D&D 5E Your thoughts on Legendary Actions

[Savage Wombat]

Legendary Actions seem such fun for the DM, I wonder how long it will take most campaigns to meet a monster with them. What would be the lowest level you could have something and still be "legendary?"

 

[Hussar]

Totally playing devil's advocate here, because I'm completely on board with LA's.

So it should be the combined strength of the foes, not the number. What if it's just a single, very powerful foe, then? Shouldn't a Legendary dragon be using all of it's LAs if its fighting another Legendary dragon?

Yeah, I see what you're saying, but, that's some pretty corner case examples there. And, in the case of two Legendary dragons, what difference would it really make? Since they are both getting the same number of LA's, the end result wouldn't change. Getting 1, 2, or 10 LA's won't matter since they both get the same number. All that would really change is the time it would take to roll out each round.

Yes, there might be some wonkiness here and there, but, again, how often are these likely to come up? The example of two archers and a paladin dancing with a Legendary Dragon where the Dragon is getting extra shots at the paladin because of the archers is plausible, I guess, but, again, not terribly likely. Far more likely is having enough PC's up close and personal with the Dragon to justify the extra attacks, even if they might be triggered by someone farther back.

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A couple more points though. One point that [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] made in the other thread was that D&D combat is simultaneous. This is flat out mistaken. D&D combat has never been simultaneous. That's why you can kill stuff before it gets to attack you. You are presumed to be doing other stuff during the round, but, D&D combat is sequential, not simultaneous. It's just that LA's let you make that "other stuff" matter and they chose to key it off of other character's turns.

Sure, they could have just given the monster three or four initiative points. That would work too. But, you can think of it this way, the archer shoots the dragon causing it to lash out. It can't reach the archer, but, this tasty paladin is right here so get gets the shot. It's not terribly difficult to justify.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

A couple more points though. One point that @Saelorn made in the other thread was that D&D combat is simultaneous. This is flat out mistaken. D&D combat has never been simultaneous. That's why you can kill stuff before it gets to attack you.

The in-game narrative of simultaneous action is represented by mechanics that are sequential, for ease of resolution. If you kill the archer before he gets to fire, then he was still in the process of firing when you did that, even if that action hadn't been declared yet. The characters within the story aren't actually standing still while they wait for other people to go first.

I would be willing to say that the bag-of-rats paladin, who gets tail slapped three times because of her archer friends in the distance, is probably a corner case scenario that isn't going to come up much. It would have been easier to say that any Legendary Action attack must target the character whose turn triggered it, though, and it probably would have been a better model as well.

 

[MortalPlague]

In my time playtesting, I have run a number of creatures with legendary actions, and a number of creatures with lairs. Those fights are always a challenge, and always dynamic and interesting.

It does a much better job of creating a 'solo' than 4th Edition ever did.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

The in-game narrative of simultaneous action is represented by mechanics that are sequential, for ease of resolution. If you kill the archer before he gets to fire, then he was still in the process of firing when you did that, even if that action hadn't been declared yet. The characters within the story aren't actually standing still while they wait for other people to go first.

I would be willing to say that the bag-of-rats paladin, who gets tail slapped three times because of her archer friends in the distance, is probably a corner case scenario that isn't going to come up much. It would have been easier to say that any Legendary Action attack must target the character whose turn it, though, and it probably would have been a better model as well.

I agree. In D&D actions are both simultaneous AND consecutive. The character to act first begins its action before the characters who act later, and completes their actions before the character who acts later effectively completes theirs. However, it could be said that the characters who act later begin to act while the earlier characters are in the middle of their actions. The initiative round abstracts this.

At any rate, no one is just standing around. Which is why I have no problem with Legendary Actions. It's the equivalent of giving the Legendary Monster a bunch of actions, but to do them all at once wouldn't be as interesting and would reflect the simultaneousness of combat poorly. So we spread them out a bit.

As far as the able to do more things against more enemies complaint goes, I've explained in the other thread: You DO fight harder against multiple opponents than you do against one.

