How significant is Spell Resistance for Evokers?

[MerricB]

With regard to the No SR conjuration spells, I was wondering how much of issue people had found Spell Resistance at high levels.

Certainly in my games, it has been there and something that has definitely affected the effectiveness of spells.

However, no-one has actually been playing an evoker (either specialist or in their first choice of spells), for whom the avoiding of Spell Resistance is paramount.

So, what effect does SR have in your games?

Cheers!

 

[Legildur]

I don't know about high level games, but in a couple of campaigns I'm involved in, both the Necromancer (12th) and the generic Wizard (11th) rely heavily on Fireball etc and have taken Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration feats, and are making good use of them. I'm not sure what the opposed schools are for the Necromancer, so I can't comment if he has access to the Conjuration school. Certainly the feats are making a difference against creatures with significant spell resistance (such as Rakshasa, Chaos Beasts, larger dragons) which gives the spell casters at least a chance to affect some creatures.

Certainly if I played a blaster type of spell caster, Spell Penetration would be a first tier feat selection as a minimum.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Having recently played a warmage in a 16th-level game, it does make a difference. While you can get by with some no-SR spells, very few of those are decent mass attack spells. The only one I can recall that isn't a single-target spell is Blast of Flame, and that caps out at only 10d6.

A mass of spell-resistant targets would make things terribly annoying.

Brad

 

[Crothian]

It can be an annoyance. Even if the wizard is making the SR checks 3/4ths of the time, that still a good amount of spells not making it.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Spell Resistance has always been pretty important.

 

[Victim]

SR is really annoying. As some people have already posted, even when you have a good chance of blasting through SR, you'll still fail some of the time - and usually when it's most inconvienent. And when a spell fails, it often wastes both your turn and a finite resource. My evoker had Greater Spell Penetration and SR was still somewhat problematic. I've written her up for 3.5 with a Robe of the Archmagi and some Orange Ioun Stones so she ends up with +28 vs SR.

Of course, all those bonuses vs SR don't help at all against creatures with infinite effective SR like Golems.

 

[boolean]

Of course, all those bonuses vs SR don't help at all against creatures with infinite effective SR like Golems.

Which is why the SR: No orb spells annoy me.

It used to be, if you threw a golem at the party, the sorceror/wizard had to take a slightly different role. Most of his buffs and battlefield control spells still worked, but it became the fighter's job to do damage.

Now, he just throws direct damage at it, same as he does to everything else.

 

[Joshua Randall]

As (contact) once put it, regarding wizards/sorcerers: When your spells work, you are the most powerful character in the party. When your spells don't work, you are the weakest.

Spell Resistance is the difference between your spells working and your spells not working. Thus, anything that helps you overcome SR is not only good, but necessary. Which is why spells with "SR: No" and feats like Spell Penetration are golden.

 

[Thanee]

With regard to the No SR conjuration spells, I was wondering how much of issue people had found Spell Resistance at high levels.

It's pretty much mandatory to have some means to negate / lower SR for an offensive spellcaster.

Bye
Thanee

 

[satori01]

While I do not think SR is unduly powerful, (and nowhere as debilitating as SR was in 1e), the spell casters in my campaign generally hate it , my Magister player even going so far as to say it is unbalanced for Spell Casters.

Not suprisingly the player of the Druid in my campaign, while she does not like it, doesnt hate it as much as the Magister character, , and the Warlock player doesnt even seem that concerned by it.

I think in many ways it comes down to perception, at High mid (11th+) to high levels, I think blaster casters can get very frustrated by SR, especially as they compare themselves to warrior types, who realistically now can do more to damage as a whole than caster types.

While SR is generally lower than AC in comprable CR creatures,
it is
1) harder to add to Caster level checks than to be able to add to Attack Bonuses.
2) blowing a spell on a bad roll seems to be very frustrating to Spell Slingers, especially knowing that warrior types are never going to run out of attacks
3) it often takes casting more spells to try to negate or minimize
SR, which further adds to the cost of fighting those creatures
4) your feats are often limited by SR, to selections that will help you defeat SR.

List compliment of the Magister player.