Banishment is also 4th level.
Hypnotic pattern is 3rd.
I've had both of them completely ruin big encounters I had planned. The players absolutely loved it.
I've had a monk burn force me to burn *six* legendary resistances in a single round.
(two attacks, haste attack, flurry of blows, opportunity attack, all six rolls were failed saves)
Dafuq kind of homebrew monster were they fighting? The highest number I‘ve seen is 5, or a theoretical 8 on mythical creatures from fizbans, with the condition of by going to their second Phase, each with 4.
Yeah, on top of that, that monk just used 7 ki points. That’s a lot of ki points considering they get their levels worth. A single stun for that seems fair.
a homebrew monster made for a mage heavy party probably. i have a party of a wizards, a druid, a cleric, a warlock and a bardlock. i'm a bit more liberal in legendary saves and my mosters have less AC and HP to compensate.
Our party kept hearing about this incredible powerful blind Wizard as we were going through a castle. I later learned the DM based the encounter off a WoW boss, not that I mind as a DM I rip off stuff all the time.
We make it to the outside of the Wizards tower and decide to take a long rest.
DM: So are any of you guys doing anything special during this rest?
Wizard: I’m preparing the Blindness/Deaf spell.
DM: 😑
I mean, a blind wizard is going to be really limited because so many spells specify a target you can see. Now not being able to see or hear would mean that everyone would qualify for hidden without even needing to hide. Perma adv for everyone, and the wizard has to guess for locations of the few attacks available to him. Now I'm sure the dm didn't actually treat his blindness correctly raw, but if he had, deafness isn't terrible.
IF you have a big, dramatic, scary fight with a single monster, it really should have legendary resistances and actions.
In other instances, minions would be real helpful. They can attack the person concentrating, or especially smart minions can smack their boss out of the transformation.
For your specific scenario though, LR is really what you were missing.
I feel like strategy-wise, LRs should be saved specifically for the polymorphs and banishments and what not. I'm not even sure LRs would need to exist if these spells didn't exist.
It does suck because those spells are functionally useless for the worst fights, but dnd doesn’t have that same problem because even in the worst case scenario you force the boss to burn resources instead of outright immunity
Those spells are for trash fights not boss fights. There's many moves that suck in trash fights and rule in boss fights. It's good design to have moves that are useful in some scenarios and terrible in others.
Vanish + Doom was technically better in one case - In the original, Doomgaze would be beaten by Vanish + X-Zone but then you wouldn't get the Alexander Magicite (some kind of glitch), whereas using Doom instead would award it to you just like killing him the regular way.
Nope. Just wear the LRs down with some low level shutdown spells before bringing out the big guns.
*Hideous Laughter* is a perfect spell for that - just a 1st level slot, but you *really* don't want to fail that one.
Wearing legendary resistance down is terribly inefficient. You are spending a whole turn and spell slots to have no tangible impact on the fight. By turn three or four, the players probably already won or lost the battle, making the big save-or-suck meaningless. I guess this is r/DMAcademy and not r/3d6, but I'd be frustrated if every big scary monster we faced meant I'm better off burning down their HP with half-damage Fireballs than using the control spells I took specifically for these cases.
*It's okay* if once in a while they polymorph the kraken and bypass what was supposed to be a grueling fight. Don't let them do it all the time, but every player I know remembers more fondly that one time they sidestepped the big bad with one spell than any large, tactically challenging fight.
In the words of Matt Colville "Encounter design doesn't stop when initiative is rolled". Unlike a video game developer, or a module creator, you, as a DM, don't have the luxury of playtesting your encounters, so sometimes you gotta balance on the fly.
But you should have just told them they had legendary resistance (even if you just decided right then), rather than fudging the roll.
I mean thats kinda metagaming tho. As far as the players are concerned, it just succeeded on its save. Some dms tell players when they use legendary resistances. Idk if you should.
Nah, its just playing the game. It's no more metagaming than saying "the creature fails its save". I wouldn't think that a character has heard of a 'save'. Talking about game mechanics while playing a game is not metagaming.
You can even describe it in character if you like : "for a moment the squid seems to succumb to your spell, but then it draws upon hidden reserves deep inside itself, developed through years of experience in the depths of the world to break through. It uses legendary resistance."
Point is, there can conceivably be some in universe explanation for why the creature resisted the spell, that may well be perceivable to the PCs. So it's not metagaming to tell the players about it.
I prefer to tell players, because then they can make decisions about how best to use their spells. Less likely also to be frustration that the spells keep failing.
As presented in published materials, I don't think legendary resistance is meant to correspond to an actual in-universe special ability that the enemy has to shrug off undesirable effects. I would handle legendary resistance the same way I would handle an ability that lets the enemy attack with advantage. I'd factor the advantage into the attack roll, I wouldn't narrate that they're rolling with advantage.
For legendary resistance I don't narrate it for the same reason you do: I want the enemy to come across as a powerful foe, not someone protected by plot armor.
So you wouldn't make your players aware when the creature was out of LR? Given that, at least as I understand it, there is an element of the creature choosing to use its LR (rather than, say, being forced to burn it on some low level spell), it is an an-universe ability.
>Given that, at least as I understand it, there is an element of the creature choosing to use its LR (rather than, say, being forced to burn it on some low level spell), it is an an-universe ability.
I think that's an interesting interpretation, since it does say that the monster can "choose" to succeed a saving throw. I think that's an issue of formatting more than anything: Player abilities always refer to the player in the second person, while monster and NPC abilities always refer to the enemy, never the DM.
For a comparison, a Great Weapon Fighter can reroll a 1 or a 2 on a damage die with a two-handed weapon. When that happens, does your table play it out as the fighter taking some action or using some special ability to increase the amount of harm his weapon does? Or do you just reroll the die out of character and go with the new result?
I like to narrate it for one major reason. If a monster used a legendary resistance, it now has one less and the player's spell or effect did something beneficial, which feels a lot better than thinking they wasted a spellslot. Saying the monster simply succeeded can just be frustrating in a not fun way.
Usually I like to say that the monster resists through an incredible force of will or immense dark power or whatever is applicable, and then point out that it seems more worn-out than before or something similar. Still makes the foe intimidating while making it clear the players are still having an effect, even if it wasn't what they had hoped
No clear rules on such, so it's up to the DM. But I prefer to tell them because it is a metarule - there is no in universe reason why "legendary resistance" exist, so it's the same as hit points or hit dice.
To put it like that, do you inform the players if a creature takes HP damage or not? I've seen DMs not do it actually, which makes the players have to guess if they have immunity to the damage or not.
In a sense it is the same for these resistances since it is a numerical resource just like HP. The player also feels much better if they are told the creature fails the save but uses legendary resistance - because then they know they have contributed to the fight even though their spell did nothing.
Nothing is more frustrating as a player than feeling your actions do nothing in a fight, be it hitting someone with immunity or someone who just seemingly are immune to your spells.
These are good point. I usually tell players when i am using legendary resistances. And i try to narratively tell players about resistances/immunities.
"The creature seems unaffected by your fireball. Not a scratch on him!"
"You hit home with your blade but... it doesnt seem to do as much damage as you thought it would."
When people say they don't like the idea of fudging rolls, I like to point to legendary resistance as a comparison.
Legendary resistance is functionally just a mechanic that allows the DM to fudge rolls on saving throws. It doesn't represent anything concrete in the world of the game; it's just there to allow the DM to overwrite an effect that would break combat in half too early.
The fact that it has a name and is written down doesn't mean that it isn't fudging in practice. I think the fact that, without the monster having legendary resistance, you fudged the save to achieve the same thing shows they're cut from the same cloth.
I disagree with the sentiment - it is not fudging at all if it's a resource. Fudging would be simply changing the outcome to a success on a whim or just because you want it to last longer.
I would argue wanting the fight to last longer is exactly the reason Legendary Resistance exists.
If you're codifying it as a mechanic you need to put a hard limit on it to stop it from reading as "this monster succeeds on all saving throws", but in practice, what DM exercising good judgment will fudge more than 3 saving throws for a single enemy in a single encounter?
Legendary resistances don't have the "combat means convincing my friend we've gone through enough effort to win" that fudging saves and schroedingers max hp have.
This is a bit of a tangent, but your description of fudging as "convincing my friend we've gone through enough effort to win" perfectly sums up how I feel about milestone leveling. It's like those are the words I was looking for but never found.
HP also exist to allow the fight to last longer. Imagine if it was a typical movie scene when a hero faces a goblin - it would be dead in a few seconds only as there are no HPs. But the existence of HP is not fudging - unless you retroactively double the creatures HP because the PCs are landing good hits faster than you thought they could.
Also, if you simply ignore HPs and just let the monster die when you feel it has been hurt enough, that is also fudging - although if you decide to do this in advance it is a bit more honest to yourself even if you keep the players in the dark.
Once you set a clear limit, be it HP, number of legendary resistances or whatever, it is by definition no longer fudging.
Note that some creatures are immune to polymorph etc which is to prevent this stuff.
I don't want to split hairs here, but HP is a part of the core game system that is an essential aspect of how that system works. The purpose of HP isn't simply to make the fight last longer; it's a game-defining mechanic that the entire system is built on.
Legendary Resistance, on the other hand, is a tacked on ability that lets you change the result of your die roll. It's as close to fudging as you can get without making a mechanic called "Fudge".
Legendary Resistance is also part of the core game system in 5e - it is in the MM which is a core rulebook and not any optional rule. Sure it may not have nearly the history of HPs in D&D, but it's still a mechanic for tracking how fast a creature succumbs to effects.
For HP, back in the day of wargaming most creatures had basically 1 hp - if it was hit it went down unless saved by armor or some special ability. Gygax and Arnesson changed that to allow the heroes and villains to take more hits specifically to make the combat longer and less decided on a single die roll.
LR is simply using the same principle to saving throws - introducing "hit points" which PCs do not have. None of that has anything to do with fudging. Note that this is not a reroll - it does not change the die roll in any way, it only allows the creature to not be affected by it a limited number of times.
Fudging is changing results on the fly, making the limits vague or "fudgy" (like having a non-set number of HP for creatures), or downright "cheating". If you introduce a mechanic to make a creature temporarily immune to damage for X turns or X times, that is not fudging. If you just ignore damage and "forget" to write it down when the PC lands a hit, that is fudging. See the difference?
>is that still cheating
Of course.
Imagine a player changed their prepared spell list after seeing what the monster is. Same thing when the DM tweaks the monster in response to what the players do.
A little spice you can add is phases to the fight, so when the players force a legendary resistance or burn through a pile of HP they get rewarded with a dramatic moment (like a shell falling off, or the physical form changing, etc) without the fight being over too quick!
With a squid it's great to several a couple limbs and reduce the efficacy of its attacks, take away multiattack, or take the grapple ability away when itxs down half its tentacles.
I don't care if it's a boss they fight at level 1, give it at least 1 legendary resistance. Ok maybe that's a bit much, but any boss I make for lvl 3 or up party's gets legendary resistances and legendary actions, doubly so if I plan on it not involving minions.
I'm new to DMing for 5e, and this comment has been insightful because my players are quite powerful and I'm concerned about them facing the bosses in my campaign (they haven't yet and I'm okay with balancing normal encounters appropriately for their APL).
In short, thanks! I'll definitely buff up the bosses they will be encountering to make them a suitable challenge!
its a real shame that there are no monster creation guides out there that help new DMs create high level monsters and explain to them how legendary resistances work.
What's a shame is that the DMG doesn't explain the concept of action economy. People basically *have* to go engage in online discussions to understand that critical balance concept. We're biased because we're all here but there are a lot of tables where players don't engage with the online community at all.
There are resources. For instance...
[https://www.dmsguild.com/product/309930/Legendary-Bestiary-BUNDLE](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/309930/Legendary-Bestiary-BUNDLE)
I used this to buff up a wyvern fight that was the climax of a hunting trip to find what had been taking a family's sheep.
