D&D 5E Legendary Resistance shouldn't be optional

[Pedantic]

Legendary Resistance should specify triggering conditions, and not require a GM judgement call. Instead of choosing the saves to avoid, LR should have text like "the first X times a failed saving throw would cause Y or more damage, or inflict conditions A-G, treat this monster as if it succeeded instead."

The exact conditions could vary from with monster CR, but making it not an active choice, players can much more consistently engage with LR as an alternate health pool, and feel like they're burning resources towards defeating their targets.

 

[Reynard]

Legendary Resistance should specify triggering conditions, and not require a GM judgement call. Instead of choosing the saves to avoid, LR should have text like "the first X timed a failed saving throw would cause Y or more damage, or inflict conditions A-G, treat this monster as if it succeeded instead."

The exact conditions could vary from with monster CR, but making it not an active choice, players can much more consistently engage with LR as an alternate health pool, and feel like they're burning resources towards defeating their targets.

Why should the GM make the job easier for the players when facing what is probably a major villain?

 

[Pedantic]

Why should the GM make the job easier for the players when facing what is probably a major villain?

It's not really about difficulty, it's about consistency and moving a potential point of at the table friction to something mediated by rules. If you want increased difficulty, just increase the amount of LR, like you would give a monster more HP, or make the conditions more critical effects.

 

[p_johnston]

So you'll notice that monsters only ever have 3 LR and thats not just because they like to keep things consistent.
At a guess they found that 3 LR is the equilibrium point between "This doesn't do anything to keep the boss alive" and "players feel like save spells aren't worth anything at all because they can never burn through the LR before the boss is dead."

As to the original post there are a few reasons not to.
1) the point of LR is to make it so that a boss monster might actually be able to survive more then a round against a party as the increase in level. If you make LR only trigger on certain debilitating effects (Stun but not paralyze for example) then any party that actually knows that is just going to bypass it and use the effect that doesn't trigger the LR.
1.1) Even as it stands having a single monster be challenging to a party without either immediately dieing or murdering the party is really tough. Taking a dial away from the GM to try and walk that line is not going to help make boss monsters better.
2) Your now making more overhead for the GM to keep track of with what is probably an already complex monster. Instead of just making a judgment call now the DM has to remember which specific list of conditions trigger the LR, what the possible HP threshold is etc.
3) any fight is going to be dictated by the GM making judgment calls about what the NPC's are doing. Does the lich start out with lower level spells or do a ninth out of the gate? Does the dragon use it's turn to kill a downed PC or breath on the remaining party? Does the Mage keep a spell slot in reserve to teleport to safety if things turn against them or go all out to try and win? If the particulars of when the GM is using LR is causing friction at the table then most likely it's because there is a problem between the player(s) and the GM not a problem with the rules.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Why should the GM make the job easier for the players when facing what is probably a major villain?

That's not what happens though.

I'm going to be real, most DMs are dumbasses about how they use LR, in my experience (including podcasts lol). Like really not smart. Whereas if a smart DM who knows the rules and his players' capabilities very well, it can be a hugely annoying and frustrating thing that is highly effective but also just does not at all improve the game. I've been that DM, and regretted it. Yeah I was able to drag out a fight for like 2 rounds longer than otherwise because I held on to LR instead of blowing it on the first things I could, but I kind of wish I hadn't.

If monsters had specific triggers for LR, and probably they could have more LR for this, and maybe what those triggers were for an individual monster were like 3 out of a list of 6 trigger per monster, chosen by the DM beforehand, I think could work really well.

Like, each major monster or monster type would have a custom list of six, the DM decides on three of them when he adds the monster, and they work - and they have more than 3 charges between them. But this would mean it's less about adversarial DM skill, and more about just setting up a good confrontation.

Like, if I want adversarial skill, 5E is absolutely NOT the right place to demonstrate it.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don’t mind that it’s a choice, but I think legendary resistance is just boring. It serves an important role because taking out an ostensibly legendary monster with a single save-or-suck effect is very anticlimactic. But, there’s no flavor to legendary resistance. The DM just gets to say “nope” to a failed save 3 times. Heck, if the DM doesn’t directly tell the players the monster failed but it’s using a legendary resistance, it might even be completely invisible. But if they do that, it makes the player feel like the action was wasted. I much prefer something visible, flavorful, and ideally, specific to the monster.

For example, in my custom Strahd stat block, I replaced legendary resistance with the ability to turn into a swarm of bats as a reaction to getting hit with an attack or failing a save. A swarm of bats is immune to most negative conditions, and generally difficult to pin down. So, he can still mitigate the impact of a save-or-suck spell. But, doing so eats up his reaction for the round, and his action on his turn, since turning back into his human form takes a full action to do. You don’t get to restrain or charm him, but you do get to waste his action economy, so there’s still a lot of value in targeting him with such effects.

Another example might be giving a monster the ability to sacrifice some hit points to end a condition affecting it. Then instead of legendary resistances as an alternate health pool, you put everyone on the same track - effects that inflict conditions end up doing a significant chuck of damage, so the blaster-casters, the control mages, and the martials are all contributing to killing the monster in the same way.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But if they don’t, it makes the player feel like the action was wasted. I much prefer something visible, flavorful, and ideally, specific to the monster.

For example, in my custom Strahd stat block, I replaced legendary resistance with the ability to turn into a swarm of bats as a reaction to getting hit with an attack or failing a save. A swarm of bats is immune to most negative conditions, and generally difficult to pin down. So, he can still mitigate the impact of a save-or-suck spell. But, doing so eats up his reaction for the round, and his action on his turn, since turning back into his human form takes a full action to do. You don’t get to restrain or charm him, but you do get to waste his action economy, so there’s still a lot of value in targeting him with such effects.

This is really good and agree completely with this approach!

 

[Reynard]

It's not really about difficulty, it's about consistency and moving a potential point of at the table friction to something mediated by rules. If you want increased difficulty, just increase the amount of LR, like you would give a monster more HP, or make the conditions more critical effects.

LR aren't hit points, though. they aren't there to mitigate damage. they are there to eliminate win-button spells. The whole point is that the fight is supposed to be cooler, and probably longer, than your typical fight.

By have LR triggered, all you are doing to asking players to avoid using those spells or abilities, which is neither cool nor fun. At least with the system as it stands, the GM has to pick when to use them. this means that the players can try and maneuver the GM into wasting them (as @Ruin Explorer mentions).

The boss fight is supposed to be hard and likely to kill some PCs. That's the point.

 

[Zaukrie]

Legendary Resistance should specify triggering conditions, and not require a GM judgement call. Instead of choosing the saves to avoid, LR should have text like "the first X timed a failed saving throw would cause Y or more damage, or inflict conditions A-G, treat this monster as if it succeeded instead."

The exact conditions could vary from with monster CR, but making it not an active choice, players can much more consistently engage with LR as an alternate health pool, and feel like they're burning resources towards defeating their targets.

I have yet to have one player complain about LR.....we know we're whittling down a resource.....That said, I'd like something else, but not sure what that is.......

 

[aco175]

Remember 2e stoneskin? We had a DM use that all the time to negate a hit or 5 against the BBEG. He would just say, "Ping, ping, ping."

Recall prismatic wall and how you would need to burn several spells to bypass it.

There is also PC powers that let you at-least reroll a save and are not tied to something the bad guy does.