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Darkness + Darkvision seems a very powerful combo. Specifically regarding the Darkness Spell. Essentially, it's like greater invisibility for a few minutes if your enemy cannot escape, and lacks darkvision or appropriate counter. I ran into a scenario where the party was fighting a creature that cast darkness on itself and had darkvision. Luckily we had a dwarf and half-orc so we weren't totally helpless, but it was rough. Party level 5.
So I looked into how to deal with darkness. From the spell darkness:
Magical light sources only increase the light level in an area if they are of a higher spell level than darkness.
and
Darkness can be used to counter or dispel any light spell of equal or lower spell level.
Now, I take the latter to mean that if I actually cast the spell myself I could use it to counter or dispel a light spell. Meaning that if I cast darkness on a stone, then walked into a light spell (lvl 0) it would not counter it, just negate it.
My primary question is this: For the first sentence it says light of a higher spell level does increase the light level. Now, am I correct in assuming this means Spell level (as in, Light is level 0, Continual Flame is level 3), and not caster level?
If this assumption is true, does that mean that an everburning torch or ioun torch (3rd level spells) would always illuminate a darkness spell? And if so, would the continual flame completely ignore the darkness spell (Providing normal light in 20' radius, dim to 40'), would the darkness have some sort of 'dimming' effect on the flame, or would the two completely counter and you are left with ambient lighting? I'm inclined to go with a lvl 3 effect completely overriding a lvl 2 effect.
Regarding Deeper Darkness, Daylight, and Continual Flame (all level 3 spells), continual flame brought into a region of deeper darkness would NOT counteract the effect (the effect has to be of a higher spell level, which it is not) but it could be cast, as a spell, to specifically counter or dispel the effect.
Daylight brought into an area of deeper darkness *would* negate the effect, because of the wording under daylight:
Daylight brought into an area of magical darkness (or vice versa) is temporarily negated, so that the otherwise prevailing light conditions exist in the overlapping areas of effect.
Which seems to make daylight the end-all spell for negating magical darkness effects.
TL:DR Does a level 3 continual flame spell from an ioun torch completely override a level 2 darkness spell when brought into the same area? If so, darkness goes from a possibly crippling effect to very easily manageable.
I found this thread to be most illuminating on this subject (sorry...had to.) Especially Jiggy's post about halfway down explaining just how Darkness spells works.
Basically: First of all, Continual Flame is a 3rd level Cleric spell but only a 2nd level Wizard spell, and an item made using Continual Flame would always be made using the lowest caster level. So Ioun Torches/Everburning Torches would be Wizard-made, making them only 2nd level spells. Thus, they would do nothing to Deeper Darkness.
Second, only the Daylight spell specifies that if it is brought into an area of magical Darkness, the two effects are negated. Continual Flame only states that it (as the spell) can be used to counter or dispel a Darkness effect. You can't counter or dispel with an item (since the spell has already been cast into the item), so Ioun/Everburning Torches would not be effective against the Darkness spell. They would not raise the light level within the effects of the spell.
The easiest way to deal with Darkness/Deeper Darkness is to have some way to get Darkvision and/or the Daylight spell. A potion of Darkvision and an oil of Daylight are the simplest and easiest to use by every class, but there are cheaper and/or more effective ways -- scrolls, in particular, if you're a caster that has either of those spells on your spell list. If you're playing in Pathfinder Society, there is an item called a Dayfinder (found in the Pathfinder Society Field Guide) which allows you to use Daylight, as the spell, once per day for one minute. It costs 10 Prestige Points to purchase, which is a little steep, but as it's re-usable, it would be a one-time investment, as opposed to keeping stock of potions, oils, or scrolls.
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Doh, I missed that Continual Flame is a lvl 2 wizard spell. I was playing a cleric so that was what I was looking at. So much for that plan... Thanks for that link, I must have missed it when I did a forum search.
Well, with that thrown out, it seems that really the only ways to deal with lvl 2 Darkness spell is to cast a lvl 3 spell, Daylight, via scroll or slot, or a darkvision potion. That seems like a fairly expensive counter.
Daylight oil: 750g
Daylight scroll: 375g
Darkvision potion: 300g
Dayfinder: 10 PP Probably what I will invest in, thanks for the tip.
I still think that the darkness spell is too powerful when combined with darkvision, since there are only a few, more expensive counters that may not be at hand, as long as the ambient lighting was dim to begin with. I am going to buy a scroll of daylight... hopefully I would be able to escape the darkness so I could be able to read the spell :P
I can see players abusing the darkness spell as well. Everyone makes dwarf/half-orc characters and they go into every combat with darkness cast on a rogue. Even in normal light converted to dim light, that gives the party 20% miss chance (VS normal vision), and in dim light converted to darkness, that essentially gives the party mass greater invisibility where the rogues are free to sneak attack to their hearts content and not worry about losing 'invisibility' and everyone enjoys 50% miss chance while attacking flat footed AC, barring of course if the enemy has darkvision.
Perhaps I just never had the darkness spell used to effectively on me before, but it certainly raised the value of darkvision on certain races. Orc night raids under the cover of Darkness would be truly terrifying.
scrolls, in particularDon't you need to be able to see the scroll to use it?
Well, yeah, you'd have to be outside the radius of Darkness/Deeper Darkness to use it.
Also, I want to see a full party of only dwarves and half-orcs now...some fun role playing opportunities, there. ;)
The problem with darkvisions and deeper darkness is that the spell negates darkvision. The spell says:
This functions like darkness, but even creatures with
darkvision cannot see within the spell’s confines.
So using darkness with darkvision would work.
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Darkness is a pretty common spell; temples really should sell "better everburning torches" at the higher cleric price, with the tag line that they work in magical darkness.
The problem with darkvisions and deeper darkness is that the spell negates darkvision. The spell says:
This functions like darkness, but even creatures with
darkvision cannot see within the spell’s confines.So using darkness with darkvision would work.
Deeper Darkness reduces it down 2 levels. This only blocks Darkvision if it gets down to "Supernatural Darkness". If carying a torch within the area of the torch darkvision will work.
As for Darkness, carrying a torch (20 feet normal vision) will be redced to 20' shadowy vision in a regular darkness spell.
Actually, (Deeper) Darkness negates mundane light-sources in its radius. So Deeper Darkness only gets you "normal darkness" in areas of natural normal light. Like sunlight.
