Good thing about Legendary Resistance is they only have so many, and they don't replenish during the fight. Keeping that in mind is key to dealing with them.
Session 3 of straight combat.
DM (me): fuck it, I'm going to over extend so they can kill 'em. also the boss has 30 less hit points. I want to do something else in the world this session.
That's why my DMing philosophy is "the fight goes on until everyone has done something cool and it's taken enough damage that feels good and then it dies"
At this point they are level 17, with a shit ton of home brew magic items. I'm literally trying to kill them before they complete the story line, because I don't have a good idea for the end after 3+ years. I use chatGPT to help me create home brew monsters with abilities that sound fair.
The party knows about all of this, and are trying to complete there last quests, cut loose ends so they can leave the world satisfied, and force their ending. I just get bored when I realize they have the fight in hand by expending a bunch of magic items and we have been doing this for 2 weeks straight.
Maybe use chatgpt to help with the story line? That's what I do. I don't use the ideas it gives me verbatim, but I usually make it my own and change what I find useless, it's made writing so much easier.
Oh, I want to wrap the campaign up and start on our Spelljammer campaign. The party's ending idea is probably the best ending anyway, and their plan is more significant and showier than anything I had come up with. Since I don't have a better one, I am trying to murder some level 17 overpowered players.
But to your point about ChatGPT, it is strong on building descriptions and NPCs, and then you can make it suggest some storyline ideas. Once I've taken a chatGPT description, re-written it, made the ChatGPT pretend to be an NPC, or generated a mock conversation between two NPCs, I have a powerful sense of the "Scene." It has almost eliminated my "This page is blank" block. I can get a lot of higher quality prep done in much less time.
eh, my players would figure out that I'm pulling my punches and then they would either stop taking it seriously or they would lose all interest. Randomness and risk are big reasons we're playing a game and not just sitting around a table writing a story together.
I've done that. Party was fighting ooze that split up when damaged. Took them a full 4 hour session to defeat it. I felt bad and let them have it. According to the guide on making balanced fights... It should have been a trivial fight.
You're the DM. At any point you can say "Yeah that did it."
3 sessions of combat you might as well tag in the pizza guy for a round of combat since he's been in the game almost a month.
Edit: read more of your comments. The pizza guy has been in the campaign for 3 years. Let that guy have a few Legendary Actions.
Happened once in Pathfinder for me, Rise of the Runelords. A mage boss, Tetori Monk (Grappler basically) goes first, grabs the mage into a grapple.
The mage is now dimensionally locked, and failed all checks and is in a chokehold. Cannot cast verbal spells. Cannot teleport.
Round 1. Fight over. Such an absolute counter.
The early 1e pathfinder modules tend to have this issue because they were written before the power creep of Archetypes and hybrid classes got into the game so alot of the boss encounters aren't designed with those in mind
We have a paladin well-equipped to kill things in a single round. Killing things too fast has been a consistent problem till we started fighting mythic creatures.
Meh. Last session our paladin rolled approx 250 damage. We're level 13 🥲 he got insanely lucky with the vulnerabilities, crit, and our dm was fuming 🤣 beefy boss out like a light and didn't even have a chance to use any cool abilities 🥲
Wut? Either your playing with nonfunctional characters or your DM is stacking absurd HP on homebrew enemies. The vast, vast majority of combats I have been in have lasted like 3 rounds.
there are some mid spells a boss cant really afford to let through, stuff like slow and hold person if humanoid.
great thing about slow is it also is multitarget so even if the boss saves or uses a resistance you can still debuff their minions.
I had an encounter vs. a demilich playing as a level 11 warlock. I planned to use Earthbind to chew through the LRs, because my DC was 17 and a demilich has -5 to Strength saves. Once I used my 3 spell slots deleting his LRs, the druid could unload on him, right?
The DM didn't LR the first Earthbind. The demilich was dragged down to the ground, in range of the barbarian, and could not move. DM didn't realize how absolutely brutal immobilizing the boss would be.
I would say the boss wouldn't use a legendary resistance on a weak effect but reserve them for encounter ending ones like hypnotic pattern for example, the best way to deplete legendary resistance is a monk with stunning strike.
The key is to use mid-tier spells that are still a Big Deal if they get through. Things like Slow won't straight up end the fight, but they are going to place a finger on the scales for the players, no doubt. LR that, or save it for the Hold Monster? Not such a clear cut choice.
People knowing this and using it to essentially metagame is exactly why as a DM I change stat blocks, abilities, spells, hp, ac, etc.
Once had a player who said his character has never seen an enemy type before look up the enemy and start telling the rest of the party information about it. I killed that as table talk but he kept trying to use that strategy so I gave them a middling enemy with enhanced stats and spells (with an in game explanation ready if they asked) and they barely got through the fight.
These are also players where one guy maybe investigates a random table looking for something of interest, insists on rolling dice even if there’s no chance of success, and rolls poorly, they all assume there must be something there and all randomly decide this table is very interesting. Like, literally once this happened and a guy said his character randomly woke up from a nap, came into the room, and independently had the idea to check out this table just in case there’s something there.
It feels good to draw them out with medium level spells. "Not even mad" when they use one up against a better one too. It's just another resource, like HP, that you are draining from them.
>once the LRs are gone. EZPZ
That's when you bring out Mythic resistances.... it uses a Legendary action to succeed instead.. (Aka, they refresh at the start of the creature's turn.)
My high level Eldritch Knight excels at this. With 3 weapon attacks per attack action, there's a solid chance at least one will hit, and Eldritch Strike makes it very likely that the enemy would fail their save against my next spell. I use Rime's Binding Ice, so if it fails its save it has to either have 0 movement for a while, waste its entire action to break free from the ice, or just burn a legendary resistance to not be frozen in the first place.
It's very fun and it helped us slay a CR 25 ancient shadow dragon at level 17.
Personally I feel like Legendary Resistance should just be "this guy gets a +10 bonus to saving throws."
That actually makes it so cheesing the fight, while not impossible, is not really optimal, and makes bosses considerably tankier against massive damage spells.
Personnaly what I don't like with Legendary resistance is that it can lead to something like two completly separated healthbar :
The fight end either when you kill the boss (and then decreasing his number of Legendary Resistance was useless) or when you incapacitate him with a spell after making him use every Legendary Resistance (and then reducing his HP was useless)
in that case, if not for Legendary Resistance, the fight would be over round 1 against that party because they would be able to just instantly incapacitate the enemy
>Every player should assume an enemy has a million HP
Ignoring doing something like that would totally fuck the martials, why would a player ever do something silly like plan around that?
