Just because there's classes that can self-cast the spell doesn't mean that there should be an easily available unlimited scripted item with little drawback that also self-casts the spell.
jreid wrote:
Any seasoned player knows that you can remove your own deafness by visiting a healer, buying vials to counter it or better yet obtain an unlimited amount of cure deafness vials from a certain low level area.
Yeah, and that's my point. There should be some actual cost incurred for using deafness to make yourself immune to the #1 danger of casters, and it shouldn't be a 1 plat scripted item that allows you to put on and remove deafness instantly. Also, what makes the earplugs OP isn't just that the deafness can be instantly removed (although that's a huge factor), but primarily that deafness can be -applied- by any class with virtually zero prep time. There's precious -few- items in the game that you can easily buy which apply deafness, and none of them are cheap or nearly as reliable.
Given that you can remove and equip them at will, the fact that these items take up a head slot is practically zero drawback for casters, which are the main classes that swashbucklers are useful against compared to their counterparts in mercs and barbarians. The only time where, as a caster, losing your head slot temporarily would matter would be in a circumstance where you're facing both a swashbuckler/bard and someone with a crossbow/bow, and even then it's still -infinitely- better to be untauntable and immune to bard songs than it is to take some extra damage from arrows or bolts. It's an awful point to say "Well it's a drawback to be deaf because you fail spells and orders." You know what makes spells and orders not only slower, but impossible? Songs of silence. You know what makes you release your charms and/or be unable to cast, zap, recite or brandish because of the INT penalty, and also is likely to get you killed? Being taunted. Yes, deafness has drawbacks, but as ardith has already mentioned, there's never a situation where if you knew you were going against a bard/sorc that you wouldn't deafen yourself if you could.
For all the buffs that swashbucklers have gotten to finally put them on somewhat of an even playing field with mercenaries, these items take away one of the few real "upper hands" they have over mercs and barbs. Please just remove the deafness script from them. They're neat flavor items, they shouldn't be able to provide a free pass against bards and swashbucklers to all back-rank classes.