manipulate sound vs somatic component

[Renen]

Can manipulate sound make a person unable to say a spell? Or atleast increase failure chase, as its harder to say a spell if you can't hear yourself

[Eric Scott]

It wouldn't effect the the Somatic Component but, for the Verbal Component it is entirely possible.

[Slipperychicken]

Deafening (not just distracting. Straight-up deafening, as in the condition) imposes a 20% failure chance on spells which require verbal components.

Silencing the area renders spells with verbal components impossible to cast.

[nyjastul69]

A quick google didn't produce much. What is manipulate sound: a feat, a spell, a class ability...? What's the source?

[Deophaun]

Closest thing I can come to an SRD cite is from the spell sculpt sound:


A spellcaster whose voice is changed dramatically is unable to cast spells with verbal components.

[Eric Scott]

Control Sound is a psionic power, which I believe is what is meant.

[Erik Vale]

Closest thing I can come to an SRD cite is from the spell sculpt sound:

I'm imagining Psions making wizards sound like squeeky chipmunks in order to trounce them.
Really, the real reason wizards are more powerful theoritaclly then anything else is pureply because its cheaper for wizards to learn spells then learn powers as a psion.

[Renen]

As psion, learn 2 powers.
1) Control Sound
2) Control light

Sound:
They cant talk
cant cast spells with verbal components
You can make a guard captain tell the soldiers to let you go, while he is actually asking them to go execute you
You can burst a person's eardrums by making a 300 decibel sound within 1 meter of their head (doesnt extend past that, so you are fine).

Light:
200% light to blind (by raw tho it makes you see better :smallannoyed:)
0% light to blind (give person a light-less bubble around their head.

You now cant be hit by pretty much anything

[Deophaun]

I'm imagining Psions making wizards sound like squeeky chipmunks in order to trounce them.
OK, reading control sound, no, it won't work.

Sculpt sound targets the thing making the sound, so that it makes a different sound. Control sound targets the sound itself. So the sound already has to exist, which means the wizard as already said the verbal components. That's closing the barn door after the horse has left.

Now, you could muffle the existing sound, so the wizard is effectively deafened, and thus has a chance of spell failure, but I don't think you can completely shut the wizard down with it.

[Renen]

Can't you just change the words? He says the spell for fireball, you change sounds to those for casting prestigitation

[Psyren]

While I don't think you can outright substitute verbal components, it seems as though you can mute an enemy mage just fine with this.


As psychic rogue, learn 2 powers.
1) Control Sound
2) Control light


Fix't

[ericgrau]

Since the target must be a sound, I'd think a readied action would work. Problem is the ready action trigger. It'd have to be when so and so starts to speak, not when so and so casts a spell. Because by the time you hear what he says, it's too late. If he tells an ally to do something before he casts he'll at least know something's wrong and retreat until he gets his voice back. And then you are also out of the fight until you cease concentration on control sound.

[Deophaun]

Can't you just change the words?
The words exist before the change. You have to wait for the target to make those sounds before you can change them. Thus, it doesn't stop a spell from being cast. Sculpt sound gets around this by preventing the target from making its intended sounds at all.

[Psyren]

How about for spells with a casting time longer than a standard action? It seems to me that you would then have time to silence them halfway through.

[Renen]

Can you change something someone is saying?
Like is a guard captain is telling other Guadalupe to kill you, can you make them hear "let him go"?

[Psyren]

Can you change something someone is saying?
Like is a guard captain is telling other Guadalupe to kill you, can you make them hear "let him go"?

Yes, but you need a Bluff check (opposed by Guadualupe's Sense Motive) to imitate his voice.

[Deophaun]

How about for spells with a casting time longer than a standard action? It seems to me that you would then have time to silence them halfway through.
I don't see any problem with muffling the sound so that the caster acts as if deafened. But the fact remains, the power works by turning sounds into something else after they have been produced. A silence effect would prevent the sounds from being produced in the first place. Similarly, sculpt sound prevents the source from producing a sound as intended. Control sound isn't in the same league.

[Psyren]

I don't see any problem with muffling the sound so that the caster acts as if deafened.

You're not affecting the caster though, you're affecting the sound. So you're not "deafening" anyone - you're silencing him. I agree that for most spells, by the time the sound comes out it's too late, but for a long-casting-time spell (1 round or more) it should be possible to mute it and disrupt the attempt.

[Deophaun]

You're not affecting the caster though, you're affecting the sound. So you're not "deafening" anyone - you're silencing him.
No, you misunderstand.

First, you aren't silencing him. He is still making sounds. If he wasn't making a sound, control sound would have no target. The verbal components are therefor still being supplied.

The difference is, he cannot hear the components that he is supplying. So, for the purposes of spell failure, he is effectively deafened.

I agree that for most spells, by the time the sound comes out it's too late, but for a long-casting-time spell (1 round or more) it should be possible to mute it and disrupt the attempt.
No, because you cannot affect sound until it has emerged. You are therefor controling the sound at some point after it has been produced. It doesn't matter if you are changing the sound of an entire performance of Beethoven's 5th. The sound coming right off the instrument is unaltered for the entire duration of your power. It can only be altered after that point. Only silence and sculpt sound prevents unaltered sound from being produced all together, which is why those powers talk about preventing casting, and control sound does not.

