Magic Resistance

👉 Magic Resistance is a vital defense in GnollHack that protects you from polymorph traps, anti-magic traps, and monster spells.

🛡️ Sources of Magic Resistance

Granted by Items

• Cloak of magic resistance
• Gray dragon scale mail
• Ioun stone of magic resistance
• Orichalcum body armor
• Robe of magic resistance

Granted by Artifacts

• Magicbane
• Ruby Rod of Asmodeus
• The Ark of the Covenant
• The Eye of the Aethiopica
• The Eyes of the Overworld
• The Orb of Detection
• The Platinum Yendorian Express Card
• The Rod of Disjunction
• The Sceptre of Might

Granted by Potions

• Potion of magic resistance

Granted by Spells

• Anti-magic shell

⚠️ Nerfs to Magic Resistance

Contrary to NetHack, Magic Resistance does not protect you from:

• Death attacks — such as the Finger of death spell, or the wand of death
  • You need death resistance to be safe from death attacks
• Magic missiles — such as the Magic missile spell, or the wand of magic missile
  • You need full magic missile resistance to be immune to magic missiles
• Striking — such as the Force bolt spell or the wand of striking
  • You need full magic missile resistance to be immune to striking
• Curses — Magic Resistance used to halve the effect of incoming curses, but it does not do so anymore
  • You need curse resistance to be immune to cursing

🎲 Chance to Work

If a player gets Magic Resistance from an item, it always has a 100% chance to work.

However, monsters' Magic Resistance has a percentage chance to work. The magic resistance is listed in the monsters' stats.

💥 Cancellation Attacks and Magic Resistance

Cancellation attacks prevent players and monsters from using spells and wands.

They can be resisted as follows:

• Cancellation spell or effect against a normal monster bypasses magic resistance and has a 100% chance to work. However, unique monsters are still shielded from cancellation by magic resistance.
• Disjunction spell or effect bypasses every monster's magic resistance, including unique ones, and thus always has a 100% chance to work.
• Cancellation attacks against a player, such as the gaze attack of a gazer, bypass magic resistance and have a 100% chance to work.

Additionally, it is good to remember the following things about cancellation:

• If you zap a wand of cancellation or cast a cancellation spell at yourself or at items, it will set items' beatitude to Uncursed, set the enchantment to +0, make most potions into water, blank scrolls and spellbooks, and set items' charges to 0.
• Putting a wand of cancellation into a bag of holding will destroy the bag.

🐺 Polymorph and Magic Resistance

Magic resistance protects from:

• Wand of polymorph zapped at monsters
• Polymorph traps
• Polymorph other spell cast at monsters
• Polymorph from being hit with a wielded potion of polymorph

Magic resistance does not protect you from:

• Polymorph from ring of polymorph
• Wand of polymorph zapped at yourself
• Polymorph other spell cast at yourself
• Polymorph from drinking a potion of polymorph

ℹ️ See Also

• Resistances and Saving Throws