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

[Distracted DM]

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but you could as an option, after a failed saving throw, have the creature lose a Legendary Action to overcome the spell (as part of a Legendary Resistance).
It works well in the fiction and for the players.

Separate to the above, but somewhat connected -
In one of my recent sessions, the PC sorcerer pulled out a Power Word Stun scroll on an ancient wyrm.
The dragon was not at the required hit point mark, but I felt the usage of such a powerful resource required something more than just - "the dragon shrugs off the 7th level spell" - so I had the spell take affect, the PCs pounded on it for a round (essentially killing the wyrm), BUT because I had been lenient with the Power Word Stun's requirements on the dragon, I decided it would be fair just before its death that it would use up a Legendary Resistance to have it come out of the stun effect and activate its Mythic Power.
The combat was better for it.

I have tried implementing a "they lose something if they use a legendary." Losing a LA is a good idea I hadn't considered! What I'd been going with was that one of their offensive/defensive effects- the dragon has boiling breath that coats the whole area in scalding steam; if it has to use a legendary resistance, that steam fades away; if they grabbed/restrained someone, that ends. The problem is that I've largely been improvising these, and sometimes the boss just doesn't have something that works towards it... but losing a legendary action always works! Good idea!

 

[Enkhidu]

I have tried implementing a "they lose something if they use a legendary."

I've done the same, though in my case the "something" was hit points (as in "take damage equal to 5*level of the spell" and the like). Still gives a mechanical effect for what's essentially DM fiat.

 

[Mort]

Oh yeah, they can use Stunning Fist multiple times a turn, can't they? Figures you can't give martials good things.

5.24 limits stunning fist to once a round. But gives the monk more than enough to compensate and make the class orders of magnitude better overall.

 

[mamba]

I had an idea. What if using Legendary Resistance to save against a limited-use effect (like a spell) doesn't cause you to lose a use of the effect?

you mean you are not using up the spell slot? No, that is even worse than what we have now, the boss used a LR and you just cast the spell again

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It was my thought that their being a higher level would equal their impact on fights, AND mean the players would have less of them, solving the spamming of low level control spells problem.

But still have them available, but a harder choice to make.

Key problem being, as folks around here are so keen to point out, high-level games are pretty rare.

If you've just raised the level of a spell from 4th to (say) 6th, you've just made that a spell only reached in the last few weeks of most campaigns (going from char level 7 to char level 11). Even those few groups that go further, it's going to be only a relatively small portion of the game at all, which is again not much different from just taking the toy away entirely.

Further, if you're going from being able to cast a spell two to three times a day, to only being able to cast it once, spells with a 50% failure rate are absolutely out. Taking a fifty-fifty shot at one of your most powerful actions being completely straight-up wasted? Not on your life. You'll take a spell that doesn't fail, or one that repeatedly inflicts saves (e.g. sickening radiance), or a buff spell that makes yourself or an ally more effective. Making banishment something that only comes up at level 11+ and which has only a 50/50 shot of even working in the first place? Yeah folks are just gonna skip it and instead cast something actually good that's natively 6th level, like disintegrate, sunbeam, or some kind of buff.

Instead of making things interesting by creating choices, you've just altered the numbers such that the calculation says "sure it's amazing if it works, but it works rarely enough that you shouldn't bother". This is one of the key problems of creating a knowingly unbalanced game. Choices get replaced with calculations when informed players play, and when uninformed players play, they get caught by bad choices they didn't know were bad until after they made them.

 

[smetzger]

For ten years I struggled a lot with this stuff and then Doom points from Tales of the Valiant came out. I renamed them "dreadful blessings" in my game so I could flavor them as things like "Blessings of the Nameless King" or "Blessings of Ibraxus" or whatever.

I replace Legendary Resistance with these things and, at higher levels, I usually drop a few more onto a creature. Currently about five per big boss in high-level campaigns but I might do six at 19th level.

Dreadful Blessings are visible to the players. I use cool metal shadow of the demon lord tokens for it. That way players see them and know they're there.

A boss can expend one of these at any time to do a lot of different things, including automatically saving on saving throws but also things like ripping through force cages, penetrating resistances, getting advantage on a volley of attacks. Last night I used three at once to let the boss make three full action attacks (18 attacks from a marilith) against three targets. Once I used two so a dragon could break a stun, recharge a breath weapon, and then use it.

A big key, and the biggest complaint I've heard, is that they're arbitrary. GMs can use them for about anything. I get it, but man, at high levels, we really need something that can work against anything because poor bosses get hit by everything. Just dealing with saves isn't the problem. It's huge character defenses. Skyrocketing saving throws. Huge damage spikes. World-breaking terrain manipulation. There's no single mechanic that can deal with all of that and still let a boss feel like a boss.

Dreadful Blessings seem like total cheat cards for the GM. They are total cheat cards for the GM. But they're limited and players love to burn them down. I regularly have players throwing save or suck abilities on bosses now just to burn down their dreadful blessings. I've surveyed about eighteen players I've used these with and pretty much to a player they're totally fine with them.

Being a good GM who's able to recognize where to use them and where not to is important. I will, for example, let a dragon be stunned until the beginning of their turn at which point they automatically break the stun. I'll let them rip open a wall of force but it takes their action to do so. It lets me tune things both so the boss isn't totally screwed but also costs them something. It's a bit of advanced GM work to get them right, I think, but they've totally changed my game.

I'm running a currently 19th level 5e campaign with six players and three different versions of 5e at the same table and Dreadful Blessings made keeping up the challenge so much easier.

