any guidelines for Spell Resistance?

[Gotterdammerung]

Hi folks,

I do a lot of advancing monsters, and I'm good at scaling abilities, caster levels, and so on to fit my group. But I'm at a loss for how the designers figured out appropriate spell resistance for monsters.

is SR tied to ability scores? Hit Dice? Is it arbitrary and based on CR? Is it based on the old 1st and 2nd edition percentages for Magic Resistance?

I'm looking for some hard and fast guidelines for how to give SR to new monsters, and how to scale it when advancing monsters. Anyone who's found good, balanced ways of doing this, I'd love to hear about it.

thanks,

-eric

 

[Egres]

11+CR of the monster,like suggested in the MM 3.5.

On a side note:Gotterdammerung....Armageddon?

 

[Antoine]

On a side note:Gotterdammerung....Armageddon?

How about : Twilight of the Gods.

 

[Gotterdammerung]

See, this is reason #3 this week alone I've found to use the actual Monster Manual instead of trying to make do with the SRD at work.

1. want to stat up a beholder? HA! not gonna happen till you get home, sucker.
2. I could have SWORN there was an advanced Nightmare already statted up... D'OH! it's in the book, dummy.
3. "Behind the Curtain" sidebars on things like SR and DR? Book, baby, book.

thanks for pointing me back to the source.

and Gotterdammerung is the nordic "final battle of the gods." It's also a very cool word.


-eric

 

[AuraSeer]

There are no hard and fast guidelines that I've ever seen. (Edit: Doh! Never even saw that line in the MM. Oh well, the rest of the post still makes sense.) A good rule of thumb is to place it around CR+10, so a single-classed spellcaster will have about a 50/50 chance of succeeding against his usual opponents. Very magic-resistant monsters will go as high as CR+15, but not much more.

Don't create a monster with SR of CR+20 or more, because that means a normal single-class caster would need to roll a natural 20 to affect it with a spell. If you're going to go that far, it'd make more sense to give it magic immunity (golem style) with specific weaknesses.

 

[UltimaGabe]

"Consequently, they didn't play Aida that night. No, no- they played Gotterdammerung."

Sorry. I was in the musical My Fair Lady a couple years ago, and that was one of my lines (with a few before and after it I can't remember). Great play.

Anyway, as for SR, I believe it's tied to Hit Dice, though I could be wrong. I know for a fact that Rakshasas have SR equal to 20 + their Hit Dice, but they're notorious for having nigh unbeatable spell resistance. (In 3e, they didn't have a number for Spell Resistance, they simply had Immunity to Magic like Golems.)

 

[Thanee]

On a side note:Gotterdammerung....Armageddon?

Or Ragnarok for the North mythology.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Egres]

and Gotterdammerung is the nordic "final battle of the gods." It's also a very cool word.


-eric

Oh!

I've asked cause i friend of mine has a German Armageddon M:TG card and that's called "Gotterdammerung".

 

[uzagi_akimbo]

Oh!

I've asked cause i friend of mine has a German Armageddon M:TG card and that's called "Gotterdammerung".

Another "close, but no banana" translation by the M:tG team.... They are always good for couple of laughs

And "Twilight/Dusk of the Gods" is the correct and literal translation of "Goetterdae mmerung" and hails from German 19th century romanticism, essentially made famous through Wagner's "Ring Cycle" series of operasm, it being the name of the final installment

"Ragnarok" is the Scandinavian term (from the 'Edda' ) for the final battle of gods and giants, destined to bring down the world. "Armageddon" on the other hand would be "Armageddon" in German, too, it being a biblical reference, hehe.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

How a thread about SR can turn into a discussion about Götterdämmerung...


Back on the original topic (yes, there was one ;-):

As said, The MM say CR + 11 is the usual, PC races with DR usually have SR 11 + Character Level.