Revised: If there was Darkness

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What would happen to the light passing through a Darkness spell?

A. It would act like a filter and light would be shadowy on the other side of the darkness
2
20%
B. Light would return to normal on the other side of the darkness
1
10%
C. Light would not be able to pass through the Darkness spell at all.
5
50%
D. I have no idea what Wizards intended - let the DM decide.
2
20%
 
Total votes: 10

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Revised: If there was Darkness

Post by dorpond »

[Revised to include another vote option]

This thread is more for opinions. This may or may not be a feature down the road but my goal is to get the details worked out now the best we can just in case.

I was thinking about how we all want layers and FoW removal when light comes into view. That led me into thinking how cool it would be to have spell effects like Darkness that we could drop down on the map and it would automatically "dim the lights" in that area.

So this is the question at hand and there is no real answer for it. It is more of a GM's choice on how rules like this should be handled. I guess I would like to know how YOU would like Maptools to handle it.

OK, Here we go:
Map created by Benwax:
http://www.dundjinni.com/forums/forum_p ... giant+king

If someone was to shine a bullseye through a darkness spell, would it act like a filter and dim the light passing outside of the darkness spell or would light act normally after passing through it? Perhaps the light won't pass through at all and is blocked by the darkness? This is magic we are talking about and none of us are experts in that field in the real world so it is complete interpretation.

Answer A:
Image


Answer B:
Image

Answer C::
Image

Darkness Per SRD:
This spell causes an object to radiate shadowy illumination out to a 20-foot radius. All creatures in the area gain concealment (20% miss chance). Even creatures that can normally see in such conditions (such as with darkvision or low-light vision) have the miss chance in an area shrouded in magical darkness.

Normal lights (torches, candles, lanterns, and so forth) are incapable of brightening the area, as are light spells of lower level. Higher level light spells are not affected by darkness.

If darkness is cast on a small object that is then placed inside or under a lightproof covering, the spell’s effect is blocked until the covering is removed.

Darkness counters or dispels any light spell of equal or lower spell level.


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Post by dorpond »

Food for thought using the same rules as in the vote but with circular light:

Example 1

Image

Example 2

Image

Example 3 (edit: Ignore the color differences)

Image

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Post by dorpond »

Now while inside the darkness:

In these examples, what would we get if the girl with the light was inside the darkness effect?

Example 4:
Image

Example 5:
Image

Example 6:
Image

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Vry
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Post by Vry »

Maybe you should write in to Sage Advice about this and get an official response as to what they intended? [email protected]

I'm inclined to think Answer B based on the first set of images.

I seem to remember something about it negating light and then continuing on after, but haven't dug through books to see where that was from, or if I'm even remembering it right, yet.

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Post by dorpond »

Vry wrote:Maybe you should write in to Sage Advice about this and get an official response as to what they intended? [email protected]
I have posted this several times on Wizards and written the Sage about 6 times over the last couple years on it.. No Answer from the Sage.

This is the first time I actually used visuals though.

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Post by trevor »

I'd chime in, but this is way outside my knowledge base :P
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Post by Vry »

Here's another interesting little bit from the SRD.
In an area of shadowy illumination, a character can see dimly. Creatures within this area have concealment relative to that character. A creature in an area of shadowy illumination can make a Hide check to conceal itself.

In areas of darkness, creatures without darkvision are effectively blinded. In addition to the obvious effects, a blinded creature has a 50% miss chance in combat (all opponents have total concealment), loses any Dexterity bonus to AC, takes a –2 penalty to AC, moves at half speed, and takes a –4 penalty on Search checks and most Strength and Dexterity-based skill checks.
So the darkness spell doesn't make a darkness condition. Why don't they rename it shadowy illumination then? :P

The description of the darkness spell blotting out normal lights seems to describe a darkness condition more than shadowy illumination.

Given all of this, I'd probably rule to screw the 3.5e description of the spell and stick with the 3.0e one that said darkness creates darkness.

Of course that doesn't solve anything for this question...

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Post by dorpond »

That seems to be a common argument on-line. Some say that if you cast darkness in the dark, it will create light while people like me say they are out of their minds if they think that is what Wizards intended.

The Darkness spell is Evocation [Darkness], NOT Evocation [Light] so that right there tells me it Dims and doesn't Create light.

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Post by Vry »

I just have to hope in 4th edition they look back through everything to make sure what they're saying is actually what they mean. Too much of 3.5e seems like they were changing things just to change things.

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Post by Steel Rat »

dorpond wrote:That seems to be a common argument on-line. Some say that if you cast darkness in the dark, it will create light while people like me say they are out of their minds if they think that is what Wizards intended.

The Darkness spell is Evocation [Darkness], NOT Evocation [Light] so that right there tells me it Dims and doesn't Create light.
They really shouldn't have said radiates and illumination then, because that's what light is. Of course there's no rhyme of reason for a lot of the stuff they do, like with firearms...
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Vry
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Post by Vry »

What might have been clearer is if they did it on a scale of states like NPC reactions. You have:
Ahh, My Eyes!<->Bright Light<->Shadowy Illumination<->Darkness<->Pitch Black

The darkness / light spells would move the affected area one space to the right or left respectively. Then the more powerful spells like deeper darkness and whatever the light one is would move two steps in their direction.

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Post by giliath »

I hate it when wizard's uses new terms that they don't define. Ambient light in particular is annoying in this case. In the dictionary, ambient is defined as "surrounding or encircling". How many torches does it take to make the light ambient? or is it only the sun/moon that makes light ambient? How about a algae that is phosphorescent, is that ambient light?
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Post by Phergus »

I've been resisting commenting on this because this is largely a DnD issue and I'm against putting behaviors into MapTool that are game system specific. (Like silly square grid AoE's)

In any case here is my take on the pseudo physics take on DnD light and darkness. Darkness spells, through magical means, act like clouds of inter-stellar dark matter which absorbs some amount of the photons entering the area which causes it to radiate in a spectrum not visible to normal beings. This effectively makes it dark for those who do see in the normal spectrum.

End BS pseudo-science.

From a MapTools perpspective I say that, if it were to support the concept of darkness areas, it would diminish any light passing through it by the amount that the darkness spell diminishes any light within it. Unless a darkness is complete, that is 100%, then some light must pass through it.

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