What makes you think that the spell makes sound that the target can hear? The vast majority of potential sounds are in ranges that humans (and presumably other fantasy races) can't hear.
I'm gonna blow your mind with this one, but... if you can't hear it, it's not a sound :)
I was having a little fun with the old "If a tree falls in the forest..." thought experiment.
But no, the deafened condition does not make someone immune to thunder damage while the Silence spell does. So it seems pretty clear that any spell that produces thunder damage produces sound as well. I would say this puts the responsibility on the DM to decide whether a given spell produces enough sound for someone in a given situation to hear it. I have ruled in past sessions that Toll the Dead makes a loud enough sound that someone in the next room came in to investigate.
Trying to be quiet 2d6 x 5 feet Normal noise level 2d6 x 10 feet Very loud 2d6 x 50 feet
I'd suspect normal noise level being a normal combat noise level
Given that, thunderclap specifically says "You create a burst of thunderous sound that can be heard up to 100 feet away." which is 83% of the top end of normal noise levels.
As booming blade doesn't specify, I'd have to assume it's in the average range for normal noise level, which would be easily perceptible out to 60 feet, which can be the next room.
Trying to be quiet 2d6 x 5 feet Normal noise level 2d6 x 10 feet Very loud 2d6 x 50 feet
I'd suspect normal noise level being a normal combat noise level
Given that, thunderclap specifically says "You create a burst of thunderous sound that can be heard up to 100 feet away." which is 83% of the top end of normal noise levels.
As booming blade doesn't specify, I'd have to assume it's in the average range for normal noise level, which would be easily perceptible out to 60 feet, which can be the next room.
Yeah that looks like quite a disconnect... "a burst of thunderous sound that can be heard up to 100 feet away" sounds nowhere near "normal noise level": more like what should be in the top half of "very loud". I suspect the offending datum is Thunderclap being able to be heard "merely" 100' away. It was probably meant to be a much larger range.
What makes you think that the spell makes sound that the target can hear? The vast majority of potential sounds are in ranges that humans (and presumably other fantasy races) can't hear.
I'm gonna blow your mind with this one, but... if you can't hear it, it's not a sound :)
Many animals can hear things outside the range that humans can
You could just not be locally present
Sound isn't the vibrations in the air, sound is the interpretation of those vibrations by brains. :) There's no sound 'out there', just vibrations. It's true something else might be interpreting those vibrations--there might be a sound in the dog's mind next to you, and not one in your mind, but there's no sound 'in the air'. (The alternative interpretation is that the vibration is the sound, which makes pretty much all motion sound in the end, which seems like a reductio.)
So if a spell produces a sound, I'm going to rule as a DM that it's an audible sound to the PCs, as opposed to a sound audible to the birds nearby :)
Is it sound if I am deaf, but I feel it in my chest? :P
Nope. If someone taps you gently on the toe and you feel it but don't hear it, is it 'sound'? It's just a vibration, motion in the object, just like your chest :)
That's a pedantic distinction to make. The rules are written in everyday English and in casual conversation people understand sound to be the vibrations themselves, not the sensation your sense of hearing produces.
That's a pedantic distinction to make. The rules are written in everyday English and in casual conversation people understand sound to be the vibrations themselves, not the sensation your sense of hearing produces.
I think people think of sound as vibrations, right up until the point that they don't. There's a leaf gently blowing on the end of that branch--does it make a sound? Because it sure makes vibrations in the air.
It's not a pedantic point for that simple reason--that 'sound=vibrations' only works right up until the point where it doesn't, and then you have to make the distinction. What people have in casual conversation is a typical sort of cognitive dissonance about the issue. Sound is casually identical to vibrations in some cases and casually not identical to vibrations in other cases. It's when you start bumping up against the dividing line that you start having problems. And that happens in things like RPGs quite a lot.
Take the Silence spell. No sound can be created in or pass through a 20' radius sphere. Ok. Now let's say for argument's sake that 'Sound=Vibrations', and not the perception of those vibrations.
