Laegrim's page

This was an interesting excuse to learn more about the kineticist, which I actually wasn't familiar with. Y'all let me know if I got something wrong.

TLDR: The Elemental Annihilator is capable of doing more damage than the baseline Kineticist, but not a huge amount more. I certainly don't think it's worth it for what the Elemental Annihilator has to give up in return.

A few more conclusions:

- The Two Weapon Fighting route is a bit of a trap for the EA
- Touch attacks are the great equalizer in most cases, since the majority of monsters have negligible touch ACs. The EA can squeeze out a bit of an advantage over Kinetic Whip touch attacks, especially when they've got an entire extra attack on the baseline Kineticist, but it's not that much of an advantage. Spell resistance, and the relative prevalence of DR vs energy resistance or immunity might change this though.
- Deadly Aim is a trap option for the baseline Kineticist.
- Power Attack is, likewise, mostly a trap option for the baseline Kineticist.
- Some of the extra combat feats I didn't factor in, that the EA gets access too, could push things slightly more in their favor. Items they don't get to use, such as the diadem, could balance this out again though.
- I don't really like the kineticist - just not my thing :P.

If we look at what the Elemental Annihilator gets, it's biggest addition is an effectively 0 (with Infusion Specialization) burn full attack option. Since both can spend burn to pull off a big composite blast, potentially even combined with kinetic blade or whip, we should be comparing full round 0 burn attack options between the baseline Kineticist and the Elemental Annihilator.

For the regular Kineticist that's a Simple Blast with up to two points of total substance or form infusions and the Empower Spell metakinesis (reduced to 0 by Infusion specialization and Gather Power as a move action), or a full attack with the Kinetic Whip infusion. Since we're looking for maximum expected damage, I'm just going to use Focused Blast, which increases accuracy, as the infusion on the simple blast.

Shared assumptions for damage comparison:
- 10th level Kineticist, with racial bonuses or penalties not factored in
- 3 Burn for purposes of Elemental Overflow
- Attack Stat: 20 (14 Base + 4 Enh + 2 Size)
- Constitution: 26 (18 Base + 4 Enh + 2 Size)
- Weapon Focus
- Haste (Boots of Speed, or other source)
- Easy target AC of 24, Med target AC of 30, Hard target AC of 36
- Touch target AC of 12 - essentially assuming it hits except on a 1
- No SR, energy resistance, energy immunity, or damage reduction

EA Devastating Infusion Full Attack Melee (Two Hands, Power Attack, Weapon Specialization, Greater WF, Improved Critical) :

+20/+20/+15 Kinetic Blast 1d8 + 25 (19-20 x2) (Easy: 74.63, Med: 45.43, Hard: 17.77)
+23/+23/+18 Kinetic Blast W/out PA 1d8 + 16 (19-20 x2) (Easy: 59.76, Med: 41.72, Hard: 21.42)

EA Full Attack Melee (Weapon Finesse, TWF, Improved TWF, Double Slice, Power Attack)

+17/+17/+12 Kinetic Blast 1d8 + 16, +17/+12 Kinetic Blast (offhand) 1d8 + 13 (Easy: 60.95, Med: 30.56, Hard: 8.14)
+20/+20/+20/+15/+15 Kinetic Blast 1d8 + 10 W/out PA (Easy: 57.09, Med: 34.26, Hard: 12.94)

EA Full Attack Ranged (Within 30ft, Deadly Aim, Rapid Shot, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot):

+18/+18/+18/+13 Kinetic Blast 1d8 + 17 (Easy: 62.08, Med: 34.99, Hard: 11.29)
+21/+21/+21/+16 Kinetic Blast w/out DA 1d8 + 11 (Easy: 54.52, Med: 34.99, Hard: 15.46)

Regular Kineticist Simple Blast (Focused Blast, Empowered, Within 30ft, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Deadly Aim)

Physical: +19 Simple Kinetic Blast (5d6 + 20) * 1.5 (Easy: 47.25, Med: 29.54, Hard: 11.82)
Physical w/ Deadly Aim: +17 Simple Kinetic Blast (5d6 + 24) * 1.5 (Easy: 45.75, Med: 26.15, Hard: 6.54)
Energy: +19 Simple Kinetic Blast (Ranged Touch) (5d6 + 11) * 1.5 (Touch: 42.65)

Regular Kineticist Kinetic Whip (Two Hands w/ One Handed Weapon, Power Attack)

Physical: +17/+17/+12 Kinetic Whip 5d6 + 13 (Easy: 59.25, Med: 30.42, Hard: 8.01)
Physical w/ Power Attack: +15/+15/+10 Kinetic Whip 5d6 + 19 (Easy: 59.4, Med: 24.91, Hard: 5.75)
Energy: +17/+17/+12 Kinetic Whip (Melee Touch) 5d6 + 4 (Touch: 64.34)

Two things I ran across while writing this up that I'm not sure about:

1. Can Weapon Finesse be combined with a two handed melee Devastating Infusion attack to deal 1.5 * Con damage? Melee attacks with this infusion act "as if she were using kinetic blade", which allows you to create a light or one-handed weapon. Presumably, you'd have to create a light weapon to use Weapon Finesse, and the rules for light weapons specify "Using two hands to wield a light weapon gives no advantage on damage; the Strength bonus applies as though the weapon were held in the wielder’s primary hand only." On the other hand we're not applying strength to damage, and Devastating Infusion simply states "if she uses two hands, the attack's damage is equal to 1d8 + 1-1/2 times her Constitution modifier". It's not clear to me whether that's overriding the general rules for using a light weapon in two hands or not.

2. A Substance Infusion can be applied to a kinetic blast with along with Devastating Infusion, but the Elemental Annihilator trades away the normal infusion choices before 11th level. The infusion ability specifies that "at 5th, 11th, and 17th levels, a Kineticist can replace one of her infusions with another infusion of the same effective spell level or lower." An Elemental Annihilator gains the extended range infusion at 3rd level as a bonus from the Increased Range ability; can this be traded at 5th level for another level 1 infusion?

The Underground Chemist archetype will allow you to draw alchemical items as if they were weapons, which combined with Quick Draw will let you make a full attack with splash weapons (resolved as ranged touch attacks). Sneak attack will only ever apply to the first such attack though, which probably isn't what you're going for.

If you're looking to reduce the build complexity (and the "useless" levels) of an Arcane Trickster build, the Eldritch Scoundrel archetype might appeal to you.

There are a few spells that would allow full attack touch attacks, that haven't been mentioned yet, some of which the Eldritch Scoundrel would get access to:

Whip of Spiders and it's evolutions.

Ghost Whip

Hellmouth Lash

If you're looking for a class with sneak attack-esque abilities that works well with touch attacks, Mesmerist might also be an option.

Blood money cares specifically about the next spell you cast, so extracts won't work - as you note, they technically aren't spells. If Blood Money is already on the table though, letting it work with extracts seems like reasonable DM call.

As for the second issue, there's an FAQ clarifying that choices are made for extracts when they are consumed, like casting a spell rather than creating a potion. I'd link to it, but I'm typing on my phone.

The gold price value of diamond on any market has absolutely no bearing on the properties of diamonds. And therefore, should not be part of the requirement for a diamond's use as a magical component...

You could go in the exact opposite direction too - perhaps the value of the diamond at purchase is the only thing that matters. Maybe the material components used for these spells are merely efficient mediums for capturing some desirable metaphysical quality, resulting from the transaction to purchase the component itself, in a useful form.

For example, lets say that every time you use a coin to purchase something the coin accrues a bit of psychic weight from the transaction - something representing the hardship necessary to earn the coin, or the avarice, desire, or hope of the participants in the transaction. Coins quickly accrue a maximum "charge", varying depending on the materials they're made out of, but this charge can be transferred in bulk by further transaction to a new medium where it can be stored. The intent behind the transaction matters a great deal though, so cheating the system is very difficult. These charges carried by these items can, in turn, be used to fuel particularly powerful spells.

So a diamond the size of a minivan would be useless for casting Wish if it had not been bought with honest intent for the right price, while one the size of a grain of sand might suffice if it were truly purchased for 25000 gold.

"If I played a Noble, how would I bring that to the forefront without just Roleplaying"

Vigilante would also be a great way to do this; many of their Social Talents fit well as representing the various kinds of influence nobility can wield.

Overall I really like this mystery. Most of the abilities are flavorful and useful, which isn't actually as common as it should be when it comes to mysteries, but not game-warping.

Some specific thoughts:

- Class Spells:

Most are on-theme, and are spells worth casting, but Nine Lives stands out a bit. I can see where you were going - there aren't any 8th level [pain] spells, and Nine Lives has a bit of the "dealing and removing pain" flavor, but it still seems kind of off.

- Excruciating Caress (Su):

I'm glad you tacked on the staggered condition here; it turns an otherwise throw-away ability into something that might actually see use. You should probably clarify if this is a pain effect though.

- Feed on Agony (Su):

For a class without access to healing the Vampiric enchantment is a reasonable choice, but for an oracle it seems distinctly underpowered. In exchange for a revelation you get a conditional healing ability that won't ever heal more than relatively low level cure spell in one go, or a mediocre cure spell in one day, and it still costs a standard action to activate. I would either reduce the action to a swift action, relax some of the HD limits on the healing given by the enchantment, or both.

- Masochistic Vigor (Su):

I'm not sure how I feel about the current power-level here; avr has a point, but it may not turn out to be problematic in actual gameplay. Take a 10th level oracle using this ability: the maximum pool of temporary hit points they can reasonably expect out of this ability is going to be in the 30-40 range (assuming half of a bit critical hit with Shield Other). Then, in order to turn this into damage prevented instead of just delayed damage, they have to actually lose that temporary HP before the end of combat. Most of the time you'll be choosing whether to use this ability on less significant hits though, in the 5-15 damage range. With very efficient usage of their probable ~10 uses per day our oracle might reasonably be preventing 100-150 damage per day. That's 3-5 top level healing spells worth of damage prevented, or at higher levels 1-2 Heals. If you're very lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it), you could prevent a much higher total of damage by partially soaking up multiple big critical hits.

This all assumes that you've actually got someone taking hits fairly often to target with Shield Other, or another way you're accruing damage taken, and that either combats last long enough to get more than a couple of uses or a long adventuring day. If you don't have a reliable way of getting large temporary hit point totals and then spending them almost immediately the total damage prevented drops precipitously. Vicious might be one way to spend some temporary HP, but using it to generate temporary HP seems distinctly suboptimal. Our 10th level oracle might be able to prevent 40-50 worth of vicious damage, if this ability is used that way over the course of a long day.

To sum up: with the right group and build this ability probably does equate to a bit much damage prevented, but in other cases it seems fine. Avr's suggestion would help lower the total prevented in cases of quick successive use. Alternately you might consider something like a maximum cap on the temporary HP pool (tied to level or Cha?), or a cooldown (1d4 rounds?) to prevent rapid chaining.

