Monster Traits Errata v.2
Legendary Resistance
Original Version
Legendary Resistance (#/Day). If the creature fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.
Rewritten Version
Legendary Resistance (#/Day). At the start of its turn, it can choose to end one condition or spell effecting itself.
Drict's Notes. Legendary Resistance is an incredibly unfair and unpleasant mechanic in RAW D&D5e. It de-incentivizes the use of character resources, causes DMs and players to play this weird game of baiting Legendary Resistances from any save, and ultimately feels like an undeserved "get-out-of-jail-free card", especially if already paired with features like Magic Resistance or obnoxious high save bonuses.
This change helps fix a bit of the issues from this feature, namely: 1) It doesn't save from everything, just some of the larger deterrents without making them feel irrelevant: If a spellcaster or martial like Monk burns precious resources to attempt to get a return on some form of disabling CC (Condition Control), the Condition will last as long as until its the Legendary Creature's turn, so potentially the party can capitalize on this effect, while the Legendary Creature isn't deprived of its actions. 2) It doesn't fully fix the issues totally with Legendary Resistance, but does put a cap on its power, and still retains the strength of "Legendary Creatures" you might encounter. 3) In an actual combat theatre, characters closer to the Legendary Creature's Initiative get the shorter end of the stick when it comes to gaining the most of their investment of forcing the save, since the feature activates at the start of the Legendary Creature's turn. There's no really helping that, but good to note anyways.
Magic Resistance
Original Version
Magic Resistance. The creature has advantage on saving throws against Spells and other magical effects.
Rewritten Versions
Arcane Defiance. The creature has advantage on saving throws against Arcane Spells and other magical effects from from Artificers, Bards, Sorcerers, Wizards, and Warlocks.
Divine Ward. The creature has advantage on saving throws against Divine Spells and other magical effects such as Channel Divinity or features from Clerics, Paladins, and Celestials.
Primal Resilience. The creature has advantage on saving throws against Primal Spells and other magical effects from Druids, Rangers, Elementals, and Fey.
Drict's Notes. With the new push from WotC's One D&D changes including the new UA2022 Expert Classes, which gave us a taste of the new spellcasting premise of D&D, which is dividing magic spells into Arcane, Divine, and Primal Spells, which is a far cry from what does seem to be its spiritual takeaway from Pathfinder (still want Occult to be a casting type). With this change, seems like a perfect time to fully take the influence of this to complete this nerf to Magic Resistance, which breaks it up into 3 different types to give to monsters.
If you want to have a reference of all Spells involved in both my game's School of Magic changes, and which are considered Arcane, Divine, and Primal, you may click this link: Spell Lists.
Also for reference here, and for the time being, Spells casted by a respective class, even if that spell isn't on the Arcane, Divine, or Primal Spell list but is cast by that respective class due to having some feature, such as from Domain Spells, etc., that Spell is considered to be of both the respective Spell list of its caster and of its original Spell List, such as if a fireball spell is cast by a Light Cleric, it would both be considered an Arcane Spell for Arcane Defiance since that's its original Spell, and a Divine Spell for Divine Ward since its being casted by a Cleric. That's just the way it will work for the time being for this document v2.
Weapon Type Attacks
Original Version
Damage Resistances / Immunities Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks (that aren't Adamantine, Silvered, etc.)
See Devils, Golems, Lycanthropes, etc.
New Version
Golems
Clay Golem, Flesh Golem, Iron Golem, Stone Golem
Damage Immunities Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks not made with Adamantine Weapons.
Damage Immunity for Golems remains the same.
Damage Resistances Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Magical Attacks not made with Adamantine Weapons.
Damage Resistance for Golems has been added.
Golems - Drict's Notes. Golems, or at least some forms of Constructs have been fairly buffed. This pushes my homebrew game philosophy to make weapon damage types be more important with some of the enemies you might face, and not cause magic weapons to be the full catch-all of overcoming damage. A creature with resistance to magic weapon attacks does exist already within the RAW, it's the Demilich, and while it might be oddly pertinent to give such a powerful feature, it still is overcome by the Adamantine vulnerability, unlike the Demilich. Golems are expected to be hardy, magically tough beings, just seems weird to me to have such a specific vulnerability without emphasizing on it in any meaningful way.
Lycanthropes
Jackalwere, Shifter, Werebear, Wereboar, Wererat, Wereraven, Weretiger, Werewolf
Damage Immunities Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks not made with Silvered Weapons.
Damage Immunity for Lycanthropes from nonsilvered weapons has been removed.
Regeneration. The Lycanthrope regains 10 Hit Points at the start of its turn. If the Lycanthrope takes damage from a silvered weapon, this trait doesn't function at the start of the Lycanthrope's next turn. The Lycanthrope dies only if it starts its turn with 0 Hit Points and doesn't regenerate.
Lycanthropes - Drict's Notes. Mostly done for the purpose of sort of soft nerfing Lycanthropes as a Monster and as a PC Affliction. For one, the Damage Immunity has always been sort of estranged and annoying, as there really shouldn't be a reason why enough damage doesn't outright hurt Lycanthropes, and even moreso, make Lycanthropes physically inable to hurt each other. Hit Points don't necessarily mean meat points, its an abstract. Enough pitchforks or rocks should do some lasting damage to a Lycanthrope. That's why it's been softly replaced with Regeneration, a change made in the release Candlekeep Mysteries, where of course a Ravenloft mystery mixed with more Wereravens is definitely the grounds for good adventure. The version listed in that version didn't seem as thematic, though the elements definitely did exist, so I edited it into the version you see here.
I would note that a PC with Lycanthropy would not gain the benefits of Regeneration if they were making Death Saves at 0 HP. If they were stabilized, say like being given a Medicine check, or outright healed magically, would probably cause Regeneration to activate just for ease.
Dragon Breath Weapon
Original Version
Breath (Recharge 5-6). The Dragon exhales ___ in a ___. Each creature in that area must make a DC ## saving throw, taking ##d6/d8/d10 damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Rewritten Version
Traits
Breath Pool. The Dragon has a pool of dice related to its Breath Weapon. The Dragon's Breath Pool's dice Maximum his ##d6/d8/d10. The Dragon regains 1/6th of Breath dice at the start of its turn.
Actions
Breath Weapon. The Dragon exhales ___ in a __-foot cone/line. Each creature in that area must make a DC ## saving throw. The Dragon expends and rolls all of its Breath Pool dice, dealing ___ damage equal to the result on a failed save, or half as much on a successful one.
Legendary Actions
Recuperate (Costs 2 Actions). The Dragon's Breath Pool immediately regains 1/6th of its Breath Dice total.
Dragons - Drict's Notes. The Recharge mechanic overall is just bad design, alongside the new push for ammunition loss mechanics for monsters being below a d6 roll as well. For one, a d6 averagely has too low a margin for replenishing the ability, and either falls between never rolling the required result or always rolling it. For two, the fact you check for the recharge at the start of a creature's turn blatantly exists to stop counterplay; I much prefer rolling for the recharge at the end of the creature's current turn, since it does demonstrate that a) it has access to its power on its turn, meaning I or a DM doesn't have to worry about re-calculating the monster's turn if they do recharge the ability, and that b) provides the meta knowledge to the players that the threat of this monster's ability is still active, and wouldn't even be that hard to narrate. It also commonly means I forget less to check for recharge since it will come at the end of the turn, when I would probably stop thinking about its current status by checking.
In any case, when it comes to the Dragon Breath, is just purely a vitriol of evil design