Today while playing I realized that the Silence spell got severely nerfed, and and I just wanted to make sure it was intended.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/spells/silence.html
Duration: 1 round/level
versus
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/silence.htm
Duration: 1 minute/level
While the spell is far from worthless, it has a much more limited use now. A scroll of silence only lasts 3 rounds. This is only 9 seconds, and essentially pointless out of combat.
Can I get some official word on this?
Sorry, but three rounds is 18 seconds...
But I guess it is because it is basically a save or die spell if it was longer. Probably still is, but not certain doom for the spellcaster affected.
Just my 5 cents (Euro)
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This nerf thankfully stomps down on several downright cheesy tactics involving Silence (at low levels: take a bag with a lot of small stones, cast Silence on exactly one of them, throw the lot at a caster BBEG, game over unless he can fly/teleport).
Now with 1 round casting time and 1 round/level duration it is much harder to use it as an auto-win button.
We never saw it as an I-win button. You simply walk out of the silence area. People walk out of the stinking cloud too. If you throw that bag at a BBEG, he will use a move action towards you, out of the silence area and touches you with some nasty spell.
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Yeah, but given that caster BBEGs have a notorious tendency to hang out at That Final 20 by 20 Room in the Dungeon With No Other Ways Out, it used to be rather problematic.
Oh and all those adventuring parties who got hosed over by
likely had a bone with Silence's duration.
Useless outside of combat!?! Mr. Fishy has never heard of this out-of-combat. New things frighten Mr. Fishy. Mr.Fishy does not approve of out-of-combat. The duration was most likey changed for the same reason that hold person gets a save every round. Mr. Fishy said the same thing about the Summoner's Summon Monster SLA min/level duration you could use the monster as a short term flying mount or as a trap buster.
Mr. Fishy will look into this OUT-OF-COMBAT.