TOPIC: Is Spell Resistance Going Away?

The notes said this:

"I understand if folks are upset about the doing away with Spell and Damage Resistance, but it is just a complication I am trying to remove from the front end – as now we have to plan for these two Resistances when we set the monster stats at Nightmare+…so by doing away with them on the set bonus, we can no longer add them in on the monster stats. That just makes for a cleaner game while not affecting the net combat stats at all. I just felt this was a more honest way to do it – and it keeps it less cumbersome for new players and DMs."

It reads to me like it is going away, but I'm not 100% sure. I'm not sure why it would have been necessary to plan for them on the Nightmare+ levels if no monsters were going to have Spell Resistance anyway. It seemed awkward wording also - the set bonuses didn't actually grant spell or damage resistance to the players, it just allowed them to ignore monster spell and damage resistance.

The main reason I ask is, if Monster Spell Resistance is going away, the Charm of the Cabal becomes completely useless. Since it is a UR, if Spell Resistance is eliminated from the game, would it be appropriate to allow that to be turned in for a PYP? The Rod of Disjunction is kind of in the same boat, but it wouldn't be useless since it would still be a +2 UR Weapon.

Mike Steele wrote: The notes said this:

"I understand if folks are upset about the doing away with Spell and Damage Resistance, but it is just a complication I am trying to remove from the front end – as now we have to plan for these two Resistances when we set the monster stats at Nightmare+…so by doing away with them on the set bonus, we can no longer add them in on the monster stats. That just makes for a cleaner game while not affecting the net combat stats at all. I just felt this was a more honest way to do it – and it keeps it less cumbersome for new players and DMs."

It reads to me like it is going away, but I'm not 100% sure. I'm not sure why it would have been necessary to plan for them on the Nightmare+ levels if no monsters were going to have Spell Resistance anyway. It seemed awkward wording also - the set bonuses didn't actually grant spell or damage resistance to the players, it just allowed them to ignore monster spell and damage resistance.

The main reason I ask is, if Monster Spell Resistance is going away, the Charm of the Cabal becomes completely useless. Since it is a UR, if Spell Resistance is eliminated from the game, would it be appropriate to allow that to be turned in for a PYP? The Rod of Disjunction is kind of in the same boat, but it wouldn't be useless since it would still be a +2 UR Weapon.

Generally, I agree with everything you said and maybe some people do want to turn their's in. My issue is that while I would like the charm to have some value, I get more value from equipping the cabal set. With all the focus items now in play, even an extra 0 level spell in round 1 can add another 30+ damage. Only the RoSS can also give me this kind of boost and that's only once per game.

I took it to mean:

At nightmare and epic we had plans to use spell resistance. Due to the eldritch 2 piece bonus, these plans would be hard to implement.

To work around the eldritch two pice bonus monster stats were being tweaked, to achieve the same net effect.

Now that there is no bypassing resistance, those game mechanics can be applied as intended at nightmare+.


I agree certainly that my interpreation could be wrong!

Dave wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: The notes said this:

"I understand if folks are upset about the doing away with Spell and Damage Resistance, but it is just a complication I am trying to remove from the front end – as now we have to plan for these two Resistances when we set the monster stats at Nightmare+…so by doing away with them on the set bonus, we can no longer add them in on the monster stats. That just makes for a cleaner game while not affecting the net combat stats at all. I just felt this was a more honest way to do it – and it keeps it less cumbersome for new players and DMs."

It reads to me like it is going away, but I'm not 100% sure. I'm not sure why it would have been necessary to plan for them on the Nightmare+ levels if no monsters were going to have Spell Resistance anyway. It seemed awkward wording also - the set bonuses didn't actually grant spell or damage resistance to the players, it just allowed them to ignore monster spell and damage resistance.

The main reason I ask is, if Monster Spell Resistance is going away, the Charm of the Cabal becomes completely useless. Since it is a UR, if Spell Resistance is eliminated from the game, would it be appropriate to allow that to be turned in for a PYP? The Rod of Disjunction is kind of in the same boat, but it wouldn't be useless since it would still be a +2 UR Weapon.

Generally, I agree with everything you said and maybe some people do want to turn their's in. My issue is that while I would like the charm to have some value, I get more value from equipping the cabal set. With all the focus items now in play, even an extra 0 level spell in round 1 can add another 30+ damage. Only the RoSS can also give me this kind of boost and that's only once per game.