No, the SR is checked when the spell actively goes to work on the SR creature. Not just contact. The hands either attempt to deal damage or cause an active effect. In the case of interposing hand, this is the hand actively slowing the target to half speed. If the SR check fails, the spell fails to affect the target and does not slow them. If they back up again and try to shoot an arrow, the hand will still provide cover against their attack. The arrow is not ignoring the hand just because the SR creature can. This may occur as part of 'contact' but is not because of 'contact'.

Interposing hand only slows you when you try to push past it. You have to make contact to do that. Until then it just hangs between you and the creature that cast it.

I'm not sure how you're rectifying this barrier slowing a creature down as being enough to trigger a SR check, but not Wall of Ice's barrier blocking their movement entirely.

And yes, it'll still provide cover against ranged attacks from a creature who's resisted it with spell resistance because spell - unattended objects (except for maybe a couple of intelligent magical items?) always automatically fail their spell resistance checks. I'm not sure why you put this bit in, because I've never tried to argue otherwise.

Again, no. Nothing in these spells supports the view that contact is enough. At no point is the word 'contact' even mentioned.

I'll cede the point about whether these spells support contact being enough to force an SR check - at this point I have better examples, and I don't want to rehash this argument.

cy Prison targets the creature, so that's easy to simply cancel/counter on a failed spell pen check under established RAW (no ice is created in the first place).

I wasn't aware this was established RAW: am I missing a rule or ruling somewhere?

The rules under Casting Time state that targeting decisions are made when the spell comes into effect - so by the time you make a spell resistance check against a targeted spell that spell is in effect. Spell resistance just means you won't be affected by those effects.

In this case that's a bunch of ice that you won't be affected by. I'm not seeing anything to indicate that the ice doesn't form in the first place.

Golorion is not the only world in the pathfinder universe. There are also other planes of existence including the elemental plane of earth. Considering it is supposed to be an infinite plane composed mostly or endless rock and earth that is criss-crossed with veins or precious metal and gemstones, it would be kind of strange to run out.

Now I'm imagining a cabal of earth elementals acting like the De Beers, ensuring artificial scarcity and fixing the prices of gemstones through the great beyond.

I disagree, but I can see why you'd feel that way. I think it's fairly easy to just ignore any active effects on things like Wall of Bone, et al., as I suspect is the RAI. Icy Prison targets the creature, so that's easy to simply cancel/counter on a failed spell pen check under established RAW (no ice is created in the first place). Manifested weapons and other force effects are explicitly addressed and easy to mentally reconcile, since they're, well, force effects (basically raw magic made physically manifest). Creeping Ice is frankly easy to ignore entirely, since I have a feeling the number of people who have ever actually cast it in a PF game might be in the single digits, to say nothing about trying to affect anyone with SR, but you can also just ignore the SR: Yes as an oversight.

Yeah, I suppose that's heavily game dependent; I generally know how my longstanding group will react, and I'm sure that's skewing my perception of the side effects for any given interpretation.

I'm assuming you're talking about the 6th tier ability Critical Master?

6th-Tier Champion Path Ability

Whenever you roll a critical threat against a non-mythic creature, you automatically confirm the critical hit and deal the maximum amount of damage to that creature. This ability can be selected twice. The second time it is selected, it also applies to mythic creatures.

I think you've got it right. There's no reason that a spellcaster couldn't go down the Champion path, or that Critical Master wouldn't apply to spells.

This isn't terribly powerful though, at least considering all of the other things that a 6th tier mythic spellcaster could be getting up to.

And can you agree that wall of ice, once cast is 'already in place'?

In many cases, spell resistance applies only when a resistant creature is targeted by the spell, not when a resistant creature encounters a spell that is already in place.

I think we've already gone over this one, but, yes, once cast the wall is a spell that is already in place. We know Wall of Ice is not one of the "many cases" primarily because Wall of Ice is "SR yes", but has no targeted effect. If this rule did apply, spell resistance would not let a creature resist the damage from walking through a breach either.

Many of the other wall spells would also have this problem if we applied this rule - they're clearly "already in place", and have some effect we all agree spell resistance applies to, but that effect isn't targeted. Wall of Fire is a great example of this.

Additional magic states:

Creatures become subject to the spell when they enter the area and are no longer subject to it when they leave.

SR can't apply until you are subject to the spell, you can't enter the space of solid ice, and thus, you are not yet in the area of effect of the spell. UNTIL you try to move through a hole in it, which causes you damage and the spell acts upon you.

This rule apply specifically to spell that have the "Area" entry in their description.

Looking at the full context of this rules quote, this should be clear:

If the spell affects creatures directly, the result travels with the subjects for the spell’s duration. If the spell creates an effect, the effect lasts for the duration. The effect might move or remain still. Such an effect can be destroyed prior to when its duration ends. If the spell affects an area, then the spell stays with that area for its duration.

Creatures become subject to the spell when they enter the area and are no longer subject to it when they leave.

If that quote did apply to effect spells creatures would no longer be subject to fire damage within 10 feet of a Wall of Fire, or grappling if adjacent to a Wall of Bone, for example.

Moving to discussing another specific spell resistance related point, I'm assuming you disagree that spell resistance applies to spells as a whole, rather than spell effects in a piecemeal fashion?

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Is Wall of Ice the only example we have of a solid object that could be subject to Spell Resistance? Because whether or not it makes sense for someone to be able to walk through the magic wall, this might be such a corner case that allowing it one way or another doesn't really matter.

No, there're a number of examples:

- Holy Ice: as Wall of Ice, plus some extra damage in some cases

- Creeping Ice: Tamdrik talks about this above

- "Summon an autonomous weapon" Spells (Twilight Knife, Mage's Sword, Chain of Perdition, etc...): These spells have special rules dictating how spell resistance applies, but I think they support the view that contact is enough to trigger a check.

- Wall of Bone, Wall of Ectoplasm: Both form solid barriers, and are "SR yes". The first will attempt to grapple, and the second has a mind affecting effect at a distance.

- Wall of Brine, Wall of Clockwork, Wind Wall, Blade Barrier: Good examples of the larger problem here - this thread is specifically about ignoring a solid barrier with spell resistance, but that's a subset of the general problem of determining how spell resistance applies to physical effects. Each of these examples produces a physical effect that can be ignore with spell resistance (Flowing seawater, cogs and gears, blades of force, high speed wind).

- Resilient Sphere: doesn't target, so, RAW, SR could only possibly apply on contact. I think the original interpretation back when it was published in 3.0 may have been that it essentially targets, but the designers clearly weren't all on the same page for spell resistance back then, and the spell hasn't been touched except to adjust the name to something OGL compliant since then.

- "Hand" spells (Interposing Hand, Crushing Hand, etc...): All solid objects, all subject to spell resistance. Interposing Hand is especially handy as an example here, because it literally does nothing but put itself between you and an opponent. The only time spell resistance could potentially apply is on contact.

- Icy Prison: I think it's fairly uncontroversial to say that the spell doesn't affect you if you fail the save but resist the spell with spell resistance - the only way that works is if you're ignoring the solid layer of encasing ice.

I'm sure we could dredge up more examples of spells producing solid objects, or physical effects, that could be subject to spell resistance with a thorough search. I wouldn't say that this is a problem that comes up often in games, at least not in mine, but I wouldn't call it a corner case either.

I'm inclined to believe that the SR: Yes just wasn't thought through on that spell, though.

I think this applies to many spells. For what it's worth, I do think that most authors and developers probably wouldn't agree that my interpretation fits the RAI for Wall of Ice. The problem is that we have enough examples that clearly indicate confusion or disagreement on the part of the authors and developers with respect to this issue that I think doing anything other than just following RAW creates more knock-on issues than it solves.

Yes. And normal ice blocks you from walking through it.

And spell effects you're ignoring because you've resisted the spell causing them with spell resistance don't.

This is going in circles - I had almost exactly this same exchange earlier in the thread. If we want to make progress, not necessarily to agreement but at least to a point where we know why we disagree and things can go no further, we should probably keep our arguments more narrowly focused.

Lets set spell resistance aside for now, and see if we can agree on something more fundamental. Do you agree or disagree that the wall created by Wall of Ice is a spell effect produced by an ongoing spell?

Here is another section of wall of ice.

Suddenly melting a wall of ice creates a great cloud of steamy fog that lasts for 10 minutes.

If this is just magical ice why does it create steam if you melt it?

Magic.

In fact, this steam endures even beyond the spell duration of wall of ice.

Because that's what the spell says it does.

It's actual ice and it blocks your path, the ice also doesn't do anything to you, it's the frigid air in the same space as the ice that causes the damage, and as a result the SR check. The ice is just ice.

Can you dispel normal ice?

Does normal ice glow with an evocation aura when you view it with Detect Magic?

Does normal ice vanish in an anti-magic field?

Does normal ice have duration, beyond which it suddenly disappears into thin air all at once?

The wall from Wall of Ice acts like normal ice to the extent that the spell says it does, but it's still very much a spell effect. The rules are clear on that.

The wall is acting upon the air when it freezes it into a solid wall of ice.
The wall blocking your path is a consequence of that, and SR doesn't apply.

Wall of Ice never says that it's freezing the air into a solid wall of ice.

In fact, that Wall of Ice is evocation rather than conjuration (creation) makes it fairly explicit that it's not creating the wall out of materials from the surrounding enviroment.

Evocation spells manipulate magical energy or tap an unseen source of power to produce a desired end. In effect, an evocation draws upon magic to create something out of nothing.

a creation spell manipulates matter to create an object or creature in the place the spellcaster designates. If the spell has a duration other than instantaneous, magic holds the creation together, and when the spell ends, the conjured creature or object vanishes without a trace. If the spell has an instantaneous duration, the created object or creature is merely assembled through magic. It lasts indefinitely and does not depend on magic for its existence.

So, when you interact with the wall Wall of Ice creates you are interacting directly with the spell effect - not an intermediary.

Though it's worth noting that a creature with spell resistance can resist even a conjuration (creation) spell so long as that spell indicates that spell resistance applies to it in it's description or text. That's the case for both Wall of Brine and Wall of Clockwork.

SR doesn't allow you to walk threw walls like some glitch in the matrix (or a Bethesda game)

This seems like a good example of why this debate has been so intense: depending on how you visualize your game, spell resistance letting you walk through a magical wall effect is either a hideous violation of that visualization or just business as usual.

Personally, I don't see this as being any weirder than shrugging off the explosion from a Fireball spell, or totally ignoring an Icy Prison. There are just so many weird effects spell resistance entirely negates that ignoring a wall barely registers.

A nebulous imaginary scenario about imaginary creatures interacting with imaginary spells, you mean?

Even in the context of pathfinder, without appealing to real world physics, something still needs to be able to affect you to interact with you.

If the wall's blocking you, it's certainly interacting with you.

This is certainly an area of the game where Paizo really could have taken more time to develop. It's worth noting, however, that Wall of Ice isn't their fault- it's written the same way in 3.5 as having Spell Resistance: Yes without explaining the hows or whys.

However, the 3.5 rules have this to say, which at least indicates how this was intended to work:

Effect Spells
Most effect spells summon or create something and are not subject to spell resistance. Sometimes, however, spell resistance applies to effect spells, usually to those that act upon a creature more or less directly, such as web.

