Blasphemy at will? Unstoppable demons

[Geoff Watson]

Some demons and devils get, among other powers, blasphemy at will.

This makes them unstoppable against most adventurers, as they can daze the entire group every round, while another demon or evil ally attacks them.

To stop a EL 16 encounter from causing an easy TPK against the 16th level PCs, I decided to limit blasphemy to once every 1d4 rounds (like dragon breath), so the PCs could fight back.

Is there any errata about this power, or are the DMs supposed to play the monsters dumb?

Geoff.

 

[gfunk]

There are several counters for this:

1) Deafen front-line fighters -- this negates the daze effect of Blasphemy

2) Contingency -- When someone casts Blasphemy within my line of sight, I want a personal Wall of Force around myself (blocks line of effect)

3) Spell Resistance -- not a full-proof measure, but effective

Our party has often used these to stop those pesky blaspheming demons.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

But gfunk, wouldn't most of your countermeasures require that the party know ahead of time what sort of demon they're fighting? I can't imagine a wizard who'd have a Contingency set up for Blasphemy unless he knew he was about to face it. And fighters who can't hear are hampered strategically, again unless they know they're about to face a Blasphemous demon...

 

[gfunk]

But gfunk, wouldn't most of your countermeasures require that the party know ahead of time what sort of demon they're fighting? I can't imagine a wizard who'd have a Contingency set up for Blasphemy unless he knew he was about to face it. And fighters who can't hear are hampered strategically, again unless they know they're about to face a Blasphemous demon...

You are right, of course. We actually had to be smacked down by a demon once or twice before we got the message.

If your PCs can survive those first few encounters, then I'm sure they will prepare appropriately.

Also, IMC both the Church Inquisitor/Paladin tend to Detect Evil liberally and if the meter goes off the scale, we automatically assume evil outsider and put the defenses up. One of our PCs is an extraplanar expert, so this helps a bit when identifying baddies.

Finally, our party stays a little further apart so as not to be all caught within Blasphemy's radius.

But ultimately, your point is a valid one. If the first demon a party sees is a Balor with some grunts for backup, they are pretty screwed.

 

[Aloïsius]

IIRC, evil characters are unaffected by this spells ?