So that's been my solution.

Yes, Villain point for the bad guy.
I use Hero points in my 3.5 game and when I want a bad guy to use a Villain point I give the good guys additional Hero points after the encounter.

This also works well for plot points like... "I really want this bad guy to get away" or "I really want the PCs to be captured". I just have a plausible way for it to happen and if the PCs come up with a good/clever counter I still let it happen but then give them Hero points to compensate.

 

[Lanefan]

All that does is kick the fan down the road. Either you've just made those spells worthless because they fail so often they aren't worth deploying, or you've simply made it so lower level parties never get access to them at all, which is functionally the same as banning them entirely.

Not at all.

Sure the lower-level parties might never get access to them, but their higher-level opponents do...

Spells: they're not just for PCs any more.

 

[Lanefan]

Ehhh... I disagree.

For starters: If I cast Hold Person on you and you get a saving throw at the start of your turn to resist it for that turn, at least it's still -active- on you, rather than being immediately resisted and ignored as if I hadn't cast it, a wasted turn and concentration.

So long as I maintain concentration, there's a chance it will effect you rather than it being a 'cast, they saved, try casting it again' thing. And to -actually- get rid of it, you have to spend an action to attempt a save. Which means the absolute -least- Hold Person can do is force your enemy to lose one action on their turn

Given my druthers I'd get rid of spell concentration as a game mechanic entirely (other than for a very few spells, all of them non-passive illusions) and go back to spells having fixed durations.

I'm of the mindset that if I can hit you with something like a Hold Person and get through your defenses, I shouldn't have to worry about you again for the rest of the combat: you're done. After the fighting I can decide whether to run you through or take you prisoner or release you or just leave you there until the spell wears off.

Keep in mind too that "person" carries - or IMO should carry - a fairly narrow definition. It's not Hold Demon or Hold Dragon or Hold Slaad, nor IMO should it be Hold Undead in any form; and most major opponents aren't going to be people once parties get beyond lowish level.

That's no fun for the person locked down.

Tough. Not evryone is going to be involved every moment, fact of life.

And it can instantly trivialize otherwise important battles, making it anticlimactic at best.

Yep, and that's the player-side joy of it when it works like that. Maybe higher-level foes need better saves against such spells, though, such that the spell becomes a longshot rather than a mostly-guaranteed success.

Lockdown needs some variety in how it works rather than a simple 'He resists' or not.

Lockdown has loads of variety already. Hold Person, Web, Entangle, Earthbind*, Paralysis, Sleep are (or at one time were) all lower-level options that accomplish much the same end, namely locking down your foe(s) without killing them right away so you can leave them for now and - if you want - deal with them later be it through conversation or swordpoint or whatever.

* - may have the name wrong: it's the spell where a hand comes out of the ground, grabs you, and glues you in place.

 

[TheSword]

For ten years I struggled a lot with this stuff and then Doom points from Tales of the Valiant came out. I renamed them "dreadful blessings" in my game so I could flavor them as things like "Blessings of the Nameless King" or "Blessings of Ibraxus" or whatever.

I replace Legendary Resistance with these things and, at higher levels, I usually drop a few more onto a creature. Currently about five per big boss in high-level campaigns but I might do six at 19th level.

Dreadful Blessings are visible to the players. I use cool metal shadow of the demon lord tokens for it. That way players see them and know they're there.

A boss can expend one of these at any time to do a lot of different things, including automatically saving on saving throws but also things like ripping through force cages, penetrating resistances, getting advantage on a volley of attacks. Last night I used three at once to let the boss make three full action attacks (18 attacks from a marilith) against three targets. Once I used two so a dragon could break a stun, recharge a breath weapon, and then use it.

A big key, and the biggest complaint I've heard, is that they're arbitrary. GMs can use them for about anything. I get it, but man, at high levels, we really need something that can work against anything because poor bosses get hit by everything. Just dealing with saves isn't the problem. It's huge character defenses. Skyrocketing saving throws. Huge damage spikes. World-breaking terrain manipulation. There's no single mechanic that can deal with all of that and still let a boss feel like a boss.

Dreadful Blessings seem like total cheat cards for the GM. They are total cheat cards for the GM. But they're limited and players love to burn them down. I regularly have players throwing save or suck abilities on bosses now just to burn down their dreadful blessings. I've surveyed about eighteen players I've used these with and pretty much to a player they're totally fine with them.

Being a good GM who's able to recognize where to use them and where not to is important. I will, for example, let a dragon be stunned until the beginning of their turn at which point they automatically break the stun. I'll let them rip open a wall of force but it takes their action to do so. It lets me tune things both so the boss isn't totally screwed but also costs them something. It's a bit of advanced GM work to get them right, I think, but they've totally changed my game.

I'm running a currently 19th level 5e campaign with six players and three different versions of 5e at the same table and Dreadful Blessings made keeping up the challenge so much easier.

So that's been my solution.

That sounds amazing. Terrifying and amazing. Exactly what I was looking for. Will check them out.

 

[guachi]

Thanks, man! Means a lot coming from you.

I'm a nobody but I'll agree with Mearls. "The dungeon is the boss monster" is one of the most obviously true statements about D&D that I'm baffled I haven't read it earlier.

Something occurred to me about D&D a few weeks ago. Your primary job as a player is to entertain everyone else at the table. Your secondary job is to be entertained.

Everything about being a "good" player and a "good" DM flow from that. All of it.