Just curious, but is Legendary Resistance a bit "stale"? It's not bad mind you and it certianly does add a huge element of caution and danger to facing a legendary opponent, however I think it can be a little "predictible/meta-gamish". I can see players not wanting to cast X spell because they know the spell has no chance, at least not untill all three resistance rolls are used up.
So, let me bounce this off the masses here and see what you all think of these options...
Legendary Resistance (3/Day)
If the creature fails a saving throw, it may make an immediate second saving throw.
Or, if that's too "nerfing"...
Legendary Resistance
The creature has advantage on all saving throws.
Either method removes the "instant save", and make the spell casting on such a creature a little more "unpredictable" (less meta-gamey).
Maybe this isn't anything that needs to be addresses, just curious. Look forward to your thoughts.
Firstly, your players can't metagame against it if you don't tell them about it. If you just say that the creature makes its save, they won't know any better.
Secondly, you could try doing what my DM does and require that using legendary resistance requires a reaction - this limits it to once per round in effect.
pukunui wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Everything about legendary is awful. It may be why they removed "delay" from the game, because they couldn't get it to play nice with it. Unfortuneatly almost every monster at high level is legendary. Your 6-8 fights means you get to end a dozen or more legends a day (good luck landing a spell)!
FFSAA wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Lobo316 wrote:
Keep it as is and just don't mention legendary resistance. As Pukunui said just say it passed wether it failed or passed. As legendary resistence just means it passes when it fails.
I like Legendary REsistance so much I sometimes give 1 or 2 to a less solo monster. I also allow it to grant a save when you normally dont get one (eg vs sleep)
pukunui wrote:
Lobo316 wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Yunru wrote:
Stick me in the "likes legendary actions" camp.
Yunru wrote:
Legendary actions makes some high level creatures too simple. I would rather they have more interesting abilities and have some type of progression up to legendary actions for very special creatures. For an edtiion that wanted to go old school, I am surprised how 4E like the creatures are from a design perspective. If you want high level creatures that are challenging and simple to run, then grant them more static abiltiies like higher AC, damage resistance, counters to certain spells, etc. Hit points and legendary actions can't be the only answer.
The legendary mechanic seemed to be a late edition as a make shift plug due to things like saving throws not working very well and ACs being to low and monsters lacking a lot of traditional defenses.
Zardnaar wrote:
pukunui wrote:
I think the problem with Legendary Resistance is that some monsters have them all the time in the Monster Manual. It should be an ability that is added to certain BBEG's or bosses, not a general ability for all monsers of that type of race.
Legendary resistance are terrible. They just cause a player to have wasted a spell or other limited resource, and are not very interesting or decriptive at the table. They have no narrative element or description, no flavour.
However, they are far, far preferable to the alternative, where the PCs can just stunlock a boss monster. Especially when targeting a weak save, where even advantage doesn't have great odds.
Legendary resistance is just a necassary evil. After all, that adult red dragon is just never going to make a DC 18 Dexterity save by playing fair.
Eerongal wrote:
The one creature I've run with Legendary Resistance, I rolled the Save die, and decided if I wanted to take the hit or not while the die was still tumbling.
If it saved on the die roll, I told the group "it saved".
If it saved because I used a LR, I told the group "it saved", amd marked off an LR.
If it failed its save and I wanted to not use an LR, I told the group "it failed".
If there weren't any more LRs to use and it failed its Save, I told the group "it failed".
Since the group tried to Alpha Strike the monster in question (adult dragon), I went through all its LRs in one round.
I think legandary resistance is necessary. There's just no other way that something like hold monster or the monks stun isn't way to strong against large legendary monsters.
A few additional thoughts:
1. Legendary resistance is a heck of a lot more interesting than random immunities to everything....lol
Why's it metagaming? If the PC knows the lore, then they know as much as you might have to get past great toughness (HP), you might have to get past great magic resistance (saves) before spells may land their mark.
They seem meta because you keep thinking of them in meta terms 'How is this entertaining for me, the real life person!?'. That's a very meta way to think about it. It's easy enough to frame it in game world lore instead.
pukunui wrote:
Noon wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
Dwarfslayer wrote:
pukunui wrote:
pukunui wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
Let's not forget that Legendary Resistance isn't immunity. It's just an auto-save. So if it's a save for half damage spell, then the legendary creature will still take the half damage. It's just that they got to make the save without having to roll for it. It's kind of like that PC ability that lets you roll a die or two and then use the results later - in this case, the legendary creature "rolled" three natural 20s and is saving them for later. 
Dwarfslayer wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Yunru wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Yunru wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
pukunui wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
I am not a fan of the 'auto-save' mechanic for Legendsaves. I would prefer it more like Lucky where they can reroll failed saves X number of times. Heck, you could even let them recharge at a certain rate. (1 per round, or 1 per 2 rounds, or like other Recharge, recharge a reroll on a 5-6)
Orethalion wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
pukunui wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Neat thing about legendary creatures is that they are called legendary because, you know, there are legends told about them. Yea. Anyway.
MechaPilot wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Bob, I've heard legends about this creature that burns whole villages and is large enough to pick people up with its claws.
