Light spell on whip

[勝20100]

In a game, a character was casting Light on the tip of his whip. I think it was a mistake as the spell works on the whole object. Anyway, the point was to be able to get a bigger zone of light when the character was using the whip. Does it work?
Similarly, with a reach weapon who has light cast on it, does the light zone is 5 feet bigger? All the time or at the cost of some action?

[Starglim]

Light creates a light like a torch, therefore the same size as the end of a torch. Trust me, the other interpretation is worse. Imagine if he cast it on a 100' long rope, or a barrel of water.

If he cast light on the head of a reach weapon I would require him to specify which square the end was in. If he cast it on a whip, he could only keep whirling it around his head, throwing shifting, flickering light with the end result of producing visibility as if light was shining in his square.

[Rynjin]

It only sheds light from the point touched, it doesn't make the whole object glow. They errataed this a while back to avoid the whole "Glowing 50 ft. rope" thing.

[Drachasor]

Light is indeed limited to the point touched.

However, one could argue Continual Flame makes the whole object shed light as a torch. D&D does not distinguish between light from a point and an object in terms of brightness -- 10 torches in one square shed the same light as one.

[Dekalinder]

You never had the plasure of seeing the master horrored face when I proposed to cast Daylight on the whole castle of count Vlad since was considered as a single object. That was worth filming.

[Kyoni]

Dekalinder wrote:

You never had the plasure of seeing the master horrored face when I proposed to cast Daylight on the whole castle of count Vlad since was considered as a single object. That was worth filming.

Whew... good thing, that spell doesn't destroy vampires and the like:

Daylight wrote:

Despite its name, this spell is not the equivalent of daylight for the purposes of creatures that are damaged or destroyed by such light.

:-D

[Strife2002]

Rynjin wrote:

It only sheds light from the point touched, it doesn't make the whole object glow. They errataed this a while back to avoid the whole "Glowing 50 ft. rope" thing.

Could you point me to this errata? I looked through my errata documents for the Core Rulebook and didn't see anything. The light spell description in the PRD also still says "This spell causes a touched object to glow like a torch..." but doesn't say anything specific about it being at the point touched.

[Rynjin]

Strife2002 wrote:

Rynjin wrote:

It only sheds light from the point touched, it doesn't make the whole object glow. They errataed this a while back to avoid the whole "Glowing 50 ft. rope" thing.

Could you point me to this errata? I looked through my errata documents for the Core Rulebook and didn't see anything. The light spell description in the PRD also still says "This spell causes a touched object to glow like a torch..." but doesn't say anything specific about it being at the point touched.

SRD wrote:

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,

For some reason it's not on the PRD yet, but I know there's been an errata, I've seen too many references of it (some from Jiggy, a pretty reliable source). I think it's in my CRB (4th printing) but Google Drive is being an a!@&$+~ and not letting me open it.

[ZanThrax]

The PRD is missing several erratas which is rather annoying.

[Strife2002]

Son of a...it's one of those damn erratas that didn't make it into the errata documents. It's not in my 2nd edition print copy, but is in my 6th edition PDF copy. I opened up the 1st to 6th edition errata document, and it isn't in there.

[Drachasor]

I don't really see it being a big deal either way.

[Lincoln Hills]

Perhaps not for this specific example, but it was a bit of a game-changer when my group was exploring a ship full of enemies and their 2nd-level sorceror was able to eliminate darkness on the entire ship just by casting the spell on the deck. (I wouldn't consider a natural cave wall a viable target, but it's hard to claim that a ship is not an object.)

[Drachasor]

Lincoln Hills wrote:

Perhaps not for this specific example, but it was a bit of a game-changer when my group was exploring a ship full of enemies and their 2nd-level sorceror was able to eliminate darkness on the entire ship just by casting the spell on the deck. (I wouldn't consider a natural cave wall a viable target, but it's hard to claim that a ship is not an object.)

That has more to do with the poor rules regarding what an object is than anything else. One could claim that it is hard to say that a ship IS one object, when it is so clearly made up of many different parts. The rules get quite unclear about when one object begins and another ends. Walls, buildings, planets, etc, all have this problem.

[Lincoln Hills]

Tell me about it! I sat there for almost five minutes double-checking the rules on targeted spells, and the definition of Object, and drawing mental comparisons between casting it on a comparable object-of-many-parts such as a crossbow, and so on and so forth, before I finally had to grit my teeth and say, "Apparently it works."

It was the middle of the night, too. I can't imagine what the NPCs on shore thought when this ship suddenly lit up like a fairy godmother. ;)

[Drachasor]

One thing you could house rule is that an "object" maxes out at a 10' cube. A 10'x10' wall section is how wall damage works, so that would be the basis for that. That is also how much non-living matter a disintegrate destroys.

That actual object might be bigger, but that's as much as a spell can effect. Perhaps an object that can be folded up into a cube could be hit all at once if so folded, but for a ship or the like, you're struck with what is in the cube.

[Happler]

Poor werewolves have been having a hard time since that one jerk cast the light spell on the moon....

[Speaker for the Dead]

It says it right in the spell description for the light spell...

pfsrd wrote:

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).

[Drachasor]

Ender, that's not what it says on the Paizo PRD, nor what it says in the books. The errata doesn't seem to have that either from what someone said -- hence part of the problem.

[Happler]

Speaker for the Dead wrote:

It says it right in the spell description for the light spell...

pfsrd wrote:

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).

But in the official PRD:

Quote:

Light

School evocation [light]; Level bard 0, cleric 0, druid 0, sorcerer/wizard 0

Casting Time 1 standard action

Components V, M/DF (a firefly)

Range touch

Target object touched

Duration 10 min./level

Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no

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.

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. If you make this spell permanent (through permanency or a similar effect), it does not count against this limit. Light can be used to counter or dispel any darkness spell of equal or lower spell level.

Not sure where the pfsrd pulled that chunk of text...

[Speaker for the Dead]

I don't know which source is more up to date but the source I quoted does seem to address the problem <shrug>.

[Ansel Krulwich]

Drachasor wrote:

Ender, that's not what it says on the Paizo PRD, nor what it says in the books. The errata doesn't seem to have that either from what someone said -- hence part of the problem.

The PRD and the errata may not say it, but the book and the PDF certainly do. Here's what mine says (emphasis is mine), cut and pasted:

Core Rulebook, Page 304 wrote:

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