D&D 5E What is the best way to handle ‘magic resistance’ in D&D 5e?

[Yaarel]

Judging by the design of the Forest Gnome,

It seems to me, Cunning (Wis-Cha-Int save advantage versus magic) is worth a full feat, or at least is supposed to be.

Supposing this estimation is accurate enough.




Three Feats.

Magic Fortitude. You have advantage on all Constitution saving throws against magic.
Magic Reflex. You have advantage on all Dexterity and Strength saving throws against magic.
Magic Cunning. You have advantage on all Wisdom, Charisma, and Intelligence saving throws against magic.



A Drow Elf or any race who spends three feats while advancing thru levels, can eventually gain advantage verses all saves versus magic.

 

[Yaarel]

The three magic resistance feats might characterize better as:

Fey Fortitude.
Fey Reflex.
Fey Cunning.

The Fey connection connotes innate magic affinity, and explains the link between the Gnome and Elf magic resistance.

Any character that has Fey origin or bloodline, has access to these feats.

 

[Horwath]

14th level abjurer wizard.

Spell resistance:

Advantage on all saves vs spells.

Resistance on all damage from spells.

That would be two full size feats.

 

[Yaarel]

@Horwath

Good catch.

I notice the Abjurer gains an advantage against all ‘spells’, rather than versus all ‘magic’. For example, psionics would bypass this resistance because even tho psionics is ‘magic’, it isnt a ‘spell’ per se. At least this would be the case according to the way the Unearthed Arcana articles have been describing psionics. The Spell Save Advantage would apply to magic items that cast ‘spells’.

Spell Save Advantage seems more powerful than any of the magic resistance feats − Fey Fortitude, Fey Reflex, or Fey Cunning. Spell Save Advantage might be worth two feats in comparison?

On the other hand, Spell Damage Resistance seems worth a feat.

Both put together, Spell Save Advantage and Spell Damage Resistance, is by design comparable to other Level 14 Wizard features. This includes Evoker Maximize Spell Damage once (or more) per long rest, which seems powerful. But it also includes the Illusionist temporary object, which seems much less powerful for a Level 14 Wizard. Since the Wizard Level 14 feature seems imbalanced, it is more difficult to gauge the worth of the Abjurer features. Is the Level 14 Wizard feature supposed to be worth a half feat, one feat, two, three, four?

You might be right, it might be Spell Save Advantage and Spell Damage Resistance are ‘supposed’ to be worth about two feats by design. But whether that is actually true, is a different question.

If Spell Save Advantage is worth about a feat, then Cunning is worth about a half feat. This might be true, but probably, Cunning is worth about a feat, and Spell Save Advantage is worth about two feats.

 

[Yaarel]

Note, the lowly Imp has full Magic Resistance, defined as follows.

‘Magic Resistance. Advantage on saving throws and other magical effects.’

This probably has more to with ‘pet protection’, for Wizard players who choose an Imp as a familiar. If the Imp conferred this Magic Resistance onto the Wizard, it would be extremely powerful, more powerful than the Level 14 Abjurer feature.



The same goes for the Quasit familiar, that does grant full Magic Resistance to the Wizard.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

If the Imp conferred this Magic Resistance onto the Wizard, it would be extremely powerful, more powerful than the Level 14 Abjurer feature.

Deals with a devil generally have a rather high cost though.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

How about:

At level 4: you have advantage on saving throws versus cantrips and non-spell magical effects caused by creatures/traps with a CR rating of 2 or less
At level 8: you have advantage on saving throws versus cantrips and 1st level spells and non-spell magical effects caused by creatures/traps with a CR rating of 4 or less
At level 12: you have advantage on saving throws versus cantrips and 1st and second level spells and non-spell magical effects caused by creatures with a CR rating of 6 or less

use the same formula for level 16 and 20 (16 does cantrip+1-3 spells, and CR 8 or less monster/traps and 20 does cantrip+1-4 spells, and CR 10 or less monster/traps)

I would use give it out as a feat.

 

[Yaarel]

In the Dungeon Masters Guide, the Creating A Monster section (281) has a list of special abilities and its equivalent value for the purpose of customizing a new monster.

This table says full Magic Resistance is equivalent to a +2 AC bonus. Which is laughable! Given a choice of Magic Resistance and a shield, which would I rather have? Such a hard choice. But the table also says Magic Resistance is equivalent to Superior Invisibility, which is closer to reasonable. (Invisibility whenever concentrating, but it is unclear whether one can attack invisibly).



Between the conference by the familiars − Pseudodragon, Imp, and Quasit − and the equivalence to a +2 AC, it seems the designers are significantly underestimating the value of Magic Resistance.

At least sometimes.

The initial core books seem to underestimate full Magic Resistance, while overestimating Cunning (which is only a small portion of possible spells to save against).

 

[Yaarel]

Skimming thru the Monster Manual:

Pseudodragon, Imp, and Quasit grant a Wizard full magic resistance at level 1 via a 1st-level spell.

Pixie, Dryad, and Satyr, are conceivably player races, and all have full magic resistance. These races plus the Faerie Dragon and Unicorn show an affinity of the Fey for Magic Resistance.

The Archmage NPC is magic resistant, essentially a high tier Wizard of any race. Heh, surely all these Archmages have a familiar lurking nearby.

Mindflayer, Yuan-Ti, and Golem are magic resistant, but seem unusual and unrepresentative.



Generally, Fey, Celestials and Fiends, associate with Magic Resistance.

 

[Yaarel]

To be fair, the Find Familiar spell, per se, has no access to the special familiars, like Pseudodragon. These creatures need to be willing to serve as a familiar, and presumably the Wizard needs to encounter them first during the adventure. In that sense, the Magic Resistance familiars are a kind of ‘treasure’ sotospeak. And not necessarily at level 1, the encounter could happen at level 17, or whenever. In any case, access requires special DM intervention to make it possible.