Legendary Resistances are one of 5e’s most unsatisfying mechanics. They are an incredibly blunt solution that the designers had to include to counter the many annoying spells they let in the door of the 2014 Player’s Handbook (…and indeed the 2024 version too).
Wheeling out banishment or polymorph on a wandering monster might be a non-game-breaking way to deal with a random encounter, and, when used in low stake combats, these powerful spells rarely have a deleterious effect on gameplay. (Hey, they might even be fun!). However, if a spellcaster successfully subjects a boss to a save or suck spell in the first round of combat, they can settle what is supposed to be a climactic battle, which challenges the entire party, with a single action.
I’ve heard it be argued that save or suck spells create epic moments, but even if you feel that turning a BBEG into a slug on round 1 of a combat is more fun that fighting the BBEG over a number of rounds, and letting everyone contribute to the fight, how many times is that same trick going to be entertaining?
The designers clearly recognised the problem too, but in giving high level bosses Legendary Resistance they didn’t really address the problem, so much as just shut spellcasters down. Instead of deciding a combat in round 1, the combat is likely to be over by the time the wizard casts a spell that the BBEG doesn’t save against, either with a roll (high level bosses have great saves), or by using up one of their Legendary Resistances.
In my experience, boss battles are often not fun at all for primary casters, as they watch their highest spell slots fizzle out without even a roll beyond the initial failed save. Their only victory is knowing that the boss expended one use of LR (if the DM even reveals this!), but, unless another primary caster is chipping away at the BBEG’s Legendary Resistances too, this strategy is going to take 6-7 rounds minimum if we assume that the boss fails half their saves… an optimistic estimate.
Go on, cast polymorph, I dare you! (Artwork by Joshua Raphael for the new D&D Monster Manual).
The obvious solution to making Legendary Resistances fairer and a little less of a blunt instrument is introducing some cost to using them, so that spellcasters can feel that they are not throwing their top resources into the fight for zero return, while another fairly simple solution is not to allow Legendary Resistance to work automatically (surely you’re not suggesting an additional dice roll in combat Mr. Blogger? Literally the worst thing that can happen in a D&D! But yes, I am, and it’s really not a problem… full post on slow combat coming soon, so do subscribe to newsletter if you haven’t already, where I’ll reveal a very simple and effective solution to that much griped about issue).
Anyhow, here are three fixes that should make Legendary Resistance a better mechanic in my opinion, starting with maybe the weakest idea and moving to perhaps the strongest at the end.
Legendary Resistance: Remix 1
If the [ancient red dragon] fails a saving throw, it can choose to re-roll the result.
By turning Legendary Resistance into the fighter’s “Indomitable” ability (2014 version) you’re at least giving spellcasters a chance to fire off a save or suck, or to do full damage with a blaster spell… instead of just saying no, your character’s useless.
Legendary Resistance: Remix 2
If a creature forces the [ancient red dragon] to make a saving throw to avoid an effect and it fails, the [ancient red dragon] can choose to succeed on the save instead. If the saving throw was triggered by a spell, the [ancient red dragon] takes 1d6 damage per level of the spell slot used to cast the spell, as it must dedicate some of its mental or physical fortitude to avoiding the effect.
Now saving against polymorph costs you 4d6 hp at least, and casters are making a contribution to the fight in line with the resources they are expending.
Note: I was going to write psychic damage here, imagining the mental pain/effort of throwing off a suggestion, banishment or polymorph spell, but then I considered that if a boss wanted to save against an effect that pushed them backwards or prone that probably wouldn’t make sense. Possibly force damage would be better in these cases, and the DM could make a call in each case… or they could just deduct damage without a specific type, since we don’t really want any resistances or immunities to come into play here anyway.
Legendary Resistance: Remix 3
If a creature forces the [ancient red dragon] to make a saving throw to avoid an effect and it fails, the [ancient red dragon] can choose to succeed on the save instead. The strain of avoiding this effect using its Legendary Resistance gives the [ancient red dragon] one level of exhaustion that lasts until the end of the creature’s next turn.
