How to stop blasphemy?

[Hypersmurf]

Contingency + Greater Invis on your wizard first so the balor is denied his dex bonus to his touch AC and the rest is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Though the wizard needs to ensure that he's more than 120 feet away, without going out of range of his Orb.

True Seeing (Su): Balors have a continuous true seeing ability, as the spell (caster level 20th).

-Hyp.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Hopefully, your wizard will have enough Spellcraft to know not to waste his readied action on the balor's Quickened telekinesis.

I don't know about that... the quickened telekinesis used to grapple the wizard (at Long range, no less), is likely to spoil the wizards whole day. I would expect Balors to be making full use of the wonderful array of powers that Telekinesis gives all the time every round, since it is both free and quickened.

(plus of course, the trick doesn't work so well if not using the thematically broken Orb spells. Multiple d6 that ignores SR? yeah, right)

 

[Nail]

Silence is good, but he has Greater Dispel Magic at will, and that spell-like ability will work just fine in a Silence spell.

Two Points:

#1) Greater Dispel Magic requires a Standard Action. That means that while the Balor is getting rid of the pesky Silence spell, the PCs have another round to act...and since the PCs will always have more actions than the Balor, it's a losing game....besides, the cleric can just put up another silence spell. I did mention the wand, right?

#2) The silence spell isn't to prevent the Balor from casting Blasphemy as a spell-like ability. It's to prevent the spell-like ability from having any effect on the PCs. Big difference.

 

[Tsillanabor]

My first thought was 'start an inquisition' upon seeing the thread title.

I've always loved using low-level spells (like Silence) to mess up my players' plans myself.

 

[MarkB]

My first thought was 'start an inquisition' upon seeing the thread title.

I was going to say "Just put out a swear box if it bothers you."

 

[AuraSeer]

Since you're standing up to a balor, you're powerful enough to cast holy aura. It's "only" an 8th level slot and grants SR 25 against evil spells and abilities. The balor will penetrate that 80% of the time, but that leaves a 20% chance for each PC to have an action in a given round-- and it only takes one action to bring up silence.

You could also convert to an evil alignment. It worked for me-- I've survived at least two blasphemy spells so far. Join up today and we'll give you a free toaster! (Some restrictions apply. See your local cultist... uh, I mean cleric, for details.)

 

[Solarious]

Unfortunately for your creative impulse, being deaf does not make one immune to sonic attacks.

Nice thought, though.

But does it really?

Sonic Attacks
Unless otherwise noted, a sonic attack follows the rules for spreads. The range of the spread is measured from the creature using the sonic attack. Once a sonic attack has taken effect, deafening the subject or stopping its ears does not end the effect. 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). Stopping one’s ears is a full-round action and requires wax or other soundproof material to stuff into the ears.

With this wording, I would probably houerule deafening to be effective. The image is too good to throw away, RAW be damned! If we let 2nd level spells block a 7'th level spell, we might as well go full monty.

 

[Nightfall]

Stopping a blasphemer? Simple, send in the Southern Bapists!

 

[Kmart Kommando]

We put wax plugs in our ears, and drank potions of deafness. DM ruled that nothing can prevent it. broken > deaf/anti-sonic :\

 

[pawsplay]

But does it really?

With this wording, I would probably houerule deafening to be effective. The image is too good to throw away, RAW be damned! If we let 2nd level spells block a 7'th level spell, we might as well go full monty.

Well, if you're going to houserule blasphemy to be mind-affecting, all you need is some constructs or undead.

EDIT: And I'll leave it up to you to describe how foul language can banish someone to another plane, or why blasphemy would work this way when the equivalent spells for other alignments do not.