I am a sucker for Dark Souls 2's Pursuer. Something about the unwavering determination of that guy and the way he appeared at the most unexpected places gave me the chills, and I wanted to do that to my players too... also a great design!
the only problem with all of this video is that as dm, there's never anything stoling the dm from saying screw the rules i'm in charge. a generic set of instructions feels like the only way to fail at a game that should be based on the creativity of the players... even if those generic instructions are good.
Well its not a video game boss but I used Vizzini from the Princess Bride Movie. Had the players working for him for quite a few session, until they figured out the connection, rewatched the movie and realized that they were the bad guys, albeit unwittingly. The disappointed Goliath barbarian sat on Vizzini's head (he was a gnome) and that was that, no saving throws, no uber tough resistances, just a smart mouth gnome with a big head.
I’ve tried to take notes from some of my favourite bosses from quite a weird source, Noita. Taking the initial confusion you would have fighting it’s bosses, while also feeling confidence in being able to take enough to learn their moves and weaknesses to make it a push and pull between my players and the enemies.
I used Innocence from FFXIV as an inspiration for the encounter with the BBEG god the players were going up against. I had tiles that would either drop into the void, explode, or do nothing, (foreshadowed by the tiles at the start of the round so the players have time to react), along with villain moves like shared fates (all healing AND damage is shared between two chained characters, unless they move far enough apart.) And then he had moves that were ttrpg versions of Innocence's moves, which used wing blades in a circular sweeping aoe with holes in it, so that was one legendary action. They loved that fight. It took a couple of sessions to finish, but they loved it. It was pretty close to a TPK until they realized they were in a space where they can change the rules... which they did, and came out ahead.
My prefered alteration to legendary resistances is to change its timing, instead of being immediately it triggers at the end of the monster's turn and targets specific effects. So say an ancient dragon can shake of the charmed, frightened, stunned, and paralyzed conditions, automatically at the end of its turn. That gives the players until the end of the dragon's turn to make use of the condition and the effect still uses up one of the dragon's turns.
I love the idea of Legendary Resistance costing the boss a chunk of their hit points. Another idea I am considering is half effects. Any condition has a weaker version. If a boss throws up Legendary Resistance, they instead receive a weaker version of the effect.
What I’ve done in the past is that a legendary resistance will lower one of their stats. Say that rely on charisma, so they have a charisma of 24. Every time they use one, it dies down by 2 points.
Instead of just half effects to a blanket resistance, I personally would keep it lore/thematicly tied. Example : Liches are lore wise unkillable as long as their phylactery is intact so LR would out right negate certain effects like power word kill, or can give them 1 health point remaining after an attack should kill them equal to the number of LRs for that encounter. If they run out of LRs the party has a "time limit" to find and destroy the phylactery before the Lich comes back with a new/resurrected body to start a fresh encounter. This adds stakes to a fight that feel right from a narrative perspective while turning BS mechanics into justified OP mechanics.
I actually think this is a really cool idea. As a DM for a group that really enjoys puzzles, I've gotten an overwhelmingly positive consensus on running fights that can be won by solving a puzzle instead of just the traditional whack em till they die. I had one where the party, instead of taking on a warforged colossus head on, split into 2 teams, 1 where they tried to bring a smaller one online to fight the boss, and another that went inside the boss itself and slowly take it down, which I mechanically showed by it getting debuffed over time (blinded by smoke from burning oil, or losing an arm to attack with, etc) Another fun one was based off rhythm games where I had a trio of enemies all use 1 health pool and take 6 actions (I had each action correspond to a different thing, like make 1 attack, move a little, defend by adding +1 to its AC, or make a magic attack, etc) and the objective was to have the party mimic its movement. If it attacked-attacked, moved, magic attacked, moved, defended, then the fighter was able to attack twice, and move, fulfilling 3 of the requirements in one turn, etc. In fulfilling these requirements, they each got a small buff for the round to help them win faster. I also kept the options for fulfilling the pattern pretty lenient, so a rogue using the disengage bonus action could accomplish the "defend" part pretty easy. Was it cheesy yes, but everyone had fun, and that's what matters most
An important note to make, is that Legendary Resistance says "Can", not "Does". "Why would a monster ever choose not to use its legendary resistances?" I hear you ask. Well, that's wrapped up in why LR doesn't have any flavor. In the narrative, it is supposed to be indistinct from the monster shrugging off the CC effect because it's got a god damned +15 to its save. In that sense, the DM shouldn't even *tell* the players when the monster uses one of it's LRs; they should simply act like the monster made its save. What I'm saying is that LR isn't a tactical resource for the monster to use; It's a tool that gives the DM permission to fudge a few rolls so the monster doesn't get lamed out by a couple bad rolls on turn 1 or 2, which isn't really fun for anybody. But, it also still gives you permission to let that clutch hold monster through IF it's going to make the table cheer, which just making the monster immune to paralysis doesn't allow for. Although, this is the kind of thing that might require a step out of the game to shift the player's expectations; experienced players know that LRs are a thing, and will probably be expecting to have to play around them, so they won't even bother with any of their best CC effects until they're sure they've burned the LRs; so then not telling them when a monster's used an LR will kind of leave them in a lurch; and of course, this will also require an amount of trust from your players that you WILL let a clutch CC effect slide, even if the monster still has LRs left.
Love this - I’ve been playing with multi-phase combats for a while as well as mixing in some of Colville’s concepts. Legendary Resistances has always sort of been a weird concept that I’ve only been able to sloppily meld into narrative
I'm not gonna lie, I didn't realize how new a channel this was when I first watched this video. You've got a lot of polish and great ideas. Here's hoping you keep making more great content!
My thoughts on Crowd Control: The game was designed to have multiple encounters per day, like previously with dungeon crawling, but the storytelling evolved to have on average two encounters per day. So during most of the game, the casters can "cheese" the very few encounters that happen because everyone want the story to go on instead of fighting for 3 hours until something happens
There's also a lot of well-intentioned advice around designing adventures so that they have "enough counters" to "wear down" the PCs, but that honestly ends up making some adventures a slog. Ideally an adventure should have so much cool and compelling content that the players *want* to try to go for stretch goals, and *want* to try to do things that are risky. "Using up resources" or "wearing down the PCs" are the complete wrong framing when you're trying to design adventures that are FUN.
Pollars of eternity 2 did something similar with resistance. They split debuff spells into 3 tier effects by their over power. A T3 strength debuff can be resisted diwn to a T2 effect and so on. Even if the effect was a "critical hit" (extended effect time or damage) it would apply it's T2 effect in its place. Giving us the best of both worlds. Of course, this was exchanged by letting other debuffs of different categories (dex, int, etc) apply in full.
This video is basically more condensed version of Mathew Colville's video on how to use 4e combat mechanics in 5e, since 4e has all of the examples you gave already built in to the system. Losing those neat boss encounter savers was part of the baby that Wotc threw out with the bathwater when disowning the unique greatness of 4e.
4e definitely had a lot of inspired ancillary rules and abilities to make encounters and enemies feel truly unique. I highly agree with your point here.
That's why I like the 4 degrees of success (and the incapacitation trait) Pathfinder 2e has. Big buff monster means that it's likely they only get the minor version of the CC spell.
Unless you play by the rules as written and every save that isn't a critical failure by a higher level monster is considered a success, basically turning it around to being the same save of suck issue as 5E all over again anyway.
Where is this rule? Are you thinking of incapacitation? Because that's not quite how incapacitation works. First it only applies to spells with the incapacitation trait, and then only if the target is twice the spell's level, and then it just bumps the success up one step. And since many spells have negative effects for the target even on a success, the spells are still useful. Also, the incapacitation trait is great because it applies to PCs also, who are going to be targets of it far more than any single creature the GM throws at the party. It also applies to other effects, like a ghouls' paralysis, which are notorious for wiping parties.
The struggle I find with the way Pathfinder 2e does it, is enemy bosses are so significantly more likely to make their saves through the whole duration of the fight, that nobody even bothers to try using their big spells because the chance of success is just so small... We've faced bosses now that could crit succeed their good save on a 14, and their bad one on an 18... With math like that, it usually winds up playing like they just have perma legendary resistance so nobody feels its worth it to burn high powered resources on high powered enemies because they'll just succeed anyway. As a bit of an anecdotal example: I'm playing in a Blood Lords game rn, and the difference in experience between me as a Fighter and our Witch is insane - I'm having a great time swinging my Greatpick around, hitting for 25-ish dmg on a normal hit and critting for 66 dmg on around an 18-20, sometimes even around a 17... Our Witch is having a miserable time when she sees a 5 on the DMs dice roll for the boss and hears "and that's a success, she takes half damage for a total of 9 dmg from your fireball."
Omg, you're another one of those amazing channels that do precious work and put it out on the internet for free! Thanks, YT algorithms, and thank you a lot! Keep it up! ❤
As you work through this, think about implementing targeted strikes. Allow Martials to declare what they’re hitting for additional effects (disarming, taking about someone’s wings, break their kneecaps). This’ll give Martials some less powerful control effects, but theirs are tied to an attack instead of a save, thus making them more reliable.
I have often designed boss battles in a similar fashion to MMO raid bosses, most specifically Guild Wars 2. I find that many raid mechanics tend to keep characters moving. Additionally, they also need to consider the possible threats and/or opportunities the environment provides. Thank you for the great video. You have gained a subscriber.
The "passive threat" is essentially the "lair actions" many bosses have. I like the rest of your critiques and ideas on this for sure though. Just sent the vid to my GM.
I absolutely love giving my bosses a sort of "charging" effect, some resource that charges every turn that they can spend on various things. In most cases, they can spend some of that resource to cancel a magical effect on theirself, or as a reaction to do it preventatively, but A) It eats at their action economy because they used either their reaction or they had to use part of their turn to do it. B) It eats at the resource itself, something that when fully charged typically lets them unleash a powerful attack. And C) It's something the player's know about, since the resource charging is something they can always see. Either a dragon charging magical energy in its neck, when it's at full charge they unleash their breath weapon, but they can spend a portion of the charge to cancel something magically affecting them or breath upon a wall of force to dispel it, for example. I love this video and all the ideas in it as well, super happy I watched cause now it feels like there's a million different ways to pull this off without legendary resistance.
I mean, it wouldn't be so bad if most high level control spells didn't outright suck. The example of hold monster is a 5th level, single target, concentration spell with a save and if failed it gets to make more saves. I'd rather cast transmute rock or synaptic static, they at least have seccondary effects that go through lr.
And let's not forget WALL OF FORCE. You still have plenty of options if you know how to build your character. I feel like legendary resistance works just fine in the context of the system with simplicity at it's core.
On the other hand, hold monster - if it lands - allows people to just absolutely melt that foe with no counterplay possible until that save is landed. The alternatives here have significantly less powerful effects or don't allow allies to attack that monster
@@rednidedni3875 well yes, but except for wall of force which deletes at least one enemy from the encounter for 10 min with no save, they are not concentration. Hold monster doesn't just compete with 5th level spells it competes with all concentration spells.
