Canonfire!

Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:16 am Casting spells on dwarves

The PHB does say that dwarves are non-magical in nature, and we all know they get save bonuses. They also have 20% magical item failure to anything not "dwarven." However, what about casting beneficial spells upon them?

I basically make the dwarves IMC make a save, regardless of the spell, even if it's something beneficial like a haste spell. The players say there something in the rules about intentionally failing, willingly allowing a spell. I see that, but this seems munchkiny to me. I basically said, if you play a dwarf, ROLE-PLAY a dwarf! He wouldn't want to have a bunch of wizard spells cast upon himself.

Anyway, is that the right way to go about it? Just do a normal magic save?

Wed Apr 25, 2012 12:14 am

Dwarves are affected just fine by any magic, beneficial or not, that has a saving throw designation of "none" or "n/a".
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Thu Apr 26, 2012 2:36 pm

I agree with Cebrion on this (for what it's worth).

Sat Jun 21, 2014 8:23 am

Adding to this thread with a question of my own instead of creating another one.

Wondering if dwarven magic and poison resistance also applies to such things as the following:

1) saving throw vs ghoul paralysis (even though not a magical attack, could be considered poison)

2) saving throw vs a ghost's Magic Jar ability (spell-like effect, so think it would)

-Lanthorn

Sat Jun 21, 2014 8:55 pm

1) No. "Their [a ghoul's] touch causes humans (including dwarves, gnomes, half-elves, and halflings, but excluding elves) to become rigid unless a saving throw versus paralyzation is successful." A ghoul's/ghast's touch is a supernatural touch attack that causes paralysis. It is not a poison effect, so no poison resistance applies.

2) Yes. Magic jar is a spell-like ability, so the dwarf's spell resistance bonus applies.

A dwarf's resistances apply to the proper saving throw classifications, those being *poison* or *spells* or *rods/staves/wands*; specifically to effects which are representative of them. Very rarely, some effect will use one of these saving throws when the classification does not truly apply. For example, an adventure might feature an encounter with an avalanche that requires a saving throw vs. rods/staves/wands for those caught in it to avoid taking damage (or to take less damage). The reason this is done is to set the saving throw at a particular difficulty level for the various classes, not due to any actual rods/staves/wands effect, and so a dwarf's resistance bonus should not apply in such odd instances.
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