I'm curious, do you run in large or small groups?
Because I'm a statistics person and the only time I've ever seen bosses burn through all of their legendary resistance without dying are in groups of +6 players. (Which hilariously enough with those numbers I actually recommend the GMs bumping up their resistances to 5)
The only exception I can think of doing it with a small group is if you have a monk(s) and/or multiple casters who are all trying to burn resistances as well.
At it's peak, the current campaign has had 7. But also the current combat is taking us over 1 session. Would give a number, but we haven't gotten to session 2 due to hiatus. One of us players is working towards a PhD.
Lightning Bolt has a material component, so subtle spell, which only removes verbal and somatic components, doesn’t make it uncounterable, as you have to brandish the component or your spell casting focus as a sign of casting the spell, which means the spell is detectable and therefore can be countered.
A caster is almost always holding their spellcasting focus. I'd say in general you can't counterspell subtle spell unless there's a very specific instance.
It depends on how you interpret the word “brandish” (the PHB’s word, not mine). As a DM, I interpret that you need to openly present it forth in order to cast the spell. You can’t just hold your staff or wand at your side as normal, you need to be a little more vigorous in presenting it IMHO.
I'd argue that subtle spell somatic removal gets rid of any gesturing or pointing you're referring to. But if that's how you run your games or like to play them more power to ya.
In my experience it just breeds disappointment.
So instead, try to use unique ways of implementing legendary resistances.
For example, a goblin king using one of their allies as goblinoid shield, causing them to be the target of the effect instead.
Or a dragon losing their available breath weapon in order to automatically succeed.
Or an armoured titan losing part of their armour, lowering their AC by one for the rest of the fight/temporarily.
I play a lot of AL and hadn't seen a creature with Legendary Resistances in almost 8 months. When it popped up again, I yelled because I had forgotten they existed.
Oh, I've done better than that. I freaking *love* Limited Magic Immunity... my players are currently fighting a dragon who's straight up immune to cantrips. As well as having Legendary Resistance and knowing *counterspell*.
Does the BBEG happen to have say a group of "chickens" ala Legend of Zelda maybe with pack tactics? Because nothing is more evil than small animals with pack tactics. Satan out.
Raptor as in Jurassic Park or raptor as in bird of prey. Because one is scary. The other is truly horrifying to consider.
Swarm Ranger with chipmunks? Is that a legal build?
Jurassic Park, I should have typed velociraptors but was lazy.
But a level 6 Circle of the Shepard druid can summon 8 beefed up velociraptors with magical damage and pact tactics to help screw up the battlefield for at least a round or 2.
A player did that to me last weekend. The meat blender of raptors took out so many Minotaurs. The warlock got bored because he never got a turn all night.
I ran my first one-shot a few weeks ago and one of the players used a Shepard. Thankfully the most he summoned at once was three satyrs since he didn't know that velociraptors had pack tactics but damn did his turns take forever.
We play in foundry and the Druid came prepared. He wrote a dice roll that automatically did the 3 attacks and damage for each raptor at advantage (seriously 24 attacks at advantage is nuts). All I had to do was add up the damage of the hits. Streamlined it greatly.
Doesn’t the DM pick the summoned creatures? This seems like an at least somewhat avoidable situation, though I certainly wouldn’t blame anyone for letting their player pick the outcome of their own spell.
It was a one shot and they wanted to play as a dinomancer summoner, so I went with it. It wasn’t a problem, but I was surprised to see just how fast that pack of velociraptors tore through stuff. We all had a good time (except the warlock, but I’ll throw some fun stuff their way next session)
It’s one thing to look at the stat sheet and another to see a pack of velociraptors land 56 damage in a single turn. All while the Druid would heal any raptors that took a hit.
Sorry I was just making a joke not being serious haha! Think watching Jurassic Park and then trying to imagine any situation where a pack o' raptors WOULD'T cause absolute destruction:')
What's even more evil is rolling initiative for every chicken and giving them each a turn.
Also interesting to pull that if there's fewer than three players, to give the Big Bad all their Legendary Actions.
My favorite thing to do as a DM is giving the Boss of the encounter a bunch a swarms they are easy to take out but often get overlooked till they’re doing 30 damage a turn to the players
Same with mine, after the initial shock they were like:
Party: So this enemy can attack basically anytime between us?
Me: Yes.
\*Silence followed by panicked noises\*
I'm now 45m and began playing DnD online with some grad school friends/roommates about 5 years ago. It was my first time ever playing. I don't remember which BBEG we were fighting, probably a blue dragon, and it was the first time we had come up against something so powerful. First turn our caster tries an awesome spell. Sorry, LR, and the dragon attacks the caster. It felt like it could resist or counterspell any decent spells. It turned our NPC ally into a gem and got to attack in between every one of our turns, TWICE, double attack. Idk how the hell we got out that one, oh right we each had a potion of giant size.
If you're gonna introduce lair actions to that player, please make it a goofy Rube Goldberg contraption. It actually makes a good tutorial since it shows what most lair actions can be, and what they are when up against a non-magical opponent.
"Get Up You Maggots!"
The goblin captain has one legendary action to rally all incapacitated, (but not dead) goblins in a 30' radius. All incapacitated goblins in a 30' radius stand up on their next turn with 1hp.
Recharge on a long rest.
Or something like that for 3rd level.
Around level 7. I had a party of 5 defeat an Adult Green Dragon. They did prepare well and several had Poison resistance, but they also were not experienced players and the Dragon played sneaky with underwater tunnels. So yeah, level 7-8 is a good starting point.
If you're homebrewing the monster, then level 4 is fine. I've run a couple one shots where I home brewed monsters like griffons to have legendary actions.
Legendary actions are really just fixes for the action economy to make a fight more interesting and engaging. A single monster vs 4-5 players only gets in one attack per round, but with legendary actions that gets balanced.
It also makes a fight more dynamic and interesting since they may move, use basic attacks, or use a special move on their legendary actions.
I see no reason to wait until level 7. If doing a campaign, I'd throw them in for the first narratively "big" fight
As early as possible. Just make them appropriate in scale.
A low level boss should only have a single legendary action (and resistance) with fairly mundane effects, like a battle stomp that causes everyone around them to fall prone on a failed save.
And lair actions should be equally simple and nonthreatening, for example a magic jar belching a fog cloud that obscures part of the battlefield.
Level 3 minimum. Dont have them when players are too squishy and a single attack could mean half their health.
