D&D 5E Magic Resistance Alternatives

That can work. Narratively, if you have an "anti-magic material" like dimertium (Witcher games) or orichalcum (some editions of D&D), then you have a narrative explanation too: the Wand is made of this material.

It'll get into the same binary issue you see with warriors in 5e – once you get a magic item, the resistance to non-magical B/P/S line becomes meaningless. It's an on/off switch that once switched on will almost never switch off again. If that's cool by you, then you've got a fine solution.
Yeah, coming from earlier edition play where creatures are resistant or immune to weapons unless they're +#, or blunt etc, or adamantine/cold iron etc. the "oh you have a sword that glows now? Now you'll do full damage against everything" is a bit of a loss.
 

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If you ask me, since you've got 4 casters in the party, you should be worrying about them bombarding everything with save or suck spells to end encounters or debuff them into oblivion more than worrying about them tossing cantrips that have to roll to hit. Having them batter against a little spell resistance isn't unfair - THAT'S what it's for. They'll more than make up for such "unfairness" when they're banishing everything in sight or shutting down enemy spellcasters with counterspell.
I'm not really too concerned. Sure, there are spells that can render enemies about useless, but the alternative is to watch them get pounded into paste by monsters, lol. I'm certainly not worried about counterspell- not only is it only available to the Warlock (and not a great use of his Pact slots even if he did take it), but enemy spellcasters are usually throwing out higher level spells than the party has access to anyways. If things change at higher level, I can address it, but right now, I don't like the idea of just saying "hey guys, I'm going to go ahead and mostly invalidate your characters in my encounter design". There's no interesting counterplay with magic resistance at the moment. No way to counteract it or good strategy to use other than "don't use spells with saving throws" which is, well, most of them.
 

Yeah, coming from earlier edition play where creatures are resistant or immune to weapons unless they're +#, or blunt etc, or adamantine/cold iron etc. the "oh you have a sword that glows now? Now you'll do full damage against everything" is a bit of a loss.
There's not a lot of alternatives. Consider the AD&D werewolf. So if you are prepared to fight a werewolf, it's a joke. If you're not, it's unbeatable and likely a TPK. If more monsters were designed with specific resistances and vulnerabilities, then at least players would have to occasionally switch weapons, but that sort of design is apparently too much to be bothered with, outside of a few legacy monsters like skeletons.
 

There's not a lot of alternatives. Consider the AD&D werewolf. So if you are prepared to fight a werewolf, it's a joke. If you're not, it's unbeatable and likely a TPK. If more monsters were designed with specific resistances and vulnerabilities, then at least players would have to occasionally switch weapons, but that sort of design is apparently too much to be bothered with, outside of a few legacy monsters like skeletons.
The example of werewolves:
Damage Immunities Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks that aren't Silvered

I run it as immune to non magic non silvered weapons
Resistant to magic weapons
Full damage from silvered weapons

I suppose I could instead make it vulnerable to silver, but I have not done so.
 

I think there is a big flaw with the concept of magic resistance.
5th rarely to never has encounters where you turn all the melee off, where they do 50% damage, or the mob can just say "legendary save, you have no effect this round". Yes, there can be rare immunities that can be planned around, but even they are quite rare.

Resistance like this just turns off casters, which is bad game design and not fun for anyone. Its strange how there are many options in the game to just turn off magic users, but melee never have these issues. I'm not advocating for a "turn melee off" option, but more pointing out the situation. There shouldn't be a way to deactivate multiple characters to "make it tougher".
 

I think there is a big flaw with the concept of magic resistance.
5th rarely to never has encounters where you turn all the melee off, where they do 50% damage, or the mob can just say "legendary save, you have no effect this round". Yes, there can be rare immunities that can be planned around, but even they are quite rare.

Resistance like this just turns off casters, which is bad game design and not fun for anyone. Its strange how there are many options in the game to just turn off magic users, but melee never have these issues. I'm not advocating for a "turn melee off" option, but more pointing out the situation. There shouldn't be a way to deactivate multiple characters to "make it tougher".
Most of these big boss creatures have 2-3 uses of it- is that such a big problem, when most of the spells that they would use it against have such a radical effect on the battle?

I think it's because the spells in 5e either work, or don't. There aren't degrees of failure for Hold Monster, it's binary.

Instead you'd need degrees of success/failure- the creature isn't paralyzed, they're Slowed. Etc
 

Most of these big boss creatures have 2-3 uses of it- is that such a big problem, when most of the spells that they would use it against have such a radical effect on the battle?

I think it's because the spells in 5e either work, or don't. There aren't degrees of failure for Hold Monster, it's binary.

Instead you'd need degrees of success/failure- the creature isn't paralyzed, they're Slowed. Etc
IF you've tried playing a caster, then you will see that it IS a huge problem. You cannot use your best abilities because "legendary save". So you gotta cast your middle abilities to see if the monster will use them, all while the dm knows what will happen if all legendary saves get used up.
So you spend most of the time in a significant encounter unable to use your favorite/best abilities. It can also take more than 2-3 rounds, because the BBEG's will also have great saves, so they have a greater than 50% chance to resist any spell anyways and not need a legendary save. Dms won't waste the legendary saves on a magic missle or piddling damage spell, they'll save it for your best high level spells only. Which basically means you don't get to use them.

