Racial Spell Resistance

[TimeAdept]

Drow now get 41 SR at level 30 on the PGCC.

Please revert this before it goes live. Do not let this change go live. Please, do not let this change go live.

41 SR is morded down to 31 - one less than the old max.
This decrease can be removed by pray or by any restoration.
This completely renders the Spell Resistance spells redundant.
It is a massive, massive buff to Drow (and Svirf, but no one cares).

It completely throws the entire schema of spell penetration and spell resistance out of whack whene even a pure 30 wizard with epic spell penetration would still have a 30% failure chance against a level 30 Drow simply for existing, and they can easily remedy the only counter to this.

[n00bdragon]

The problem is with -pray, not with SR. Personally, this sounds great. Before, people could have been totally forgiven for entirely forgetting that Drow and Svirfs even had SR. Given their lack of gifts and strict RP requirements I'd say it's probably fine, especially without any sort of anecdotal feedback. Monks have existed for sometime and though they may be terrorizing the server for other reasons currently their SR is only a small part of that puzzle.

[Sockss]

Wew.

Anecdotal feedback aside, this is objectively terrible.

On the grapevine is that it'll be changed and capped at previous levels, however.

[Tarkus the dog]

No, 41 SR is not fine. Anyone who says 32 SR is "not good enough" doesn't know what they are talking about. Please strongly reconsider this.

- someone who doesn't play mages

Reconsider this one as well.

Subraces now count as their proper racial type for favored enemy.

Or give rangers more races to choose from.

[Hexgoblin]

On and off, I've played Arelith for 11 years, and while generally optimistic, I'll have to say that this is the most worrying thing I have ever seen in an Arelith update announcement. I am primarily a drow player, and even so, I very much hope this doesn't come to pass, and sees a reversion to its previous 32 SR cap.

Were the uncapped SR to go through, you'd essentially have the current monk problem, but on a pandemic scale. A character built to be capable in other fields just so happens to also be a hard counter to spellcasters, simply by virtue of existing. It's bad. Forcing every Underdark mage or cleric to pick three penetration feats, vastly limiting their build diversity, only to have a 1/3 CHANCE to pierce the passive SR of the people around them is bad. It's very bad.

32 SR was already a good racial. Good to the point that I still hold drow as a top-end mage or non-barbarian warrior race, purely by its existence. A drow warrior build can't take a STR gift, sure. But pitting 32 SR versus 1 AB is still a valid consideration. To put things into perspective, let's say you're playing a multiplayer game which uses a talent tree system. One of the talents in your tree says "20% spell immunity." That talent would probably be considered mandatory, or otherwise very desireable. That's essentially what 32 SR is right now, versus most casters pre-breach, and if it's breached that's still fine - because your opponent spent part of his action economy performing said breach.

Courtesy of the 32 SR racial, drow also don't use the otherwise omnipresent SR helmet(Circlet of Protection), freeing up either more enchantment slots or another point of AC from adamantine. Why is the SR helmet so popular? Because it offers protection against heavily used scrolls, such as Word of Faith, and most lower CL dungeon mobs. Which is actually a lot of them, as they're often split between caster and monster classes, or cast using 15 CL capped special abilities as opposed to a spellbook. A benefit that 32 SR races already had passively, and a very valid one at that.

[Apokriphos]

I think this is an interesting change modeling its dnd schematic https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/racial-f ... ance-drow/.

Pure monk players, pure monolith druids, pure clerics, already had access to this range of spell resist at level 30, and this change will make those classes less unique among the drow.

The drow and all other monstrous races face extremely harsh player and dm enforced penalties simply by existing (especially on the surface where "Remove your helmet or else" is a thing), and it makes sense that some reward be given to compensate them for this forced adversity.

Ultimately, the administration will monitor this change as they do all adjustments on the server and make changes (as a previous poster seemed to suggest hidden knowledge that this has already been removed) if need be.

[Zavandar]

monks are busted and druid/cleric sr can not only be reduced, but breached off entirely.

there is absolutely no argument for a race having 41 sr for existing

[Might-N-Magic]

It completely throws the entire schema of spell penetration and spell resistance out of whack whene even a pure 30 wizard with epic spell penetration would still have a 30% failure chance against a level 30 Drow simply for existing, and they can easily remedy the only counter to this.

