I'm just looking into some spells, and Ghost Sound has got me thinking. You can create illusory sounds with a volume equivilent to a number of humans up to 4x your caster level (max 40 at level 10). The spell lasts for as long as you concentrate.
Beyond the obvious creative and playful things you can do with this spell, I was wondering if there were some more offensive tricks to be pulled. After all, 4 people shouting all at once, say in a small dungeon room, will make quite a racket. Not to mention 40. It makes me wonder, what would the mechanical effect of a constant, full-volume white noise be? Could you center that noise on an enemy caster to interfere with their verbal components and/or concentration checks? A bardic performance? Even someone simply making perception checks?
Thoughts?
I always like creative uses for spells. However you don't want to give a lower level spell an effect as good as a higher level spell just based on creative usage.
For example, you don't want to say you could use it to deafen a character and make then have a chance to lose a spell because that duplicates the effect of deafness, a second level spell.
I could see a circumstance penalty for perception for trying to detect a noise for example. I can't really see any modifier to verbal casting as casters do it in the middle of battle all the time.
Having someone yell at me doesn't make it more difficult for me to speak. Having forty people yell at me doesn't make it more difficult for me to speak. It might make it harder for me to hear myself speak, but that doesn't change the fact that noise is coming from my mouth.
Because of this, it should have no mechanical effect on verbal components for spells. However, effects that require the target to hear and interpret the verbal component (such as from message) might have some complications. Hearing the details of a conversation is a DC 0 Perception check, which is basically what hearing someone cast a spell on you within a short distance would probably equate to. Even adding the "terrible conditions" modifier, it only becomes a DC 5 Perception check. Every ten feet distant adds a +1 to that check.
Regarding bardic performance, I assume you are referring to ones that are based on sound (since forty people yelling doesn't make it harder to see the bard dance). The rules don't state that the target needs to make a perception check, but it does state that they need to be able to hear the bard in order to be affected. For the din of forty people yelling, I might call for a single perception check to gain the initial effect (but not slow down the game with a check every single round). A character could spend a move action to make another check if needed.
Basically, using the spell to have a bunch of people yelling just adds a +5 to any audible Perception check and might force some checks to be made in instances where they would not be normally.
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I'm just looking into some spells, and Ghost Sound has got me thinking. You can create illusory sounds with a volume equivilent to a number of humans up to 4x your caster level (max 40 at level 10). The spell lasts for as long as you concentrate.
Beyond the obvious creative and playful things you can do with this spell, I was wondering if there were some more offensive tricks to be pulled. After all, 4 people shouting all at once, say in a small dungeon room, will make quite a racket. Not to mention 40. It makes me wonder, what would the mechanical effect of a constant, full-volume white noise be?
A fairly serious penalty to hearing-based Perception checks (edit: I'd allow -10, as for the sound of a battle). That's about it.
Could you center that noise on an enemy caster to interfere with their verbal components and/or concentration checks?
No, that's well beyond the scope of four people shouting and intrudes on the effect of blindness/deafness.
A bardic performance?
Considering a bard can drown out sonic attacks, not just morale effects, with a countersong, no.