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I am planning a combat encounter in a context where I cannot homebrew monsters, and I want to use a monster that has legendary resistance.

Is there an easy way to identify all monsters that have this feature?

I found that the https://dndbeyond.com/monsters search allows me to search for "legendary" monsters, but not all these monsters have legendary resistance, and I'm not sure if it's guaranteed that all monsters with legendary resistance will be legendary.

In this question I am interested only in legal answers, ie, answers that do not violate any copyrights. If there existed a copyright-violating website which was a great solution to my problem, answers should entirely ignore this fact, and should focus exclusively on whether the problem can be solved using officially sanctioned resources.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I've edited the question slightly, to make sure that the literal text of the question is in sync with the question that was being answered. The situation prior to this was misleading in a way that made me uncomfortable. \$\endgroup\$
    – Dan B
    Commented Dec 30, 2022 at 2:10

3 Answers 3

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Unfortunately, there is no good way to do this on D&D Beyond. DDB's search functionality is notoriously wretched, and the listing you found is the best that can be done for this specific problem using the tools at D&D Beyond. I did a manual inspection of that list, and it turns out that a significant majority of the creatures with the "legendary" tag on DDB also have the legendary resistance trait (86%). Rather than give you the full list of ones that do, I'll list the ones that don't...

40 out of 279 Legendary Creatures do not have Legendary Resistance.

  • Aboleth
  • Ancient Deep Crow
  • Androsphinx
  • Archon of Falling Stars
  • Archon of the Triumverate
  • Ashen Rider
  • Atropal
  • Beholder
  • Bol'Bara
  • Death Tyrant
  • Diderius
  • Drow Matron Mother (including Legacy)
  • Drow Mother of Rebellion
  • Enahnced Sphinx
  • Fleecemane Lion
  • Fungal Servant
  • Githyanki supreme commander (Legacy only)
  • Gorka Tharn
  • Gynosphinx
  • Hlam
  • Juvenile Kraken
  • Kraken
  • Lorthuun
  • Maegera the Dawn Titan
  • Mordakhesh
  • Mummy Lord
  • Reduced Threat Aboleth
  • Severin
  • Solar
  • Sphinx of Judgment
  • Star Spawn Larva Mage
  • Storm Giant Quintessent (Legacy only)
  • Shaxalia
  • Lord of blades
  • Thessalhydra
  • Thessalkraken
  • Undying Councilor
  • Unicorn
  • Valin Sarnaster
  • Warlord

Around 86% of legendary creatures do have legendary resistance, so the legendary filter in D&D Beyond is probably "good enough". There unfortunately does not appear to be any clear rule for which legendary creatures lack the resistance trait, even some of the lower-CR creatures have, while others do not. But 8.6 times out of 10 you'll get what you're looking for if you just pick one from the filtered list on D&D Beyond.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I did not downvote, but I think this is the answer to a complementing question: which are all the monsters that are legendardy but do not have legendary resistance, while the question is, which are all the monsters that do have legendary resistance (wether they are legendary, or not). \$\endgroup\$
    – Nobody the Hobgoblin
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 18:11
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    \$\begingroup\$ @GroodytheHobgoblin The "real answer" part of this answer is the counting job. The problem we're trying to solve is "give me a DDB list of creatures with legendary resistance", and the best solution to that problem is "the one you've already got is 86% there, and that's as good as it can get". It's essentially the same as your answer, I just provide the hard data. Do you really think a list of the other 239 monsters would be a more appropriate answer to this question? \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 18:16
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    \$\begingroup\$ Ah, I see. Yes. So by putting our two answers and DDB search together, they will (hopfully) have caught them all - everything on DDB minus your list, plus my list (plus maybe a monster in Spelljammer, I do not have that book). \$\endgroup\$
    – Nobody the Hobgoblin
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 18:19
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    \$\begingroup\$ @GroodytheHobgoblin There, I added an explanation on the front end that should make it more obvious that it is a suitable answer to the question. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 18:26
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D&D Beyond does not support structured search for traits

There is, due to copyright, no other easily searchable, legal source for all the published monsters in 5e. The only site that legally can provide all of them is D&D Beyond, and the search function there does not currently allow you to search full text on traits, which is where legendary resistance is recorded.

