Had a debate today with players who insisted that due to the wording in the book the light spell causes an entire object to glow with the full effects of light regardless of size.
thus if the characters cast light on a rope the entire rope glows along its full length and can thus provide abundant light if spread out its full length. This may fit RAW....
however
RAI feels as if the spell provides something of a glowing ball of light in a small globe attached to a specific point. thus if a player casts light on the rope a glowing ball appears where they touched the rope and remains attached even if they unwind the rope but provides light only from that point.
it seems a silly argument but I want to get clarification before the next meeting as 2 of the players seem intent on getting their way with this.
Please note: this is an issue to me as a GM because I think obstacles like darkness, food and ammunition are an important part of the game and players should have to work around them. I do not make it difficult... but casting light on say, the ship, to provide unlimited light seems like something of an exploit.
This spell causes a touched object to glow like a torch, shedding normal light in a 20-foot radius, and increasing the light level for an additional 20 feet by one step, up to normal light (darkness becomes dim light, and dim light becomes normal light). In an area of normal or bright light, this spell has no effect. The effect is immobile, but it can be cast on a movable object.
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I usually say that the object glows (similar to their rope example), BUT that the amount of glow dims as you get farther away from the point that the light is "attached" to. This means that while the rope would glow, after a bit the glow would dim then eventually darken entirely even though the rope isn't out of length, but if you bundled the rope up then the entire object would glow.
In effect, it won't extend the radius of the light, but the flavor is that the object is what's glowing rather than a sphere of light attached to it, though I can see how the latter would be easier to adjudicate.
Spell areas on page 215 covers this. Regardless of the object the spell description states a 20foot area. Thus, tell them to pick an intersection and that is the point of the rope where the light spell originates from. - Gauss
RAI you are correct. What I would do if I were you was rule that the touch a brick on a building as an example if they are trying to make entire building light up.
If it is a wagon have one specific part of the wagon light up. The specific part is still an object.
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Had a debate today with players who insisted that due to the wording in the book the light spell causes an entire object to glow with the full effects of light regardless of size.
Light: "This spell causes a touched object to glow like a torch, shedding normal light in a 20-foot radius, and increasing the light level for an additional 20 feet by one step, up to normal light"
It glows like a torch. How does a torch glow? A small roughly fist-sized flame. So the rope glows with a small roughly fist-sized flame, presumably originating from the part of the rope that was touched.
That said with cantrips being of unlimited use and with a 10min/level, if the want to light up the entire rope, they'll just cast it in 10' sections.
"You can only have one light spell active at any one time. If you cast this spell while another casting is still in effect, the previous casting is dispelled."
Cannot use light to light up multiple sections. When you cast light a second time the first casting ceases. However, multiple spellcasters can create multiple lights. Alternately, if you memorize light more than once you could create as many lights as you have memorizations.
- Gauss
if you memorize light more than once you could create as many lights as you have memorizations.
How would preparing it multiple times get around the active spell limitation?
Hmmm, I guess it wouldn't by the wording. You are right Grick. I thought it would have. It should, but the wording doesn't support this. - Gauss
Had a debate today with players who insisted that due to the wording in the book the light spell causes an entire object to glow with the full effects of light regardless of size.
So do they think they could cast it on a house and affect the whole house? On a ship and affect the whole ship? A mountain and affect the whole mountain?
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Had a debate today with players who insisted that due to the wording in the book the light spell causes an entire object to glow with the full effects of light regardless of size.So do they think they could cast it on a house and affect the whole house? On a ship and affect the whole ship? A mountain and affect the whole mountain?
Pfft, quit thinking small! Target the PLANET.
Target the PLANET.
That would be rude. People are trying to sleep, you know.
Every time I try to go to sleep, some stupid adventurer casts "light" on the wall of a cavern and the whole freaking planet glows.
Edit: ninja'd with the exact joke. Stupid slow smartphone keyboard.
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Planet isn't an object, it's a campaign setting, DUH! :)
So Sean, since we have you for the moment, what do you think about two memorizations of the light spell allowing a person to cast light twice?
- Gauss
Planet isn't an object, it's a campaign setting, DUH! :)
But the campaign setting encompasses multiple planets...
(I'm really enjoying that book, btw)
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Pfft, quit thinking small! Target the PLANET.Had a debate today with players who insisted that due to the wording in the book the light spell causes an entire object to glow with the full effects of light regardless of size.So do they think they could cast it on a house and affect the whole house? On a ship and affect the whole ship? A mountain and affect the whole mountain?
Who is the guy that has targeted the sun?
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Who is the guy that has targeted the sun?Pfft, quit thinking small! Target the PLANET.Had a debate today with players who insisted that due to the wording in the book the light spell causes an entire object to glow with the full effects of light regardless of size.So do they think they could cast it on a house and affect the whole house? On a ship and affect the whole ship? A mountain and affect the whole mountain?
