Spell Resistance for epic characters?

[SangoProduction]

Well, ok, level 20 characters, but unless they are SoP or poorly built casters, they'd hit Spell Resistance of 30 half the time, and that's assuming there's no casting boss monsters. So...How do I get spell resistance of any amount of relevance for level 20 games?

[AvatarVecna]

Spell Resistance as a PC buff has a few problems: namely, it usually makes applying other buffs (or healing spells) harder on the target. Making SR low enough for your party to reliably make the roll, while still being high enough to cause enemies issues, is more or less impossible, since most of the casters you're likely to face will either be equal/higher level than the party, or will be easily dealt with anyway.

The spell "Spell Resistance" (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/spell-resistance/) gives SR (12+CL). This can be made more significant with Caster Level boosts...but those same methods of caster level boosting can be used on spells used against you, so that's probably a wash. So you could take Spell Specialization (Spell Resistance), but it would only be a counter to Spell Penetration. My advice: accept that you're not going to have ridiculous SR and pair average SR with good saves and immunities.

[Psyren]

SR is basically miss chance. It seems strange to me that lots of people consider a 50% miss chance on attacks to be good, but a 50% miss chance on spells to be mediocre - especially when the effect of spells is often more devastating (e.g. a Dominate landing on you is likely to be far worse than a swing or even a trip/grapple.)

So in short, 30-ish SR at 20 is fine.


Spell Resistance as a PC buff has a few problems: namely, it usually makes applying other buffs (or healing spells) harder on the target. Making SR low enough for your party to reliably make the roll, while still being high enough to cause enemies issues, is more or less impossible, since most of the casters you're likely to face will either be equal/higher level than the party, or will be easily dealt with anyway.

The spell "Spell Resistance" (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/spell-resistance/) gives SR (12+CL). This can be made more significant with Caster Level boosts...but those same methods of caster level boosting can be used on spells used against you, so that's probably a wash. So you could take Spell Specialization (Spell Resistance), but it would only be a counter to Spell Penetration. My advice: accept that you're not going to have ridiculous SR and pair average SR with good saves and immunities.

Remember that SR never interferes with your OWN buffs and abilities. So if you can buff yourself, you don't have to worry about lowering it.

[SangoProduction]

Remember also that you can just drop your resistance at will. Anyway, I did find that Construct Transformation gives SR = to 10+CL, so I'm now sitting at 40 SR now. That's actually rather significant, and might even give me upwards of 50% spell resistance, on top of being incorporeal...unless they don't give SR, as the top tier spells do, but that's not the point!

[Hackulator]

SR is basically miss chance. It seems strange to me that lots of people consider a 50% miss chance on attacks to be good, but a 50% miss chance on spells to be mediocre - especially when the effect of spells is often more devastating (e.g. a Dominate landing on you is likely to be far worse than a swing or even a trip/grapple.)

So in short, 30-ish SR at 20 is fine.



Remember that SR never interferes with your OWN buffs and abilities. So if you can buff yourself, you don't have to worry about lowering it.

I love how people will say "your spell resistance gets beat on a 6, its bad" as though a 25% chance to resist almost every spell without even needing to save is somehow bad.