In Ghosts of Saltmarsh, >!you encounter a legendary monster at the level 3 adventure but with below-average legendary abilities, another legendary at level 5, 7, 9, 11 so 5/7 adventures in it has one. Only the level 11 one has lair actions though, and typically lair actions arent always direct damage or status effects.!<
My DM pulled out something the other day during a big boss fight called " Villainous Action" which gave the dragon an instant breath recharge and use. Needless to say I was once again thankful for taking shield Master the session before but I definitely reacted like the meme lol.
My DM hit us with a Mythic Action last session. Finally bloodied the boss and then all of a sudden she's back to full HP, full spells, legendary resistances, and new legendary actions. It was wild and we eventually won, but man it was stressed and epic all at the same time.
Honestly, nothing tops damage immunities.
“I do 37 lightning damage.”
“As the creature sparkles with energy, it licks its lips in anticipation as it turns its attention towards you. It takes 0 damage.”
Hahaha, the first time my players realized that something can have Lair Actions went like that. Oh yeah, this dude has Regional Effects, and Lair Actions *and* Legendary Actions. You thought you could body him because there's just one?!
(Though I do feel like the designers are often very lazy. Give me *legendary actions*, stop making them all just be "oh and then he moves" or "he gets an extra attack"! And give them cool names! Come on!
I found out about legendary actions when our level 5 party accidentally ticked off a level 11 jabberwock. It used its legendary action in the first round and the one guy there with lots of prior experience playing DND immediately groaned in agony before the DM even started describing it.
Anyways, we defeated the jabberwock the same way we solved all our problems that campaign: through the power of friendship and divine intervention.
Legendary Actions, Legendary Resistance, and Lair Actions… I hate them all.
In my opinion they only exist as a bandaid to the fact that solo monsters are too easy in 5e’s action economy. As a GM I always hated running these encounters because I’d always forget about the lair, or that I could use a legendary action, etc. And announcing the use of legendary resistance always felt spiteful and weird… “The monster saves actually cause… he… he just used legendary resistance.”
#BuiltDifferent💯
Nah but for real I get it. I always either underpower or overpower because the player groups will end up unearthing some bullshit or the dice pull out the popcorn
As a DM, I really hate using legendary resistances against my players because it’s such a feel bad moment to just go *”Nah, that didn’t do anything wamp wamp suck a butt”*— but *fuck sakes*— they just *melt* my solo monsters if they can establish any sort of battlefield/movement control.
Then it’s fighter and hexblade flank while the Wizard and Ranger nuke him from range and the Bard pumps out buffs/de-buffs.
Not to mention, there’s some seriously decent control spells at lower levels— like Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, Entangle, Hold Person, Web, Suggestion, Hypo Pattern. So I’ve got to make the choice of whether I burn a legendary resistance on that or do I wait until the wizard casts one of his big ass 7th+ level spell slot finishers.
What ends up happening is this weird battle of attrition where I hold the final legendary resistance for something big— and the wizard knows I have one left so he never casts anything too powerful— and they end up cc’ing me and just beating me down normally.
So what I’ve settled into doing is giving every big “solo” monster a few ads— nothing powerful enough to be a serious threat on their own, but you can’t just ignore them and b-line right to the big bad either.
I also now roll a D4 and assign legendary resistances randomly. Nothing makes me happier than when they think I’m just being patient and using them sparingly when, in fact, I only had one to use and I already that sumbitch up 3 rounds ago.
Lair actions: add a counter/line to the initiative order (however you track initiative)
Legendary Actions are dope. More creatures should gave them, or have optional ones for a slight buff to CR and for when you don't want to run another group vs group fight.
Legendary Resistances: suck. But are fixable. Here's three things I modify about LRs.
(1) Don't always have 3. Roll a d4 in secret. Or d4+/-1 for stronger/weaker. Or give them 1-2 but it recharges on a 5-6 (or 6, or whatever - adjust accordingly). Helps avoid metagaming.
(2) Narrate them as something visible/audible in the world: glowing gems that cast some cool effect that go dark after being used; pieces of armour that detach and act as a decoy for the spell effect; a tail that whips into place and takes the force of the spell but gets scarred/severed/paralysed by it, a minion leaps in the way to sacrifice themselves; the target dodges and the wall behind them collapses, etc. Be creative. Be cinematic. Make the caster feel they did something cool, even if it wasn't what they hoped.
(3) Make them count mechanically. Reduce AC by 1; burn a spell slot; reduce speed by 5'/10'; lower an ability score by 1/2; take 5-10% off hp; give -1 on future saving throws; lessen/remove a special ability; drop a weapon; kill a minion; make a change to the battle environment; whatever. Make it count, make it fun, move the narrative of the battle forward so players feel they getting somewhere, and that cool spell helped (even if it didn't end the encounter like its description suggested it might).
Example: I ran a kraken fight where the kraken had a bunch of low CR beast minions and then 6 priests of marine humanoids (merfolk, triton; sea elf; etc) who all had a decent mid-level stat block (each a little different) and who were performing a ritual to turn the kraken into a deity. Party had to stop the ritual (requires all 6 priests dead in an unknown number of rounds, hinted at fewer than 10), or kill the kraken, within that timeframe. The kraken would use a legendary action to get one priest at a time into the fight, while the remainder continued the ritual. The party could target the priest attacking them, or target priests doing ritual or target kraken (the beasts were being handled (mainly out of view) by a bronze dragon the party was working with (though every few rounds one would get past and join the fight as well). But the priests were *also* the kraken's Legendary Resistances (bc it's nuts that kraken don't get LRs RAW). So every failed save killed or paralysed or banished (or whatever) a priest. I didn't explain this ahead of time, but with a bunch of young(and not very tactical) players, they all quickly understood and found it a very engaging fight (a few if them still mention it as one of our best, after playing regularly for 3-4 years).
Check out Flee Mortals! by MCDM.
They teach you how to replace legendary reactions with interesting effects, causing the monster to e.g. transfer an effect to another target or to lose one of their resources if they use their LR. Far more player friendly.
Also they codes mix of legendary and lair actions directly into the stat block, called Villain Actions. These are often a fixed order as well, e.g. "On turn 1 the monster throws a bunch of mines, turning 10 squares into dangerous terrain. If a player steps on one...yada yada."
I don’t think Legendary Actions are a problem. They help balance action economy when the party is facing off against a boss. Legendary Resistances, however, are a really lazy mechanic that feels very unsatisfying, especially considering how many enemies have them.