So do vibrations in air, or any medium, started on one side of that barrier pass through the barrier? If sound=vibrations, then no, they don't.
So if you're inside the area of effect standing on a wooden floor, and I drop a heavy object onto that wooden floor outside the area of effect, you will not feel that through the floor? Because sound=vibrations, and sound cannot pass through the AoE?
You certainly won't hear it through your ears.
But if we identify sound with vibrations and we say yes above to this question: Is it sound if I am deaf, but I feel it in my chest? :P
Then the feeling in your chest is sound.
So then the feeling in your feet when I drop the object would be sound.
So by RAW of the spell, you will not feel it through the floor when I drop the heavy object.
So now we are mandating that the silence spell stops all vibrations from traveling through the sphere.
If you inside the silence spell hold one end of a rope, and I hold the other outside of the AoE, and I start shaking that rope...
The vibrations in the rope will stop at the edge of the spell. The rope will just stop waving around right at the edge of the 20' radius. Because that's a vibration, and vibrations get stopped.
So the rope will literally be frozen in the air.
If I ring a tuning fork, and stick it into the AoE of the spell, it will actually stop vibrating. The silence spell is now affecting motion.
If there's an earthquake, and the entire ground for a square mile starts to vibrate--Silence spell stops that inside the radius.
How then can anything actually move in the AoE of a silence spell? Because all vibration is just motion, right? And if sound=vibration, then sound=motion.
If you want to say that sound is just vibration in the air, specifically air, then you can't have sound underwater, which flies in the face of what people think of as facts about sound too.
So if you just put an = between 'vibrations' and 'sound', you fairly quickly will spiral down into Silence being equivalent to a Time Stop spell. You would be stopping all vibrations in matter inside the AoE.
But the practical way that people will think of the spell is not that Silence stops vibrations. The earthquake will still throw you off your feet, the tuning fork will still be vibrating. We just think of what happens as Silence stopping you from hearing those vibrations :) We interpret the Silence spell in the end as the spell stopping your brain from perceiving those vibrations as sound. Thus, sound =/= vibrations.
I think it's a mistake to try to apply real world physics to in-game matters, especially spells. Any attempt to describe the Silence spell using real world physics will either fail, or just get way too ridiculously complicated to be of any use.
Also, I believe "sound" refers to the propagation of vibrations (i.e. a pressure wave), not the effect they have on your eardrums. The fact that someone touching your toe isn't something you can hear doesn't mean there's nothing there to hear, it just means that frequency is outside your audible range.
I think it's a mistake to try to apply real world physics to in-game matters, especially spells. Any attempt to describe the Silence spell using real world physics will either fail, or just get way too ridiculously complicated to be of any use.
Also, I believe "sound" refers to the propagation of vibrations (i.e. a pressure wave), not the effect they have on your eardrums. The fact that someone touching your toe isn't something you can hear doesn't mean there's nothing there to hear, it just means that frequency is outside your audible range.
You could say that Silence only affects things in the general 'PC-race' range of hearing. And then have to decide whether that extends to animals that hear outside of that range.
But that doesn't settle the question. Does the Silence spell negate the vibrations, or the hearingof the vibrations? If you cast the spell, and then stood in front of the D&D equivalent of a stack of concert speakers at an AC/DC show, would you still feel the vibrations from the music, but not hear the music? That would seem like the way the spell should be interpreted. That means that the sound is not the vibrations, it's the hearing of the vibrations.
Again, if you say that sound is the vibrations (or their propagation), then Silence would prevent those vibrations. You wouldn't feel those vibrations from the speaker in your body, and in fact the speaker wouldn't even vibrate at all. And now you've got a truly slippery slope to what vibrations--and what physical motion--would actually be allowed. You will end up having to draw an arbitrary line at what vibrations occur inside the AoE.
