Legendary Actions 5e

Making Creatures Legendary

If you’ve ever thrown a beefy boss monster at your players and watched them dismantle your seemingly challenging foe before its turn came back around, you’ve felt the pain of action economy. That’s where Legendary Actions in Dungeons & Dragons 5e come in. These special abilities let powerful creatures act outside their turn, keeping them in the fight and making them feel, well, legendary.

What Are Legendary Actions in 5e?

In D&D 5e, legendary actions are extra actions that certain powerful creatures can take at the end of another creature’s turn. Unlike Reactions, Legendary Actions don’t rely on a trigger. Instead, the creature can use a limited number of Legendary Actions per round, and the expended uses reset at the start of its turn. This mechanic is exclusive to particularly formidable monsters—think liches, green dragons, and other undead horrors with devastating magic.

How Do Legendary Actions Work in 5e?

A creature with Legendary Actions typically has three per round, though some monsters may have more or fewer. These actions can be used after another creature’s turn, but only one at a time. In the previous version of the Monster Manual, Legendary Actions were used to provide legendary creatures with more mundane actions, giving them access to additional attacks, movement, and sometimes spellcasting or teleporation.

In the 2025 Monster Manual, Legendary Actions have been redesigned to give creatures access to more of their special abilities when it’s not their turn. For instance, in the 2014 Monster Manual, an Ancient Gold Dragon could:

Detect. The dragon makes a Wisdom (Perception) check.

Tail Attack. The dragon makes a tail attack.

Wing Attack (Costs 2 Actions). The dragon beats its wings. Each creature within 15 feet of the dragon must succeed on a DC 25 Dexterity saving throw or take 17 (2d6 + 10) bludgeoning damage and be knocked prone. The dragon can then fly up to half its flying speed.

But in the 2025 Monster Manual, their Legendary Actions include:

Banish. Charisma Saving Throw: DC 24, one creature the dragon can see within 120 feet. Failure: 24 (7d6) Force damage, and the target has the Incapacitated condition and is transported to a harmless demiplane until the start of the dragon’s next turn, at which point it reappears in an unoccupied space of the dragon’s choice within 120 feet of the dragon. Failure or Success: The dragon can’t take this action again until the start of its next turn.

Guiding Light. The dragon uses Spellcasting to cast Guiding Bolt (level 4 version).

Pounce. The dragon moves up to half its Speed, and it makes one Rend attack.

When Should a Creature Get Legendary Actions?

While we know particularly powerful creatures get Legendary Actions, when should a DM use such a creature in your combat encounter?

There are a couple of situations when you’ll want to reach for a creature with Legendary Actions:

• Single Combatant. When you want the party to go head-to-head with one creature, ensure it has Legendary Actions so it doesn’t get overrun by the sheer action economy advantage the party has.
• Legendary Lairs. If you want your party to battle in an area imbued with regional effects and ambient magic, it will likely be a legendary creature and, thus, have Legendary Actions. In the 2025 Monster Manual, these creatures get more uses of Legendary Actions while they’re in their lair, making them even more formidable.

Using a Creature’s Legendary Actions

But, when it comes time to roll Initiative, how do Dungeon Masters know when to use a creature’s Legendary Actions? There’s an easy answer to this, and it comes straight from the 2025 Monster Manual: As often as you can.

When creatures are given Legendary Actions, it’s factored into their CR calculation. If you don’t expend their allocated Legendary Action budget per round, your monster will underperform compared to their CR (and your players will dismantle them again).

It’s also important to note that using more than one creature with Legendary Actions or Legendary Resistances in your battle can tip the scales of action economy too far in the monster’s direction and may result in a battle that’s one-sided against the players.

Common Legendary Action Examples in 5e

If you want to add Legendary Actions to your villain to allow them to face down your party of adventurers, here’s an analysis based on the examples provided in the 2025 Monster Manual:

Every Legendary Creature

• Basic Attacks. Simple attacks that use the monster’s existing melee or ranged options, such as the Aboleth’s Lash (Tentacle attack) or the Beholder’s Chomp (Bite attacks).
• Movement Abilities. Actions that grant mobility without provoking opportunity attacks, like the Animal Lord’s Feral Strike or the Cataclysm’s Rumbling Movement.

Mid-High Tier Legendary Creatures

• Cast a Spell. Spellcasting creatures like liches can cast spells like Fear using the Legendary Actions.
• Special Abilities. Unique effects based on the monster’s nature, such as the Kraken’s ability to call down lightning as a Legendary Action.
• Utility/Control. Legendary actions that inflict conditions or impose battlefield control, like the Demilich’s Grave-Dust Flight, which can blind creatures.

Legendary Action Uses Per Turn

While the 2025 Monster Manual has done away with Legendary Action options that cost 2 or more Actions, they still have a system for capping a creature’s more powerful abilities.

For instance, the Ancient Gold Dragon can use Guiding Light or Pounce as long as they have Legendary Actions left to expend, but they can only use Banish once per round.

Designing Your Creature’s Legendary Actions

Seeing as Legendary Actions are no longer mundane actions, like Claw or Tail Attacks, they should reflect the creature’s innate special talents. A kraken might generate crushing whirlpools or call down lightning bolts. Luckily, you can usually look at a creature’s stat block and pick out the most interesting aspects to roll into Legendary Actions with a couple of guidelines:

• Don’t Use Recharge Abilities. Any feature that needs to recharge before it’s used again is meant to be used every couple of turns and therefore should not be made more available to use.
• “Command” Abilities Should Be Limited. Effects that can cause players to lose their turn should be limited to once per turn. This ensures action economy doesn’t sway too far to the legendary creature’s side.
• Provide Some Options. Instead of giving your creature all damage-based options, make sure to provide a mix of effects, like targeted debuffs, minion command, or mobility.

Adding Legendary Actions to Creatures

If you want to spice up a fight and give Legendary Actions to a creature who normally doesn’t have them, you’ll have to consider its Challenge Rating and expected damage per round. If you’re using the 2014 rule set, you can use the Monster Statistics by Challenge Rating table as a guideline to ensure the total damage—across attacks, Legendary Actions, and lair effects—aligns with its intended difficulty.

To get an accurate calculation of Damage/Round for Lair Actions, you might have to calculate its damage output each round for the first three rounds of combat and take the average.

Legendary Actions vs. Lair Actions

Legendary Actions allow monsters to act directly after another creature’s turn, whereas Lair Actions always happen at Initiative count 20. Also, creatures get a certain amount of Legendary Actions per round whereas there’s only ever one Lair Action per round.

In the 2025 Monster Manual, Lair Actions have been removed in favor of giving legendary creatures more Legendary Actions and Resistances in their lair. Some creatures have also had their Lair Actions rolled into their Legendary Actions to streamline their stat blocks while still providing access to cool special abilities.

For example, an Androsphinx used to have a Lair Action that affected the age of creatures in its lair:

The effects of time are altered such that every creature in the lair must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or become 1d20 years older or younger (the sphinx’s choice), but never any younger than 1 year old. A greater restoration spell can restore a creature’s age to normal.

And now the Sphinx of Valor (the 2025 Monster Manual’s CR-equivalent) has this Legendary Action:

Weight of Years. Constitution Saving Throw: DC 16, one creature the sphinx can see within 120 feet. Failure: The target gains 1 Exhaustion level. While the target has any Exhaustion levels, it appears 3d10 years older. Failure or Success: The sphinx can’t take this action again until the start of its next turn.