Are potions of Protection from Energy my best bet?
Are potions of Protection from Energy my best bet?
It depends on what you're facing, and what level you're at.
Protection from energy absorbs a lot of damage, but once it's gone, it's gone. So if you're expecting to get hit by a REALLY BIG electrical attack (80+ damage), or a couple of medium-size ones (40-60 damage), then protection is the way to go. Big dragons, or a magus with Intensified Empowered shocking grasp can do this sort of thing.
Resist energy is lower-level, therefore cheaper as a potion or scroll. It doesn't protect from as much damage, but it keeps on protecting long after protection from energy has been worn away. So if (say) you're expecting a continual series of minor attacks (low-level magus with non-metamagicked shocking grasp, druid casting call lightning, a clutch of small blue dragons, shocker lizards) then resist energy is the way to go. Note that higher-level castings are MUCH better (base version is resistance 10, 7th level caster is resistance 20, 11th level caster is resistance 30).
If you are just trying to protect yourself once against one foe, protection from energy is the way to go. But, honestly, if you can afford it, a wand of resist energy will be much more useful over a long span of time, particularly because you can use it against different energy types at different times depending on what you're meeting.
Getting a friendly cleric or wizard to cast resist energy on you might be cheaper, too. There's also communal resist energy from the APG, which splits the duration among the whole party. Nice for dragon encounters (one third level slot vs. multiple second level slots)
Now, you can get energy resistance via either a ring or as an armor enchantment, and that has the advantage that it's always on forever and ever, but I've never used either of those -- the costs are so high that it's not really effective unless you are rolling in gold AND facing lots and lots of those energy attacks forever and ever. Maybe if you spent most of your adventuring career on the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Lightning it would be worth it. (A wand of resist energy has 50 castings and is cheaper than resistance 10 via either ring or armor. Are you going to have at least 50 encounters with the armor? I suppose it might help if you didn't want to spend the time to buff, but that's rarely an issue with a long-duration spell like resist energy.)
I would go with a scroll of communal resist energy or communal protection from energy. Then your party's caster can buff the entire party in one go. Get them at whatever caster level you want for whatever level of protection you need.
If you're only looking for a single target effect, or you don't have a caster, a potion of resist energy crafted by a ranger only costs 50gp (or 50gp per caster level, if you want better protection). Likewise, a potion of protection from energy crafted by a ranger only costs 400gp (for caster level 4, +100gp for each additional caster level).
If you know you'll need a lot of energy resistance you could go for a wand of one of the above spells, like tonyz suggested.
Be an Aasimar- you have 5 points of electricity, acid, and cold resistance as a racial trait.
Be a Djinni or Elemental (Air) Bloodline Sorcerer.