D&D 5E (2024) Mike Mearls explains why your boss monsters die too easily

[Scott Christian]

I would kinda love to know what percentage of monster in this game have dispel magic. I'm not gonna count, but I'd assume the amount is absolutely tiny.

It was never about dispelling LTH. It was about how many monsters have a reasonable intelligence to understand that invaders into their lair are holed up in a seemingly magic bubble. Those monsters can do many many things in eight hours. And the answer to how many, approximately 3/4 of the monsters the MM.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So, this actually happened in our last session.

I offered the PC (through the fiction, via an NPC) the opportunity to Short Rest since they had been up the whole night through to the following morning. Had they taken it the opportunity, it would have led to their 3rd failure in the Skill Challenge, thus failing it completely.
Instead, they got an auto success (3/2) for remaining vigilant. Player was unaware of this auto success.
They opted to stay awake and see the next person who was brought in for questioning, which after a further 2 successes noticed something was off about the guard escorting the witness (5/2).
With some assistance they orchestrated an easy enough distraction (6/2) and were able to intercept an assassination attempt and through combat stop it.

I'm still surprised the player denied the Short Rest to refresh their abilities, but it worked out great in the fiction.

I would never keep the stakes from being explicit, but the use of the SC is cool. I've very rarely seen anyone use them in 5e. I really don't do 'free checks' anymore in any D&D-like that I run. You want to achieve a goal, that IS an SC, by definition.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

I would kinda love to know what percentage of monster in this game have dispel magic. I'm not gonna count, but I'd assume the amount is absolutely tiny.

Priest at CR2 is a pretty common "monster" which has Dispel Magic.

Most other monsters which have Dispel Magic would generally be found in specific locations - it is commonly found on Devils, Demons, Drow, Hags, Liches, Mummies, Sphinxes, but those aren't going to be wandering around the forest very often compared to a generic Priest.