D&D 4E Should Spell Resistance make it into 4e

[hong]

I'm still partial to the idea of hero points. They have the bonus that they can be used to avoid other instakill situations, all in one elegant mechanic. They also allow you to make progress even if your instakill spell doesn't slay the target, because you're still depleting their resources.

Spend 1 hero point = unaffected by power word kill
Spend 1 hero point = unaffected by medusa gaze (for 1 round)
Spend 1 hero point = avoid bull rush that sends you over the cliff
Spend 1 hero point = land the killing blow on the BBEG before it takes you all out
Spend 1 hero point = avoid the killing blow from the annoying hero, thus allowing you to take them all out

 

[Jedi_Solo]

I'm with the "roll SR into saves" set. Giving the creatures with SR an evation like mechanic for all magic based saves should work for the all or nothing effect.

Antimagic Fields drive me nuts. It should just supress active effects. no more Haste or Bull's Strength. No flaming swords. Keep the +X (to Ac, hit/damage, etc) effects to limit the numbers that need to be changed on the fly. Keep the game moving.

 

[pawsplay]

Some spells do not allows saves. Spell resistance was intended as a special kind of defense, for those creatures who could simply shrug off magic missiles, power words, and the like, and get fireballed and sometimes take no damage instead of half.

To replace it without losing the effect, you would have to:

- introduce a save mechanic of some kind to no save spells, in order that powerful demons would then be able to attempt one, without turning those spells into pointless retreads of lower level spells
- give creatures some kind of ability to ignore magic missile
- give a number of powerful creatures the benefits of both evasion and mettle in some fashion.
- figure out some way to avoid the situation where your revised rule is simply that, effectively, powerful opponents only fail a save on 1.

 

[drothgery]

I'm not a huge fan of SR mechanics, but I disagree that it could be rolled into saves. There are spells that have no saves for a reason, but still SR. Even more importantly, there as spells with no SR, but saves.

... and both of these are lame (typically the 'no save, SR yes' spells are touch/ranged touch attacks and should just be a reflex save for none anyway).

 

[Vrecknidj]

From the above comments...

1) Every spell requires some kind of roll on the part of the caster, or
2) Every spell requires some kind of save on the part of the defender, or
3) Both

But, 3) seems to violate the "less is more" rule about eliminating added die rolls in the interest of making the game less about dice and more about the story.

Maybe something like...

1) Caster declares a spell
2) Caster rolls a d20
3) Caster adds some modifier to the roll
4) Caster compares it to the defender's appropriate defense
5) If the result doesn't beat the defense, nothing happens
6) If the result beats the defense by up to 5, XX happens
7) If the result beats the defence by between 6 and 10, YY happens
8) If the result beats the defence by between 11 and 15, ZZ happens
9) The scale continues indefinitely (but is limited by built-in caps)

There's a relatively universal mechanic for the spells, such that "I beat it by 6" or "I beat it by 12" always means something similar (with a handful of exceptions, of course). So that once mastered, referencing material is minimized.

Instead of Spell Resistance, we have a creature with much higher magical defenses (i.e. substantially increasing the odds that the caster's roll doesn't beat it, resulting in no effect). Instead of Fire Resistance, we have a creature with a +5 or +10 to the appropriate magical defense in the case of a fire spell (substantially increasing the odds that the spell will do nothing, or that the damage will be very low). Etc.

Dave

 

[Kae'Yoss]

5) If the result doesn't beat the defense, nothing happens
6) If the result beats the defense by up to 5, XX happens
7) If the result beats the defence by between 6 and 10, YY happens
8) If the result beats the defence by between 11 and 15, ZZ happens
9) The scale continues indefinitely (but is limited by built-in caps)
Dave

This would mean you could gauge the enemy's defense value by observing what happens, but more importantly, that would again be quite complicated. Plus, attacks don't work like this, either.

I'd rather do everything like this:

If you try to affect someone, you roll your relevant score (attack roll, skill roll, spellcasting roll) against his defense (fort, ref, will). If you "hit", he is subject to the ability's effect, but he may have some resistance that mitigates the effect (fire resistance, resistance against slashing attacks, maybe even something that lessens mental inhibitions by one step, from paralysed to stunned to dazed to dazzled)

 

[Lanefan]

1) Caster declares a spell
2) Caster rolls a d20
3) Caster adds some modifier to the roll
4) Caster compares it to the defender's appropriate defense
5) If the result doesn't beat the defense, nothing happens
6) If the result beats the defense by up to 5, XX happens
7) If the result beats the defence by between 6 and 10, YY happens
8) If the result beats the defence by between 11 and 15, ZZ happens
9) The scale continues indefinitely (but is limited by built-in caps)

I'm sorry, but this is just ugly. This would mean every spell...*every spell!*...would have to be rewritten to have numerous different XX-YY-ZZ-etc. effects depending on the roll result. Then, a huge amount more player-DM memorization (or book-consulting) would be required - compared to now - to determine what happens when any given spell resolves.

Lanefan

 

[Sammael]

Agreed, that's way too complex. I can see some spells utilizing that mechanic, but certainly not all.

 

[Someone]

I'd rather have buffing spells without purely numerical bonuses, or a magic systems that allows less buffing spells to be cast, or both. That would solve Dispel magic's problem.

 

[Hussar]

IMO, rolling buffing spells up into a single chain similar to Summon Monster would solve most of the dispel/buff problems. I think it may be simpler to change buffing rather than try to change dispelling.

I wouldn't mind seeing SR go away. It would certainly make the evokers happy. As it stands, the evocation wizards are pretty much pooched in high level play because everything has SR. Whack on a big save bonus for SR and add in a mettle/evasion line into the special abilities.

Easy, simple.