And to the scenario in which the Dragon, for example, hits a Paladin multiple times with its tail because it's being shot at by archers: Don't do that then if you don't find it plausible. There are other options for the DM to use in place of spamming a tail attack. Only use the tail multiple times against multiple opponents. Use wing buffet against the archers. If there are less opponents use the higher cost (some actions cost 2 Legendary Actons).

Besides, it's not like they get Legendary Actions equal to the number of opponents. They get a finite number.

 

[MarkB]

Totally playing devil's advocate here, because I'm completely on board with LA's.

So it should be the combined strength of the foes, not the number. What if it's just a single, very powerful foe, then? Shouldn't a Legendary dragon be using all of it's LAs if its fighting another Legendary dragon?

Reminds me of Fezzik in The Princess Bride - he has trouble dealing with Westley in single combat because he's more used to larger-scale brawls.

It's also worth pointing out that the Tarrasque (and, presumably, at least some other Legendary creatures) has a more powerful Legendary Action which uses up two of its Legendary Action 'points' instead of just one. Against one or two opponents, it can reliably use that action every round, so it is able to trade in number of attacks for attack power.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think the point of legendary actions (as opposed to lair actions), is that the monster get to do the things it normally does, but out of normal sequence. It would be weird if a monster could do things out of sequence that it can't do on its actual turn.

Legendary actions are tied to PCs actions. You get a maximum you can use (we've seen three, presumably this number varies by creature), but you can only use them after a PC takes it's turn that round.

Both of these are a bit weird, and also by a very conservative reading of the RAW the legendary creature has to be in combat to both use those abilities and get the charges back. So a Sphinx cannot teleport out of combat...

These are definitely design constructs, with the purpose of limiting a bit the effects of legendary actions against a party of PC: they force the DM to go easy with using legendary actions, not more than one per PC's turn.

For a bit more sensible realism, I will have absolutely no problem using those abilities out-of-combat.

I think it's more fair game to keep the restriction by PC's turn, so if it really happens that the party is only 1-2 PCs, I still won't use all 3 legendary actions. I don't think the players will protest against this.

 

[LostSoul]

The in-game narrative of simultaneous action is represented by mechanics that are sequential, for ease of resolution. If you kill the archer before he gets to fire, then he was still in the process of firing when you did that, even if that action hadn't been declared yet. The characters within the story aren't actually standing still while they wait for other people to go first.

Not really. The archer doesn't decide what to do (in WotC D&D) until you complete your action. The archer gets to see the resolution of your action (if you attack and hit or miss, or run away, or drink a potion, or whatever) before he decides what to do. At that point you can say that he's been doing that action all along, but that doesn't change the fact that the information the archer is working with is based on what has happened up to the point he takes his turn, not what's going on at the start of the round.

House rule for LAs: The first one goes at the creature's init -5, the next at init -10, the third at init -15. Some DMs might want to tell the players that "the sphinx is gathering his strength to cast a spell", some might not. Anyway, are there big flaws with that? Just thought about it off the top of my head. It might appease people who don't like the artificial feel of LAs.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

Not really. The archer doesn't decide what to do (in WotC D&D) until you complete your action. The archer gets to see the resolution of your action (if you attack and hit or miss, or run away, or drink a potion, or whatever) before he decides what to do. At that point you can say that he's been doing that action all along, but that doesn't change the fact that the information the archer is working with is based on what has happened up to the point he takes his turn, not what's going on at the start of the round.

To be more precise, the DM playing the archer doesn't decide what to do (potentially) until you complete your action. In the narrative of the game, the archer may be reacting to your telegraphed intentions. Even if the archer really did not begin doing anything until after your action, this does not imply that all pairs of consecutive turns happen purely sequentially in the game world.

(In fact, as a DM, I hate it when players wait until their turn before deciding what their character would do. Nothing slows the game down more.)

 

[Grazzt]

(In fact, as a DM, I hate it when players wait until their turn before deciding what their character would do. Nothing slows the game down more.)

Use the older pre-3.x rule that players have to declare their actions before initiative is rolled.