I’ve decided to post a series of posts about roleplaying. In each post i hope to zoom in on a specific topic. I’ve considered doing this in a seperate blog, but i like this one, so i thought i might as well do it here. 🙂
This is the first post in a series about magical attacks. Because this came up in one of my recent games, i will start this series with the topic of Spell Resistance as is exists in de OGL/SRD/D&D 3.5/Pathfinder.

What is Spell Resistance?
Spell Resistance is the extraordinary ability of a character to shrug off a magical attack without taking any of the harmful effects. It is essentially AC for magic.

Do players have Spell Resistance?
Sometimes. Spell Resistance is not easily acquired, though. The basic races and classes do not have any SR by default. There are 3 ways to obtain Spell Resistance:

• Find a magical item that gives you SR. This is probably your best bet.
• Let a high level cleric cast Spell Resistance on you. Listed on page 282 of the Player Handbook, you see it is a level 5 Cleric spell. This spell level is accessible to level 9 clerics.
• Be a monk! At level 13, a monk receives the Diamond Soul ability, granting him a SR of 10 + monk level.

How does Spell Resistance work?
The attacker rolls 1d20 + caster level. If the roll is higher than the Spell Resistance of defender, the Spell Resistance is beaten.
The next step would be for the defender to roll a saving throw, if it is applicable.

Note: Not all spells can be defended with Spell Resistance, although most direct offensive spells can. See the spell description for information.
Note 2: Rolling a natural 1 or 20 does not mean an automatic fail or success on Spell Resistance checks.

More on Spell Resistance
SRD: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Spell_Resistance_(Spell_Descriptor)