You mean... the way it should be and should have been from the start? Drow and svirf are poor races for their ECL cost. You get locked into these terrible stat schemes that are only good for 1 build, crap gift options, and no meaningful options for optimization. The SR you do get becomes relatively useless in endgame content very fast past epic as everything of comparable CR ignores it.

If the SR went to proper levels, it just means that a mage has to Mordy them for a 100% ignoring of it. You have to cast a spell... which every mage has... that you should be casting from the start anyways. Oh-em-gee, the horror.

I mean, the fact you're wailing about making SR mean something in comparative level play is telling just how meaningless 32 SR is. Before you could utterly ignore it by doing nothing at all. Now it gives roughly 50% resistance... til you take 1 step and Mordy it away to nothing again, which is a spell every mage opens with anyways.

Pointless crying about nothing imo since everybody and their dog starts off with a Mordy anyways.

[magistrasa]

which every mage has

every cleric and druid:

[Ork]

32 SR is practically scroll immunity. Word of Faith scrolls, one of the most powerful consumables, have a CL of 13. The scroll user would have to roll a 19 or 20 for a 32 SR character to be effected.

Hex lays out his beliefs on the potency of drow characters, and I'm inclined to believe his expertise.

[Hazard]

I, for one, welcome our new drow overlords.

[Hexgoblin]

If the SR went to proper levels, it just means that a mage has to Mordy them for a 100% ignoring of it. You have to cast a spell... which every mage has... that you should be casting from the start anyways. Oh-em-gee, the horror.

I mean, the fact you're wailing about making SR mean something in comparative level play is telling just how meaningless 32 SR is. Before you could utterly ignore it by doing nothing at all. Now it gives roughly 50% resistance... til you take 1 step and Mordy it away to nothing again, which is a spell every mage opens with anyways.

Pointless crying about nothing imo since everybody and their dog starts off with a Mordy anyways.

For one, your numbers here are off. 32 SR already has roughly 1/5 spells from casters with a 3-4 level dip fizzle, with the typical wizard split being 26/4 and 27/3 for a sorcerer. Over my many years of playing drow, I've had that come in handy many times, and fighting against drow I often find myself breaching them purely to erase that margin of error. Casting versus 41 SR would be far from the coin toss you present it as, as TimeAdept literally outlined using a pureclassed character that invests a full three feats into penetration as an example, which is far from the caster norm. Plus, in group PvP the majority of your force won't be subject to breaching, rendering their SR intact versus the hail of WoF scrolls, which too is very effective.

More importantly, though. People who view this as an increase in drow relevance as a whole are mistaken. At least if viewed through the scope of how drow traditionally operate. Would you argue against clerics and mages being integral elements of the drow dynamic? 41 baseline SR would practically render them null. You're either a WM, BG, bard or rogue - or you're mechanically impaired in an Underdark where every drow struts around with an SR of 41. You've effectively reduced your own spellcasters to ornaments that buff you, and designated casualties when drow clash against each other. Which as it happens, drow do constantly. An isolated mage or priestess would be faced with a battle where the odds are heavily stacked against them, when confronted by any hostile warrior with half a brain.

While I personally think that 32 SR makes up for the slight stat disparity that some drow builds suffer from, this change isn't the way to increase diversity. This is actively throwing diversity out the window, by rendering half of the build and cultural options available to you near obsolete. If the stats of drow are an issue, then look to mending that issue. Present suggestions for how you think the racial stats can be improved. Don't champion overloading an unrelated feature, at the expense of literally everyone else. Augmenting the stats would be a buff to drow. 41 SR is a nerf to everyone else who have to completely change the way they play, and ironically a kick to the stomach of half of drow characters.

Besides, if the only way someone feels mechanically relevant versus spellcasters is total or majorly encompassing immunity to their spells, in spite of the many counterplay tools at their disposal - then they're quite frankly inept, and in need of some practice.

[NauVaseline]

I'm betting this was an oversight/accident. I'm hoping. Is it?

When this gets fixed, fix monks too.

[Skibbles]

When I read the update I thought to myself, "Surely this won't affect drow PCs."

41 SR is incredibly high and is a pretty big game changer in a lot of dynamics.

Personally I view SR 32 as a pretty significant boon with some counterplay, and that's assuming that whoever casting at you is at their max caster level which isn't always the case.

I would be more in favor of bringing back gifts for drow then letting them have SR 41.