@@amancealexis7360 Wall of force is concentration, only Forcecage isn't - and yeah, that one is drastically stronger. I agree wall of force is overall better due to locking out whole groups of foes at once, but hold monster does have utility - and excels in the exact situations you'd find Legendary Resistances in
Awesome awesome awesome! This is the exact kind of thoughtful changes/discussion I've been looking for! Something I've been experimenting recently with is treating LRs as not so much an instant success vs save effects, but a save against death (Sort of like "Chromatic Wrath" or "Platinum Brilliance" on the Aspects of Tiamat/Bahamut from Fizban's). If my players manage to beat the boss, well now it can burn 1 LR and it stands back up, and if I planned ahead well enough then now it can have some new moves or traits for phase 2. The issue I just ran into was that it felt like it favoured the Control oriented PCs more than the Damage oriented ones in a less fun way(control PCs just needed to get lucky to phase a boss, where as damage ones needed to do x amount of damage that they probably won't do in 1 turn), but these alternative resistances(esp. the costly ones) seem like an awesome dynamic way to handle this issue!
Yeah, if you have a 4 person party, ideally you want each player to feel like they've contributed about 25% of the fight, even if their contributions take very different forms. I tried to design those alternatives with that in mind, but it's a tough problem for sure
This is such a cool option! I love the multi armed boss losing arms, the passive damages even when they miss a turn, etc! I will definitely be getting your books!
This is terrific. I love it, especially letting villains lose a limb instead of failing a save. I'd use that with most heavy-duty monsters; once per day, instead of dying, it loses a limb or tail or suffers a huge scar.
I'm gunna be DMing my first ever game in the following weeks. Your videos, and channels like yours, are amazing and I love the work you and the community does. ...And not just because you put out free info. Keep up the great work. ♥
Did we forget that Dark Souls Bosses were a thing? They all end up minions after all... Also I've had a fix for Legendary Risstance since I first read it; Legendary Resistance is limited to a number of times per day. The wizard gets so many spells, the barbarian gets so many rages, and the boss gets a number of "Uh, no, I don't do that" bulls*** cards. And I find that one per 10 CR works pretty well. Still, glad someone is trying to help fix this busted mechanc.
I stopped using legendary resistances when my players started meta-game planning for them. In exchange, I ramped up the amount of lair actions baddies could use, and gave them bonus actions and reactions. :)
My DM asked why I had stopped using Bane (I had removed it from my spell list some time ago). My response was "why would I have and use the spell when it never worked against anything I needed it to work on (because of legendary resistances)?" This was when I was told that by burning legendary resistances I was also reducing the number of legendary actions the boss could do. This was news to me but I have never played a standard 5e campaign before.
@@jennaphantom7969 That... is also not part of standard 5e. Legendary actions and Resistances are totally separate. If that was part of the game, then that was a house rule that the DM never explained to you and thus you could not be reasonably expected to know
Legendary resistances are a choice the DM can make. They're fundamentally impossible to meta-game, because if you try the DM will just choose not to use them.
That meta-game planning for legendary resistances is where the players can actually have fun with them! It becomes a play to cast less important spells to break down the resistances and get your bigger spells off, which is exactly the kind of engagement you want in a fight like that
Great breakdown and solutions. I remember how bad it felt playing a crowd control-style warlock in a previous campaign; whenever it got to a boss monster, the only reliable choice I had was the eldritch blast machine gun. As a DM now I usually try to mitigate this a little by not having bosses alone and including some more minor, but still credible threats that present as good targets for controls. These will definitely give some more flexibility for when a solo boss is the better choice. Cheers!
I suppose my only issue with your suggestions for "Costly Resistances" is that 1) The monsters are stated and given a CR based on the understanding that they have Legendary resistances that they don't need to spend anything to use. I would suggest dropping the CR of any creature you apply Costly Resistances to as they are not performing at their intended capacity. 2) Almost all of these things could be handled "behind the screen" by the DM as the explanation for how legendary resistances work anyway. For instance: when having Strahd do his legendary resistances I actually described something similar to what Spooky Bad Person did. It had no actual effect on his hit points but my players had no way of knowing that. How often should players know exactly how much health a boss has anyway?
Just now discovering your channel, and it's a crime youtube doesn't promote these videos more, because they're some of the best informative dnd videos I've seen and you offer really well-considered solutions to the problems you discuss. I hope you keep doing more :)
Subscribed immediately after watching this. As a fledgling DM, Legendary Resistances are something I've been wary of, but also I wanted some ways to make early-to-mid boss fights more interesting. Great analysis and very interesting solution. Looking forward to see more~
this is quite possibly the first time I've watched a video with a gimmick-y hook like this... and actually agreed. A very good essay! I'm checking out the "Legendary Resistance Alternatives" right now.
You just earned a sub! I love the idea of looking at video games for tabletop design ideas. Too many tabletop gamers sneer at video games without realizing that the best design ideas transcend the medium they originate from.
I really appreciated the different perspectives and sources of inspiration compiled in this video. I designed and ran an encounter a while after watching this where my players were fighting a modified version of Yeenoghu who was being empowered by a gnoll shaman, and every time he failed a saving throw the shaman could choose to sacrifice a basic gnoll bozo and let him succeed instead (or it diverted the effect to one of them). Ended up working out really well, the players enjoyed their spells having an impact on the battle in a high-tier encounter even when they didn't work, it made sense with the atmosphere, and it left me with the flexibility to decide what spells were worth taking a lackey taking the hit to avoid.
I haven't played much dnd, but played other systems. And multi-Phase bosses are really fun to do, it's just a bit hard to make them fit in many situations. Passive threats are also a great thing that I used a lot of times, and the other 2 ideas are great, I'm definitely using them on my bosses.
I think there are some great ideas in here for general encounter design, and some good ideas for boss fights as well. However, I do think the reason why legendary resistance exists the way it does, is because of the types of affects and conditions that can happen in 5e. There are affects and conditions that basically end combat or cause the bbeg to not be able to do anything. Which makes the fight too easy, too quick, or boring. If any of theses "fixes" still allow those affects to happen... then the problem problem hasn't been fixed. If the player is excited about using that affect or causing that condition, but the "fix" blocks that from happening... they will still be disappointed. An example from the video is a stun affect turning into damage. When a player wants to use a stun condition, that is what they want. And they want it not just because it makes it easier to do damage to the target, but because the target can't do anything back. Sure more damage is better than nothing... but also I find it immersion breaking to explain there spell or feature that applies a condition now simply does damage. (On the note of legendary resistance not having flavor... as written yes, but I can easily come up with flavorful descriptions for legendary resistance use). Another example is the idea of stages for replacing legendary resistance. That after the party were to use a game breaking affect or condition, it ends that stage or fraction of the encounter... that sounds like ignoring the affect and going back to combat with extra steps. There are many cool ideas for encounter design in this video, but removing legendary resistance and replacing them with these options may not fix the real issue. My advice. 1. Tell your players about legendary resistance out of game and explain why it is in the game and how using certain spells, affects, and conditions can ruin the fun of a challenging encounter. Especially explain how broken spells affect the fun on martial Characters. Communication is key. If players can't understand good team work and fair gameplay... you shouldn't play with them. 2. Prepare narrative descriptions of legendary resistance so it fits the encounter and becomes interesting. 3. Keep legendary resistance as is but give it a plenty upon use. Maybe using the resistance causes it to vulnerable to one type of damage for the next round, or they get disadvantage on thier next attack, or you the DM can have there be a lesser version of the affect or condition? Stun could instead cause them to burn a legendary action and half movement speed rather than the monster not being able to do anything at all.
Just stumbled upon this video from "the algorithm", where has this been all my life!?! So many of my dm ideas are ripped from video games, it almost feels like this channel was made specifically for me. That "multi-armed bad guy" variant that you suggest for hydras? I literally did that exact mechanic on my hydra boss just this week! Oh man I'm gonna enjoy bingeing these. :3 xxx
One thing I tried was to give them a reaction to succeed the saving throw instead of a number of LR's per day, so they can only use the resistance once per round. That way they don't just run out, but a well-coordinated combo between 2 or 3 characters can break through their defenses. It also means that they can't make as many opportunity attacks on melee fighters.
Wow that's awesome! Excluding the multi level boss fight, I never used any of this techniques, but they are very smart. This video definitely comes into my D&D advanced techniques playlist.
what I want to try is connect legendary resistances and legendary actions. As the boss keeps losing legendary resistances, it can take fewer legendary actions. Maybe not for a 1-1 ratio. But it should still give casters a reason to fire off imporant and debilitating spells, and give the bosses a choice. Do I eat the blindness and rely on my +19 to hit to negate the disadvantage, or do I make sure that I can kill the lowHP fighter in front of me at the cost of making the rest of the fight more difficult for myself? EDIT: I see you have also thought of something similar
13th Age has a great mechanic to fix this issue, the escalation die. Each round the escalation die increases from zero to a maximum of 6, and is a bonus to hit for the players. If you start with an even (or worse) chance you will wait a few rounds til your chances improve before trying to land that haymaker you can only throw very infrequently. For dnd this “to hit” for magic that isn’t AC based would likely be represented by an increase in spell save DC.
I really like this idea, although I don’t agree that the combo of magic resistance and legendary resistance being a problem. The way it was described in the video is that it is problematic because the spellcasters of the group feel they have been walled by this creature. But I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing, as long as EVERY creature doesn’t have this combo. In most cases, the martial classes are the ones who are outgunned. They don’t get to deal as much damage as an optimized damage spellcaster. They don’t have many (if any) control options to end the battle in one turn like a control spellcaster. So having the occasional boss where the spellcasters are struggling and the martials get to shine doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me. Obviously, there are a lot of examples of DMs who would start throwing this combo on every monster, and that is just an example of a bad DM, because then the spellcaster never feels rewarded for how he built his character. But as it is, it is rare for a martial to feel rewarded, because the game is stacked against them. I support throwing in the combo occasionally to boost up martials and make them somewhat worthwhile for something.
A thing I've been trying out is coupling legendary resistances with hit points. For important enemies and bosses, I don't just give them extra hit points. I take a page from the mythic bosses in the Theros book and tack on extra health bars. Important boss fights with lair actions and legendary resistances get a number of bonus health bars equal to their legendary resistances. When the boss has to burn a legendary resistance, they also lose one of their bonus health bars. So the save or die and save or lose spells still contribute substantial progress to a fight, but they don't negate or compete with the work being done by the PCs who are hacking away at the health bar. The important thing to do is telegraph these effects at the start of each fight. When describing the boss and their lair, come up with a thing in the environment and point it out to the players. Glowing runes covering the walls of the Dragon's lair. Clusters of iuon stones floating above the boss. Four glowing obelisks capped with gems that spark and shoot arcs of eldritch power back and forth. A bubbling cauldron with smoke or broth that changes color as the fight progresses. A soul stealing crystal that wails whenever damage is dealt to the boss and starts to crack once the boss is bloodied. Armor plating that warps, shreds, or falls off as the fight drags on. Armor made or an energy field that flickers as damage is dealt. A line of simulacrums of the boss, a new one of which pops out of a hidey hole every time the players think they've won. A "garden" of stone figures that appear to be taking the damage instead of the Medusa or Basilisk. Mention some set dressing like this at the start of each boss fight when detailing the lair and boss. When the PCs cast a spell that needs to be dealt with by a legendary resistance, tell them the spell hits and staggers the boss. Then a third of the glowing runes go dark, or an obelisk shatters. The soul crystal cracks. Part of the garden of stone figures turn to dust, or they move to cover the boss and absorb the spell before it can hit, and then they shatter. Make it clear to the players that their spells achieved something important. They "pushed the phase" in gamer terms. Describe a tangible part of the lair or boss that is clearly doing something for the boss, and then describe how the player's actions broke that thing sustaining the boss. "The spell Power Word Kill hits the ancient dragon in the chest. He staggers back as you see a third of the glowing runes etched into every surface of the lair flicker and go dark. The dragon rises up and glares at you with renewed hatred."
