Deafness [Archive] - Wizards Community - Pages Merged by Solauren

Deafness [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
DM Zoc
12-29-06, 08:20 AM Deafened: A deafened character cannot hear. She takes a –4 penalty on initiative checks, automatically fails Listen checks, and has a 20% chance of spell failure when casting spells with verbal components. Characters who remain deafened for a long time grow accustomed to these drawbacks and can overcome some of them.

So what exactly is overcome by a character who has been deafened, after a week? a year? twenty years?
Steevo
12-29-06, 08:47 AM Ask your DM.
Dalthbar
12-29-06, 10:51 AM That last sentence is purposefully left vague. So they "can" overcome "some" of them - which means that's it's possible, but it's not a given and the degree to which some of the conditions are overcome (if any) will depend on character to character.

Totally a DM call on that one, but I'd consider a "long time" to be at least a few years.
Fallenangel359
12-29-06, 03:25 PM I'd say after a long period of time, you could overcome the verbal part, and I'd say if you pass a spot check by more than 5, you don't have initiative penalty, and if you just barely pass it, its only a -2. Otherwise you keep the full -4.
draconic_swine
12-29-06, 04:04 PM I think I'd let a character overcome the initiative penalty and the spell failure chance, but it wouldn't be sudden. The penalties would be reduced over some increment of time (i.e., after a year the initiative penalty is reduced to -3 and the spell failure to 15%, with each passing year removing another -1 and 5%). Not sure what amount of time necessary to lose the penalties would be, though.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DM Zoc 12-29-06, 08:20 AM	Deafened: A deafened character cannot hear. She takes a –4 penalty on initiative checks, automatically fails Listen checks, and has a 20% chance of spell failure when casting spells with verbal components. Characters who remain deafened for a long time grow accustomed to these drawbacks and can overcome some of them. So what exactly is overcome by a character who has been deafened, after a week? a year? twenty years?
Steevo 12-29-06, 08:47 AM	Ask your DM.
Dalthbar 12-29-06, 10:51 AM	That last sentence is purposefully left vague. So they "can" overcome "some" of them - which means that's it's possible, but it's not a given and the degree to which some of the conditions are overcome (if any) will depend on character to character. Totally a DM call on that one, but I'd consider a "long time" to be at least a few years.
Fallenangel359 12-29-06, 03:25 PM	I'd say after a long period of time, you could overcome the verbal part, and I'd say if you pass a spot check by more than 5, you don't have initiative penalty, and if you just barely pass it, its only a -2. Otherwise you keep the full -4.
draconic_swine 12-29-06, 04:04 PM	I think I'd let a character overcome the initiative penalty and the spell failure chance, but it wouldn't be sudden. The penalties would be reduced over some increment of time (i.e., after a year the initiative penalty is reduced to -3 and the spell failure to 15%, with each passing year removing another -1 and 5%). Not sure what amount of time necessary to lose the penalties would be, though.