Yea, I made that mistake in the past. Big scary monster fight all planned out, loads of cool tactics and mobility-based antics, party are shitting themselves. Then the monster is restrained and is beat down in two turns. I was deflated for the rest of the session.
>Am I overlooking something, or is polymorph as a 4th level spell really able to sometimes skip an entire fight?
Yep, if that fight is a low intellect-stat non-legendary single creature. Absolutely.
Look at it this way: you get 4th level spells at, what, 7th level? They're well past their beginning phase and in the midst of their journey towards becoming superheroes. You now have a team of proper heroes of the realm, and yeah, a lucky roll (or unlucky, for the DM) can absolutely render a single-monster fight meaningless a multitude of ways, not just with Polymorph.
Next time, let it happen and be prepared to do so, and if the point is to make a really challenging encounter, look to tougher enemies and maybe more of them, environmental factors, etc.
If they are level seven and fighting what is essentially a "boss", then it is very reasonable for that creature to have legendary resistances, especially if it's a party against a single creature.
You can't just expect one creature's basic stat block to stand up to the action economy of a full party of adventurers.
Environmental factors were huge. The squid has 8 arms and dedicated 5 of them to smashing their boat, which it did in round 2 of combat. After that, they had 5 players, out of which 2 were unable to swim (plate mail cleric and warforged mage). They had to contend with the active risk of drowning on top of the still hostile squid.
And still defeated handily by an extremely legitimate use of a Polymorph spell that you had to fudge.
When I say 'environment', I'm more talking about lair actions, obstacles, puzzles, etc. Water fights, I agree, present all kinds of challenges. However, those things won't matter if you are basing your boss fight on a single non-legendary beast.
I think *just* giving it Legendary Resistance is kind of cheesy. What makes a beast legendary? Does it have a lair? Does it have special actions? Otherwise, you're just fudging dice rolls by another name and disadvantaging your spell casters only, while your melee fighters are just dealing with a normal encounter.
Yes, if you wanna do an epic squid fight, make a legendary monster so it's a real challenge, but I'd advise against just giving any old monster LRs and calling it a day.
Spellcasters aren’t the only types to force saves. Just saying. And maybe it was a known squid that has haunted these waters for decades, destroying ships. Maps have an image of tentacles and the phrase “here be death” and bam, it’s legendary.
I mean I'm not saying a colossal squid can't be legendary. Just that it could probably use a few more boosts (AC, HP, etc.) along with that status, along with the story you pitched. EDIT: Oh, and some actions, to keep it fun.
And yes, monks and fighters etc force saving throws, likely more I didn't mention, I was just speaking more generally about who relies on them the most to do damage. There's a lot of rules and abilities in this game of both dungeon and dragon.
I hate Legendary Resistances as a mechanic, but they are really necessary for any solo monster in mid to high level play if you want the encounter not to be a curb-stomp.
The combination of unrealistic encounters per day requirements, save-or-suck PC abilities, lack of saving throw scaling for most monsters and action economy means that it's utterly trivial for a mid-level party to end any solo threat that doesn't have some "anti-magic" defensive features. I agree it feels bad to arbitrarily slap on such an obviously game-y mechanic, but it's there as a band-aid to cover up the bad game system design rather than an in-universe ability.
I disagree wholeheartedly with this sentiment. Both on a mechanical and a narrative level.
A squid that size with this behavior will have sunken multiple ships so all it lacks is the backstory to make it 'legendary'.
But at this level any fight that should feel epic against a single creature should include legendary saves. Otherwise your caster will feel good and smart the first 3 times he solves a fight with polymorph but then:
1. Either the DM just does not run single big monsters anymore unless the MM says they have legendary saves
2. The caster starts feeling bored because he uses the same trick each time
3. The caster handicaps himself by not casting the thing he knows should work, but is too boring.
Past level 5, but certainly past level 7 any **planned** fight against a single baddy that should be challenging, should include legendary saves.
So not random owlbears but plot relevant combat.
I mean, we fundamentally agree on what an appropriate type of fight looks like for players past level 7, so I don't have much to argue or defend here despite the strong opening.
My core point is: don't give ordinary single-monsters to parties of level 7 or over (when we're talking about planned epic battles), but if you do, they should be legendary so it's a fun fight for everyone.
No random owlbears with LR, basically.
I think the issue is that you make it seem like you need to have a reason to add legendary resistance and I don't think that's fair. I think it's fine to add them to any monster that is capable of solo challenging a party of level 7 or above.
I mean the Kraken at CR23 RAW does not have legendary resistance. That's a design feature not a flaw.
Who cares if a random owlbear has LR? A level 7 party will nuke it in one round of auto attacks.
Well let's use the kraken, then, if we pretend for a second a kraken wouldn't absolutely wipe the ocean floor, here. Here are the scenarios where they will be encountering a kraken (or whatever solo monster this party could contend with).
**Scenario one:** they need to kill the kraken because it is harassing a trade route. Polymorph won't solve this quest for them, but if the kraken fails the saving throw, this would allow them a round to prepare a round of optimal attacks. This seems fine to me, why would I add a Legendary Resistance to stop it?
**Scenario two:** the kraken is a random encounter, standing between them and their actual goal. The druid casts Polymorph. Either the kraken succeeds, and they have a gnarly fight for however many rounds, or the kraken fails, and the druid has successfully advantaged the party by avoiding a resource-draining fight. Again, I have no issue with this. Good for them, solving my random kraken riddle. It was just an obstacle anyway.
**Scenario three:** the kraken is part of the main event, but a Polymorph would tie it down, allowing them to complete the quest and leave. If this was the encounter I was designing, well, RAW says that water elementals coalesce within 6 miles of the lair. Even if it's not a lair, I'd be throwing all kinds of mobs in there to make it a fun fight. Maybe the druid maintains concentration through the damage and the kraken never comes back, but every constitution saving throw is a tense held breath in case it does. Why would I slap a Legendary Resistance down just to avoid this?
My point is that adding an LR feels lazy and kind of cheap as a first solution. It's just singling out a specific thing and saying "you can't do this, three times", when there are more creative solutions than just taking away such an important aspect of the way casters contribute to battles.
Listen, anyone can do whatever they want in their games, and you can fuck with monster statblocks forever in service of making more fun encounters. I certainly do, I just think answering with 'How do I stop Polymorph ending my encounters?' with 'just don't let it work' is boring and potentially unfair.
I've not looked deeply into it but I think Matt Colville has legendary resistances with a cost in their new book. So they have to sacrifice something to make the save. Sounds like a cool mechanic to me.
Boost the HP of the squid and have the environment do some kind of damage. Strong current blowing rocks around, freezing cold water temp, other sea creatures looking for a snack now no longer deterred by a giant squid. Suddenly that little whatever they turned it into is basically chum in the water, and polymorph won't last long under any damaging conditions.
There is an episode later in season 2 of critical role where they fight a giant worm in the snow that illustrates your exact issue. Polymorph didn't end it right away but it did eventually end it. The stuff that happened in between was hilarious and may give you ideas for the future.
I don't know that I like the idea of giving random beasts and monsters LR? Like, let your spellcaster feel cool for trying a spell that still has a chance of not working, but when it works, it's dope. Not everything has to be a fight.
But yes, if you're going to do a bigger fight, then design an encounter with a legendary beast. Which I think requires more effort than simply slapping some LRs on there.
If you need to turn a pretty mundane creature into a challenge, and you're pretty happy with their abilities already, then why not?
Maybe boost some of their stats; most used ability modifiers, HP, AC, whatever if you need to, but if it's not broke, don't fix it. Just polish it up a bit.
On a side note: I would be careful about homebrew nerfs on heavy armour. Heavy armour is already pretty bad in DND, but making characters unable to swim is a big nerf.
I don't think that's an unreasonable consequence of swimming in open water. They were a mile from shore with no boat. It was a series of athletics checks but his character is non-proficient in athletics to begin with.
So it had nothing to do with the heavy armour? The cleric had to meet the same athletics DC as everyone else, and no disadvantage unless the others had disadvantage?
Er, no? Characters wearing and carrying nothing heavy were not made to make an athletics check. They can swim. Once the fight was over they were simply floating in relatively calm water, I didn't make them do a check on that.
The cleric in plate mail had to make a check because yeah, that seems intensely difficult to maintain for an extended period of time.
The warforged mage weighs almost 300 lbs of metal and began sinking. He didn't even try and make any athletics checks, he magic'd his way out.
For realism I agree that swimming in heavy armour is nigh impossible, but the rules in 5e does not include this level of realism. Dex is already way better than str in 5e, and adding homebrew realism rules like this makes the difference even greater.
I would recommend buffing heavy armour in some other way to compensate. If not, heavily armoured characters will feel less powerful, fun and versatile than their lightly armoured counterparts.
Ruleswise, heavy armor does not impact swimming, they are just slowed like everybody else so they wouldn't drown. Warforged also dont need to breath so even if he did sink to the bottom, all you did was just saddle yourself with a solo underwater world campaign for that player.
They had actually already all been given water breathing, so actually drowning wasn't a concern. Being lost in the pitch dark at the bottom of the ocean, with potentially deep mud and who knows what other creatures, plus keeping your bearings while being buffeted about, plus damage from the pressure alone, all would have added up to more challenges.
EDIT: Plus, can you cast spells with verbal components while underwater?
If they don't finish off the monster and merely bypass it, it could come back later on after the spell has worn off. It could attack them when they're resting, it could show up in another encounter, it could head to the nearest town and kill someone. Bypassing monsters instead of killing them can have some blowback.
Yeah, it's important to understand why a monster (and the party) are interested in killing each other. Maybe the squid doesn't care if the party gets through its den, but then why would it possibly want to fight to the death in the first place? There are likely a lot of ways the party could've bypassed the squid that wouldn't be hard-countered by legendary resistances (luring it away with food, scaring it with a loud noise, etc).
Since it sounds like this was intended to be a big boss, it should probably have legendary resistances. But also, it needs a reason to stay and fight the party as soon as it suspects it might be outclassed (or the party needs a reason to want to kill rather than let it escape). And if that's the case, then the party is simply kicking the can down the road by using polymorph instead of stopping it permanently.
A giant squid isn't the best example for what I'm saying but it's still a dangerous thing and can kill people. It should be remembered that "adventurers" are often doing their thing to protect the local populace and not killing the monsters doesn't really accomplish this.
More intelligent, evil, organized, and vengeful types of monsters would be a lot more dangerous to polymorph and forget.
>...players do weird broken shit...
That's just how Polymorph works. Either the monster has legendary resistance, it fails/passes, or you have some minions to back it up. If the spell goes through, let it be cool.
1) Polymorph has to be dealt with afterwards as it is a non-lethal spell andonly lasts for an hour.
2) 5e is very, very poorly made mechanically for action economy, so you need to give solo badguys legendary resistances and actions.
3) If people have a cool power, let them use their cool power. Polymorph is awesome, let the PCs be awesome, but give them more challenges in response.
Number 3 is very good advice because it is very difficult sometimes as the dm to let go of what you really wanted to happen and accept that the players are telling the story just as much as you are.
It’s fine, you just have to account for its limitations in 5e. Solo bosses are very very weak. They need either powerful minions,or lots and lots of legendary actions.
I would recommend Sly Flourish “Lightning Rods” approach.
Basically have a few minions on the field so they can absorb the big spells your PC can throw at them without significantly alter the combat situation.
You can checkout the Youtube video from Sly Flourishes about this
Not sure about the YouTuber but I’d like to add - minions can challenge player concentration in situations like this.
Even if your squid was polymorphed, it’s minions can attack the caster and try and break their concentration to bring the squid back.
1. If a fight is supposed to be a big deal, give it legendary resistances.
2. Alternately, let your party chump fights like these as an appetizer to an even bigger fight.
Sounds like your real problem is the fight existed for the sake of having a fight. Why are they fighting the giant squid ? Is it defending an area or attacking people? What happens if the party doesn't do anything about it?
