Items that grant Spell Resistance

[Cicciograna]

Given the prices, is it my impression or are these really utter and complete crap? The only one that seems viable would be the Salve of minor spell resistance (SR 17 for 5 minutes, 1350gp, MIC), as the other seem waaaaay to expensive for the protection afforded.

And if I'm right, how to fix them?

[Jigokuro]

Yep, basically any item that gives SR costs so much that if you can afford it your opponents won't care about it. As for fixing it? well, I generally just accept that PCs will not have SR; to me it is an obstacle to overcoming monsters that somewhat balances casters at higher levels and nothing more.

[TuggyNE]

Well, pixies, and a few other races, have enough SR to be worth noticing. But yeah, in general, you either get SR from a spell or a race; the items are horrifically overpriced and scale even worse than AC items, which is saying something.

[The Trickster]

I would just suggest buying save bonuses and moving along. A +2 cloak of resistance goes a lot farther than 17 SR, is cheaper, and is more useful later game.

[Darrin]

I'm not sure it's worth fixing. The essential problem is this: by the time you can afford any decent SR, it's either too low or useless against CR-appropriate antagonists.

If you give PCs easy access to it, then it may bog down combat. Ideally, the best "fix" would fold SR and saves together into a single mechanic for determining "does the spell work?" But to do that you'd have to completely overhaul the entire magic system, maybe even rebuild it from scratch. And that could get messy.


From an Armor handbook I'm still working on:

Spell Resistance
Price: +2/+3/+4/+5 enhancement
(DMG)
Like Damage Reduction, Spell Resistance can be extremely expensive, but it becomes much more important at higher levels where creatures are more likely to have spellcasting/SLAs, and save-or-die or no-save effects are much more common. If you can't get SR via a class ability, racial ability, or some other effect, then paying for SR on your armor isn't a bad deal. For example, Aribeth's Ring (50000 GP, Magic of Faerun p. 145) for example grants SR 17, but armor +1 with SR 17 would only cost half that (25000 GP). Robe of the Archmagi offers SR 18 (among other things) for 75000 GP, compared to armor +1 with SR 19 for only 36000 GP. Once you get up to SR 19, however, to get any higher than that (SR 21) you have to cough up 90000 GP for a Mantle of Spell Resistance (DMG) or Skin of the Psion (XPH/SRD/MIC). If you're looking for something more temporary, a Salve of Minor Spell Resistance (1350 GP, MIC p. 183) is a great deal: SR 17 for 5 minutes.

[Aracor]

It's the same problem as most magic items. They simply scale poorly.

If you made the cheapest spell resistance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicArmor.htm#spellResistance) upgrade you can get on armor SR = 7 + HD or something so it scales properly, then that would be a worthwhile speed bump and would have an appreciable effect on spells cast when you can afford it. In theory, you could simply have the higher level ones up to 12 + HD or so, in which case that could actually cause frustration to casters trying to stop you.

[Oscredwin]

The custom magic item pricing guides scale SR linearly on items. I did the math on it and given the scale there, the tipping point for where SR becomes worthwhile is at the very top of the range, pre-epic.