Personally, wth were they thinking providing such easy ways to reach caps.

Cut the racial resists down to 10 or 15%. Cut the max res from an armor to 15%. These people make games like a 5 year old.

Thanks all! Wow, what helpful comments. I agree, that racial resistances seem a tad too high - maybe like 30%? but anyway, it's only against one element. I am *NOT* trying to build a super warrior - I just want what's mine. If there is an 85% resistance, that's great AFAIK. I just want to make sure it all works. Thanks again.

Does anyone have a source for the numbers they are stating? I had assumed, and I admit this is an assumption, that Magic Resistance merely protected your Magicka. Alchemic damage (Ravage Magicka, Lingering Damage Magicka), weapon enchantments of Diminishing, Sapping, Depleting, etc, and spells such as Thunderbolt (does 60 points of Shock damage to Health and half that to Magicka) are mitigated by Magic Resistance. Health damage is not mitigated at all by Magic Resistance by my understanding.

Default Enchanting Cap for Magic Resist is 20% per enchant, and Elemental Resist is 40% per enchant. If you poke and prod, you can get those as high as 23% and 47% without resorting to glitches like the restoration potions or jail release gear stacking. The other numbers regarding nested resistances are correct. Max resistance is 97.75%, by nesting 85% magic resist with 85% elemental resist. 85% is the cap for magical resists; 80% or physical resists.

These values have been extensively tested over the last few weeks in various threads in the Spoilers forum.

Magic is spells cast by you and others.
Magicka is the resource you cast with.

Magic spells cast by others can lower your health. eg Fireball.
Magic resistance reduces the health damage you take from magic spells cast by others.

Here's a source. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Resist_Magic

There is a cap on elemental resistances? Weird. I had my character fight frost dragons at the 4th stage of vampirism and she took no damage from their breath. And I equipped my Dunmer companion with fire resistance items and fire spells have been harmless to her ever since.

However "Ice Spike" WILL still inflict some damage regardless of frost resistance because I think a portion of it is physical not elemental. But "Frostbite" or other such spells should be harmless to any character with frost immunity.

Thanks everyone this was very helpful. My final verdict is that resistances appear to be working well now, but there must be a cap - which is fine! I prefer a cap. I just got bad info before OR they just instituted a cap.

Not only that! I am happy to report that the shield blocking 50% seems to be working as well. I am playing Master, have 120% frost resistance (I guess capped at 80 or 85) which btw on master against certain opponents, still causes massive damage potentially, and i blocked with the shield. My damage went from an estimated 30 points per second, prolly to half that, as to be expected if it were working properly.

Great job Beth! Seriously, no sarcasm here. Nicely done. I am now fully satisfied with these mechanics.