|
The daylight spell negates magical darkness so that other lighting conditions prevail. This is a special quality of the daylight spell. Deeper darkness can't suppress it no matter how heightened it is. Even though daylight by itself wont increase the light level, your torches and sunrods will. This is what jiggy was getting at.
This doesn't stop a monster that has deeper darkness as a SLA from using it to counter your daylight spell.
|
I guess I shouldn't have said intelligent :)
I also said "uniquely powerful" a fire beetle is less powerful than a sunrod! :)
When I say uniquely powerful I mean a source of light that basically can't be extinguished (I wanted to avoid purely sun/moon because other planes are their own business) Ex: the plane of positive energy IS brilliant light. Not every plane has a Sun but I'm talking basically a Sun equivalent.
When I read "Ambient Natural Light"; I read "Night - low light, Dawn -normal light, Noon - bright light ect. I also presume special cases happen Giant cave walls lined with otherworldly crystals that give off light.. I could see that being an Ambient Light Source.
Ultimately YMMV is just going to happen on this.
I'm sure there is something saying that Paizo doesn't want Mike/Mark/John to say "this is how I read it, please run it that way for consistency) Since it's akin to changing the rules, but I really wish they would chime in on ambiguous things like this.
If the rules discussion thread can't come to a hard and fast "this is how this works" PFS should be allowed an interpretation to improve table consistency.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
So is heightened daylight a trump card then?
Actually, daylight is the one light spell that *doesn't* become a trump card if you heighten it, because of that whole "mutual negation" thing it does. But any other light spell heightened to a higher spell level than the active darkness effect will be something of a trump card, yes.
Since it counters lower level darkness spells?
No, this is not the reason.
|
|
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.
This is why you don't need to heighten daylight at all, and why a heightened deeper darkness won't keep the daylight from taking effect.
|
|
Just to make sure I understand the way this works..
Bad guy goes first and casts Deeper Darkness on his turn,
Friendly Barbarian pours an Oil of Daylight on his muscles on the turn after Deeper Darkness was cast, lighting conditions return to normal/default.
On the next turn, Friendly Cleric whips out and activates a Sunrod, lighting becomes bright light, and any Darkness/Deeper Darkness cast after this point have no effect.
A sunrod only raises the light levels to normal light, not bright light. It also fails to raise the light levels within an area of darkness/deeper darkness.
(Edit: Ignore everything below, it is incorrect... Bear witness to my shame!)
Honestly, I want to say that daylight is unable to perform it's negate function in an area of deeper darkness because deeper darkness operates like darkness and darkness says "Magical light sources only increase the light level in an area if they are of a higher spell level"
I would expect much table variation when daylight and deeper darkness areas collide.
|
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
On the next turn, Friendly Cleric whips out and activates a Sunrod, lighting becomes bright light
It sheds normal light...
And if Deeper Darkness is cast again? Would another Daylight be needed?
Debatable. It depends on how you interpret daylight's negation clause; that is, does it also negate the part of deeper darkness that says multiple castings don't stack?
My opinion is that since daylight is phrased as negating it "so that the otherwise prevailing light conditions exist in the overlapping areas of effect", it is only negating the aspects of deeper darkness which affect the light level. Thus, the spell radius is still present and active (therefore you can't stack more darkness effects), but is not shutting down any light sources and is not dropping the natural ambient light level by X steps.
But it's open to some degree of interpretation, I think.
And if Deeper Darkness is cast again? Would another Daylight be needed?
1. Let's say default light conditions are normal light.
2. Bad guy casts Deeper Darkness3. Good guy casts Daylight
4. Daylight negates Deeper Darkness and the light levels return to normal light. Both spells are in effect (Edited for correctness)
5. Bad guy casts Deeper Darkness again...
5. a. ...and just casts it normally, like on his belly button, then nothing changes. Daylight is still negating Deeper Darkness
5. b. ...and uses it to dispell the Daylight spell, then Daylight fizzles away and light levels return to normal light. The bad guy could now cast Deeper Darkness again to make the light levels dark.
|
|
Oncoming: No. As long as daylights effect is up (10 min/lvl minimum of 50 min.) it will negate darkness spells with in it's area.