[05chancew]

I realise this is a while after it was first posted, but I like playing my psion, and was looking at control sound, read this, and had a thought,(I hope someone here is still active)

Deophaun, the verbal component in the magic section of pathfinder and 3.5 says:

"A verbal component is a spoken incantation. To provide a verbal component, you must be able to speak in a strong voice. A silence spell or a gag spoils the incantation (and thus the spell). A spellcaster who has been deafened has a 20% chance to spoil any spell with a verbal component that he or she tries to cast."

ok, lets assume that it was a strong voice before you altered it, why would a gag work? assuming it blocks the tongue that suggests that only after the sound has left the mouth does it become a intelligible spell, using this as a case example, the sound exists in the throat, before it even touches the tongue, meaning that you can alter that and make it come out as a nonsensical spell.

[Chronos]

A gag doesn't prevent sound from leaving your mouth; it prevents you from forming sound in the first place.

[Flickerdart]

If you need to interrupt a spell, just shooting them in the face is probably going to be more effective than mucking about with sound.

[Renen]

Too bad that by Raw it only gives them a concentration check. Where as this spell has no save.

[Tar Palantir]

The idea is to hit them hard enough that the Concentration check is ludicrously difficult. Hard to do with a bow and no Manyshot, but I had a warlock who just followed enemy casters around with readied eldritch blasts whenever they tried to do anything. A fighter can manage to put out enough damage with a sword to the face, assuming there's nothing stopping him from swinging and connecting.

[Slipperychicken]

Too bad that by Raw it only gives them a concentration check. Where as this spell has no save.

If you're any good at damage-dealing, it should be nearly impossible to pass the Concentration check.

[05chancew]

wiki(I know, bad source, but it seems right in this case) says a gag is:
"A gag is usually a device designed to prevent speech, often as a restraint device to stop the subject from calling for help. This is usually done by blocking the mouth, partially or completely, or attempting to prevent the tongue, lips, or jaw from moving in the normal patterns of speech"

to prevent sound being made in the first place the gag would be a tight wire tied around the throat, because the voice box is back there, not in the tongue, the tongue just alters the last part of the sound, if the voice-box mis-produces then the tongue would be screwed.

[Deophaun]

to prevent sound being made in the first place the gag would be a tight wire tied around the throat, because the voice box is back there, not in the tongue, the tongue just alters the last part of the sound, if the voice-box mis-produces then the tongue would be screwed.
Which would matter if the game modeled anatomy. It doesn't, so it doesn't.

And what is a thread that died back in March doing on the first page?

[05chancew]

Which would matter if the game modeled anatomy. It doesn't, so it doesn't.

And what is a thread that died back in March doing on the first page?

to answer your second sentence first, I am a newcomer, as I said in my earlier post, and like playing my psion, was having a look at control sounds and found this tread.

to respond to your first sentence second, but you are saying they model physics accurately? the fact is the sound exists before it is a spell, which is the opposite to what you were initially saying, the spell would not work because the sound is altered before it has the chance to be a spell.

[Deophaun]

to answer your second sentence first, I am a newcomer, as I said in my earlier post, and like playing my psion, was having a look at control sounds and found this tread.
Then welcome. Please read the Forum Rules. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/announcement.php?a=1)

to respond to your first sentence second, but you are saying they model physics accurately?
I said no such thing. Discussions of real-life physics results in the death of cat girls.

the fact is the sound exists before it is a spell
No. The sound is not a spell. The sound need only exist for the spell to take effect. You will have to cite an actual rule somewhere that says a sound must exist for a certain amount of time before it can qualify as a spell's components. Without such a rule, this trick does not work.

[05chancew]

Sorry, you are right, I am a bad necromancer, hadn't realised.

I am a physicist, so it is in my nature, sorry.

The fact that a gag works logically proves that the sound has to be formed properly to make the spell, it doesn't block the initial sound, it blocks it coming out or being formed by the tongue, if the sound exists and isn't the completed working spell, as proven by the gag, then altering the sound in the earlier on stops the spells completion and stops the caster being "able to speak in a strong voice."

If you can speak with a strong voice when you have your voice box muffled then you are a better man than I.

[05chancew]

If you like I will stop now, I only finished that one is response to your earlier reply, but I will stop now, sorry to raise it, didn't realise.

[Deophaun]

The fact that a gag works logically proves that the sound has to be formed properly to make the spell, it doesn't block the initial sound,
The problem is, in the game, sound is an event, not a process. There's no voice box stage, tongue stage, or lip stage. A sound either exists, or it does not. A gag affects this by affecting not the sound, but the character that makes the sound. It imposes conditions on the character that limits the legal sounds he can make, and those legal sounds are not suitable for verbal components. The effect of the gag exists before the sound is made, so the gag can stop a spellcaster.

Manipulate sound, however, has to wait for those sounds to exist. Because of this, it occurs too late to interfere with spell casting.

[Segev]

Just a quick note: since Control Light is Concentration-duration, it isn't nearly as good at letting you do things that "not being seen" might be useful for as you might wish.

[Flickerdart]

Just a quick note: since Control Light is Concentration-duration, it isn't nearly as good at letting you do things that "not being seen" might be useful for as you might wish.
Solicit Psicrystal takes care of concentration. Naturally, magic does it better with Sonorous Hum, so if you're an StP Erudite, that's a better choice.