Is there a way to block a Sending? I have a party with 3 PCs with access to sending. and they have decided on a harassment campaign against the current main villain.
Sending is Evocation, spell resistance: no, saving throw: none. Short of living in an anti-magic bubble, there seems to be no way of blocking it. Seems OP for a level 4 spell.
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10 minutes of casting time, 4th or 5th level spell, and the target need to be familiar.
So, every time they cast sending they burn a decent level spell, 10 minutes, and the caster needs to be familiar with the recipient of the message. Familiar is vague, but I wouldn't consider seeing someone for a few rounds during a fight as familiarity.
The recipient recognizes the sender if he knows him.
It doesn't say anywhere that the sending wake a sleeping person or that the message is received as spoken word.
So it can be like a WathsApp message with a low key ping sound when it arrives, read immediately or lost. Or someone speaking to you when you are busy.
To me, it seems that this harassing technique is more costly for the PC than the villain. Remember them that they are spending 10 minutes every time they use it. Have them cancel the spell used and remember them that it is not possible to recover the spells cast in the last 8 hours, so if they cast them in the middle of the night they lose a spell slot the next day.
What do you mean by "harassment campaign", what are they trying to accomplish?
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Wish?
I don't think there's any easy way of blocking it. Even a sending to a mage's magnificent mansion or other plane still has a 95% success rate. Short of being completely immune to evocations (a few archetypes can get something like this at 20th level), I can't come up with anything easy.
edit: Actually, I think I'd allow a limited wish to block sending from one particular caster. For added fun, the wish comes with a preset response to the caster. "Your sending cannot be completed as incanted. All sendings from this caster have been blocked. Please hang up and never try again."
Wouldn't mage's private sanctum work? Or was my previous GM a big fat liar?
If i read correctly, Spell Turning should reflect the message back to the caster. It's not free, but a villain with enough ressources could be fine for a while.
Then for extra trolling point you can have your villain have it's own sending under a contingency spell to send them back an insulting or an automated message.
Alternatively, if your villain has time to develop a dual identity by multiclassing into Vigilante, Dual identity is a 1st level ability that foils any attemp to scry or locate the creature while the vigilante in a different identity, provided the caster does not link the two identity together.
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If i read correctly, Spell Turning should reflect the message back to the caster. It's not free, but a villain with enough ressources could be fine for a while.
It's only 10 min/level, so the players could still "harass" him by casting it every few hours (assuming he has to sleep sometime). A Ring of Continuation would work, but it's still got the problem of limited levels. The bad guy uses a 7th level spell and the sorcerer chucks out 3 5th-level sendings. The last one is guaranteed to get through.
Alternatively, if your villain has time to develop a dual identity by multiclassing into Vigilante, Dual identity is a 1st level ability that foils any attemp to scry or locate the creature while the vigilante in a different identity, provided the caster does not link the two identity together.
That one is kinda iffy. Dual Identity uses the same kind of language as mind blank or Mage's Private Sanctum (prevents scrying/locating). Sending does not locate the creature; a message just automatically gets to him.
It's only 10 min/level, so the players could still "harass" him by casting it every few hours (assuming he has to sleep sometime). A Ring of Continuation would work, but it's still got the problem of limited levels. The bad guy uses a 7th level spell and the sorcerer chucks out 3 5th-level sendings. The last one is guaranteed to get through.
Yeah this is true. A cheaper alternative to the ring of continuation would be a ring of sustenance as i assume the ''harrasment'' is only really effective by waking him up and thus ruining his night of sleep. It still wont stop the third casting, but at this point the villain can take consolation in the fact that the sorcerer just wasted 30 minutes of his time to wake him up for a few second.
That one is kinda iffy. Dual Identity uses the same kind of language as mind blank or Mage's Private Sanctum (prevents scrying/locating). Sending does not locate the creature; a message just automatically gets to him.
While true, Dual identity aslo foil spells with effect regarding alignements if the alternate identity alignement is different than the basic one. While both identity are the same person, it also requiers a specific state of mind to change identity. One could argue that if the spell could foil scry, it could foil a sending spell. Granted, this fails into RAI territory.
Another solution could be to have the villain have access to a demi-plane with a dead magic quality, it would nullify any magic. As long as the demi-plane have a portal, the villain could enter and leave as he see fits. A permanent Demi-plane with the portal and dead magic quality would be around 50 000 gold pieces. (Approximation has i don't have access to the exact prices right now).
A final solution, that would fall into DM fiat territory, is to have th villain build a room with ''unobtaiblonium'' a rare material that foils all magic trying to get throught.
Then for extra trolling point you can have your villain have it's own sending under a contingency spell to send them back an insulting or an automated message.
No need for the contingency, Sending lets you 'answer in like manner immediately'.
So this could basically turn into the PCs spending 10 minutes to text the enemy, they reply with 'No u', repeat until the PCs get bored.
There's nothing about the spell that suggests that receiving the message is distracting or anything, so I'm not entirely sure what they're hoping to accomplish aside from taunting the villain, who's free to completely ignore their message.
Wouldn't mage's private sanctum work? Or was my previous GM a big fat liar?Big fat liar, at least in Pathfinder first edition
...but it does not prevent other communication, such as a sending or message spell...
In retrospect, I might have been thinking of scrying. Maybe I'm the big fat liar?
No need for the contingency, Sending lets you 'answer in like manner immediately'.
Well my original thought was that if you Spell turned the original Sending spell, you wouldn't get to reply.
So this could basically turn into the PCs spending 10 minutes to text the enemy, they reply with 'No u', repeat until the PCs get bored.
