Why Lower Spell Resistance Spells are bad ideas.

[Stalker0]

We group of 20th level characters fought a CR 27 shadow dragon last night. The first time we fought it, it was a major encounter, it teleported away, and we lost a party member. It was extrememly tough, what we expected for the final battle.

The second time, we got a hole of a dragonslayer staff (with lower resistance on it from the draconomican). We dropped its SR to nothing, and an otto's irresistable dance allowed us to killed it so fast your head would spin.

Now that spell wasn't just effective against dragons, it would work on anything with SR. I started to realize just what a bad idea lower SR spells can be.

At high levels a lot of abilities don't have saves, SR is all you get. And in any event, often times a person's weak save pales to a wizard's good save. SR is the only real defense at times, and gimping it leaves a person too vulnerable to attack.

 

[the Jester]

OTOH, without a lower resistance effect, a lot of encounters are almost impossible for multiclassed casters to deal with.

 

[James McMurray]

Lower Spell Resistance isn't a bad idea. But Lower Spell Resistance with no save is a bad idea. And honestly, applying a penalty to the save equal to the caster level is effectively removing the save.

 

[Victim]

I think you could pretty much halve the effectiveness of the Draconomicon's Lower Resist and still have a good spell. Most casters typically won't need lower a foe's resistance by much. And some of the new monster designs pretty much mandate

However, the idea that SR should be untouchable because it's the only defense against many high level spells strikes me as wrong. Most high level characters won't have much SR, if any.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

At high levels a lot of abilities don't have saves, SR is all you get. And in any event, often times a person's weak save pales to a wizard's good save. SR is the only real defense at times, and gimping it leaves a person too vulnerable to attack.

Most PCs are expected to be the heroes without any SR whatsoever, so it is really not as bad as you suggest.

It does present a problem for DMs who prefer to rely on a single opponent as the big encounters.

I personally think that SR is one of the worst designed aspects of the game, and we would be better off if it were removed altogether. Obviously some spells would need to rewritten in that case.

 

[shilsen]

I definitely think that spell as written is way overpowered. Also note that in 3.5, with many conjuration spells not allowing SR, there are a lot more ways to get past it than in 3e.

 

[Derren]

Note that this spell has a 1 round casting time.

Still its very powerfull and the penalty to the save is totally nuts.

 

[Oscar carramiñana]

a lot of monsters have SR and very good saves the SR spell isn't bad idea but add save and maybe the monsters don't lose SR. Think that. the major PC's don't have SR turn around the spells with no save. (force cage for stop the warriors- otto's dance for spellcasters energy drain... you have a lot for choice.

 

[glass]

Lower Spell Resistance isn't a bad idea. But Lower Spell Resistance with no save is a bad idea. And honestly, applying a penalty to the save equal to the caster level is effectively removing the save.

(empahsis mine).

Does it really do this? Wow, I missed that. Time to dig out my copy of Draconomicon again and have another read.

glass.

 

[James McMurray]

Yup, it really does that. Why they didn't just say "no save" I'll never understand. Even at 7th level casting you'd have to be facing something severely out of your EL range to find something that is going to reliably make the save.