What's the complete list of things that can help you overcome SR?
Feat: Spell Penetration +2
Feat: Greater Spell Penetration +2
Feat: Esoteric Advantage +2
Feat: Piercing Spell +5 (one higher spell slot)
Feat: Damned (story feat) +2 against good outsiders only
Racial trait: Elven Magic (elves only) +2
Racial FCB: Clerics who are humans or tieflings can get +1/level
Item: Robe of the Archmagi +2
Item: Piercing Metamagic Rod +5
Consumable: Dweomer's Essence +5
Furthermore, anything that increases your effective caster level works against SR. This can be an item (the orange prism ioun stone gives +1 ECL to everything, the Orb of Foul Abaddon gives it to spells with the evil descriptor), a trait (Dark Magic Affinity for tieflings), a feat (the Maleficium feats give +2 ECL on spells with the evil descriptor), or what have you.
Magician Bard's Dweomercraft performance gives a bonus on caster level checks, concentration checks, and attack rolls with spells and spell-like abilities.
It's a CL check to overcome SR, so it should apply.
Magician Bard's Dweomercraft performance gives a bonus on caster level checks, concentration checks, and attack rolls with spells and spell-like abilities.
It's a CL check to overcome SR, so it should apply.
Yes, it would apply. That's a good one!
I suspect that the list of things that indirectly help you penetrate SR by increasing your ECL is going to be a lot longer than the list of things that directly help you penetrate SR.
Alchemical reagents used as spell components: for 5 gp a shot, myrrh or cold iron will add +1 ECL to abjuration spells and ginger extract adds +1 ECL to transmutation spells. Cheap at the price, actually.
Focused Scroll (Su): As a swift action, a cyphermage can add a bonus equal to twice his Intelligence modifier on any caster level checks made with a scroll spell, including checks to overcome SR. He can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 1/3 his cyphermage level (minimum 1).
If you're an Int-based caster, that's almost worth dipping a level of cyphermage right there. Something between +8 and +20 to overcome SR once per day? Yes please.
Uh I prefer something simpler. If I don't like the game I change the rules. Same reason why when stuck in a maze, I chose to dig through the ceiling.
I use spells that ignore SR. Conjuration school that includes spells such as
Snowball, Glitterdust, heck even the Acid Splash cantrip.
Use abilities that bypass or ignore SR. (Su abilities). For example channeling and witch hexes.
Anything you summon and lays the beat stick down doesn't care about SR.
A big strong fighter with a 2-hander bypasses SR.
A Zen Archer bypasses SR.
Granted this may not always work or be available...
Uh I prefer something simpler. If I don't like the game I change the rules.
When we start the "Ways You Can Avoid SR" thread, we'll be sure to call on you.
SR is a major balancing element of the game; it's basically AC against magic. The list of useful spells that ignore it is annoyingly short. But if you can strip the SR away from powerful dragons, aberrations and outsiders and they suddenly become much, much easier to deal with.
Wow. That should be a fantastic spell, but they've designed it so that it's almost completely useless. You have to burn a standard, it's "personal", and it lasts for just one round. Put another way, it gives you the same effect as Piercing Spell if you're willing to sit around for a round casting this first.
It definitely goes on the list, but it's hard to imagine anyone ever actually taking this. I guess at high levels you could quicken it, but then you're burning a 5th level slot, and by then you should have access to metamagic rods of piercing and various other tricks.
if memory serves (too lazy to look it up) the second best option is to take all of these then throw on Spell Mastery, which doubles the modifiers. Might have read it wrong.
The best option is to pick spells that have the line Spell Resistance: No in their description.
if memory serves (too lazy to look it up) the second best option is to take all of these then throw on Spell Mastery, which doubles the modifiers. Might have read it wrong.
You're thinking of Perfected Spell. It's amazing, but it only works on a single spell, and you can't get it until 15th level. It doubles the effects of feats that effect spells, yes. So if you have Spell Penetration, you get +4 against SR instead of +2, and a Piercing version of your perfected spell would get +10 instead of +5. It doesn't affect non-feat modifiers, so it wouldn't double (for instance) the +2 from being an elf.
Quote:
The best option is to pick spells that have the line Spell Resistance: No in their description.
No, actually that's kind of a crap option. Over 80% of all non-personal, non-buff spells are affected by SR. That includes the vast majority of enchantments, evocations, transmutations, direct damage-dealing spells, and debuffs. Yes, there are things that still work -- summon monster, about half the abjurations including dispel magic, pit spells, black tentacles. But the list is so short as to be severely crippling. And if you've built your caster as a blaster or an enchantment specialist -- two of the most popular options, if these boards are anything to go on -- you're suddenly reduced from "guy who does 150 points of damage to a bunch of opponents every round" or "gal who flips enemies into helpless mind-slaves" to "person casting acid splash".
The best option is to pick spells that have the line Spell Resistance: No in their description.
