Drow, Spell Resistance, and Me!

[shilsen]

That gives a huge bonus to PCs with SR, though, since they 1) are no longer vulnerable to attacks while waiting to be healed, and 2) no longer have to keep track of it. The hassle is a balancing factor.

Absolutely. If I have a PC (or NPC) in my game benefiting from SR, I'm using it exactly as written.

 

[Question]

Aside from the cleric spell mass resistance, there are hardly any reasonable ways to get SR......even SR from races/templates are always designed so you have less than 50% chance of blocking a mage of the equavelent level(and one with arcane mastery bypasses it 100% of the time), and theres always spell penetration, or assay spell resistance. I very rarely see a party with any SR whatsoever, except at higher levels due to that cleric spell.

Also SR is completely useless when its "lowered"....all it seems to do is encourage people to get killed faster. The raging orc barbarian crits the fighter and he calls for healing. Later on in the round he gets hit by a spell and insta-dies. Its a battle between whether the enemy spellcasters can pile more damaging spells onto the one with lowered SR or whether the party cleric can out-heal them all. The enemy nearly always wins.

 

[Bryntryst]

If you meant below 0 and above -10

Yeah, that should have been a -1 instead of a -10. And no, I haven't forgotten about the wonderous heal check, that's why I specified magical healing. And depending on how the wording in the PHB is read, the target of a harmless spell must lower their spell resistance to be affected. Sounds like automatic failure to me, but I tend to read things literally.

I personaly don't condone evil characters unless done perfectly

It's an Eberron campaign, so alignments aren't so rigidly defined, and no I won't be playing an evil aligned character. No scimitars (Xen'drik Boomerang), no hooded cloak (chitin armor), and no figurine of wondrous power.

 

[pawsplay]

I don't see where it is written it stays down for 1 round. I only see that it takes a standard action to lower it. Perhaps someone can enlighten?

 

[Bryntryst]

DMG, Pg 298: Once a creature lowers its resistance, it remains down until the creature's next turn. At the beginning of the creature's next turn, the creature's spell resistance automatically returns unless the creature intentionally keeps it down (also a standard action that does not provoke an AoO).

 

[Question]

Oh standard action, right, even brilliant. Fighter attacks the barbarian, the barbarian hits back and hurts the fighter badly, the fighter cant get healed this round and must lower his SR next round(meaning he can only do a single move action, and realistically speaking thats a 5ft step away from the barbarian unless he wants to provoke a potentially fatal AoO), THEN he can get healed, effectively 1-2 rounds where spellcasters will pummel him with damage spells.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

Does the BBEG with the cleric healing him use a standard action to lower his SR?

Never happens in our games. We just play it as SR blocks harmful effects.

 

[shilsen]

Does the BBEG with the cleric healing him use a standard action to lower his SR?

By the RAW, if he wants to be absolutely sure the cleric will succeed, yes. In my games, yes.

Which is why the BBEG should get the cleric to cast Shield Other on him before the fight starts and not worry about healing during the fight.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Pretty much every DM ive seen says "Screw it, SR only affects hostile spells". Seriously the whole mechanic with lowering SR, having it stay down for an entire turn, blah blah blah just makes it a huge pain in the ass, more un-necessary things to keep track of.

There's more than a few here who do not. In fact, I've never heard of a DM that ran it that way. There's nothing to keep track of. It's an SR check, something the DM and player should be quite used to dealing with for every other spell.

The one thing I had never heard about was the autofail for harmless spells. When I get a chance, I'll look that up but I did not see that in the SRD.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The one thing I had never heard about was the autofail for harmless spells. When I get a chance, I'll look that up but I did not see that in the SRD.

It's there, under Spell Resistance in the Magic Overview.

SPELL RESISTANCE
Spell resistance is a special defensive ability. If your spell is being resisted by a creature with spell resistance, you must make a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) at least equal to the creature’s spell resistance for the spell to affect that creature. The defender’s spell resistance is like an Armor Class against magical attacks. Include any adjustments to your caster level to this caster level check.

The Spell Resistance entry and the descriptive text of a spell description tell you whether spell resistance protects creatures from the spell. In many cases, spell resistance applies only when a resistant creature is targeted by the spell, not when a resistant creature encounters a spell that is already in place.

The terms “object” and “harmless” mean the same thing for spell resistance as they do for saving throws. A creature with spell resistance must voluntarily lower the resistance (a standard action) in order to be affected by a spell noted as harmless. In such a case, you do not need to make the caster level check described above.

Read in isolation, the sentence does indeed suggest that a creature with spell resistance who does not voluntarily lower that resistance cannot be affected by a spell noted as harmless.

The only way for it to say anything else is if one assumes an implicit 'without a successful caster level check' clause:
A creature with spell resistance must voluntarily lower the resistance (a standard action) in order to be affected by a spell noted as harmless (without a successful caster level check).

One also needs to determine whether 'in such a case' refers to 'a spell noted as harmless' or 'spell resistance lowered against a spell noted as harmless'. If the first sentence is read literally, 'in such a case' could quite easily refer to any harmless spell; after all, if resistance is lowered, the spell succeeds; if resistance is not lowered, the spell fails; in either case, no caster level check is needed.

-Hyp.