Or...you say that sound is the hearing of the vibrations. Inside a Silence spell, I can pound my sword on my shield, and the shield will still vibrate. Waves of motion will still pass through the shield and the sword, I'll feel it rattle on my arm, and in my hand. The Silence spell wouldn't stop those things from happening. I just wouldn't hear it, because the sound of the vibrations is negated. Not the vibrations themselves.
I know this started as a joke, but it's actually a fairly important point. If you go with sound=vibrations, you have to make arbitrary cutoffs, and you will even end up contradicting yourself. Because you will want vibrations to travel through media inside the AoE of Silence. And in effect, you'd be saying "sound is vibrations, and Silence cancels sound, but it doesn't cancel vibrations." And that's just nonsensical.
The simple solution, which doesn't affect anything else you'd like to do with sound in the game, and in fact most closely corresponds with how a spell like Silence works (and why Thunder damage is different from Bludgeoning damage) is to just recognize that sound is the hearing, the perceiving, of vibrations. There's no reason in fact not to recognize that.
For the Duration, no sound can be created within or pass through a 20-foot-radius Sphere centered on a point you choose within range. Any creature or object entirely inside the Sphere is immune to thunder damage, and creatures are Deafenedwhile entirely inside it. Casting a Spell that includes a verbal component is impossible there.
I put this here because it includes immunity to thunder damage. This would clearly affect spells that provide thunder damage but would not affect weapons or other non spell effects that produce thunder damage unless there was a distinction in the minds of the rule makers. It doesn't have to be a clear distinction or a well thought out distinction but the is one. I don't recall if there are any effects besides spell effects that create thunder damage. If there isn't, it leaves the door open to have that be a weak point of thunder damage, that it can be cancelled out by a silence spell. Otherwise, it's a throw away phrase that is tacked on for no apparent reason other than being able to prevent thunder damage by casting silence on either the target of a thunder spell or the caster of the thunder spell.
Therefore, there is something about thunder damage that silence prevents that damage. Maybe it's something about preserving more simplistic rules to make the game more enjoyable. Maybe it's something else. Maybe there's something inherent about magic that causes magical thunder to only be heard at 3 the damage radius of feet away. Maybe it's just something inherent about the rules to keep the game from requiring more tools in order to play it at its simplest form (theater of the mind).
For the Duration, no sound can be created within or pass through a 20-foot-radius Sphere centered on a point you choose within range. Any creature or object entirely inside the Sphere is immune to thunder damage, and creatures are Deafenedwhile entirely inside it. Casting a Spell that includes a verbal component is impossible there.
I put this here because it includes immunity to thunder damage. This would clearly affect spells that provide thunder damage but would not affect weapons or other non spell effects that produce thunder damage unless there was a distinction in the minds of the rule makers. It doesn't have to be a clear distinction or a well thought out distinction but the is one. I don't recall if there are any effects besides spell effects that create thunder damage. If there isn't, it leaves the door open to have that be a weak point of thunder damage, that it can be cancelled out by a silence spell. Otherwise, it's a throw away phrase that is tacked on for no apparent reason other than being able to prevent thunder damage by casting silence on either the target of a thunder spell or the caster of the thunder spell.
Therefore, there is something about thunder damage that silence prevents that damage. Maybe it's something about preserving more simplistic rules to make the game more enjoyable. Maybe it's something else. Maybe there's something inherent about magic that causes magical thunder to only be heard at 3 the damage radius of feet away. Maybe it's just something inherent about the rules to keep the game from requiring more tools in order to play it at its simplest form (theater of the mind).
Given how I view sound, I have been interpreting Thunder damage up to now as 'hearing' damage. But it really is problematic, I think because there are multiple and conflicting uses of the notions of sound and vibration and such in the rules. For example:
The Shatter spell delivers Thunder damage via a "loud ringing noise". So a silence spell would negate that. But Shatter also affects non-living objects and creatures made of 'shatterable' materials like crystal and stone. So the noise in this case can't be just the 'perceived' part. Nonliving objects can't perceive. Point in favor of 'Sound=Vibrations'.
