Mechanic Overview and Rules

Legendary Resistances have been changed in From the Pale 5e to help the DM create more varied and dynamic enemies as well as encounters built around those enemies. They also have been overhauled to create a dynamic where forcing the enemy to use legendary resistances is important to the combat flow, even if the enemy saves on their rolls, while still creating a chance for the enemy to fail and change the tides of combat. 

These legendary resistances work as follows:

• Legendary resistances are a resource that some monster statblocks (bosses) have to help them make their saving throws, while also being tied to an additional mechanic that increases the boss’s danger level.
• When a creature with legendary resistances fails a saving throw, it automatically consumes one legendary resistance (it cannot choose to not spend the resource) and gains a bonus to the saving throw equal to the monster’s proficiency bonus, potentially turning the failure into a success.
• This resource regenerates back to the creature’s maximum at the beginning of every turn, but first any unspent legendary resistances from the previous round are tallied.
• This number of unspent resistances is then used for a mechanic as listed on the statblock. This can be anything, from simple numbers buffs like giving the boss a pool of temporary hit points, to fight-defining mechanics like setting the charge pace of a dragon’s breath attack.
• Finally, at the end of a boss’s turn, it can spend a single legendary resistance to end a harmful effect on itself, to become immune to a spell or feature that has forced it to make a saving throw for the next minute, or to ignore an effect restricting its movement in the environment around it.
  • A harmful effect can range from spells like Hypnotic Pattern or Faerie Fire, to conditions like being grappled or stunned. 
  • When a creature uses a legendary resistance to become resistant to a spell or feature that has forced it to make a saving throw, this means the creature automatically succeeds on all future saves against it, but does not prevent damage or other effects from happening. For example if the boss becomes immune to the Spirit Guardians spell, it automatically saves on all future rolls against the spell, but still takes the half damage as usual, and has its movement halved while in the area.
  • An effect restricting a creature’s movement in the environment around it can range from difficult terrain on the battlefield (magical or nonmagical), or even spells like Forcecage. 

• These mechanics force the players to play around the boss’s legendary resistances by either working to minimize the number of unspent resistances a boss has, or working together to overwhelm it in order to open the path for the boss to be debuffed effectively. The players won’t be expected to reduce the boss’s resistances to zero every turn in order to win, because it is not about stopping the boss mechanics, it’s about slowing them down.
• This system can be used to open up new design avenues for DMs creating their own boss monster statblocks (examples of which can be found in this category of the wiki).
• There also is a system for simple mechanics that can fit into basically any statblock or encounter (also found in this same wiki category).

Steps in a turn

When a creature has legendary resistances, the order of a turn and the various triggered effects that can happen at the beginning or end of a turn happen in this order:

1. The creature’s turn begins, triggering effects that happen at the beginning of its turn.
2. The creature’s unspent legendary resistances from the previous turn are tallied towards their related mechanic.
3. The creature regenerates all of its expended legendary resistances.
4. The creature takes its turn as normal.
5. The creature ends its turn, triggering effects that happen at the end of its turn.
6. The creature can then spend a single legendary resistance to end a harmful effect on itself, to become immune to a spell or feature that has forced it to make a saving throw for the next minute, or to ignore an effect restricting its movement in the environment around it on its next turn.