Blasphemy = Broken?

[Nim]

Now, for those armchair/Monday-morning quarterbacks here, I've not detailed the entire battle. I'm sure someone could point out a flaw -- there's bound to be 1 or 2 in 50+ rounds of combat. Plus, this took place nearly a year ago, so I don't remember every detail. But, although I'm not an intentionally killer DM, I don't pull any punches -- dice rolls and monster tactics are straight up and honest -- my Players know this, and they won this fight honestly.

Quasqueton

No, that sounds pretty good to me. Kudos to the PCs for slowing the enemy and then getting their friends out of the way.

 

[Jack Simth]

better then it effecting everyone and TPK

Quite true. Still might get one, though, and in the process demonstrate to the bricks that they can be done without if need be ... which could be a very bad idea.

Although I personally rotate through which character is completely ineffective in an encounter - one encounter, the rogue and wizard will be quite useless against the golem, other than buffing the party, while the melee combat capable Paladin and Cleric shine. Another, the Paladin and Cleric won't be able to get anything significant through a critter's DR, but the extra punch from Sneak Attack (depends on interpertation, of course, but I've been going with a ruling that Sneak Attack is useful for getting through DR) and the DR bypassing effect of most spells permit the Wizard and Rogue to shine.

Then there's days where I pit them up against 8 critters that they should theoretically be able to fight all day with 0 losses, just for laughs.

 

[Shayuri]

This thread looks about talked out, but if there's a 10th level druid in the party, take a look at Binding Winds. It prevents any Sonic spell from being cast out of it, while not limiting the PC's options at all (save for imposing a -2 penalty on any missile attacks they may launch...whoopee ).

Oops. It's in Complete Divine, I believe. A 5th level spell.

 

[Borlon]

Deafness won't work. You have to be able to hear a holy word to be affected by it, but a blasphemy affects every non-evil creature in the AoE, whether or not they can hear. Silence is still an option, though, since its description says it provides a defense against sonic attacks, which blasphemy is.

Interesting, that. Deaf fiends can ignore holy words.

 

[Nim]

Interesting.

Holy Word and Word of Chaos require the targets to hear the word to be affected.

Blasphemy and Dictum do not.

Of course, Blasphemy also lists (in my book) its range as 30 ft, but its area as 'Nonevil creatures in a 40-ft-radius spread centered on you'. Presumably the 30 ft range is a typo; I haven't checked the errata.

(Also, it's interesting that Dictum causes Deafness, but you don't need to be able to hear it to be affected....)

 

[Mistwell]

I was just keying the climactic battle of my next stage (against a Half-Fiend Fire Giant) when I looked up Blasphemy and saw its effects. Okay, based on that, anything up to Level 10 is paralyzed for 1d10 minutes with no save, which is effectively the same as instant death. As my party is at Level 10, that makes the battle unwinnable because they have no reason to prepare special defenses against this spell.

Is a saving throw justified, perhaps?

I agree with what others have said or implied. It's not that blasphemy itself is broken, it's that using the creatures HD to determine caster level rather than CR is broken, in the context of this spell.

If it's a CR 13 creature, I would put it's caster level for this spell at 13. That way, a party of third level characters would be paralyzed, which makes sense.

 

[beaver1024]

Blasphemy is one of those spells they need to fix for the next edition of the game. In other words, a lot of the save-or-die (or get screwed spells) need changing. They just aren't fun. I dunno how to change them, but maybe have them take time to kill so that the other PCs (or monsters) have time to intervene. There's nothing worse than having the epic encounter end in round 1 b/c of a blown save (and having everyone buffed against every eventuality becomes silly after a while).

I had a recent encounter where two enemies both cast blasphemy on the PCs. Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing, as all the PCs were too high level to be affected (the enemy didn't realize that beforehand). I really don't like spells that are either too good or too bad.

Blashphemy is not a save or die. It's a die spell but that's ok because it's a cleric spell.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Deafness won't work. You have to be able to hear a holy word to be affected by it, but a blasphemy affects every non-evil creature in the AoE, whether or not they can hear.

Ah, good. Someone got to it before me

The interesting thing about Blasphemy as a sonic spell is that two of the normal sonic defences (deafness/stopping one's ears with wax (or parsley, for the Asterix fans among us), and Countersong) do nothing. Deafness protects against mind-affecting sonic spells that allow a saving throw, and spells that require the subject to hear something (anything language-dependent, for example). Countersong works on sonic effects that allow a saving throw.

Blasphemy doesn't fit the criteria for either of them.

-Hyp.

 

[SelcSilverhand]

I spent every major fight in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil paralyzed because our party cleric used his Karma Beads and Dictum (Lawful version of Blasphemy) as his opening move. The beads can be used to up your caster level, making it easy to hit the CL-5 to paralyze everyone. Through in an Ioun stone or some spell focus and you might even get close to a CL-10.
The spell also crippled our party of level 16-17's when an evil cleric used it on us (DM used to play that Cleric, so naturally his NPC clerics have the same M.O.). The only reason we survived is because 2 characters were out of range and ran over before the Coup De Grace's started.

The spell turns an exciting battle into, "DM: Okay, what does your charactor do this round? PC: Oh, I stand there and drool. DM: Good man, next". I don't mind NPC's using their resources and smart tactics, but I don't like sitting through a whole game session and be unable to participate. Rule #0 The game should be fun.


The only good thing I can say about the spell, is that when our cleric paralyzed us in RttToEE, he managed to tag a major bad guy we didn't know was there yet =P

 

[DM_Matt]

Is this combination numerically possible?

If he is trisomatic, yes.

Mother: Draconic X, Giant X
Father: Fiendish Y, Giant X
Son: XXY (D,G,F)

He would have all the genetic material of a HF/HD/Fire Giant

If he were human, he would suffer from mental retardation and small, non-sperm-producing testes, but maybe it doesnt work that way in those species.