As written, is Spell Resistance really horrible to have?

[Piccolo]

Ross Byers wrote:

I removed a post. Don't abuse the quote function.

How do we know what IS and what IS NOT abuse of the quote function?

[d p]

DreamGoddessLindsey wrote:

I designed the rings based on the metamagic rods, actually. I looked at the prices and did some math. I noticed the rods are roughly prices based on the level adjustment of the metamagic feats. A Greater Maximize Metamagic Rod is 121,500 GP in cost, and gives three spell levels three times a day to any spell. The rings I made basically do something similar: three spell levels (one for Intensify and two for Empower), but only effect a very specific subset of spells (evocation spells of a specific energy descriptor only), so I made it unlimited use. Remember, though, that Intensify only matters if you have the levels to get the extra dice and only if the dice are level-dependent. This also means the rings only effect spells that can be resisted with Resist Energy and Protection From Energy. Still, it is a sizable chunk of wealth, almost as much as a +5 Book.

Wow, no way would I put such an item in my game. The limits on it could easily be meaningless in such an encounter. And I'd expect the limits would subsequently be meaningless to a smart pc caster. Just my opinion.

Quote:

Here's his gear list. Note it's over the normal Level 20 gear for PCs because he's been Level 20 for, um, roughly a decade. The PCs, however, are Level 19 after only three years of adventuring. I suppose Bargle has maybe the gear of a PC at Level... 21? Value is 1,040,302 GP... BUT, several of those items weren't in play at all. The Greater Horn of Blasting is a leftover from an earlier encounter and wasn't used (and in fact I'd forgotten he had that). The Boots of Teleportation were redundant since he had Teleport on Contingency anyway, they were just a plot device to give him some plot armor up until this point (in that he liked to teleport in to taunt the characters several times for the fun of it). I also concluded that since he has Craft Wondrous Item and Craft Magic Arms and Armor, I only charged half price for a couple of the items. Total working wealth used: 871,302 GP.

So the npc has over 5 times the value in gear a heroic level 20 npc would have according to http://paizo.com/prd/creatingNPCs.html (and over 8 times what a level 20 encounter would have in a fast leveling campaign except the books would not be salvageable as treasure which is worse for the pc's). Not asking the op, DreamGoddessLindsey, but rather asking others is that normal? For an enemy npc is that table I cited a good benchmark?

[seebs]

SR has been pretty consistently a Bad Choice. The big problem is that it blocks healing spells, and if you're taking damage, that's Very Bad. But the full standard action to lower it means it effectively eats your combat round. Meanwhile, things beat it often enough to make it unattractive.

Basically, it's an unreliable defense, but it also makes one of your other defense/recovery options unreliable. If you had no SR, you'd be taking the damage (unless you made saves, etc.), but you'd be reliably healed. If you had perfect SR, you'd take less damage. But since it's unreliable coming and going, you can get the outcome of "take the damage and don't get healed", which is likely to kill you.

Places too much weight on die rolls, also too easy to overcome for a hostile attacker.

I was looking at this in a highish-level Pathfinder game, and what I concluded was that SR wouldn't actually help me at all against most of the things we were fighting which had spells, because they'd bypass it. But on the other hand, by that time, the party's healer would have been ignoring it too. And just due to the structure of the game, we were likely to end up with our slightly large party against a single higher-level opponent, meaning SR would be a bigger hindrance to my allies than it would to our opponents.

[Xaratherus]

My understanding is that originally, spell resistance was only intended for monsters, and so it was really only a problem for the GM in regards to NPCs. It became more of a headache once it became an option for player characters.

From a philosophical standpoint, I can see why it was implemented: Casters tend to have a pretty fair advantage over martials because casters have so many options that don't require attack rolls - they say the magic word and the spell goes off, no problems; even those spells with saving throws generally still do some damage, compared to a martial missing AC in which case he does no damage. Spell Resistance tries to balance that out some by making it possible for a caster's spell to just wholly fail to affect the creature.