Silence - does it give a saving throw...

[Hypersmurf]

One of my favorite forms of Silence silliness involves Tiny flying creatures with Silence and Invisibility cast on them following key PCs around during a combat encounter. First time you spring it on them it drives them nuts trying to figure out how to get out of the area of effect to go cast spells or benefit from Bard / Marshall boosts.

I always liked the Cast Silence on Summoned Air Elemental and Send Him to Grapple the Enemy Wizard trick

-Hyp.

 

[Mistwell]

It's even more annoying as the ultimate counterspell.

You ready an action to cast silence on a rock at the foot of a spellcaster as soon as they start casting a spell. Bam, their spell fails, and they get no save, and the silence remains past that round even (and can be moved if you know what object you cast it on and can move it).

 

[seans23]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rods.htm#metamagicSilent

these will come in handy at higher levels. At least, until you and your DM get sick of constantly silencing each other.

 

[dagger]

I saw a spell somewhere recently theat defeats magical silence.....hmmmmm

 

[calypso15]

I saw a spell somewhere recently theat defeats magical silence.....hmmmmm

Joyful Noise, from SpC?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

My PC's are currently being chased by a Yuan-Ti Assasin (Racing the Snake - Dungeon #105). In the first fight with him and his kobold allies, the 2 Sorcerers dropped a few Fireballs and Coldballs on him, nearly killing a couple of the kobolds.

Now that he has seen the party's tactics, the Yuan-Ti will be sending one of his kobolds into the party's camp while invisible and and in possession of a couple of silenced rocks. The kobold will drop one silenced rock near one of the Sorcerers and stand near the other Sorcerer. It will be interesting to see how they deal with it.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Veril]

Now that he has seen the party's tactics, the Yuan-Ti will be sending one of his kobolds into the party's camp while invisible and and in possession of a couple of silenced rocks. The kobold will drop one silenced rock near one of the Sorcerers and stand near the other Sorcerer. It will be interesting to see how they deal with it.

Olaf the Stout

When the kobold first gets within 20' of a player you should tell them about it, that's when you have your surprise action. The effect of a Silence spell is really really obvious to the people in it. There is no sound, the absence of all sound is really obvious to people when engulfed in it.

Invisible creatures can be detedted using sight SRD says "A Spot check result higher than 20 generally lets you become aware of an invisible creature near you, though you can’t actually see it. "

A silence spell approaching the party may well be detected The SRD says "no noise whatsoever issues from, enters, or passes through the area". It may be noticed by those who are attentive that the sound coming from a particular direction changes.

I'd be tempted to argue that perhaps a listen check of 20 might be apropriate to become aware of a silence spell approaching (distance modifiers obviously apply)

 

[billd91]

None of this silence stuff has been much of a problem in my campaign. The PC sorcerer took silent spell and still spell as his first two feats. Got himself out of some nasty pickles too.

But in all editions, Silence has been a potent spell. It's nothing new for 3E/3.5. And there was only one spell that countered it directly then, Vocalize, and it didn't appear until Unearthed Arcana. So, in some ways, 3E was ahead of the curve set by 1st edition in dealing with the spell because at least they had a metamagic feat that could counter it.

I think it would be worthwhile for each spell-casting class to have a spell on their lists as a counter for it, one with only somatic components. If you prepare for being silenced and prep the spell, you're in good shape. If not, you'll learn from your mistakes.

Then again, silent dispel magic spells aren't that far out of reach. And the existance of silence without many other counters makes those metamagic rods of silence spell VERY attractive as a defense. So, even now it's not like there's nothing that can be done.

 

[dagger]

Yea the silence spell has been used the same way since 1st edition for us.

Once we had an invisible silenced rogue go unconscious down the hall from the party, never saw the rogue again.

 

[pallandrome]

Personally, my sorcerer has levels in shadowcraft mage. Free silence on all my spells FTW!