This seems like the easiest solution and i'm really wondering how they are harassing the villain to the point where it really bother them.
Nothing in the spell says that it wakes you, so giving it that ability is questionable.
This is true, but the spell is also very unclear on how the message is conveyed. Is it telepathically? Does it makes sound? Does the target simply know the message. I would assume it is telepathically as there is no mention of sound in the spell and creature with as low as 1 in Intelligence can comprehend it. And while the spell does not give the ability to wake people, i would argue that receiving a 25 word message via magic might be enough to wake someone. That would be a GM call though.
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This is true, but the spell is also very unclear on how the message is conveyed. Is it telepathically? Does it makes sound? Does the target simply know the message. I would assume it is telepathically as there is no mention of sound in the spell and creature with as low as 1 in Intelligence can comprehend it. And while the spell does not give the ability to wake people, i would argue that receiving a 25 word message via magic might be enough to wake someone. That would be a GM call though.
Nothing in the spell says that it wakes you, so giving it that ability is questionable.
Fully GM territory, as the rules are silent.
If the villain is like me, he would say "Again. Sigh.", adjust his position in bed and be asleep again in 1 minute.Some sounds will wake me instantly and fully alert, but a phone ringing or someone speaking aren't the right ones. I doubt that what amount to a telepathic text message would do it.
Fully GM territory, as the rules are silent.
If the villain is like me, he would say "Again. Sigh.", adjust his position in bed and be asleep again in 1 minute.
Some sounds will wake me instantly and fully alert, but a phone ringing or someone speaking aren't the right ones. I doubt that what amount to a telepathic text message would do it.
Oh yes, totally. Honestly, i'm pretty sure a cellphone ringing or buzzing during the night is more annoying than what Sending could possibly manage. Unless the party has access to a hundred caster that can troll the villain or something, but then the villain has bigger problem.
I was only trying to think what would constitute enough harassments for the villain to care enough to use countermeasure. Maybe the caster is a sorcerer with god-like intimidate whispering some scary threats, idk.
Block caller. Done.
Honestly, I doubt it is capable of harassing them at. It doesn't say it alerts them, wakes them, or otherwise does literally anything than implant a message in their head. They may reply, if they choose, but otherwise do not have to acknowledge it, at all.
I did think there was a feat, item, or class ability that sent a psychic rebuke to those scrying or reading your mind... can't remember what it was, though. And it probably wouldn't apply to a message, anyways. So, nevermind...
You might be nasty with your one short tweet per day equivalent, but there's an old quote about never doing an enemy a little injury. It doesn't really hurt them but may make the enemy angry and more hostile.
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Honestly, if a party at my table tried to weaponize a no save message spell to harass the enemy, I would find a way to have the answer to message be a charm.
What am I doing at 2am? You thought you were going to disturb me? No, I stayed awake just to be here now, telling you to kill your friends, that's what I'm doing...
I realize I'm capable of just ignoring having the villain simply ignoring it. Mostly it's just my sense of there should be a counter to this.
Literally doing nothing IS the counter to it. Want my phone number, you can send me 1,000,000,000 messages, I will never care... I don't answer my father or my boss if I don't want to.
I realize I'm capable of just ignoring having the villain simply ignoring it. Mostly it's just my sense of there should be a counter to this.
Actually, if the villain is bright, he might even play into their game and make them think it annoy him to no end. That way, he can keep them busy by wasting precious spell slots.
If he also learn their sending pattern, he could take them by surprise. For example, lets say they always cast two messages in a row. Then the villain could prepare an ambush while they are casting the second one and take them by surprise.
While I do think it might be a bit silly that their is no easy counter mesure, that probably stem from the fact that Sending was never intended to be used offensively.
A final solution that i can think of, would be for the villain to design a spell that could block the sending spell. Considering how specific such spell might be, it should not end up being too high level. There's a section under the magic rule that details the process to do so.
There's absolutely NO way the party is trying to learn anything from this, right?!
It's just a poke the bear joke, right?
If they get fooled by doped answers... absolutely no pity is to be had.
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What they want is Nightmare. Higher level, with a save.
Pretending that a lower level spell without the save does something similar is stretching the rules beyond the breaking point.
Yeah, I was thinking that there ARE indeed spells for harassment...
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Also, I'm not convinced that sending actually disturbs sleep. You can speak to me while I'm sleeping, but that doesn't mean I'll wake up.
To extend this example: you have ever slept in the same room with someone that snores or talk while sleeping? The first time he can keep you awake or wake you. After a few times, your brain dismisses the sounds as meaningless.
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I still like using a limited wish as GM fiat. I don't think it's out of scale to have it permanently block this one (non-damaging) spell from one particular creature for each casting.
Most importantly, it lets you acknowledge at some point down the line that their harassment campaign annoyed him enough to spend 1500 gp of diamonds for each PC doing this.
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To extend this example: you have ever slept in the same room with someone that snores or talk while sleeping? The first time he can keep you awake or wake you. After a few times, your brain dismisses the sounds as meaningless.
This would be a bad example for me as i literally cannot fall asleep next to someone that is snoring, it just grinds my nerve so much!
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this reminds me of a game of Earthdawn, wherein our Windling (small faerie-like PC race) got horror-marked (the big bads of the setting are called horrors, a very much deserved name, and their most fearsome power is Horror-Mark in which they can spiritually mess with you over great distances, feasting on your fear until they just decide to end you), anyways, our Windling got horror-marked by one that we managed to escape and so for the next several months of game time, we'd randomly snatch the windling out of the air and use him like a hot mic in a wrestling promo to yell at and taunt the horror through the horror-mark.
was great fun.