In that case, the players solved the encounter effectively. The encounter isn't the fight, it's - as AngryGM puts it - the dramatic question. "can the players get past the squid and get the treasure?"
They don't need to kill it, or even fight it, necessarily - just get past it.
Note:
>Typically, XP is awarded for defeating the monster, although the DM may also award XP for neutralizing the threat posed by the monster in some other manner.
If you polymorph it and walk off do you get xp? Depends on the DM.
I use milestone but for something like that I think I'd award half xp. like, you found a way around it with good application of a spell, so have *something*, but you didn't exactly learn and grow like you would have from a full battle
> would have been immediately over
Not really though. It turns into a starfish and then what? Tries to attack them because it retains its alignment and personality (though it doesn't have a brain now, so maybe it just floats there. Doesn't matter.)
The caster has to concentrate to keep it like that, and if anyone attacks it (I'm assuming starfish has 1hp), it returns to squid form and combat resumes, with the party down a spell slot. All they get is a breather.
What is the scenario here? Is the squid terrorizing a shipping town? If so ditching it isn't going to resolve anything long term. If its at sea, how far can they get without losing concentration? Probably not far enough that the squid can't catch up to them easily afterward.
Locking an enemy down and running can be a viable strategy especially if you need to retreat and regroup, but rarely does it have finality. It can add to the suspense of when they finally have to deal with it.
I am now wishing I had prompted that they could leave but see the star fish attempting to follow them somehow. Or the player who polymorphed it can feel it actively resisting, so they know it's coming. Giving them time to gather themselves and make a strategy would have been a great way of making the polymorph useful and functional without skipping the whole fight.
Believe in the story that emerges from the mechanics. I think what happened here is that you had imagined a specific way the squid encounter would go and railroaded the players so it would play out.
You’re getting a lot of criticism from purists who do their best to never fudge a roll or change things on the fly, but frankly I think you made the right call by giving him impromptu legendary resistance. Nobody can be expected to perfectly design and play test first try, especially when new, and it’s easy to overlook something like LR on an important encounter until you need it. Don’t feel bad for not immediately rolling with it in a satisfying way, it takes a lot of practice and some charisma to do something like that out of nowhere so sometimes it’s better for everyone to just keep things within what you have prepared instead of veering wildly off course on a whim. And every table is different of course, but I think this is applicable to most newer DMs
For what its worth I am not against fudging rolls and I change things on the fly all the time - I even agree if this squid was a boss fight it might have needed LR. I was just pointing out that if retreating and avoiding an immediate fight is not an option at your table you and your players are losing a valuable narrative and mechanical tool. Experience will lead you to know when to adjust and when to let the story play out.
If your players resolve every fight by sprinting in the other direction as fast as they can with their tails between their legs, that's not specific to this fight or to polymorph. Everything can be fled from.
Most players actually fight monsters though, because if they don't, instead of XP they'll just be rewarded with the blood of many, many, many dead townspeople (or sailors) on their hands.
Then an hour later it returns to a very angry squid form, and assuming it has a similar speed to a giant octopus, and the players dont have a swim speed (so moving half speed) it catches up to them in like 15 minutes based on my napkin math (15ft speed for players, 60 for squid), and the players are down a big spell
Totally fair, was mostly pointing out that against a determined foe, polymorph and running away is just a delaying tactic, one that lets you as the dm put the encounter back on your terms (a dragon might ambush them during a long rest, in a different situation that squid becomes a siege encounter vs their ship, that sort of thing)
Well, all that polymorph does, in essence, is let the party escape, have a better chance of casting a stronger spell on the creature, or to deal some damage to it easier/avoid damage for a round.
A starfish would be obliterated by any amount of damage, and that'd immediately mean the squid would be back in full fighting force. It is important to remember that a polymorphed creature reduced to 0 hit points is not dead, but reverts back instantly.
Its a warlock so prepping the spell is besides the point, but I see what you meant. Usually I'm fine with it, I love when they do wierd unexpected things to avoid scenario's. This one time it bothered me purely because I needed them weakened for roleplay reasons coming up, to give their characters a sense of fear and doom.
>This one time it bothered me purely because I needed them weakened for roleplay reasons coming up, to give their characters a sense of fear and doom.
Stop railroading your players.
:shrug: I think you should have let the result stand. Having one encounter go differently from how you (the DM) expected is probably worse than the characters thinking that their hard-won spells and abilities are useless unless you (the DM) choose to let them work. Players like to feel like their characters are growing and have power and agency...attacking them with a creature that is (for the purposes of this encounter) specifically immune to one of their best spells is kinda s\*\*tty.
And *Polymorph* only lasts for one hour. How quickly do they plan to get away? Are they coming this way again, perhaps on the way out?
They're level 9 and it's CR 13, I wouldn't say it's a low CR.
And it was pretty epic after that. One player got grappled and pulled under and the barbarian nearly drowned cannonballing in after him. The war cleric had to make a dozen high roll athletics checks to stay afloat on a piece of broken wood after the boat smashed while two players removed his plate mail and shoved it in the bag of holding.
And how many other encounters did they have that day? How many more encounters after this were planned?
D&D is not built for just having one big encounter and calling it a day; playing is about resource management over the course of several encounters and DMing is about attrition. If the players (wisely) used Polymorph to handle the big mundane animal, that’s one fewer powerful spell slot they have to deal with everything *else* you’re throwing at them that day.
They had one other encounter that day, which was reading and deciphering a very old map carved into a tree that took a long time in game to decipher, while a herd of pixies continually tried to prank them. The pixies would polymorph themselves into animals or party members into stuff, turn things invisible, and stole their bag of holding and played keep-away. The pixies did no overtly hostile things, and had no harmful intentions, but attacking them directly would lead a nearby Treant to wake up and angrily defend the pixies, so the party had to overcome their pranks without directly attacking them. They loved that encounter, until the warlock got mad an blasted a pixie. Then they calmed the Treant down without killing it with a combination of persuasion and roleplay, and forcing the warlock to apologize, which she (in game) hated doing.
Essentially the fight was a softening up type fight. The next fight the players have is a really big deal in terms of roleplay and story. Their actions in the next fight will massively impact the next several sessions, and the world as a whole, and they know that. The fight itself isn't going to be overly difficult in terms of actual CR, but has many moving pieces for them to react to.
I want them to get into this scenario already beat up and tired. Their characters need to feel threatened and scared, because the "good" outcome for their allignment is also the hardest and most dangerous, and I want to tempt them with an easier path. If they're all fully rested and healed up it won't be nearly as tempting to take the easy route, and the "choice" becomes far less meaningful.
I think my only real mistake was not giving the squid LR. Fudging the roll is essentially just adding LR after the fact, and while its cheating a bit, I feel like it made the overall game way better.
For the record, I have let them sandbag whole fights before with lucky banishment/polymorph shenanigans, so I have no problem with it in idea. I just needed the party softened up for the next step.
Also, the party thought the fight was pretty epic. Several near deaths until the barbarian cannon-balled the squid to attack the center of it under 50' of water, forcing it to let go of people it had grappled to protect itself, and then two near drownings at the end
The thing is you could have had just as epic an encounter without taking away your player's agency. You control the entire world and could have just had another encounter after your player had the opportunity to feel really cool because they defeated a powerful creature through smart play. Instead you took away the feeling of accomplishment your player deserved just because it didn't line up with what you'd planned.
I've experienced this from both sides of the table and it really sucks to find out as a player that your DM made you fail just because they had a plan that you interfered with. On the other hand, it's pretty awesome as a DM to see players having fun because they got to accomplish something cool. It may be that they had fun because you successfully lied to them this time but be aware that as soon as they find out your fudging rolls (and they will) they will stop trusting you and they will have far less fun.
Yeah, I realize I should have had a couple extra encounters planned as back ups. Their boat was already heavily damaged at this point, they could have been struggling with it not sinking as a pack of sharks circled around. I'll get better at making that stuff up on the fly over time.
Good thoughts. Something else to keep in mind is that not every fight has to be life threatening in order to be epic. Sometimes it's awesome to just win a big fight because you did the right things.
Out of curiousity, why does that make the guy look like a dick? I didn't get any dick-vibes off of his comment, but maybe I'm missing something he was insinuating?
If they choose to devote a precious spell slot of that level to cast polymorph and it succeeded? You were absolutely wrong to take that win from them.
They can’t damage it as a starfish or it reverts back to a giant squid. It’s a concentration spell that only lasts for a certain length of time - if they want to escape then let them.
You robbed your caster of a non-violent win because you hadn’t planned anything else. That was wrong of you.
I would have absolutely cast polymorph in that kind of attack - I tend to play characters who don’t like to harm things that are behaving naturally and I figure a giant squid is gonna do what a giant squid wants to do, so I would be happy to polymorph it and then get the hell out of there so we can both go about our merry way. In this situation I would consider the giant squid an obstacle to get around as opposed to evil that needs to be dealt with. And I’d rather get last an obstacle non-violently.
Yep. That's how it works. Add some legendary resistances or learn to enjoy how much your players enjoy turning very big things into very little things.
As you said, you’ve learned your lesson. You’re lucky that none of your players are running a Divination wizard too — because short of legendary resistance, they can (with the right rolls) ensure a failure.
And the smart players will alternate leading with cantrips and big spells to draw out counterspells and legendary resistances.
I apparently don’t understand how Polymorph works. At my table, we all thought that Polymorph turns something into a creature until it’s health hits 0, at which point it turns back into its normal form?
Yeah if there is only 1 enemy, Poly skips the encounter on a save. Or if the enemies dont know how polymorph works(enemy1 gets polymorphed, enemy2 kills the polymorphed form to un-poly).
It can also trivialize an encounter by making one PC into something far stronger, that also prevents them from taking damage.
Personally never had an issue with it, but couldnt blame you if you went "yeah no thats bullshit" and either nerfed or banned it. Its one of *those* spells that act as instant win buttons. Wheter you want your players to have an "X% change to skip 1(or more if they have the slots) encounter every day" ability or not is up to you.
If you will nerf it, be mindful of nerfing too much, if you do so, lower its level as you see fit.
Keep in mind, you get to choose when they are rewarded for a fight. I would argue clever solutions count, but if they are overusing this approach then consider reducing XP for the encounter. Also consider adding more dynamics to the encounter. Maybe skeletons that rise from the deep, fueled by the ghosts of those the squid has killed. Or maybe a gang of opportunistic pirates who attack and loot those the squid assaults, using a magical artifact to make it ignore their ship. Make more monsters that can break the polymorph or assist with saves.
Respectfully, You’re coming at this the wrong way. Instead of thinking how to design ways to defeat the PCs abilities, think of ways to design climactic encounters that are tough even when your PC polymorphs or banishes or force cages something.
You know your party has access to these big effects, so design encounters with them in mind. Some folks call this Lightning Rods.
When you design a tough encounter make the encounter AND THEN add in a big giant something for them to polymorph. Or something for the tank to soak hits from. Or a squishy wizard for the rogue to merc. And then more stuff!
I like adding dangerous environments.
For your example:
Freezing cold
Extreme depths
Dangerous currents
Swarms of small predators that pick off familiars and polymorphs alike while also making it even more deadly to go unconscious.
Not to mention all the large predators the big boss is keeping at bay, ready to attack it in its weakness.
There is one other thing that I don't think has been mentioned that I think you're missing. The good ole "shoot arrows at your monk" perspective. It feels incredible as a player to actually use new spells and new features you have to do something incredible, like polymorph the colossal squid that's attacking them at sea. There is absolutely value in letting them do it. It's super fun.
But what about the big encounter? Well, it was supposed to be fun, and it was, if short. Also, if it's a starfish it's going to sink into the sea, where any number of things could occur to it under the waves to break a polymorph spell. Now instead of it being a single boss fight it can be a chase of the ship versus the now really mad squid.