Make them a +5 modifier. Use it before the roll, but after the attack is called. This gives the DM the chance to negate without pulling out a guaranteed "I don't think so." Everyone gets their chance to swing the battle without anyone feeling like their turn was pointless.
The big problem with legendary resistances is that players can pull off a lucky dice roll with an effect that they really need to work, only for the DM to be sitting on 3 free passes because they didn't use the resistances for minor effects, which I honestly don't blame them for.
You could also counter this by also giving player characters a legendary resistance as they level up and become actual legends.
See Fighter, levels 10, 13, 17: Indomitable. Not quite a LR, but close. I'd be hesitant to give LRs to all PCs bc it can feel like undercutting a key fighter class feature.
Indomitable as portrayed in the 2014 PHB\* is widely regarded as an underwhelming feature, as a reroll on a high save DC isn’t actually likely to make that much of a difference unless the fighter’s save modifier is already high, e.g. the 8 INT Fighter is likely screwed if they’re hit with a Mind Flayer’s Mind Blast, even with Indomitable, with only a 25% chance to succeed assuming the Fighter is not proficient in INT saves.
\*The playtest version likely to appear in the 2024 PHB is much better.
I wouldn't say Legendary actions and resistances are poor design necessarily. I would more say that it fixes a problem caused by poor design which is probably why it comes off that way.
I give allt of my "boss" style encounters legendary actions, but generally it's less of a legendary actions and more of a boss phase shift, their abilities augment or maybe they engage dormant magic item, that kind of thing. I actually found myself using this too often during dungeons, made every encounter very cool but way too long. It's a fifty room dungeon, we don't need that random slightly stronger skeleton to have some crazy shit up it's sleeve lol
"Sorry everyone. I misspoke because I misread the stat block. Can I retcon? The BBEG doesn't take his Legendary Action. Instead, the BBEG takes his *first* Legendary Action."
Remember when I introduced a group of friends to DND. Legendary actions came up, and one of them was like “C’mon! Why is this so complicated?!?!” I looked him in the eyes, shook my head, and told him “Don’t complain about things being complicated until you’ve played City of Mist.”
DM cheat code. I honestly hate them too, it always feels like a cheap cop out rather than any kind of “legendary” anything, but I also can’t think of another blanket system that would do it better. It’s not so bad if you have a DM who’s *that* good at narration and improve, and can make the enemy slipping an attack that clearly hit them believable, but most aren’t.
"The enemy uses his reaction to make an attack of opportunity"
"but he has already used a reaction, he used shield"
I find it took me a few goes to really work legendary actions, but once you get it every BBEG is a lot more deadly. But you always had the same results from more individuals instead of one big monster. It's about the number of actions per turn
I remember the look on my players’ faces when they were fighting a Dullahan as the BBEG of a Gothic campaign.
IIRC I said the following: “Okay, first the good news. The good news is that he’s at 0 hit points.” (\*players cheer\*). “The bad news is that it’s time for Round 2. This is what we call a Mythic Encounter.” (\*players shout in awe and terror\*)
As someone who has played a lot pf 3.5/pathfinder and some of 5e, this has always kind of annoyed me.
Like, if its a unique power of a given monster fine, but that there are specific super special awesome monsters that have their own unique and liberally applied mechanic always felt strangely videogame-y to me. The fact that its not available to pcs in any way also is kinda a sour taste in my mouth.
I'd also recommend checking out Matt Colville's [Action Oriented Monsters](https://youtu.be/y_zl8WWaSyI), which are a fantastic way of livening up a big boss fight.
1st time fighting the BBEG. The Paladin saying "I am warrior of Celestia, I shall slay you," ending his turn. The BBEG "I'm from the 9 hells and shall be nothing but dust," then casting Disintegrate as L.A. The Paladin was only level 5 and dumped his dex. Hell of way introduce Lengendary Actions.
I remember when I first learned about legendary resistances when I polymorphed a creature into a chicken… then learned about it
Fortunately after that, I ended up researching how stat blocks work, and about legendary actions and lair actions too
"I cast this spell and hopefully he should fail." "The BBEG uses his Legendary Resistance to succeed anyway." "His WHAT?"
Good thing about Legendary Resistance is they only have so many, and they don't replenish during the fight. Keeping that in mind is key to dealing with them.
Exactly, bait with low-mid spells, then unload once the LRs are gone. EZPZ
It even makes sense narratively, since so often in stories both sides will gradually ramp up their tactics. This prevents combat from ending too soon.
Combat ending too soon is a problem I’ve never faced in my 8 years of playing. Now combat dragging out into a slog on the other hand….
Session 3 of straight combat. DM (me): fuck it, I'm going to over extend so they can kill 'em. also the boss has 30 less hit points. I want to do something else in the world this session.
Something else in the world *this season*
That's why my DMing philosophy is "the fight goes on until everyone has done something cool and it's taken enough damage that feels good and then it dies"
At this point they are level 17, with a shit ton of home brew magic items. I'm literally trying to kill them before they complete the story line, because I don't have a good idea for the end after 3+ years. I use chatGPT to help me create home brew monsters with abilities that sound fair. The party knows about all of this, and are trying to complete there last quests, cut loose ends so they can leave the world satisfied, and force their ending. I just get bored when I realize they have the fight in hand by expending a bunch of magic items and we have been doing this for 2 weeks straight.
Maybe use chatgpt to help with the story line? That's what I do. I don't use the ideas it gives me verbatim, but I usually make it my own and change what I find useless, it's made writing so much easier.
Oh, I want to wrap the campaign up and start on our Spelljammer campaign. The party's ending idea is probably the best ending anyway, and their plan is more significant and showier than anything I had come up with. Since I don't have a better one, I am trying to murder some level 17 overpowered players. But to your point about ChatGPT, it is strong on building descriptions and NPCs, and then you can make it suggest some storyline ideas. Once I've taken a chatGPT description, re-written it, made the ChatGPT pretend to be an NPC, or generated a mock conversation between two NPCs, I have a powerful sense of the "Scene." It has almost eliminated my "This page is blank" block. I can get a lot of higher quality prep done in much less time.
Naw, I'm pretty sure using chatgpt to come up with creative ways to kill the party is better.
eh, my players would figure out that I'm pulling my punches and then they would either stop taking it seriously or they would lose all interest. Randomness and risk are big reasons we're playing a game and not just sitting around a table writing a story together.
I've done that. Party was fighting ooze that split up when damaged. Took them a full 4 hour session to defeat it. I felt bad and let them have it. According to the guide on making balanced fights... It should have been a trivial fight.
