Problems with D&D 5E: Legendary Resistance

There are two things many of you may know about me:

1. I've been running Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition for about 2 years now in a campaign called Ameshirel: A World Undone.
2. I hate Dungeons & Dragons.

Now, the second thing has always come in waves. I see a new edition, I play it, I like the new things, but the old shitty things continue to piss me off. I then realise that Dungeons & Dragons doesn't do the thing it claims to be best at any better than a handful of games. So I end up switching to something better...

But I've stuck with 5th Edition because I honestly believe it is better than all previous editions. However, that doesn't mean it is good. Just better.

Luckily, we can make it even better!

Now I'm not sure if this is going to be a series, or just a one shot, but I'd like to start looking at individual mechanics in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, pointing out why they suck, and then reworking them to be a little more interesting. The first one I am going to target is:

Legendary Resistance

AKA, "nah, fuck your cool signature spells... I'm a bad-ass and don't want to be hurt." AAKA "I'm a Game Designer and needed a way to make this super powerful creature actually powerful, but refuse to fix the broken system around it, so will instead invent a bullshit rule."

Legendary Resistance (3/Day): If the <creature> fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.

This ability is given to a number of monsters - basically anything that's considered a stand-alone boss fight. The problem is, with Dungeons & Dragons's weird combat system, stand-alone monsters aren't really feasible. The PCs will have infinitely more chances to act than them, making their super powers only useful a fraction of the time. And the amount of crazy PC abilities means they'll whittle it down before it's acted more than once or twice. So we see Dragons, and Vampires, and Demons, etc, all sporting this rule.

Why is this bullshit? Well, because spellcasters (and Monks) rely on saving throws for a lot of their abilities. These same classes also rely on limited resources (spell slots, Ki points, etc). They also, usually, don't get to do much in their turns except cast a single spell, or whatever.

So when you have the Wizard dutifully wait around until it is finally their turn (because combat in this game takes forever), and then to use their favourite spell, which they get to do for, maybe, 10 seconds in a 4 hour session, you pull this shit out. It tells the player that, no - in this case, for no apparent reason, your awesome ability didn't work. Doesn't matter what kind of saving throw, either.

White Dragons are massive, so they can probably resist Constitution saving throws. However, they're also described as being stupid. They're also, as I mentioned, massive! So it's arguable to say they can't dodge all that well, nor hold onto their wits like others can.

This rule decides to shit all over the lore, and just tell the players that, in this case, the monster is OK.

It also becomes a war of attrition. The spellcaster has 3 spell slots? Well Legendary Resistance has 3 uses. Looks like you're not getting your spell off - Tim the Enchanter. Oh, what's that, you DO have a 4th slot? Well we could either let you just use your damn spell, or we could waste 3 rounds of combat until the monster has no more charges left. Because that sounds fuuuuuuuuun.

I haven't ever used this ability against my players. And I never will. It sucks... Unless we can fix it.

Fixing Legendary Resistance

Now that my rant is out of the way, here are some ideas on how to make it not terrible.

At its core, it's a useful ability to have - it makes the big bad guys actually difficult to defeat. What can we do to make it better?

1) We give it specific saves it can bolster.

Firstly, we tie the ability into the lore. What is this monster good at resisting? What is it bad at resisting? We can foreshadow all of this in game as well, so that we give the players an early idea of how they might be able to win this thing. 

Is the monster afraid of cold attacks, and can't use their Legendary Resistance against anything cold? Then we put lots of warm fires in their lair.

Is the monster dumb, and can't use their Legendary Resistance against Intelligence saving throws? Then we make it perform stupid actions. It chases its tail if it isn't sentient. It can't speak properly, or bumps into things, or whatever... You get the idea.

This allows the players to strategically choose which spells they're going to cast. If they know this monster is super wise, and they're going to use a spell that needs a Wisdom saving throw, then they should second guess themselves. If they don't after all this foreshadowing, then it's their fault.

2) We make it a bonus, not a trump.

Secondly, we make the ability a bonus to the monster's saving throw, not a flat out "it fucking wins". Make it a big bonus, to reflect the nature of its Legendary status... However just by rolling - and rolling out in the open - we give the players a fairer chance. We're telling them that the mechanics are granting them the possibility of succeeding, but because this thing is a bad-ass, it's slim.

For argument's sake, let's make it a +10 bonus. Big, crazy, bonus.

3) We make it a strategic choice.

Thirdly, we tie it to a limited resource for the monster - like Reactions. Maybe we give them a second Reaction each turn, to make it more possible for them to use it, but we tie it to something like this. Why? Well, this allows the players to drain the monster's resources.

If the party knows the Wizard is going to lay down some hurt, but they need a clear shot when the monster doesn't have Legendary Resistance, they can help them out. They can purposely provoke Attacks of Opportunity, or they can cast minor spells to expend uses of counterspell, or whatever. Basically, they can set up the Wizard's spell.

The awesome thing about this? Well, it makes everyone involved feel responsible for the awesome spell going off. The Wizard made the spell, but the Monk made the spell possible. Now we've got some team work.

And GMs, don't choose to save the Reaction for the Legendary Resistance. If the players tell you they want to try to provoke the monster so as to distract it so it can't use its Legendary Resistance? Bloody well let them. That's awesome. That's tactics. That's what the game is about.

Conclusion

The age-old rule of "Yes, but..." applies to mechanics too. Don't make a mechanic that shuts a player down, or invalidates their favourite moves. That's not good game design. That's laziness. We're all better than that, and we can work together to make Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition better than that too.

Sorry if I've been too critical of the game. I do have parts of it I like. But I have other parts that I despise. Hopefully, if you scrape off all the vitriol, you'll get some good advice!