This is probably my favourite solution, intended for use with the 2024 rules for exhaustion. With -2 on all d20 tests, the spellcaster is going to feel great that they have just debuffed all the monster’s attacks for one round, possibly saving their frontline comrades from going down, and reduced their saves for the same duration. This will feel particularly clutch if another spellcaster forces the boss to use another LR and gain a second level of exhaustion.
One Final Remix…
Having just watched the Trekiros video (embedded below), after almost finishing writing up this post (I have a bad habit of doing half my research on a topic after writing any given post! 🙈), I did think as well: what if Legendary Resistance was just a menu option within the creature’s array of Legendary Actions?.
Following this idea, a boss could use a Legendary Action to pass a failed saving throw, sacrificing some of their action economy instead of hit points or gaining exhaustion. This way the spellcaster is effectively forcing the boss to forgo an attack if they fail a save, which is pretty useful. You could tweak this by making it cost 2 Legendary Actions.
Or, if you decide that the monster can now use Legendary Bossy Resistance every round (since it is now part of their Legendary Actions), having it just be a re-roll (instead of auto-save), as per Remix 1, could make it more balanced.
Further Reading
This post was partially inspired by this interesting article on boss fights by Goblin Punch, which was brought to my attention by MT Black’s excellent 10 Cool Things in RPGs/D&D newsletter which turns up regularly in your inbox and is always full of inspiring reading material. I did also come across some other solutions to Legendary Resistance here that DMs may also wish to consider.
Finally, I did find this video pretty interesting too, adding the “One Final Remix” solution to this post as a result…
Your Legendary Solutions?
How have you found the Legendary Resistance ability in play? Problematic, or just fine actually? If the former, have you tried to fix it? I would love to hear your thoughts and solutions in the comment section, or whether you’d be willing to give any of my suggestions a run out…
I know my posts mostly reach DMs, but I’d also be interested to hear from any spellcaster players out there!
Ronald Santos
I totally agree that Legendary Resistance feels really clunky—it’s like hitting a wall when you’re trying to play a clever caster. I’ve been looking for ways to keep my games exciting, and I recently found some cool resources here: https://largerthanlifetoys.com/products/dungeons-and-dragons-store-near-me. They even have some fun custom materials that might help tweak boss battles a bit. Really appreciate your suggestions too; I’m definitely going to try the exhaustion idea next session!
duncan
Hi Ronald, pretty sure you came by to plug Larger Than Life Toys, but I don’t mind supporting a local hobby store.
Nikko
Excellent points! I’ve been deducting flat damage when the boss saves, but these 3 fixes are even better!
duncan
hi Nikko, thanks for your kind words… flat damage would also work ok, but feels like if you throw a higher level spell at a boss it should cost them more to avoid the effects. Maybe there should be a base of 1d6 damage too, so avoiding a battlemaster maneuver using LR also costs. How much flat damage were you using out of interest?
David C
Sometimes the solution to game problems isn’t more/other mechanics.
Imho the biggest issue with Legendary Resistances is that they don’t come up often enough and thus DMs and players don’t know how two handle them in satisfying ways. 5e also offers no guidance in that regard.
Instead of making the effort to describe the act of resisting in a cool way, many DMs just go “nope, nothing happens”. Guess what, that would also suck for the martial characters, if it were the DMs reaction to any hit except the killing blow a few rounds in. Which is functionally the same as Legendary Resistances, but martials don’t bitch about it because they do get better feedback and they’re not used to being gods in all situation of all pillars of play, so they’re not suddenly disappointed when occasionally a situation comes up that they can’t solve with a single spell.
So imho it’s mostly about satisfying feedback and understanding the game well enough that you operate with reasonable expectations, as well as understanding that you do have plenty of other cool spell options as a spellcaster when encountering a legendary creature. Spells that deal great damage even if a save is made or that don’t trigger a save at all, buffs etc.