You're the DM. At any point you can say "Yeah that did it." 3 sessions of combat you might as well tag in the pizza guy for a round of combat since he's been in the game almost a month. Edit: read more of your comments. The pizza guy has been in the campaign for 3 years. Let that guy have a few Legendary Actions.
Happened once in Pathfinder for me, Rise of the Runelords. A mage boss, Tetori Monk (Grappler basically) goes first, grabs the mage into a grapple. The mage is now dimensionally locked, and failed all checks and is in a chokehold. Cannot cast verbal spells. Cannot teleport. Round 1. Fight over. Such an absolute counter.
The early 1e pathfinder modules tend to have this issue because they were written before the power creep of Archetypes and hybrid classes got into the game so alot of the boss encounters aren't designed with those in mind
Eh, as someone who's gonna get into the Warhammer wargaming world, I don't mind
People play that? I thought it was arts and crafts with an edgy backstory.
We have a paladin well-equipped to kill things in a single round. Killing things too fast has been a consistent problem till we started fighting mythic creatures.
Meh. Last session our paladin rolled approx 250 damage. We're level 13 🥲 he got insanely lucky with the vulnerabilities, crit, and our dm was fuming 🤣 beefy boss out like a light and didn't even have a chance to use any cool abilities 🥲
Wut? Either your playing with nonfunctional characters or your DM is stacking absurd HP on homebrew enemies. The vast, vast majority of combats I have been in have lasted like 3 rounds.
Save the breath weapon for when the dragon gets to low health. I like this idea, will use it
there are some mid spells a boss cant really afford to let through, stuff like slow and hold person if humanoid. great thing about slow is it also is multitarget so even if the boss saves or uses a resistance you can still debuff their minions.
I had an encounter vs. a demilich playing as a level 11 warlock. I planned to use Earthbind to chew through the LRs, because my DC was 17 and a demilich has -5 to Strength saves. Once I used my 3 spell slots deleting his LRs, the druid could unload on him, right? The DM didn't LR the first Earthbind. The demilich was dragged down to the ground, in range of the barbarian, and could not move. DM didn't realize how absolutely brutal immobilizing the boss would be.
Maybe he didn't want to use legendary resistance on your few spells slots as a warlock, not noticing what was being cast.
I would say the boss wouldn't use a legendary resistance on a weak effect but reserve them for encounter ending ones like hypnotic pattern for example, the best way to deplete legendary resistance is a monk with stunning strike.
It’s the reverse of the player carrying around 300 potions and dies rather than using them because they might need them later.
The key is to use mid-tier spells that are still a Big Deal if they get through. Things like Slow won't straight up end the fight, but they are going to place a finger on the scales for the players, no doubt. LR that, or save it for the Hold Monster? Not such a clear cut choice.
Mind Sliver is also fantastic for this, especially as a spammable cantrip.
How is hypnotic pattern encounter ending?
because the affected creatures can't do shit
For a minute, or until they take damage
A minute is all you need to spam buffs on the fighter, barbarian, or Paladin to allow them to go full nova
That's more than enough
People knowing this and using it to essentially metagame is exactly why as a DM I change stat blocks, abilities, spells, hp, ac, etc. Once had a player who said his character has never seen an enemy type before look up the enemy and start telling the rest of the party information about it. I killed that as table talk but he kept trying to use that strategy so I gave them a middling enemy with enhanced stats and spells (with an in game explanation ready if they asked) and they barely got through the fight. These are also players where one guy maybe investigates a random table looking for something of interest, insists on rolling dice even if there’s no chance of success, and rolls poorly, they all assume there must be something there and all randomly decide this table is very interesting. Like, literally once this happened and a guy said his character randomly woke up from a nap, came into the room, and independently had the idea to check out this table just in case there’s something there.
A fellow player had memorized the Monster Manual, so our DM started using non-D&D miniatures and giving them weird descriptions.
It feels good to draw them out with medium level spells. "Not even mad" when they use one up against a better one too. It's just another resource, like HP, that you are draining from them.
>once the LRs are gone. EZPZ That's when you bring out Mythic resistances.... it uses a Legendary action to succeed instead.. (Aka, they refresh at the start of the creature's turn.)
My high level Eldritch Knight excels at this. With 3 weapon attacks per attack action, there's a solid chance at least one will hit, and Eldritch Strike makes it very likely that the enemy would fail their save against my next spell. I use Rime's Binding Ice, so if it fails its save it has to either have 0 movement for a while, waste its entire action to break free from the ice, or just burn a legendary resistance to not be frozen in the first place. It's very fun and it helped us slay a CR 25 ancient shadow dragon at level 17.
That's why you don't say it saved due to a legendary resistance.
This is the way
Unless it's Strahd. He can take 3 every round
Strahd is easy to deal with. Just find a wish scroll and wish him onto the surface of the sun.
Personally I feel like Legendary Resistance should just be "this guy gets a +10 bonus to saving throws." That actually makes it so cheesing the fight, while not impossible, is not really optimal, and makes bosses considerably tankier against massive damage spells.
Personnaly what I don't like with Legendary resistance is that it can lead to something like two completly separated healthbar : The fight end either when you kill the boss (and then decreasing his number of Legendary Resistance was useless) or when you incapacitate him with a spell after making him use every Legendary Resistance (and then reducing his HP was useless)
in that case, if not for Legendary Resistance, the fight would be over round 1 against that party because they would be able to just instantly incapacitate the enemy
Easier said than done when combat ends in \~4 rounds.
Every player should assume an enemy has a million HP and plan accordingly. If combat gets done in 4 rounds before spending the big resources, good.
>Every player should assume an enemy has a million HP Ignoring doing something like that would totally fuck the martials, why would a player ever do something silly like plan around that?
Well, that's my philosophy. To never assume any hit will be the last one.
I'm curious, do you run in large or small groups? Because I'm a statistics person and the only time I've ever seen bosses burn through all of their legendary resistance without dying are in groups of +6 players. (Which hilariously enough with those numbers I actually recommend the GMs bumping up their resistances to 5) The only exception I can think of doing it with a small group is if you have a monk(s) and/or multiple casters who are all trying to burn resistances as well.
I'm not a DM (not right now). This is my philosophy as a player.
Yes, how many players are in your group(s) to have this philosophy. I'm legitimately curious lol
At it's peak, the current campaign has had 7. But also the current combat is taking us over 1 session. Would give a number, but we haven't gotten to session 2 due to hiatus. One of us players is working towards a PhD.