The Earthquake spell creates a "seismic disturbance", and "intense tremor". Seismic is just defined as a kind of a vibration, as is a tremor. But this spell is Bludgeoning damage, and the Silence spell won't help it. Point in favor of 'Sound =/= Vibrations'.
Dissonant Whispers causes Psychic damage (not affected by Silence) "that only one creature...can hear". But there's no requirement in the spell that the creature actually be able to hear. In fact, a Deafened creature only gets an automatic save vs the spell. Meaning a deaf creature will still suffer half damage from a spell called Dissonant Whispers. Meaning that being inside the AoE of Silence won't protect you from that half damage, and you are a legitimate target, RAW (because the spell doesn't say "one creature that can hear", it says "that only one creature can hear", unlike for example Compulsion or Vicious Mockery which specify the target as restricted to one that can hear you :/ ) Not sure what this is in favor of. Just a messily written bunch of spell interactions.
Destructive Wave causes Thunder damage andcan knock you prone. Separate effects. Does Silence prevent you from being knocked prone, by affecting the vibrations? Or does it just prevent you from hearing the sound, and the vibrations will still knock you prone if you don't save? If you can still be knocked prone (my reading of RAW), point in favor of 'Sound =/= Vibrations'.
Thunderous Smite deals thunder damage (negated by Silence) but also shoves the target away and knocks it prone on a failed save. Presumably Silence would not prevent the shoving and knocking prone? Another point for 'Sound =/= Vibrations'.
Thunderwave, same thing. There is Thunder damage and also forced movement from the spell. Silence--stopping all 'sound'--still leaves the movement, right? Sound =/= Vibrations.
So maybe it's not as one-sided in terms of RAW as I thought, just given Shatter's ability to damage objects, and that Silence would completely negate Shatter. But in all of these other uses, Silence is doing nothing to hinder vibrations at all, just the 'hearing' part of it.
One possible solution is to say something like this--the Silence spell both prevents you from hearing soundsandreduces vibrations in matter to non-damaging levels--to living things. So it wouldn't stop all vibrations, just 'harmful' ones. At least harmful ones to living things, because Earthquake can harm non-living things via vibrations.
My current diagnosis is that Thunder damage is problematic, and under-defined. And that as far as I can tell from just going through PHB spells, Shatter seems to be the only spell treating 'sound' as 'vibrations'. But it's there. :/ Would make a lot more sense maybe to rewrite Thunder damage as 'Sound' damage, and then change all of those thunder sort of spells (including shatter) to doing both Sound and Bludgeoning damage. Silence can cancel the Sound damage, but not the Bludgeoning.
(Test case! does a Silence spell keep Marty McFly from being blown across the room? :D)
Dissonant Whispers causes Psychic damage (not affected by Silence) "that only one creature...can hear". But there's no requirement in the spell that the creature actually be able to hear. In fact, a Deafened creature only gets an automatic save vs the spell. Meaning a deaf creature will still suffer half damage from a spell called Dissonant Whispers. Meaning that being inside the AoE of Silence won't protect you from that half damage, and you are a legitimate target, RAW (because the spell doesn't say "one creature that can hear", it says "that only one creature can hear", unlike for example Compulsion or Vicious Mockery which specify the target as restricted to one that can hear you :/ ) Not sure what this is in favor of. Just a messily written bunch of spell interactions.
I believe the intent of Dissonant Whispers is that the voice(s) heard are not aloud, but are in fact in the target's mind. They are telepathic in nature. This would track with the range of the spell (60 ft) vs the description of the action it is describing (a whisper). I don't know about you, but I can barely perceive someone whispering 60 feet away in a dead quiet room, let alone what they are actually saying (though that may not be the point). The telepathic nature of the effect is then further reinforced by the verbiage about "that only one creature can hear" -- if multiple creatures are within the range, only the single creature that was targeted can hear it. And finally, the damage type itself is Psychic, underscoring the telepathic nature of the attack.
