Is Deeper Darkness useless unless entire party can see in the dark?

[Coinshot Colton]

I really like the idea of using a tiefling that can see through any type of darkness, but then realized that the Darkness and Deeper Darkness spells have such a huge radius. Is it basically a useless tactic if the entire party doesn't have a way to see in the dark, or is there a workaround that I'm missing?

[Jaryn Wildmane]

If you are an archer who is facing a lot of archers that are on a wall or something similar you can cast one on them that doesn't interfere with the melee members of your party, forcing them to stand there and get picked off or join the melee and sacrifice using their best feats.

Also if your party members pick up one or more feats in blind fight chain they can function better in the dark than enemies who cannot see.

[Leisner]

No, there are plenty of ways to use Deeper Darkness.
A couple of examples.
Say your enemies aren't grouped together, you can cast it on a rock, and have your trusted familiar/eidolon/ect. sling the rock towards the enemy you want taken out of the fight, at least temporally.
Or you have little or ranged abilities within your party, but you do have a blasty mage, and meet a ranged group of enemies. Again get the darkness rock O' doom, throw it amongst your enemies, let the blasty mage do his job, watch as the enemy comes out of the darkness, barbecued lightly.
What about when you come to a door, behind which is a door filled with guards, perhaps even without any other way out. Cast Deeper Darkness on a pebble, throw it inside, perhaps together with some greek fire and some lamp oil, just to spice things up, and wait outside the door to handle anyone that exits.
Ect.

Darkness only has a radius of 20 feet, and Deeper Darkness' radius of 60' doesn't mean it is useless in a non-darkvision party, though indoors, its use will be diminished with the shorter distances. You can throw/shoot the object touched. Darkness (or silence and other such spells) is nice to use on a missile weapon. Especially if the enemy is stupid, and doesn't realise that the darkness emanate from the arrow lodged in their hide.

[Lincoln Hills]

It's also handy in setting up ambush zones: with precise positioning - say, halfway down a hallway - you can set things up so enemies emerge one at a time directly into a square where your nastiest melee-types are flanking them and your ranged PCs can open fire without worrying about soft cover.

[Morgen]

Aye they've got pretty much the whole of it. Most spells aren't amazing to just constantly spam all of the time. That's left to things like Haste and the like. Reliable combat buffs.

However with proper foresight and creativity almost everything in the game magical or not can be used quite effectively. Well except that one crossbow feat that lets you do what crossbows already can do.

[Mapleswitch]

In pathfinders, darkness and deeper darkness lower the light level by 2 stages. It is no longer the 'I cannot see' of 3.5 // warlocks favored way of blasting everything.

[Lincoln Hills]

Right: in most dungeon lighting, deeper darkness still essentially reduces conditions to 'I cannot see', but the same spell cast at noon in the desert produces pleasant shade instead. Useful for preventing snowblindness, perhaps, if it lasts long enough, but it won't grant invisibility-style benefits.