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Just fought the harpies on my third playthrough and tried the silent spell on them. But it doesn't seem to affect their singing lure ability. Isn't it supposed to nullify any vocal powers?

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Yes, you should be immune to it.

I'd flag it up as an issue in the technical and gameplay area.

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Silence currently only work to disable spell casting.

Which is sad, there are a few cases where it could be useful to disable screaming and such.

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There's a LOT that Silence should be able to do that it doesn't right now. It may be due to technical limitations, but if the spell has to be changed to be able to work, then those changes should be in the spell description.

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It also doesn't work if you try to
get into the goblin keep by bashing that wall on the upper level
- I thought it would prevent the drunks from waking up, but wound up fighting them.

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Originally Posted by dscarmon
It also doesn't work if you try to
get into the goblin keep by bashing that wall on the upper level
- I thought it would prevent the drunks from waking up, but wound up fighting them.


to use it as a tool for stealth, nice concept

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Not in D:OS 3.

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To be fair, I believe Silence is one of those cases where the rule can't be incorporated in it's full capacity because of technical limitations. Now I haven't played every d&d crpg out there but I've never seen the spell being able to affect the environment before, i.e silencing the drum or the area around the wall.

"For the duration, no sound can be created within or pass through a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on a point you choose within range. Any creature or object entirely inside the sphere is immune to thunder damage, and creatures are deafened while entirely inside it. Casting a spell that includes a verbal component is impossible there."

Now, for this to work as intended, Larian would have to predict every single scenario where a player might see use of casting silence on the environment, since there won't be a DM able to make an active decision. Or completely recode how sounds work in the game. And that's a lot of work either way.

But I do agree it should completely be able to shut down any action that logically needs a verbal component. For example by affecting a creature's vocal cords. And that can't be that hard to code in. Just make a hidden checkbox for spells and actions that will be able to be affected by the spell.

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Originally Posted by PrivateRaccoon
To be fair, I believe Silence is one of those cases where the rule can't be incorporated in it's full capacity because of technical limitations. Now I haven't played every d&d crpg out there but I've never seen the spell being able to affect the environment before, i.e silencing the drum or the area around the wall.

"For the duration, no sound can be created within or pass through a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on a point you choose within range. Any creature or object entirely inside the sphere is immune to thunder damage, and creatures are deafened while entirely inside it. Casting a spell that includes a verbal component is impossible there."

Now, for this to work as intended, Larian would have to predict every single scenario where a player might see use of casting silence on the environment, since there won't be a DM able to make an active decision. Or completely recode how sounds work in the game. And that's a lot of work either way.

But I do agree it should completely be able to shut down any action that logically needs a verbal component. For example by affecting a creature's vocal cords. And that can't be that hard to code in. Just make a hidden checkbox for spells and actions that will be able to be affected by the spell.


Nah, it's way simpler than that. Anything with a "verbal" component (doesn't have to be a spell) simply checks within a radius of itself to see if a silence effect is nearby and within range.

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Originally Posted by Nezix
Originally Posted by PrivateRaccoon
To be fair, I believe Silence is one of those cases where the rule can't be incorporated in it's full capacity because of technical limitations. Now I haven't played every d&d crpg out there but I've never seen the spell being able to affect the environment before, i.e silencing the drum or the area around the wall.

"For the duration, no sound can be created within or pass through a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on a point you choose within range. Any creature or object entirely inside the sphere is immune to thunder damage, and creatures are deafened while entirely inside it. Casting a spell that includes a verbal component is impossible there."

Now, for this to work as intended, Larian would have to predict every single scenario where a player might see use of casting silence on the environment, since there won't be a DM able to make an active decision. Or completely recode how sounds work in the game. And that's a lot of work either way.

But I do agree it should completely be able to shut down any action that logically needs a verbal component. For example by affecting a creature's vocal cords. And that can't be that hard to code in. Just make a hidden checkbox for spells and actions that will be able to be affected by the spell.


Nah, it's way simpler than that. Anything with a "verbal" component (doesn't have to be a spell) simply checks within a radius of itself to see if a silence effect is nearby and within range.



But how does that verbal component translates to in game sound and its perceived effect on npc´s? Does everything breakable have to be coded with a verbal component? That's a huge amount of work to put in for a single spell.

I'm not saying it can't be done, hey, a big part of the stealth system in the Thief series is about different surfaces affecting the npcs' awareness of Garrett. But those games are completely about stealth where the focus on that kind of game system was crucial. Is it in a Baldur's Gate?

