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

[Warbringer]

Just reading some of the posts on Conjuration vs SR and got me to thinking...

Spell Resisistance, Antimagic and Dispel, should they be dumped in 4e?

Personally, I think SR should act like Turn Resistance ( an 'unnamed' bonus to the save and/or a form of DR for magical damage)

Antimagic... should simply suppress all magical effects

Dispel Magic : I'd like to see this as simply an immediate action to counter the "casting" of a spell

 

[Roman]

Yes, I think Spell Resistance should be dumped in the 4th edition. Creatures that are resistant to magic should instead get a bonus to saves against spells and magical effects.

Dispel Magic should stay.

Antimagic field should stay.

Also, Magical Immunity and Spell immunity, in the rare cases where they arise and make sense, should also stay.

 

[Woas]

I agree for the most part.
Spell Resistance should turn into a bonus to saves against magic in some shape or form.
Antimagic shouldn't even be there. I always wondered... if you use a magical spell to create unmagic... how does that work?! I understand that perhaps in a specfic setting there could be naturally occuring null magic phenomenon which should do as you say: supress all magic.
And I think you should be able to dispell spells after they have been cast (obviously I'm speaking about non-instant spells in this case) using caster checks... almost like magical grapple checks between to magi. Which, I understand can already be done with the dispell spell, but should be accomplished by other means than blowing a spell. Such like the feat in Arcana Evolved that allows spell-casters to something like this.

 

[EricNoah]

Spell resistance -- unnecessary. Replace with a save bonus, and maybe something that acts like Evasion but for Fort and Will saves (i.e. if a creature is "magic resistant" they suffer no "partial" or "half" results). I also think spell-immune golems need to be replaced. Give them a reasonable set of immunities and resistances based on their nature/material and leave it at that.

Dispel -- very necessary -- but not sure how to streamline the current procedures.

Anti-magic -- get rid of it. Makes a nice plot event once in a great while, but not enough to warrant vetting every single special ability against its possible presence.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Spell Resistance: Can be rolled more elegantly into whatever "universal magic-resistance" mechanic there is.

Dispel Magic: It's pretty classic. You strip the spells and benefits from your foes, and disrupt the curses placed on your allies. It's a good spell to stay, though it needs to be worked on a bit to not complexify things needlessly.

Antimagic Field: This gets all wonky. Better to make "Dispel Magic" with a duration and an area effect, perhaps a spell that forbids spellcasters from casting spells, etc. The implementation of this is kind of sloppy.

 

[Sammael]

I'll just parrot the above comments: (1) Spell Resistance should offer a nice fat bonus on saves vs. "magical effects;" (2) a creature with SR that makes its save against a spell should suffer no ill effects whatsoever. The above two changes would remove... oh... about 3-4 different layers of complexity from spellcasting.

 

[RangerWickett]

Get rid of spell resistance.

Make dispel magic automatically work against any one spell of xth level or lower. Hopefully 4th ed will require fewer buff spells, so it will be less necessary for dispel magic to kill several spells. For instance, in a recent fight a dragon was buffed to the frills with bull's strength, mage armor, shield, and blur. If we hadn't hit it with a lucky dispel that got all those effects, any one of its spells would have turned the fight from a close victory to a total defeat for us.

Instead, encourage fewer buffs, and have dispel magic simply knock out any 5th level or lower spell. If used as a counterspell, it can be cast as an immediate action. Greater dispel magic would get 9th level or lower spells.

For antimagic, instead of having it be a spell that creates a mobile field, make it some sort of damage to, well, the Weave, or the fabric of magic, or whatever. Sometimes it's a naturally-occuring weakness, and sometimes it's the result of a mage using a special spell to screw up local magic. However, there would be magic to repair the rip.

 

[drothgery]

I've always thought making a saving throw to avoid having to make a saving throw (i.e. SR) wasn't a very elegant mechanic; it'd seem that if you wanted something to be mroe magic resistant, you could just give it better saves. Of course, that would probably mean chaning the 'touch attack' and 'ranged touch' attack mechanics of some spells to reflex saves, but that's really okay.

 

[Sammael]

Of course, that would probably mean chaning the 'touch attack' and 'ranged touch' attack mechanics of some spells to reflex saves, but that's really okay.

If the SW Saga Edition saves - now called "defenses" - are a preview for 4E, than this issue has already been resolved. All spells that had a touch attack will now require the caster to beat the target's Reflex Defense. Yay for one less layer of complexity (which actually makes sense)!

 

[Doug McCrae]

Spell resistance was a terrible idea. It was a hack introduced to combat the overwhelming power of magic-users at high level. If the classes were balanced at all levels, as they should be in 4e, there would be no need for it.