Where it gets muddled is the automatically passed save if the target is Deafened (ie within the field of an existing Silence effect). This suggests that, at least in part, the ability to hear is important to the spell. Which plays into the effect from failing a save. On failing the save, the target must move away from the caster, implying that whatever the target can hear (telepathic, audible, otherwise) as a result of the spell must really, really freak them out. When passing the save, though, nothing further happens. This would suggest that the ability to hear is different than simply processing vibrations through a medium, otherwise being Deafened would have no effect on a message that is telepathic in nature.
That said, it doesn't seem we can just say "it's telepathy!" and be done with it, because the hearing or not hearing factor of Dissonant Whispers doesn't seem consistent with other telepathic spell effects (although it appears to be the only offensive one?). The other spells I found are Rary's Telepathic Bond/Telepathic Bond, Sending, and Telepathy. None of these spells have any failure clause if the target is Deafened. I suppose Psychic Scream would count as well, and is an offensive effect. It similarly has no failure clause, and also does not have an auto-pass on the saving through, if an affected target is Deafened.
This leaves us with an inconsistent picture of how telepathy, the ability to hear, Thunder damage, and sound, and how they relate to each other. Nevermind the interplay of effects affecting those things interact. It also appears to be an extremely niche edge-case. Perhaps this is something for that Sage Advice or whatever it is to take a look at and make an official ruling?
Dissonant Whispers causes Psychic damage (not affected by Silence) "that only one creature...can hear". But there's no requirement in the spell that the creature actually be able to hear. In fact, a Deafened creature only gets an automatic save vs the spell. Meaning a deaf creature will still suffer half damage from a spell called Dissonant Whispers. Meaning that being inside the AoE of Silence won't protect you from that half damage, and you are a legitimate target, RAW (because the spell doesn't say "one creature that can hear", it says "that only one creature can hear", unlike for example Compulsion or Vicious Mockery which specify the target as restricted to one that can hear you :/ ) Not sure what this is in favor of. Just a messily written bunch of spell interactions.
I believe the intent of Dissonant Whispers is that the voice(s) heard are not aloud, but are in fact in the target's mind. They are telepathic in nature. This would track with the range of the spell (60 ft) vs the description of the action it is describing (a whisper). I don't know about you, but I can barely perceive someone whispering 60 feet away in a dead quiet room, let alone what they are actually saying (though that may not be the point). The telepathic nature of the effect is then further reinforced by the verbiage about "that only one creature can hear" -- if multiple creatures are within the range, only the single creature that was targeted can hear it. And finally, the damage type itself is Psychic, underscoring the telepathic nature of the attack.
Where it gets muddled is the automatically passed save if the target is Deafened (ie within the field of an existing Silence effect). This suggests that, at least in part, the ability to hear is important to the spell. Which plays into the effect from failing a save. On failing the save, the target must move away from the caster, implying that whatever the target can hear (telepathic, audible, otherwise) as a result of the spell must really, really freak them out. When passing the save, though, nothing further happens. This would suggest that the ability to hear is different than simply processing vibrations through a medium, otherwise being Deafened would have no effect on a message that is telepathic in nature.
That said, it doesn't seem we can just say "it's telepathy!" and be done with it, because the hearing or not hearing factor of Dissonant Whispers doesn't seem consistent with other telepathic spell effects (although it appears to be the only offensive one?). The other spells I found are Rary's Telepathic Bond/Telepathic Bond, Sending, and Telepathy. None of these spells have any failure clause if the target is Deafened. I suppose Psychic Scream would count as well, and is an offensive effect. It similarly has no failure clause, and also does not have an auto-pass on the saving through, if an affected target is Deafened.
This leaves us with an inconsistent picture of how telepathy, the ability to hear, Thunder damage, and sound, and how they relate to each other. Nevermind the interplay of effects affecting those things interact. It also appears to be an extremely niche edge-case. Perhaps this is something for that Sage Advice or whatever it is to take a look at and make an official ruling?