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Originally Posted by PrivateRaccoon
Originally Posted by Nezix
Originally Posted by PrivateRaccoon
To be fair, I believe Silence is one of those cases where the rule can't be incorporated in it's full capacity because of technical limitations. Now I haven't played every d&d crpg out there but I've never seen the spell being able to affect the environment before, i.e silencing the drum or the area around the wall.

"For the duration, no sound can be created within or pass through a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on a point you choose within range. Any creature or object entirely inside the sphere is immune to thunder damage, and creatures are deafened while entirely inside it. Casting a spell that includes a verbal component is impossible there."

Now, for this to work as intended, Larian would have to predict every single scenario where a player might see use of casting silence on the environment, since there won't be a DM able to make an active decision. Or completely recode how sounds work in the game. And that's a lot of work either way.

But I do agree it should completely be able to shut down any action that logically needs a verbal component. For example by affecting a creature's vocal cords. And that can't be that hard to code in. Just make a hidden checkbox for spells and actions that will be able to be affected by the spell.


Nah, it's way simpler than that. Anything with a "verbal" component (doesn't have to be a spell) simply checks within a radius of itself to see if a silence effect is nearby and within range.



But how does that verbal component translates to in game sound and its perceived effect on npc´s? Does everything breakable have to be coded with a verbal component? That's a huge amount of work to put in for a single spell.

I'm not saying it can't be done, hey, a big part of the stealth system in the Thief series is about different surfaces affecting the npcs' awareness of Garrett. But those games are completely about stealth where the focus on that kind of game system was crucial. Is it in a Baldur's Gate?


I don't pretend to be a programmer, my coding experience is very limited and basic. It seems to me to be a simple if/else statement though for the object in question. Have the silence spell tag the object, clearly it's an object as you can interact with it, with the 'silence' effect just like characters are. IF object tag = NOT SILENT (wake nearby goblins) ELSE (do nothing). It's not that hard..?

Last edited by Duriel15; 23/10/20 11:41 PM.
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Originally Posted by Duriel15


I don't pretend to be a programmer, my coding experience is very limited and basic. It seems to me to be a simple if/else statement though for the object in question. Have the silence spell tag the object, clearly it's an object as you can interact with it, with the 'silence' effect just like characters are. IF object tag = NOT SILENT (wake nearby goblins) ELSE (do nothing). It's not that hard..?


But that's where we come back to the first scenario. Which objects should be taggable? Everything? They better not miss a single one cause you can be sure a player will find it within a week. No, I think, and yes, it's my personal opinion, that they should simply change the spell description as suggested earlier. Otherwise there are a lot of spells that needs massive coding to be able to be implemented. Transmute Rock is one of those for example. People would throw that spell on every single wall and be upset if that wall didn't turn into mud.

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Originally Posted by PrivateRaccoon
Originally Posted by Duriel15


I don't pretend to be a programmer, my coding experience is very limited and basic. It seems to me to be a simple if/else statement though for the object in question. Have the silence spell tag the object, clearly it's an object as you can interact with it, with the 'silence' effect just like characters are. IF object tag = NOT SILENT (wake nearby goblins) ELSE (do nothing). It's not that hard..?


But that's where we come back to the first scenario. Which objects should be taggable? Everything? They better not miss a single one cause you can be sure a player will find it within a week. No, I think, and yes, it's my personal opinion, that they should simply change the spell description as suggested earlier. Otherwise there are a lot of spells that needs massive coding to be able to be implemented. Transmute Rock is one of those for example. People would throw that spell on every single wall and be upset if that wall didn't turn into mud.


Again, not a programmer, certainly didn't write their code. It could be as simple as creating a remote procedure call to look up the "Am I silent" code any time you interact with an object. Simply allow all objects to be tagged then call that code to verify and either allow additional scripting to run or not. They can't possibly have created unique coding for absolutely every single object in the entire game which would require them to go through the entire code base line by line to add this in. They would be shit programmers if they did that. Also, all the programmers I do know are inherently lazy/efficient depending on how you want to look at it. They like to write one piece of code and call it up as needed not write the same lines of code over and over and over. I'm guessing they have one object code used commonly among many things. Insert it there.

