wastrilith question

[office_ninja]

A wastrilith demon can cast blasphemy at will with a CL of 15. Suppose a 14th level party gets repeatedly dazed and weakened by this, their Strength decreasing by 2d6 when blasphemy is used. Does this Strength decrease stack with itself? Can a wastrilith just keep blaspheming everyone non-good to 0 Strength and just coup de grace them all?

[ikki]

indeed, that is why it is one of the most dangerous abilities.. one that is all too frequently handed out to outsiders..

So either the players know to get defences against abilitydrain and similar, or then the fiend just shouldnt be using it over and over again. The goal is to have fun, not to slaughter the players ...repeatedly.. ;)

[James Jacobs]

Yeah... it's a troublesome spell, especially when you realize how easy it is for half-fiends to get it. BUT! It does have one very specific and notable weakness; it's defeated by a 2nd level spell. Silence shuts it right down, so if the PCs do their homework, it's pretty easy to prevent the 0 Strength Fate.

[zahnb]

I always cap the "ability drains" to the max that they can drain in one roll.
example:
If you roll 7 the first time on 2d6, the next shot adds whatever it did up to the max of 12.

Otherwise, why bother with hit points as you could just drain whatever monster you attack with one or 2 spells...

The worst part is the daze. If there is more than one, they daze (no save) the party while the other one tpk's everyone. We almost outlawed that spell because of that reason from a previous campaign. I think we did change it that they only had 3 uses a day, because (IMHO) it was written originally as a Uber spell back in the day, and I'm sure no one thought that they would give that power to something that could use it every round. Heck something with holy word teamed up with a house cat could TPK an entire party.

Just another quirky spell that needs fixed...

And James, I have no idea what D&D world you run in, but our characters usually don't have time to "do their homework" In most every module, the players react to the monsters that show up, and if the monster Holy words first, your screwed.

[office_ninja]

edit: non-*evil*

Okay then I wasn't hallucinating. My PCs were in exactly this situation. One of them was evil, but certainly couldn't take a wastrilith by himself (the wastrilith killed him, in fact). I kind of just hand-waved over that scenario and, after the initial blasphemy, decided the wastrilith wanted to prove to Khala that he could take the PCs in a stand-up fight.

[infomatic]

zahnb wrote:

And James, I have no idea what D&D world you run in, but our characters usually don't have time to "do their homework" In most every module, the players react to the monsters that show up, and if the monster Holy words first, your screwed.

At the level PCs are going to run into Wastriliths, there's no excuse not to have silence prepared (or at least a scroll of it). It's too useful a spell.

This goes double if they realize they're fighting fiends — which by this point should be kinda obvious.

Unless they're really unlucky, one of your casters should save vs. the Blasphemy, even if the creature does go first.

[Russ Taylor]

infomatic wrote:

Unless they're really unlucky, one of your casters should save vs. the Blasphemy, even if the creature does go first.

The save is only for being sent back to your home plane, though. Daze lock is trivial to achieve with blasphemy "at will".

[infomatic]

Russ Taylor wrote:

infomatic wrote:

Unless they're really unlucky, one of your casters should save vs. the Blasphemy, even if the creature does go first.

The save is only for being sent back to your home plane, though. Daze lock is trivial to achieve with blasphemy "at will".

True, that's a good point and I spaced that out. So it does become a matter of going first. But a party of that level should be:

a) aware of what blasphemy can do.
b) aware that many demons can use blasphemy as a spell-like ability (A CR14 Wizard should have a Know-Planes check of +22 or better.)

With this in mind, a party knowing that it is likely to face demons really should have several preemptive counters ready: A silence spell for wizard/cleric, a scroll for the rogue, etc. An iconic party of four should therefore have a decent chance of getting a silence off before being blasphemed.

(They still might fail, of course, in this case I do agree that a auto-TPK doesn't seem very fair; I'd probably have the demon whale on them for a bit, then shift tactics b/c demons get bored easily).

[zahnb]

Yeah, but if you limit them to 3/day, then the encounter becomes much more playable...

[office_ninja]

It didn't help matters that the PCs had to beat a DC 30-something Spot check to notice the underwater wastrilith before it got the jump on them.

[Humble Minion]

Well, the problem is with the sheer NUMBER of blasphemies that can be flying around. Just from the books I can reach now, Balors, Wastriliths, Molydeus, Klurichirs can Blasphemy at will. Hezrous have it 3/day, and blood fiends once. Basically, what that says to be is that if you're fighting demons, after about level 12 in combat you basically have to be silenced permanently (and yes, that means the casters can only ever prepare silently metamagicked spells, and can't count on their command word operated items when the chips are down) or else have a bard permanently on countersong duty. And if you get ambushed, and lose a surprise round, say goodbye. Or I suppose Spell Immunity: Blasphemy on everyone in the party is an option, but that's a rather extreme use of resources.

I haven't played Blasphemy-level 3.5e yet, but to be honest once I start getting into that sort of territory I'll put the question to my players and see what sort of house rules (if any) they want to come up with. The Blasphemy barrage just doesn't look like fun to me, have to say.

[Gold Katana]

Blasphemy gives a penalty to STR. Subsequent Blasphemies do not stack, only the best (or worst, depending on your POV) is applied. It is likely that such high-level PC's will be hindered but not dropped by the 2D6 penalty (probably not even the sorceror).

[Gurubabaramalamaswami]

In addition to Silence, the spells Deathward and Freedom of Movement also help to counter many of the effects of Blasphemy.

[Russ Taylor]

Gurubabaramalamaswami wrote:

In addition to Silence, the spells Deathward and Freedom of Movement also help to counter many of the effects of Blasphemy.

What would death ward help with? I wouldn't consider the "killed" portion of blasphemy to be a "death effect" (lacks the "death" descriptor), and it's not negative energy.