While most combat encounters will be the heroes against a group of monsters, occasionally a solo fight is demanded by the story. However, when facing only a single enemy, heroes can pump out serious amounts of damage and take down even an extremely powerful foe quickly. So, solo monsters should almost always be Legendary.
Heroes should know when they are fighting a Legendary creature. It should not happen every session; these encounters should be saved for a particularly meaningful fight. This is THE SCARY DRAGON, or the named boss, or the Big Bad Evil Guy. A Legendary monster has a few important elements:
Legendary monsters act after EACH hero’s turn. This creates new tactical options and challenges for the party and aids you in balancing an encounter for different party sizes.
Acting after each turn? What if a mob of 100 commoners attack a dragon, does it get to move at light speed after each one of their turns?! No. Only after hero’s turns. Commoners, minions, and other followers are not heroes. As the GM, use your best judgment and feel free to nix any rule that your table doesn’t like or that doesn’t make sense in the world.
They have interesting mechanics and weaknesses that can be uncovered through research ahead of time or using the Assess action in combat.
Saves
Like heroes, Legendary Monsters have advantaged (+) or disadvantaged (–) saves. For example STR++, WIL– means that this monster would roll STR saves with advantage 2 (two additional dice), and WIL saves with disadvantage.
Bloodied
They gain an additional dangerous ability as their HP drops to half.
Last Stand
When they are reduced to 0 HP, legendary monsters are dying and they gain dangerous new capabilities. They finally die once a small amount of additional damage is done. The tide shifting back and forth in a Legendary battle will help make it memorable!
Optional Actions
Each legendary monster can also have the default actions to cause fear or move players around instead of their listed attacks. A great way to add drama or tune down an encounter that is too challenging. For example:
- Wind Up/Breathe In. Regain the use of a single use ability.
- Terrible Roar/Creepy Monologue/Taunt. Creatures (or a creature) who hear this make a WIL save or are Frightened for 1 turn.
- Toss Around/Telekinetic Shove. STR save or moved, Prone, etc.
- Size Up/Spot Weakness/Pin Down. DEX save, the next attack you make is with advantage and cannot be Interposed.