Last edited by Duriel15; 23/10/20 11:58 PM.
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I don't think they have created every single object uniquely but several objects has different properties and to be able to separate them when changing something they are often written in separate files. So it would still require quite a lot work to put it in now when a whole act is practically complete. Especially if you want it to work in every possible scenario a player might see it logical to work. And you know us players, give us a hammer and we will eventually find a scenario where it's logical for us to be able to build a spaceship with it smile

I'm not saying it's a bad idea as it opens up a lot of fun and interesting ways to interact with the environment. But I also don't agree with it being worth the effort seeing as they have a LOT of other things to change first and foremost for the game to feel right imo.

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I don't know much about 5e and only know D&D from other CRPGs using 3rd edition rules. So I looked up harpies:

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Harpy#content

The monster description doesn't say that Silence can stop the song. Harpies could be sui generis, not spellcasters as such, although it has a spell-like effect.

At any rate, I don't think Silence should work on them because that encounter, even at a lower level, just isn't that difficult. The song lure just forces your party member to get closer to the harpy if they fail the save roll, and that's not a bad thing unless it's your squishy mage.

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Originally Posted by Frumpkis
I don't know much about 5e and only know D&D from other CRPGs using 3rd edition rules. So I looked up harpies:

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Harpy#content

The monster description doesn't say that Silence can stop the song. Harpies could be sui generis, not spellcasters as such, although it has a spell-like effect.

At any rate, I don't think Silence should work on them because that encounter, even at a lower level, just isn't that difficult. The song lure just forces your party member to get closer to the harpy if they fail the save roll, and that's not a bad thing unless it's your squishy mage.



Well. generally creature charts don't mention tactics and/specific spells useful against them, leaving the players to figure that out and the DM to decide what works in his campaign. It can contain information about generic resistance and immunities though. Like golems are usually resistant/immune to magic or elementals being resistant to the particular element they are from etc. But over all, spells and weapons work more or less on every creature as to not gimping a party composition too much in any given campaign. And seeing as I personally love playing those squishy mages, I very much want for my spells to be useful against those harpies especially since "singing" by definition is something that should be able to be silenced smile
As for the difficulty of the encounter, I think you will find that many players don't agree with you smile

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Originally Posted by Frumpkis
I don't know much about 5e and only know D&D from other CRPGs using 3rd edition rules. So I looked up harpies:

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Harpy#content

The monster description doesn't say that Silence can stop the song. Harpies could be sui generis, not spellcasters as such, although it has a spell-like effect.

At any rate, I don't think Silence should work on them because that encounter, even at a lower level, just isn't that difficult. The song lure just forces your party member to get closer to the harpy if they fail the save roll, and that's not a bad thing unless it's your squishy mage.


To bring the description of silence: https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Spells:Silence#content

It should prevent the luring song from working since neither the spell silence, nor the luring song have any indication that it wouldn't work/cancel the song. Or at least give advantage on saves.

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From a programmatical point, it would be easy to implement. However, I could see it being buggy, so right now is not properly working (the silence spell). Definitely link this as a issue in the giant issue thread.

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Originally Posted by PrivateRaccoon
To be fair, I believe Silence is one of those cases where the rule can't be incorporated in it's full capacity because of technical limitations. Now I haven't played every d&d crpg out there but I've never seen the spell being able to affect the environment before, i.e silencing the drum or the area around the wall.

"For the duration, no sound can be created within or pass through a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on a point you choose within range. Any creature or object entirely inside the sphere is immune to thunder damage, and creatures are deafened while entirely inside it. Casting a spell that includes a verbal component is impossible there."

Now, for this to work as intended, Larian would have to predict every single scenario where a player might see use of casting silence on the environment, since there won't be a DM able to make an active decision. Or completely recode how sounds work in the game. And that's a lot of work either way.

But I do agree it should completely be able to shut down any action that logically needs a verbal component. For example by affecting a creature's vocal cords. And that can't be that hard to code in. Just make a hidden checkbox for spells and actions that will be able to be affected by the spell.


Characters waking up because of sound, calling others, etc already has to be programmed. They just need to add a check for silence to the conditions to see if works or not, which they clearly haven't done.

It might be a long progress and could cause bugs, but that's another story.

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A creature must be able to hear the song to be affected by it. Silence means no sound can be created in or sent through it. If the spell couldn't stop magical sounds, the spell would say so. It is incorrectly implemented like many things are regarding silence, currently.


What is the problem you are solving? Does your proposed change solve the problem? Is your change feasible? What else will be affected by your change? Will your change impact revenue? Does your change align with the goals and strategies of the organizations (Larian, WotC)?
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