sovereign glue?
All we need is the magical/alchemical equivalent of duct tape. =)
I vote for a cantrip Cyanoacrylate Splash ;-)
As long is it can be case a million times per day it still defeats the need for torches and/or lanterns.
Oh indeed, God forbids mages from doing magic to not need a torch, woe the overpoweredness! WOE!
I'm going to hate myself for this, but "Lumos!"
Well, that's Harry Potter, which is a bit of a high-magic setting. But even in the Lord of the Rings, which is a pretty low-magic setting, Gandalf could make his staff glow. And it was still creepy, because they had no idea what was lurking beyond those feeble rays.
Even taking into account the 'shadowy' area where everything has concealment, Light only allows a human to see 40 feet. If you're the one carrying the light, that's not very far. Imagine standing at one end of your living room, and the living room is all you can see clearly. Even the kitchen (or the next room, if your house is laid out funny) is filled with uneven shadows. It's no different than a torch, only instead of a flickering yellow light you have a feeble, but steady, white light.
The trouble is when the caster decides to walk along the wall, casting light every round (Every 15 feet for a human at walking pace who is spending his standard actions casting), thus lighting up the whole area behind him.
I repeat my suggestion that Light be limited to one active spell at a time with a duration of ten minutes. This preserves the spell's usefulness to a spellcaster as a personal light source (a la Gandalf's staff or Harry's wand), while not allowing casters to go willy-nilly with it.
Of course, we don't want a potential class feature to be obsolesced by a torch (otherwise folks will just always take a different cantrip and carry torches.) I think that Light has a few advantages still:
Waterproof
Can't be blown out
Nonflammable (this is an issue with dropping torches down holes to see what's at the bottom. Sometimes you start fires.)
Quicker access (lighting a torch requires two hands and a full round action with a flint, or a standard action with an expensive tindertwig)
Retrievable (if you drop or throw a torch, you might not be able to pick it up/extinguish it. Recasting light will extinquish the old one.)
Compact (a torch occupies a hand. A light spell can be cast on something you were carrying anyway.)
I'm going to hate myself for this, but "Lumos!"
Well, that's Harry Potter, which is a bit of a high-magic setting. But even in the Lord of the Rings, which is a pretty low-magic setting, Gandalf could make his staff glow. And it was still creepy, because they had no idea what was lurking beyond those feeble rays.
That's just it; I don't mind having a single light source that you can turn on and off all day (like you might have in a fantasy novel), it's casting the same spell a zillion times in a row in a zillion different places.
Imagine Harry Potter:
"Lumos!" Harry cried, walking forward another thirty feet. "Lumos!" He walked forward another thirty feet. "Lumos --" thirty more feet "Lumos --" thirty more feet "Lumos --" he came to a T intersection "Lumos, Lumos, Lumos..."
That's just it; I don't mind having a single light source that you can turn on and off all day (like you might have in a fantasy novel), it's casting the same spell a zillion times in a row in a zillion different places.
Imagine Harry Potter:
"Lumos!" Harry cried, walking forward another thirty feet. "Lumos!" He walked forward another thirty feet. "Lumos --" thirty more feet "Lumos --" thirty more feet "Lumos --" he came to a T intersection "Lumos, Lumos, Lumos..."
The trouble is when the caster decides to walk along the wall, casting light every round (Every 15 feet for a human at walking pace who is spending his standard actions casting), thus lighting up the whole area behind him.
A spell point system takes care of that.
A spell point system isn't D&D and isn't happening in pathfinder. The powers that be have already stated as much.
A spell point system takes care of that.
A spell point system does an even worse job of dealing with cantrips, since they don't fit into the framework very well.
And yeah, that isn't going to happen anyway.
If darkness would affect non-magical light sources and light from lower level spells (i.e., dancing lights, light; possibly even continual flame, although reducing the illumination to just a 5 ft radius might work), that would be better. Also, deeper darkness should affect darkvision, even if darkness doesn't.Over in the Darkness thread, Jason Bulmahn has stated that these changes are already in the works.
Areas of continuous darkness and deeper darkness (via enchanted items at 2x3x2000x2=24,000gp and 3x5x2000x1.5=45,000gp or "permanent effects" by GM fiat) will help rein in the overabundance/usefulness of magical light.
I'm actually surprised, because I thought it already worked like this. I guess I'm remembering 3.0e? 2e?
This would actually go a long way towards the "removing access to proper tools" thing.
This was bugging me, so I looked it up.
From the 3.0 SRD (That's three point zero, not 3.5).
This spell causes an object to radiate darkness out to a 20-
foot radius.
Not even creatures who can normally see in the dark (such
as with darkvision) can see in an area shrouded in magical
darkness.
Normal lights (torches, candles, lanterns, and so forth) do
not work, nor do light spells of lower level (flare, light,
dancing lights).
Darkness and the 2nd-level arcane spell daylight cancel each
other, leaving whatever light conditions normally prevail
in the overlapping areas of the spells.
Higher-level light spells (such as the 3rd-level cleric spell
daylight) are not affected by darkness.
If the spell is cast on a small object that is then placed
inside or under a lightproof covering, the spell’s effects are
blocked until the covering is removed.
Darkness counters or dispels any light spell of equal or lower
level.
Why was this so difficult? Now we have "creates shadowy illumination", so forcing the light level to a certain amount. We have a Darkness spell actually producing light... how anathema is that? No wonder it's not even part of the Darkness Domain in 3.5e... although calling it an Evocation (Darkness) spell feels wrong... it's creating light, how can it be a darkness based spell?
Granted, the latest 3.5e version still overrides any Light spells you have from 1st level or lower (as I thought it did).
Considering a 3rd level spell can cause permanent Blindness, a 2nd level spell that can temporarily cause the same effect in a 20' radius seems appropriate to power level.
.
Maybe if Darkness spells were brought back in line, this problem would be less of an issue.