However, at least checking the Monster Manual, all the creatures that have Legendary Resistance also have Legendary Actions and therefore are Legendary themselves. Nearly all in Volo's Guide to Monsters, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, and Monsters of the Multiverse are too.

Your suspicion is right, though, not all monsters with legendary resistance are legendary. Notable exception are

Name CR Source
Aerisi Kalinoth 7 Princes of the Apocalype
Aphemia 5 Mystic Odyssey of Theros
Dragonborn of Bahamut 8 Fizban's Treasury of Dragons
Dragonborn of Sardior 6 Fizban's Treasury of Dragons
Dragonborn of Tiamat 7 Fizban's Treasury of Dragons
Ebondeath 4 Divine Contention
Galvan 7 Rise of Tiamat
Gar Shatterkeel 9 Princes of the Apocalypse
Ghost Dragon 7 Fizban's Treasury of Dragons
Harshnag 9 Storm King's Thunder
King of Feathers 8 Tomb of Annihilation
Marlos Urnrayle 8 Princes of the Apocalypse
Marut 25 Monsters of the Multiverse
Necrichor 7 Van Richtens Guide to Ravenloft
Runara 13 Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Vanifer 9 Princes of the Apocalypse
Warforged Colossus 25 Eberron: Rising from the Last War
Zodar 16 Boo's Astral Menagerie

Some like the Marut or Apemia still show up on D&D Beyond as Legendary, but the others don't.

I am not sure if there is a very systematic way the "Legendary = Yes" rider is applied on D&D Beyond in these ambiguous cases, but your search for legendary monsters should work reasonably well.

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    \$\begingroup\$ If you own copies of the paper books and/or a digital license to the material, many would argue it's not morally wrong to use a 3rd-party database site with better indexing / tagging / searching, especially if you limit your searches there to only books you "own". (And perhaps not legally wrong for the user, only for the people running the web site sending you copies of text and images without a license to do so, depending on local laws.) I get that we can't in general endorse 3rd-party sites like that, but at least one of them does have a tag for legendary resistance you can filter on. \$\endgroup\$
    – Peter Cordes
    Commented Dec 22, 2022 at 9:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PeterCordes, of course it would be wrong for you to link me to the site that would be a good answer to my question. But, um. Could you... give me its name in rot13? Tell me what it rhymes with? \$\endgroup\$
    – Dan B
    Commented Dec 22, 2022 at 23:17
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    \$\begingroup\$ @DanB: a google search for 5e bestiary finds it. Some other text on the page is "Search by name on the left, click monster name to display on the right. Press J/K to navigate." Hopefully that's oblique enough. \$\endgroup\$
    – Peter Cordes
    Commented Dec 23, 2022 at 0:09
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    \$\begingroup\$ Thank you! That solved my problem. \$\endgroup\$
    – Dan B
    Commented Dec 23, 2022 at 5:00
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I have no clue why, but this kind of answer is frowned upon:

https://www.google.com/search?q="legendary resistance" site:dndbeyond.com/monsters&filter=0

However, it should give you what you are looking for, at least as far as freely accessible (unpaid) content goes.

What I am using is Google's Search API, which I'm feeding (through the q= parameter) the following:

  • The search term, "legendary resistance", inside quotation marks to ensure Google understands it as a single term.
  • The search term, "site:dndbeyond.com/monsters", which aims the search at the specific site dndbeyond.com, in the subdirectory monsters.

At the end, you may notice the "filter=0" parameter, which is to prevent Google from filtering "very similar" results.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I did not understand the downvotes last time either -- I think maybe because it is kind of a "link only" answer. But I think you are right, this is practial and helps. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nobody the Hobgoblin
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 16:04
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    \$\begingroup\$ I frown upon this answer because it is woefully incomplete. The results there give "about 69" results, and there are nearly 300 legendary creatures in published material. You should at least check to be sure that this sort of answer passes gives reasonable results before posting, which you clearly did not. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 16:05
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    \$\begingroup\$ To be more specific, there are 65 creatures whose names start with the letter "A" that have legendary resistance. So 69 results isn't even close to what this question is looking for. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 16:12
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    \$\begingroup\$ @GroodytheHobgoblin It's probably pulling the monsters accessible for free in the Basic Rules compendium. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 16:15
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    \$\begingroup\$ @From That's a helpful bit of explanation, thanks \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 20:23

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