primary purpose?

A: Since this now can be used up by low-level spells and minor effects that would not unduly inhibit a creature, this proposed change undermines the primary purpose of Legendary Saves.

Conclusion: House rule is detrimental to Legendary Saves' purpose and should not be implemented.

And you've now completely missed my point.

LR functions as an alternative health system, trading out whatever the standard X Attack actions you'd need to to get through a monster's HP, for 4 big spells (maybe barring a stunning strike monk) until the monster hits the "dead" or "as good as dead" status condition. The classic problem with LR is that it doesn't interact with normal HP. Spellcasters spending actions burning down LR get no benefit if the fighters do enough damage first. That's the problem solutions like Charlaquin's solve, and that is obviously preferable but a bigger design question (as you essentially are committing to building a unique series of debuffs for all your solo monsters).

The problem I'm solving is that right now, LR creates weird, perverse incentives for spellcasters. You either avoid spells that should be very effective, because they waste your actions, or you end up using less effective spells, and hoping your DM decides to use the LR early, so you can actually deploy one of your winning spells.

That's an unnecessary feel bad game for both participants, and leaving a bunch of game design space on the table. LRs should instead recognize the role they're playing as an alternative HP track. If you want them to require spellcasters burn 4 game winning spells before they function, they should just do that. If you want them to use 2, set it at 2. If you want them to burn through 5 actions, but only 1 game winning spell, set them to respond to a bunch of conditions at 5.

My point is that 3/LRs that the GM has to decide how to deploy is a worst of both worlds scenario. It creates either a perverse incentive for the GM to play poorly if they want the players to actually use their powerful abilities, or a perverse incentive for players to avoid taking and/or using those abilities in the first place.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

What's the problem this is trying to solve?

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).

 

[Charlaquin]

I like the idea of a flavorful explanation for why the monster makes the save, but this seems way too punishing to me! It's actually worse than just a damage mitigation reaction. My players would win faster against a monster who did this than one who didn't have the legendary action replacement. I basically can never use any of the monster's entire-action non-damage-dealing abilities as it is, and this would eat the reaction as well.

I mean, it’s Strahd. If he needs a turn to shapeshift he can fly just through a nearby wall into another room and slam the doors closed with his legendary actions. The whole battle is designed to be a protracted cat-and-mouse game throughout the castle until you can force him into the location of the fated encounter and then he goes down in a round or two.

 

[Blue]

We're in solid agreement here.

And you've now completely missed my point.

No, I got your point, I just disagree with it.

LR functions as an alternative health system,

No it doesn't. It's rarely about health, it's about save-or-suck effects, from spells like Banishment to a Monk's Stunning Strike. As I said in the part you "solidly agreed with", it's to keep the creature getting their actions. Various save effects that have nothing to do with health but do about action denial, lockdown and/or debuff are a critical part of it.

The problem I'm solving is that right now, LR creates weird, perverse incentives for spellcasters. You either avoid spells that should be very effective, because they waste your actions, or you end up using less effective spells, and hoping your DM decides to use the LR early, so you can actually deploy one of your winning spells.

Which regardless of it's truth (and I will debate that as well), is still entirely secondary.

We solidly agree (your words) on what the goal of Legendary Saves are. Not one lick of that goal is "provide characters with normal spellcasting incentives".

That's not the goal of Legendary Saves, and any change which prioritizes that over the actual goal we agree on is, by literal definition, flawed.

Now, if you want to do a complete rework of it which meets both the primary goal and, without reducing it's effectiveness, also adds in this secondary goal, I think that would be a real winner. I'd play with it. But reducing the primary goal is a non-starter.

 

[Quickleaf]

This I agree with. With the current implementation of Legendary Actions and Legendary Saves to even out action economy, it's a workaround.

One potential option I'd much rather see is to just make it real. Give the ability to save against any spell on them at end of their turn, like Banishment, and then just give them multiple turns per round. Have them roll several initiatives, or perhaps it's at rolled initiative and then again at -5, -10, -15, and so forth to match the number of people in the party.

5e needs something, and the proposed change to Legendary Saves isn't it. But a full rethink could be.

I support a full rethink more often than I should.

You know I tried doing a monster with multiple turns in 5e (after players were used to the Legendary Action/Resistances model) and oooh boy was there some pushback. It was good-natured, but my players did not like that.

I was trying to figure out why, and I think the Initiative rules (where it's individual and you act once per round but in that one turn you compress as muuuuch as possible) as they've emerged in modern D&D kind of reinforced or encouraged that negative reaction in my players. Because initiative is seen as a valuation of personal speed/readiness/quick-drawing rather than a game construct for keeping play organized.

The old phased (Missile, Polearm, Charge, Melee, Magic) initiative almost would "sugar coat" that multiple turn monster to make it more palatable. Maybe.

 

[CleverNickName]

Eh. I've never had any issues with legendary resistance. But if you try it out at your table, let us know how it goes.

 

[Pedantic]

No, I got your point, I just disagree with it.

You clearly don't, or you wouldn't have said the bolded below, so I must not be expressing myself well.

No it doesn't. It's rarely about health, it's about save-or-suck effects, from spells like Banishment to a Monk's Stunning Strike.

When I'm saying "alternative health system" I mean, "instead of going through the creature's HP, you deplete the creature's LR, so you can land a stun or banishment or other loss condition."

LR as written is an alternative HP pool, with 4 HP in it, with the weird caveat that the GM decides when to burn HP. Sometimes the monster is extra vulnerable and loses HP to non-damaging effects (less important status conditions) and sometimes the monster has abruptly less HP than expected. The GM shouldn't be in the socially awkward position of having to decide that on an action by action basis. The martial equivalent would be deciding after each attack if the monster should gain or lose hit points.

I understand LR, I get the goal is to ensure your important solo monster isn't vulnerable to removal spells too early in the encounter, while still allowing removal spells in the game in the first place. I'm saying the implementation leads to bad outcomes. Better to make it consistent, so players can plan around how effective or ineffective those spells will be and so GMs aren't stuck in a position of making in the moment decision about how effective players get to be.