Spell resistance has no effect unless the energy created or released by the spell actually goes to work on the resistant creature’s mind or body. If the spell acts on anything else and the creature is affected as a consequence, no roll is required. Creatures can be harmed by a spell without being directly affected.

Spell resistance does not apply if an effect fools the creature’s senses or reveals something about the creature.

Magic actually has to be working for spell resistance to apply. Spells that have instantaneous durations but lasting results aren’t subject to spell resistance unless the resistant creature is exposed to the spell the instant it is cast.

When in doubt about whether a spell’s effect is direct or indirect, consider the spell’s school:

Evocation
If an evocation spell deals damage to the creature, it has a direct effect. If the spell damages something else, it has an indirect effect.

I went ahead and bolded the bits that Paizo took out. Other than those, the rules are identical.

The reference to web was always baffling, so I'm glad they took it out.

Likewise, the bit about evocation wasn't ever very useful because evocation has always included non-damaging effects.

In the case of Wall of Ice, it has a direct effect - when the wall spell effect is blocking you, physically impeding you, it isn't affecting something else, it's affecting you.

To be indirect, the spell has to affect something else, and then that something else has to affect you. For example, using a lightning bolt to cause a cave-in over someone's head is indirectly affecting them. Using Sonic Thrust to hurl a rock that then hits a creature is indirectly affecting them. If the wall from Wall of Ice wasn't an ongoing spell effect, for example if Wall of Ice was an instantaneous conjuration (creation) spell that merely assembled the wall through magic, then it would be indirect.

Except it's not, the wall is doing nothing.

If you attempt to walk through it, YOU'RE affecting the WALL, not the opposite.

It's a point of contention because we disagree. The topic's been brought up in the thread multiple times already, discussed in detail, and no resolution's been reached yet.

Pizza Lord wrote:

Also, using his interpretation, spells like magic weapon or greater magic weapon (SR: Yes) fail to work for creatures with SR.

They absolutely can fail due to SR being on the creature that's being buffed.

Re-examining the saving throw (object) rules, it looks I was a little off base and you're right.

The terms “object” and “harmless” mean the same thing for spell resistance as they do for saving throws.

(object): The spell can be cast on objects, which receive saving throws only if they are magical or if they are attended (held, worn, grasped, or the like) by a creature resisting the spell, in which case the object uses the creature's saving throw bonus unless its own bonus is greater. This notation does not mean that a spell can be cast only on objects. Some spells of this sort can be cast on creatures or objects. A magic item's saving throw bonuses are each equal to 2 + 1/2 the item's caster level.

An attended item will attempt to resist using the attending creatures SR, if it has it.

Scenarios where an item gains spell resistance because of an attending creature after having already been affected by such a spell look grey areas.

Spell resistance doesn't interfere with your own spells or abilities, so a creature with spell resistance casting it's own Magic Weapon spell doesn't have anything to worry about.

A wall standing there is never going to work on a creature.

That's definitely a point of contention.

I'm sorry for my part in that exchange as well, Ryze Kuja; I was snide and insulting, and that was not in any way appropriate.

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I think the best way to illustrate my disagreement with your argument is to look first to the rules sections, starting with:

Each spell includes an entry that indicates whether spell resistance applies to the spell. In general, whether spell resistance applies [to the spell] depends on what the spell does.

I included, and want to draw attention to, the first sentence from that section because I feel it gives important context to the second - I read it as restating, essentially, that specific trumps general, and that the spell resistance entry in the spell's description is the ultimate arbiter of whether spell resistance applies. I've added some clarifying text in brackets to the second sentence to hopefully eliminate any possible confusion in how I'm interpreting this passage.

After determining whether spell resistance applies to a spell, the two most pertinent questions are:

1) What constitute the spell's effects?
2) When is the resistant creature in question first affected by one of those effects?

Adjudicating (2) is where the rules in the "When Spell Resistance Applies" section are most helpful. While I know we disagree on a number of issues related to those two questions, we agree that once the spell has been resisted we apply this rule:

Against an ongoing spell that has already been cast, a failed check against spell resistance allows the resistant creature to ignore any effect the spell might have.

Where it seems we disagree again is that you refer back to "in general, whether spell resistance applies depends on what the spell does" to see whether spell resistance applies to any individual spell effect, rather than applying it to the spell as a whole.

This is, I think, the most meaningful disagreement we have. The passage above seems to make it fairly explicit that spell resistance applies to spells as a whole rather than effects individually, and I don't think the sentence you're trying to refer back to contradicts that interpretation. If I were convinced otherwise I might be more easily convinced that spell resistance did not apply specifically to the wall in Wall of Ice.

Moving back to the list of wall spells you've curated, and applying this difference in interpretation, my sticking point can be mostly summed up by examining this one repeating sentence:

and are therefore SR:

Under the interpretation I discuss above, what the spell does does not, in practice, determine whether or not spell resistance applies to that spell. Since the spell resistance entry, and any language in the spell's text that specifically adjudicates spell resistance, are the most specific factors in determining whether spell resistance applies, they're generally the only factors in that determination. What the spell actually does, when examined under light of the rules in the "When Spell Resistance Applies" section, may give clues as to why an author chose for spell resistance to either apply or not, but those clues cannot outweigh the descriptor. Further, spell resistance applies to the spell and it's effects as an all-or-nothing proposition.

I could quibble about the reasoning behind why spell resistance does or doesn't apply to some of these spells, or about their classification, though for the majority of them I think you're correct about why the author made the choices they did. Ultimately though, until we reconcile the core dispute, the question of why an author chose one particular spell to be "SR yes" or "SR no" is not relevant to whether spell resistance applies to another spell.

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I love how the "spell resistance: yes (see text)" has no text about spell resistance.

Yeah, that spell's text is a bit boneheaded.

Laegrim's interpretation is too unwieldy and causes too many problems to function the way he's implying.

Take Campfire Wall.

In general, not really. I'll admit Campfire Wall is a bit unwieldy, but no more so than a Shadow spell.

Also, using his interpretation, spells like magic weapon or greater magic weapon (SR: Yes) fail to work for creatures with SR.

This is not correct.

Most GMs and games will rule that this falls under merely encountering an already ongoing spell and not actually being targeted or impacted by it, or that the SR creature clearly isn't the target, only benefiting from a property granted to an object by the spell, but his interpretation leaves no such chance for this. The spells just don't do anything for the creature.

As noted above, Magic Weapon works just fine with my interpretation. On the other hand, yeah, having spell resistance makes it difficult to benefit from many harmless or ongoing spells. Spell resistance has always worked that way, and, in many cases, is not a wholly positive thing for a player to have.

Also, we can tell that SR is intended to only be checked when a spell has a definitive effect by looking at other spells with SR: Yes that are identical to other spells that are SR: No except for the parts that 'go to work' on the creature with SR.

Take sanctuary (SR: NO) and miserable pity (SR: YES).

They are exactly the same spell... but one allows SR. When should a GM determine that SR is called for? When the spell would affect the creature with SR in a way that 'goes to work on its mind or body'. In this case, when it causes the creature to feel emotions or pity. Not when it decides that it can't attack the creature at all (though these actually are determined at the same time in this case). The fact that one spell does and one spell doesn't make it clear that there is a differentiation and that merely being 'affected' by the effect of a spell (ie. not being able to attack a target that's affected by the spell or perceive or be affected by a property of the spell's effect) is not enough to trigger an SR check in most cases.

I think you're right that was the rationale used between these spells, but I don't think that rationale is used consistently through the texts - for example, 'can't attack' in the context of Forbid Action does check for spell resistance. In most contexts a spell that forces a will save is counted as affecting the creature that must make the save. Sanctuary, on its own, is unusual.

In other cases, the only option for when to apply spell resistance is when "merely being 'affected'"; Wind Wall and Resilient Sphere, for example.

I don't expect the authors to have a unified vision for how the rules work, and, for spell resistance, that's doubly true. In the 3.X spell resistance rules Web gets used as an example of when spell resistance does apply. If we try to guess at which effects are major enough to allow spell resistance, and which aren't, we're inevitably going to end up with a mess of inconsistent interpretations and unintentional side effects. Instead we should just look to the SR line, and, if it says yes, then SR applies to spell effects. If there's qualifications to that line, follow those qualifications.

Spell Resistance does not let a creature ignore the wall of ice created by a wall of ice spell. It only applies to the part of the spell (and is only checked when) the spell would damage or otherwise actively affect the creature. Merely being ice, solid, glowing, smelly, or cold (not dealing cold damage) is not sufficient, nor would it remove these properties or sensations from the perception or reality of the creature.

People keep saying this, but the rules clearly don't support it. The "Successful Spell Resistance" section is clear that all spell effects are ignored when a spell is resisted. Even the bit about "already in place" spells, regardless of your opinion about when that should be applied, doesn't suggest divvying up a spell's effects into those resisted and those not.

Lets set aside, for a moment, whether just contact is enough to trigger a spell resistance check. Instead of Wall of Ice we can look at Holy Ice (Holy Ice Wall).

Say an evil outsider with spell resistance touches a Holy Ice Wall: we should agree that, in this case, the spell clearly goes to work on the creature. Right? Holy Ice allows for a spell resistance check, so what happens when the creature resists the spell? Well, the rules say that the creature will "ignore any effect the spell might have".

The Holy Ice Wall itself is one such effect. It's a spell effect by plain language, in this case literally listed in the Effect line. We don't get to choose not to ignore it.

All these examples were intended to show was that Ryze Kuja's "pattern" wasn't really as significant as it was made out to be, and thus doesn't hold much explanatory power, because Wall of Ice isn't an isolated case of an "SR yes" spell that also has a physical or object-like effect.

That was also intended to be a side comment in my larger argument.

Wall of bone says it acts exactly like wall of stone which doesn't allow SR.

Wall of bone allows SR to not be affected by the grappling aspect because it's 'acting upon' a person. The wall is still there and blocks your path and is 'already in place' so SR doesn't apply.

"The wall of bone works identically to wall of stone except as noted above and in this spell description."

The description says "Spell Resistance yes; see text" - the "see text" seems to refer to the sentence quoted above, as spell resistance applying is one of the differences noted. The spell's description doesn't say that spell resistance applies to only part of the spell.

Besides, the wall is the thing doing the grappling. It's all the same object - how does it make sense to ignore the wall in one context after successfully resisting the spell, but not in others?

Wall of ectoplasm is basically identical to wall of ice. SR applies to the mind affecting for going near it (acting upon). You can't walk through is because it's 'already in place' and SR doesn't apply.

It was in the list because of those similarities. Wall of Ectoplasm doesn't target either, so applying that rule would just mean that SR doesn't apply at all.

Wall of clockwork doesn't prevent you from walking through it, but if you do attempt to do so, it 'acts upon' you with damage, and SR applies.

Blade barrier is the same as wall of clockwork, neither block passage.

