Deafened
The creature cannot hear. It is cut off from sound entirely, affecting its awareness, reflexes, and ability to cast spells with spoken words.
Effects
- –4 penalty on initiative checks — cannot hear the start of a fight or react to audible cues.
- Automatically fails Perception checks based on hearing.
- –4 penalty on opposed Perception checks (even non-hearing ones, representing general awareness loss).
- 20% chance of spell failure when casting any spell with a verbal (V) component — the caster cannot modulate their voice correctly without being able to hear themselves.
- Cannot hear speech, whispered commands, or auditory signals (horns, bells, shouted warnings).
Spell failure vs. silent spell.
The 20% chance applies to spells with a verbal component cast by the deafened creature.
The Silent Spell metamagic feat removes verbal components entirely, bypassing
this failure chance — but increases the spell's effective level by 1.
Ending the Condition
- Magical deafness (e.g., from blindness/deafness) is removed by remove blindness/deafness or dispel magic.
- Temporary deafness from a duration-based effect ends when the duration expires.
- Heal and greater restoration remove ongoing deafness.
Related Conditions
- Blinded — the sight equivalent; often paired with deafened by the blindness/deafness spell.
Common Sources
The blindness/deafness spell; shout and greater shout on a failed save; sound burst; certain sonic monster attacks; the Deafening Critical feat; proximity to extremely loud magical effects. Deafness is not a mind-affecting condition — creatures immune to mind-affecting magic are not automatically immune to deafness.