"And bosses in video games rarely come back as lackeys", then proceeds to show Elden Ring where 60-80% of the bosses you encounter early in the game show up later as lackeys...
As the party's token control mage for the last 5 years with every boss being more or less immune to my spells since they average around +9 to Wis saves, Legemdary Resistance, and something like 90% of spells targeting Dex/Con/Wis, I appreciate this both for quality content and on principle
Have you ever tried just choosing some alternate spells, stunning breaks most encounters and trust me, if a boss encounter gets stunlocke, very few people are happy
@@tacticstonk4740 It's not about stuns, since the only spells I can think of that stun are Raulathim's Psychic Lance at 4th level and Power Word Stun at 7th or 8th and most non-schmuck enemies are immune to paralysis. Slow barely works since it's a 6 target spell with a 1 in 10 chance of sticking for more than half a round when everything and their mother has a +7 or higher in Wis saves, Banishment can sometimes buy a couple rounds when the BBEG has mobs but almost never does because Magic Resist, and everything else is "pick your flavor of squishy fighter replacement". Crowd Control spells are next to useless in 5e because on average the mage spends the first 4 rounds trying to get a spell to take hold, and entire fights if there's Magic or Legendary Resistance involved. It's not a problem of "all the spells are too strong or too weak", it's a problem of "almost all the spells target Wisdom so everything has a high Wisdom and control mages can't buy time like they should be able to outside of niche circumstances"
I'd say my one criticism would be that the price for Legendary Bad Persons with 3 Legendary Actions should be 2 actions instead of all 3, since it only covers a single affliction at a time if for no other reason. ...On that note, I've always felt like more statblocks should be designed around a more variable number of Legendary Actions to spend. Like ones with 5 LAs but a less significant Multiattack so that most of its economy is reactionary in nature and other such dynamics.
I feel like the idea that some high CR monsters are insurmountable by a party of 4 wizards is not an inherently bad thing… you see how it takes the wizard party 20+ turns to win? Well it still take the fighter party like 3-5 turns, which is why the part has both a fighter and a wizard… not all obstacles should be able to be overcome with Magic, just like the fighter with a sword can’t fight a beholder or a dragon. A wizard shouldn’t really be able to control/shut down an immortal super demon.
This is good stuff! I'm using PF2E, which pretty much has the "close save" mechanic baked in already, but I'm liking the "resistance alternatives", definitely going to look at importing those. Thanks for posting it!
I wish you had released this video before I wrote Quick and Dirty Legendary Features. Then I'd have known I was making a whole system that only offered the "costly resistances" solution to the problem. Great video, and from what I've seen on the preview, a great supplement.
Excellent content and your free PDF is a huge bonus! Thank you! I've been using some of the variations you mentioned in the video for years now, but I never memorialized them in such an easily digestible fashion. I'm a bit fan of multi-stage/phase boss encounters, where the boss abilities and/or environment changes once the boss is reduced to 50% HP or less. Really great content. Highly enjoying your videos. I've been a DM for nearly 30 years and would love to collaborate.
Great ideas. I'll have to check out the book. Here's another idea... Control Resistance: this monster has a number of levels of Control Resistance equal to it's Hit Dice. Successful control spells (those that the monster fails it's save - if any - against) subtract one level of Control Resistance per level of the spell used. Control spells against which the monster successfully makes its save (again, if a saving throw is allowed) have no effect. So long as the monster has any levels of Control Resistance, such spells have no effect even if the monster fails its save (other than eliminating levels of Control Resistance). I include all "save or suck" spells in the "control" category. (There's probably a better name for it.) You can also do something similar with Magic Resistance, having it degrade each time it successfully blocks a spell.
I heard of a DM once who had a bunch of new players in his game. He ended up telling all of them how great status spells and abilities are, and highly encouraging them to select those upon leveling up. A few sessions in, the party encountered their first boss with legendary resistance. It was ludicrously difficult because they had basically only taken abilities with saves up until that point by the suggestion of the only guy with any experience. They were saved by the rogue player because he went for some damaging abilities. Well, from that point on, every enemy, grunts included, had at least one legendary resistance, and bosses averaged 5. Even on basic combat encounters, the whole party nearly died and they often only survived due to crazy good rolls. It was at that point that the players learned that legendary resistances only worked against saves, which the DM hadn't told them, and they all started balancing out their builds. So, of course, the DM started giving bosses the deadly combo of 3-5 legendary resistances, magic resistance, and 5 legendary actions. Yes, you heard that right. The enemies got 5 extra turns. Finally, it all came to a head when one of the players, the tank, played out of his mind and won one of these boss encounters solo. I watched that session on a recording, and it was a feat and a half. Truly one of the most impressive gaming moments I've seen. Instead of congratulating the player for a job well done, however, the DM got upset that the encounter was too easy. At that point, the players basically forced the DM to wrap up their campaign and left. Moral of the story, anything with the word "legendary" in its title is a tool for bully DMs, and no good game designer would ever use them. If you're the type to spam legendary resistance, then you're also the type to actively encourage your new players to cripple their builds first.
This is a very neat concept. Something that I thought about is "distracting from resistances", like two casters working in tandem to split the boss's attention and so make them more susceptible to the control effect. I haven't thought more about this, so if anyone had input please let me know!
I honestly don't mind legendary resistance as it is, even as a player It gives me the sense of how powerful the enemy is. Plus of you're fighting gods and liches it's kinda fitting. I get that It takes away from the caster but I only play casters and honestly in 5e being a spellcaster Is kinda broken with how much stuff you can do. Me and another player are Always doing spell combos that my master never sees coming, so I'm glad he can have a bit of fun with legendary resistances honestly (this was not to criticize your video, I enjoyed watching, just wanted to share another pov)
I only just found this channel (I just commented on your video about your new battle simulator) and man, your takes and ideas are just great. You have awesome insight to the game and provide really actionable fixes. Subscribed!
Before I've seen videos about alternatives to legendary resistances, I tried making some myself for a homebrew dragon. My ideas were of the costly resistance type: sacrificing the uses of breath weapon, sacrificing damage resistances or points of AC in order to remove effects. The new 5.5e exhausted condition may serve well as universal costly resistance. Another bad person I was making an alternative resistance for was a monk (not built with character levels). A special action, which can be taken even when incapacitated, both heals him and removes conditions. I like your take on nullifying action that must be taken when the user is charmed, that plugs the Stillness-of-Mind-shaped hole in such defences. Great read.
I can't believe I didn't think of dragon breaths or exhaustion even once while writing this, those are great ideas to tap into. I'll have to run some experiments now (imagine me doing a slow dramatic turn in the direction of my players as I say this).
Casters can stand a little nerf. Had one boss fight where someone whipped up a setup to insta gimped a boss immediately and wound up causing a lot of drama including from other players who were like "Um...we kinda sorta would like to get to play too Mr Glory Hound!"
Problem is DMs in my opinion. If casters get to enter every fight with all of their spell slots, then casters become too strong. If combat encounters don't make players think, then they might not be that interesting anyway. My group fought its way through a goblin cave. We reach a point where we're a bit banged up, and the group decides to back track out of the cave, set some traps, and attempt a short rest. The DM gives it to us. We go back into the cave, and find the boss goblin in the middle alone. Apparently the DM planned for them to call minions in on their first turn. They never got a first turn, the second turn of the combat I cast sleep. So the question is, what were the goblins doing that entire time we rested? They could have been setting up traps or preparing an ambush, or just fleeing. The DM started to change their approach after that.
@@kamikeserpentail3778 "If casters get to enter every fight with all of their spell slots, then casters become too strong." I'm sorry what? The only caster where that's a thing is warlocks and that's counterbalanced by the fact that they have very few slots at all. Everyone else only gets slots back on a long rest which are VERY cleared stated to be once a day only.
I was playing a theurge wizard, and we were getting up there, around level 13. Past the point of things, i just stopped trying to control, it wasn't worth it with my economy of spells. I could as you very very rightly put into matters see the odds, and the chances, and it was either better to save my spells for something that just was a fight ender like a wall spell (Force/Stone.) or just use a damaging cantrip. I still to this day hate LR's with such a passion because it shuts down an avenue of play that enables the martials to dominate foes. And LR's really felt like a bad holdover from 4e that folks would just stunlock a special end time encounter because if it got a turn, players were hosed..
I loved the ideas you brought to the table and am looking forward to implement them - maybe in a hub and spokes fps dungeon? Great video, as always! Although PF2e already has the incapacitation and level interaction to solve that specific problem, I think I will tweak (or even remove it) to play around and see what my players think of it. Thanks for the video, and I'll see you in the next one! Great job as always!
This document is amazing. Many great ideas, and the tools to adapt them to each monster in a creative ways are perfect. This should be in a 5e survival kit.
Not sure how much i like Caster sympathetic videos. Spells are extremely strong and and a lot of the examples in this video were pretty oversimplified, if you're fighting a boss for example, why would the entire party be focused on banishing the boss? your goal would be to kill it not send it away. With how well spells dominate outside of boss monsters (Both in Utility, CC, and Damage) its only fair that there be extra precautions against Boss monsters. Y'know, THE BOSS. There are much bigger problems then trying to insinuate that casters are weak especially when compared to martials, let alone fighters. I understand the point or LR being unfun but its a simple solution to a simple game, even when it is its bane. For example i think martials should be given a plethora of new tools in combat even if it makes the classes much more complicated then just taking the attack action every turn.
It seems you've missed the point just a smidge by the sound of it. This video is saying that LRs disincentivise *control* casters in particular in a way that isn't fun for the players and presents ways that make bosses harder to control but that don't just make players choose between control (i.e. wasting turns) or buffing/damage (i.e. being actually useful).
@@FreedomIII Honestly, I do think we need to disincentivize control casting anyways, because it's far too powerful and certain control spells just remove an enemy from the fight, which is extremely bad game design if you want combat to not last 1 round or less. Then again, I believe spellcasting needs nerfs in general.
@@sharmakefarah2064 Crowd control is a vital tactical resource for any combat sustem. Revamping control magic in a way that steers away from the "this enemy is effectively removed from combat for x turns" effects that are, like you said, overpowered? Yeah, definitely, even as someone who mostly plays mages, I'd support that. Removing control entirely? That's using dynamite to get rid of spiders ┐(´д｀)┌
@@FreedomIII Yeah, the best way to handle control spellcasting in the OneDnD Player's Handbook or a house rule is to nerf spells that entirely remove actions on one saving throw like Hypnotic Pattern and Banishment, and focus more on spells like Slow that don't entirely take enemies out of the fight. Slow, while still a bit too powerful, could actually be a healthy form of control as it doesn't entirely remove an enemy's action economy, which allows bosses to exist. Control casting is a valid archetype in DnD, it just needs nerfs to avoid making it way better than anything else. So I agree with you here.
Well, there are some control spells that are used specifically because they have no saving throw (e.g. Wall of Force). This can act as a counter towards some bosses that would otherwise use Legendary Resistances, but don't have the tools to counter that specific tool (e.g. Misty Step, Disintegrate).
good way to better legendary resistence, but the basic isn't bad. Why i am a fighter, paladin or barbarian if we have a caster who can win the final boss with one slot and luck? Legendary resistance make the game fair to everyone make something about the boss. I really think some caster who only have "hit kill" spells is a bad caster, and boss isn't use legendary resistance against every think only because he have. Caster already op they don't need be 100% better option.