I totally agree with you, I don't see that as a nitpick at all :) I just didn't want to go further into that spell's mess in that other post. But you're right--it seems like totally psychic and not actually heard...until being deafened helps. Doh. At that point, I don't know how I'd rule that one. Maybe the spell is creating hallucinations, and they are somewhat mitigated if you know you can't hear, so you're maybe clued in somewhat to the fact that they are hallucinations? Eh. It's a mess. :)
Oh, I wasn't suggesting combat is silent
Thunder damage just isn't louder
all combat is silent? haha accept for the dice hitting the table
I'm gonna blow your mind with this one, but... if you can't hear it, it's not a sound :)
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Eh that's not true
You could be deaf
Many animals can hear things outside the range that humans can
You could just not be locally present
I was having a little fun with the old "If a tree falls in the forest..." thought experiment.
But no, the deafened condition does not make someone immune to thunder damage while the Silence spell does. So it seems pretty clear that any spell that produces thunder damage produces sound as well. I would say this puts the responsibility on the DM to decide whether a given spell produces enough sound for someone in a given situation to hear it. I have ruled in past sessions that Toll the Dead makes a loud enough sound that someone in the next room came in to investigate.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/dungeon-masters-screen
This resource indicates:
Trying to be quiet 2d6 x 5 feet
Normal noise level 2d6 x 10 feet
Very loud 2d6 x 50 feet
I'd suspect normal noise level being a normal combat noise level
Given that, thunderclap specifically says "You create a burst of thunderous sound that can be heard up to 100 feet away." which is 83% of the top end of normal noise levels.
As booming blade doesn't specify, I'd have to assume it's in the average range for normal noise level, which would be easily perceptible out to 60 feet, which can be the next room.
Yeah that looks like quite a disconnect... "a burst of thunderous sound that can be heard up to 100 feet away" sounds nowhere near "normal noise level": more like what should be in the top half of "very loud". I suspect the offending datum is Thunderclap being able to be heard "merely" 100' away. It was probably meant to be a much larger range.
Maybe thunderclap goes off at the volume my speaker puts out when I'm trying to fall asleep to the Relaxing Rainfall meditation music.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Yep. The loudest spell in D&D isn't even as loud as a normal human speaking voice. :)
Sound isn't the vibrations in the air, sound is the interpretation of those vibrations by brains. :) There's no sound 'out there', just vibrations. It's true something else might be interpreting those vibrations--there might be a sound in the dog's mind next to you, and not one in your mind, but there's no sound 'in the air'. (The alternative interpretation is that the vibration is the sound, which makes pretty much all motion sound in the end, which seems like a reductio.)
So if a spell produces a sound, I'm going to rule as a DM that it's an audible sound to the PCs, as opposed to a sound audible to the birds nearby :)
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Is it sound if I am deaf, but I feel it in my chest? :P
Nope. If someone taps you gently on the toe and you feel it but don't hear it, is it 'sound'? It's just a vibration, motion in the object, just like your chest :)
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
That's a pedantic distinction to make. The rules are written in everyday English and in casual conversation people understand sound to be the vibrations themselves, not the sensation your sense of hearing produces.
I think people think of sound as vibrations, right up until the point that they don't. There's a leaf gently blowing on the end of that branch--does it make a sound? Because it sure makes vibrations in the air.
It's not a pedantic point for that simple reason--that 'sound=vibrations' only works right up until the point where it doesn't, and then you have to make the distinction. What people have in casual conversation is a typical sort of cognitive dissonance about the issue. Sound is casually identical to vibrations in some cases and casually not identical to vibrations in other cases. It's when you start bumping up against the dividing line that you start having problems. And that happens in things like RPGs quite a lot.
Take the Silence spell. No sound can be created in or pass through a 20' radius sphere. Ok. Now let's say for argument's sake that 'Sound=Vibrations', and not the perception of those vibrations.
