As someone who never plays spellcasters in a real time combat game, my knowledge about all that magic stuff is limited. With "spellcasters" I mean those, who use spells to attack someone. I'm not talking about enchanting, restoration etc.

For me everything is "magic", when it can hit and damage me. Thus, I never saw the - in my eyes - academical difference between elemental damage and "magic" damage. But in many games there is a difference.

My question:

With all my characters I come along quite well. Just when I have to fight these ice spikes or fireball spamming mages I'm in trouble. I see in the skill trees that I can have perks which grant "magical resistance" and - if I remember correctly - the redguards have the inherent ability to resist spells to a certain degree.
But what kind of spells should I resist? As far as I have seen, the ememy spell casters use only elemental stuff (ice, fire). Are shouts considered magical, too?
In a nutshell: When I want to be protected against these silly ice / fire spammers, should I enchant my stuff with ice / fire protection OR would "magical protection" be a defence against all?

BTW, the nightingale chestpiece has 50% cold protection.
- Would a Nord then be immune against cold?
- Why am I not able to apply cold protection on my selfmade chestpieces?

1. Either option works, though I usually get more mileage out of Fire/Ice/Shock specific gear (switch it out during combat) than generic Resist Magic
2. Yes, Nords have natural 50% Frost resistance, adding 50% more makes them immune. Dark Elves have natural 50% Fire resist, and Bretons have natural resistance to all magic (I forget how much).
3. You can, but first you have to disenchant an item that already has Resist Frost on it.

Magic resistance is applied first in defence before other resistances and stacks with them. So you can have 40% magic resistance to ALL forms of magic and have for instance another 40% resistance to fire which would stack to 80% fire resistance.

Unless you are a Breton, you cannot be immune to magic (fire,ice,lightning) damage, but you can get close. There are 3 separate things that help defend you from magic:

1. Spell Absorption
2. Magic Resistance
3. Elemental Resistance

If you want it broken down into specifics, you can look in this thread here:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1317202-complete-character-design-freedom-damage-resist-caps-and-ridiculous-damage-thread-8/
It is explained quite thoroughly (it's not THAT complicated) in the magic resistance section of the guide.
-Loth

PS You can also use Ward spells to defend yourself from enemy mages and dragon's breath, but that takes skills and uses up mana.

Raw magic damage contains every element while not being an element itself. So magic resistance reduces it's effects, but fire resistance won't do anything against it.
Elements are colors of the magical spectrum. Both magic resistance and the according elemental resistance accumulate.

As to what enchantments can be fit to what piece of armor is pretty much arbitrarily decided to balance the game.

Hmm... I have the resist frost enchantment. I applied it to my boots, but I'd rather put it onto my chestpiece, too, but when I take this as item, the frost resist enchantment is greyed out.


It seems to be lot easier than I thought to understand the magic-thing. I guess, I just confused it with the relatively complicated system in older AD&D-games, especially "Baldur's Gate 2". There, "magical damage" was totally different from elemental damage. I remember a certain demi-lich, which only could be defeated when one of the rare "anti magic"-scrolls was used.