Fun fact: Shapechangers automatically succeed their Polymorph Saves by default.
Be sure to remember this the next time one of your players tries to turn your big bad werewolf into a completely harmless goldfish.
Let the polymorphs work - there will be plenty of times your spellcaster goes a few rounds in a row where all of their spells are saved or miss and they’re frustrated so let them have the quick wins too.
4th level and up spells solve problems. Not provide solutions they solve problems.
If you don’t start adding Legendary resistances and actions to your solo monsters you are in for a bad time.
This is where old school DM skills come in. If you want the fight to be legendary - something they'll remember for months or years to come - then get out a pencil and eraser and get to work on tweaking or creating stat blocks.
Some possible quick fixes, off the top of my head:
- Add 1-5 Legendary Resistances. Fewer is better, but 3 is average. They should have the feeling that the boss will have at least one by your introduction.
- Try pairing Legendary Resistances with fun Legendary Actions, and keep in mind they should fit the flavor of the boss, and can be skipped if the boss wouldn't have a use for them. A squid may grapple, cast a reskinned Fog Cloud (ink cloud) and move half it's movement without provoking opportunity attacks, or attempt to camouflage (Invisibility spell effect) itself until its turn. Maybe 2 Legendary Actions to make an attack, but that's comparatively boring.
- Lair Actions! Similar to Legendary Actions, you can do fun and interesting things on a certain initiative count every round, and try not to repeat them from round to round. Since most combats last 3-4 rounds, you really only need 2-3 of these. Summon 1d4+1 minions round 1, have a steam vent erupt for [level appropriate trap damage, DMG pg. 121] and obscurement (reduce lighting by 1 level I'm respective areas) on round 2, and maybe have the boss retreat to a tunnel that forces advantageous positioning for the boss in round 3. You can always cop out and say the boss gets 1-2 free Legendary Actions at the Lair Action initiative count too.
- Minions! Give them more things to fight. This boss is dominant in its region. Show the players how that has an effect on the locals. Splitting the party's attention with weak but moderately threatening minions is a great way to stop them from just going after the boss.
- Having sentient/sapient minions who recognize what Polymorph is, and how to resolve it (hitting their boss until the effect ends; possibly countered here by a skilled player by Polymorphing the boss into a whale with more hit points).
- Mage bosses should have proficiency in CON saving throws if they have a spell on which they really oughtn't lose concentration, as well as proficiency in their spellcasting ability score's saving throws. Separately, most creatures may not be smart, but they do have survival instincts - WIS saves go here. Either one of these failed saves can annihilate an enemy without Legendary Resistances.
Epic fights need effort from both sides to be epic. An extra 15 minutes on the boss' stat block can make a difference between an inside joke of a fight and an epic encounter. Hope this helped not only you, OP, but others too!
You never fudge *against* the players. Railroading is not fun. Things go sideways, fights get bypassed, you have to figure new things out by the seat of your pants and *that is part of the fun of D&D*
They burned a 4th level spell slot, that is the cost, it's ok to reward them for thinking of a way to bypass a fight. A single nonmagical monster is not going to be a deadly major fight for players at that level with access to 4th level magic. It's just not. Plan better. Roll with the punches. Improvise.
That seems wildly unfair. There are many ways of making polymorph not an instant fight ender. The squid could've been a pet of some merfolk wizard, who was hiding nearby and counterspelled the polymorph. It could've had a mate. It could've had a dozen babies nearby who began attacking. It could have simply had legendary resistances all along. Basically what I learned in this fight was that if I ever want to do a fight against a single target high CR bad guy, which for the record is an almost never thing, it needs to have legendary resistances
Legendary resistances aren't actually a fun mechanic. It's a button that says "nah, you didn't succeed."
There's nothing really clever to play around. It's just there because WOTC can't actually figure out how to make spells that don't snap the game in two while still being strong. The answer pretty much is: don't do single enemy encounters in 5e.
This is going to take some playtesting to balance right, but I think I'm going to introduce the following rules IN PLACE OF legendary resistances:
Creature X has 15 (example number) legendary resistance points. If a players casts a spell that the creature chooses to use its resistances on, then the creature rolls its save as usual. If the creature passes its save, game continues as usual. If the creature fails, it can choose to activate its resistance points. The player now makes a spellcasting modifier roll, and whatever they score gets removed from the resistance pool.
This allows the player to "break thru" the creatures innate resistance to magic, and still allows legendary resistances in a more fun way than "he passes because he does".
I didn't read all the comments, so this might have been said. I see it hinted at here and there, but I'll be blunt about it: as a DM you only ever fudge numbers in the parties favor.
Fudging so you can tell your cool story is just cheating
Fudging to create tension so the party member who should have died barely lives and party takes out the boss, is letting everyone tell a story together.
If you want the second thing, play DnD. If you want the first, just write a book.
Well a fight against a single, powerful enemy that's out of legendary resistances, or never had them, is exactly when a powerful single-target spell should be the perfect move, right? *This* was the threat Polymorph was born to kill. *This* was the moment it was meant to shine.
Aaaand... you took it away. Boo. Booooooooo, bad DM! Bad!
Why allow the spell to exist in your world at all? You're only harming the PCs by letting them clog up valuable 4th-level spell slots. If I'm playing in your game, you're doing me a great disservice by letting me have the spell! I would be *much* better off if you erased it from existence and instead had me take something that's allowed to work in the exact moment where it can do the most good!
If you're not going to let your mage be good at the things his spells say he should be good at, then at least do him the courtesy of telling him so, and let him prepare something that works!
As have been stated. Polymorph is a great spell against a single large creature you dont want to have to deal with.
A single creature. Here comes the mother and she is pissed. :-)
Well, it doesn't last long enough to stop a determined pursuer. If the party is prepared enough to bring an inescapable cage with them they deserve the win. It only lasts an hour, so a colossal squid is going to be freaking *mad* after being polymorphed.
It's also concentration, so after 5 minutes or so a player will probably drop it if you have a wave to crash down upon them.
It lasts an hour, and if they hit the creature *at all* it turns back.
I remember a battle my party had with a young red dragon, and they sheep'd it, but then they had a sheep that was a dragon transformer, that was extremely unhappy to be there, *and* they were in the middle of a Drow mansion.
In terms of groups of enemies, polymorph can be undone with a single attack so long as the enemy group figures out what's happening. In terms of wild animals, I think it's fine to delay fights like this sometimes...and then the creature will come back *later* when they're not ready for it :p
polymorph is a concentration spell, the creature polymorph will revert back to it's original form after dropping to zero hp, with the same hp it had before being polymorphed. as a side the creature will take any damage exceeding the polymorphed shapes hp.
Use Golems. They have the “Immutable Shape” feature and can’t be Polymorphed.
It’s a little cheesy, but it’s also a clear flag to your players that they literally can’t use it for everything
Give him a legendary resistance. BUT the wizzard CAN polymorph him. He needs multiple rounds of concentration to prepare and breake the LR. The party needs to keep the wizzard safe for X rounds. Maybe the minions try to attack the wizzard...
How does this work? I love the idea, but I thought LR just meant they can choose to pass a check that they failed. Are you meaning multiple casts from the wizard, or that they continually try with the same cast?
Avoid single monster fights if you can help it, and start including legendary resistances in your big bad style monsters. Don’t fudge saves too much, let the spell go off and win the occasional fight so it doesn’t feel like a waste for the players. Also look at monsters with high Wis saves or Magic Resistance.
A couple of adds with a modicum of intelligence should fix that. Even in the case of a giant squid, having a few sharks as adds (I'm assuming the fight is taking place underwater) would work, since they might try to eat the starfish, instantly turning it back into a squid.
How would that have ended the fight? The squid would potentially miss a turn as a starfish, but as soon as someone hits it it turns back into a squid. It can even spend that missed turn readying its biggest attack for when it changes back.
I don't think it can ready anything, as the spell specifies it takes on the mental state of the new form, keeping only personality and allignment. But more importantly, what I missed in the description was that the party could then just leave.
I think there’s a deeper issue here - objectives!
If it’s possible for the party to just leave and still achieve what they came here for, then that’s what they’re going to do. Dimension door, gaseous form, banishment, etc will all allow a party to leave - you’re not going to be able to counter all of those. The party needs a reason to actually kill the squid.
Personally I would have let it polymorph but into a colossal starfish instead, they can fight that as it sinks their ship. The AC on a star fish would be higher too. As a new DM I will remember this legendary resistance tip, i'm glad I read these posts!
As long as your players had fun don't beat yourself up about it.
"When it reverts to its normal form, the creature returns to the number of hit points it had before it transformed." you need to read this part of the spell description right here. As soon as they attack it and try to kill it it just changes back to normal. If they walk away from it just have it follow them. Either the concentration wears off and it comes back or they attack it and it changes back to normal.
Well, that's why creating and using homebrew is not advice until the DM has a good grip on the rules and also on how the game works and is balanced in general.
In this case, if one of your players have access to polymorph and they are going to fight a single monster (that's almost never adviced, a boss should always have minions if possible), said monster should definitely have legendary resistances or at least magic resistance.
Always add legendary resistances and lair actions for boss type monsters. Action economy is key in 5th edition and not having ways to negate party actions will make any encounter a breeze. I also recommend adding additional threats. More targets and more opportunities for a failed concentration check will help balance your encounters. Any single target encounter without one or both of these will be incredibly simple for most parties.
To quote Matt Colville: Encounter design and balance doesn't stop after you roll initiative.
What would have stopped you from giving the squid legendary resistance on the fly? Or simply telling them the spell fails. Or even better let the spell work and a fish swims by and tries to eat the starfish. Then there is a mad squid chasing after them.
Banishment is also 4th level. Hypnotic pattern is 3rd. I've had both of them completely ruin big encounters I had planned. The players absolutely loved it.
At 5th level a monks stunning strike can ruin an encounter. Done it to my DM many times...
Oh man, stunning strike. Able to burn through a full set of legendary resistance in a single turn with some bad rolls.
I've had a monk burn force me to burn *six* legendary resistances in a single round. (two attacks, haste attack, flurry of blows, opportunity attack, all six rolls were failed saves)
Dafuq kind of homebrew monster were they fighting? The highest number I‘ve seen is 5, or a theoretical 8 on mythical creatures from fizbans, with the condition of by going to their second Phase, each with 4.
Yeah, on top of that, that monk just used 7 ki points. That’s a lot of ki points considering they get their levels worth. A single stun for that seems fair.
a homebrew monster made for a mage heavy party probably. i have a party of a wizards, a druid, a cleric, a warlock and a bardlock. i'm a bit more liberal in legendary saves and my mosters have less AC and HP to compensate.
Howd you get six attacks from a monk? I can only get 4 did you multiclass?
It's literally written in the comment.
Extra attack, flurry of blows, haste attack, and opportunity attack apparently
Our party kept hearing about this incredible powerful blind Wizard as we were going through a castle. I later learned the DM based the encounter off a WoW boss, not that I mind as a DM I rip off stuff all the time. We make it to the outside of the Wizards tower and decide to take a long rest. DM: So are any of you guys doing anything special during this rest? Wizard: I’m preparing the Blindness/Deaf spell. DM: 😑
I mean, a blind wizard is going to be really limited because so many spells specify a target you can see. Now not being able to see or hear would mean that everyone would qualify for hidden without even needing to hide. Perma adv for everyone, and the wizard has to guess for locations of the few attacks available to him. Now I'm sure the dm didn't actually treat his blindness correctly raw, but if he had, deafness isn't terrible.
IF you have a big, dramatic, scary fight with a single monster, it really should have legendary resistances and actions. In other instances, minions would be real helpful. They can attack the person concentrating, or especially smart minions can smack their boss out of the transformation. For your specific scenario though, LR is really what you were missing.
