Silence and Blindsight

[sabres]

I have a 12lvl Gnome Druid with the blindsight feat. The creatures we were fighting against had a silence arrow. I don't remember the name of the item, but when activated the arrow causes silence in a 15' radius.

It was decided that because the creature was invisible and activated the arrow and was 60' away from me, I could not see him with my blindsight. It was also decided I could not discern where the area of silence was either, because it disrupted my blindsight. I felt that I should be able to tell the approximate area, cause the silence would disrupt my blindsight in that area.

Any thoughts

 

[Spatula]

Well I guess it depends on how you think the druidic Blindsight feat & the Silence spell work. The main requirement for the feat is the ability to wildshape into a dire bat, which implies that the blindsight is a sonar-like ability. Sonar works by emitting high-frequency sonic wavelengths that hit solid objects and rebound towards the source (i.e. you). It's possible to "see" the object only by measuring the "shape" of the rebounded wavelenths.

If the Silence spell absorbs sound (that is, sonic wavelengths enter and simply disappear), a Silenced area would probably just appear to be full of nothing to sonar.

An area of nothing, though, could be telling in its own right if your other senses, such as sight, can see object where your blindsight is telling you nothing exists. You wouldn't be able to really see the silenced area itself as much as figure out spots that are covered by the spell, though.

 

[Staffan]

Since Silence is a sphere, one should at least be able to detect where it intersects with the ground.

 

[kreynolds]

It was also decided I could not discern where the area of silence was either, because it disrupted my blindsight. I felt that I should be able to tell the approximate area, cause the silence would disrupt my blindsight in that area.

I don't agree with this at all. Blindsight, like normal sight, is based off of sensory input. If an area denies you sensory input, you'll know. You should be able to "map out" the area in which your blindsight is not functioning. A bat outside the area of effect would "see" an area of silence, simply because the area around the silence spell would be visible to the bat like normal, but the silenced area itself would basically be invisible to it. It would be a void within an area that the bat could see.

 

[Ferret]

What he said.

 

[andargor]

I guess the best analogy would be that a Silence to BlindSight is what Darkness is to normal sight.

You can't "see" anything while inside, but if you step out, you can "see" the affected area.

Andargor

 

[Taloras]

This question is coming up more and more often lately. my dwarven sorceror has the 3rd level spell Blindsight, and if we are going into magical darkness, he puts it on the main ppl in the party. Our DM ruled that you sensed something wierd in that area...as if theres nothing there, you sense around it, but nothing else.

 

[niteshade6]

Well silence certainly does not negate normal blindsight. It is worth noting though that a direbat's blindsight is negated by a silence spell, this is clearly indicated in the MM. Thus it would be quite reasonable to argue that the druid blindsight ability would be negated by silence too, since it strongly implies that it is based off of the bat's blindsight.

Any other form of non bat blingsight though would not be negated unless it also had an exception like the bat does.

 

[Ravellion]

This question is coming up more and more often lately. my dwarven sorceror has the 3rd level spell Blindsight, and if we are going into magical darkness, he puts it on the main ppl in the party. Our DM ruled that you sensed something wierd in that area...as if theres nothing there, you sense around it, but nothing else.

From what source is that spell if I may ask?

Rav

 

[Belares]

I believe the spell is Blindsight 3Wiz/3Sor in Magic of Faerun or one of those books of the ForgottenRealms . Another note how can the realms be forgotten when they are the most prevalent of all campains in the DnD world?