Both of these are in this list because they have some physical or object-like effect and allow spell resistance. In the first case the wall has attributes like hardness and HP, and in the second case it's called out as being composed of "blades of pure force". Neither were intended to be examples of walls that block passage.

Wind wall has no physical barrier to impede movement.

It is a physical effect that allows spell resistance (and, yes, I'm counting the wind as a physical effect); that's what I was looking for.

It's not a bunch of SR No spells, its a cross-examination of "SR: Yes Wall Spells that have No Physical Barriers but cause Damage/Conditions" vs. "SR: No Wall Spells that have Physical Barriers but cause No damage/conditions".

It proves that physical barriers created by Wall Spells are "Objects" and are therefore SR: No; and the damage/conditions from Wall spells are SR: Yes.

And you would know that if you actually read it.

It doesn't prove that at all. There's no rule saying that spell effects described in terms of physical barriers, physical effects, or objects are exempt from spell resistance, and trying to distill such a rule by comparing a small number spells while ignoring the significant differences between those spells is sophistry at best. There wasn't even a rule like that back in 3.X.

Spell resistance doesn't apply to "SR no" spells because the rules say that's how SR works. Even ignoring that, SR wouldn't apply to the objects produced by the effects of instantaneous conjuration (creation) spells because the rules for instantaneous conjuration (creation) spells tell you that when those spell effects produce objects they are "merely assembled through magic". The Wall spells in general are not, at any point, called out as being governed by a different set of rules than those which apply to all other spells.

Besides, you ignored some wall spells that don't seem to support your argument. Wall of Ectoplasm, Wall of Bone, Wall of Clockwork, Blade Barrier, and Wind Wall all produce seemingly physical effects and yet allow spell resistance. The first three of those five are even described in terms of objects.

I missed a bit here; I'll just reply to a few of the more important points brought up, and the one comment directly replying to mine.

Spell Resistance lets you be hit by a javelin of ice (from Holy Ice) and not be harmed.

Spell Resistance allows a tiny creature to pass through a Wind Wall and not be blown away. (Unless we're applying the "In many cases, spell resistance applies only when a resistant creature is targeted by the spell, not when a resistant creature encounters a spell that is already in place" rule here?)
Spell Resistance lets you stand next to a fireball that is setting the room on fire and somehow not get burned.

The laws of physics do not apply to magic effects interacting with spell immunities.

Allowing a magic-immune golem to walk through a wall of magic ice breaks nothing, as far as I can tell.

Exactly! I'm not sure why Wall of Ice's interaction with spell resistance seems to be such a stumbling block in particular, given the wide variety of effects spell resistance unquestionably lets you totally ignore.

As a side note, the "In many cases" text wouldn't apply to a tiny creature trying to traverse a Wind Wall because the effect isn't targeted, and the spell tells you "Spell Resistance yes".

I think this guy sums it up nicely. Magic Immunity is immune to any spell that has "SR: yes". D&D 5E forums talking about this exact same thing

...
What you're suggesting has been brought up every edition of D&D and thusly shot down. It's not how the game was ever supposed to be played, and suggesting that Pathfinder is any different in this respect is **channels Draco Malfoy pronouncing the P in Potter** Positively PrePosterous.

Right, and your authoritative proof of that is.... some other random forum post? Nice.

The meat of AtomicPope's post doesn't apply to the current debate either; we're not debating whether ""immunity to magic" means "immunity to Wall Spells"". That's a straw man, as ShadowcatX pointed out. Even past that, the reasoning given in that post applies only to 5ed, not to any of the 3.X/PF systems. In 3.X/PF, not only is there nothing preventing something described as an object from also being an ongoing spell effect, as is the case with the ice wall created by Wall of Ice, but the definition of immunity is either substantially different or non-existent.

Unless you can provide a rule that says SR allows you to walk through Objects that created by a spell, then you're just making things up that don't exist.

Against an ongoing spell that has already been cast, a failed check against spell resistance allows the resistant creature to ignore any effect the spell might have.

The rule "does what it says, and it says what it does." You don't get to ignore only part of a spell's effects, or pretend that because an effect is described in terms of an object it's not also an ongoing spell effect resulting from an ongoing spell.

I do know it's legit because this is how Wall spells have always worked since day 1. It's your onus to disprove it, not mine. If you want 20 years worth of forums, FAQ's, and Errata sifted through, then that's your burden, not mine.

...That's not how this works. You need to prove your own point. Given your repeated refusal to do that, I can only assume your point is meritless.

I want you to look at this rule:

Magic wrote:

The spell resistance entry and the descriptive text of a spell description tell you whether spell resistance protects creatures from the spell. In many cases, spell resistance applies only when a resistant creature is targeted by the spell, not when a resistant creature encounters a spell that is already in place.

Y'know, I addressed this way back in the thread. If you want this passage to apply to Wall of Ice, you have to accept that means that spell resistance doesn't apply to Wall of Ice at all - Wall of Ice has no targeted effects. All of its effects are the result of encountering "a spell that is already in place", and spell resistance either applies or doesn't apply to all of the spell's effects equally.

Luckily, we have the most specific rule possible to tell us that this rules section doesn't apply to Wall of Ice: Wall of Ice's description says "Spell Resistance yes".

Wall of Ice couldn't be clearer that it's not one of those "many cases".

... [List of wall spells] ...

So, you're using a bunch of SR no spells, most of which are instantaneous conjuration effects (which are explicitly called out as acting differently), to show that an SR yes evocation spell with a duration can't be resisted with SR? You sure you don't want to reexamine that logic?

Just do what the spell tells you to do - apply spell resistance.

So you're saying your own spell resistance is fooling you into thinking you can walk through a solid wall?

So then, spell resistance doesn't apply, and you can't walk through it.

Spell resistance actually lets you walk through a resisted magical effect, including magical effects that take the form of solid walls. It doesn't have to fool you into thinking that you can walk through an effect you ignore. I'm not sure why you think spell resistance applies to itself either, that's not what the rules say in any shape or form.

This is going in circles. I'm ducking out for at least a few days to lower my blood pressure - here's the TLDR for my argument, in case anyone new reads this far through the thread.

1. Wall of Ice is a "Spell Resistance yes" spell, and the wall produced is a spell effect. Spell resistance applies to the wall like any other such spell effect.

2. "Against an ongoing spell that has already been cast, a failed check against spell resistance allows the resistant creature to ignore any effect the spell might have." That's a direct rules quote, and there are no cut-outs or exceptions. Magical wall effects aren't less ignorable than any other effect.

3. If you make contact with a physical spell effect to which spell resistance applies, it is, by plain meaning of the words, affecting you. It has gone to work on your body - that's the only reason you can touch it in the first place. If you have spell resistance, make a spell resistance check. A number of spells more or less explicitly support this interpretation.

It's either an actual wall you can't walk through (like ya know, a wall), or it's fooling you into thinking there is a wall there and your SR doesn't apply.

There's an actual wall, the spell effect of the spell Wall of Ice, that, should you resist the spell, you ignore, as per the spell resistance rules.

So yes, spell resistance will let you walk through walls in some very specific circumstances.

At no point is the spell effect itself fooling you into thinking it's there when it's not, or that it's not when it's there. That's all that the rules passage you quoted cares about. If anything is fooling you it's your own spell resistance, but spell resistance has always been a double edged sword.

It fools your eyes.

If I think a wall is in front of me then I think I can't walk through it.

I know how walls work.
It looks like a wall.
I believe it to be a wall.
I treat it as a wall.
I'm fooled into thinking it's a wall.
My SR doesn't work.

... It doesn't fool your eyes. There's actually a wall blocking your way, one you can't walk through, until you resist it with spell resistance. Once you've resisted it, the spell effect is still not fooling your eyes - you ignore it.

Here is a quote from spell resistance.

"Spell resistance does not apply if an effect fools the creature’s senses or reveals something about the creature"

Well, it sure looks like there is a wall of ice there, I probably can't walk through it.

SR doesn't apply.

How does this fool the senses? There's actually a barrier of magical ice there - if you can't resist it, and therefore ignore it, it will block you.

No, I'm just making sure that anyone reading this isn't seriously considering your opinion on how SR works as fact. What you're suggesting is pretty wild, and if it was indeed supposed to work this way, they would've enumerated it in a rule somewhere, or an FAQ/Errata of some kind. "It does what it says, and it says what it does". If it doesn't say somewhere in the Rules/FAQ/Errata that SR allows you to walk through Solid Wall or Wall of Ice spells, then you don't get to just make things up based on rules-lawyering technicalities and loopholes.

And here I thought this was a good faith discussion. If you have an actual argument, make it. Cite or analyze some rules, or find a source to show RAI.

This isn't a wild interpretation, I'm not rules lawyering, or making stuff up. There doesn't need to be some kind of errata that says "we've already told you that if a spell is resisted with spell resistance you should ignore any spell effects but, in the case of wall spells that allow spell resistance we really mean it!".

Seriously. This is a really simple, explicit rule. It's not a technicality or loophole.

If you want to make up a house rule that changes Wall of Ice to a "Spell Resistance: see text" spell, so that it works how you think it should, then go ahead. If you want to add in exceptions to the "ignore any spell effect" rule, that's great! Play your game the way best fits the experience you want to have. That's how Pathfinder works best. But if you want to present your interpretation as the way the rules actually work in the rules forum, please, actually support your argument and make it in good faith.

Laegrim wrote:

What's your sticking point?

Just because a Wall spell has SR: Yes doesn't mean that you get to walk through them when they fail the SR check against you. It's still a solid wall, you just don't take any dmg from it.

I've addressed this point several times in thread so far; do you have anything new to add to that particular debate point? The rules are pretty explicit that successfully resisting a spell means you ignore any effect that spell has, not just some of the spell's effects.

The argument relies on a very strict use of RAW and that is both its strength and weakness.

I mean, this is a rules forum; using the RAW seems appropriate.

You have to stovepipe spells into stand-alone items, ignore more recent spells, ignore the general way the books are written, and ignore use case history. I didn't even address that it's not a Conjuration as that's a distraction, and yes, many GMs conflate the implementations/interpretations.

... I don't think I've done any of this, but I'm not sure how to address most of this without further clarification.

As for ShadowcatX's point about the school of the spell, it's absolutely relevant. Only instantaneous duration conjuration (creation) spells are, as a general rule, called out as producing independent, self-sustaining, and non-magical results. Other spells might have similar results, but the text of the spell would need to specify as such.

Use case is particularly important as this is an old spell brought into Pathfinder via the OGL. It was well known to the writers at the time and if they wanted to change how it worked they could have edited the text to reflect that.

You're right that none of the relevant text has significantly changed since the first 3.0 printing, but I've never seen anything to indicate RAI on this issue.

Part of the reason this topic is a bit of a bugbear for me is that I've been interpreting the spell resistance rules this way since I started playing 3.0. As far as I'm concerned I'm not changing the rules or changing how anything works.

I'd say his interpretation is somewhat unique and less than 5% of GMs I know would rule that way. It doesn't mean he's wrong, it's just something in the GM's gray area.

