Many people wonder exactly how to deal with resisting the powers of magery in UO. Many are confused as to exactly how things work, and what combination of skills they may or may not need to effectively combat the more powerful casting creatures, or mage player-characters.
The intent with this document is to give the average player a firm grasp on what resisting spells entails.

Mini-Faq:

Question – Does Evaluate Intelligence help me resist spells?

Answer – No, Eval Int help mages by rewarding them with extra damage. Eval Int is like Tactics for a Mage.

Question – Does resisting a spell compare my resistance to my attackers magery and evaluate intelligence skill?

Answer – No, it does not. Resisting a spell only compares your resistance with your attackers magery, and the circle
of the spell being cast.

Question – Why can’t I ever resist anything that’s cast at me, even magic arrow?

Answer – Remember that your resistance is figured in with the magery of the person casting at you. If your resistance
is very low (below 40) then it becomes extremely difficult (but not impossible) to resist almost anything cast by a  caster or grandmaster mage.

Question – Can all spells be resisted ?

Answer – No. The Resisting Spells skill may only defend against non-damaging offensive spells (Blood Oath, Clumsy,
Corpse Skin, Curse, Feeblemind, Mana Drain, Mana Vampire, Mind Rot, Pain Spike, Paralyze, Poison, Poison Field, and
Weaken).

Question – If I resist a spell, does this mean the spell is completely negated?

Answer
– No. The Resisting Spells skill only lessens the effect of spells, it does not completely “absorb” spell damage. For stat decreasing spells this means you lose less stat points when hit, and for duration spells this means the duration of the spell is shortened. The exception to this rule is the poison spell, which *can* be fully resisted. For Blood Oath, the amount of damage you receive is lessened by a percentage if you resist the spell. The formula used is: Percentage of damage resisted = (Resist Spells/20) + 10.

Question – What other benefits does the Resisting Spells skill have?

Answer – Resisting Spells gives you some basic resistances, even when you are not wearing any armor at all. The formula to calculate your basic resistances is (Resist skill – 40) / 3 * 2 rounded down to the nearest whole number. At 100 skill points, this gives you 40 points in all five resistances, at 120 skill points this gives you 44 points in all five resistances.
These resistances are not cumulative with armor resistances.
If you wear an armor that has 30 in all resistances, and you have 40 points in all resistances because of your Resisting
Spells skill, then your final resistances will be 40 (and not 70).