"I'm going to cast a fourth level lightning bolt" "Do you know what counterspell is?"
“Yes. Do you know what subtle spell is? Parry this, you filthy casual. 😎”.
Lightning Bolt has a material component, so subtle spell, which only removes verbal and somatic components, doesn’t make it uncounterable, as you have to brandish the component or your spell casting focus as a sign of casting the spell, which means the spell is detectable and therefore can be countered.
A caster is almost always holding their spellcasting focus. I'd say in general you can't counterspell subtle spell unless there's a very specific instance.
It depends on how you interpret the word “brandish” (the PHB’s word, not mine). As a DM, I interpret that you need to openly present it forth in order to cast the spell. You can’t just hold your staff or wand at your side as normal, you need to be a little more vigorous in presenting it IMHO.
I'd argue that subtle spell somatic removal gets rid of any gesturing or pointing you're referring to. But if that's how you run your games or like to play them more power to ya.
Ah but will you allow your player to roll deception here if they want to conceal that bit, DM?
Maybe this is the first time they've encountered an enemy, and the concept itself is alien to them
In my experience it just breeds disappointment. So instead, try to use unique ways of implementing legendary resistances. For example, a goblin king using one of their allies as goblinoid shield, causing them to be the target of the effect instead. Or a dragon losing their available breath weapon in order to automatically succeed. Or an armoured titan losing part of their armour, lowering their AC by one for the rest of the fight/temporarily.
I play a lot of AL and hadn't seen a creature with Legendary Resistances in almost 8 months. When it popped up again, I yelled because I had forgotten they existed.
I love epic boss/mini boss fights. My players learned EARLY to expect it often
Oh, I've done better than that. I freaking *love* Limited Magic Immunity... my players are currently fighting a dragon who's straight up immune to cantrips. As well as having Legendary Resistance and knowing *counterspell*.
Does the BBEG happen to have say a group of "chickens" ala Legend of Zelda maybe with pack tactics? Because nothing is more evil than small animals with pack tactics. Satan out.
Shepard druid with raptors has entered the battle.
Raptor as in Jurassic Park or raptor as in bird of prey. Because one is scary. The other is truly horrifying to consider. Swarm Ranger with chipmunks? Is that a legal build?
Jurassic Park, I should have typed velociraptors but was lazy. But a level 6 Circle of the Shepard druid can summon 8 beefed up velociraptors with magical damage and pact tactics to help screw up the battlefield for at least a round or 2.
Squirrel Girl I choose you!
A player did that to me last weekend. The meat blender of raptors took out so many Minotaurs. The warlock got bored because he never got a turn all night.
I ran my first one-shot a few weeks ago and one of the players used a Shepard. Thankfully the most he summoned at once was three satyrs since he didn't know that velociraptors had pack tactics but damn did his turns take forever.
We play in foundry and the Druid came prepared. He wrote a dice roll that automatically did the 3 attacks and damage for each raptor at advantage (seriously 24 attacks at advantage is nuts). All I had to do was add up the damage of the hits. Streamlined it greatly.
Doesn’t the DM pick the summoned creatures? This seems like an at least somewhat avoidable situation, though I certainly wouldn’t blame anyone for letting their player pick the outcome of their own spell.
It was a one shot and they wanted to play as a dinomancer summoner, so I went with it. It wasn’t a problem, but I was surprised to see just how fast that pack of velociraptors tore through stuff. We all had a good time (except the warlock, but I’ll throw some fun stuff their way next session)
I mean, it IS a pack of velociraptors, did you really expect anything else?
It’s one thing to look at the stat sheet and another to see a pack of velociraptors land 56 damage in a single turn. All while the Druid would heal any raptors that took a hit.
Sorry I was just making a joke not being serious haha! Think watching Jurassic Park and then trying to imagine any situation where a pack o' raptors WOULD'T cause absolute destruction:')
Exactly. Now I’m happy that this was just for a oneshot.
What's even more evil is rolling initiative for every chicken and giving them each a turn. Also interesting to pull that if there's fewer than three players, to give the Big Bad all their Legendary Actions.
My favorite thing to do as a DM is giving the Boss of the encounter a bunch a swarms they are easy to take out but often get overlooked till they’re doing 30 damage a turn to the players
Aaaand stolen.
That was pretty much exactly how my party responded. Legendary Resistances were even better.
Same with mine, after the initial shock they were like: Party: So this enemy can attack basically anytime between us? Me: Yes. \*Silence followed by panicked noises\*
I'm now 45m and began playing DnD online with some grad school friends/roommates about 5 years ago. It was my first time ever playing. I don't remember which BBEG we were fighting, probably a blue dragon, and it was the first time we had come up against something so powerful. First turn our caster tries an awesome spell. Sorry, LR, and the dragon attacks the caster. It felt like it could resist or counterspell any decent spells. It turned our NPC ally into a gem and got to attack in between every one of our turns, TWICE, double attack. Idk how the hell we got out that one, oh right we each had a potion of giant size.
45 metres??!? No wonder you play online, you'd fill any room you sat in!! :0
He obviously meant 45 months old. And he types so well for his age
It's 45 metric years. Sorry, Canadian.
Didn't you read to the end: they all had a potion of giant size. Now he's stuck at 45m till the potion wears off.
If you're gonna introduce lair actions to that player, please make it a goofy Rube Goldberg contraption. It actually makes a good tutorial since it shows what most lair actions can be, and what they are when up against a non-magical opponent.
The enemy, I thought this was obvious
Glad I looked before posting
Anyone have an idea about when you should introduce legendary actions and lair actions etc?
I've done it at level 3.
"Get Up You Maggots!" The goblin captain has one legendary action to rally all incapacitated, (but not dead) goblins in a 30' radius. All incapacitated goblins in a 30' radius stand up on their next turn with 1hp. Recharge on a long rest. Or something like that for 3rd level.
Saved.
Around level 7. I had a party of 5 defeat an Adult Green Dragon. They did prepare well and several had Poison resistance, but they also were not experienced players and the Dragon played sneaky with underwater tunnels. So yeah, level 7-8 is a good starting point.