After the last thread I opened on the spell resistance rules, I'd guess that they're generally misremembered, misread, and misinterpreted - and not for no reason. Those rules are unintuitive, and most people won't ever need to go through them carefully to play the game.

I'm generally confident in my reasoning here in this thread, but I'm not ruling out that there's some chance that I could be one of those people misinterpreting things either. My opinions are not set in stone, though I do need particularly good evidence to change them.

No he isn't.

What's your sticking point?

No, the definition of spell effects is more specific than "anything related to a spell".

Ah, no. A spell effect is literally an effect of a spell.

If you have a citation to suggest otherwise, I'd love to see it.

Sometimes the devs bother to explain this in more detail (the difference between hungry darkness where SR can block dmg but not the darkness because it isn't an effect applied to the creature like damage is) but the same idea applies regardless of editing oversight.

Both the darkness and the damage of Hungry Darkness are spell effects, but spell resistance can only prevent one of those effects because that's what the text of the spell tells you.

The text does not suggest the they are not both effects.

Ice is an object. Doesn't matter how the ice was made, it is an object. Nothing about Spell Resistance lets you go through an object. Objects aren't spell effects. Damage caused by an object is a spell effect (i.e. diamond spray) because the application of damage is a spell effect, but a wall is not a spell effect.

Extensive arguments don't matter. Objects are objects and use object rules which have 0 intersection with spell resistance. Your SR will stop the damage of an Ice Wall, nothing more.

Again, you need to cite a rule that says the effect of a spell is not a spell effect - because otherwise, by the plain wording of the rules, the wall of ice created by Wall of Ice is a spell effect.

It's a spell effect that functions in many ways like an object, as detailed by the text, but that doesn't prevent it from being a spell effect, or spell resistance from applying to it like any other spell effect that allows for spell resistance.

A wall isn't an effect, it's a wall. That's quite simply the end of it. Damage is an effect, paralysis is an effect, but being unable to walk through a wall is not an effect, regardless of what the wall is made of.

No. Let me lay things out as clearly as I can, so we can actually have a productive debate. Tell me which line(s) below you disagree with, and why.

--------------------------------------

Wall of Ice is a spell.

Wall of Ice's effect is a wall of ice, as detailed by the text of the spell.

Since Wall of Ice is a spell, its effect is a spell effect.

Since Wall of Ice has a duration, the spell's effect is an ongoing spell effect for the duration of the spell.

Since the wall of ice is an ongoing spell effect, any other effect that interacts with ongoing spell effects will interact with the wall of ice in the manner described.

Since Wall of Ice has the descriptor "Spell Resistance yes", spell resistance interacts with the spell's effect according to the spell resistance rules.

According to the spell resistance rules, a creature that successfully resists the spell ignores any of the spell's effects.

Since Wall of Ice has a duration, when the duration ends the effects of the spell end.

--------------------------------------

The only ambiguity I can see is whether or not contact with the wall is enough to trigger a spell resistance check, according to the spell resistance rules, and I laid out extensive arguments as to why it should be enough in previous comments.

If you want to create a wall, and have that be the end of it, cast Wall of Stone.

Sure, it's reasonable to conclude that... if...

you were to ignore the system, other interactions, and other similar circumstances of what the game system considers 'striking', 'touching', or 'affected by'. You might want to point out that if something strikes you, then 'scientifically' that means it's touching you and you might be right. You might then try and extrapolate that if something touches you, that means that you are touching it... and that if striking is the same as touching, something striking you means that you actually struck it.
That's all well and good scientifically and philosophically and may even be correct (and that's not being argued), but in this game system someone 'touching' someone else does not always or necessarily mean that that other person 'touched' the other, especially for magical situations. Especially in cases of holding a spell's charge, where if you 'strike', or even touch someone or something else unintentionally... you discharge the spell, but someone else touching you, such as 'striking' you or grappling does not.

In this case, grabbing the sword, attacking it with your fist (whether effective or not), or touching it while you're holding the charge on some dispelling touch spell (whether effective or not) is not the sword striking you or going to work on you or doing anything to you per the mechanics. Your own held spell will discharge when you touch the sword (whether you intended to discharge it or not) but the sword striking you won't (but the sword striking you will trigger an SR check).

So yes, it's reasonable to make that assumption and use scientific or philosophical pontification, but not when more data and consideration of the situation is taken into account based on what's being discussed in the framework of magic or why it does something or works somehow (or doesn't work somehow).

Mage's Sword:

---------------------------------------------------------------
You might ask, 'Why then bother to put a little section in the spell specifically about Spell Resistance and pretty much just repeating the rules on what it is and does?"
The answer to that is to look at how mage's sword actually interacts differently with SR checks. That's the reason it's in that spell, not as a guideline for wall of ice even though they may share the same magic School or any other properties.

What's the difference with mage's sword's SR interaction and other SR interactions that aren't specified? The fact that as an ongoing spell it is 'dispelled' if it fails against a protected creature. This is not the normal mechanic for ongoing spells.
Spell Resistance wrote:
Against an ongoing spell that has already been cast, a failed check against spell resistance allows the resistant creature to ignore any effect the spell might have. The magic continues to affect others normally.
If a mage's sword is flitting about merrily, slashing up your friends and then hits you and fails its SR check, it goes away. Entirely. Dispelled. Ended. That means you may have just saved your friend's lives if it was going to attack them next.

Wall of ice or wall of light don't have such explicit statements. Which means, using the rules, they would continue to remain in place and effect other creatures normally.

And that is why that section is in mage's sword's spell entry description. Not as a rubric for how another spell should necessarily work.

If that was the case, it would be like spiritual weapon (which is far more similar to mage's sword in what is an obvious way and not just a stretch that 'they have the same school'. (I actually think spiritual weapon is what mage's sword is based on, not the other way around) and we, in fact, see that spiritual weapon does have that very same disclaimer.

This goes back to that "common sense" you were talking about earlier. Having a situation where if the sword hits you, it triggers a spell resistance check, but not if you make contact with the sword is a little ridiculous. While you're right that Mage's Sword interacts differently with SR checks than normal, the difference is in the result of a failed SR check rather than the circumstances that trigger a SR check.

We have an ambiguous rule to interpret - "goes to work" - and a set of spells that clarify that at least one kind of contact, striking, fits within that rule. The question we have to ask ourselves is if it makes sense for only that one kind of contact to count as "goes to work", and I think the answer is pretty clearly no.

The spell Creeping Ice further outlines that other forms of contact are enough to count as "goes to work"; it's "Spell Resistance: yes", so we know SR applies somehow to the spell. Applying SR only to the circumstances where the ice is growing towards a creature, and not any other form of contact, is entirely arbitrary. One is not more "going to work" than the other.

If we look at the context of the rules line we're debating, we can see the paragraph as a whole is attempting to draw a delineation between spell effects, against which SR is effective, and second order effects, against which SR is not effective.

Spell resistance has no effect unless the energy created or released by the spell actually goes to work on the resistant creature’s mind or body. If the spell acts on anything else and the creature is affected as a consequence, no roll is required. Spell-resistant creatures can be harmed by a spell when they are not being directly affected.

So, in light of the full quote, is a creature making contact with a Mage's Sword, or the ice from Creeping Ice or Wall of Ice being affected as a consequence of the spell acting on something else? No. In each of these cases the creature making contact with the spell's effect is being directly affected by the spell's effect. Does it make sense in this context to draw an arbitrary line through various types of contact to include some as "going to work", or "being affected" and others not? Again, no. And, as long as a creature with SR is directly affected by a spell effect, and that spell effect allows for a SR check, we should make that check.

No pontification necessary. We just need not read arbitrary restriction into a rule that doesn't include it.

That could be an enjoyable discussion and passing of the time in a location other than Rules. However, no matter how scientifically beautiful or accurate or thought-out, Magic, and its effects and interactions, even with scientific objects or methodology used for reference, is pretty much the opposite of science. If not objectively the opposite of science (but that could be art... but then... Magic is often referred to as 'The Art'... but this isn't the place for those musings).

Why a wonderful, beautiful, articulate scientific explanation of why magic doesn't work... doesn't work [(here in Rules):

------------------------------------------------------------
Why does teleport maintain personal, relativistic 'localized' momentum and speeds but not other factors? If you're falling when you teleport you are still falling (or take damage for the distance fallen to that point) when you teleport. You can teleport over something soft, like water or a mattress and mitigate it, rather than slamming into the ground, but it's still there.
Great, you think! That's scientifically plausible and how the spell works... except... it doesn't take into account or maintain how fast you're spatially moving, such as the spin of the planet (which is really fast). Or the movement of the planet around a star (which is really fast).

Realistically Scientifically, if you teleported to the other side of the planet... you should be upside down. You will then suddenly actually be going in the opposite direction of the planet's spin and not just be flung through any nearby objects... but probably charred to ash by the atmospheric friction of the speeds
and forces you're subjected to.

But you aren't. Why not? Magic. The magical effect says how it interacts in the game world (even if that reason and set of rules is purely to make it so the game works at some arbitrary level of playability without forcing every player to either study fields of science when they want to be focusing on the subject of magic (or 'not-science') or playing a game and not doing homework by having to decode, collate, and calculate tables and tables of mathematical and scientific data to determine how real-world physics affects a made up character's health and body which has been generalized down to the word 'hit points' and is an arbitrary number.

Can it be fun to do that (for some)? Sure. Can the discussion of it be fun? Absolutely... but not in Rules. At least... not when by first looking at how the system itself is framed... and the magic system itself has been framed... and the interaction of magic with other things (like creatures with SR) has been framed first.
------------------------------------------------------------

Clearly you've a deficient education in Spellcraft - otherwise you'd know the why and how of the methods by which Teleport compensates for these factors. Which Wizard's School did you attend, anyways? Probably some hick outfit, like Theumanexus.

...

Anyways, you're obviously right that we quickly run into problems applying real world physics to the game's rules. Pathfinder might be a pretty crunchy system, but it's not a physics engine. I wasn't particularly clear in that quote, but it was meant to be a possible way to flavor the rules rather than an argument for why the rules should work that way. I think the rules themselves, and the examples we have to help us interpret them, work plenty well on their own.

I don't think anyone said it was. I certainly didn't. If you inferred that than maybe I'll be clearer, since sometimes I do actually take steps for brevity in some posts, but I was likely trying to confine things to the spell's being discussed (which do have actual mechanical and numerical effects (ie. blindness or cold damage).

For instance, I know that there's a spell called resilient sphere. It allows SR. It doesn't apply any mechanical or numerical effect or penalty to defense (or even movement, though its boundaries might restrict it). Basically, the target is inside a barrier. No different than being inside an equally mundane or normal size room or other sphere of a material of equal property to [force]. I know that a target with SR will force an SR check when the spell 'goes to work' on them. So... no, that's not even an issue here.

I took your post as endorsing that view - it certainly seemed like the line you were trying to draw when analyzing Wall of Light's effects. But, it sounds like we're mostly on the same page here.