Sarenrae, of course. ;)
Since the spell designates a point on the object instead of the whole object I would say no. Your side of the door is illuminated, the other side is not.
- Gauss
Could you target a door to get light in the room on the other side?
I would normally say that the torch-like light would emit from where you touched it. However, that's fairly creative and I would probably let my players get away with it if they had a decent reason for doing so.
This would be just another case where I honestly don't give a fig what "RAW" says. When people in my world use "light" the spot that glows is the spot they touched. That spot is about the size of a fingertip.
That's it.
So Sean, since we have you for the moment, what do you think about two memorizations of the light spell allowing a person to cast light twice?
- Gauss
The spell says "You can only have one light spell active at any one time."
Even if you use two slots you still have two light spells active. Now if it said two light spells from the same slot could not be active that would be different.
One GM I play with plays it like AD.
I myself usually rule that the caster can choose if he wants one point to glow or the entire object.But the glow gets weaker as the onject gets larger. So a 50ft rope could be made to glow entirely but the glow would be too faint to provide ilumination. Apart from making the rope itself very visible.
So, if the party wants to see when some door opens in the dark it could work if they made the whole door glow. But If they want to see what comes through it would be better to make one point of the ground in front of the door glow.
Wraithstrike, I would like the spell to read as you just stated. If you look up at an earlier post I thought it would until I was corrected by someone. According to the exact wording you just quoted if you have light memorized in two slots you can still only have one light spell active at a time.
Cheapy, the PF light spell also indicates point touched.
This spell causes a touched object to glow like a torch, shedding normal light in a 20-foot radius from the point touched, and increasing the light level for an additional 20 feet by one step, up to normal light (darkness becomes dim light, and dim light becomes normal light). In an area of normal or bright light, this spell has no effect. The effect is immobile, but it can be cast on a movable object.
- Gauss
Cheapy, the PF light spell also indicates point touched.This spell causes a touched object to glow like a torch, shedding normal light in a 20-foot radius from the point touched, and increasing the light level for an additional 20 feet by one step, up to normal light (darkness becomes dim light, and dim light becomes normal light). In an area of normal or bright light, this spell has no effect. The effect is immobile, but it can be cast on a movable object.
Whoa, that's not in the PRD!
Light: "This spell causes a touched object to glow like a torch, shedding normal light in a 20-foot radius, and increasing the light level for an additional 20 feet by one step, up to normal light (darkness becomes dim light, and dim light becomes normal light). In an area of normal or bright light, this spell has no effect. The effect is immobile, but it can be cast on a movable object."
What version of the CRB do you have? The only Errata entry I see for the Light spell is changing the duration to 10min/lv (instead of 10 min).
I have the 5th printing PDF (finally decided a 4th printing hardcopy wasn't enough and went out and bought the PDFs).
Jiggy, that was a direct copy/paste no typing (other than the [ quote = ] part). Oh, I did edit the spacing because I don't like how copy/paste paragraphs eat up extra lines.
- Gauss
No worries Jiggy, Ill take it in trade on a future discussion. :D
- Gauss
I have the 5th printing PDF
Crazy. The PRD is supposed to update itself via the newest PDFs, and there's no mention of the change in errata (Update 1.3 first to fifth).
If it really changed in the fifth printing, we should make a note on the PRD thread so it can get fixed.
I just checked the new lite copy of the PDF, same wording.
- Gauss
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Personally I like having more then just the point touched because otherwise the object itself blocks light in at least 1 direction so I would rule that the object lights up withing range of the spell compared to point touched.
I.E. light is cast on one end of the rope, the end of rope(inch or so) illuminates giving normal light and then the rest of the rope out to a max of 20 ft of length glows providing dim light.(glowing dim at 20ft gives dim light out to 40ft, 20ft beyond the last inch of glowing rope)
Thus the light never extends beyond spell range yet the item itself is the source of light and doesn't block the light in certain directions.
What I mean by blocking light is if only one side of the dagger glows then the dagger casts a shadow on the half of the room facing the opposite side of the dagger meaning that the light goes in only 180 degrees.
Guess they finally got around to fixing the Light spell then. For a while it didn't have "from the point touched". That's definitely where the thought that it lit up the whole object came from. Deleted old post.
Cheapy, I checked the 4th printing I have, same wording. I checked the erratas and they never issued a change in wording in any of the erratas. I do not have the 1st through 3rd printings though to check those.
(And yes, that dates my conversion from 3.5 to pathfinder if anyone cares. :P)
- Gauss
I use "finally" in a loose sense that allows for it to been fixed since the 2nd printing if that's the case <_<
...I was going to check d20pfsrd to see when it changed, but it changed 4 minutes before I made my "guess they finally..." post.
...I was going to check d20pfsrd to see when it changed, but it changed 4 minutes before I made my "guess they finally..." post.
I changed it. I am a collaborator over there. :)
Btw, second printing did not have the text.
Wonder why they didnt put it in the errata. - Gauss