@@tacticstonk4740 Yeah, this is the reason why Legendary Resistance is kind of necessary past 6th-10th level, and at higher levels, Legendary Resistance is mostly not enough. Thank gods Banishment is likely to be nerfed, but I still worry about encounter ending spells sneaking into the OneDnD Player's Handbook.
This is how I plan to run the resistances. What do you think of it? “When the monster fails any save it can choose to make a legendary check. The DC of this check is 15, and they add their CHA mod to this check. If the monster fails this check it is as if nothing happened. However if they succeed the check the effect of the save they failed is delayed for one round and the DC rises by 1. Once activated they may repeat the check every round until they fail, in which they are effected as if they failed the save. However in some area of effect spells and effects such as the Sleep spell, if they make it out of the area before they fail a check they aren't affected by the spell or effect. Also if the creature who caused them to make the save breaks concentration on the spell or effect, dies or is incompaitated, the effect ends. Monsters will have roughly 5 variant legendary resistances for every 1 official legendary resistance on their statblock and can't use the official ones. They may also spend 50 hp to use an aditional resistance. These will be used sparingly.” EDIT: “if the distance between the caster and the monster exceeds the range of the spell or effect while the legendary resistance targeting that spell effect is active, the spell or effect ends.”
That would be a bit more tracking than I'd trust a new DM with, so when publishing something I woykdn't be able to get away with it, but if you're confident you can track it all go for it, it sounds fun 👍 The one worry I would have would be "hit & run" tactics where the player casts hold monster, then dimension doors 500 feet away
A nice low-impact, low-effort solution is to have legendary resistances only allow the boss to "trade" a status effect for 1 turn of incapacitated. This means milder effects won't have to worry about it, bigger effects still eat the boss's action economy, and the boss can still use bonus actions and move so they're not defenseless. It's also flavorful, as we've all seen that thing in movies where the big monster is only briefly stunned by something that would completely knock out a lesser foe.
Love the content mate, whilst I don't think that I will implement these ideas all of the time it does give some great ideas for special case instances :) Lovely work
I like your ideas to up a boss encounter. Would a simple fix to legendary resistance be to make them a reaction? Or maybe it just gives a +5 to the save so even if the monster rolls low it fails? Maybe both? I would like to know how the math changes with these changes. And I would love some more video focusing on boss building. Thank you.
Thank you! Legendary Resistances as a reaction would probably not have the intended effect: mathematically, it encourages the players to have as many casters as possible. Say for example that the boss fails a save if it rolls 5 or less, and it needs to fail twice in a single round for the encounter to end: 1 caster: 0% chance to happen 2 casters: ~6% chance to happen each round 3 casters: ~15% chance to happen each round 4 casters: ~25% chance to happen each round etc... Most parties probably only have 1 to 3 casters focusing on saves, so a reaction is probably not enough of a cost by itself in my opinion. It might be a different story if the boss also uses reactions for something else - then the opportunity cost would be a bit higher, and it miiiight just be worth it for the players.
So I’ve watched all four of your videos and have been inspired by each one. I’m not a video game player myself but my kids are. This will make the games I dm for them more interesting and they will enjoy the content for games they dm
One idea that is similar to those presented here is that the boss deflects the spell onto an ally. Either before making the save, in which case the minions gets a save, or after failing the save, in which case the minion just cops it. This way the player still has a good chance of landing the spell, there is a limit on how many times it can happen and the players make progress either through directly damaging the boss, or taking out the minions first. Though if they ignore the minions then the action economy will be brutal.
I have played both as a DM and as a player and legendary resistance hasn't really been a problem. I feel like casters shouldn't just pick control spell only, they need damage spells too. Just like they can't just take fire spells, they need other damage types too. Bosses rarely use legendary resistance to resist a lightning bolt. There are a lot of monsters that can still be controlled by crowd control spells. Also when the casters use damage spells against a boss, martials and casters both take down the same "health bar".
Coming from earlier editions, legendary resistances, along with everything suddenly needing concentration, kinda kills some of my favorite caster types. Now, I don't think it's overly a bad thing, and most boss type monsters back in the day would have immunities to various effects anyways - but not everything generally, so you could still do something even if the best effects cant work. Cant paralyze then entangle or drop them in a pit. And even if debuffs were out of the question because something resisted magic (which would also take damage off the table) - you could instead toss out multiple buffs to help out. Or maybe shape the battlefield or use something like grease or a summoned monster to contribute rather than just blasting, which I find boring.
I was really sceptical based on the video name, which sounded too cheesy, but you’ve convinced me. I like this system and I’ll give it a try. Oh, also liked and subscribed 😊
I once used the Dancer Boss from DS3 in a D&D 5e One-Shot. So far it remains as the best, and most fun boss I have ever run as a DM. I got the 5e Stats for the Dancer from Dungeon Dad on UA-cam.
These ideas are great, simply for how they could turn out: Costly resistance: You arrive at the BBEG's layer, and he stands against you. But your wizards decides to cast "charm person" to diffuse the situation. And the BBEG ... fails his save, as his eyes glaze over... Suddenly his nose starts bleding a little as he SNAPS back and harshly orders his troops to attack. And for destructible resistances, you can make entire characters based around it. There could be a spellsword, wearing a talisman that protects him from any magic above a certain level, but it can only "eat" so many high levels before it overloads and unleashes them ALL AT ONCE. This forces a choice, fight him with the melee's and lower spells, or have the martials distract him as you overload his shield, but risk fighting him at his full power if he survives. If you want to be really cheeky, and the spellsword is an old grizzled veteran, you could say he cast healing magic into it every morning, so as soon as it is destroyed and he isnt outright killed, the spells cleanse him off any enchantment and heal him to full, now fully capable of using magic.
Something I've been wanting to change about LR is to make them interactive; something the players can tangibly affect. So, a dragon with 3 LR has three totems in their lair that they can call upon to resist a spell, which makes the totem crumble. However, a player can go over to a totem and break it with either enough damage, an Arcana check, or Dispel Magic, or whatever number of reasons. So, similar to your destructible resistances. I honestly think people should look at video games in general for designing encounters; dungeons, bosses, generic enemies, etc. Etc. It really helps to spice up game play imo.
Pathfinder 2e takes the approach of “this is a boss, that won’t work” by making the spicy effects behind crit failure on saves and making bosses increase their save result by one category (can’t crit fail) if the spell effect is incapacitating or a death effect. Makes it clear “use these spells in smaller battles”, which helps
Handsome Jack. It’s not easy to give your BBEG a way to actually speak to the party consistently to build up contempt the way Jack does, but when you can find an excuse for it, it’s spectacular.
A simple solution for this would be to make another column next to the 'conditions' rules for lesser and alternative effects. Grappled can be from speed zero to speed halved. Stunned can give disadvantage, do %hp damage, or stun a part of a monster like an arm, or a leg. Dominated can do % HP psychic damage, or make it friendly to only you and not your allies.
I made a boss with some of the raid mechanics of the Leviathan raid where you fight emperor Calus in Destiny 2. I use A LOT of raid mechanics from that game boss rooms or dungeons. Great stuff
Another (also labor-intensive) way is to have encounter-ending effects work in a limited manner. Instead of stun, for example, you inflict daze, or petrification only lasts a round.
This channel seems to me as the mechanical pendant of the pointy hat channel, that is more lore and roleplay focus. Even the little one eyed avatar to represent the youtuber ! By the way, great video, i hope you will see the growth your channel is worth of !
Something I do to fix Magic resistance as well is just make it "Add half your proficiency rounded up to all saving throws against magic." instead of advantage. This makes it far more consistent and fair for players. Most magic resistant NPCs will have a +2/+3/+4, while a CR 30ish boss will have a +5 since they have a +9 proficiency bonus. As advantage is on average a +5 to saving throws, this makes the mages only need to worry about one dice, not two and it just feels better. And the best part? If the players aren't as good, I can change the "rounded up" to "rounded down" and suddenly a lot of monsters lost +1 to all their saving throws in a way that doesn't make it seem like I'm giving the players an advantage. Best part? This makes it a real shock when something comes around with ACTUAL resistance to spells like a rhakshata. Otherwise these are some fun ways to fix Legendary resistance.
Absolutely amazing video. I hope to see more content where you improve on the flaws of 5e mechanics by incorporating logic from video games or other media
Basically like destructible resistance, I gave my dragon squads of kobolds to command. And each group had a winged kobold that could counter spell. So even the barbarian or rogue could take out "legendary resistances" by downing a winged kobold. But I always try to throw some curveballs in my fights, that one involved the party basically piloting a megazord.
Hey, just wanted to clarify something you mentioned about Pathfinder. While boss monsters are typically considered harder normal enemies, spells which would stun lock bosses have a trait called 'incapacitation' which means if the creature's level is more than twice the spell level (i.e. a 9th level creature against a 4th level spell), then the creature treats its degree of success as one higher (if it critically fails the save it instead merely fails, if it failed it succeeded, and if it succeeded it critically succeeds). This is Pathfinder's work around which continues to have some of the problems you mentioned in the video. It's not very flavorful and it can feel bad to have one of your spells not work so well. That said, only a few select spells have the trait and most spells are still usable on boss monsters. I understand it's a bit noodley and complex so I get why you may have not gone into detail about it in the video. Just felt like going into detail about it!
D2r hell difficulty mobs that are immune to physical and ice are not fun. But there are immunity breaking items now. So yeah good video and good point.
That's an amazing video, so underrated! I personally have a boss that's inspired by Sans from undertaoe that basically have a fuck ton of legendary resistences. The gimmick is litteraolly to survive while attacking enough time to overcome his resistences and finally kill him.
So, which video game bosses have you used as inspiration for your TTRPG sessions?
I am a sucker for Dark Souls 2's Pursuer. Something about the unwavering determination of that guy and the way he appeared at the most unexpected places gave me the chills, and I wanted to do that to my players too... also a great design!
the only problem with all of this video is that as dm, there's never anything stoling the dm from saying screw the rules i'm in charge. a generic set of instructions feels like the only way to fail at a game that should be based on the creativity of the players... even if those generic instructions are good.
Well its not a video game boss but I used Vizzini from the Princess Bride Movie. Had the players working for him for quite a few session, until they figured out the connection, rewatched the movie and realized that they were the bad guys, albeit unwittingly. The disappointed Goliath barbarian sat on Vizzini's head (he was a gnome) and that was that, no saving throws, no uber tough resistances, just a smart mouth gnome with a big head.
I’ve tried to take notes from some of my favourite bosses from quite a weird source, Noita. Taking the initial confusion you would have fighting it’s bosses, while also feeling confidence in being able to take enough to learn their moves and weaknesses to make it a push and pull between my players and the enemies.
I used Innocence from FFXIV as an inspiration for the encounter with the BBEG god the players were going up against. I had tiles that would either drop into the void, explode, or do nothing, (foreshadowed by the tiles at the start of the round so the players have time to react), along with villain moves like shared fates (all healing AND damage is shared between two chained characters, unless they move far enough apart.) And then he had moves that were ttrpg versions of Innocence's moves, which used wing blades in a circular sweeping aoe with holes in it, so that was one legendary action. They loved that fight. It took a couple of sessions to finish, but they loved it. It was pretty close to a TPK until they realized they were in a space where they can change the rules... which they did, and came out ahead.
My prefered alteration to legendary resistances is to change its timing, instead of being immediately it triggers at the end of the monster's turn and targets specific effects. So say an ancient dragon can shake of the charmed, frightened, stunned, and paralyzed conditions, automatically at the end of its turn. That gives the players until the end of the dragon's turn to make use of the condition and the effect still uses up one of the dragon's turns.
