This is probably going to have to be DM fiat, but when you cast light on an object, do you have any control over it ? Does the whole thing glow uniformly, or can you limit it ?
For example, the wizards wants to cast light on his staff. Can he declare that he's just casting it on the head of the staff so only that glows, or does the whole thing ?
Another example, the wizard casts light on a coil of rope. The whole rope is now glowing. One end is weighted and thrown down a well. Since the whole length of the rope is glowing, and assuming the well is less deep than the length of the rope, the whole interior of the well is now illuminated (but perhaps not as well as a point source). Could the rope have been deployed before the light was cast and the wizard then cast light on the rope while it's not coiled ? Would it make any difference ?
I think the light emanates from the point touched.
I had this problem with a silence spell. My players tried to cast silence on a flask of oil then divvy the oil up among themselves to have silence on three characters. I ruled that one drop/molecule of the oil had silence cast on it and that it was impossible to know which character would get the the silent piece of oil.
If the light emanates from only the point touched, the spell description should say that. Perhaps in a later printing.
I think as my own house rule I'm going to give the caster some control. If the object is the size of the head of a torch or smaller, the whole thing glows. If it's bigger than a torchhead, the caster has the choice of only the torchhead sized area touched glowing, or the whole object glowing at a lesser brightness. For each "twice as much area" glowing, the light gets half as bright.
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Essentially when you cast light it's a point source target. For most small objects like a coin it doesn't matter. For a large object, especially a really large object you have to specify at what point the light spell is cast.
so, no the whole rope does not glow... just a piece of it's length. and that answers your staff question as well.
For the sake of those who read the Rules boards and don't inquire/cross-reference, it's probably best if you preface statements like these with things like "Here's how I run it in my games" or "This makes the most sense to me", and save the more absolute-sounding "This is how it works" for when you're reiterating what's actually stated in the rules. Many readers take such statements to be fact unless otherwise specified, so please be careful using absolute language on things that aren't actually in the rules.
Thanks. :)
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Get used to inquiring cross reference. Because arguing about "What it says in the rules." is the major pass time here.
What you're going to find out is that the rules nail down a lot less than you think, and much of it IS GM adjudication even in PFS. Enough that I don't feel like I should have to repeat that phrase every time I start a paragraph.
Your borderline-condescending tone aside, I agree that a lot of things are not nailed down in the rules and require GM adjudication. I just think it's a reasonable courtesy to make it clear which is which when answering someone's question.
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Well I'll be damned. The Paizo people took out the phrase "from the point you touch" which was a part of the spell description in v3.5.
However, I wouldn't go casting light on lengths of rope and expecting 50' of light because the Pathfinder version of the spell specifically says it sheds light in a 20-foot radius, not 20 feet from any part of the object for which the spell is cast upon. I mean what's to stop a wizard from casting light on the ground and thus lighting up the whole world!
I figure they changed the touch language found in the 3.5 version so characters could cast light on objects at a distance.