These haven't quite come up in our games, but close enough that we have been discussing.
1) Haunts and negative channelers - We know negative channeling can't destry the haunt. Can't exactly make friends and take an undead trap with you. But would the Command Undead feat at least get it to stop acting against the channeler and his party?
2) Silence eliminate or suppress noise – Fighting in one end of a long tunnel and guards at the other end. Cast Silence spell somewhere near the middle. The area of effect completely encompasses the cross section of the tunnel. Does silence only suppress the sound inside the bubble and it starts up again on the other side so the guards can hear OR does it eliminate the sound so the guards are clueless?
1. By RAW no because haunt isn't really an undead (because undead is creature type and haunt isn't a creature) but it could be a sensible house rule.
2. This would be a subject to interpretation but I'd say that silence would block the sound from passing assuming the area would completely encompass the corridors width and height:
Upon the casting of this spell, complete silence prevails in the affected area. All sound is stopped: Conversation is impossible, spells with verbal components cannot be cast, and no noise whatsoever issues from, enters, or passes through the area.
I concur with Drejk in both cases.
1) Carpola! =(
We weren't sure. I think if it comes up, our GM is likely to house rule it as working but i'm not sure.
2) Excellent!
That is the way we were reading it. But a few of us were trying to bring real world physics into the discussion. (I'm sorry to say I was one of them.) Specifically that sound is transmitted nearly as well (better over long distances) by the solid surfaces of the tunnel. Vibrations within the surface of the wall would not be affected since ther is no line of affect into the wall.
Thanks guys.
That is the way we were leaning on both questions, I just wanted to check.
2) Excellent!
That is the way we were reading it. But a few of us were trying to bring real world physics into the discussion. (I'm sorry to say I was one of them.) Specifically that sound is transmitted nearly as well (better over long distances) by the solid surfaces of the tunnel. Vibrations within the surface of the wall would not be affected since ther is no line of affect into the wall.
Thanks guys.
That is the way we were leaning on both questions, I just wanted to check.
I have to say, I think the sound would transfer in the wall just fine--but that doesn't mean you'd hear it. It'd be extremely difficult, but technically possible.
Yeah what you would have to do is figure up an assumed loss for the transmission from the solid dense media (wall) to the gaseous diffuse media (air).
We started trying to guess what kind of a penalty it would be to the perception check of the guards. We had suggesttions from -2 to -10 to minus caster level. It got so aggrevating we picked a different strategy to get by.
If the silence field stops the sound by generating vibrations in air that are exactly matched to negate vibrations of corresponding sound, wouldn't the same vibration reach the surface of the wall and spread through it preventing the sound from being carried by the wall? Or something like that...
Except the spell doesn't go into the wall. No line of affect.
Perception checks to hear something through a closed door are made at a +5. That might help you figure out how hard it should be to hear something through the walls.
In my opinion, it should be very hard.
Walls increase the DC of perception checks made to listen by 10 per foot of thickness, in this case I would treat distance from the battle to the listener as the walls 'thickness'... meaning that in most cases rolling a perception check would be pointless in this situations.
Except the spell doesn't go into the wall. No line of affect.
The spell does have line of effect to the wall itself.
From a physics standpoint...
Yes, sound goes through solid objects very well. If I hit the wall with a hammer, then whole wall rings like a bell. But that is hitting a wall directly with the hammer. Sound waves hitting a wall have a much lower impact. Then you have the wall to air transfer on the other side. Audio speakers are designed to maximize air displacement to generate sound. Stone walls, not so much. This is why you put your head directly against a door or wall to hear what is on the other side. It maximizes the energy transfer from the wall into you ear. Sure some sound might get through, but it is going to be faint, and distorted. It may not even sound like a combat after all that distortion.
Guard1: Hey Bob, you hear something?
Guard2: yeah, sounds like that cat prowling on the roof again.
I would go with cwslyclgh's solution, +10 per foot of thickness myself(which would end up being a +40 or more to the check).
Vibrations (sound) travel relatively easily along the surface of a dense media. The do not transmit nearly as well through a dense media. So hearing through a wall should be much more difficult than hearing the sound transmitted along it.
So what you are really gaining for your stealth would be the loss of going from the dense to diffuse media. I don't remember my sound transmission physics well enough to say how much. I'm too lazy to look it up.
Just for simiplicities sake, I think we should go with blocked cause it's magic. Even though I was one of the boneheads that started the discussion in our group. I think it was a needless complication.
Vibrations (sound) travel relatively easily along the surface of a dense media. The do not transmit nearly as well through a dense media. So hearing through a wall should be much more difficult than hearing the sound transmitted along it.
So what you are really gaining for your stealth would be the loss of going from the dense to diffuse media. I don't remember my sound transmission physics well enough to say how much. I'm too lazy to look it up.
Just for simiplicities sake, I think we should go with blocked cause it's magic. Even though I was one of the boneheads that started the discussion in our group. I think it was a needless complication.
Unless the guards are epic level characters with ridiculously high perception, the sound is effectively blocked.
If the sound has to travel through 10 feet of stone puts the DC at 90.
Since silence has a 20 foot radius, the amount of stone the sound has to travel trough is likely higher.
Honestly, the amount of sound that would be transmitted INTO a stone wall, along it some distance, and then back out of it into the air at the end of the corridor is fairly negligible. Sound waves wouldn't really be traveling the surface, since Silence should stop those, or at least lessen them considerably. At most, I'd say the guards would hear maybe a very low volume bass sound or a low tinny sound, that would be hardly perceptible.
Not to mention, it's a clever use of the spell and should probably be allowed to work well in such a situation.
At best/worst (depending on your perspective), I'd rule that the DC for the check goes up by 5 per 10 feet from the source, and an additional 5 for every 5 ft. the listeners are from the wall the sound would be traveling through.
The real sound transmission that people hear in a dungeon environment like that would be echoes traversing the corridors, not the diffused sound from the walls.