Ansel: Daylight is special in that it specifically negates Darkness spells of equal or lesser lvl.
"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. Daylight counters or dispels any darkness spell of equal or lower level, such as darkness."
Deeper Darkness is also a 3rd lvl spell and so would be negated.
|
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
"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. Daylight counters or dispels any darkness spell of equal or lower level, such as darkness."
You're going to end up confusing someone, putting those two lines together like that. (For instance, by thinking that the first line cares in any way about the spell levels involved; it doesn't.) The rules separate them into different paragraphs for a reason.
Which would require successfully touching the object upon which daylight had been cast.5. Bad guy casts Deeper Darkness again...
....
5. b. ...and uses it to dispell the Daylight spell, then Daylight fizzles away and light levels return to normal light.
Correct. Bad guy just can't keep his fingers off of good guy barbarian's lightly oiled muscles.
Ansel: Daylight is special in that it specifically negates Darkness spells of equal or lesser lvl.
"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. Daylight counters or dispels any darkness spell of equal or lower level, such as darkness."
Deeper Darkness is also a 3rd lvl spell and so would be negated.
Ah, that's right! I had completely missed that.
MAGIC IS SO HARD YOU GUYS :D
|
|
But the Sun IS something other than non-magical. Ask any Vampire! Although, a simple light dimming spell seems to fix this. Moonlight is also special for some spells/ability. Then there's a trait/feat that only works during the daytime (to boost Charisma skills) no matter where you are. But all that could be symbolic.
Question - What light spell would toast/ash that Vampire??SO... you would say the Sun is magical then? OK - I have no problem with that.
My point is, either it is magical, or it isn't. There is no need of a third catagory (not magical AND not non-magical). What "level" is it?in answer to your question - Both Sunbeam and Sunburst are spells that would "toast/ash" a Vampire. As would a non-magical fire of large size. Was this ment to be a trick question? I'm sure there are other light spells that would work fine to "toast/ash" a Vampire.
Not trick at all. I am really looking to build some characters to deal with the undead in all those scenarios. And Thanks! It's just that so many places it says something like real daylight is required and not whatever...
|
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
This FAQ has now been updated:
No, sunrods can never increase the light level of an area of darkness because they are not magical sources of light. In such an area, it automatically defaults to the ambient natural light level (the light level from natural sources, such as the sun, moon, and stars—not torches, campfires, light spells, and so on), and then reduces it one step.
This was just updated, so I don't know if they're also going to hit the "within the area" thread or not.
|
You won't be able to dodge this that easily I think. Conventions are still going to have them. PCs are going to have to buckle down and deal with this. I don't think its as easy as Jiggy claims, but its doable. But it requires a level of meta awareness that many groups may not have. This is not the way to make PFS more challenging, but that's defacto what just happened.
As I said, the stock on blindfighting just went WAY up.
|
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
Answers to darkness in 1-5 scenarios*:
1) Be a race with darkvision.
2) Potion of darkvision (300gp if you have at least 5 Fame)
3) Ability to cast darkvision (2nd-level spell)
4) Cast/scroll of obscuring mist (even the odds)
5) Smokesticks (again, even the odds)
6) Oil of Daylight (750gp or 2PP, but only one person needs to use it)
*Note: I'm pretty firmly against the use of darkness in the 1-2 subtier (except in encounters well-crafted to have lots of extra "outs") because you could get a party full of PCs who are all too fresh to have a reasonable assortment of consumables and contingencies. It's once you're 3rd level that dealing with darkness is trivial.
|
|
7) 10 PP for dayfinder
I have to be honest that I forgot about smoke sticks.