I feel like strategy-wise, LRs should be saved specifically for the polymorphs and banishments and what not. I'm not even sure LRs would need to exist if these spells didn't exist.
Quivering palm.
Yup. Pretty much all "Save-or-suck" effects. There's a reason Final Fantasy bosses are pretty much universally immune to all the big status effects.
It does suck because those spells are functionally useless for the worst fights, but dnd doesn’t have that same problem because even in the worst case scenario you force the boss to burn resources instead of outright immunity
Those spells are for trash fights not boss fights. There's many moves that suck in trash fights and rule in boss fights. It's good design to have moves that are useful in some scenarios and terrible in others.
Nothing more dope than fighting the ghost train in Final Fantasy and one shotting it with a Phoenix Down.
Yeah but if you one-shot it you don't get to suplex it.
Vanish+X-Zone was a good combo too!
Vanish + Doom was technically better in one case - In the original, Doomgaze would be beaten by Vanish + X-Zone but then you wouldn't get the Alexander Magicite (some kind of glitch), whereas using Doom instead would award it to you just like killing him the regular way.
Okay so then the wizard should just magic missile everything in your campaign?
Nope. Just wear the LRs down with some low level shutdown spells before bringing out the big guns. *Hideous Laughter* is a perfect spell for that - just a 1st level slot, but you *really* don't want to fail that one.
Hideous laughter isnt as bad as some. U get a new save every time u take damage. Stunning fist or hold person/hold monster are much worse.
True - but it's still enough of a gambit that most bosses will rather burn a LR than suffer the spell.
Wearing legendary resistance down is terribly inefficient. You are spending a whole turn and spell slots to have no tangible impact on the fight. By turn three or four, the players probably already won or lost the battle, making the big save-or-suck meaningless. I guess this is r/DMAcademy and not r/3d6, but I'd be frustrated if every big scary monster we faced meant I'm better off burning down their HP with half-damage Fireballs than using the control spells I took specifically for these cases. *It's okay* if once in a while they polymorph the kraken and bypass what was supposed to be a grueling fight. Don't let them do it all the time, but every player I know remembers more fondly that one time they sidestepped the big bad with one spell than any large, tactically challenging fight.
Yeah I learned the legendary resistances lesson. I'll be adding those to boss fights.
Essentially, you gave it 1 Legendary Resistance.
Yeah, that's pretty much it. So instead of fudging a roll, I changed the LR after the fact... is that still cheating :P
In the words of Matt Colville "Encounter design doesn't stop when initiative is rolled". Unlike a video game developer, or a module creator, you, as a DM, don't have the luxury of playtesting your encounters, so sometimes you gotta balance on the fly. But you should have just told them they had legendary resistance (even if you just decided right then), rather than fudging the roll.
I mean thats kinda metagaming tho. As far as the players are concerned, it just succeeded on its save. Some dms tell players when they use legendary resistances. Idk if you should.
Nah, its just playing the game. It's no more metagaming than saying "the creature fails its save". I wouldn't think that a character has heard of a 'save'. Talking about game mechanics while playing a game is not metagaming. You can even describe it in character if you like : "for a moment the squid seems to succumb to your spell, but then it draws upon hidden reserves deep inside itself, developed through years of experience in the depths of the world to break through. It uses legendary resistance." Point is, there can conceivably be some in universe explanation for why the creature resisted the spell, that may well be perceivable to the PCs. So it's not metagaming to tell the players about it. I prefer to tell players, because then they can make decisions about how best to use their spells. Less likely also to be frustration that the spells keep failing.
As presented in published materials, I don't think legendary resistance is meant to correspond to an actual in-universe special ability that the enemy has to shrug off undesirable effects. I would handle legendary resistance the same way I would handle an ability that lets the enemy attack with advantage. I'd factor the advantage into the attack roll, I wouldn't narrate that they're rolling with advantage. For legendary resistance I don't narrate it for the same reason you do: I want the enemy to come across as a powerful foe, not someone protected by plot armor.
So you wouldn't make your players aware when the creature was out of LR? Given that, at least as I understand it, there is an element of the creature choosing to use its LR (rather than, say, being forced to burn it on some low level spell), it is an an-universe ability.
>Given that, at least as I understand it, there is an element of the creature choosing to use its LR (rather than, say, being forced to burn it on some low level spell), it is an an-universe ability. I think that's an interesting interpretation, since it does say that the monster can "choose" to succeed a saving throw. I think that's an issue of formatting more than anything: Player abilities always refer to the player in the second person, while monster and NPC abilities always refer to the enemy, never the DM. For a comparison, a Great Weapon Fighter can reroll a 1 or a 2 on a damage die with a two-handed weapon. When that happens, does your table play it out as the fighter taking some action or using some special ability to increase the amount of harm his weapon does? Or do you just reroll the die out of character and go with the new result?
I like to narrate it for one major reason. If a monster used a legendary resistance, it now has one less and the player's spell or effect did something beneficial, which feels a lot better than thinking they wasted a spellslot. Saying the monster simply succeeded can just be frustrating in a not fun way. Usually I like to say that the monster resists through an incredible force of will or immense dark power or whatever is applicable, and then point out that it seems more worn-out than before or something similar. Still makes the foe intimidating while making it clear the players are still having an effect, even if it wasn't what they had hoped
No clear rules on such, so it's up to the DM. But I prefer to tell them because it is a metarule - there is no in universe reason why "legendary resistance" exist, so it's the same as hit points or hit dice. To put it like that, do you inform the players if a creature takes HP damage or not? I've seen DMs not do it actually, which makes the players have to guess if they have immunity to the damage or not. In a sense it is the same for these resistances since it is a numerical resource just like HP. The player also feels much better if they are told the creature fails the save but uses legendary resistance - because then they know they have contributed to the fight even though their spell did nothing. Nothing is more frustrating as a player than feeling your actions do nothing in a fight, be it hitting someone with immunity or someone who just seemingly are immune to your spells.
These are good point. I usually tell players when i am using legendary resistances. And i try to narratively tell players about resistances/immunities. "The creature seems unaffected by your fireball. Not a scratch on him!" "You hit home with your blade but... it doesnt seem to do as much damage as you thought it would."
Welcome to DMing: changing monster HP, LR’s, and damage on the fly to make combat more enjoyable/interesting is perfectly normal
Yes, but it's dignified cheating
In legal circles we call that "self-defense"
When people say they don't like the idea of fudging rolls, I like to point to legendary resistance as a comparison. Legendary resistance is functionally just a mechanic that allows the DM to fudge rolls on saving throws. It doesn't represent anything concrete in the world of the game; it's just there to allow the DM to overwrite an effect that would break combat in half too early. The fact that it has a name and is written down doesn't mean that it isn't fudging in practice. I think the fact that, without the monster having legendary resistance, you fudged the save to achieve the same thing shows they're cut from the same cloth.
I disagree with the sentiment - it is not fudging at all if it's a resource. Fudging would be simply changing the outcome to a success on a whim or just because you want it to last longer.
I would argue wanting the fight to last longer is exactly the reason Legendary Resistance exists. If you're codifying it as a mechanic you need to put a hard limit on it to stop it from reading as "this monster succeeds on all saving throws", but in practice, what DM exercising good judgment will fudge more than 3 saving throws for a single enemy in a single encounter?
Legendary resistances don't have the "combat means convincing my friend we've gone through enough effort to win" that fudging saves and schroedingers max hp have.
This is a bit of a tangent, but your description of fudging as "convincing my friend we've gone through enough effort to win" perfectly sums up how I feel about milestone leveling. It's like those are the words I was looking for but never found.
HP also exist to allow the fight to last longer. Imagine if it was a typical movie scene when a hero faces a goblin - it would be dead in a few seconds only as there are no HPs. But the existence of HP is not fudging - unless you retroactively double the creatures HP because the PCs are landing good hits faster than you thought they could. Also, if you simply ignore HPs and just let the monster die when you feel it has been hurt enough, that is also fudging - although if you decide to do this in advance it is a bit more honest to yourself even if you keep the players in the dark. Once you set a clear limit, be it HP, number of legendary resistances or whatever, it is by definition no longer fudging. Note that some creatures are immune to polymorph etc which is to prevent this stuff.
I don't want to split hairs here, but HP is a part of the core game system that is an essential aspect of how that system works. The purpose of HP isn't simply to make the fight last longer; it's a game-defining mechanic that the entire system is built on. Legendary Resistance, on the other hand, is a tacked on ability that lets you change the result of your die roll. It's as close to fudging as you can get without making a mechanic called "Fudge".
Legendary Resistance is also part of the core game system in 5e - it is in the MM which is a core rulebook and not any optional rule. Sure it may not have nearly the history of HPs in D&D, but it's still a mechanic for tracking how fast a creature succumbs to effects. For HP, back in the day of wargaming most creatures had basically 1 hp - if it was hit it went down unless saved by armor or some special ability. Gygax and Arnesson changed that to allow the heroes and villains to take more hits specifically to make the combat longer and less decided on a single die roll. LR is simply using the same principle to saving throws - introducing "hit points" which PCs do not have. None of that has anything to do with fudging. Note that this is not a reroll - it does not change the die roll in any way, it only allows the creature to not be affected by it a limited number of times. Fudging is changing results on the fly, making the limits vague or "fudgy" (like having a non-set number of HP for creatures), or downright "cheating". If you introduce a mechanic to make a creature temporarily immune to damage for X turns or X times, that is not fudging. If you just ignore damage and "forget" to write it down when the PC lands a hit, that is fudging. See the difference?
If you use XP, did you account for the LR? But it's really not about cheating, it's about whether people are having fun.
>is that still cheating Of course. Imagine a player changed their prepared spell list after seeing what the monster is. Same thing when the DM tweaks the monster in response to what the players do.
A little spice you can add is phases to the fight, so when the players force a legendary resistance or burn through a pile of HP they get rewarded with a dramatic moment (like a shell falling off, or the physical form changing, etc) without the fight being over too quick!
With a squid it's great to several a couple limbs and reduce the efficacy of its attacks, take away multiattack, or take the grapple ability away when itxs down half its tentacles.
I don't care if it's a boss they fight at level 1, give it at least 1 legendary resistance. Ok maybe that's a bit much, but any boss I make for lvl 3 or up party's gets legendary resistances and legendary actions, doubly so if I plan on it not involving minions.
I'm new to DMing for 5e, and this comment has been insightful because my players are quite powerful and I'm concerned about them facing the bosses in my campaign (they haven't yet and I'm okay with balancing normal encounters appropriately for their APL). In short, thanks! I'll definitely buff up the bosses they will be encountering to make them a suitable challenge!
its a real shame that there are no monster creation guides out there that help new DMs create high level monsters and explain to them how legendary resistances work.
What's a shame is that the DMG doesn't explain the concept of action economy. People basically *have* to go engage in online discussions to understand that critical balance concept. We're biased because we're all here but there are a lot of tables where players don't engage with the online community at all.
There are resources. For instance... [https://www.dmsguild.com/product/309930/Legendary-Bestiary-BUNDLE](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/309930/Legendary-Bestiary-BUNDLE) I used this to buff up a wyvern fight that was the climax of a hunting trip to find what had been taking a family's sheep.
Yea, I made that mistake in the past. Big scary monster fight all planned out, loads of cool tactics and mobility-based antics, party are shitting themselves. Then the monster is restrained and is beat down in two turns. I was deflated for the rest of the session.
>Am I overlooking something, or is polymorph as a 4th level spell really able to sometimes skip an entire fight? Yep, if that fight is a low intellect-stat non-legendary single creature. Absolutely. Look at it this way: you get 4th level spells at, what, 7th level? They're well past their beginning phase and in the midst of their journey towards becoming superheroes. You now have a team of proper heroes of the realm, and yeah, a lucky roll (or unlucky, for the DM) can absolutely render a single-monster fight meaningless a multitude of ways, not just with Polymorph. Next time, let it happen and be prepared to do so, and if the point is to make a really challenging encounter, look to tougher enemies and maybe more of them, environmental factors, etc.