I'm not worried, surely some semi-powerful wizard will come along and just turn it into a toad...
But Bob, Wizard have went up against the creature and none have been able to defeat it.
Interesting, Does that mean magic doesn't work as well on the creature?
Bob, that's the same thing I deduced!
FrogReaver wrote:
I am not a fan of legendary resistance either but I see the purpose it serves. Instead complaining about it, how about this House rule.
A legendary creature can auto save but it takes 10 x Spell level of damage to do so. (might be in addition to spell damage).
If it’s hit with a 1st level spell it takes 10 damage to use auto save.
If it’s hit with a 9th level spell it takes 90 damage to auto save.
That solves the lockdown problem with hold monster or similar spells but still allows the caster to have an effect with their high level powerful spell.
MechaPilot wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Lobo316 wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Kangodo wrote:
That is true, I was mostly talking about how I feel about the legendary resistance.
At first I thought it was too powerful, then I noticed how insanely strong many abilities are and especially if you are fighting only one monster.
Like many things it's DM-discretion.
For me it's a tool to counteract several unlucky rolls that would trivialize the encounter.
And if another DM decides that it's a way to only take half damage from a level 9 spell that does a lot of damage, so be it. Though I think that is the wrong way to use LR.
MechaPilot wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
I like that it informs, or even coaxes, a more narratively enjoyable escalating power scenario. Too often, players open with their biggest guns, right out of the gate, trying to end an encounter as quickly as possible. So anticlimactic.
It seems like the legendary resistances are all focused towards the spellcasters. I would like to see it designed different options for different BBEG's. Why not have some critters immune to a Padadin's smite, others to a Fighters Action Surge, maybe some that deflects weapon damage. Maybe have some BBEG that is very good against defending against a specific fighting style.
The LE Kung-Fu warlord of the Tsing monastary is a master at defending against Heavy Weapons. All Heavy weapons attack at disadvantage and he has resistance to heavy weapons.
Kung-Fu warlord is a master of speed, any action surge used against him causes a fumble making all attacks miss and allowing all attacks against him for 1 round to be at advantage.
Why screw with only the spellcasters. Screw with the martial types too.
arnwolf666 wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Uchawi wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Uchawi wrote:
Uchawi wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
I am thinking that sometimes legends can be wrong (and dwarfish might have changed more over the years that most people suspect). Also, I prefer to roll a d6 before the encounter to figure out how many legendary saves the LM gets......
Kangodo wrote:
The spells/abilities such as:
-Hold Monster
-Quivering Palm
-Command
Are designed to have a powerful effect if a creature fails it's save. With legendary saves, your ability has no effect. No effect for doing something good is a bad thing in any game. Never tell the players no when they do something good/cool. That is bad game design and bad game mastering.
Either do damage (The simplest) or a lesser effect) Such as restrained instead of held, etc.
I could see a rock type based bad guy turn on a shield that would prevent him from taking physical based damage for a turn if GM's wanted to house rule.
Kangodo wrote:
Jared711 wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Jared711 wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Jared711 wrote:
I just experienced this last night. My players' level 8 party just went up against an Adult Blue Dragon (they got some dragonsbane weapons, so the CR balanced out and it was an epic fight).
I had forgotten about the Legendary Resistance when I constructed the encounter, and I remember feeling the same way as lobo316, in that the idea that he can just auto-resist exactly 3 times felt a bit predictable and made things feel utterly futile, rather than very challenging or incredibly unlikely (both of which are far more interesting than utterly futile). On top of that, one of the players is also a DM for another game of 5E, so he knows about the legendary resistance, and that it is an Adult Blue Dragon by its size category and probably has that, so no fooling them.
That being said, it wasn't altogether boring, and it gave some more strategy. It was like he has an armor of resistance that had to be wittled down, where a failure on a save wittles him down a bit. I even added the rule that if he rolls a 1 on a save, he can't use the Legendary Resistance ability.
That being said, after testing it live, I would say that it worked, and isn't bad (just as lobo316 suggested), but could be more fun if improved.
Here is my suggestion for an improvement, which is lobo316's first suggestion, but with an improvement.
Legendary Resistance (3/Day)
If a creature fails a saving throw, it may make an immediate second saving throw that always has advantage
---
An alternative could be that "save or suck" effects take 1 minute after casting to take effect on a legendary monster, the legendary monster can make saves against an unlimited number of these effects per round, and the legendary monster has advantage on all legendary action attacks until it either successfully saves against all the "save or sucks" or a "save or suck" finally takes hold.
The decision to use a "save or suck" becomes very strategic, since the legendary big bad is going to be in a good position to put a serious hurt on the party when one of those effects is used.
But it get's better! The Legendary creature gets more powerful for you attempting to us any control affect. Not that you would, since after 10 turns it's going to have saved against it in all but the most extreme circumstances.
Kangodo wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
Kangodo wrote:
Kangodo wrote:
Yunru wrote:
Say it only saves on a natural 20, the best we can get for Team PC. The chance of it not saving is toughly 60%. If we up the numbers it saves on even by one, that number drops to 35%.
So yeah no, not a good idea.