D&D 5E Your thoughts on Legendary Actions

[I'm A Banana]

This is objectionable to some because the number of attacks the creature gets depends on the number of foes it is facing, and not it's own ability to make attacks.

I get that objection -- why would my paladin be hit three times just because he brought his two buddies along, and only once if he didn't? -- but my solution is just to ignore the "one at a time" thing. It's a good pacing recommendation, but if my one paladin comes to fight the dragon, he's just going to get hit with all three legendary actions. Bringing two buddies doesn't raise the risk, it potentially just spreads it out.

I like 'em. I was using a version of 'em in late 4e myself.

 

[bleezy]

I actually think "more enemies = more actions" makes sense, up to a limit (and there is a limit of 3 for legendary actions).

If you have a spear and a barrel of 2 fish, how many times could you hit a fish in 10 seconds? Consider that if there were 30 fish in the barrel, you would be able to spear many more fish than if there were only 2.

This is only a real world example, but using action movie logic it becomes even more plausible. A giant wildly swing his sword will be making more "attacks" when surrounded by enemies than when facing only one.

Of course these legendary creatures can concentrate all of their attacks on a single creature, which may seem to make less sense. I still think it is OK because realistically a party of adventurers would make larger delays (on the scale of seconds) when coordinating their actions with one another (wait until I drink this potion, then cast spell X on me; or wait until I kill this monster, then cut the rope bridge) whereas a berseker just whaling on an enemy by himself is going to act faster.

The only downside I see to the legendary system is that if it is played as written then as soon as creature acts out of turn the PCs will say, "oh snap, boss monster!" and realize that they are fighting a monster of a distinctly different caliber. This may be obvious, in the case of an Adult Red Dragon or whatever, and some people might not be bothered at all. I suppose that a DM could periodically make a lesser monster- say, a troll- split its multiattack up between player turns, just to make combat in general seem more natural (and also to make the troll seem more epic when up against low level PCs)

All in all I like the system, and also the new Lair actions.

And of course a vampire can't travel faster overland (on a scale of miles) when it chases 3 PCs than when it chases 1 PC. The rules aren't written to give anyone this impression. They are clearly written to cover combat scenarios only.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

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.

I'm seriously not worrying about it, because I'm never going to use these things anyway. It's the same with those weird NPCs with pseudo-classes. There's no need to house rule something that was clearly intended for a different audience.

 

[Umbran]

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

I think it pretty clear that the monster description is only supposed to be a listing of actions that can be taken in combat, to make things easier for the GM, not an exhaustive list of all things the creature can ever do.

 

[Wrathamon]

I think it pretty clear that the monster description is only supposed to be a listing of actions that can be taken in combat, to make things easier for the GM, not an exhaustive list of all things the creature can ever do.

I agree with Umbran.

These actions have the exception that they can only be done a limited number of times during a combat with Players.

The exception isnt that they cant do these actions unless players are present and engaged in combat.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

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.)

Exactly.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I think it pretty clear that the monster description is only supposed to be a listing of actions that can be taken in combat, to make things easier for the GM, not an exhaustive list of all things the creature can ever do.

Yup. Nor is it a list of things they HAVE to do, just because they CAN.

If you don't like that it's possible that the dragon can tail-sweep the paladin three times just because two archers are shooting him, don't HAVE THE DRAGON TAIL-SWEEP THE PALADIN. The dragon can do other things instead. Even with the Legendary Actions.

 

[Psikerlord#]

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?"

yeah i think they should have adopted the term Solo instead. Or maybe even Deadly. That way you can have a 3rd level Solo or Deadly Monster to fight the whole party by itself, it doesnt have to be Legendary so to speak. But hell legendary works well enough.

As far as the mechanics themselves, and scaling extra attacks according to the number of opponents - I am totally fine with this and consider it an excellent idea to keep the fight interesting and dynamic. I am very happy to trade a touch of simulation for vastly improved solo fights.

 

[zoroaster100]

I think it is essential for solo type monsters or villains meant to face a party of adventurers to either have 4e type solo features or 5e legendary actions and legendary resistance. Otherwise the big epic battle against the chief villain either has to involve mooks in the final fight or devolves in to laughable ease as the villain is made utterly ineffective against a group by the action economy.

 

[jodyjohnson]

I ran a 9th level group of 7 characters against the Legendary Black Dragon in its Lair last night.

It was a 4 round fight with plenty of drama and tension. The opening water surge worked swimmingly as all but one of the characters was swept into the water.

Only one character went down, but the players were concerned that they could be next.

I think it took about an hour including the approach to the lair and opening monologue.

I was planning for 5 characters but we added 2 to the Encounters session but it still worked well.