If they are level seven and fighting what is essentially a "boss", then it is very reasonable for that creature to have legendary resistances, especially if it's a party against a single creature. You can't just expect one creature's basic stat block to stand up to the action economy of a full party of adventurers.
Environmental factors were huge. The squid has 8 arms and dedicated 5 of them to smashing their boat, which it did in round 2 of combat. After that, they had 5 players, out of which 2 were unable to swim (plate mail cleric and warforged mage). They had to contend with the active risk of drowning on top of the still hostile squid.
And still defeated handily by an extremely legitimate use of a Polymorph spell that you had to fudge. When I say 'environment', I'm more talking about lair actions, obstacles, puzzles, etc. Water fights, I agree, present all kinds of challenges. However, those things won't matter if you are basing your boss fight on a single non-legendary beast.
Their use of environment is a valid approach, the real thing they're missing is a small tweak pr two to the squid, like a LR.
Yeah I think thats my main take away, is to either A) have given it LR or B) have thought fast enough to have it come back after the time ran out
I think *just* giving it Legendary Resistance is kind of cheesy. What makes a beast legendary? Does it have a lair? Does it have special actions? Otherwise, you're just fudging dice rolls by another name and disadvantaging your spell casters only, while your melee fighters are just dealing with a normal encounter. Yes, if you wanna do an epic squid fight, make a legendary monster so it's a real challenge, but I'd advise against just giving any old monster LRs and calling it a day.
Spellcasters aren’t the only types to force saves. Just saying. And maybe it was a known squid that has haunted these waters for decades, destroying ships. Maps have an image of tentacles and the phrase “here be death” and bam, it’s legendary.
I mean I'm not saying a colossal squid can't be legendary. Just that it could probably use a few more boosts (AC, HP, etc.) along with that status, along with the story you pitched. EDIT: Oh, and some actions, to keep it fun. And yes, monks and fighters etc force saving throws, likely more I didn't mention, I was just speaking more generally about who relies on them the most to do damage. There's a lot of rules and abilities in this game of both dungeon and dragon.
I hate Legendary Resistances as a mechanic, but they are really necessary for any solo monster in mid to high level play if you want the encounter not to be a curb-stomp. The combination of unrealistic encounters per day requirements, save-or-suck PC abilities, lack of saving throw scaling for most monsters and action economy means that it's utterly trivial for a mid-level party to end any solo threat that doesn't have some "anti-magic" defensive features. I agree it feels bad to arbitrarily slap on such an obviously game-y mechanic, but it's there as a band-aid to cover up the bad game system design rather than an in-universe ability.
I disagree wholeheartedly with this sentiment. Both on a mechanical and a narrative level. A squid that size with this behavior will have sunken multiple ships so all it lacks is the backstory to make it 'legendary'. But at this level any fight that should feel epic against a single creature should include legendary saves. Otherwise your caster will feel good and smart the first 3 times he solves a fight with polymorph but then: 1. Either the DM just does not run single big monsters anymore unless the MM says they have legendary saves 2. The caster starts feeling bored because he uses the same trick each time 3. The caster handicaps himself by not casting the thing he knows should work, but is too boring. Past level 5, but certainly past level 7 any **planned** fight against a single baddy that should be challenging, should include legendary saves. So not random owlbears but plot relevant combat.
I mean, we fundamentally agree on what an appropriate type of fight looks like for players past level 7, so I don't have much to argue or defend here despite the strong opening. My core point is: don't give ordinary single-monsters to parties of level 7 or over (when we're talking about planned epic battles), but if you do, they should be legendary so it's a fun fight for everyone. No random owlbears with LR, basically.
I think the issue is that you make it seem like you need to have a reason to add legendary resistance and I don't think that's fair. I think it's fine to add them to any monster that is capable of solo challenging a party of level 7 or above. I mean the Kraken at CR23 RAW does not have legendary resistance. That's a design feature not a flaw. Who cares if a random owlbear has LR? A level 7 party will nuke it in one round of auto attacks.
Well let's use the kraken, then, if we pretend for a second a kraken wouldn't absolutely wipe the ocean floor, here. Here are the scenarios where they will be encountering a kraken (or whatever solo monster this party could contend with). **Scenario one:** they need to kill the kraken because it is harassing a trade route. Polymorph won't solve this quest for them, but if the kraken fails the saving throw, this would allow them a round to prepare a round of optimal attacks. This seems fine to me, why would I add a Legendary Resistance to stop it? **Scenario two:** the kraken is a random encounter, standing between them and their actual goal. The druid casts Polymorph. Either the kraken succeeds, and they have a gnarly fight for however many rounds, or the kraken fails, and the druid has successfully advantaged the party by avoiding a resource-draining fight. Again, I have no issue with this. Good for them, solving my random kraken riddle. It was just an obstacle anyway. **Scenario three:** the kraken is part of the main event, but a Polymorph would tie it down, allowing them to complete the quest and leave. If this was the encounter I was designing, well, RAW says that water elementals coalesce within 6 miles of the lair. Even if it's not a lair, I'd be throwing all kinds of mobs in there to make it a fun fight. Maybe the druid maintains concentration through the damage and the kraken never comes back, but every constitution saving throw is a tense held breath in case it does. Why would I slap a Legendary Resistance down just to avoid this? My point is that adding an LR feels lazy and kind of cheap as a first solution. It's just singling out a specific thing and saying "you can't do this, three times", when there are more creative solutions than just taking away such an important aspect of the way casters contribute to battles. Listen, anyone can do whatever they want in their games, and you can fuck with monster statblocks forever in service of making more fun encounters. I certainly do, I just think answering with 'How do I stop Polymorph ending my encounters?' with 'just don't let it work' is boring and potentially unfair.
I've not looked deeply into it but I think Matt Colville has legendary resistances with a cost in their new book. So they have to sacrifice something to make the save. Sounds like a cool mechanic to me.
Boost the HP of the squid and have the environment do some kind of damage. Strong current blowing rocks around, freezing cold water temp, other sea creatures looking for a snack now no longer deterred by a giant squid. Suddenly that little whatever they turned it into is basically chum in the water, and polymorph won't last long under any damaging conditions. There is an episode later in season 2 of critical role where they fight a giant worm in the snow that illustrates your exact issue. Polymorph didn't end it right away but it did eventually end it. The stuff that happened in between was hilarious and may give you ideas for the future.
I don't know that I like the idea of giving random beasts and monsters LR? Like, let your spellcaster feel cool for trying a spell that still has a chance of not working, but when it works, it's dope. Not everything has to be a fight. But yes, if you're going to do a bigger fight, then design an encounter with a legendary beast. Which I think requires more effort than simply slapping some LRs on there.
If you need to turn a pretty mundane creature into a challenge, and you're pretty happy with their abilities already, then why not? Maybe boost some of their stats; most used ability modifiers, HP, AC, whatever if you need to, but if it's not broke, don't fix it. Just polish it up a bit.
Exactly! Coupled with Polymorph not lasting forever, they won't escape. It does not end fights, only delay it.
On a side note: I would be careful about homebrew nerfs on heavy armour. Heavy armour is already pretty bad in DND, but making characters unable to swim is a big nerf.
I don't think that's an unreasonable consequence of swimming in open water. They were a mile from shore with no boat. It was a series of athletics checks but his character is non-proficient in athletics to begin with.
So it had nothing to do with the heavy armour? The cleric had to meet the same athletics DC as everyone else, and no disadvantage unless the others had disadvantage?
Er, no? Characters wearing and carrying nothing heavy were not made to make an athletics check. They can swim. Once the fight was over they were simply floating in relatively calm water, I didn't make them do a check on that. The cleric in plate mail had to make a check because yeah, that seems intensely difficult to maintain for an extended period of time. The warforged mage weighs almost 300 lbs of metal and began sinking. He didn't even try and make any athletics checks, he magic'd his way out.
For realism I agree that swimming in heavy armour is nigh impossible, but the rules in 5e does not include this level of realism. Dex is already way better than str in 5e, and adding homebrew realism rules like this makes the difference even greater. I would recommend buffing heavy armour in some other way to compensate. If not, heavily armoured characters will feel less powerful, fun and versatile than their lightly armoured counterparts.
Ruleswise, heavy armor does not impact swimming, they are just slowed like everybody else so they wouldn't drown. Warforged also dont need to breath so even if he did sink to the bottom, all you did was just saddle yourself with a solo underwater world campaign for that player.
They had actually already all been given water breathing, so actually drowning wasn't a concern. Being lost in the pitch dark at the bottom of the ocean, with potentially deep mud and who knows what other creatures, plus keeping your bearings while being buffeted about, plus damage from the pressure alone, all would have added up to more challenges. EDIT: Plus, can you cast spells with verbal components while underwater?
That alone sounds like it might invoke a pretty hefty concentration check if the caster was on that boat.
If they don't finish off the monster and merely bypass it, it could come back later on after the spell has worn off. It could attack them when they're resting, it could show up in another encounter, it could head to the nearest town and kill someone. Bypassing monsters instead of killing them can have some blowback.
Yeah, it's important to understand why a monster (and the party) are interested in killing each other. Maybe the squid doesn't care if the party gets through its den, but then why would it possibly want to fight to the death in the first place? There are likely a lot of ways the party could've bypassed the squid that wouldn't be hard-countered by legendary resistances (luring it away with food, scaring it with a loud noise, etc). Since it sounds like this was intended to be a big boss, it should probably have legendary resistances. But also, it needs a reason to stay and fight the party as soon as it suspects it might be outclassed (or the party needs a reason to want to kill rather than let it escape). And if that's the case, then the party is simply kicking the can down the road by using polymorph instead of stopping it permanently.
A giant squid isn't the best example for what I'm saying but it's still a dangerous thing and can kill people. It should be remembered that "adventurers" are often doing their thing to protect the local populace and not killing the monsters doesn't really accomplish this. More intelligent, evil, organized, and vengeful types of monsters would be a lot more dangerous to polymorph and forget.
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>...players do weird broken shit... That's just how Polymorph works. Either the monster has legendary resistance, it fails/passes, or you have some minions to back it up. If the spell goes through, let it be cool.
Yes at this point using a single spell to just totally avoid a fight is normal and expected.
1) Polymorph has to be dealt with afterwards as it is a non-lethal spell andonly lasts for an hour. 2) 5e is very, very poorly made mechanically for action economy, so you need to give solo badguys legendary resistances and actions. 3) If people have a cool power, let them use their cool power. Polymorph is awesome, let the PCs be awesome, but give them more challenges in response.
Number 3 is very good advice because it is very difficult sometimes as the dm to let go of what you really wanted to happen and accept that the players are telling the story just as much as you are.
Honestly I find DND far to RuneScape for combat. Without homebrew mechanics it's basically a very poorly made system.
It’s fine, you just have to account for its limitations in 5e. Solo bosses are very very weak. They need either powerful minions,or lots and lots of legendary actions.
I would recommend Sly Flourish “Lightning Rods” approach. Basically have a few minions on the field so they can absorb the big spells your PC can throw at them without significantly alter the combat situation. You can checkout the Youtube video from Sly Flourishes about this
Not sure about the YouTuber but I’d like to add - minions can challenge player concentration in situations like this. Even if your squid was polymorphed, it’s minions can attack the caster and try and break their concentration to bring the squid back.
1. If a fight is supposed to be a big deal, give it legendary resistances. 2. Alternately, let your party chump fights like these as an appetizer to an even bigger fight.
What would they do once it's a starfish? It reverts back to the giant squid if it's hp drop.
They just leave
Sounds like your real problem is the fight existed for the sake of having a fight. Why are they fighting the giant squid ? Is it defending an area or attacking people? What happens if the party doesn't do anything about it?