My preferred alteration is to play something besides DnD.
@@mrosskne So what are you even doing on this video?
@@20storiesunder bringing enlightenment to those less fortunate. such is my burden and my privilege.
@@mrosskne *gag*
@@20storiesunder coping loser lol
"Alright, the Evil Bad Guy failed the throw, but he is not effected by your spell"
"Uh sorry DM my i ask how come?"
"He, uhhh chose not to fail"
In the DM's POV: ok, it's the first turn and i was making that battle in a month, he just cast polymorph and go end all my hard work with luck
If your DM is stupid enough to say something plain like that, then they're an idiot.
I love the idea of Legendary Resistance costing the boss a chunk of their hit points.
Another idea I am considering is half effects. Any condition has a weaker version. If a boss throws up Legendary Resistance, they instead receive a weaker version of the effect.
That save or suck resource he talks about on DMs guild does just this so it might be worth checking out
What I’ve done in the past is that a legendary resistance will lower one of their stats. Say that rely on charisma, so they have a charisma of 24. Every time they use one, it dies down by 2 points.
So a Normal Success in PF2E instead of a Critical Success?
@@LemonMoon or the auto success saving throw's stat get's reduced, so a resisted wisdom save would reduce their wisdom bonus.
Instead of just half effects to a blanket resistance, I personally would keep it lore/thematicly tied. Example : Liches are lore wise unkillable as long as their phylactery is intact so LR would out right negate certain effects like power word kill, or can give them 1 health point remaining after an attack should kill them equal to the number of LRs for that encounter. If they run out of LRs the party has a "time limit" to find and destroy the phylactery before the Lich comes back with a new/resurrected body to start a fresh encounter. This adds stakes to a fight that feel right from a narrative perspective while turning BS mechanics into justified OP mechanics.
I actually think this is a really cool idea. As a DM for a group that really enjoys puzzles, I've gotten an overwhelmingly positive consensus on running fights that can be won by solving a puzzle instead of just the traditional whack em till they die.
I had one where the party, instead of taking on a warforged colossus head on, split into 2 teams, 1 where they tried to bring a smaller one online to fight the boss, and another that went inside the boss itself and slowly take it down, which I mechanically showed by it getting debuffed over time (blinded by smoke from burning oil, or losing an arm to attack with, etc)
Another fun one was based off rhythm games where I had a trio of enemies all use 1 health pool and take 6 actions (I had each action correspond to a different thing, like make 1 attack, move a little, defend by adding +1 to its AC, or make a magic attack, etc) and the objective was to have the party mimic its movement. If it attacked-attacked, moved, magic attacked, moved, defended, then the fighter was able to attack twice, and move, fulfilling 3 of the requirements in one turn, etc. In fulfilling these requirements, they each got a small buff for the round to help them win faster. I also kept the options for fulfilling the pattern pretty lenient, so a rogue using the disengage bonus action could accomplish the "defend" part pretty easy.
Was it cheesy yes, but everyone had fun, and that's what matters most
I love that creativity to your bosses and kind of jealous of your group now.
I know it's a 2 month old comment, but I'm totally stealing the rhythm idea, that rules!
An important note to make, is that Legendary Resistance says "Can", not "Does".
"Why would a monster ever choose not to use its legendary resistances?" I hear you ask. Well, that's wrapped up in why LR doesn't have any flavor. In the narrative, it is supposed to be indistinct from the monster shrugging off the CC effect because it's got a god damned +15 to its save. In that sense, the DM shouldn't even *tell* the players when the monster uses one of it's LRs; they should simply act like the monster made its save.
What I'm saying is that LR isn't a tactical resource for the monster to use; It's a tool that gives the DM permission to fudge a few rolls so the monster doesn't get lamed out by a couple bad rolls on turn 1 or 2, which isn't really fun for anybody. But, it also still gives you permission to let that clutch hold monster through IF it's going to make the table cheer, which just making the monster immune to paralysis doesn't allow for.
Although, this is the kind of thing that might require a step out of the game to shift the player's expectations; experienced players know that LRs are a thing, and will probably be expecting to have to play around them, so they won't even bother with any of their best CC effects until they're sure they've burned the LRs; so then not telling them when a monster's used an LR will kind of leave them in a lurch; and of course, this will also require an amount of trust from your players that you WILL let a clutch CC effect slide, even if the monster still has LRs left.
Love this - I’ve been playing with multi-phase combats for a while as well as mixing in some of Colville’s concepts. Legendary Resistances has always sort of been a weird concept that I’ve only been able to sloppily meld into narrative
I'm not gonna lie, I didn't realize how new a channel this was when I first watched this video. You've got a lot of polish and great ideas. Here's hoping you keep making more great content!
My thoughts on Crowd Control:
The game was designed to have multiple encounters per day, like previously with dungeon crawling, but the storytelling evolved to have on average two encounters per day. So during most of the game, the casters can "cheese" the very few encounters that happen because everyone want the story to go on instead of fighting for 3 hours until something happens
13th age had a way around this, just because you slept that does not mean that was a long rest. You can still have the 4 battles per long rest.
@@JoelFeilaso how does it determine a long rest? Is it just arbitrary, whenever the DM has run out of encounter xp for the day?
There's also a lot of well-intentioned advice around designing adventures so that they have "enough counters" to "wear down" the PCs, but that honestly ends up making some adventures a slog. Ideally an adventure should have so much cool and compelling content that the players *want* to try to go for stretch goals, and *want* to try to do things that are risky. "Using up resources" or "wearing down the PCs" are the complete wrong framing when you're trying to design adventures that are FUN.
Pollars of eternity 2 did something similar with resistance. They split debuff spells into 3 tier effects by their over power. A T3 strength debuff can be resisted diwn to a T2 effect and so on. Even if the effect was a "critical hit" (extended effect time or damage) it would apply it's T2 effect in its place. Giving us the best of both worlds.
Of course, this was exchanged by letting other debuffs of different categories (dex, int, etc) apply in full.
This video is basically more condensed version of Mathew Colville's video on how to use 4e combat mechanics in 5e, since 4e has all of the examples you gave already built in to the system.
Losing those neat boss encounter savers was part of the baby that Wotc threw out with the bathwater when disowning the unique greatness of 4e.
4e definitely had a lot of inspired ancillary rules and abilities to make encounters and enemies feel truly unique. I highly agree with your point here.
What was those 4e abilities and the video.
@@soMeRandoM670 Video is called "Using 4E to Make 5E Combat More Fun | Running the Game" and it's an hour of great examples.
Seeing a marut get polymorphed at 1:50 gave me a heart attack before I realized its an example of why legendary resistances exist.
That was the final boss of my home game, which just ended 2 weeks ago (I used the armor crack trait from the PDF, everything went well :p)
Also funny that the Marut has immutable form so polymorph wouldn't work even if it had not legendary resistance
@@luka2784 "But that sTIfLes My cReaTIveITy"
That's why I like the 4 degrees of success (and the incapacitation trait) Pathfinder 2e has. Big buff monster means that it's likely they only get the minor version of the CC spell.
Unless you play by the rules as written and every save that isn't a critical failure by a higher level monster is considered a success, basically turning it around to being the same save of suck issue as 5E all over again anyway.
Where is this rule? Are you thinking of incapacitation? Because that's not quite how incapacitation works. First it only applies to spells with the incapacitation trait, and then only if the target is twice the spell's level, and then it just bumps the success up one step. And since many spells have negative effects for the target even on a success, the spells are still useful. Also, the incapacitation trait is great because it applies to PCs also, who are going to be targets of it far more than any single creature the GM throws at the party. It also applies to other effects, like a ghouls' paralysis, which are notorious for wiping parties.
The struggle I find with the way Pathfinder 2e does it, is enemy bosses are so significantly more likely to make their saves through the whole duration of the fight, that nobody even bothers to try using their big spells because the chance of success is just so small... We've faced bosses now that could crit succeed their good save on a 14, and their bad one on an 18... With math like that, it usually winds up playing like they just have perma legendary resistance so nobody feels its worth it to burn high powered resources on high powered enemies because they'll just succeed anyway.
As a bit of an anecdotal example: I'm playing in a Blood Lords game rn, and the difference in experience between me as a Fighter and our Witch is insane - I'm having a great time swinging my Greatpick around, hitting for 25-ish dmg on a normal hit and critting for 66 dmg on around an 18-20, sometimes even around a 17... Our Witch is having a miserable time when she sees a 5 on the DMs dice roll for the boss and hears "and that's a success, she takes half damage for a total of 9 dmg from your fireball."
Omg, you're another one of those amazing channels that do precious work and put it out on the internet for free! Thanks, YT algorithms, and thank you a lot! Keep it up! ❤
As you work through this, think about implementing targeted strikes. Allow Martials to declare what they’re hitting for additional effects (disarming, taking about someone’s wings, break their kneecaps). This’ll give Martials some less powerful control effects, but theirs are tied to an attack instead of a save, thus making them more reliable.
I have often designed boss battles in a similar fashion to MMO raid bosses, most specifically Guild Wars 2. I find that many raid mechanics tend to keep characters moving. Additionally, they also need to consider the possible threats and/or opportunities the environment provides.
Thank you for the great video. You have gained a subscriber.
The "passive threat" is essentially the "lair actions" many bosses have. I like the rest of your critiques and ideas on this for sure though. Just sent the vid to my GM.
I absolutely love giving my bosses a sort of "charging" effect, some resource that charges every turn that they can spend on various things. In most cases, they can spend some of that resource to cancel a magical effect on theirself, or as a reaction to do it preventatively, but A) It eats at their action economy because they used either their reaction or they had to use part of their turn to do it. B) It eats at the resource itself, something that when fully charged typically lets them unleash a powerful attack. And C) It's something the player's know about, since the resource charging is something they can always see. Either a dragon charging magical energy in its neck, when it's at full charge they unleash their breath weapon, but they can spend a portion of the charge to cancel something magically affecting them or breath upon a wall of force to dispel it, for example.
I love this video and all the ideas in it as well, super happy I watched cause now it feels like there's a million different ways to pull this off without legendary resistance.
I mean, it wouldn't be so bad if most high level control spells didn't outright suck. The example of hold monster is a 5th level, single target, concentration spell with a save and if failed it gets to make more saves. I'd rather cast transmute rock or synaptic static, they at least have seccondary effects that go through lr.
And let's not forget WALL OF FORCE. You still have plenty of options if you know how to build your character. I feel like legendary resistance works just fine in the context of the system with simplicity at it's core.
On the other hand, hold monster - if it lands - allows people to just absolutely melt that foe with no counterplay possible until that save is landed. The alternatives here have significantly less powerful effects or don't allow allies to attack that monster
@@rednidedni3875 well yes, but except for wall of force which deletes at least one enemy from the encounter for 10 min with no save, they are not concentration. Hold monster doesn't just compete with 5th level spells it competes with all concentration spells.
@@amancealexis7360 Wall of force is concentration, only Forcecage isn't - and yeah, that one is drastically stronger. I agree wall of force is overall better due to locking out whole groups of foes at once, but hold monster does have utility - and excels in the exact situations you'd find Legendary Resistances in
@@rednidedni3875 My brother in christ, everything you wrote there is wrong. Your reading comprehantion is wack.
Awesome awesome awesome! This is the exact kind of thoughtful changes/discussion I've been looking for!