So if you just put an = between 'vibrations' and 'sound', you fairly quickly will spiral down into Silence being equivalent to a Time Stop spell. You would be stopping all vibrations in matter inside the AoE.
But the practical way that people will think of the spell is not that Silence stops vibrations. The earthquake will still throw you off your feet, the tuning fork will still be vibrating. We just think of what happens as Silence stopping you from hearing those vibrations :) We interpret the Silence spell in the end as the spell stopping your brain from perceiving those vibrations as sound. Thus, sound =/= vibrations.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
I think it's a mistake to try to apply real world physics to in-game matters, especially spells. Any attempt to describe the Silence spell using real world physics will either fail, or just get way too ridiculously complicated to be of any use.
Also, I believe "sound" refers to the propagation of vibrations (i.e. a pressure wave), not the effect they have on your eardrums. The fact that someone touching your toe isn't something you can hear doesn't mean there's nothing there to hear, it just means that frequency is outside your audible range.
I really regret making that joke to begin with.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
You could say that Silence only affects things in the general 'PC-race' range of hearing. And then have to decide whether that extends to animals that hear outside of that range.
But that doesn't settle the question. Does the Silence spell negate the vibrations, or the hearing of the vibrations? If you cast the spell, and then stood in front of the D&D equivalent of a stack of concert speakers at an AC/DC show, would you still feel the vibrations from the music, but not hear the music? That would seem like the way the spell should be interpreted. That means that the sound is not the vibrations, it's the hearing of the vibrations.
Again, if you say that sound is the vibrations (or their propagation), then Silence would prevent those vibrations. You wouldn't feel those vibrations from the speaker in your body, and in fact the speaker wouldn't even vibrate at all. And now you've got a truly slippery slope to what vibrations--and what physical motion--would actually be allowed. You will end up having to draw an arbitrary line at what vibrations occur inside the AoE.
Or...you say that sound is the hearing of the vibrations. Inside a Silence spell, I can pound my sword on my shield, and the shield will still vibrate. Waves of motion will still pass through the shield and the sword, I'll feel it rattle on my arm, and in my hand. The Silence spell wouldn't stop those things from happening. I just wouldn't hear it, because the sound of the vibrations is negated. Not the vibrations themselves.
I know this started as a joke, but it's actually a fairly important point. If you go with sound=vibrations, you have to make arbitrary cutoffs, and you will even end up contradicting yourself. Because you will want vibrations to travel through media inside the AoE of Silence. And in effect, you'd be saying "sound is vibrations, and Silence cancels sound, but it doesn't cancel vibrations." And that's just nonsensical.
The simple solution, which doesn't affect anything else you'd like to do with sound in the game, and in fact most closely corresponds with how a spell like Silence works (and why Thunder damage is different from Bludgeoning damage) is to just recognize that sound is the hearing, the perceiving, of vibrations. There's no reason in fact not to recognize that.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Silence
For the Duration, no sound can be created within or pass through a 20-foot-radius Sphere centered on a point you choose within range. Any creature or object entirely inside the Sphere is immune to thunder damage, and creatures are Deafenedwhile entirely inside it. Casting a Spell that includes a verbal component is impossible there.
I put this here because it includes immunity to thunder damage. This would clearly affect spells that provide thunder damage but would not affect weapons or other non spell effects that produce thunder damage unless there was a distinction in the minds of the rule makers. It doesn't have to be a clear distinction or a well thought out distinction but the is one. I don't recall if there are any effects besides spell effects that create thunder damage. If there isn't, it leaves the door open to have that be a weak point of thunder damage, that it can be cancelled out by a silence spell. Otherwise, it's a throw away phrase that is tacked on for no apparent reason other than being able to prevent thunder damage by casting silence on either the target of a thunder spell or the caster of the thunder spell.