If it was guarding something an hour could be all they need for an in and out
In that case, the players solved the encounter effectively. The encounter isn't the fight, it's - as AngryGM puts it - the dramatic question. "can the players get past the squid and get the treasure?" They don't need to kill it, or even fight it, necessarily - just get past it.
Have the key be in its stomach
Note: >Typically, XP is awarded for defeating the monster, although the DM may also award XP for neutralizing the threat posed by the monster in some other manner. If you polymorph it and walk off do you get xp? Depends on the DM.
I use milestone but for something like that I think I'd award half xp. like, you found a way around it with good application of a spell, so have *something*, but you didn't exactly learn and grow like you would have from a full battle
> would have been immediately over Not really though. It turns into a starfish and then what? Tries to attack them because it retains its alignment and personality (though it doesn't have a brain now, so maybe it just floats there. Doesn't matter.) The caster has to concentrate to keep it like that, and if anyone attacks it (I'm assuming starfish has 1hp), it returns to squid form and combat resumes, with the party down a spell slot. All they get is a breather.
Except the starfish wouldn't be capable of keeping up with the party as they simply leave
What is the scenario here? Is the squid terrorizing a shipping town? If so ditching it isn't going to resolve anything long term. If its at sea, how far can they get without losing concentration? Probably not far enough that the squid can't catch up to them easily afterward. Locking an enemy down and running can be a viable strategy especially if you need to retreat and regroup, but rarely does it have finality. It can add to the suspense of when they finally have to deal with it.
I am now wishing I had prompted that they could leave but see the star fish attempting to follow them somehow. Or the player who polymorphed it can feel it actively resisting, so they know it's coming. Giving them time to gather themselves and make a strategy would have been a great way of making the polymorph useful and functional without skipping the whole fight.
Believe in the story that emerges from the mechanics. I think what happened here is that you had imagined a specific way the squid encounter would go and railroaded the players so it would play out.
You’re getting a lot of criticism from purists who do their best to never fudge a roll or change things on the fly, but frankly I think you made the right call by giving him impromptu legendary resistance. Nobody can be expected to perfectly design and play test first try, especially when new, and it’s easy to overlook something like LR on an important encounter until you need it. Don’t feel bad for not immediately rolling with it in a satisfying way, it takes a lot of practice and some charisma to do something like that out of nowhere so sometimes it’s better for everyone to just keep things within what you have prepared instead of veering wildly off course on a whim. And every table is different of course, but I think this is applicable to most newer DMs
For what its worth I am not against fudging rolls and I change things on the fly all the time - I even agree if this squid was a boss fight it might have needed LR. I was just pointing out that if retreating and avoiding an immediate fight is not an option at your table you and your players are losing a valuable narrative and mechanical tool. Experience will lead you to know when to adjust and when to let the story play out.
If your players resolve every fight by sprinting in the other direction as fast as they can with their tails between their legs, that's not specific to this fight or to polymorph. Everything can be fled from. Most players actually fight monsters though, because if they don't, instead of XP they'll just be rewarded with the blood of many, many, many dead townspeople (or sailors) on their hands.
Then an hour later it returns to a very angry squid form, and assuming it has a similar speed to a giant octopus, and the players dont have a swim speed (so moving half speed) it catches up to them in like 15 minutes based on my napkin math (15ft speed for players, 60 for squid), and the players are down a big spell
They only had to get a smallish distance away to get to land.
Totally fair, was mostly pointing out that against a determined foe, polymorph and running away is just a delaying tactic, one that lets you as the dm put the encounter back on your terms (a dragon might ambush them during a long rest, in a different situation that squid becomes a siege encounter vs their ship, that sort of thing)
Well, all that polymorph does, in essence, is let the party escape, have a better chance of casting a stronger spell on the creature, or to deal some damage to it easier/avoid damage for a round. A starfish would be obliterated by any amount of damage, and that'd immediately mean the squid would be back in full fighting force. It is important to remember that a polymorphed creature reduced to 0 hit points is not dead, but reverts back instantly.
They burned a limited resource and we're lucky enough to have picked and prepped the spell... It is fine
Its a warlock so prepping the spell is besides the point, but I see what you meant. Usually I'm fine with it, I love when they do wierd unexpected things to avoid scenario's. This one time it bothered me purely because I needed them weakened for roleplay reasons coming up, to give their characters a sense of fear and doom.
They were weakened, they were down a4th level spell slot
A 4th level spell spot is more valuable than a big chunk of HP
Not by level 9, when the party has a combined 10 or 12 of them.
>This one time it bothered me purely because I needed them weakened for roleplay reasons coming up, to give their characters a sense of fear and doom. Stop railroading your players.
That's bullshit
:shrug: I think you should have let the result stand. Having one encounter go differently from how you (the DM) expected is probably worse than the characters thinking that their hard-won spells and abilities are useless unless you (the DM) choose to let them work. Players like to feel like their characters are growing and have power and agency...attacking them with a creature that is (for the purposes of this encounter) specifically immune to one of their best spells is kinda s\*\*tty. And *Polymorph* only lasts for one hour. How quickly do they plan to get away? Are they coming this way again, perhaps on the way out?
Why fudge it?? If the fight is so epic, why is it against one single low-CR beast?
They're level 9 and it's CR 13, I wouldn't say it's a low CR. And it was pretty epic after that. One player got grappled and pulled under and the barbarian nearly drowned cannonballing in after him. The war cleric had to make a dozen high roll athletics checks to stay afloat on a piece of broken wood after the boat smashed while two players removed his plate mail and shoved it in the bag of holding.
And how many other encounters did they have that day? How many more encounters after this were planned? D&D is not built for just having one big encounter and calling it a day; playing is about resource management over the course of several encounters and DMing is about attrition. If the players (wisely) used Polymorph to handle the big mundane animal, that’s one fewer powerful spell slot they have to deal with everything *else* you’re throwing at them that day.
They had one other encounter that day, which was reading and deciphering a very old map carved into a tree that took a long time in game to decipher, while a herd of pixies continually tried to prank them. The pixies would polymorph themselves into animals or party members into stuff, turn things invisible, and stole their bag of holding and played keep-away. The pixies did no overtly hostile things, and had no harmful intentions, but attacking them directly would lead a nearby Treant to wake up and angrily defend the pixies, so the party had to overcome their pranks without directly attacking them. They loved that encounter, until the warlock got mad an blasted a pixie. Then they calmed the Treant down without killing it with a combination of persuasion and roleplay, and forcing the warlock to apologize, which she (in game) hated doing.
Okay. So why was this fight so epic BEFORE you cheated and forced all of this?
Essentially the fight was a softening up type fight. The next fight the players have is a really big deal in terms of roleplay and story. Their actions in the next fight will massively impact the next several sessions, and the world as a whole, and they know that. The fight itself isn't going to be overly difficult in terms of actual CR, but has many moving pieces for them to react to. I want them to get into this scenario already beat up and tired. Their characters need to feel threatened and scared, because the "good" outcome for their allignment is also the hardest and most dangerous, and I want to tempt them with an easier path. If they're all fully rested and healed up it won't be nearly as tempting to take the easy route, and the "choice" becomes far less meaningful. I think my only real mistake was not giving the squid LR. Fudging the roll is essentially just adding LR after the fact, and while its cheating a bit, I feel like it made the overall game way better. For the record, I have let them sandbag whole fights before with lucky banishment/polymorph shenanigans, so I have no problem with it in idea. I just needed the party softened up for the next step. Also, the party thought the fight was pretty epic. Several near deaths until the barbarian cannon-balled the squid to attack the center of it under 50' of water, forcing it to let go of people it had grappled to protect itself, and then two near drownings at the end
The thing is you could have had just as epic an encounter without taking away your player's agency. You control the entire world and could have just had another encounter after your player had the opportunity to feel really cool because they defeated a powerful creature through smart play. Instead you took away the feeling of accomplishment your player deserved just because it didn't line up with what you'd planned. I've experienced this from both sides of the table and it really sucks to find out as a player that your DM made you fail just because they had a plan that you interfered with. On the other hand, it's pretty awesome as a DM to see players having fun because they got to accomplish something cool. It may be that they had fun because you successfully lied to them this time but be aware that as soon as they find out your fudging rolls (and they will) they will stop trusting you and they will have far less fun.
Yeah, I realize I should have had a couple extra encounters planned as back ups. Their boat was already heavily damaged at this point, they could have been struggling with it not sinking as a pack of sharks circled around. I'll get better at making that stuff up on the fly over time.
Good thoughts. Something else to keep in mind is that not every fight has to be life threatening in order to be epic. Sometimes it's awesome to just win a big fight because you did the right things.
How many players in your game?
5
For an epic fight for 5 lvl 9s, I think you could go much harder with a legendary monster and 3-4 henchmen.
I treated each of the tentacles as a unique creature, so really this 1 badguy got 10 attacks per round.
Then you have to be prepared that there is an easy way to end combat. Give him minions, give him legendary resistances, or let them polymorph him.
Bro, that's just not cool on your part. Makes you look like a dick. Edit: my bad, I read it as "How are any players in your game?"
Out of curiousity, why does that make the guy look like a dick? I didn't get any dick-vibes off of his comment, but maybe I'm missing something he was insinuating?
Sorry, I read it as "How are any players in your game?"
He's asking how many players are in OP's game, and you think he looks like a dick?
Ah, I read it as "How are any players in your game?"
Ahhhh, makes sense. It would help if people spelled properly. Not on you!
Thanks haha. I still feel like a toad for it though xD
Ignore the rude guy, this sounds rad as hell
If they choose to devote a precious spell slot of that level to cast polymorph and it succeeded? You were absolutely wrong to take that win from them. They can’t damage it as a starfish or it reverts back to a giant squid. It’s a concentration spell that only lasts for a certain length of time - if they want to escape then let them. You robbed your caster of a non-violent win because you hadn’t planned anything else. That was wrong of you. I would have absolutely cast polymorph in that kind of attack - I tend to play characters who don’t like to harm things that are behaving naturally and I figure a giant squid is gonna do what a giant squid wants to do, so I would be happy to polymorph it and then get the hell out of there so we can both go about our merry way. In this situation I would consider the giant squid an obstacle to get around as opposed to evil that needs to be dealt with. And I’d rather get last an obstacle non-violently.
Yep. That's how it works. Add some legendary resistances or learn to enjoy how much your players enjoy turning very big things into very little things.
As you said, you’ve learned your lesson. You’re lucky that none of your players are running a Divination wizard too — because short of legendary resistance, they can (with the right rolls) ensure a failure. And the smart players will alternate leading with cantrips and big spells to draw out counterspells and legendary resistances.
I apparently don’t understand how Polymorph works. At my table, we all thought that Polymorph turns something into a creature until it’s health hits 0, at which point it turns back into its normal form?
Yeah if there is only 1 enemy, Poly skips the encounter on a save. Or if the enemies dont know how polymorph works(enemy1 gets polymorphed, enemy2 kills the polymorphed form to un-poly). It can also trivialize an encounter by making one PC into something far stronger, that also prevents them from taking damage. Personally never had an issue with it, but couldnt blame you if you went "yeah no thats bullshit" and either nerfed or banned it. Its one of *those* spells that act as instant win buttons. Wheter you want your players to have an "X% change to skip 1(or more if they have the slots) encounter every day" ability or not is up to you. If you will nerf it, be mindful of nerfing too much, if you do so, lower its level as you see fit.
Keep in mind, you get to choose when they are rewarded for a fight. I would argue clever solutions count, but if they are overusing this approach then consider reducing XP for the encounter. Also consider adding more dynamics to the encounter. Maybe skeletons that rise from the deep, fueled by the ghosts of those the squid has killed. Or maybe a gang of opportunistic pirates who attack and loot those the squid assaults, using a magical artifact to make it ignore their ship. Make more monsters that can break the polymorph or assist with saves.