Dave, good point. So, it's not completely useless because it still counts towards the Cabal bonus.

If Spell Resistance is going away, maybe next year a revised version of the Charm of the Cabal could be reprinted, like LoDS and Cloak of Shadowskin were this year.

Matthew Hayward wrote: I took it to mean:

At nightmare and epic we had plans to use spell resistance. Due to the eldritch 2 piece bonus, these plans would be hard to implement.

To work around the eldritch two pice bonus monster stats were being tweaked, to achieve the same net effect.

Now that there is no bypassing resistance, those game mechanics can be applied as intended at nightmare+.


I agree certainly that my interpreation could be wrong!

Matthew, to be honest, that interpretation would make a lot more sense to me. I'm not sure it's correct, but it certainly might be. And, if Spell and Damage Resistance were to be used, I'm glad that it would just be Nightmare and above difficulty levels.

That would actually increase the value of Charm of the Cabal and Rod of Disfunction, because they would be the most effective counters to Monster Spell Resistance now.

I think the key here is “doing away with them on the set bonus”. Because enough people at Nightmare+ had the set they had to work around it and now they won’t have to.

Mike Steele wrote: Is Spell Resistance Going Away?

No
Starting in the 2019-2020 TD season at Origins , the Eldritch Set will no longer affect SR, but that doesn't mean the SR mechanic is being purged from TD.

Phil Norton wrote: I think the key here is “doing away with them on the set bonus”. Because enough people at Nightmare+ had the set they had to work around it and now they won’t have to.

This is a guess because I really have no way of knowing for sure but I don’t think the Cabal set is ubiquitous (didn’t want to use the term common to avoid confusion)
It’s a 5 year old set and I’m guessing there were fewer people playing and fewer token collectors/resellers.

I don’t think too many charms on Nightmare is an issue, actually the opposite. I would guess removing the resistance (perhaps due to too few players with the advantage so DMs have to deal with only occasionally) lightens the complexity of Jeff creating the modules as well as the head space required by DMs for a small percentage of players.

Bob Chasan wrote:

Phil Norton wrote: I think the key here is “doing away with them on the set bonus”. Because enough people at Nightmare+ had the set they had to work around it and now they won’t have to.

This is a guess because I really have no way of knowing for sure but I don’t think the Cabal set is ubiquitous (didn’t want to use the term common to avoid confusion)
It’s a 5 year old set and I’m guessing there were fewer people playing and fewer token collectors/resellers.

I don’t think too many charms on Nightmare is an issue, actually the opposite. I would guess removing the resistance (perhaps due to too few players with the advantage so DMs have to deal with only occasionally) lightens the complexity of Jeff creating the modules as well as the head space required by DMs for a small percentage of players.

I was referring to the 2 piece Eldritch set that Jeff mentioned in his note.

Phil Norton wrote:

Bob Chasan wrote:

Phil Norton wrote: I think the key here is “doing away with them on the set bonus”. Because enough people at Nightmare+ had the set they had to work around it and now they won’t have to.

This is a guess because I really have no way of knowing for sure but I don’t think the Cabal set is ubiquitous (didn’t want to use the term common to avoid confusion)
It’s a 5 year old set and I’m guessing there were fewer people playing and fewer token collectors/resellers.

I don’t think too many charms on Nightmare is an issue, actually the opposite. I would guess removing the resistance (perhaps due to too few players with the advantage so DMs have to deal with only occasionally) lightens the complexity of Jeff creating the modules as well as the head space required by DMs for a small percentage of players.

I was referring to the 2 piece Eldritch set that Jeff mentioned in his note.

Got it. Thanks I didn’t get that originally.

Druegar wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: Is Spell Resistance Going Away?

No
Starting in the 2019-2020 TD season at Origins , the Eldritch Set will no longer affect SR, but that doesn't mean the SR mechanic is being purged from TD.

I wish it would, as long as things are already in flux I'm in favor of simplification.

Druegar wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: Is Spell Resistance Going Away?

No
Starting in the 2019-2020 TD season at Origins , the Eldritch Set will no longer affect SR, but that doesn't mean the SR mechanic is being purged from TD.

Thanks for the clarification, that makes more sense. It seemed like during the token generation process, the general belief was that it was going away.