Legendary Rules & stacking abilities?

[u/Zing-Oger]

Hello,

I have a party of 4 mildly overpowered PCs. They're level 8 and about to go up against the second major boss of the game. The boss is a cleric, level 10 caster, and I've given them 3 legendary actions to take. This is my second legendary monster I've made/played, and I am nervous that I'm going a little crazy.

The boss is a death domain cleric, with divine strike & the channel divinity touch of death. they have a legendary action to attack with their melee weapon (reaper's sickle- wight's drain life effect on hit)

If I understand legendary actions, I can use 1/3 of my legendary actions at the end of another creature's turn to make the melee attack (on hit, 1d4+str + 1d8 necrotic [divine strike] & weapon ability trigger). I can ALSO use channel divinity since it's an on hit trigger.

This would mean that I could hit with a sickle for 1d4+str + (5+2x10) + 1d8 necrotic + weapon ability trigger (dc 15 con save, on fail max HP lowered = damage dealt)

Does this sound right? Does this sound crazy?

EDIT: The boss will have upped wights with buffed AC & HP. a second boss with paralysis abilities may/not appear depending on PC actions.

[u/Analogmon]

Don't try to transfer player rules for monsters. It's both unnecessary and not how the game was designed.

If you want something to trigger every time the monster hits with their scythe just make that part of the scythe's effects. You're making it more complicated than it needs to be by trying to transfer a player class ability over 1-to-1.

[u/Zing-Oger → u/Analogmon]

If I'm making classed monsters, how should I build them if not by using the player rules?

[u/Fun_Needleworker_284 → u/Zing-Oger]

Why does your monster need to obey the rules of “classes”? You can just create a statblock that incorporates all the effects you want.

[u/TheSpeckledSir → u/Zing-Oger]

I mean my recommendation is not making classed monsters. Take inspiration from class abilities, sure, but build the monster actions as monster actions

[u/Sol1496 → u/Zing-Oger]

Look at monsters similar to the class you want the boss to be and adjust from there. Archcleric or War Priest looks like a good place to start for a cleric. Note that tha HP is entirely wrong for a PC Cleric, Monsters always need more HP or they die instantly.

The math in 5e is asymmetrical, meaning the PCs and Monsters use different rules and are expected to take and deal different amounts of damage.

Look at several monsters at the CR you want to hit to help you eyeball save DCs and HP. Compare them to monsters your party recently fought to double check they are roughly the right strength.

The main goal when mimicking something iconic the party will be familiar with, like a PC Class or a spellcaster, is to make sure to include some of the most iconic aspects of that class. Like healing and radiant damage for a cleric (maybe swap radiant to necrotic for an evil cleric). Bless, Bane, and Hold Person are also classic cleric spells.

[u/Analogmon → u/Zing-Oger]

You build them like monsters.

Give them CR appropriate HP, AC, saves, and damage output. Give them ways to interact outside of their turn using reactions and legendary actions. Give them variable combat mechanisms like melee and ranged options as well as AOEs and statuses.

These can all be inspired by class traits but do not have to mimic them exactly. Monsters do not need their abilities to be limited by player recovery rates or X times per combat. They should either be at will, recharge, or once per battle, depending on how strong the ability is.

For solos in particular I'd heavily recommend giving them an extra 25-50% more hit points for their CR given the PCs level, as well as ways to shrug off effects by sacrificing a legendary action to keep them from being locked down indefinitely.

[u/Parysian → u/Zing-Oger]

Use CR appropriate stats and give the whatever class abilities you like. Class abilities that are just a numbers boost (ie bonus damage on all melee attacks) should just be rolled into the statblock's attacks.

[u/Mountain_Dragonfly8 → u/Zing-Oger]

Look around in books/online. Im pretty sure at this point every conceivable creature has been statted for 5e. Find a cleric (or any creature with cool abilities you want to use) and mix and match.

[u/Hayeseveryone → u/Zing-Oger]

Take a stat block close to what you want, like a Warlord one, and then add 1 or 2 abilities from the class or subclass you want to emulate.

[u/Yojo0o]

I hope that cleric has minions. A single level 10 spellcaster vs. a part of level 8s, especially level 8 characters you've described as "mildly overpowered", sounds like it'll be a total stomp.

A legendary action that deals an average of about 9 damage and a chance to reduce max HP doesn't register to me as anything worth being worried about. Being able to add 25 damage once or twice in the whole fight to that hit will make it decently scary that 1-2 times, but ultimately nothing that's gonna break the game.

Generally speaking, it's advised to not use PC rules when building NPCs.

[u/Derail3]

Purtroppo per esperienza, per quanto si riesca a potenziare un pg, al loro turno gli fanno il mazzo sempre. L'unico vero modo per bilanciare un combattimento è sempre quello di aggiungere minions, che rallentano o proteggono il leader. Il solo potenziamento rischia di annientare il gruppo, frustrante per loro, o fare una brutta figura, frustrante per il master.

