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In the world of Dungeons & Dragons, players often find themselves facing off against legendary creatures that have their own lairs. These formidable locations are intrinsic to the game, and how they function has evolved over various editions. Notably, in the latest updates to the fifth edition, significant changes have taken place.
The 2025 Monster Manual introduced fresh interpretations of classic monsters while also reimagining the concept of lairs. This guide will outline how lairs operate in the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons and offer tips for utilizing them effectively in your games.
What Is A Lair?
In storytelling, a lair serves as the headquarters of a villain or monster. It is the place they return to for rest and strategizing, making it a familiar ground for them. Depending on the creature, a lair could take the form of a red dragon’s fiery cavern, a vampire’s eerie castle, or even the lair of a beholder.
To reflect the advantages these creatures have when battling in their lairs, Dungeons & Dragons incorporates mechanical benefits, allowing them to use additional actions or deploy various traps. Therefore, many adventurers will often aim to entice these monsters out of their lair to level the playing field.
Note: Not all legendary creatures have lairs.
Only legendary monsters possess lair features, which are characterized by complex mechanics, as well as legendary resistance and actions. In previous editions, special actions in lairs took place on separate initiative counts, but the 2025 updates directly integrate these actions into the legendary actions.
How Legendary Actions Work
A legendary action is a limited set of actions a creature can perform outside its usual turn—specifically, at the end of another player’s turn. Most legendary monsters can typically take three legendary actions before their own turn begins, although the 2025 Monster Manual introduces some that can perform more.
Given their impactful nature, legendary actions need to be properly balanced. While the 2014 Monster Manual included a ‘cost’ to using these actions, making them less frequent, the updated manual now clarifies that certain actions cannot be reused during the same round.
How Legendary Resistance Works
When a creature has legendary resistance, it can choose to automatically succeed on a saving throw that it would otherwise fail, but only a limited number of times per day. In the 2014 rules, this ability was restricted to three uses daily, but the 2025 rules allow for greater flexibility.
2014 Rules for Lairs
According to the 2014 Monster Manual, lairs affect monsters in two primary ways: through regional effects and lair actions. Regional effects modify the environment in the vicinity of the lair, while lair actions grant the monster additional options for combat within its lair, taking effect on a different initiative count.
Regional Effects
These effects are thematically aligned with the creature and can happen up to several miles away from their lair. They can include cosmetic changes to the terrain, as well as alterations such as ignoring resistances or imposing disadvantages on specific checks. Facing a monster near its lair becomes an uphill battle, as many negative effects won’t trigger the creature. Once the creature departs from the area, these effects usually dissipate within a number of days.
Lair Actions
Lair actions happen in their own initiative turn but are controlled by the creature residing in the lair. They commonly involve traps or environmental hazards aimed at adventurers. A creature cannot repeat the same action it used in the previous round, ensuring diversified gameplay. Additionally, a creature’s challenge rating increases when it possesses lair actions, reflecting the heightened difficulty.
2025 Rules for Lairs
In the latest edition updated in 2025, regional effects and lair actions have been replaced by lair effects. Monsters now gain extra uses of legendary actions and resistance rather than obtaining new abilities.
Lair Effects
These effects occur within approximately one mile of the creature’s lair and can range from inconveniences like disallowing rest to more severe consequences such as increased damage from the monster’s attacks. The effects exist until the lair’s owner is defeated or relocates, after which they dissipate immediately.
Fighting A Monster In Its Lair
Every monster in the 2025 Monster Manual has been improved, with the goal of consolidating all relevant effects within the creature’s stat block. As a result, battling a creature in its lair now provides an additional use of legendary resistance and one extra legendary action per round. Although players earn more experience for defeating a monster in its lair, the overall challenge rating remains unchanged.
By understanding the dynamics of lairs and their effects, players can enhance their adventures in Dungeons & Dragons, making encounters with legendary monsters both thrilling and strategically complex.
