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View Full Version : [3.5/PF, PEACH] Spell Resistance feats



JAnderson789
2013-02-01, 11:49 AM
After reading this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35953), I've proposed these three feats.

Spell Resistance [Heritage] src (http://www.kismetrose.com/dnd/MyFeats.html)
Your blood grants you resistance to spells and spell-like abilities.
Prerequisite: no innate spell resistance
Benefit: You gain spell resistance equal to 10 + your character level, which continues to go up as your character advances. This does not stack with spell resistance gained from other sources, such as racial abilities or magic items.
Special: This feat may only be taken at 1st level.

Enhanced Spell Resistance [General]
Your have unusually strong spell resistance.
Prerequisite: Innate spell resistance 12+
Bonus: You gain a +4 to your natural spell resistance.
Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.
(Adapted from the feat in The Complete Guide to Drow)

School Spell Resistance [General]
You are able to resist the effects of spells of a particular school.
Prerequisite: Innate spell resistance 10+
Benefit: Choose a school of magic, such as divination or illusion. You apply your spell resistance or a saving throw against all spells and spell-like effects from that school even if spell resistance does not normally apply or a save is not normally allowed. Such spell resistance or saving throw does not apply to spells cast with your consent, or spells cast in an effort to aid you.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new school of magic.
(Adapted from the feats Resistance: Divination and Resistance: Illusion in The Netbook of Feats)

Amechra
2013-02-01, 12:32 PM
Spell Resistance, as written, is practically useless against any caster whose caster level is equal to your level (they have a 75% chance to just ignore it.)

Increase it to 10+HD. Please.

I rather like School Spell Resistance; I would say that you should have a CL penalty for each of these feats, though, since your body resists magic (-4 to your CL per feat, with a separate feat halving it later?)

JAnderson789
2013-02-01, 06:15 PM
Increase it to 10+HD. Please.Noted. I've adjusted it to basically give drow spell resistance to starting characters.


I rather like School Spell Resistance; I would say that you should have a CL penalty for each of these feats, though, since your body resists magic (-4 to your CL per feat, with a separate feat halving it later?)I don't understand how that is necessary.

Amechra
2013-02-01, 07:41 PM
Disincentivizes casters from grabbing it; they already have ready sources of SR themselves, so...

JAnderson789
2013-02-01, 08:19 PM
Disincentivizes casters from grabbing it; they already have ready sources of SR themselves, so...Spell resistance doesn't stack with spell resistance from another source. The last two feats only apply to natural spell resistance. As in, the character needs to have spell resistance from his race or a feat, not the Spell Resistance spell.

JeminiZero
2013-02-01, 08:58 PM
Keep in mind that nomally, you need something like +2 LA to gain meaningful spell resistance such as taking the Drow Race, or the Phrenic Template. Even discounting the other stuff, it should be at least +1 LA for the spell resistance alone.

Giving it out with just 1 feat strikes as me as too cheap. It would probably be more appropriate to give increasing SR spread across multiple feats. E.g. 1 feat gives you SR of HD+3. The next feat gives HD+5. The next gives HD+7. and the final one gives HD+10.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2013-02-01, 09:10 PM
Spell Resistance, as written, is practically useless against any caster whose caster level is equal to your level (they have a 75% chance to just ignore it.)

Increase it to 10+HD. Please.

Wait, what? A save boosting feat typically gives around a +2 bonus for one save. A blanket save effect (or all three saves) against a certain thing (enchantments, or evocations) could probably merit a +3 or +4. Specific saves (vs poison, for example) are typically +4 to +5. Percentage wise, these are respectively a 10% increase, a 15-20% increase, and a 20-25% increase.

You're suggesting that a 50%+ chance of being outright *unaffected* by many of an equal-level caster's spells is balanced. That's absurd compared to basically any feat anywhere without *crazy* prerequisites.

Honestly, at (3-5) +Character Level I'd consider this feat a good start to a feat chain. 2 more +(3-4) feats would bring it up to be very solid spell resistance, but I feel that starting at more than 15-20% is overpowered.

Amechra
2013-02-02, 12:32 AM
The thing is, most of the good spells are SR: No anyway, getting boosters to your CL is kinda a no-brainer for casters (it's expected), there are feats and spells that explicitly lower Spell Resistance, spells that don't target you don't test SR, and I could keep on going...

Don't look at it like saves.

Look at it more like AC; it has the same binary nature.

Let me bring in the extreme example:

Golems have a literally infinite SR; you can just collapse the ceiling on them, stone-to-mud the floor, and all that fun stuff.

Sadly, in the current environment for 3.5, you need SR of at least 10+HD for it to be relevant to your not dying.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2013-02-02, 03:46 AM
Alright, Amechra. Let's use your suggestion and compare it to AC. Would you say a single feat that gives a 50% chance to avoid an attack by an opponent is balanced? Because you've suggested approximately the same for spells.

There is no good reason NOT to take the feat. It is simply to good compared to the alternatives. 11+HD spell resistance for a feat is insane.

Amechra
2013-02-02, 05:04 AM
... there are feats that outright negate attacks. There are also feats that jack your AC by up to 20.

Again, as I mentioned, SR isn't as powerful as you think it is. It actually would weaken them in one particular case (most healing spells are SR: Yes), since it takes actions to lower the defense.

Alright, a better way to phrase it.

"Alright, imagine you had a feat that gave you AC equal to 10 + your HD, which didn't allow other bonuses. So you had an AC of 30. Now, people still get the same amount of attack boosters. Someone comes along and says 'Woah, 10+HD AC is enough to negate half of someone's attacks! NERF THAT THANG' without taking into account ways to get through SR."

Seriously, there is a feat in Complete Arcane (which, being in the Completes, is pretty much assumed for most games) which lets you take 10 on CL checks. Such as to pierce SR. Which means that, if you don't have an SR of at least 10+HD, it doesn't do anything, assuming that they kept up with their caster level (so a lower SR would protect you from Paladins and Rangers... Yay?)

Going beyond that, core has a pair of feats (Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration) that each give a flat +2 to CL checks to pierce SR. There is a 4th level spell (Assay Spell Resistance; admittedly, it's from the Spell Compendium...) that gives you a +10 to your CL checks to pierce SR.

And then there are all the normal caster level boosting that most casters are going to be doing anyway (because getting +1 to caster level is actually pretty good for them, a lot better than +1 to attack rolls.)

If I come across as a jerk, I apologize; I'm just trying to be very emphatic that handing out anything lower than 10+HD for spell resistance is a trap, since SR below that amount is perma-negated for the price of one feat and a caster level booster they were probably already going to get.