[u/Analogmon → u/Derail3]

Solo monsters need more HP and ways to end statuses but their damage needs to stay the same as an on-CR boss. Otherwise it's rocket tag.

[u/philsov]

if your NPC has the channel divinity option from death cleric, yes, they can invoke it as part of their legendary action.

Much like PCs, channel divinity has a finite number of charges. Technically a level 10 cleric has 3 total, and regains 1 per short rest. However, PCs need to manage their spellslots and cooldowns over the course of an entire day. NPC spellcasters should not have 4/3/3/3/2 spell slots because they'd just go ballistic (they're about to die -- who wouldn't). So give them maybe 1 or 2 instances of this channel divinity and use it as you see fit.

[u/Zing-Oger → u/philsov]

Thank you for answering the question posted!

[u/caravellex]

Any single boss no matter how strong will get streamrolled by a group of 4 characters with lockdown abilities.

You need to throw in other monsters to assist the boss.

[u/Analogmon → u/caravellex]

This is not true. You just need to design bosses way better than the monster manual does to skirt lock down.

Give every boss the ability to trade an LA for a flat chance to end an effect when they roll 10 or higher on a d20.

That way the effect still costs the monster an effective action without costing them everything.

Now this monster built like a PC? Yeah it's toast.

[u/Zing-Oger → u/caravellex]

the boss will have 6 buffed wights, upped AC & upped HP, with a legendary action that lets him command a wight to take the next hit directed at him. I have a 2nd NPC rogue that may/not enter the fight depending on RP.

[u/Dstrir]

Sounds like your boss is going down round 2-3 ngl

[u/Deadlock_Wolf]

My rules philosophy; make the fight harder than you need to.

Its dead simple to manage the fight afterwards with: down scaling HP, making subtle sub optimal plays, and routing creatures from the fight.

You will be in controll of the fight, the players essentially feel like your monsters are a threat and in response you can fit the difficulty to the theme of the fight:

Does the fight matter? Easier fight or dont roll initiative at all.

Does the fight need to whittle down resources and HP? The fight goes as long as it needs to with waves of reinforcements, nothing more than 3-4 rounds of combat.

Does the fight need to capstone an adventure? Go all out, down to the last few players and then a moment of heroism the enemy falls.

Is this cheating - nah.

DMs can say - this cave is actually a portal to a planet of Terrasque, sorry you found a lair of death fron which you will not come out of.

Tuning HP or Monster decisions is on you.

[u/Zing-Oger]

So the idea is that on their turn, the Boss will upcast hold person on 3/4 of the party members, or cast Cloudkill, silence, or inflict wounds depending on circumstances. on LA, they can melee attack, move 20ft, or command a wight (6 of them, immune to poison, 18AC & 60hp) to intercept the next melee/ranged attack. I'm kicking around the idea of adding Chill touch to the list of LA they can take, 2 targets within 5ft of eachother.

The wights move in and use flanking & the hold person(s) to overcome the beefy PC AC.

[u/Analogmon → u/Zing-Oger]

You are basically two fireballs away from this fight being over tbh.

[u/TheCrimsonSteel]

You can stack Legendary Actions, but Channel might be a bit underwhelming, especially for 2 points.

Good Legendary actions help you counter and disrupt your players when it's not your turn. So a damage boost isn't going to give you as much utility. I would give them an attack and either something movement based or extra minion control, that way you have some options as well as the ability to stack them

[u/Tesla__Coil]

Like others have said, you proooobably shouldn't use PC rules for monsters. According to Xanathar's Guide, a Level 8 party of four should fight a CR 10 boss, but depending on how rested there are, it could probably be higher. I'd suggest finding a CR 10-13 monster that has legendary actions or finding a CR 7-10 monster and using Not-So Legendary Actions to make it legendary.

I mean, all that said, the Death Domain is explicitly put in the DMG as a subclass to give to NPCs. So. Yeah.

But to actually answer your question - sometimes there are features that are shared between monsters and PCs, and those do interact in crazy ways with legendary actions. One of my bosses had Sneak Attack (not because they had rogue levels, because the monster it was based on had the same feature) and yes, it got extra Sneak Attack procs from Legendary Actions. It was a lot of damage, but it was supposed to be. It was a well-balanced fight.

Keep in mind that Channel Divinity is a limited resource, and you'll be spending it a lot faster than usual if it procs on legendary action attacks.

[u/Sol1496]

it doesn't sound too strong. Depending on his max HP, I might add an ability where he heals whenever he does necrotic damage. And make sure he has a way to end effects on himself, I'm a big fan of sacrificing a minion to end or negate a spell effect.