Therefore, there is something about thunder damage that silence prevents that damage. Maybe it's something about preserving more simplistic rules to make the game more enjoyable. Maybe it's something else. Maybe there's something inherent about magic that causes magical thunder to only be heard at 3 the damage radius of feet away. Maybe it's just something inherent about the rules to keep the game from requiring more tools in order to play it at its simplest form (theater of the mind).
Given how I view sound, I have been interpreting Thunder damage up to now as 'hearing' damage. But it really is problematic, I think because there are multiple and conflicting uses of the notions of sound and vibration and such in the rules. For example:
So maybe it's not as one-sided in terms of RAW as I thought, just given Shatter's ability to damage objects, and that Silence would completely negate Shatter. But in all of these other uses, Silence is doing nothing to hinder vibrations at all, just the 'hearing' part of it.
One possible solution is to say something like this--the Silence spell both prevents you from hearing sounds and reduces vibrations in matter to non-damaging levels--to living things. So it wouldn't stop all vibrations, just 'harmful' ones. At least harmful ones to living things, because Earthquake can harm non-living things via vibrations.
My current diagnosis is that Thunder damage is problematic, and under-defined. And that as far as I can tell from just going through PHB spells, Shatter seems to be the only spell treating 'sound' as 'vibrations'. But it's there. :/ Would make a lot more sense maybe to rewrite Thunder damage as 'Sound' damage, and then change all of those thunder sort of spells (including shatter) to doing both Sound and Bludgeoning damage. Silence can cancel the Sound damage, but not the Bludgeoning.
(Test case! does a Silence spell keep Marty McFly from being blown across the room? :D)
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
@Brotherbock -- I have a nitpick.
I believe the intent of Dissonant Whispers is that the voice(s) heard are not aloud, but are in fact in the target's mind. They are telepathic in nature. This would track with the range of the spell (60 ft) vs the description of the action it is describing (a whisper). I don't know about you, but I can barely perceive someone whispering 60 feet away in a dead quiet room, let alone what they are actually saying (though that may not be the point). The telepathic nature of the effect is then further reinforced by the verbiage about "that only one creature can hear" -- if multiple creatures are within the range, only the single creature that was targeted can hear it. And finally, the damage type itself is Psychic, underscoring the telepathic nature of the attack.
Where it gets muddled is the automatically passed save if the target is Deafened (ie within the field of an existing Silence effect). This suggests that, at least in part, the ability to hear is important to the spell. Which plays into the effect from failing a save. On failing the save, the target must move away from the caster, implying that whatever the target can hear (telepathic, audible, otherwise) as a result of the spell must really, really freak them out. When passing the save, though, nothing further happens. This would suggest that the ability to hear is different than simply processing vibrations through a medium, otherwise being Deafened would have no effect on a message that is telepathic in nature.
That said, it doesn't seem we can just say "it's telepathy!" and be done with it, because the hearing or not hearing factor of Dissonant Whispers doesn't seem consistent with other telepathic spell effects (although it appears to be the only offensive one?). The other spells I found are Rary's Telepathic Bond/Telepathic Bond, Sending, and Telepathy. None of these spells have any failure clause if the target is Deafened. I suppose Psychic Scream would count as well, and is an offensive effect. It similarly has no failure clause, and also does not have an auto-pass on the saving through, if an affected target is Deafened.
This leaves us with an inconsistent picture of how telepathy, the ability to hear, Thunder damage, and sound, and how they relate to each other. Nevermind the interplay of effects affecting those things interact. It also appears to be an extremely niche edge-case. Perhaps this is something for that Sage Advice or whatever it is to take a look at and make an official ruling?
I totally agree with you, I don't see that as a nitpick at all :) I just didn't want to go further into that spell's mess in that other post. But you're right--it seems like totally psychic and not actually heard...until being deafened helps. Doh. At that point, I don't know how I'd rule that one. Maybe the spell is creating hallucinations, and they are somewhat mitigated if you know you can't hear, so you're maybe clued in somewhat to the fact that they are hallucinations? Eh. It's a mess. :)
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)