Aelandron wrote:
My understanding was that resistance assissted in saves, where protection was the flat percentage decrease in damage.
IF anythign I'd say that (based on my assumed understanding) Magical Protection should decrease elemental weapon damage, but magical resistance wouldn't help in those circumstances (as it's not a cast spell, and therefor not subject to spell saves)
Magical Resistance makes you likely to completely resist any spell, and is a completely separate check from will, fort and reflex. Whenever you see "abc resists the effects of your spell," or "abc gestures at xyz, but nothing happens" that means that their MR resisted the spell entirely and the spell did not affect them in any way: Although the more MR someone has, they'll actually be healed by spells that they resist, which is why MR barbarians can eat mistletoe (sanc and blindness) and heal for 15%.
In addition, unlike fort, will and reflex saves, magical resistance can be raised to 100% effectiveness, and although it can't be cast on jewelry, it stacks when enchanted on armor (Compared to fort/will/reflex, which doesn't stack when enchanted on jewelry and which can't be enchanted on armor). There's also no such thing as impairment for magical resistance, which there is for fort/will/reflex saves.