Silence - Broken? & My House Rule

[TheEvil]

Hate to point this out, but ANY caster who is limited in mobility with melee people is boned. In most games I have seen, your average arcane goes down in 1 round, maybe 2, once he is cornered. Clerics and druids only fare slightly better. Silence also does nothing vs. supernatural abilities, which seem to be the real killers at high levels. I would definately not ban it, as it is the ONLY defense against quite a few spells. Heck, depending on how the GM interprets the ability, a harpy can TPK a party that doesn't have it.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Thanee]

Thanee, you sound just like one of those people who thought 3.0 harm was balanced because "dragons are too clever to let themselves be touched"...

Nope, Harm was clearly broken... and it's really not on the same level as Silence (no jokes about 2nd and 6th here! ).

Bye
Thanee

 

[two]

What the initial poster meant to complain about was:

A PC using a "readied action" to cast a "silence spell" in the vicinity of an enemy spellcaster when the enemy spellcaster starts to cast a spell. Or even better, when the enemy spellcaster "speaks with intent to produce a magical effect" which should cover activation of wands, other standard items, as well as spellcasting. (although more than a little rules lawyerish).

A spell interrupt action, if you will, but instead of arrows you use another spell. Perfectly valid by the rules.

This is how a 1st level Bard with a wand of silence stops the 15th level wizard from casting any spells other than silenced ones -- which typically are few and far between.

I mean, a silenced fireball? Have you really seen one? And if you had, is it right for a 2nd level Bard/Cleric spell to make a Wizard 15/20 worry so much (you MUST have the silent spell feat or you MUST have a silence metamagic rod).

Either way, the low-level silence caster is happy. He's caused his enemy quite a headache, whatever the result.

The only easy way out is to have a globe of invulnerbility up before the first "readied" silence goes off. That means, well, instead of blasting the party the enemy wizard put up a globe of Invulnerbility. Party still with the net gain.

A dedicated "anti-caster silence slinger" bard cohort is vasty under-rated as a companion. The party will love him/her/it!

 

[Thanee]

Yep, Silence as a sort-of counterspell somewhat ridicules the counterspelling rules, but that's mostly a problem with ready and works with numerous other spells in the same way (i.e. conjure up a wall between the wizard and the target to suddenly block line of sight/effect).

Bye
Thanee

 

[two]

Yep, Silence as a sort-of counterspell somewhat ridicules the counterspelling rules, but that's mostly a problem with ready and works with numerous other spells in the same way (i.e. conjure up a wall between the wizard and the target to suddenly block line of sight/effect).

Bye
Thanee

Except that Silence is such a low level spell, you hadly ever really care if it's wasted.

A "conjure up wall" spell typically is what? 4th or higher? You need something to block line of effect... hm... investigating...

It's the cheapness of a Wand of Silence (for what it can do) that really makes this tactic nasty. That's 50 spells cast against the party that fail. That's like, very solid, dude.

 

[Nail]

Two things:

• Silence is nasty...my Clr used it constantly.....but so is Mirror Image or Invisibility. And just wait until you get to mid-level spells!
• I've house-ruled Silence in my games. (Mostly as a result of how easy it was for my Clr to shut down BBEG spell-casters.) A caster may use magic (but still makes no sound) if he makes a Will save.

 

[Thanee]

It's the cheapness of a Wand of Silence (for what it can do) that really makes this tactic nasty. That's 50 spells cast against the party that fail. That's like, very solid, dude.

No, it's 1, after that you know about it and adjust tactics.

But the problem is still with ready and not with the spell. Even if you house rule the spell, the problem still persists, just with other spells.

Bye
Thanee

 

[S'mon]

Back in 1e I persuaded my GM I could throw a pebble w silence on it into the enemy wizard's globe of invulnerability & it would still work...

Personally I love Silence, maybe if the PCs in my last campaign had thought to use it they'd not have got their butts kicked so often. Admittedly they mostly got their butts kicked by 2-h power attackers...

 

[RangerWickett]

In the past two sessions of one game I play, we pulled off two tactical silent teleport attacks against enemy mages. Then this last session, we were attacked by invisible wererat assassins. I saved vs. the death attack, but was paralyzed by the poison. One round later, this sorcerer had silently teleported to the throne room of the sultan we were in good with, hoping someone would notice him.

A 2nd level cleric spell (hold person) can take out fighters and rogues with ease. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

 

[Felix]

A "conjure up wall" spell typically is what? 4th or higher? You need something to block line of effect... hm... investigating...

Actually, a Silent Image does just fine in this capacity. You produce the image of a wall, or sheet of iron, or whatever spell effect you'd like to mimic, and place it 10' in front of the offending caster. That caster is not interacting with the wall, so he doesn't get a save. And because he no longer has line of effect to his target (because the target now has full concealment) his spell either fizzles, or if the DM is leinient, he gets to do something other than cast a spell.

So perhaps a wand of Silent Image is even more useful for less gold until folks have ready access to True Sight because you realize it's an illusion, and therefore you still have line of effect to the enemy caster...