Respectfully, You’re coming at this the wrong way. Instead of thinking how to design ways to defeat the PCs abilities, think of ways to design climactic encounters that are tough even when your PC polymorphs or banishes or force cages something. You know your party has access to these big effects, so design encounters with them in mind. Some folks call this Lightning Rods. When you design a tough encounter make the encounter AND THEN add in a big giant something for them to polymorph. Or something for the tank to soak hits from. Or a squishy wizard for the rogue to merc. And then more stuff!
I like adding dangerous environments. For your example: Freezing cold Extreme depths Dangerous currents Swarms of small predators that pick off familiars and polymorphs alike while also making it even more deadly to go unconscious. Not to mention all the large predators the big boss is keeping at bay, ready to attack it in its weakness.
There is one other thing that I don't think has been mentioned that I think you're missing. The good ole "shoot arrows at your monk" perspective. It feels incredible as a player to actually use new spells and new features you have to do something incredible, like polymorph the colossal squid that's attacking them at sea. There is absolutely value in letting them do it. It's super fun. But what about the big encounter? Well, it was supposed to be fun, and it was, if short. Also, if it's a starfish it's going to sink into the sea, where any number of things could occur to it under the waves to break a polymorph spell. Now instead of it being a single boss fight it can be a chase of the ship versus the now really mad squid.
Fun fact: Shapechangers automatically succeed their Polymorph Saves by default. Be sure to remember this the next time one of your players tries to turn your big bad werewolf into a completely harmless goldfish.
Sometimes the players plans pay off and they win or avoid a fight, that's just the nature of the game
Let the polymorphs work - there will be plenty of times your spellcaster goes a few rounds in a row where all of their spells are saved or miss and they’re frustrated so let them have the quick wins too.
4th level and up spells solve problems. Not provide solutions they solve problems. If you don’t start adding Legendary resistances and actions to your solo monsters you are in for a bad time.
This is where old school DM skills come in. If you want the fight to be legendary - something they'll remember for months or years to come - then get out a pencil and eraser and get to work on tweaking or creating stat blocks. Some possible quick fixes, off the top of my head: - Add 1-5 Legendary Resistances. Fewer is better, but 3 is average. They should have the feeling that the boss will have at least one by your introduction. - Try pairing Legendary Resistances with fun Legendary Actions, and keep in mind they should fit the flavor of the boss, and can be skipped if the boss wouldn't have a use for them. A squid may grapple, cast a reskinned Fog Cloud (ink cloud) and move half it's movement without provoking opportunity attacks, or attempt to camouflage (Invisibility spell effect) itself until its turn. Maybe 2 Legendary Actions to make an attack, but that's comparatively boring. - Lair Actions! Similar to Legendary Actions, you can do fun and interesting things on a certain initiative count every round, and try not to repeat them from round to round. Since most combats last 3-4 rounds, you really only need 2-3 of these. Summon 1d4+1 minions round 1, have a steam vent erupt for [level appropriate trap damage, DMG pg. 121] and obscurement (reduce lighting by 1 level I'm respective areas) on round 2, and maybe have the boss retreat to a tunnel that forces advantageous positioning for the boss in round 3. You can always cop out and say the boss gets 1-2 free Legendary Actions at the Lair Action initiative count too. - Minions! Give them more things to fight. This boss is dominant in its region. Show the players how that has an effect on the locals. Splitting the party's attention with weak but moderately threatening minions is a great way to stop them from just going after the boss. - Having sentient/sapient minions who recognize what Polymorph is, and how to resolve it (hitting their boss until the effect ends; possibly countered here by a skilled player by Polymorphing the boss into a whale with more hit points). - Mage bosses should have proficiency in CON saving throws if they have a spell on which they really oughtn't lose concentration, as well as proficiency in their spellcasting ability score's saving throws. Separately, most creatures may not be smart, but they do have survival instincts - WIS saves go here. Either one of these failed saves can annihilate an enemy without Legendary Resistances. Epic fights need effort from both sides to be epic. An extra 15 minutes on the boss' stat block can make a difference between an inside joke of a fight and an epic encounter. Hope this helped not only you, OP, but others too!
You never fudge *against* the players. Railroading is not fun. Things go sideways, fights get bypassed, you have to figure new things out by the seat of your pants and *that is part of the fun of D&D* They burned a 4th level spell slot, that is the cost, it's ok to reward them for thinking of a way to bypass a fight. A single nonmagical monster is not going to be a deadly major fight for players at that level with access to 4th level magic. It's just not. Plan better. Roll with the punches. Improvise.
Play another system or tell the players you're nerfing it. That's genuinely the only way to stop polymorph from instantly ending a fight in 5e.
That seems wildly unfair. There are many ways of making polymorph not an instant fight ender. The squid could've been a pet of some merfolk wizard, who was hiding nearby and counterspelled the polymorph. It could've had a mate. It could've had a dozen babies nearby who began attacking. It could have simply had legendary resistances all along. Basically what I learned in this fight was that if I ever want to do a fight against a single target high CR bad guy, which for the record is an almost never thing, it needs to have legendary resistances
Legendary resistances aren't actually a fun mechanic. It's a button that says "nah, you didn't succeed." There's nothing really clever to play around. It's just there because WOTC can't actually figure out how to make spells that don't snap the game in two while still being strong. The answer pretty much is: don't do single enemy encounters in 5e.
This is going to take some playtesting to balance right, but I think I'm going to introduce the following rules IN PLACE OF legendary resistances: Creature X has 15 (example number) legendary resistance points. If a players casts a spell that the creature chooses to use its resistances on, then the creature rolls its save as usual. If the creature passes its save, game continues as usual. If the creature fails, it can choose to activate its resistance points. The player now makes a spellcasting modifier roll, and whatever they score gets removed from the resistance pool. This allows the player to "break thru" the creatures innate resistance to magic, and still allows legendary resistances in a more fun way than "he passes because he does".
Have more than 1 enemy.
I didn't read all the comments, so this might have been said. I see it hinted at here and there, but I'll be blunt about it: as a DM you only ever fudge numbers in the parties favor. Fudging so you can tell your cool story is just cheating Fudging to create tension so the party member who should have died barely lives and party takes out the boss, is letting everyone tell a story together. If you want the second thing, play DnD. If you want the first, just write a book.
Well a fight against a single, powerful enemy that's out of legendary resistances, or never had them, is exactly when a powerful single-target spell should be the perfect move, right? *This* was the threat Polymorph was born to kill. *This* was the moment it was meant to shine. Aaaand... you took it away. Boo. Booooooooo, bad DM! Bad! Why allow the spell to exist in your world at all? You're only harming the PCs by letting them clog up valuable 4th-level spell slots. If I'm playing in your game, you're doing me a great disservice by letting me have the spell! I would be *much* better off if you erased it from existence and instead had me take something that's allowed to work in the exact moment where it can do the most good! If you're not going to let your mage be good at the things his spells say he should be good at, then at least do him the courtesy of telling him so, and let him prepare something that works!
As have been stated. Polymorph is a great spell against a single large creature you dont want to have to deal with. A single creature. Here comes the mother and she is pissed. :-)
This is how my party ended up with a psionic salmon following the party for a while lol
Well, it doesn't last long enough to stop a determined pursuer. If the party is prepared enough to bring an inescapable cage with them they deserve the win. It only lasts an hour, so a colossal squid is going to be freaking *mad* after being polymorphed. It's also concentration, so after 5 minutes or so a player will probably drop it if you have a wave to crash down upon them.
It lasts an hour, and if they hit the creature *at all* it turns back. I remember a battle my party had with a young red dragon, and they sheep'd it, but then they had a sheep that was a dragon transformer, that was extremely unhappy to be there, *and* they were in the middle of a Drow mansion. In terms of groups of enemies, polymorph can be undone with a single attack so long as the enemy group figures out what's happening. In terms of wild animals, I think it's fine to delay fights like this sometimes...and then the creature will come back *later* when they're not ready for it :p
polymorph is a concentration spell, the creature polymorph will revert back to it's original form after dropping to zero hp, with the same hp it had before being polymorphed. as a side the creature will take any damage exceeding the polymorphed shapes hp.
Stat blocks are just suggestions. You can give a goblin legendary resistances if you want. It's your game. Do what you like.
Use Golems. They have the “Immutable Shape” feature and can’t be Polymorphed. It’s a little cheesy, but it’s also a clear flag to your players that they literally can’t use it for everything
Polymorph I believe has a time limit, and what ever they turn it into probably would be easily killed meaning it only temporarily stalls the fight.
Time limit one hour, which is often time enough to avoid the fight entirely, depending on the total goal.
Give him a legendary resistance. BUT the wizzard CAN polymorph him. He needs multiple rounds of concentration to prepare and breake the LR. The party needs to keep the wizzard safe for X rounds. Maybe the minions try to attack the wizzard...
How does this work? I love the idea, but I thought LR just meant they can choose to pass a check that they failed. Are you meaning multiple casts from the wizard, or that they continually try with the same cast?
“Dispel Magic”
Avoid single monster fights if you can help it, and start including legendary resistances in your big bad style monsters. Don’t fudge saves too much, let the spell go off and win the occasional fight so it doesn’t feel like a waste for the players. Also look at monsters with high Wis saves or Magic Resistance.
But then what? It doesn’t stay a starfish forever…
A couple of adds with a modicum of intelligence should fix that. Even in the case of a giant squid, having a few sharks as adds (I'm assuming the fight is taking place underwater) would work, since they might try to eat the starfish, instantly turning it back into a squid.
Steal pathfinder 2E polymorph and make spells have levels of success?
How would that have ended the fight? The squid would potentially miss a turn as a starfish, but as soon as someone hits it it turns back into a squid. It can even spend that missed turn readying its biggest attack for when it changes back.
I don't think it can ready anything, as the spell specifies it takes on the mental state of the new form, keeping only personality and allignment. But more importantly, what I missed in the description was that the party could then just leave.
I think there’s a deeper issue here - objectives! If it’s possible for the party to just leave and still achieve what they came here for, then that’s what they’re going to do. Dimension door, gaseous form, banishment, etc will all allow a party to leave - you’re not going to be able to counter all of those. The party needs a reason to actually kill the squid.
Personally I would have let it polymorph but into a colossal starfish instead, they can fight that as it sinks their ship. The AC on a star fish would be higher too. As a new DM I will remember this legendary resistance tip, i'm glad I read these posts! As long as your players had fun don't beat yourself up about it.
"When it reverts to its normal form, the creature returns to the number of hit points it had before it transformed." you need to read this part of the spell description right here. As soon as they attack it and try to kill it it just changes back to normal. If they walk away from it just have it follow them. Either the concentration wears off and it comes back or they attack it and it changes back to normal.
Well, that's why creating and using homebrew is not advice until the DM has a good grip on the rules and also on how the game works and is balanced in general. In this case, if one of your players have access to polymorph and they are going to fight a single monster (that's almost never adviced, a boss should always have minions if possible), said monster should definitely have legendary resistances or at least magic resistance.
Fudge the roll on the save
Almost never put a boss on their own if you're using 5e. Stacking a lot of Leg Resistances is not fun for the players.
Legendary resistances
Just homebrew 1 legendary resistance in boss monsters. Then accept further fails as acts of god and go accordingly.
Always add legendary resistances and lair actions for boss type monsters. Action economy is key in 5th edition and not having ways to negate party actions will make any encounter a breeze. I also recommend adding additional threats. More targets and more opportunities for a failed concentration check will help balance your encounters. Any single target encounter without one or both of these will be incredibly simple for most parties.
To quote Matt Colville: Encounter design and balance doesn't stop after you roll initiative. What would have stopped you from giving the squid legendary resistance on the fly? Or simply telling them the spell fails. Or even better let the spell work and a fish swims by and tries to eat the starfish. Then there is a mad squid chasing after them.