Resist versus Protection

[AuraSeer]

Still, protection from energy runs out, and quickly. It won't help against spellcasters with any sort of backup because they don't stop at one casting.

Sure they do, if you survive the first casting and then win the battle in one round.

The way I look at it, protection keeps you at max hit points and able to devote all your actions to offense. You can unload on the enemy, hopefully put him out of commission quickly, and then not have to worry about any more spells from him.

With resist, you're not going to walk away from the first couple of attacks unscathed. If the enemy is doing big damage you'll end up heavily wounded, which means you'll want to spend actions on healing-- either a clerical action for a cure spell, or one of your own actions to quaff a potion. Either way, that's one less action that can be devoted to your offense, which in turn means that the enemy will live longer. The longer he lives, the more damage he can do.

I think my attitude on this is influenced by the fact there are 7 PCs in my regular group. With 7 actions per round we've got a great offense, but since our resources are split 7 ways we're not as individually tough as an equivalent group of 4. If we take the advantage early and mange to keep it, we do great. But if we lose momentum and start taking heavy damage, we tend to fall apart, because it takes a lot of healing actions to keep all of us in fighting shape.

I'm certainly willing to believe that resist is better in some situations, but in my experience we've always gotten better results from protection

 

[Twowolves]

Once upon a time, I played a 1st ed druid, and I wouldn't walk out of the front door without a Protection from Fire up. Perhaps it was just the campaign I played in, but it was not at all unusual for the doors in the big dungeon to have greater Glyphs of Warding (multiple Glyphs, actually) able to dish out a massive ammount of damage in one pop. In fact, once my druid volunteered to touch a door (hell, she ALWAYS touched the doors first) and the DM said "Roll save."
"Ha! natural 20!"
"Take 111 points of damage" (in first edition no less!)
"But I made my save!"
"Yeah, that's half damage"
Needless to say, had I not had Protection from Fire up, I would have been a pile of ash. Hell, had nearly ANYONE touched that door, they'd be a pile of ash. The dragon that placed the glyph was watching via crystal ball, and when the tiny half-elven druid took the best he could dish out without so much as a blister, he decided that this was someone worthy of an audience rather than worthy of a light snack.

My point being that Resist is most useful for ignoring Fire Shields, fighting fire elementals, and ignoring the icy/flaming/shock weapons extra damage, but when push comes to shove, Protection will flat out save your hide.

Twowolves Howling

 

[KarinsDad]

I think both Resist Elements and Protection From Elements are fairly limited.

There are some circumstances where they are very helpful such as fighting a specific Elemental or Dragon, but most of the time, they don't help a lot.

Also, Protection From Elements is not only stronger in keeping a character at higher hit points than Resist Elements in most encounters, but it is also more useful against most spells.

If someone casts Cone of Cold at you and you were prepared for that with either Resist Elements or Protection From Elements, he will be most likely in both cases cast a different type of elemental spell on you the following round.

That means that you take zero damage with Protection From Elements and some damage (usually) with Resist Elements. This means that his next elemental attack (of a different element) has more of a chance of taking you out (or wounding you enough for a combatant type NPC or monster to stomp on you) if you had cast Resist Elements.


Protection From Elements tends to be heavilly more useful up until level 11 where Resist Elements finally starts to hold its own. But even then, Protection From Elements is only worse if you are facing something that repeatedly does large damage of the same elemental damage and does it for multiple rounds. For example:

80 points of damage with a 75% save chance at 11th level, average total damage after x rounds becomes:

Round 1: RE: 20, PE: 0
Round 2: RE: 40, PE: 2.5
Round 3: RE: 60, PE: 30
Round 4: RE: 80, PE: 80
Round 5: RE: 100, PE: 130

80 points of damage with a 25% save chance at 11th level, average total damage after x rounds becomes:

Round 1: RE: 40, PE: 0
Round 2: RE: 80, PE: 22.5
Round 3: RE: 120, PE: 90
Round 4: RE: 160, PE: 160
Round 5: RE: 200, PE: 230

So sure, if your DM is going to throw 400 points of elemental damage at you within the 10 minute per level duration of each spell, Resist Elements starts to get better (or if you are facing Fire Shield or some form of Burst Weapon). Otherwise, Protection From Elements is almost always better.

 

[maggot]

Maybe my campaign is strange, but usually Resist Energy is used when there is some kind of background damage: Fighting in a flaming room that does 2d6 per round, swiming in light acid, etc.

Or the PCs are fighting low damage, high incidence creatures: pyrohydra being the perfect example of why Resist Energy is so good. And fighting multiple ice toads also makes Resist Energy good.

And usually monsters in an area have a running theme of damage: usually a bunch of ice creatures together, so one Resist Energy can carry you through multiple encounters.

No one in my party ever prepares protection from energy, even if it's a domain spell. We find it too weak. Especially with the 3.5 cap.