Since the system offers no explicit guidance on this topic, we’re left with hoping people eventually figure it out on their own as they gain system literacy and mastery, but obviously that takes time and is likely to come with some unnecessary disappointments along the way.
So imho the tricks to avoiding these frustrations aren’t mechanical:
1. Give players hints when they enter combat that this foe will be able to resist spells a limited number of times. You should be conveying that this is a particularly dangerous foe anyway, for everyone.
2. Tie Resistance to the narrative rather than just having it be a mechanic that at first glance looks cheap. Have the Lich crush one of three crystals on its amulet each time they resist a spell, or one of the creature’s 3 tentacles withers as it consumes it for its energy, e.g.
3. Make it Legendary (epic)! Describe how the polymorph spell starts to transform the Dragon Turtle into a bunny, but then, releasing a terrifying scream, it distorts in horrid ways and it starts turning back into its old self. Except now it has bunny ears. No mechanical impact, but the spell did something!
4. As a spellcaster, think about what else you could do besides trying to instantly win combat by trivializing what is supposed to be a formidable foe with a single spell. Pick your spells with the understanding that some creatures have great saves and legendary resistances. Understand that maybe occasionally, a combat isn’t solely about your craziest spells. There will be ample opportunity for those to shine in situations where you can show off your aoe spells and completely neutralize big lieutenants etc.
5. As a DM, do create situations where spellcasters can hit a lot of foes with aoe attacks, where clerics can turn undead, where big creatures with low saves accompany the big boss. Often, you can even do this in the same combat.
All that said, of all the solutions that frequently get discussed to this “problem”, I do like turning LRs into Legendary Actions. Having the spell work for a short moment, then the creature breaking out of it creates epic narrative moments. I also think you could occasionally give players the object or body part that you used to justify LRs as a reward: single-use magical items that give advantage on a saving-throw or raise the spellcaster’s spell DC for one spell or give the target disadvantage. If you reward spellcasters specifically, you make the victory over the slightly frustrating foe that much more sweeter.
duncan
Hi David, thanks for your comment, this is very solid advice and a great guide to refereeing LR as written.
I particularly agree that including some minions in a high level boss battle is important in order to give wizards etc. a way to make a satisfying contribution to the fight with an AoE etc.
I also love the amulet idea you mention, but then I think you run the risk of misleading the players into thinking stealing or destroying the amulet is key to overcoming the resistances, instead of them being innate to the monster (maybe in fact this would be better, adding a small puzzle within the combat, but then you yourself – being pedantic for a moment – are proposing a “fix” it seems, as this would be mechanically significant I feel).
Regarding martials, the battlemaster maneuvers (for example) deal full damage whether the target passes or fails the save, so fighters are not affected by LR in the same way as spellcasters.
Overall, while I love your ideas (and will probably implement some of them next time the situation arises), I still think LR is a poorly designed mechanic (the word “mechanic” even seems a bit generous to describe them!) that you have learned to DM around, rather than something that we shouldn’t tamper with.
Whether it’s worth changing LR, or simply learning to run it better, I guess might be up to the individual DM.
Appreciate the contribution!
David C
Thanks for your reply, Duncan, and let me say I appreciate the article that prompted my comments! Just a few follow-up thoughts (who am I kidding, it’s turned into yet another wall of text, sorry!):
– The amulet thing was just an off-the-cuff example, it’s easy to use something in its stead that stays a 100% in the non-mechanical realm and is instead just feedback for the players to know what is going on, if that is the preference (though, as my bit about turning sources of LR into loot showed, it’s not like I am fundamentally opposed to changing or adding game mechanics, like your point of turning it into an interactive element of the battle).
– Battle Masters and other martials don’t get combat-winning effects like spellcasters. They can’t neutralize the boss with their first action in a combat. They also have to roll to hit in the first place, and then maybe there’s a saving throw. So I don’t think that comparison can be much help here, except maybe to emphasize how spellcasters are asking for something the peasants who can only attack hp aren’t getting either.