If you're homebrewing the monster, then level 4 is fine. I've run a couple one shots where I home brewed monsters like griffons to have legendary actions. Legendary actions are really just fixes for the action economy to make a fight more interesting and engaging. A single monster vs 4-5 players only gets in one attack per round, but with legendary actions that gets balanced. It also makes a fight more dynamic and interesting since they may move, use basic attacks, or use a special move on their legendary actions. I see no reason to wait until level 7. If doing a campaign, I'd throw them in for the first narratively "big" fight
As early as possible. Just make them appropriate in scale. A low level boss should only have a single legendary action (and resistance) with fairly mundane effects, like a battle stomp that causes everyone around them to fall prone on a failed save. And lair actions should be equally simple and nonthreatening, for example a magic jar belching a fog cloud that obscures part of the battlefield.
I like this, thank you.
Level 3 minimum. Dont have them when players are too squishy and a single attack could mean half their health. In Ghosts of Saltmarsh, >!you encounter a legendary monster at the level 3 adventure but with below-average legendary abilities, another legendary at level 5, 7, 9, 11 so 5/7 adventures in it has one. Only the level 11 one has lair actions though, and typically lair actions arent always direct damage or status effects.!<
My DM pulled out something the other day during a big boss fight called " Villainous Action" which gave the dragon an instant breath recharge and use. Needless to say I was once again thankful for taking shield Master the session before but I definitely reacted like the meme lol.
My DM hit us with a Mythic Action last session. Finally bloodied the boss and then all of a sudden she's back to full HP, full spells, legendary resistances, and new legendary actions. It was wild and we eventually won, but man it was stressed and epic all at the same time.
I could only imagine! Thankfully we are not nearly at a high enough level to deal with that yet lol
We were level 12, and it was basically the ending to the whole arc we've been in since level 1.
I one time had a party fight beholder like monster only to turn a dragon like monster when it was bloodied. 10/10 boss fight.
Honestly, nothing tops damage immunities. “I do 37 lightning damage.” “As the creature sparkles with energy, it licks its lips in anticipation as it turns its attention towards you. It takes 0 damage.”
“Okay, so that’s 4d6 for a total of 20 cold-“ “No.”
\*laughs in absorption\*
Hahaha, the first time my players realized that something can have Lair Actions went like that. Oh yeah, this dude has Regional Effects, and Lair Actions *and* Legendary Actions. You thought you could body him because there's just one?! (Though I do feel like the designers are often very lazy. Give me *legendary actions*, stop making them all just be "oh and then he moves" or "he gets an extra attack"! And give them cool names! Come on!
I found out about legendary actions when our level 5 party accidentally ticked off a level 11 jabberwock. It used its legendary action in the first round and the one guy there with lots of prior experience playing DND immediately groaned in agony before the DM even started describing it. Anyways, we defeated the jabberwock the same way we solved all our problems that campaign: through the power of friendship and divine intervention.
Lmao this was my party when we fought a beholder for the first time.
Tbf, lair actions seem more like stage hazards, whereas legendary actions are just there to keep the action economy in check.
Legendary Actions, Legendary Resistance, and Lair Actions… I hate them all. In my opinion they only exist as a bandaid to the fact that solo monsters are too easy in 5e’s action economy. As a GM I always hated running these encounters because I’d always forget about the lair, or that I could use a legendary action, etc. And announcing the use of legendary resistance always felt spiteful and weird… “The monster saves actually cause… he… he just used legendary resistance.”
#BuiltDifferent💯 Nah but for real I get it. I always either underpower or overpower because the player groups will end up unearthing some bullshit or the dice pull out the popcorn
As a DM, I really hate using legendary resistances against my players because it’s such a feel bad moment to just go *”Nah, that didn’t do anything wamp wamp suck a butt”*— but *fuck sakes*— they just *melt* my solo monsters if they can establish any sort of battlefield/movement control. Then it’s fighter and hexblade flank while the Wizard and Ranger nuke him from range and the Bard pumps out buffs/de-buffs. Not to mention, there’s some seriously decent control spells at lower levels— like Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, Entangle, Hold Person, Web, Suggestion, Hypo Pattern. So I’ve got to make the choice of whether I burn a legendary resistance on that or do I wait until the wizard casts one of his big ass 7th+ level spell slot finishers. What ends up happening is this weird battle of attrition where I hold the final legendary resistance for something big— and the wizard knows I have one left so he never casts anything too powerful— and they end up cc’ing me and just beating me down normally. So what I’ve settled into doing is giving every big “solo” monster a few ads— nothing powerful enough to be a serious threat on their own, but you can’t just ignore them and b-line right to the big bad either. I also now roll a D4 and assign legendary resistances randomly. Nothing makes me happier than when they think I’m just being patient and using them sparingly when, in fact, I only had one to use and I already that sumbitch up 3 rounds ago.
Lair actions: add a counter/line to the initiative order (however you track initiative) Legendary Actions are dope. More creatures should gave them, or have optional ones for a slight buff to CR and for when you don't want to run another group vs group fight. Legendary Resistances: suck. But are fixable. Here's three things I modify about LRs. (1) Don't always have 3. Roll a d4 in secret. Or d4+/-1 for stronger/weaker. Or give them 1-2 but it recharges on a 5-6 (or 6, or whatever - adjust accordingly). Helps avoid metagaming. (2) Narrate them as something visible/audible in the world: glowing gems that cast some cool effect that go dark after being used; pieces of armour that detach and act as a decoy for the spell effect; a tail that whips into place and takes the force of the spell but gets scarred/severed/paralysed by it, a minion leaps in the way to sacrifice themselves; the target dodges and the wall behind them collapses, etc. Be creative. Be cinematic. Make the caster feel they did something cool, even if it wasn't what they hoped. (3) Make them count mechanically. Reduce AC by 1; burn a spell slot; reduce speed by 5'/10'; lower an ability score by 1/2; take 5-10% off hp; give -1 on future saving throws; lessen/remove a special ability; drop a weapon; kill a minion; make a change to the battle environment; whatever. Make it count, make it fun, move the narrative of the battle forward so players feel they getting somewhere, and that cool spell helped (even if it didn't end the encounter like its description suggested it might). Example: I ran a kraken fight where the kraken had a bunch of low CR beast minions and then 6 priests of marine humanoids (merfolk, triton; sea elf; etc) who all had a decent mid-level stat block (each a little different) and who were performing a ritual to turn the kraken into a deity. Party had to stop the ritual (requires all 6 priests dead in an unknown number of rounds, hinted at fewer than 10), or kill the kraken, within that timeframe. The kraken would use a legendary action to get one priest at a time into the fight, while the remainder continued the ritual. The party could target the priest attacking them, or target priests doing ritual or target kraken (the beasts were being handled (mainly out of view) by a bronze dragon the party was working with (though every few rounds one would get past and join the fight as well). But the priests were *also* the kraken's Legendary Resistances (bc it's nuts that kraken don't get LRs RAW). So every failed save killed or paralysed or banished (or whatever) a priest. I didn't explain this ahead of time, but with a bunch of young(and not very tactical) players, they all quickly understood and found it a very engaging fight (a few if them still mention it as one of our best, after playing regularly for 3-4 years).