Something I've been experimenting recently with is treating LRs as not so much an instant success vs save effects, but a save against death (Sort of like "Chromatic Wrath" or "Platinum Brilliance" on the Aspects of Tiamat/Bahamut from Fizban's). If my players manage to beat the boss, well now it can burn 1 LR and it stands back up, and if I planned ahead well enough then now it can have some new moves or traits for phase 2.
The issue I just ran into was that it felt like it favoured the Control oriented PCs more than the Damage oriented ones in a less fun way(control PCs just needed to get lucky to phase a boss, where as damage ones needed to do x amount of damage that they probably won't do in 1 turn), but these alternative resistances(esp. the costly ones) seem like an awesome dynamic way to handle this issue!
Yeah, if you have a 4 person party, ideally you want each player to feel like they've contributed about 25% of the fight, even if their contributions take very different forms. I tried to design those alternatives with that in mind, but it's a tough problem for sure
This is such a cool option! I love the multi armed boss losing arms, the passive damages even when they miss a turn, etc! I will definitely be getting your books!
This is terrific. I love it, especially letting villains lose a limb instead of failing a save. I'd use that with most heavy-duty monsters; once per day, instead of dying, it loses a limb or tail or suffers a huge scar.
I'm gunna be DMing my first ever game in the following weeks. Your videos, and channels like yours, are amazing and I love the work you and the community does. ...And not just because you put out free info. Keep up the great work. ♥
Did we forget that Dark Souls Bosses were a thing? They all end up minions after all...
Also I've had a fix for Legendary Risstance since I first read it; Legendary Resistance is limited to a number of times per day. The wizard gets so many spells, the barbarian gets so many rages, and the boss gets a number of "Uh, no, I don't do that" bulls*** cards. And I find that one per 10 CR works pretty well.
Still, glad someone is trying to help fix this busted mechanc.
That's game design done right. Nice discovering your channel, Trek!
I stopped using legendary resistances when my players started meta-game planning for them.
In exchange, I ramped up the amount of lair actions baddies could use, and gave them bonus actions and reactions. :)
My DM asked why I had stopped using Bane (I had removed it from my spell list some time ago). My response was "why would I have and use the spell when it never worked against anything I needed it to work on (because of legendary resistances)?" This was when I was told that by burning legendary resistances I was also reducing the number of legendary actions the boss could do. This was news to me but I have never played a standard 5e campaign before.
@@jennaphantom7969 That... is also not part of standard 5e. Legendary actions and Resistances are totally separate. If that was part of the game, then that was a house rule that the DM never explained to you and thus you could not be reasonably expected to know
Legendary resistances are a choice the DM can make. They're fundamentally impossible to meta-game, because if you try the DM will just choose not to use them.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 And that's exactly what the meta-gaming is about, in the end the DM doesn't bother using them cause it's not gonna do much
That meta-game planning for legendary resistances is where the players can actually have fun with them! It becomes a play to cast less important spells to break down the resistances and get your bigger spells off, which is exactly the kind of engagement you want in a fight like that
Great breakdown and solutions.
I remember how bad it felt playing a crowd control-style warlock in a previous campaign; whenever it got to a boss monster, the only reliable choice I had was the eldritch blast machine gun.
As a DM now I usually try to mitigate this a little by not having bosses alone and including some more minor, but still credible threats that present as good targets for controls. These will definitely give some more flexibility for when a solo boss is the better choice.
Cheers!
It was worthwhile listening to this video! Your ideas were good, and also gave me new ideas beyond what you discussed.
I suppose my only issue with your suggestions for "Costly Resistances" is that 1) The monsters are stated and given a CR based on the understanding that they have Legendary resistances that they don't need to spend anything to use. I would suggest dropping the CR of any creature you apply Costly Resistances to as they are not performing at their intended capacity. 2) Almost all of these things could be handled "behind the screen" by the DM as the explanation for how legendary resistances work anyway. For instance: when having Strahd do his legendary resistances I actually described something similar to what Spooky Bad Person did. It had no actual effect on his hit points but my players had no way of knowing that. How often should players know exactly how much health a boss has anyway?
Just now discovering your channel, and it's a crime youtube doesn't promote these videos more, because they're some of the best informative dnd videos I've seen and you offer really well-considered solutions to the problems you discuss. I hope you keep doing more :)
Subscribed immediately after watching this. As a fledgling DM, Legendary Resistances are something I've been wary of, but also I wanted some ways to make early-to-mid boss fights more interesting. Great analysis and very interesting solution. Looking forward to see more~
this is quite possibly the first time I've watched a video with a gimmick-y hook like this... and actually agreed. A very good essay! I'm checking out the "Legendary Resistance Alternatives" right now.
I love this
I have to worry about an enchantment wizard in an upcoming campaign, perfect timing
Great video, +1 sub
You just earned a sub! I love the idea of looking at video games for tabletop design ideas. Too many tabletop gamers sneer at video games without realizing that the best design ideas transcend the medium they originate from.
I really appreciated the different perspectives and sources of inspiration compiled in this video. I designed and ran an encounter a while after watching this where my players were fighting a modified version of Yeenoghu who was being empowered by a gnoll shaman, and every time he failed a saving throw the shaman could choose to sacrifice a basic gnoll bozo and let him succeed instead (or it diverted the effect to one of them). Ended up working out really well, the players enjoyed their spells having an impact on the battle in a high-tier encounter even when they didn't work, it made sense with the atmosphere, and it left me with the flexibility to decide what spells were worth taking a lackey taking the hit to avoid.
Yes. You sold me at "the players feels like they wasted their entire time waiting to accomplish nothing".
I haven't played much dnd, but played other systems. And multi-Phase bosses are really fun to do, it's just a bit hard to make them fit in many situations. Passive threats are also a great thing that I used a lot of times, and the other 2 ideas are great, I'm definitely using them on my bosses.
I think there are some great ideas in here for general encounter design, and some good ideas for boss fights as well. However, I do think the reason why legendary resistance exists the way it does, is because of the types of affects and conditions that can happen in 5e.
There are affects and conditions that basically end combat or cause the bbeg to not be able to do anything. Which makes the fight too easy, too quick, or boring.
If any of theses "fixes" still allow those affects to happen... then the problem problem hasn't been fixed. If the player is excited about using that affect or causing that condition, but the "fix" blocks that from happening... they will still be disappointed.
An example from the video is a stun affect turning into damage. When a player wants to use a stun condition, that is what they want. And they want it not just because it makes it easier to do damage to the target, but because the target can't do anything back. Sure more damage is better than nothing... but also I find it immersion breaking to explain there spell or feature that applies a condition now simply does damage. (On the note of legendary resistance not having flavor... as written yes, but I can easily come up with flavorful descriptions for legendary resistance use).
Another example is the idea of stages for replacing legendary resistance. That after the party were to use a game breaking affect or condition, it ends that stage or fraction of the encounter... that sounds like ignoring the affect and going back to combat with extra steps.
There are many cool ideas for encounter design in this video, but removing legendary resistance and replacing them with these options may not fix the real issue.
My advice. 1. Tell your players about legendary resistance out of game and explain why it is in the game and how using certain spells, affects, and conditions can ruin the fun of a challenging encounter. Especially explain how broken spells affect the fun on martial Characters. Communication is key. If players can't understand good team work and fair gameplay... you shouldn't play with them. 2. Prepare narrative descriptions of legendary resistance so it fits the encounter and becomes interesting. 3. Keep legendary resistance as is but give it a plenty upon use. Maybe using the resistance causes it to vulnerable to one type of damage for the next round, or they get disadvantage on thier next attack, or you the DM can have there be a lesser version of the affect or condition? Stun could instead cause them to burn a legendary action and half movement speed rather than the monster not being able to do anything at all.
My main takeaway is that control spells need to be nerfed in general, because the spellcasting is the problem.
Just stumbled upon this video from "the algorithm", where has this been all my life!?!
So many of my dm ideas are ripped from video games, it almost feels like this channel was made specifically for me.
That "multi-armed bad guy" variant that you suggest for hydras? I literally did that exact mechanic on my hydra boss just this week!
Oh man I'm gonna enjoy bingeing these. :3 xxx
One thing I tried was to give them a reaction to succeed the saving throw instead of a number of LR's per day, so they can only use the resistance once per round. That way they don't just run out, but a well-coordinated combo between 2 or 3 characters can break through their defenses. It also means that they can't make as many opportunity attacks on melee fighters.
Wow that's awesome! Excluding the multi level boss fight, I never used any of this techniques, but they are very smart. This video definitely comes into my D&D advanced techniques playlist.
what I want to try is connect legendary resistances and legendary actions. As the boss keeps losing legendary resistances, it can take fewer legendary actions. Maybe not for a 1-1 ratio. But it should still give casters a reason to fire off imporant and debilitating spells, and give the bosses a choice. Do I eat the blindness and rely on my +19 to hit to negate the disadvantage, or do I make sure that I can kill the lowHP fighter in front of me at the cost of making the rest of the fight more difficult for myself?
EDIT: I see you have also thought of something similar
13th Age has a great mechanic to fix this issue, the escalation die. Each round the escalation die increases from zero to a maximum of 6, and is a bonus to hit for the players. If you start with an even (or worse) chance you will wait a few rounds til your chances improve before trying to land that haymaker you can only throw very infrequently. For dnd this “to hit” for magic that isn’t AC based would likely be represented by an increase in spell save DC.
I just love getting free DnD content PDFs from a mysterious one eyed object on youtube
I really like this idea, although I don’t agree that the combo of magic resistance and legendary resistance being a problem. The way it was described in the video is that it is problematic because the spellcasters of the group feel they have been walled by this creature. But I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing, as long as EVERY creature doesn’t have this combo. In most cases, the martial classes are the ones who are outgunned. They don’t get to deal as much damage as an optimized damage spellcaster. They don’t have many (if any) control options to end the battle in one turn like a control spellcaster. So having the occasional boss where the spellcasters are struggling and the martials get to shine doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me.
Obviously, there are a lot of examples of DMs who would start throwing this combo on every monster, and that is just an example of a bad DM, because then the spellcaster never feels rewarded for how he built his character. But as it is, it is rare for a martial to feel rewarded, because the game is stacked against them. I support throwing in the combo occasionally to boost up martials and make them somewhat worthwhile for something.
A thing I've been trying out is coupling legendary resistances with hit points.
For important enemies and bosses, I don't just give them extra hit points. I take a page from the mythic bosses in the Theros book and tack on extra health bars.
Important boss fights with lair actions and legendary resistances get a number of bonus health bars equal to their legendary resistances. When the boss has to burn a legendary resistance, they also lose one of their bonus health bars. So the save or die and save or lose spells still contribute substantial progress to a fight, but they don't negate or compete with the work being done by the PCs who are hacking away at the health bar.
The important thing to do is telegraph these effects at the start of each fight. When describing the boss and their lair, come up with a thing in the environment and point it out to the players.
Glowing runes covering the walls of the Dragon's lair.
Clusters of iuon stones floating above the boss.
Four glowing obelisks capped with gems that spark and shoot arcs of eldritch power back and forth.
A bubbling cauldron with smoke or broth that changes color as the fight progresses.
A soul stealing crystal that wails whenever damage is dealt to the boss and starts to crack once the boss is bloodied.
Armor plating that warps, shreds, or falls off as the fight drags on.
Armor made or an energy field that flickers as damage is dealt.
A line of simulacrums of the boss, a new one of which pops out of a hidey hole every time the players think they've won.
A "garden" of stone figures that appear to be taking the damage instead of the Medusa or Basilisk.