Obscuring mist does not even the odds completely. You will have only 20% concealment while the darkness folks get 50% plus the "pick a square" game.
The smoke sticks, however, after looking, don't have a very generous area of effect.
Looks like the best way to deal with this is going to be the consumables. It just got a lot more expensive to be human or elf. I think the surcharge for darkvision in the advanced race guide should go up based on this ruling, but that's me.
8) Retreat and draw the enemy into more favorable lighting conditions or wait for the duration on darkness to expire.
9) Summon anything with a celestial/fiendish template (grants darkvision 60 ft.) and let them do the fighting for you.
|
|
1) Some of us prefer to play races with other benefits than Darkvision. Really, truly.
2) 5 Fame knocks it out of the ballpark for any 1st level PFS PC, and for a few 2nd level PFS PCs. Not to mention that it only works once, for a significant portion of the 10% consumable budget...
3) Again, not for almost any PC in the 1st or 2nd level range. This only becomes a possibility for those 3rd or higher, and that assumes they are prepared casters, and that it is on their spell list.
4) Again, needs it available, and burns up consumables money for little, and less effective, return.
5) Less of the consumables fund used, but, as mentioned, 20% miss chance versus 50% nmiss chance and figure out which square to attack...
6) Again, significant portions of the consumable fund, or a lot of PP for little return. Most 2 PP purchases that one is looking at at this level are multiple (50 charges) or infinite uses (composite longbow), as compared to a single one-shot item.
7) Multiple use, at least, but not viable until most of the way through 2nd level, and that is assuming both max PP earned every game, and not buying a healing source with those first 2 PP, otherwise back to 3rd level or higher.
8) Works great, assuming the enemy doesn't bring the Darkness item with them, and that the enemy is not capable, as all too many are, of casting Darkness or Deeper Darkness at will.
9) Not bad, other than the 1 or 2 round duration for a low level caster. Odds favor burning up a lot of your few spells castable per day, if 1st or 2nd level, and you have to burn either spell slots or known spells to do it. And that doesn't count anything with Deeper Darkness, which can negate that wonderful Darkvision...
10)Again, great for once a day. For a short duration. I know of at least one scenario where there are multiple encounters with darkness and/or deeper darkness effects from creatures with at will abilities.
Wow! This game is really hard! How does anybody manage?
|
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
At the minimum, light spells need to have a reciprocal clause about a lower level darkness effect not being able to reduce the light level in that area.
What you request already exists; it's just in the darkness text instead of being in every single light spell:
Magical light sources only increase the light level in an area if they are of a higher spell level than darkness.
|
|
No, what I'm requesting doesn't exist. I don't see anywhere where it implies that "magical darkness sources only decrease the light level in an area of magical light only if they are of a higher spell level than light. That's what I want. The two spell lines should be mirror images of each other.
They appear to decrease the light level no matter what, which I think is very dubious.
|
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
Possibly. Or possibly not, depending on the answer to the question I linked (the thread of which you commented in just a minute ago).
My interpretation is that a heightened continual flame of sufficient level would successfully raise the light level to "normal" within 20ft, even within the radius of darkness (deeper or otherwise). However, it's not 100% clear in the text. I recommend FAQing the thread over in Rules Questions if you haven't already; I imagine the ruling would end up being as you want and as I suspect.
|
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
Wouldn't a heightened continual flame only get it back up to dim? Or would it be normal because of the text for torches?
Hence the FAQ request thread.
If resolving darkness is just a matter of determining the ambient natural light level and dropping that level down by 1 step, then a HCF is going to be completely outside that calculation and function normally. This is how I interpret things.
On the other hand, one could argue that dropping the moonlight from dim to dark "behind the scenes" while the HCF's light remains at normal is failing to actually lower the light level by a step. I don't buy that, but the interpretation exists and there's nothing explicit to the contrary.
Thus, we quest for FAQ! :D