how bad does SR get at high game levels [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

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CyberThread

2013-04-22, 02:55 AM

How bad or annoying does spell resistance get at high level games versus monsters?

eggynack

2013-04-22, 03:29 AM

I don't think it ever gets that annoying. Generally speaking, the more monsters that you face which have SR, the more resources you'll have that make SR valueless. A great amount of really powerful spells have SR:no, and when you need to beat SR, assay spell resistance does a pretty good job. Basically, think walls, summons, orbs of x, fogs, polymorphs, and a hundred other really powerful options. SR limits your options, but you have so many options that it's not the biggest hindrance in the world.

Ganorenas

2013-04-22, 03:38 AM

If by high level you mean 12+, SR has been a thorn for my party's dusk blade, but never for the party shaman (though the dusk blade does have LA)

My players seem to love LA, even the casters (2/3 of them) and seems to have problems beating SR.

I have been lead to understand that it rarely hinders npcs (and when my players of their minions have SR, I can't think of a time that I lost to it) and can be more detrimental to players (buffs and/or heals).

I imagine that, more toward level 20, SR continues at about the same pace as ac (not including dragons).
When I'm not at work I'll look around and try to post a graph if you would like, or if someone else doesn't before I am able.

The most readily available (after a few moments of searching) scaling SR would be the drow, which have 11+hd, assuming they had = HD to the party, that is a 55% chance for a spell that checks SR to fail, which I would find annoying as a control/blaster caster...

eggynack

2013-04-22, 03:47 AM

I forgot about this when making the initial comment, but wizards are the worst at dealing with SR, and they're still good at dealing with it. Druids are the best at dealing with it, because they can turn all of their spells per day into SR:no bears, and become a bear, and have a bear friend. I don't even know if high SR even makes a blip on their radar. Clerics are between the two. Their conversion ability is much worse than the druid's, so if they have an SR:yes spell, they're pretty much stuck with it. However, their standard operating procedure is to either buff themselves literally to high heaven, or to have already done so at the beginning of the day. Buffs don't exactly get worse against golems, so clerics do fine too.

Spuddles

2013-04-22, 04:23 AM

Handbook maths & graphs:
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Wizards'_Handbook_by_Dictum_Mortuum_(DnD_Optimized _Character_Build)/Spells

In general, SR becomes a bigger problem because more things have it, but the average SR doesn't increase much. For instance, from level 10 to 20, avg SR goes from 20 to 28, slightly less than 1/level. Average SR at level 12 is a whopping 24.

Luckily, there's a 4th level swift action spell that gives you +10 to overcoming SR, called Assay Spell Resistance, from Spell Compendium.

Unfortunately, once you break CR20 monsters and start looking at epic beasties, SR begins to get ridiculous very quickly.

There are also CR21+ monsters. A great red wyrm would be a reasonable end of campaign boss, at CR26. It has an SR of 32, which, while for a level 20 caster is hard to hit (without assay spell resistance), it only went up 4 points in over 6 CR.

tl;dr
SR actually gets easier to beat as you gain levels, but you'll probably fight more monsters that actually have SR.

Sith_Happens

2013-04-22, 08:30 AM

The vast majority of the time, SR=11+CR. If you're fighting something at your CR and haven't lost caster levels, this gives you a 50% chance of your spell working.

If you cast Assay Spell Resistance for a +10 on the check, those odds go up to 100%.

Alternatively, you can take the Arcane Mastery feat, allowing you to take 10 on caster level checks. Combine with one of the many ways to get +1 CL, and you exactly beat a typical spell resistance every time. The downside is that this method doesn't help against above-average SR's, unless of course you keep a scroll of Assay Spell Resistance handy for just such a situation.

Or you can just use SR:No spells, which most of the best ones are anyways.

In short, while spell resistance can be extremely annoying in theory, WotC in their great wisdom let the writers who liked it the least work on Complete Arcane. The result being that it might as well no longer exist most of the time.

peacenlove

2013-04-22, 10:03 AM

On the flip side there is a spell named "Greater spell resistance" in one old dragon magazine (the one with the racial enhancements) that increases SR by an amount equal to your caster level. 5th or 6th level spell.
Also awaken spell resistance for dragons. SR = their HD + 2, which at high levels they can be quite high.

So depending on sources used really.

However at high levels it is rarely a problem. Many crowd control spells do not allow SR, nor some blasting spells, so your caster won't stand there not contributing at any rate. You will lose reliability only at single target disabling AFAIK.

ericp65

2013-04-22, 10:26 AM

SR is a huge pain in the backside in epic games, sometimes. Makes battles more difficult even with my 36th level arcane caster :(

eggynack

2013-04-22, 01:49 PM

I don't really see why SR would be a problem at all in epic games. The best 9th level spells, gate, shapechange wish, astral projection and time stop, don't check SR at all. Moreover, by my understanding epic spells are best used for high power buffs, which also don't require SR. Finally, by that level the resources needed to lower SR are so trivial to use that they barely count as resources anymore. If SR wasn't an issue before that point, then it definitely isn't one at level 36, as far as I can tell.

ericp65

2013-04-29, 09:58 AM