D&D 5E MM: How many high levels monsters have some form of magic resistance?

[Scorpio616]

One big thing I'm seeing is folks ignoring that at high levels, players are still supposed to face a lot of lower level foes. Casters are supposed to be softening up or wiping out lesser foes by the dozen. Using the example mentioned up thread, if there is a ranger instead of a wizard in the group, the party will be spending far more time in game and out, mowing through those foes without large AoEs.

This is one of the reasons I worry about high-level play for casters. Going from ~five 8-9th level spells/day in prev editions to a single spell/day is really gonna suck when legendary monsters can 'choose' to save 3x/day and beyond that everything has some form of energy and magic resistance. I don't know for a fact, just a bit leery.

Casters don't get to rule the roost anymore against the major bosses, it's true. But take a look that that list, those generally are not foes one will face in back to back encounters.

5+ high level spells per character would means upwards of 10 to 20 of those spells per day at a party's disposal (or to be really truthful... 20 to 40 spells per day when you account for the 8 hour rest in the middle of the afternoon the groups would inevitably take). That's exactly where the idea of high-level casting being unbalanced in previous editions came from.

Bingo.

So from the looks of things, my wizard (assuming he reaches high levels) will be relying mostly on passive buffs rather than direct effects, since magic will prove to be rather ineffective against the majority of high end monsters....

Thankfully Concentration rules took care of focusing on buffs. But on a more serious note, high end monsters won't be the majority of foes you fight, there's not a lot of them. Bounded accuracy is there to keep masses of lesser foes in the game till the end so a caster will most often have targets to mop up.

 

[Scorpio616]

That said, the higher level direct damage spells deal too little damage, especially when level boosted.

 

[Dausuul]

So from the looks of things, my wizard (assuming he reaches high levels) will be relying mostly on passive buffs rather than direct effects, since magic will prove to be rather ineffective against the majority of high end monsters...

Yay.

Not hardly. It just means legendary monsters reliably make their saves, which they had a decent chance to do anyway. Meteor swarm is still dishing out an ungodly 40d6 damage; that's an average of 70 on a successful save. Power word kill doesn't grant a save; you have to hold off till the monster's been beaten down into the spell's hit point range, but as soon as that happens, boom. Forcecage works just fine on legendary foes. And of course there's plenty of high-end stuff that isn't legendary and doesn't have autosaves.

Moreover, if you're really determined to nail the dragon with a save-or-lose, you can bombard it with mid-level spells to wear down its Legendary Resistance. Hold monster, confusion, and bestow curse are all nasty spells that a legendary creature facing a party of PCs can't afford to submit to; if it fails its save, it will have to use Legendary Resistance or face a world of hurt.

Now, all that said, will you equal the fighter's performance against a solo legendary monster? No. Guess what: You're not supposed to. Slugging it out with giant monsters is the fighter's time to shine; you don't get to steal her spotlight just because the campaign's reached high levels. Your time to shine is when dealing with large groups of foes, or situations that can't be solved by brute force.

 

[keterys]

It's definitely worth note that you can take out things with your 3rd-6th slots too, it's not just your 7th-9th available. You have nearly two dozen spell slots; don't get bogged down in the last 3 only.

 

[77IM]

Dragons have amazingly good save modifiers. Of the creatures with Magic Resistance, do they tend to be proficient in saves or does the advantage make up for otherwise mediocre saves?

 

[jadrax]

Dragons have amazingly good save modifiers. Of the creatures with Magic Resistance, do they tend to be proficient in saves or does the advantage make up for otherwise mediocre saves?

Having a quick look, I think the only Magic Resistant creature on that list not proficient with at least 3 saves is the Iron Golem.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The other thing I think we need to remember is that we're still getting potentially two 9th level spells every day (with an 8-hour rest in between.) Sure, looking at the micro of a single combat, if that 9th level spell you cast doesn't work, it sucks. But looking at the macro of your entire career from levels 17 to 20... you're going to be hitting with those spells *way more* than enough times to feel like they're actually worthwhile. You're going to Power Word: Kill quite enough creatures over the course of those 4 levels to make you say "Yeah, okay... I'm an all-powerful wizard." You just might not get the chance to do that against the Ancient Red Dragon in his lair in the very first round to completely negate the final battle with just a snap of your fingers is all. But oh well. You're still a bad-ass dude or dudette.