Resilient Sphere is an interesting choice for an example though, and probably one I should have been using to prove my point earlier. If contact is not enough to trigger a SR check, then there's no mechanism by which SR could apply to Resilient Sphere at all, despite that it's description includes the line "Spell Resistance: yes". Notice that Resilient Sphere is not a targeted spell. There's no Target line at all, just an Effect line. If Resilient Sphere were a targeted spell, then we would have a clear avenue to apply SR:

Targeted Spells: Spell resistance applies if the spell is targeted at the creature.

Since it's not, and instead effects the area around a creature, we're left with interpreting the Effect Spells section to determine how SR applies. Because Resilient Sphere cannot form unless the sphere's diameter is large enough to fully contain the creature around which it forms, the first time a creature will be directly affected by the spell in any way is when it makes contact with the wall of the sphere. If that contact is not enough to trigger the SR check, then there are no other circumstances in which that SR check might occur.

The spell clearly allows for SR to apply, so contact with the spell's effect must be enough to trigger that check.

TL/DR

The main problem with your version of how to do it (for most people using the system, obviously. You can do it however you like, and share your reasons, as you've done here, and maybe others will do it that way too). The thing is, those people should know why or how it is supposed to work when they make that decision.

The how and why of my interpretation is very, very simple. The only question you need ask is "are you being directly affected by the spell's effects", and, if yes, and the spell allows for SR, and you have SR, then a SR check is made. I'm simply not drawing arbitrary lines to say that one kind of direct interaction between spell effect and creature counts, and another doesn't.

One reason is, your method would cause issues:

If you're in a 5-foot tube and your ally is trapped in a resilient sphere, it will stop your movement, it will block your arrows and attacks (and protect your friend), and will be immovable to you. You won't get to walk up and just pass through. It isn't 'going to work' on you just by being an immovable (even if magical and temporary) effect.

A spell that emits illumination by its nature (such as being a ball of light or fire) doesn't mean it won't illuminate the area for you to see just because it can't 'go to work' on you (however you define it), unless that is specifically what it does to you as part of the magical effect. You aren't suddenly plunged into darkness and blindness because you just happen to be unaffected by the heat coming off a wall of fire or the blindness caused by passing through a wall of light.

You aren't standing guard when an enemy caster sneaks up and unleashes an otherwise unnoticed casting or sonic scream (because it's a spell-like ability or used the Silent Spell metamagic feat) and fails their SR check against you and not only do you take no sonic damage... but you don't hear any sound from the scream at all. "Quiet night tonight," you think to yourself.

Same deal with shout. You are sitting at dinner with a friend and someone unleashes the spell with you in the area. You take no damage or deafening... but that doesn't mean the booming shout is just some ephemeral non-existent figment in a phased out reality to you. "Why is all the glassware and wine bottles on the table shattering?" Similarly, you don't get to continue to hear the quartet of musicians on the stage across the room uninterrupted as they continue to play during the blast. The music may play on, but it's drowned out by a really loud noise (unless the spell itself somehow purposefully made it so you couldn't hear such noises by its effect... and for some reason they made it have SR... which wouldn't make sense... but it could exist).

There's just too many messy situations... even simple ones where a friend uses wall of ice or similar spell that allows SR for a good, legitimate reason to fill in a gap in a bridge or hole in a floor to make a bridge or allow crossing safely. Then, just because you walked on it you suddenly sink/fall into the pit, taking falling damage... and no one can help you out, because it looks like you're inside solid ice and they can't lower a rope (we already agree wall of ice doesn't just end, unlike a mage's sword). .

Resilient sphere I covered above, and for the rest of this, once we've moved past the "does this count as "going to work"?" question, you're not really arguing against me - you're arguing against plainly written rules.

Against an ongoing spell that has already been cast, a failed check against spell resistance allows the resistant creature to ignore any effect the spell might have. The magic continues to affect others normally

You can't ignore "any effect the spell might have". Spell Resistance is explicitly a bit of a double edged sword - it cuts out beneficial effects as well as harmful effects - so I don't actually see the problem with your examples.

If you can't see because you resisted a Wall of Fire or Wall of Light, and they were your only light source, perhaps you should have dropped your spell resistance. Or, maybe, find or create a different light source.

If you resisted an unnoticed casting of Sonic Scream, perhaps remaining unaware is the double edged sword at work or perhaps you catch the screams echoes off of other objects (a secondary effect). Honestly, this could make for a fun and flavorful encounter.

If you resist a Shout, then, yeah, you don't hear the primary effect. Presumably you'd notice the spell effecting all of the other things around you, but the sound created by the spell itself is a magical effect that failed to make it past your resistances. Sounds flavorful to me.

If you need to make it across a bridging Wall of Ice and think your SR might risk you dropping into the drink or whatever else is beneath the bridge, then you'd probably better lower it for the duration of the crossing. If you end up in a hole filled with magical ice, in which nobody else can reach you because nobody else has resisted the spell's effects, and out of which you can't extricate yourself under your own power, then, yeah, you're in a bit of a sticky situation. You'll probably have to wait for the Wall's duration to expire, for someone to dispel it, or for someone to break or melt enough of the ice to reach you. That's a flavorful encounter, not a reason to ignore the rules.

How you flavor the rules that is up to you; the rules text itself doesn't give any particular instruction. As I mentioned before, you could take inspiration from the rules segment adjudicating successful saves against Figments and Phantasms.

Except it's not, it follows object rules for breaking the ice. The reason it ends is because the cooling effects ends and normal atmospheric conditions return it back to air. Antimagic field disables the cooling effect, which should melt the ice, but that isn't the same thing as someone with spell resistance being able to walk through solid ice. The ice doesn't apply any effect for SR to resist, the cold damage is the only thing affected by spell resistance.

It's a spell with a duration measured in minutes per level - it doesn't end because of "the cooling effects ends and normal atmospheric conditions return it back to air", it ends because the spell's duration expires. Nothing more, nothing less. And when the spell ends the wall immediately vanishes, as is normal for ongoing spell effects which have expired in duration.

When you put a Wall of Ice in an Antimagic Field, it doesn't act like normal ice. There's no melting, or evaporating, or anything like that. The wall is a magical effect, and it immediately vanishes as it's suppressed just as it does if the duration runs out. If you remove the Antimagic Field before the wall's duration runs out, it will immediately pop back into existence.

I get the inclination to treat the ice like normal ice. For many purposes you can, as detailed in the spell's text. But, in the end, it's an ongoing spell effect and not a self-sustaining object independent from the magic creating it.

EDIT: Sat on my reply for a while, so missed yours @Ryze Kuja.

Laegrim, what you're suggesting is a significant rule for how SR interacts with Wall spells and how the game is supposed to be played. It would need to explicitly say that SR allows you to walk through magical walls as a General or Specific Rule somewhere, and neither exist.

Not really. There're only a few spells for which this interaction is an issue, and the rules are actually fairly explicit in how to handle this. There's absolutely no need for a passage in the rules specifically detailing how to handle magical walls and spell resistance.

If anything were needed, it would be a clarification to this specific passage: "Spell resistance has no effect unless the energy created or released by the spell actually goes to work on the resistant creature’s mind or body."

We're all debating what "goes to work on" really means.

Thank you all. I think the following quote from the Spell Resistance section of the Magic chapter of the Core Rules are also helpful:

"In many cases, spell resistance applies only when a resistant creature is targeted by the spell, not when a resistant creature encounters a spell that is already in place."

I don't think that Wall of Ice is one of those "many cases"; applying this quote to Wall of Ice would preclude spell resistance applying to the damage upon passing through a breach, as it's not targeted, which seems to be the one thing we all agree that spell resistance does apply to.

Let's use another example. Take wall of light.

Wall of light is an interesting example, but, perhaps not surprisingly, I don't agree with your analysis of the spell. You've also pinpointed the crux of our disagreement:

You only check when the spell effect goes to work on the creature's mind or body.

What it means for a spell effect "to go to work on the creature's mind or body" is not clearly defined, but we do have examples to work with which should help clarify the line.

In Wall of Ice's case, we can look for "Spell Resistance: yes" spells which have an effect that creates an object with limited duration - and, as I noted in a comment above, spells like Mage's Sword fit the bill. While Mage's Sword doesn't explicitly say that contact of any kind is enough to trigger a spell resistance check, it does specify:

If an attacked creature has spell resistance, the resistance is checked the first time mage’s sword strikes it. If the sword is successfully resisted, the spell is dispelled. If not, the sword has its normal full effect on that creature for the duration of the spell.

I think it's reasonable to conclude that if a creature with spell resistance reached out to grab, or otherwise make contact with, the Mage's Sword, that would also trigger a check.

Creeping Ice, also noted above, is an example of a "Spell Resistance: yes" spell for which there doesn't seem to be any opportunity at all to apply spell resistance if contact with the created object doesn't count.

Coming back around to Wall of Light, I agree that coming into contact with the wall isn't enough to trigger a spell resistance check - if only because there's not a physical object to contact. Wall of Light goes to work on a creature in other ways.

Just like instances of touching a wall of light while keeping your eyes closed to negate being affected, touching it doesn't trigger or cause any effects until you pass through it.

Similarly, touching a wall of ice does not trigger an effect on the creature's mind or body. Ice is cold, but being cold is not damaging or an effect. Light is bright, but being bright isn't blinding... unless the spell's effect makes either of those so.

If ice, by its nature, dealt instant cold damage, that would still just be a nature of being ice (as opposed to being magically enhanced to super-cold levels) and wouldn't give an SR check if the creature laid on a wall of ice for hours and got frostbite... because that isn't the spell's effect. That's the nature of a property of the creature (ie. getting cold when you lay on ice).

The ice created by Wall of Ice is an ongoing spell effect. It's a physical object, though only for a specific duration, but that doesn't stop the ice from being an ongoing spell effect. As per the examples above, interacting with it should be plenty enough to constitute going to work on a creature's body. If you want to get really simulationist with this, Newton's Third Law of Motion makes that whole "going to work on a creature's body" thing very literal - as the creature exerts force on it, it exerts force on the creature.

Nowhere is it stated that the spell effect must impose a numerical penalty or damage upon the creature to constitute "goes to work".

If you could crush a creature beneath a wall of ice, SR doesn't apply. If you could fabricate a section of that wall into a spear and stab them with it, they'd take (probably pathetic) damage with no SR check. Even if they'd already passed through a breached section and the SR failed against them, dealing no cold damage.

At no point is it implied that a creature completely avoid all effects or aspects of a spell's existence, only the ones that magically go to work on them.

The rules are actually pretty clear that you're wrong here:

Against an ongoing spell that has already been cast, a failed check against spell resistance allows the resistant creature to ignore any effect the spell might have.

Key word: any.

What you can't ignore are indirect effects - so if you're in a cave, and a toppling Wall of Ice causes a cave in, you can't ignore that. But the ice created by Wall of Ice is literally the ongoing spell effect itself, not an indirect effect of the spell. Being crushed by the spell effect is as direct as it gets. If a creature passed through a breach in the Wall of Ice, successfully resisted the damage with spell resistance, and then had the wall fall on them, they'd ignore it.

EDIT: Took a while to post this, so didn't notice your reply @AwesomenessDog.