Imagine if a paladin had to wait 5 rounds before they could use a smite? Or a barbarian couldn't rage because the BBEG would just "turn it off", until you spent enough rounds burning abilities and eventually got lucky?
Casters leave these fights with a terrible taste in their mouths because its not fun. You spend the entire fight trying to do something, and consider yourself lucky if you did ANYTHING. Imagine playing your bard and 4 out of the 6 rounds you had no effect on the combat at all, cause the bbeg just said "nope!" or had good saves? BBEG fights are boring and frustrating for casters, and super fun for melee. Thats just terrible game design.
 

IF you've tried playing a caster, then you will see that it IS a huge problem. You cannot use your best abilities because "legendary save". So you gotta cast your middle abilities to see if the monster will use them, all while the dm knows what will happen if all legendary saves get used up.
So you spend most of the time in a significant encounter unable to use your favorite/best abilities. It can also take more than 2-3 rounds, because the BBEG's will also have great saves, so they have a greater than 50% chance to resist any spell anyways and not need a legendary save. Dms won't waste the legendary saves on a magic missle or piddling damage spell, they'll save it for your best high level spells only. Which basically means you don't get to use them.

Imagine if a paladin had to wait 5 rounds before they could use a smite? Or a barbarian couldn't rage because the BBEG would just "turn it off", until you spent enough rounds burning abilities and eventually got lucky?
Casters leave these fights with a terrible taste in their mouths because its not fun. You spend the entire fight trying to do something, and consider yourself lucky if you did ANYTHING. Imagine playing your bard and 4 out of the 6 rounds you had no effect on the combat at all, cause the bbeg just said "nope!" or had good saves? BBEG fights are boring and frustrating for casters, and super fun for melee. Thats just terrible game design.
Having been involved in a campaign that has gone up to 20th level and involves creatures with legendary saves, I want to give you a different perspective. It isn't simply a case of a spellcaster having to wait 5 rounds before doing something - rather, thanks to legendary saves, a spellcaster and their companions now need to ablate the major enemy's defenses before they're vulnerable to a single-spell solution to the encounter - just like a martial character needs to ablate away hit points before the target is vulnerable to a single, encounter-ending blow. Legendary saves are an alternative hit point system that applies to save-based debuffs and encounter enders.
And, as such, they are one of the reasons I feel that 5e offers good overall balance between spellcasters and martial characters while still retaining much of the feel of D&D in general. They are not terrible game design.
 

Having been involved in a campaign that has gone up to 20th level and involves creatures with legendary saves, I want to give you a different perspective. It isn't simply a case of a spellcaster having to wait 5 rounds before doing something - rather, thanks to legendary saves, a spellcaster and their companions now need to ablate the major enemy's defenses before they're vulnerable to a single-spell solution to the encounter - just like a martial character needs to ablate away hit points before the target is vulnerable to a single, encounter-ending blow. Legendary saves are an alternative hit point system that applies to save-based debuffs and encounter enders.
And, as such, they are one of the reasons I feel that 5e offers good overall balance between spellcasters and martial characters while still retaining much of the feel of D&D in general. They are not terrible game design.
This isn't the same though. Monsters are killed by reducing hp. Your lvl 20 fighter attacks a bunch and does a bunch of damage (but doesn't kill it). The fighter feels good, like they did something.
Your sorcerer casts a 5th level spell HOPING The bbeg fails the same and then uses up a legendary save. Ooops, saved. Sorcerer doesn't feel like they accomplished anything. Next round you try again, and trigger a legendary, yay you failed successfully?! Continue for 3-5 more rounds and now you can finally use your good spells! Your 6 rounds in an now its like round 1 for the melees, you can now attempt to do stuff! Oops the fighter killed it.
Please explain how this is fun?
 

This isn't the same though. Monsters are killed by reducing hp. Your lvl 20 fighter attacks a bunch and does a bunch of damage (but doesn't kill it). The fighter feels good, like they did something.
Your sorcerer casts a 5th level spell HOPING The bbeg fails the same and then uses up a legendary save. Ooops, saved. Sorcerer doesn't feel like they accomplished anything. Next round you try again, and trigger a legendary, yay you failed successfully?! Continue for 3-5 more rounds and now you can finally use your good spells! Your 6 rounds in an now its like round 1 for the melees, you can now attempt to do stuff! Oops the fighter killed it.
Please explain how this is fun?
Explain how it would be fun for everyone if the wizard's first spell was a successful banishment on round 1. Or a cleric with a hold person? You're so worried about the caster having to work for a victory but what about everyone else if the caster's save or suck spell takes effect early and ends the fight?

The answer here is that there's a balance between the needs of any single spellcaster with the potential to end encounters and the other players around the table. With legendary saves, whether with spell resistance or not, the group has to work together to defeat a major opponent - by ablating away hit points, ablating away legendary saves, so that the enemy is vulnerable to the end move. I feel that balance has gone a long way to improving the play of D&D from the 3e era where save or suck spells had gotten way out of control.
 

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