When a shout spell is cast, the wizard gives himself tremendous vocal powers. The caster can emit an ear-splitting noise that has a principal effect in a cone shape radiating from his mouth to a point 10 (+4 per rank) feet away. The diameter of the cone is always 10 feet wide.. Any creature within this area is deafened for 2d6 rounds and suffers 4d6 points of damage. A successful saving throw vs. spell negates the deafness and reduces the damage by half. Any exposed brittle or crystal substance subject to sonic vibrations is shattered by a shout, while those brittle objects in the possession of a creature receive the creature's saving throw. Deafened creatures suffer a -1 penalty to surprise rolls, and spell casters suffer a -20 to cast chances (20% chance of failure for cleric spells that have a verbal component).
Creatures made of brittle materials suffer double damage. This includes skeletons, gargoyles, stone golems and clay golems (but not iron or flesh golems).
The shout spell cannot penetrate a silence field such as that created by the cleric spell, Silence, 10’ radius. This spell can be employed only once per day; otherwise, the caster might permanently deafen himself. |