It's easier to explain if you realize that Paizo can only print one spell school but realistically, the wall of ice is real ice (as if it were a conjuration (creation) spell, but more so that the water in the air is literally flash frozen into a wall) and it is now a real, physical wall of ice. The coldness is magical, and therefore the damage caused by it would be affected by spell resistance, but the ice wall is real, nonmagical ice, and therefore not affected by SR.

I disagree. If the ice were entirely real ice then Wall of Ice would be an instantaneous spell instead of one with a limited duration - like Wall of Stone. What we have instead is an ongoing spell effect that mimics the behavior of real ice. Pop an Antimagic Field over a Wall of Ice, and it'll vanish like it was never there.

FoM doesn't allow you to move through walls of ice or stone, because walls do not inhibit movement. You can move around just fine, but only on one side of the wall. You would still have to break through the wall. Allowing SR or FoM to let you move through Solid Walls of Ice opens up a whole can of worms (FoM counters Forcecage? Wall of Force? Mundane Walls? What's the point of Passwall? If you have a Ring of FoM, does that counter Imprisonment? etc.) and I don't believe this to be RAI at all (nor is it RAW, for that matter-- it doesn't say anywhere in any rule that SR or FoM allows you to pass through solid walls, whether it be magical or mundane).

If the caster fails his SR check, then you simply wouldn't take dmg while breaching the wall. But, you still have to breach it to get to the other side.

If you want to debate FoM, lets move that to the other thread - I linked to that thread because the sub-discussion about Wall of Ice was relevant here, and covered some of the points being brought up here. Besides, I think my take on FoM, expansive as it is, is a little more nuanced than you're giving me credit for here.

As for Spell Resistance, I don't hold that it lets you move through Forcecage or Wall of Force. They're both "Spell Resistance: no" spells, so I'm a little confused why they're even being brought to the table here.

Against an ongoing spell that has already been cast, a failed check against spell resistance allows the resistant creature to ignore any effect the spell might have.

The wall created by Wall of Ice is an ongoing spell effect. If you accept that, then spell resistance, in some very specific circumstances, absolutely does let you walk through walls.

I get it, that's why I phrased it the way I did.

I'd examine discussions about the melting of Wall of Ice once the spell wears out. That means it is assumed to be an object conjured by the spell and essentially held there. It's a consequence of the text, "This spell creates an anchored plane of ice or a hemisphere of ice", and "A sheet of strong, hard ice appears. The wall is 1 inch thick per caster level. It covers up to a 10-foot-square area per caster level...", and "Each 10-foot square of wall has 3 hit points per inch of thickness. Creatures can hit the wall automatically. A section of wall whose hit points drop to 0 is breached. If a creature tries to break through the wall with a single attack, the DC for the Strength check is 15 + caster level.".

Where are you getting that the wall melts once the duration has run out? The spell's text doesn't specify what happens when the duration expire, so we should be able to assume that the entire construct vanishes - as is the case with any other spell effect that has expired and does not specify otherwise.

Wall of Bone{N}4 a newer spell has an updated description. It's not conjuration and thus helpful.

It's also got the line "Spell Resistance yes; see text" in the description, which is a particularly important distinction to make when comparing it to Wall of Ice. Because of that difference, we can't impute from Wall of Bone's interactions with spell resistance onto Wall of Ice.

A GM could rule that the creature with SR might bypass the wall entirely, but then this would affect a few other things in the game. Most walls are conjurations with SR:no. In short that makes SR much more powerful and able to get around solid objects created by magic.

What other interactions do you think would my interpretation render problematic?

Wall Spells with the "Spell Resistance: no" line in their descriptor wouldn't have their interactions with spell resistance changed in any way - they literally tell you that spell resistance doesn't apply.

You can't get through a wall of stone with SR, you can't get around the actual ice. Also if @Laegrim will recall that discussion, the question was if SR protects you from application of effects of a spell. The damage of Ice Wall is the only applied effect. Some with or without SR can attempt the reflex save to disrupt it and SR is irrelevant here, it's still ice assuming it forms and if the save passes, nothing happens with the wall. The wall being a combat obstacle after it forms is not an application of a spell effect, ergo your SR doesn't change anything about how an intact ice wall normally works. It does however protect you from the cold when you step through a broken ice wall, as like a wall of fire (the actual spell in question from that other thread), the damage is an application of spell effect.

Why would Wall of Stone be a valid comparison here? Wall of Stone is "Duration instantaneous" and "Spell Resistance: no" - it's a very different spell.

Also, you're thinking of a different discussion - the one I linked to in my comment above was ostensibly about whether Freedom of Movement protected you from Icy Prison.

As far as I'm aware, the words "effect" and "affect" don't have strict definitions in the rules. I'd absolutely count coming into contact with a created or summoned object as "being affected" by a spell. Spells like Mage's Sword seem to explicitly support that interpretation, and without that interpretation the "Spell Resistance: yes" line doesn't make much sense for a spell like Creeping Ice.

I'll probably be the lone dissent here, but I do think that a creature with spell resistance being affected by a Wall of Ice for the first time, before it is breached, such as by touching it, triggers a spell resistance check. As you note, the spell simply says "Spell Resistance: Yes" - not "Spell Resistance: see text", "Spell Resistance: partial" or "If you breach the wall, spell resistance applies". If the caster fails that spell resistance check, the creature that resisted the Wall of Ice will then "ignore any effect the spell might have".

There was also discussion not too long ago about Freedom of Movement (found here) that included some debate over the interaction between Wall of Ice and Spell Resistance; you might find some of those points relevant.

Keep in mind that line isn't referring to how you determine if an effect does or does not take effect (damn english), it's saying "don't roll multiple times for multiple effects, enemies, rays, etc. just roll once and that's the roll that everyone checks their own SR against."

I've got to disagree - look at the use of the phrase "the creature" in the surrounding sentences. In context, the sentence applies to the "the creature" in question, telling you to make only check per creature per spell.

A spell that affects multiple creatures which have spell resistance requires multiple spell resistance checks, one for each.

As I said previously though, rolling one caster level check at the start and then applying that same number all around makes some sense as a shortcut. A bit swingier perhaps, but faster if there's many enemies.

If you have SR and voluntarily lower it and get affected with a spell, then you get an SR check when your SR comes back up the following round.

But if you have SR 0, you're essentially treated as Helpless to Resist it in the same way of making a Coup De Grace vs. a Helpless target (you automatically hit without having to roll d20), and therefore must make a Save. There are some spells that you can ignore all the effects if you Save, but there are plenty of spells that still affect you on a Successful Save.

I think the most clear rule that governs this is "Check spell resistance only once for any particular casting of a spell or use of a spell-like ability." <---- if you have SR0 when this event occurs, then you're simply Helpless to resist it, and this event should satisfy this condition of "check SR only once".

And if you disagree with this, I don't blame you, because frankly this is yet another example of sha-poopy writing. Make your own House Rule and press on.

Honestly, I'm on the fence. I'm not convinced there's much RAW justification for SR0 == No SR, but, since the flip side seems to be that spells like Spell Immunity become much, much more powerful, I'm not sure what I actually prefer.

If by "spell resistance is dropped" you mean "voluntarily lowered", then they should get a reroll either way - the rules seem fairly explicit about that

Quick clarification, reroll was the wrong word to use there and doesn't convey what I intended - I should instead have said something like "roll when they bring their spell resistance back up".

Not even remotely. I am reading the rules for spell resistance as applying how the rules directly state. Spell resistance applies when the target is first affected by the spell if present, if not it may or may not apply later depending on how the spell functions. If the spell can stop affecting the target and then start up again later in the same casting, then spell resistance can come into effect later otherwise it only matters at the initial onset of the spell.

If you are under the effects of bestow curse and later gain spell resistance, your spell resistance doesn’t impact the bestow curse effect. The reason for this is because bestow curse is a continuous effect that doesn’t simply stop and start up again. You make multiple saves sure, but the curse doesn’t end and come back between saves. I called out environmental spell effects specifically because they are the most common types of spells that can both stop and reapply their effects to a target in the same casting.

My apologies then, I was trying to figure out how you arrived at the interpretation you did. Problem is, the only justification I can find for treating a continuous effect like Bestow Curse differently from a (potentially) discontinuous one like Wall of Fire is that kind of reading. If we agree that the passage below the Effects Spells header (quoted below for clarity) applies equally to both spells, then I don't see why gaining spell resistance after having been affected by Bestow Curse has a different outcome than gaining spell resistance after having been affected by Wall of Fire. If you read that "checking spell resistance" means "make a spell resistance check" and is a thing that can only happen to creatures with spell resistance, then in both cases you make the spell resistance check the moment the affected creature is exposed to the spell after gaining spell resistance. If "checking spell resistance" is a thing that can happen to creatures without spell resistance, then in neither case will there be a spell resistance check after gaining spell resistance because that's already happened, happens only once, and the first result sticks. The fact that you can step away from one spell and not the other is a non-factor to those rules.

Spell resistance can protect a creature from a spell that’s already been cast. Check spell resistance when the creature is first affected by the spell.

Check spell resistance only once for any particular casting of a spell or use of a spell-like ability. If spell resistance fails the first time, it fails each time the creature encounters that same casting of the spell. Likewise, if the spell resistance succeeds the first time, it always succeeds.

Furthermore the rules for how and when you apply spell resistance do not care how much spell resistance you have or if that value changes they only care about if you have spell resistance at all. When a spell is cast you check if a target has spell resistance at all, if they do you roll to overcome if not you continue with the spell effect as normal. The result of your roll against the targets spell resistance applies every time they encounter that spell effect from that casting, regardless of if their spell resistance value changes.

On this we agree. I haven't argued that changing the value of your spell resistance nets you a re-roll.

However if their spell resistance is dropped they are treated as having no spell resistance and the spell effect can affect them as normal if they encounter it again. Most spells don’t allow for late SR since they either last no more than a round or have continuous effects on the target that do not stop. You can’t apply late spell resistance to an active effect on you, you can only apply it to an effect you may encounter later (be it a new spell cast or an old effect that has stopped affecting you)

If by "spell resistance is dropped" you mean "voluntarily lowered", then they should get a reroll either way - the rules seem fairly explicit about that:

If the creature has voluntarily lowered its spell resistance and is then subjected to a spell, the creature still has a single chance to resist that spell later, when its spell resistance is back up.

And, again, I don't see why that wouldn't apply equally to both continuous effects and discontinuous effects.

I've guess I've got a few gripes:

Investigator: I was always unreasonably irritated that Investigators didn't have any way of creating potions, but had class abilities dependent on them. Frankly, the Alchemist Brew Potion should have been a discovery that either of those classes could access.

Mesmerist: Any kind of bonus to attack, pretty much whatsoever. If you want to play a melee Mesmerist, you're in pretty much the same position as the chained rogue. One good fix would have been to have the Hypnotic Stare ability penalize AC as well, or at least include that as a Bold Stare option.

And don't get me started on the Vexing Daredevil.

Occultist: The panoplies are great, flavorful, and useful - which makes it all the more irritating when archetypes cut off access to the panoplies because the panoplies require implements be specific items.