No, actually that's kind of a crap option. Over 80% of all non-personal, non-buff spells are affected by SR. That includes the vast majority of enchantments, evocations, transmutations, direct damage-dealing spells, and debuffs. Yes, there are things that still work -- summon monster, about half the abjurations including dispel magic, pit spells, black tentacles. But the list is so short as to be severely crippling. And if you've built your caster as a blaster or an enchantment specialist -- two of the most popular options, if these boards are anything to go on -- you're suddenly reduced from "guy who does 150 points of damage to a bunch of opponents every round" or "gal who flips enemies into helpless mind-slaves" to "person casting acid splash".
Doug M.
I think you're a victim of your own success as your initial post nailed the principal ways to boost chances of bypassing DR. Note how feat intensive this can be for something that is situational, depending on campaigns and GM style. I know this isn't what you asked for, but for those blaster, enchanter, or any other build that feels squashed by SR there are two chief options:
1) Suck up the feat tax and/or boost Effective Caster Level
2) Summon Monster, buff party, do battlefield control, cast the rare cool spell that gets by DR, or cast acid splash.
It's really not situational. After a point basically everything has SR.
Ya, but for their CR rating most monsters SR is much to low. It caps out at around SR 35, which is a joke for level 20 casters.
It's no joke if you haven't invested in ways to overcome it. That's an 80% chance of spell failure.
Now, of course most 20th level casters WILL have ways to overcome this -- at a minimum, you'd expect them to have some gear (metamagic rod of Piercing Spell, Dweomer's Essence) even if they haven't taken feats. But that's the whole point of this thread.
Looking at the creatures with SR, you'll notice that a lot of them become much less alarming if you can consistently overcome their SR. It's very hard to design a creature that doesn't have one or more Achilles heels that are vulnerable to clever casting. Or not so clever casting, really. If you just build a fey bloodline kitsune with Greater Spell Focus and the very badly designed kitsune favored class? At 12th level her spell DCs are going be around 30, meaning she auto-dominates everything with a Will below +11. Without SR, that CR 13 Adult Blue Dragon will be shut down in Round 1 90% of the time. But as it happens, the dragon does have SR -- 24 to be precise, meaning that without help, her spells will fail 60% of the time.
As noted above, the significance of SR varies somewhat with GM style and whatnot. But yes -- above a certain level, pretty much everything has it. So tallying up ways to overcome it seems worthwhile.
You have been trained to expend your own spell energy to boost the effects of an ally’s spell.
Prerequisite: Caster level 1st.
Benefit: As a standard action, you can expend a 1st-level or higher prepared spell or spell slot to grant additional magic energy to an allied spellcaster within close range (25 feet + 5 feet/2 levels). If that ally casts an instantaneous spell of an equal or lower level before the beginning of your next turn, all level-dependent calculations and caster level checks the spell requires are made as if the ally’s caster level were 2 higher. If the prepared spell or spell slot you expended is at least twice the level of the spell your ally casts, your ally’s caster level is treated as 4 higher instead. If your ally is able to cast more than one spell before the beginning of your next turn, only the first spell cast gains this bonus. Special: An arcanist can select this feat as an exploit. A wizard can select this feat as a bonus feat.
Wow, what a great feat. It's flavorful and I /think/ it's balanced -- yes you can have your cohort following you around pumping up your spells, but there are probably better things he could be doing with his standards. But it will let someone sacrifice a low level spell and a standard to make a buff work better, or situationally to make a big blast or an enchantment get through SR. I like it.
Ah apologies, I read your post as including creatures with infinite spell resistance. I'm not the only one who chimed in with an option to avoid SR entirely thereby affecting such creatures.
I guess that's not a factor for your particular theorycraft or Pathfinder setting. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I did not consider almost an entire school of spells to be "annoyingly short" but we'll have to agree to disagree on that.
This lustrous golden bell produces a deep and resonant ring which vibrates in perfect harmony with the Material Plane and destructively interferes with otherworldly beings. These vibrations reduce the damage reduction and spell resistance of all extraplanar creatures within 30 feet by 5 (for example, changing DR 10/magic to DR 5/magic). The bell has no clapper; to ring it, the bearer must attack it with an unarmed strike (this counts as an attack, with no attack roll needed, and does not damage the bell). The ringing lasts 1d6 rounds; stifling the ringing early is a standard action. It can ring for a maximum of 10 rounds per day.
20,000 gp. What stops this from being amazing is that it costs an unarmed attack. For most casters, that means burning a standard action. (If you have a monk with you, of course, then it only costs him one small attack from his unarmed flurry.) Still pretty nifty.
Don't forget about slotting that Orange Ioun Stone into a wayfinder. 50% of the time it will pierce better, 25% of the time it's the same as not having one. Are you a gambling man?
Also, Staff of the Master may count. Applying the feat for one staff charge spontaneously as a prepared caster can save your butt.
