imo a flaw of the actual magic system is non reliability of spells

magic should be powerful and feared

so i cant like a fireball who does 1 dmg on a snake cause he s got 2 armor

my IDEAL (yeah i know some ppl love randoms ) system would be average dmg+-10% and not more

but ok from this system i think the best way to improve is put the MINIMUM (the max resist possible) at 50% of spell dmg

if a creature is very defended thats the max he can get, he shouldnt void the spell (there are in fact other spells who can do that)

a snake cant full resist a fireball, cmon 

a bit of armor/defense would result in a 20 30% of resist if the roll is good and thats it

in melee is ok to have a bit of surprise cause there is retaliation and multi attacks and you are close to each other

but spells are different you should rely on them