Sorcerer: Not being able to mix and match Wildblooded bloodlines with other archetypes was always a bummer - and bloodlines in general should have been more modular. So many of them have one or two great, flavorful abilities, and the rest of what they grant is wildly disappointing. Bloodline Familiars and Mutations were a step in the right direction, but not enough.

In general, and not limited to Sorcerers, Squiggit hit the nail on the head with his comment on modularity in the first page of this thread.

Unchained Summoner: The OG Summoner certainly had (many) issues, but the Unchained fix went too far in the wrong direction trying to fix them. Unchained Eidolons, especially, feel pigeonholed into pre-set flavors.

Vigilante: Overall, I love the Vigilante - but the decision to use Hidden Strike instead of Sneak Attack is a bit baffling. The Magical Child's companion is also a disappointment.

VMC's: Only a small number of the VMCs feel like they're actually worth the trade (Barbarian, Sorcerer, Wizard, and Magus); the rest feel like they could have been interesting if not for an overabundance of caution.

That late roll ruling doesn’t however allow for spell resistance to apply to an active ongoing effect, just effects that can he encountered multiple times (primarily environmental spell effects like walls and illusions)

Are you reading everything below the "Effects Spells" header as applying exclusively to spells with an effects line?

I can see that as possibly correct, but it does have some problems - for example, while the Effects Spells section tells you when spell resistance applies, "check when the creature is first affected by the spell", neither the Area Spells or Targeted Spells sections have any such language. They simply say that "spell resistance applies". So, if a Bestow Curse target gains spell resistance while affected by that spell, without that timing language it seems less defensible that a spell resistance check can exclusively happen when the target first encounters that effect.

I'm still not convinced any of those rules actually apply to creatures without spell resistance either - why would we apply spell resistance or check spell resistance if the creature in question doesn't have that ability?

Laegrim wrote:

I don't see why not.

Well they are daily spells, and you have a list of spells per day.

Technically if you're on another planet/plane/etc with shorter days you could, though with that logic you'd have to be really careful on Venus where a day lasts ~5,800 hours.

Sure, and that's a nice shorthand for the class feature, but the actual rules for preparing spells don't really care about "days".

If a wizard has cast spells recently, the drain on his resources reduces his capacity to prepare new spells. When he prepares spells for the coming day, all the spells he has cast within the last 8 hours count against his daily limit.

The daily limit is actually an 8 hour limit.

EDIT: Mea Culpa, I got a little confused between preparation and spells per day. I'll maintain that a wizard could fully prepare spells multiple times per day, abandoning previously prepared spells and choosing new ones in their place, as outlined in the first post - but you're right to point out that they won't get new spells per day by doing that. It'd just be repurposing unused spell slots.

EDIT 2: Reading back through the rules again, the "(from the previous day)" clause under the "Spell Selection and Preparation" heading would seem to limit abandoning a prepared spell in an unused spell slot to once per day. Darn.

I don't see why not.

A wizard who goes to bed at 10pm on day 1, wakes up at 6 am on day 2, spends an hour preparing spells, adventures for an hour, takes a sedative and sleeps from 8am to 4pm, then wakes up and spends an hour till 5pm preparing their spells again would seem to have fulfilled all of the requirements in the rules for preparing spells.

It seems like it would have been easy enough to stipulate that you can only go through a full preparation once every 24 hours, as is the case, implicitly, for divine casters, if true "once per day" preparation had been the intent.

Laegrim wrote:

As for other spells, I'd recommend picking up Storm Step. In most combats it's a straight upgrade to Dimension Door: it's lower level, doesn't have the "you can’t take any other actions" clause, and does damage to boot.

Or Bladed Dash - yet another level lower, and comes with a free attack. It makes Magus one of the earliest classes to get pounce.

I tend to use Dimdoor when I need other party members along, but its insane range is not to be discounted either.

Oh, yeah, Bladed Dash is definitely awesome! Though I found that often enough I didn't have clear straight line path (free of enemies and whatnot), or the 30ft maximum range was just a little too limiting, so Storm Step saw a lot of use. It fit right in the sweet spot between Bladed Dash and Dimension Door for me.

My table might be using a more restrictive reading of Bladed Dash than others though; I realize there's some debate over the limits of the movement.

Spell Resistance wrote:

Check spell resistance only once for any particular casting of a spell or use of a spell-like ability. If spell resistance fails the first time, it fails each time the creature encounters that same casting of the spell. Likewise, if the spell resistance succeeds the first time, it always succeeds. If the creature has voluntarily lowered its spell resistance and is then subjected to a spell, the creature still has a single chance to resist that spell later, when its spell resistance is back up.

Here's the relevant rule for checking SR. You can read this as "If SR=0, then SR check automatically passes, and therefore the spell affects them for its duration" --or-- "If SR=0, no SR check has been made yet, and therefore can be made later once/if SR is gained".

I'm aware of that rule - I quoted it in the OP - but it's not clear that rule applies to creatures without spell resistance. In context, "check spell resistance" seems to mean "make a caster level check to see if a creature with spell resistance resists the spell" and not "check to see if the creature has spell resistance".

Further, in pathfinder, we don't generally assume that something without an ability actually has that ability, just with a negligible check or DC. An Incorporeal creature has no strength score, not a 0 strength score; casting Bear's Strength on an incorporeal creature doesn't raise it's strength to 4. An Ooze has no Intelligence Score; casting Fox's Cunning won't increase it to 4 either. If get bitten by a creature without a poison ability you don't make a Fort save vs DC 0 for the nonexistent poison.

So why would you make a SR check against, or apply the SR rules to, a creature without SR? It's not got SR 0, it's simply got no SR at all. Checking spell resistance would seem to be an action that only applies to things that actually have spell resistance.

ErichAD wrote:

There is a specific rule preventing you from removing an ongoing effect by acquiring spell resistance, and a specific rule allowing you to check against spell resistance if you were affected while you'd deliberately lowered your spell resistance.

I must be dense, what/where is the specific rule preventing you from removing ongoing effects by acquiring spell resistance? Because that would answer the OP's question definitively.

I'll echo Belafon's question.

The rules for spell resistance are not that complicated. The above section is about all there is in the core rule book. The rules are clear that spell resistance is rolled when a creature with spell resistance is resisting a spell. So if the creature does not have spell resistance they cannot resist the spell. If they latter gain it they can and should get a roll. The rules also state that spell resistance normally applies when a creature is targeted with a spell. To me that means it will not remove an existing spell. The wording of in many cases implies there are times when this is not true. So if the description of a spell states otherwise then the general rule does not apply.

I'll admit I missed the section on page 217, and the mention on page 11 - I was focused on pages 565-567. Thanks for pointing out that section.

"If they gain it later they can and should get a roll" and "To me that means it will not remove an existing spell" seem somewhat contradictory. To clarify, do you mean they can and should get a roll when exposed to subsequent effects, but not the effect they previously failed to resist when they didn't have spell resistance?

If you have SR 13, and then get hit with a Wall of Fire and an SR check succeeds against you, and then you move out of the WoF, and then you gain SR 20, and then you move back into the WoF, do you get a new SR check vs SR 20 when you walk back into the WoF?

If you answer No, then why are you saying the same for SR 0 ---> SR 20

At the core of this debate is whether or not having no spell resistance at all is actually equivalent to SR 0. If it is, then the spell resistance rules apply to everyone - there's always a spell resistance check to see if a spell is resisted, even if that check is trivially passed. The rules are pretty clear in this case, but there're some odd, probably unintended, consequences. If it isn't, it's ambiguous what happens if you gain or lose spell resistance while affected by an ongoing effect.

There's even an (admittedly unlikely) edge case where that distinction directly matters:

A CL 1 caster is under the effects of Mad Hallucination, and casts a "Spell Resistance yes" spell that would affect a creature without spell resistance. If the rules for checking spell resistance only apply to creatures with spell resistance, then the affected creature is affected as normal with no chance to resist. If "no spell resistance == SR 0", then there's actually a chance for the caster to fail that check.

Since the thread is drifting a bit - and I don't mind that, I'm just clarifying my position - I don't think that changing the value of your spell resistance would provoke a new spell resistance check. I can't find anything in the rules that would support that position. My dilemmas entirely revolve around going from no spell resistance to having spell resistance, or vice versa.

Laegrim wrote:

If there's a distinction in the rules between "outside" and "inside", I can't find it. Could you point to where in the rules you're deriving your interpretation from?

That the Spell Resistance entry has separate sections for targeted, area, and effect spells.

For a Bestow curse, that curse is there and applying spell resistance later is just adding a layer over the curse.

To me, SR is like a bubble. If you're wet and put inside a bubble, you're still wet. If you're not wet and get put in the bubble, someone trying to make you wet has to get around the bubble. If they get around the bubble, it has popped and you get wet.

If you pass through the stream of a hose, you get wet. If you pass through the stream of a hose, then get a bubble, the hose might or might not be able to penetrate the bubble, but it doesn't mean you become unwet or that the hose suddenly gained magical bubble penetrating powers.

I find that it intuits itself out well enough for my purposes, but I no longer have any conviction that this how the rules work.

I've read those sections, but nothing in them seems to support the "inside" vs "outside" interpretation.

Your "bubble" interpretation seems reasonable and internally consistent, but, yeah, I don't think it's quite rules-supported for some edge cases.

The rules are that you check SR once, and only on initial casting of the spell, or as soon as the first time you get hit by it later. Otherwise, we’d have to make SR checks every time you increased your SR vs the same spell.

I don't think there's any disagreement over how the rules work for creatures that do have spell resistance - the (potential) disagreement is over how the rules work for creatures that don't have spell resistance.

EDIT: Clearly, I spoke too soon.

No. The difference there is bestow curse has already been applied and is "inside" the SR as a permanent effect. A wall of fire is something outside any SR and is affecting somebody only when they are within certain conditions to be affected by wall of fire, therefore "outside" your SR and the damage gets applied every round. Things that are "outside" your SR *should* care about SR while things that are "inside" (think spells you cast on yourself) don't. Assuming a spell resistance roll gets triggered when youre already being affected by something that is a constant application (for example any non-instantaneous, SR=Yes, damaging evocation spell), on the next application after gaining new SR, that is why you would roll for the wall of fire but not the bestow curse.

If there's a distinction in the rules between "outside" and "inside", I can't find it. Could you point to where in the rules you're deriving your interpretation from?

Honestly, they way I understand it to keep it simple (although technically you are supposed to roll SR checks per creature with SR) is that the caster always rolls a SR check when they cast a spell that cares about SR and that roll is stored until it needs to be checked against a creatures SR. Any creature that has SR higher than the roll is just not affected while their SR is active, which for most creatures is always, but in the case of reducing SR or the SR spell, as soon as a creature gains an SR higher than a spell that is active, they can no longer gain any new application of that spell's effects (i.e. damage/healing, new debuffs, etc.).

I don't think I agree with this shortcut - though I suppose if you've got to make a big bundle of spell resistance checks it makes some sense.