So im in a campaign with someone who took a few points in perform to "learn" ventriloquism. his favorite thing do as a rogue throw his voice and sneak attack. I thought about a day later and remember it was a spell lvl 1 bard, sor and wizards. I looked at perform cause i have never taken point into it. and noticed that it had 9 areas to learn act, comedy dance, etc. So is a legitimate move to use perform: ventriloquism or is it a spell and spell only?
I don't recall any source of an official Perform: Ventriloquism skill in 3.5, but Perform was broekn up into disciplines. If you wanted to be able to sing AND dance, you needed to burn skill points in Perform: Singing AND Perform: Dancing, so Perform: Ventriloquism isn't a big stretch.
There should be real differences between magical and trained ventriloquism. The spell specifically states that the sound emanates from wherever you place it. Trained ventriloquism is still limited by the fact that the sound is emanating from the character. No matter how good a ventriloquist I am, I can't make my voice emanate from something 20 feet away from me (not unless that object is betweeen me and the person I am trying to fool, at any rate, and the trick becomes harder to sell the closer my mark gets to the object).
As DM, I would allow the player to make a Perform: Ventriloquism check to distract the enemy, and if successful, allow the sneak attack (it is hard enough in 3.5 for Rogues to Sneak Attack, many times the class feature is useless, so I applaud creative thinking to get more out of it). The Skill Points required to burn into it in order to be good enough at it to do reliably are far more valuable than a first level spell slot.
No matter how good a ventriloquist I am, I can't make my voice emanate from something 20 feet away from me (not unless that object is betweeen me and the person I am trying to fool, at any rate, and the trick becomes harder to sell the closer my mark gets to the object)
How would you know if its possible, not being a master ventriloquist?
No matter how good a ventriloquist I am, I can't make my voice emanate from something 20 feet away from me (not unless that object is betweeen me and the person I am trying to fool, at any rate, and the trick becomes harder to sell the closer my mark gets to the object)
How would you know if its possible, not being a master ventriloquist?
Elementary physics?
When a ventriloquist "throws their voice" the sound is still being generated by the ventriloquist, and would therefore emanate from them. The way the trick works is the ventriloquist does something to draw attention to the object that is supposed to be speaking (like making the dummy's mouth move) while not moving their own lips. This gives the illusion that the dummy, in close poximity to the ventriloquist, is the one doing the speaking. When on stage, a ventriloquist has some more freedom about which object on the stage with him is "speaking." The proximity doesn't need to be as close because the entire audience is in front of the stage. The greater the distance is between the stage and the audience, the greater the distance the "speaking" object can be from the ventriloquist and still maintain the illusion.
What makes a ventriloquist good is the vocal range and clarity they can achieve with minimal motion of the lips. The more entertaining the dummy, the more freedom the ventriloquist has to move their lips, as the dummy will distract the viewer away from the ventriloquist. I have seen some amazing ventriloquists in 30 some years of watching stage comedy and recorded vaudeville, and the best have been the ones who can rapidly manage a variety of accents and characters, have entertaining props, and still keep their own mouths shut the whole time (unless they themselves are supposed to be speaking). Never have I seen one who could convincingly create the illusion that something off the stage was speaking.
Please tell me that you didn't think the ventriloquist's voice was actually emanating from the object doing the "talking."
How many times have you heard a distant noise and looked in the complete opposite direction trying to figure out where it was coming from. The more distance the more effect 'throwing' your voice can have.
Yeah, but if you want to stab someone, you surely aren't going to have a whole lot of distance between you and him
who says you have to use melee? shoot someone in the back when they arent facing you
Consider allowing it as a substitute for Bluff, which you can use to Feint, which allows you to Sneak Attack.
^ This. It sounds legit and since its not the actual spell doesn't have as much physics bending power as there's no magic involved so, IMO, that does make it balanced.