 

[mcintma]

Keterys wrote:

"It's definitely worth note that you can take out things with your 3rd-6th slots too, it's not just your 7th-9th available. You have nearly two dozen spell slots; don't get bogged down in the last 3 only."

True, but bear in mind lower level spells need higher level slots now to scale (unlike prev editions), compounding the pressure on those high slots.

 

[IgnatiusJ.Reilly]

I've played one character to the 20th level so far, he was an Evoker. The Evoker, with Sculpt Spell, has options at these levels, since his/her area affects do half damage even if they save. Magic Missile is an obvious choice here with no save. If your caster has the Robe of Archmagi or one of the +x to DC wands, you're better off, but I wouldn't count on save spells against these creatures.

Overall, I wouldn't rely on spells that require saves, for any appreciable effect, against these creatures, even if you're a caster who maximizes his DC at the cost of all else. The best tactic seems to be buffing warriors and rogues and allowing them to do the damage necessary here. Hopefully, you won't need a another concentration spell during this time you're buffing though. I suppose the the Sorcerer could nullify the advantage using Heighten Spell for 3 sorcery points, in the absence of Legendary Resistance anyway. Note that their are a great many creatures with 5E's form of Magic resistance than those listed here.

One important thing I should add though, is that in the absence of innate advantage or temporary advantage due to a spell affect, one can use their spells to good effect. Saving throws in this edition are not easy to make, especially if you target the 'correct' one with a spell. However, due to limited spell slots/one concentration slot and the creature getting a re-save every round, I don't consider the tough saving throws problematic. It's not as though casters don't face the same saving throws as well.

 

[EroGaki]

Not hardly. It just means legendary monsters reliably make their saves, which they had a decent chance to do anyway. Meteor swarm is still dishing out an ungodly 40d6 damage; that's an average of 70 on a successful save. Power word kill doesn't grant a save; you have to hold off till the monster's been beaten down into the spell's hit point range, but as soon as that happens, boom. Forcecage works just fine on legendary foes. And of course there's plenty of high-end stuff that isn't legendary and doesn't have autosaves.

Moreover, if you're really determined to nail the dragon with a save-or-lose, you can bombard it with mid-level spells to wear down its Legendary Resistance. Hold monster, confusion, and bestow curse are all nasty spells that a legendary creature facing a party of PCs can't afford to submit to; if it fails its save, it will have to use Legendary Resistance or face a world of hurt.

Now, all that said, will you equal the fighter's performance against a solo legendary monster? No. Guess what: You're not supposed to. Slugging it out with giant monsters is the fighter's time to shine; you don't get to steal her spotlight just because the campaign's reached high levels. Your time to shine is when dealing with large groups of foes, or situations that can't be solved by brute force.

I think the one thing that bothers me about *any* conversation dealing with caster nerfing is the assumption that every player is trying to "steal the spot light" and "end the encounter in one round." Frankly, it's rather irksome that every time I bring up an aspect of the new casting system I dislike, it's assumed I'm upset because I don't get to be the most powerful character anymore.

My issue is I think the nerfing went too far; there's no point of using your big spells when they would be most useful, because every big bad scary thing that needs its teeth pushed in with a meteor swarm gets to auto save on top of having some kind cheap resistance to magic or weird lair benefits. So what's the point of even having a meteor swarm when it won't ever be used to its full potential? And I don't claim to know much about "bounded accuracy" or whatever it's called, but the idea of blowing a 9th level spell on a bunch of yips- because let's face it, they're the only ones who will actually be effected- leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

And one top of that, due to the concentration rule, now you can't even provided much in the way of party support without screwing yourself out of any defensive options; can't stoneskin the fighter without leaving yourself no ability to fly or be invisible or any of that fun stuff that is the reason you decided to be a wizard in the first place.

Plus, direct damage spells are traps; they start out really good, but since you need to blow higher level slots to keep them effective, and you have so few of those, it basically means that over time, you are dealing way less damage then you need to. And if Hit Point Inflation is still a thing, you'll find yourself being the least useful character in the group. That is, unless you want to waste a high level spell slot trying to hold a monster for *maybe* two rounds if you are extremely lucky.