Countering spell resistance

Am I correct in my understanding and belief that there is no way in ToEE to counter or reduce monsters spell resistance?

There does not appear to be any spell or effect that effective reduces the SR that I'm aware of. The only things remotely close are the feats of Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration.

I'm currently playing the v5.0.0 build. Is this is addressed in a later patch or the current v5.0.6 patch? (Didn't notice anything in the threads)

Any thoughts, suggestions, etc.?

 

There is nothing in 3.5 core that can do what you are talking about. Perhaps one of the splat books has something but, generally speaking, the powers that be have no interest to take ToEE in that direction.

 

There are 2 feats (spell penetration) that do just that, but there are no spells like in baldurs gate that reduce it.

 

That's what I was afraid of. What a shame that the 3.5 rules seemingly omitted/removed anything that counters or lowers spell resistance.

Ah for the good ole days of BG where you could actually affect SR.

The reason I ask this about ToEE is that I felt like my wizard (and to a lesser extent, my clerics, druid, and bard) were near useless (as spell casters) against the higher end demons and Zuggtmoy.

They all still filled roles for party support, healing and supression against summoned monsters, but it would have been nice to actually affect Zuggy with some of my wizards spells. (not all the time, mond you, but maybe 1-3 times every 7-10 attempts). To be fair, some spells made it through, however just by the skin of their mystical teeth.

Now for the sake of argument, I realize a party is up against major demons and a Demon Lord (Lady?) and that IT SHOULD BE very difficult, if not downright impossible, to defeat them, even in the PnP versions. I guess my feelings are that if SR is included, there should be some way to reduce or counter it, apart from the feats I previosuly mentioned.

NOTE: This is not to be construed or taken as a criticism or call for change to the Co8 modding Gods (and Goddesses).

 

Also the "heighten spell" will work, since it effectively heigtens the spell dc to the level you heightened it.

 

but changing DCs is meaningless if you can't bypass the SR. Has anyone checked if ToEE recognizes which spells ignore SR?

 

As far as I remember 3.5, there were no "good" ol days of reducing spell resistance. That sorta was the point of SR, the fact you had to brute force past it with specialism, spell penetration, non magical sources of damage (weapons gasp!) or spells that simply do bypass spell resistance in their description.

Melf's acid arrow was one of those, if I recall. It's not big damage but it helps.

 

Extend spell is a nice feat to take on melf's AA, and if you empower it or even maximize it, that gives some nice ongoing damage...but at that moment you're busy slinging a 6th or 7th lvl spell

 

Most of the spells that bypass spell resistance are Conjurations ... Melf's Acid Arrow, Web, Grease, Glitterdust, Sleet Storm, Stinking Cloud, Solid Fog, CLOUDKILL, the Summon Monster spells; keep a couple of these on hand for fighting those demons, etc. I think the rationale behind it is that you're creating something real, not a spell effect, and THAT affects the target; therefore spell resistance can't apply because there's no "spell" in place. Kind of a weak rationale IMO, but there it is.

 

Grinner, those spells are confirmed to bypass SR in ToEE, or are you just speaking RAW?

Your rationale shall establish your right to be known as "rules lawyer"

 

A little while ago I came across a point of interest in PHB1. I believe it stated (in table form) that a creature must spend a move action to raise and to lower its own spell resistance. Meaning that if it wants to cast buff spells, it must first lower SR, then cast the spell, and then wait until the next round until it can raise SR again.

In ToEE, pre-buffing is a great solution but the AI scripts should at some point consider this little known rule. For example, Hedrack casts Spell Resistance before his other spells I think.

As for the above "auto-penetration" spells, I was wondering if one of our resident geniuses can tell me that they could be modded for ToEE if they aren't already. If so, I will gladly research and test them.

I wonder, Ted, if this might be similar to the way you described the potential fix for sneak attack rays. Btw, I wonder how that is coming along?

 

Correct!

If you believe it can be done (if it isn't already), I will compile a more definitive list and test.

 

that was the solution I was thinking. It would not change saving throw, but it could change duration and range.