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It just got killing me... better... the PCs...
The PCs went underground to explore the Old Crypt coming from area G5 and heading to G4. They found the half-asleep hell dogs, teasing them with magic missiles, just to alert the skeleton wolves joining the fray, that alerted the tieflings and Ostengo, preparing for battle.
One of the tieflings cast darkness - and everything went black, neutralizing the light spell and the sunrod lit. I'd enjoyed the panicked faces of my players, hushing whispered screams of "we're doomed", just as the tieflings with their darkvision put their sneak attacks where they hurt and taunting the "blind-folded" PCs.
As it happens to be, one of the PCs is a tiefling paladin - the only one who could pierce through the magical darkness. I made it a special appearance of Ostengo stumbling like a real mummy into the darkend hall, arms outstreched attacking the poor paladin, making him shaken through the corrupting touch bloodline ability after faking a "fear saving throw".
I know, I've a kind of "dark humor"
But to be honest, I was very relieved to see the PCs getting the upper hand and dispose of the tieflings.
They got me, after all, into luring the gambling tieflings in the church above into coming down to the Old Crypt obeying Ostengo's order. They mimicked the voice of Ostengo and one of the PCs posed as a "new tiefling Bastard member". You guess who...
Forgive me, but you didn't have greater darkeness. The light spell and the sun rod create normal light. Darkness moves the light down one level, turning normal light to dim light for 20 or 30 feet radius (longer than most places in here have a sight line).
As the darkness spells don't stack, casting repeated darkness would not make it darker....
The normal eyed pc's would have to make miss chances vs. the Teiflings, hounds and skeletons.
from the SRD:
In an area of dim light, a character can see somewhat. Creatures within this area have concealment (20% miss chance in combat) from those without darkvision or the ability to see in darkness. A creature within an area of dim light can make a Stealth check to conceal itself. Areas of dim light include outside at night with a moon in the sky, bright starlight, and the area between 20 and 40 feet from a torch.
The sunrod is a non magical source of light, and the light spell is a lower level spell than darkness, so they don't effect the light level when a darkness spell is active.
*Phew*! As I read the second-to-last post, for a short while I thought I've stumbled into the light-versus-darkness pitfall. Thanx for the clarification.
@sean: ;)
It's a very good reason to drop some gp on an everburning torch...Pulling wool off of eyes....
Rereading the darkness spell....
From what I'm reading, your torch is not very good there. Unless a Cleric cast the spell...
"Magical light sources only increase the light level in an area if they are of a higher spell level than darkness. "
And mage ConFlame is level 2 = same as Darkness.
(but Cleric Con Flame is level 3).
A really good analysis of how light and darkness spells work
That makes things really clear, thanks.
Now, the question is, if you consider it, the Sun is a Nonmagical Light Source. If you cast Darkness outside, what happens
I believe the intent of the rules, and what I will be going with, is whatever light provided by the sun is the base line any light or darkness spell changes. Otherwise you first need to decide what exactly the nature of heavenly bodies in your campaign is. Was the sun created by an omnipotent god? If so that sure sounds like magic to me. OK, so what level is it?