ElectricDragon said:
Previous paragraphs in the spell description of the Blasphemy spell talked about other effects, no mention of whether hearing applies or not. But this paragraph (only) says: "This effect takes place regardless of whether the creatures hear the blasphemy." You are taking that to mean the whole spell.
No, I'm not. I'm saying that it wasn't actually necessary.
In 3E, there were two sections.
"Creatures who hear the Blasphemy suffer the following ill effects" and "Dismissal... this effect takes place regardless of whether the creatures hear the Blasphemy."
The line was necessary to distinguish the fact that not-hearing protected you from the one, but not from the other.
In 3.5, they've removed the "creatures that hear" condition from the first set of effects. But they didn't bother to change the wording of the latter half of the spell. It's still true, but it's actually unnecessary now.
The dazed, weakened etc effects apply to a deaf creature because it
doesn't say they don't, like it did in 3E. The Dismissal effect applies because it explicitly say so... but if they left that sentence out, it would still apply.
If the spell had been completely written from scratch for 3.5, the line would likely not have been in there. It's an artefact of the revision.
Greater Shout makes no mention of deaf creatures, but also does not mention silence protecting from its damage (you added that).
Greater Shout is "As the Shout spell, except". Read Shout.
It also does not state whether it breaks a silence or not (let's see: 8th level attack versus 2nd level defense, hmmm).
You mean like Dominate Monster (9th level attack) vs Protection from Evil (1st level defence)?
Common sense would let the Greater Shout blast through the silence, dispelling it, and affect those inside.
I'd think common sense would require reading where the spell specifically cannot penetrate Silence first
P.S. Errata doesn't cover typos? I seem to remember Sword and Fist having a lot of typos errata'ed.
The 3.5 PHB errata are a pitiful effort that don't even scratch the surface
For most of it, they've basically said "You guys figure it out."
-Hyp.