How to stop blasphemy?

[pawsplay]

...make the check everytime...

They only have a +33 Concentration. The DC you are looking for is in the neighborhood of 38 (10 + damage dealt), which means there is a 20% chance of the balor failing each time.

A +1 composite longbow (Str +4) with the holy property, using cold iron bane evil outsider arrows, enhanced with a 20th level greater magic weapon to be +5 does an average of 1d6 + 2d6 + 2d6 +11 = 28.5.

The balor's AC is 35. A 20th level Fighter or Ranger with a Dex of 12+ would have at least +27 to hit. With Rapid Shot, you have two attacks at +25, which means each one has a 55% chance of hitting.

Most likely, that balor is not getting his blasphemy off.

That's without the archer having haste, gloves of dexterity, an insane Dex, elemental effects on the bow or the arrows, and an assist from Mordenkainen's Buzzing Bee.

 

[Hypersmurf]

3E had an interesting restriction on Blasphemy, pre-errata; you were only subject to the Dazed etc effects if you were native to the caster's plane.

Not many PCs are native to a Balor's plane, and any that are are probably evil anyway, so the Blasphemy loop wasn't an issue.

Then they went and changed it

-Hyp.

 

[JoelF]

There's always anti-magic field.

 

[Vysirez]

Silence

I want to 2nd this. If you are willing to give up your spellcasting. Or if you can maneuver the silence between you and the balor you can keep casting. Either way silence will shut down blasphemy.

And just to be clear, I don't mean silence will keep him from casting blasphemy. Silence stops the spell from affecting your characters because blasphemy is a [Evil, Sonic] spell.

 

[Sound of Azure]

Well, I'd talk to your local priest about that.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The wizard in my game used alter self to remove his ears.

 

[The Forsaken One]

Cast silence on the balor or one of his items. Or on the enlarged fighter or barb who goes in to melee or grapple. Works most of the time, for the rest go with mass spell resistance or greater spell immunity.

 

[Iku Rex]

The wizard in my game used alter self to remove his ears.

Doesn't work. Blasphemy isn't mind-affecting. ("Stopping one’s ears ahead of time allows opponents to avoid having to make saving throws against mind-affecting sonic attacks, but not other kinds of sonic attacks (such as those that deal damage". --SRD ).

Silence works because silence specifically protects against spells with the Sonic descriptor. ("This spell provides a defense against sonic or language-based attacks."--SRD )

Also, alter self won't let you remove your ears in 3.5. You'd have to find a new form without hearing.

 

[Patlin]

Your astral deva is in for a bad day. On the downside, they are vulnerable to blasphemy as described. On the upside, they probably won't die, since sooner or later, they're going to fail that Will save at -4 and get banished.

On the Balor's home plane, then? The normal humans are subject to banishment as well, in that case.

Furthermore, if you are on your home plane when you cast this spell, nonevil extraplanar creatures within the area are instantly banished back to their home planes. Creatures so banished cannot return for at least 24 hours. This effect takes place regardless of whether the creatures hear the blasphemy. The banishment effect allows a Will save (at a -4 penalty) to negate.

Extraplanar Subtype

A subtype applied to any creature when it is on a plane other than its native plane. A creature that travels the planes can gain or lose this subtype as it goes from plane to plane. Monster entries assume that encounters with creatures take place on the Material Plane, and every creature whose native plane is not the Material Plane has the extraplanar subtype (but would not have when on its home plane). Every extraplanar creature in this book has a home plane mentioned in its description. Creatures not labeled as extraplanar are natives of the Material Plane, and they gain the extraplanar subtype if they leave the Material Plane. No creature has the extraplanar subtype when it is on a transitive plane, such as the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, and the Plane of Shadow.

 

[Nail]

Lets say we have a ECL 20 party trying to take on a balor. The balor uses blasphemy. Dazed for 1 round. The balor can spam this -every round-, automatically dazing the entire party with no chances of a saving throw, so all he needs to do is to do this constantly after summoning some demons who get free hits in and will eventually win because the party cannot do anything.

Exactly.

This is EXACTLY what a Balor should do. Given how broken Blashphemy is as a power, why not?

However, the countermeasure is also rather broken, and low-level besides:Cast the silence spell on those you which to protect.

Done.

Our high-level (20th+!) party carried around a wand of silence just for this purpose. The only tricky part was winning initiative. Of course, at high level that's always the trick: winning initiative.