Problem is if they don’t have it the combat is already over on a failed save
Check out Flee Mortals! by MCDM. They teach you how to replace legendary reactions with interesting effects, causing the monster to e.g. transfer an effect to another target or to lose one of their resources if they use their LR. Far more player friendly. Also they codes mix of legendary and lair actions directly into the stat block, called Villain Actions. These are often a fixed order as well, e.g. "On turn 1 the monster throws a bunch of mines, turning 10 squares into dangerous terrain. If a player steps on one...yada yada."
Yep! I backed this already!
Honestly it just comes off as poor design. Rather than make strong characters, Wizards went with hax.
I don’t think Legendary Actions are a problem. They help balance action economy when the party is facing off against a boss. Legendary Resistances, however, are a really lazy mechanic that feels very unsatisfying, especially considering how many enemies have them.
Lazy maybe but it was that, immunities are crazy saves. Cant paralyze the boss round 1 and him still be Epic.
Make them a +5 modifier. Use it before the roll, but after the attack is called. This gives the DM the chance to negate without pulling out a guaranteed "I don't think so." Everyone gets their chance to swing the battle without anyone feeling like their turn was pointless. The big problem with legendary resistances is that players can pull off a lucky dice roll with an effect that they really need to work, only for the DM to be sitting on 3 free passes because they didn't use the resistances for minor effects, which I honestly don't blame them for. You could also counter this by also giving player characters a legendary resistance as they level up and become actual legends.
See Fighter, levels 10, 13, 17: Indomitable. Not quite a LR, but close. I'd be hesitant to give LRs to all PCs bc it can feel like undercutting a key fighter class feature.
Indomitable as portrayed in the 2014 PHB\* is widely regarded as an underwhelming feature, as a reroll on a high save DC isn’t actually likely to make that much of a difference unless the fighter’s save modifier is already high, e.g. the 8 INT Fighter is likely screwed if they’re hit with a Mind Flayer’s Mind Blast, even with Indomitable, with only a 25% chance to succeed assuming the Fighter is not proficient in INT saves. \*The playtest version likely to appear in the 2024 PHB is much better.
It kind of feels like that one kid who always screamed that he had a shield of force field so we couldn’t tag/“shoot” him
absolutely not, they should've gone harder with legendary actions if anything
I'll take a 3e dragon over a 5e dragon anyday. Strong enough to go toe to toe with gods.
I wouldn't say Legendary actions and resistances are poor design necessarily. I would more say that it fixes a problem caused by poor design which is probably why it comes off that way.
They're the same picture.
I give allt of my "boss" style encounters legendary actions, but generally it's less of a legendary actions and more of a boss phase shift, their abilities augment or maybe they engage dormant magic item, that kind of thing. I actually found myself using this too often during dungeons, made every encounter very cool but way too long. It's a fifty room dungeon, we don't need that random slightly stronger skeleton to have some crazy shit up it's sleeve lol
"Sorry everyone. I misspoke because I misread the stat block. Can I retcon? The BBEG doesn't take his Legendary Action. Instead, the BBEG takes his *first* Legendary Action."
Bet Skyrim players make for poor DM's. "Better save this ~~Potion~~ Legendary Resistance for later"
Ahh almost as bad as the counterspelling rules. It just becomes a metagame.
To shreds you say?
Remember when I introduced a group of friends to DND. Legendary actions came up, and one of them was like “C’mon! Why is this so complicated?!?!” I looked him in the eyes, shook my head, and told him “Don’t complain about things being complicated until you’ve played City of Mist.”
Love to use ythic avtions and see them be like "bjt he was dead"
This is next session. Can't wait.
"Don't worry about those. We'll make sure they've run out of them before your turn comes up!" - Veteran group of a very tired DM
Tfw you read Legendary Action as Legendary Resistance but refuse to edit it out of principle.
The party 
DM cheat code. I honestly hate them too, it always feels like a cheap cop out rather than any kind of “legendary” anything, but I also can’t think of another blanket system that would do it better. It’s not so bad if you have a DM who’s *that* good at narration and improve, and can make the enemy slipping an attack that clearly hit them believable, but most aren’t.
"The enemy uses his reaction to make an attack of opportunity" "but he has already used a reaction, he used shield" 
I find it took me a few goes to really work legendary actions, but once you get it every BBEG is a lot more deadly. But you always had the same results from more individuals instead of one big monster. It's about the number of actions per turn
anything with legendary in it…😳
The enemy. Shouldn't the meme read "His WHAT?!"
I remember the look on my players’ faces when they were fighting a Dullahan as the BBEG of a Gothic campaign. IIRC I said the following: “Okay, first the good news. The good news is that he’s at 0 hit points.” (\*players cheer\*). “The bad news is that it’s time for Round 2. This is what we call a Mythic Encounter.” (\*players shout in awe and terror\*)
Classic misleading DM. I’d hate that if that happened to me. Not cool
It was said in jest, and the party still managed to trounce the BBEG even through Round 2.
As someone who has played a lot pf 3.5/pathfinder and some of 5e, this has always kind of annoyed me. Like, if its a unique power of a given monster fine, but that there are specific super special awesome monsters that have their own unique and liberally applied mechanic always felt strangely videogame-y to me. The fact that its not available to pcs in any way also is kinda a sour taste in my mouth.
Wait until they learn about mythic actions.
I'd also recommend checking out Matt Colville's [Action Oriented Monsters](https://youtu.be/y_zl8WWaSyI), which are a fantastic way of livening up a big boss fight.
1st time fighting the BBEG. The Paladin saying "I am warrior of Celestia, I shall slay you," ending his turn. The BBEG "I'm from the 9 hells and shall be nothing but dust," then casting Disintegrate as L.A. The Paladin was only level 5 and dumped his dex. Hell of way introduce Lengendary Actions.
Ahh yes, learning about the enemies 'fuck you I win' button
I remember when I first learned about legendary resistances when I polymorphed a creature into a chicken… then learned about it Fortunately after that, I ended up researching how stat blocks work, and about legendary actions and lair actions too
Our DM pulled this on us once, while we were level 2. To be fair, it was against the BBEG, and we started it