As you mention in the article, the main effect of Legendary Resistances is shutting down the risk of insta-win spell effects in early stages of combat. That primary effect is necessary if we want to have both
a) epic boss battles that don’t get trivialized by a single action from a single character and
b) powerful save-or-suck spells that can produce incredible results.
Some people may be fine with boss battles that finish in a single round, and more power to them! I suspect most of us might find that really cool once or twice, then find it disappointing. D&D sure leans in hard on the powerful save-or-suck spell and some folks insisting on using them even against legendary creatures shows how popular these kind of spells are, so that part of the equation is a given for all intents and purposes.
So what we’re left with is trying to decide whether spellcasters should get some consolation prize if they insist on using a save-or-suck spell against a Legendary Creature and it doesn’t pan out. Whether that’s damage or exhaustion or a bit of action economy is really a secondary question.
Personally, I’m convinced that is not necessary, because there are plenty of other spells for them to cast that have really nice consolation prizes baked in that martials could only dream of for their attacks (half damage on save) or don’t trigger saving throws in the first place. Many of the fixes that tend to make the rounds also offer no solution to the fact that a monster might just luck out and make all its saving throws without even having to use Legendary Resistances. They also don’t tend to differentiate if it was a 2nd-level or an 8th-level spell slot that was “wasted”.
With regards to whether LRs represents good design, it’s not like I’d call it the best thing since sliced bread so I’ll agree with you there to some extent. Imho the bigger issue with RAW LRs is that they don’t take into consideration party size or make-up and thus might be overkill for a small party with only a single spellcaster and inadequate when there’s multiple spellcasters and a monk chewing through all of them in a single round. They don’t scale, though that’s easily fixed for any speficic party.
I do think, though, that it’s as much or as little of a mechanic as hitpoints. Not many people complain that every weapon attack except the last one essentially does nothing except making the last weapon attack meaningful. I’d also like to push back against the notion that it’s something some folks can at best work around and I am also all for folks customizing the game to their hearts’ content!
What I’m actually mainly arguing for, though, is for people to consider all the contributing factors to LR disappointment (e.g.: no cool narrative feedback!) and to also their whole toolset available to them if they want to alter the game, rather than going straight for “house rules!”:
Using your words and using your imagination are fundamental elements of roleplaying games and can be considered game mechanics themselves, though people often don’t think of of them as such because they don’t look like classic board game rules. They can have a massive impact on our enjoyment and how we feel about hitting, missing and opponents making saves.
So can expectation management (e.g. letting your players know a creature has LRs before they “waste” their spells. Or explaining to them that other non-save-or-suck spells do in fact exist, this might be the situation for those, and that casting Banishment on the BBEG in the first round typically has a low or zero chance of success and that’s fine). So I remain convinced the biggest complaints around LR stem from user error (caused by a failure of the system to educate the users), rather than a poor mechanic.
Finally, some quick ideas for folks that do want to add/change rules:
– remove all Legendary Resistances once a creature is bloodied, or something along those lines. You could also define other hp threshholds where it suffers additional penalties to saving throws. The bloodied condition gives combat a simple narrative structure.
– every time you use a Legendary Resistance, the next saving throw is made at Disadvantage. You can use Legendary Resistances to ignore those results, too.
– Alternatively: every time you use a Legendary Resistance, the creature gets -2 on all future saving throws. The penalty accumulates.
– My main thought is to preserve initial resilience verses combat-winning spells in the early phase of a combat, but then degrade the creature’s magical defenses later on to prevent those cases where a creature just makes every single save in a combat through the combined power of LRs and good stats or luck. It’s a tricky balance though, because naturally spellcasters don’t feel as excited to hit a creature with a powerful save-or-suck spell when it’s on its way out, anyway. But it would make narrative sense and also speed up combat.
Have a nice weekend!
duncan
Hi David
I don’t think I can add anything to that… it’s all great stuff, and you’ve argued your case perfectly while giving everyone plenty to think about, whether they want to run LR as written, or to consider a ‘fix’ (which, as you argue, perhaps shouldn’t be their first solution). Hope to see you again in the comments section some time!