Nasty one: Darkness + Silence What to do??

[Ran]

It came that one of the most used tatics of my group (I was playing, not DMing) was to use darkness spells and silence on casters, which turned out to be a problem, after all,

how do we deal with it!!!???!?!?!?!

we had quite a problem with it, and the rules do not cover it directly, after all, if you don't see AND hear, what can you do to locate and fight???

 

[Crothian]

Guess? That's all that's left for you to do really.

 

[Ran]

That would be pretty simple, and a good question indeed, but what if your players do it in the middle of a battle, the two meleers have blind fight?

i guess cry could be another good option...

problem is, they are gonna use it sometime on my game, now that i am a Dm, and I cannot simply say that you sit and wait for the time to pass by, counting sheep...

 

[darkbard]

silent dispel magic.

 

[Crothian]

silent dispel magic.

That is the best solution. And I'd have a spare handy just in case the first fails.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Minor/Globe of invulnerability. Neither of those spells function within the confines of the globe.

Obviously there are some tactical ramifications to consider since it is not a mobile effect, but any wizard with this in his armoury can have thought through synergistic combinations of tactics and spells.

At a slightly lower level of defence Levitate. So what if they've got blindfight if they can't reach you! (silenced if necessary) or Rope Trick (they provide the darkness, you zip up and hide where they can't find you!)


The Silent metamagic feat makes lots of counters to this kind of thing available.

Cheers

 

[Ran]

yeah, it would work quite well, both ideas, just one small problem...

1. The players would get quite angry at the DMs metagame thinking, after all, how would that mage, who met them for the first time know their tatic, rope trick or minor globe would be nice even then... if they were silent at first...

Let me ask you one thing, what would you do, exactly, when it happen in an important encounter, rule that no one can do anything??

 

[Caliban]

Unless you managed to stick them on the spellcaster directly (pretty hard, as they are both Will saves), the spellcaster just moves in a straight line until they can see and hear again.

If you did manage to stick both of them on the spellcaster, then he keeps moving so that you can't find him or target him. (You sure won't be able to use spot or listen checks to pinpoint him.)

 

[Ran]

Silence has 15 feet radius, darkness is lot bigger, 60 feet radius... the real problem is that it usually is cast on something that one of the group members is carryng...

 

[Caliban]

Silence has 15 feet radius, darkness is lot bigger, 60 feet radius... the real problem is that it usually is cast on something that one of the group members is carryng...

Then they are all in the same boat. After the first round, you have no idea where anyone else is because you can't see or hear them. Unless someone has Blindsight, it's not that big a help (other than giving the party time to buff up while the enemy spellcaster finds his way out of the area of darkness and silence. But of course, once he get's out of the silence he can buff up himself.)