Mention some set dressing like this at the start of each boss fight when detailing the lair and boss. When the PCs cast a spell that needs to be dealt with by a legendary resistance, tell them the spell hits and staggers the boss. Then a third of the glowing runes go dark, or an obelisk shatters. The soul crystal cracks. Part of the garden of stone figures turn to dust, or they move to cover the boss and absorb the spell before it can hit, and then they shatter.
Make it clear to the players that their spells achieved something important. They "pushed the phase" in gamer terms. Describe a tangible part of the lair or boss that is clearly doing something for the boss, and then describe how the player's actions broke that thing sustaining the boss.
"The spell Power Word Kill hits the ancient dragon in the chest. He staggers back as you see a third of the glowing runes etched into every surface of the lair flicker and go dark. The dragon rises up and glares at you with renewed hatred."
"And bosses in video games rarely come back as lackeys", then proceeds to show Elden Ring where 60-80% of the bosses you encounter early in the game show up later as lackeys...
And averages repeating bosses at least 3 times, with Erdtree Avatars having at least TEN fights total.
As the party's token control mage for the last 5 years with every boss being more or less immune to my spells since they average around +9 to Wis saves, Legemdary Resistance, and something like 90% of spells targeting Dex/Con/Wis, I appreciate this both for quality content and on principle
Have you ever tried just choosing some alternate spells, stunning breaks most encounters and trust me, if a boss encounter gets stunlocke, very few people are happy
@@tacticstonk4740 It's not about stuns, since the only spells I can think of that stun are Raulathim's Psychic Lance at 4th level and Power Word Stun at 7th or 8th and most non-schmuck enemies are immune to paralysis. Slow barely works since it's a 6 target spell with a 1 in 10 chance of sticking for more than half a round when everything and their mother has a +7 or higher in Wis saves, Banishment can sometimes buy a couple rounds when the BBEG has mobs but almost never does because Magic Resist, and everything else is "pick your flavor of squishy fighter replacement". Crowd Control spells are next to useless in 5e because on average the mage spends the first 4 rounds trying to get a spell to take hold, and entire fights if there's Magic or Legendary Resistance involved. It's not a problem of "all the spells are too strong or too weak", it's a problem of "almost all the spells target Wisdom so everything has a high Wisdom and control mages can't buy time like they should be able to outside of niche circumstances"
Immediately subscribing for content this helpful!
I'd say my one criticism would be that the price for Legendary Bad Persons with 3 Legendary Actions should be 2 actions instead of all 3, since it only covers a single affliction at a time if for no other reason. ...On that note, I've always felt like more statblocks should be designed around a more variable number of Legendary Actions to spend. Like ones with 5 LAs but a less significant Multiattack so that most of its economy is reactionary in nature and other such dynamics.
Slowly watching all your videos! You have some great ideas with great presentation!
Great video. Also, you're one of the few tubers who sets the background music to the correct level
I feel like the idea that some high CR monsters are insurmountable by a party of 4 wizards is not an inherently bad thing… you see how it takes the wizard party 20+ turns to win? Well it still take the fighter party like 3-5 turns, which is why the part has both a fighter and a wizard… not all obstacles should be able to be overcome with Magic, just like the fighter with a sword can’t fight a beholder or a dragon. A wizard shouldn’t really be able to control/shut down an immortal super demon.
This is good stuff! I'm using PF2E, which pretty much has the "close save" mechanic baked in already, but I'm liking the "resistance alternatives", definitely going to look at importing those. Thanks for posting it!
I wish you had released this video before I wrote Quick and Dirty Legendary Features. Then I'd have known I was making a whole system that only offered the "costly resistances" solution to the problem. Great video, and from what I've seen on the preview, a great supplement.
Excellent content and your free PDF is a huge bonus! Thank you! I've been using some of the variations you mentioned in the video for years now, but I never memorialized them in such an easily digestible fashion. I'm a bit fan of multi-stage/phase boss encounters, where the boss abilities and/or environment changes once the boss is reduced to 50% HP or less. Really great content. Highly enjoying your videos. I've been a DM for nearly 30 years and would love to collaborate.
Amazing out of the box solutions to a mechanic that never felt good. You're the best.
Great ideas. I'll have to check out the book.
Here's another idea...
Control Resistance: this monster has a number of levels of Control Resistance equal to it's Hit Dice. Successful control spells (those that the monster fails it's save - if any - against) subtract one level of Control Resistance per level of the spell used. Control spells against which the monster successfully makes its save (again, if a saving throw is allowed) have no effect. So long as the monster has any levels of Control Resistance, such spells have no effect even if the monster fails its save (other than eliminating levels of Control Resistance).
I include all "save or suck" spells in the "control" category. (There's probably a better name for it.)
You can also do something similar with Magic Resistance, having it degrade each time it successfully blocks a spell.
Thank you so much for making this material for us, and just giving it away. So much value for free!!!
I heard of a DM once who had a bunch of new players in his game. He ended up telling all of them how great status spells and abilities are, and highly encouraging them to select those upon leveling up. A few sessions in, the party encountered their first boss with legendary resistance. It was ludicrously difficult because they had basically only taken abilities with saves up until that point by the suggestion of the only guy with any experience. They were saved by the rogue player because he went for some damaging abilities. Well, from that point on, every enemy, grunts included, had at least one legendary resistance, and bosses averaged 5. Even on basic combat encounters, the whole party nearly died and they often only survived due to crazy good rolls. It was at that point that the players learned that legendary resistances only worked against saves, which the DM hadn't told them, and they all started balancing out their builds. So, of course, the DM started giving bosses the deadly combo of 3-5 legendary resistances, magic resistance, and 5 legendary actions. Yes, you heard that right. The enemies got 5 extra turns. Finally, it all came to a head when one of the players, the tank, played out of his mind and won one of these boss encounters solo. I watched that session on a recording, and it was a feat and a half. Truly one of the most impressive gaming moments I've seen. Instead of congratulating the player for a job well done, however, the DM got upset that the encounter was too easy. At that point, the players basically forced the DM to wrap up their campaign and left.
Moral of the story, anything with the word "legendary" in its title is a tool for bully DMs, and no good game designer would ever use them. If you're the type to spam legendary resistance, then you're also the type to actively encourage your new players to cripple their builds first.
This is a very neat concept. Something that I thought about is "distracting from resistances", like two casters working in tandem to split the boss's attention and so make them more susceptible to the control effect. I haven't thought more about this, so if anyone had input please let me know!
I honestly don't mind legendary resistance as it is, even as a player It gives me the sense of how powerful the enemy is. Plus of you're fighting gods and liches it's kinda fitting. I get that It takes away from the caster but I only play casters and honestly in 5e being a spellcaster Is kinda broken with how much stuff you can do. Me and another player are Always doing spell combos that my master never sees coming, so I'm glad he can have a bit of fun with legendary resistances honestly (this was not to criticize your video, I enjoyed watching, just wanted to share another pov)
I only just found this channel (I just commented on your video about your new battle simulator) and man, your takes and ideas are just great. You have awesome insight to the game and provide really actionable fixes. Subscribed!
Before I've seen videos about alternatives to legendary resistances, I tried making some myself for a homebrew dragon. My ideas were of the costly resistance type: sacrificing the uses of breath weapon, sacrificing damage resistances or points of AC in order to remove effects. The new 5.5e exhausted condition may serve well as universal costly resistance.
Another bad person I was making an alternative resistance for was a monk (not built with character levels). A special action, which can be taken even when incapacitated, both heals him and removes conditions. I like your take on nullifying action that must be taken when the user is charmed, that plugs the Stillness-of-Mind-shaped hole in such defences.
Great read.
I can't believe I didn't think of dragon breaths or exhaustion even once while writing this, those are great ideas to tap into. I'll have to run some experiments now (imagine me doing a slow dramatic turn in the direction of my players as I say this).
Casters can stand a little nerf. Had one boss fight where someone whipped up a setup to insta gimped a boss immediately and wound up causing a lot of drama including from other players who were like "Um...we kinda sorta would like to get to play too Mr Glory Hound!"
Problem is DMs in my opinion.
If casters get to enter every fight with all of their spell slots, then casters become too strong.
If combat encounters don't make players think, then they might not be that interesting anyway.
My group fought its way through a goblin cave.
We reach a point where we're a bit banged up, and the group decides to back track out of the cave, set some traps, and attempt a short rest.
The DM gives it to us.
We go back into the cave, and find the boss goblin in the middle alone.
Apparently the DM planned for them to call minions in on their first turn.
They never got a first turn, the second turn of the combat I cast sleep.
So the question is, what were the goblins doing that entire time we rested? They could have been setting up traps or preparing an ambush, or just fleeing.
The DM started to change their approach after that.
@@kamikeserpentail3778 "If casters get to enter every fight with all of their spell slots, then casters become too strong."
I'm sorry what? The only caster where that's a thing is warlocks and that's counterbalanced by the fact that they have very few slots at all. Everyone else only gets slots back on a long rest which are VERY cleared stated to be once a day only.
I was playing a theurge wizard, and we were getting up there, around level 13. Past the point of things, i just stopped trying to control, it wasn't worth it with my economy of spells.
I could as you very very rightly put into matters see the odds, and the chances, and it was either better to save my spells for something that just was a fight ender like a wall spell (Force/Stone.) or just use a damaging cantrip. I still to this day hate LR's with such a passion because it shuts down an avenue of play that enables the martials to dominate foes.
And LR's really felt like a bad holdover from 4e that folks would just stunlock a special end time encounter because if it got a turn, players were hosed..
I loved the ideas you brought to the table and am looking forward to implement them - maybe in a hub and spokes fps dungeon?
Great video, as always! Although PF2e already has the incapacitation and level interaction to solve that specific problem, I think I will tweak (or even remove it) to play around and see what my players think of it.
Thanks for the video, and I'll see you in the next one! Great job as always!
This is great!!! Will definitely be using this from now on for all my bosses instead of legendary resistances
This document is amazing. Many great ideas, and the tools to adapt them to each monster in a creative ways are perfect. This should be in a 5e survival kit.
Not sure how much i like Caster sympathetic videos. Spells are extremely strong and and a lot of the examples in this video were pretty oversimplified, if you're fighting a boss for example, why would the entire party be focused on banishing the boss? your goal would be to kill it not send it away.
With how well spells dominate outside of boss monsters (Both in Utility, CC, and Damage) its only fair that there be extra precautions against Boss monsters. Y'know, THE BOSS.
There are much bigger problems then trying to insinuate that casters are weak especially when compared to martials, let alone fighters. I understand the point or LR being unfun but its a simple solution to a simple game, even when it is its bane. For example i think martials should be given a plethora of new tools in combat even if it makes the classes much more complicated then just taking the attack action every turn.
It seems you've missed the point just a smidge by the sound of it. This video is saying that LRs disincentivise *control* casters in particular in a way that isn't fun for the players and presents ways that make bosses harder to control but that don't just make players choose between control (i.e. wasting turns) or buffing/damage (i.e. being actually useful).
@@FreedomIII Honestly, I do think we need to disincentivize control casting anyways, because it's far too powerful and certain control spells just remove an enemy from the fight, which is extremely bad game design if you want combat to not last 1 round or less.
Then again, I believe spellcasting needs nerfs in general.
@@sharmakefarah2064 Crowd control is a vital tactical resource for any combat sustem. Revamping control magic in a way that steers away from the "this enemy is effectively removed from combat for x turns" effects that are, like you said, overpowered? Yeah, definitely, even as someone who mostly plays mages, I'd support that.
