Impaired Speech

A wizard's ability to speak can be impaired as a result of disease, magic (such as a silence spell), or physical damage. A gagged wizard will also be unable to speak. No spell with a verbal component can be cast by a wizard with impaired speech; he must be able to enunciate each phrase or sound of a spell's verbal component clearly and distinctly for the spell to be successful. Ventriloquism cannot substitute for an impaired-speech wizard's voice when he attempts to speak a spell's verbal component; ventriloquism is useless to a speech-impaired wizard, since it is an extension of sounds the wizard is normally able to make.

Similarly, an impaired-speech wizard cannot use his familiar to speak verbal components, including those familiars capable of speech, since spells only operate if the wizard himself utters their verbal components.

However, an impaired-speech wizard can use the spell vocalize to allow him to cast spells that normally require a verbal component. Casting these spells must take place within the duration of the vocalize spell. (For more about vocalize, see Chapter 9. ) According to the Player's Handbook (Nicholes 85-86), the use of components is an optional rule. If components aren't used for spell casting in your campaign, it is assumed that the caster must be able to speak in order to cast any spell (see the first paragraph in the Casting Spells section on page 85 of the PH ). Vocalize can still help a speech-impaired wizard if the components rules are not in use; otherwise, all of the rules for speech-impaired wizards apply.

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