Dungeons & Dragons: Lairs, Explained

In Dungeons and Dragons, players often face many iconic monsters and their nests; after all, "Dragons" and "Dungeons" are part of the game's name. The way these nests work varies from version to version, and even in version 5, changes will occur with each new release.

The Monster Book of 2025 redesigns many ancient and iconic monsters and redefines our understanding of the nest. In this guide, we will explore how nests work in the fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons and Dragons, and how to make the most of them.

What is a nest?

In the narrative of the story, the villain or monster's nest is their base of action, and is the place where they return to rest and regroup, and they are the most familiar places where they are . Depending on the monster, it can be the flame cave of the Red Dragon, the Gothic castle of the vampire, or any place where a beholder chooses to call it home. To reflect the advantages that these creatures gain when fighting in their nests, Dungeons and Dragons give them mechanical advantages

such as additional actions or special features surrounding their nests trap. This is why most adventurers, if possible, choose to lure creatures out of their nests, if they can, for easier battles.

Not all monsters have nests, even if they are legendary creatures. Only legendary creatures can have nests because they have complex mechanics, legend resistance and legendary action. In the 2014 version of the nest, they are extra special actions that occur in different action rounds than the monsters, but in 2025, the nest

interacts directly with the Legendary Action

, rather than Add new actions.

How Legendary Operation Works Action of Legends is a limited pool of action that monsters can execute outside their turn, specifically at the end of the other person's turn. Most legendary creatures can only perform three legendary actions before their turn begins, but the 2025 Monster Book introduces creatures that can perform more actions.

Because these actions can be very destructive, they need to be balanced in some way. The 2014 Monster Book

gives these actions a "cost"

so creatures act less when using these actions, while the 2025 version states that

some actions cannot be re-existed in this round Use .

How legendary resistance works

When a creature has legendary resistance, this means it has the option to successfully make a save check, which can fail for a limited number of times a day. In 2014, all legendary creatures could only do this three times a day, but there are some creatures in the 2025 Monster Book that can do this more often. 2014 Nest Rules

Nests that follow the 2014 edition of the book, including most publications before the 2024 Rule Set release, affect monsters in two ways:

area effects and

Nest Action

. Regional effects change the shape of the terrain by letting the legendary creature live nearby, and nest action is an action that a creature can perform in its nest, whose action round is separated from its own action round . Regional effect These effects are creature-themed and occur within one to a few miles of their nests. They can range from simple decorative changes to the terrain to regular changes such as ignoring resistance or persistent disadvantages of certain checks.

These effects make it a challenge even when facing it near the biological nest, as

most negative effects are not triggered by it. Once the creature leaves the area, these effects usually dissipate within

1D10 days

, regardless of the creature involved.

Nest Action

As mentioned earlier, nesting actions occur in their own turn, but they are still controlled by creatures that own nests. Most are traps or natural events targeting players, so they have their own action rounds. Bio

Cannot take the same nest action as in the previous round

to prevent the dungeon lord from using the same action over and over again. When a creature has a nest action, its challenge level is increased by one level to indicate increased difficulty. 2025 Nest Rules

According to the 2025 Monster Book,

Regional effects and nest actions no longer exist. Instead, the area effect is now called the

Nest effect

, and the monsters gain their legendary resistance and additional use times of action, rather than gaining any new way of moving. Nest effect

Similar to the regional effects, these effects occur near the Bio nests, but always within one mile range. These effects can range from not benefit from rest to taking more damage from this creature type, and some creatures even add negative factors to throw a 1 in the D20 test .

If the owner of the nest dies or moves his nest elsewhere,

These effects end immediately. To show this, all nest effects are magical in nature, with as few changes to the terrain as possible, so it is easy to play the end of natural change.

Fight against monsters in its nest

All monsters have been improved in some way in the 2025 Monster Book, and the designer hopes that all related effects will be included in the creature's attribute block. This is why fighting monsters in its lair has been simplified, keeping deadly, but not necessarily adding any new complexity.

So, when a monster from the 2025 Monster Book fights adventurers in its lair, it gets an extra legend resistance use per turn

and an extra per turn Legendary action. After defeating the monster, the player gets more experience points than when fighting elsewhere , but the challenge level of the monster will not change.

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