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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6861202" data-attributes="member: 6787650">By direct analogy with Counterspell, I'm using whatever ability score corresponds most closely to its relationship with magic. I'd give a Balor Charisma (Magic Resistance): +12 (Charisma mod plus proficiency), and a lich Intelligence (Magic Resistance): +12, etc. For spellcasting monsters you can just read it right off the spell DC.Just as some monsters have Expertise on skills (goblins have Stealth Expertise and Stone Giants have Athletics Expertise) it could be okay to give some monsters Magic Resistance Expertise. This seems thematic for illithids: instead of Intelligence (Magic Resistance): +7 I'd give them +10 because they're always been highly magic-resistant in lore (90% MR in AD&D!).RE: your reaction questions, yes, #1, #2, and #3 are all deliberate. Additionally, forcing it to expend its reaction makes it an in-character choice (non-dissociated mechanic) which is cooler to me, and prevents the monster from stacking Counterspell and Magic Resistance (since they're both reactions) or Shield and Magic Resistance. That gives the PCs more ways to get around Magic Resistance if they're clever, e.g. by baiting the monster into making an opportunity attack and then hitting it with a spell.It was not deliberate or significant that I didn't choose any lethal spells. You could use Magic Resistance to negate four blasts from the same Eldritch Blast spell if you wanted, or a Lightning Bolt, or maybe even (DM's judgment) a Divine Smite. This gives weapons an advantage over spells/cantrips because you don't lose the first successful attack. This is similar to how monks are hard to kill with ranged weapons because of their missile catching reaction--but again, there's an anti-synergy there for monsters because they can't both Shield and Magic Resist in the same turn.I'm not envisioning any particular limits on what MR can save you from. Hold Monster/Flesh to Stone/Plane Shift/Polymorph/Power Word Kill are all the same: the monster can choose to resist the magical energy and be unaffected by the spell. One particularly nasty (and deliberate) consequence: if you try to use summoned monsters against a Magic Resistant creature, it can disrupt your summoning spell when the summoned monsters hit it. (Remember, if it's an elemental, that means the elemental doesn't disappear--it becomes free-willed and hostile to the caster.)A lone wizard against a high-MR monster might have to fall back on indirect attacks such as using a Wall of Force as a bridge and then ceasing concentration when the monster walks over the bridge.As a DM, I would also say that MR doesn't help against most illusion magic, because the magical energy isn't affecting the creature, it's just creating light waves/sound waves/etc. Illusions like Phantasmal Force would be an exception because they do exert a direct influence on the creature, and so could be resisted by Magic Resistance.</blockquote>

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