Blasphemy..!

[Celtavian]

Heh. Okay, looks like I have changed my position.



-Hyp.

Works out better for my player's anyhow. I was using that position when I was running Blasphemy. Now they can avoid being banished if on planar adventures with a Silence spell. Just wanted to make sure you didn't have some reason you forgot for taking the previous position.

 

[Gaiden]

Having poured through the Blasphemy spell for fear of its use against our party in RttToEE by Hedrak, I have come up with a wonderful counter to it: cast Silence on a melee-focused ally.

That's right, in order for Blasphemy to work, you have to actually hear it. If you are deafened or are unable to hear (for one reason or another), the spell will have no effect. Moreover, your silenced ally can then charge the insulting cleric and prevent him from being able to cast any spells with V components.

Arguably, you ought to have to make a listen check for the spell to function. Of course, the DC would be something like -5 - so success would be pretty much automatic in normal circumstances. However, circumstances could modify that DC. If a larger group of people screamed at the top of their lungs, it is possible they might not hear the blasphemy.

 

[Thanee]

Well, you don't have to hear the Blasphemy in 3.5 anymore.

But it's sonic and so silence should offer protection against it anyways.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Hypersmurf]

That's right, in order for Blasphemy to work, you have to actually hear it. If you are deafened or are unable to hear (for one reason or another), the spell will have no effect.

See Thanee's post above.

What you've said applies (in 3.5) to Holy Word and Word of Chaos, but not to Blasphemy or Dictum. Deafened or unable-to-hear is of no help against those two.

Silence will still work.

-Hyp.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

I would argue, then, that Blasphemy's failure to have the Death descriptor is an error, not to mention terribly unbalanced. "Cast spell == you die" is IMO indisputably a Death effect.

They can't put the [death] descriptor on this spell because not all of its effects cause death.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I would argue, then, that Blasphemy's failure to have the Death descriptor is an error, not to mention terribly unbalanced. "Cast spell == you die" is IMO indisputably a Death effect.

I would argue against such a position. It does not have the death descriptor because its sole purpose is not to cause death. Death is a byproduct of the weakness of the creature, not necessarily the intent of the spell. Much like death from a fireball is a byproduct of hit point damage, but not the sole effect of the spell.

 

[SpadeHammerfist]

Gosh!

What have I started here...

However, I do think that perhaps we have strayed a bit off what my original point was...

...err. What was it again? Oh, yes. Blasphemy RAW is over powered. Just the fact that a properly DMed major clerical baddy is going to be higher level than the PCs and will nearly always have mini-onions, means that being automatically dazed for even one round is enough for a TPK. By that I don't mean, definitely a TPK, but the cleric and his mini-onions should have tactics based around their abilities. So:

Cleric casts Blasphemy (PCs dazed, possible kills of cohorts, followers or animal friends - gosh, I've only just thought aboout this - familiars, animal companions and mounts!)

Then fighters have attacks (probably using power attacks, trips, sunders, disarms, etc - yes they can use them normally, but they can do these while the PCs are dazed even if they don't have the relevant feats, as they won't draw any AoOs)

Rogues get Flanking Sneak Attacks on dazed PCs (again, they can do this normally, but it's easier when your target can't make a 5 ft step, or ready a move away from you)

Wizards get to place their spells without any need to cast defensively (out come the touch spells)

AND the cleric then casts Blasphemy again (if possible) or some other spell (e.g. healing, Harm, Slay Living, etc)

Now, I don't mean to say that the NPCs shouldn't be prepared to kill PCs, I think they definitely should (I play in an extremely high powered DM-altered version of Rappan Athuk - we're all 21+, with on average 1 artifact each). However, I think when a NPC/Monster has an ability or spell that has this much possibility for over kill, then it should be tempered.

Interestingly enough, I thought that about Mordenkainen's Disjunction, and since then my archmage has come up with a spell that restores item that have been disjoined...

Everybody's points about Deathward have been a bit beside the point, as it is the daze part of the spell that scares me in the middle of a combat... how do you protect against that?

Now I know that someone is going to say that, yes, normally daze is a [Mind-Affecting] spell, but that the daze part of Blasphemy is still [Evil, Sonic].

It is that sort of thinking that has caused all the difficulties in understanding the spell Deathward. The use of descriptors should be very specific, but unfortunately it is not...

Perhaps it is the very descriptor that is the problem. If we look at the effects of the other word spells (Dictum, Holy Word and Word of Chaos) they are definitely linked to you hearing a divine word. In the first instance they deafen you, and so it makes sense that they have the [Sonic] descriptor, and are therefore defeated by the liberal use of Silence spells. But then we have Blasphemy, that doesn't deafen, the only one out of four extremely similar spells that doesn't . It dazes, does that imply that it is different? Do we think that that sounds more like a [Mind-Affecting] spell? But, if 3 of 4 spells are [Sonic], then the fourth MUST be, yes? Oh, to be a game designer and be able to decide these things for yourself...


__________________
OB!

 

[Thanee]

You know, as a DM you can decide that for yourself (and your group) also.

And why should Deathward protect against the Daze effect?

Bye
Thanee

 

[Al]

The only problem I see with Blasphemy is if you start pumping your caster level. For example, if you take the +1 caster level Ioun Stone, the Bead of Karma and five levels of Hierophant with Spell Power than you can get to ten caster levels over people of your equivalent HD. Evil domain gives another +1 just for good measure, taking you to HD+11 caster level. If you grab Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration, you can wave goodbye to SR to boot, and given your high caster level a Quickened Greater Dispel Magic (using MM Rod) will dispose of Silence and other defensive spells.

Result: A spell which performs multi-kill with no save, no hit point cap, no Death Ward and no SR. Ouch.

 

[lupus]

The only problem I see with Blasphemy is if you start pumping your caster level. For example, if you take the +1 caster level Ioun Stone, the Bead of Karma and five levels of Hierophant with Spell Power than you can get to ten caster levels over people of your equivalent HD. Evil domain gives another +1 just for good measure, taking you to HD+11 caster level. If you grab Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration, you can wave goodbye to SR to boot, and given your high caster level a Quickened Greater Dispel Magic (using MM Rod) will dispose of Silence and other defensive spells.

Result: A spell which performs multi-kill with no save, no hit point cap, no Death Ward and no SR. Ouch.

I used a fully-advanced Half-Fiend Dragon Turtle, once. 36HD, Blasphemy 1/day. I ruled that it had used that ability already that day, and so it wasn't available. Otherwise, it would have been instant TPK (the cave the battle was in? Everyone was inside 40'). SR penetrated automatically. No epic-level characters. All dead, no save.

And with the latest 'Rules of the Game' ruling that Spell-like abilities cannot be directly spell-for-spell counterspelled, only dispel-as-counterspell counterspelled, high-HD creatures with Blasphemy as a spell-like ability become a lot harder to stop. Since, after all, a caster level 36 Blasphemy CANNOT be dispelled by anyone under level 18.

Of course, that's not a problem restricted by Blasphemy, unlike the Dazing effect.