D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

[Scribe]

"Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of the game." Paraphrasing.. who was that? Matt Colville maybe?

I've seen that in every genre in some way or another for years, I'd be shocked if that was his originally.

 

[dave2008]

Yes, Legendary resistance is an unfun hack. But the fix was already in WotC's arsenal: The Condition Track from SW:SE.

What is the SW:SE condition track?

 

[dave2008]

So I read Mike Mearls' post and I like the idea of spending legendary actions to gain a boost to saves. The detail about it lasting until its next turn. I assume that means that they'd get the bonus to overcome the control effect if they failed their first saving throw (they'd still have a bonus next turn)? Or I guess they'd have to spend another legendary action to get the bonus?

The monster gets a +5 to all saves until its next turn when all if its legendary actions regen. So in effect it can get a constant +5 bonus to saves and just have 2 legendary actions.

It is a simple solution, but I am not sure it is the best.

 

[SkidAce]

Yeah, Mearls is just wrong.

But I tend to play enchanters anyways, so I just hate how 5E has mauled hold person, charm person and the like anyways.

He isn't completely wrong in some aspects. His ideas for legendary saves are pretty good, and removes the boring "Monster uses legendary save..."

 

[Maxperson]

He isn't completely wrong in some aspects. His ideas for legendary saves are pretty good, and removes the boring "Monster uses legendary save..."

That's why I'd love to see it replaced with fun abilities used 3x day, like the monster rips the magic from you and wraps it around himself, gaining +3 AC for 2 rounds. And other things like that.

 

[SkidAce]

That's why I'd love to see it replaced with fun abilities used 3x day, like the monster rips the magic from you and wraps it around himself, gaining +3 AC for 2 rounds. And other things like that.

Do you have access to his Patreon, cause stuff like that is kinda what he is suggesting.

 

[billd91]

Legendary Resistance may be a bit of a kludge but most of the solutions I'm seeing aren't really an improvement. Legendary Resistance as it sits now is easy to apply and ablative. As long as the DM is letting players know when it's invoked, they can set their expectations properly and grind down its uses. Easy-peasy.

Too many of the solutions either muddle with that such as using legendary actions to fuel a major save bonus removes the ablatability, slow play by adding complication such as applying some kind of formula to determine levels of success or variable effects, undermines the brand or turns everything into sacks of hit points such as removing the save/suck effects entirely, and so on.

And while Legendary Resistance can be a cancel player action button, it does have advantages. It's fast, it expends player resources, and by itself it's also a resource. And as it only changes a failed save to a successful save, it either cancels effects or mitigates them (like damage). I think people underestimate how important fast combat is. We're noticing that fast combat is more enjoyable for everyone involved and 2024 improves on that dramatically by making ability descriptions more concise and streamlining abilities (multiple different attacks into one). There is no perfect RPG (especially not D&D), as such I prefer a faster flawed D&D then a slower slightly less flawed D&D.

I think Cergorach makes a pretty good point here. Legendary Resistance may not feel elegant by any means, but is it not working for people? It definitely works well for me as a DM under most circumstances. Probably the worst problem I ever had with it is described here:

I think the main problem I have with Legendary Resistance is that it doesn't scale to the party. Some parties have multiple characters tossing out saving throws every turn. Some have very few. This results in the ability being crippling for some parties and quickly overcome by others.

Six PCs, one of whom is a monk capable of stunning, will run through legendary resistances very fast. But even then, the legendary resistance is doing its job and keeping my legendary monsters from going down to cheap stuns or other save/suck effects that would have a much stronger impact on the pacing without the legendary resistance. And that's... enough. I don't necessarily want those save/suck effects gone - I just want PCs to work for them a little. And if that means attacking the non-hit point track for defeating monsters multiple times to land that effect, ultimately I'm good.

 

[SkidAce]

Or, if they couldn’t, don’t include those spells. Tell the 3e grognards to suck it up, buttercup. That crowd has mostly abandoned 5e by this point anyway. Shame they didn’t take the opportunity to fix this mistake in the 2024 revisions.

I'm an old 3E player, still play 5E, and I would like some save or suck spells to remain.

As Mearls said, the nuance is the saves, resistances, and availability of those spells has changed.

Actually, they did make things better! "In yea olde days" it was save or suck, now there are a lot of spells that allow a save every turn. Prior, you were just stuck for the duration.

Keep the spells, find a tweak IMO to ameliorate them.

 

[Distracted DM]

Yes, Legendary resistance is an unfun hack. But the fix was already in WotC's arsenal: The Condition Track from SW:SE.

What is the SW:SE condition track?

I'm not sure if we're thinking of the same thing, but Star Wars: Saga Edition had a little track where you'd deteriorate as you got wounded. I guess you could think of it as exhaustion, in 5e terms. I don't recall how it applies here, though.. it's been decades since I looked at my SWSE books so I don't remember everything about it. But to be fair it was a pretty solid game.

edit: OK did a little googling to refresh my memory.
Conditions
What's all this about the Saga condition track? | Dungeons & Dragons / Fantasy D20 Spotlight
From the above thread:

It's neat because it's a unified mechanic. Failed Fort saves from DT are only one way you get pushed down the Condition Track. You can get pushed by certain class abilities (like the equivalent of Stunning Fist), certain Force powers, and even by certain types of Diplomacy checks! (Symbolizing the fact that you're being convinced not to fight.) It gets rid of the huge array of conditions like Stunned, Sickened, etc. by merging them into a easy-to-use system.