Removing control entirely? That's using dynamite to get rid of spiders ┐(´д｀)┌
@@FreedomIII Yeah, the best way to handle control spellcasting in the OneDnD Player's Handbook or a house rule is to nerf spells that entirely remove actions on one saving throw like Hypnotic Pattern and Banishment, and focus more on spells like Slow that don't entirely take enemies out of the fight.
Slow, while still a bit too powerful, could actually be a healthy form of control as it doesn't entirely remove an enemy's action economy, which allows bosses to exist.
Control casting is a valid archetype in DnD, it just needs nerfs to avoid making it way better than anything else.
So I agree with you here.
Well, there are some control spells that are used specifically because they have no saving throw (e.g. Wall of Force). This can act as a counter towards some bosses that would otherwise use Legendary Resistances, but don't have the tools to counter that specific tool (e.g. Misty Step, Disintegrate).
good way to better legendary resistence, but the basic isn't bad. Why i am a fighter, paladin or barbarian if we have a caster who can win the final boss with one slot and luck? Legendary resistance make the game fair to everyone make something about the boss. I really think some caster who only have "hit kill" spells is a bad caster, and boss isn't use legendary resistance against every think only because he have. Caster already op they don't need be 100% better option.
Honestly they just need to remove any instant death or instant encounter ending spells
@@tacticstonk4740 Yeah, this is the reason why Legendary Resistance is kind of necessary past 6th-10th level, and at higher levels, Legendary Resistance is mostly not enough.
Thank gods Banishment is likely to be nerfed, but I still worry about encounter ending spells sneaking into the OneDnD Player's Handbook.
This is how I plan to run the resistances. What do you think of it?
“When the monster fails any save it can choose to make a legendary check. The DC of this check is 15, and they add their CHA mod to this check. If the monster fails this check it is as if nothing happened. However if they succeed the check the effect of the save they failed is delayed for one round and the DC rises by 1. Once activated they may repeat the check every round until they fail, in which they are effected as if they failed the save. However in some area of effect spells and effects such as the Sleep spell, if they make it out of the area before they fail a check they aren't affected by the spell or effect. Also if the creature who caused them to make the save breaks concentration on the spell or effect, dies or is incompaitated, the effect ends.
Monsters will have roughly 5 variant legendary resistances for every 1 official legendary resistance on their statblock and can't use the official ones. They may also spend 50 hp to use an aditional resistance. These will be used sparingly.”
EDIT: “if the distance between the caster and the monster exceeds the range of the spell or effect while the legendary resistance targeting that spell effect is active, the spell or effect ends.”
That would be a bit more tracking than I'd trust a new DM with, so when publishing something I woykdn't be able to get away with it, but if you're confident you can track it all go for it, it sounds fun 👍
The one worry I would have would be "hit & run" tactics where the player casts hold monster, then dimension doors 500 feet away
@@Trekiros I think I have solved that problem, although my edit was already intended to be a part of that.
A nice low-impact, low-effort solution is to have legendary resistances only allow the boss to "trade" a status effect for 1 turn of incapacitated. This means milder effects won't have to worry about it, bigger effects still eat the boss's action economy, and the boss can still use bonus actions and move so they're not defenseless. It's also flavorful, as we've all seen that thing in movies where the big monster is only briefly stunned by something that would completely knock out a lesser foe.
Love the content mate, whilst I don't think that I will implement these ideas all of the time it does give some great ideas for special case instances :) Lovely work
I like your ideas to up a boss encounter.
Would a simple fix to legendary resistance be to make them a reaction? Or maybe it just gives a +5 to the save so even if the monster rolls low it fails? Maybe both?
I would like to know how the math changes with these changes. And I would love some more video focusing on boss building. Thank you.
Thank you!
Legendary Resistances as a reaction would probably not have the intended effect: mathematically, it encourages the players to have as many casters as possible.
Say for example that the boss fails a save if it rolls 5 or less, and it needs to fail twice in a single round for the encounter to end:
1 caster: 0% chance to happen
2 casters: ~6% chance to happen each round
3 casters: ~15% chance to happen each round
4 casters: ~25% chance to happen each round
etc...
Most parties probably only have 1 to 3 casters focusing on saves, so a reaction is probably not enough of a cost by itself in my opinion.
It might be a different story if the boss also uses reactions for something else - then the opportunity cost would be a bit higher, and it miiiight just be worth it for the players.
So I’ve watched all four of your videos and have been inspired by each one. I’m not a video game player myself but my kids are. This will make the games I dm for them more interesting and they will enjoy the content for games they dm
One idea that is similar to those presented here is that the boss deflects the spell onto an ally. Either before making the save, in which case the minions gets a save, or after failing the save, in which case the minion just cops it.
This way the player still has a good chance of landing the spell, there is a limit on how many times it can happen and the players make progress either through directly damaging the boss, or taking out the minions first. Though if they ignore the minions then the action economy will be brutal.
I have played both as a DM and as a player and legendary resistance hasn't really been a problem. I feel like casters shouldn't just pick control spell only, they need damage spells too. Just like they can't just take fire spells, they need other damage types too. Bosses rarely use legendary resistance to resist a lightning bolt. There are a lot of monsters that can still be controlled by crowd control spells. Also when the casters use damage spells against a boss, martials and casters both take down the same "health bar".
Coming from earlier editions, legendary resistances, along with everything suddenly needing concentration, kinda kills some of my favorite caster types.
Now, I don't think it's overly a bad thing, and most boss type monsters back in the day would have immunities to various effects anyways - but not everything generally, so you could still do something even if the best effects cant work. Cant paralyze then entangle or drop them in a pit.
And even if debuffs were out of the question because something resisted magic (which would also take damage off the table) - you could instead toss out multiple buffs to help out. Or maybe shape the battlefield or use something like grease or a summoned monster to contribute rather than just blasting, which I find boring.
I was really sceptical based on the video name, which sounded too cheesy, but you’ve convinced me. I like this system and I’ll give it a try.
Oh, also liked and subscribed 😊
Your videos are astonishing! I am learning so much here, it's great!
I'm okay with my bosses not being subject to the instant wins, those high level save or screwed spells can have their throne in every other combat.
I once used the Dancer Boss from DS3 in a D&D 5e One-Shot. So far it remains as the best, and most fun boss I have ever run as a DM. I got the 5e Stats for the Dancer from Dungeon Dad on UA-cam.
These ideas are great, simply for how they could turn out:
Costly resistance:
You arrive at the BBEG's layer, and he stands against you. But your wizards decides to cast "charm person" to diffuse the situation.
And the BBEG ... fails his save, as his eyes glaze over...
Suddenly his nose starts bleding a little as he SNAPS back and harshly orders his troops to attack.
And for destructible resistances, you can make entire characters based around it.
There could be a spellsword, wearing a talisman that protects him from any magic above a certain level, but it can only "eat" so many high levels before it overloads and unleashes them ALL AT ONCE.
This forces a choice, fight him with the melee's and lower spells, or have the martials distract him as you overload his shield, but risk fighting him at his full power if he survives.
If you want to be really cheeky, and the spellsword is an old grizzled veteran, you could say he cast healing magic into it every morning, so as soon as it is destroyed and he isnt outright killed, the spells cleanse him off any enchantment and heal him to full, now fully capable of using magic.
Something I've been wanting to change about LR is to make them interactive; something the players can tangibly affect.
So, a dragon with 3 LR has three totems in their lair that they can call upon to resist a spell, which makes the totem crumble. However, a player can go over to a totem and break it with either enough damage, an Arcana check, or Dispel Magic, or whatever number of reasons.
So, similar to your destructible resistances.
I honestly think people should look at video games in general for designing encounters; dungeons, bosses, generic enemies, etc. Etc. It really helps to spice up game play imo.
Love the video. I personally love to mix all of those effects, as LR proved themselves both boring and ineffective.
Pathfinder 2e takes the approach of “this is a boss, that won’t work” by making the spicy effects behind crit failure on saves and making bosses increase their save result by one category (can’t crit fail) if the spell effect is incapacitating or a death effect.
Makes it clear “use these spells in smaller battles”, which helps
Handsome Jack. It’s not easy to give your BBEG a way to actually speak to the party consistently to build up contempt the way Jack does, but when you can find an excuse for it, it’s spectacular.
Cool ideas that I will definitely use in one way or the other !
A simple solution for this would be to make another column next to the 'conditions' rules for lesser and alternative effects.
Grappled can be from speed zero to speed halved.
Stunned can give disadvantage, do %hp damage, or stun a part of a monster like an arm, or a leg.
Dominated can do % HP psychic damage, or make it friendly to only you and not your allies.
I made a boss with some of the raid mechanics of the Leviathan raid where you fight emperor Calus in Destiny 2. I use A LOT of raid mechanics from that game boss rooms or dungeons. Great stuff
Another (also labor-intensive) way is to have encounter-ending effects work in a limited manner. Instead of stun, for example, you inflict daze, or petrification only lasts a round.
This channel seems to me as the mechanical pendant of the pointy hat channel, that is more lore and roleplay focus. Even the little one eyed avatar to represent the youtuber ! By the way, great video, i hope you will see the growth your channel is worth of !
Something I do to fix Magic resistance as well is just make it "Add half your proficiency rounded up to all saving throws against magic." instead of advantage. This makes it far more consistent and fair for players. Most magic resistant NPCs will have a +2/+3/+4, while a CR 30ish boss will have a +5 since they have a +9 proficiency bonus. As advantage is on average a +5 to saving throws, this makes the mages only need to worry about one dice, not two and it just feels better. And the best part? If the players aren't as good, I can change the "rounded up" to "rounded down" and suddenly a lot of monsters lost +1 to all their saving throws in a way that doesn't make it seem like I'm giving the players an advantage. Best part? This makes it a real shock when something comes around with ACTUAL resistance to spells like a rhakshata.
Otherwise these are some fun ways to fix Legendary resistance.
Absolutely amazing video. I hope to see more content where you improve on the flaws of 5e mechanics by incorporating logic from video games or other media
Basically like destructible resistance, I gave my dragon squads of kobolds to command.
And each group had a winged kobold that could counter spell.
So even the barbarian or rogue could take out "legendary resistances" by downing a winged kobold.
But I always try to throw some curveballs in my fights, that one involved the party basically piloting a megazord.
Hey, just wanted to clarify something you mentioned about Pathfinder. While boss monsters are typically considered harder normal enemies, spells which would stun lock bosses have a trait called 'incapacitation' which means if the creature's level is more than twice the spell level (i.e. a 9th level creature against a 4th level spell), then the creature treats its degree of success as one higher (if it critically fails the save it instead merely fails, if it failed it succeeded, and if it succeeded it critically succeeds). This is Pathfinder's work around which continues to have some of the problems you mentioned in the video. It's not very flavorful and it can feel bad to have one of your spells not work so well. That said, only a few select spells have the trait and most spells are still usable on boss monsters. I understand it's a bit noodley and complex so I get why you may have not gone into detail about it in the video. Just felt like going into detail about it!
My mind is blown at this deep look at D&D's problems! I've been using surface-level fixes for so long but I have a lot to think about!
D2r hell difficulty mobs that are immune to physical and ice are not fun. But there are immunity breaking items now.
So yeah good video and good point.
That's an amazing video, so underrated!
I personally have a boss that's inspired by Sans from undertaoe that basically have a fuck ton of legendary resistences.
The gimmick is litteraolly to survive while attacking enough time to overcome his resistences and finally kill him.