How strict are you on light rules?
If your party is in a dark place, do you ask them which way their lantern is pointed?
Do you always make sure are are aware what their light source is?
Do you ever have a creature try to sunder a light source?
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/additionalRules.html#vision-and-light
On this link of light sources what does normal and increased mean?
What is your overall advice for dealing with light rules?
Thanks,
John
Mostly in my games, it's not a big deal. Darkvision is so common that there's very little reason to keep a light up. If someone in the party lacks darkvision so they need a light, I usually make sure I know who is carrying a source of light and what the radius on it is. Usually that's a sunrod or something with the light cantrip cast on it.
What is your overall advice for dealing with light rules?
They are a little finicky and slow down the game to think too much about. For the most part, I think it's best to downplay them. When it's dramatic or helps set the feel of the scene, then I would enforce the details.
Mostly in my games, it's not a big deal. Darkvision is so common that there's very little reason to keep a light up. If someone in the party lacks darkvision so they need a light, I usually make sure I know who is carrying a source of light and what the radius on it is. Usually that's a sunrod or something with the light cantrip cast on it.
What is your overall advice for dealing with light rules?They are a little finicky and slow down the game to think too much about. For the most part, I think it's best to downplay them. When it's dramatic or helps set the feel of the scene, then I would enforce the details.
This is how I have been playing it so far. I didn't want to worry about the light rules all that much. But lately I have been trying to make comabat a little more interesting by taking advantage of terrain and the special rules of creatures. Some bad guys my PCs are facing soon have Blind Fight.
It is hard to know when the rules are just slowing down the game and when they are making it interesting.
Most of the groups I've been with only use two kinds of light; Normal, and Darkness.
After an encounter or two, everybody just hikes around with sunrods or continual flame lanterns or everburning torches. Mostly, I think this is too much of a niggling detail for too little payoff. If an opponent wants darkness, they're more likely to drop a smoke bomb or cast a spell/use an item over snuffing light sources.
I will ignore lighting for the most part if it doesn't add to the encounter. However, I will enforce lighting rules (albeit very loosely) if it reinforces the mood and/or major dynamics of the encounter. For instance, limiting the range of Player Character's vision really reinforces the fear of things unknown, namely those things that lie in wait at the the edges of the lit area. Of course characters with darkvision have no problem with darkness, but I will just describe what they see and refuse to draw anything else out on the map if the other characters can't see it. I like to preserve the mystery that way as much as possible.
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If your party is in a dark place, do you ask them which way their lantern is pointed?
There's no facing in Pathfinder, and different types of light actually shine in certain ways. A torch shines within a 20ft light/20ft dim light radius (a circle around you); only a bullseye lantern shines in a cone in a specific direction in the way you're talking about. Read the descriptions for these in the Core Rulebook's equipment chapter.
Do you always make sure are are aware what their light source is?
Make sure who are aware? The players? They should know - it's their characters. As a GM, you should be able to tell them what the current lighting conditions are. Outside, bright light. In a cave, dim light, maybe darkness.
Do you ever have a creature try to sunder a light source?
I've never seen that, but it's an interesting idea. Don't forget sight isn't limited to lit objects. There's darkvision.
What is your overall advice for dealing with light rules?
The light rules can get quite messy. If you do a search in the forums, there's issues when two different light sources cross with each other.
If you're playing online, you can easily notice what happens when one player can see things that the rest of the party can't, and it makes for interesting (albeit sometimes frustrating) tactical situations.
Bottom line advice is to learn the darkness rules, and when it comes to a game, be a little lenient when things get too confusing.
Make sure players don't metagame that their characters can see things when they shouldn't be able to. They're allowed to communicate to each other about what they can see, but that has other drawbacks, including the bad guys hearing what they say (if they understand the language, and are smart enough to adjust their own tactics accordingly).
Mostly play in dungeons, so unless they're in a huuuuge cavern it doesn't really come into play.
Now of course you can (and I do) deliberately design an encounter where light radius is an important factor but it's not something that comes up every encounter or even every session.
Unless otherwise stated you can assume that most of your PCs are going to have Darkvision if your players are experienced and don't want to deal with lighting rules.
If you want to play heavily on lighting then it is important to ban all races that have Darkvision, or to force traits to give up Darkvision for Low-Light Vision.
Some encounters that you can design rely on the PCs becoming blinded and haplessly defending themselves from gravely inferior enemies. Anti-magic fields, dispell traps that target light creation spells, and the ilk will ensure that this can happen.
Probably the worst thing that can happen for your in-depth, heavy tenebrism lighting based campaign is for someone to have Darkvision. You can make seeing what is not to be seen worse for the person with darkvision by making it so the things hidden in the dark are so horrific that they force psychological disorders or just damage wisdom.
Damaging Wisdom and these horrifying sights targeting will-saves will create a positive feedback loop that will kill the character if this wisdom damage can kill. Otherwise, if it can only reduce him to Wisdom 1 then it isn't a big deal.
Races with Darkvision are often times a slight bit worse off because they have Darkvision. Few races are as powerful as the races that have normal vision. However, remember, Supernatural darkness still affects creatures with Darkvision. Perhaps an entire cavern is supernaturally dark.
If your party is in a dark place, do you ask them which way their lantern is pointed?
I would have thought that this was covered by the perception check. I.e. yes, their light source might have a facing (like a bullseye lantern), but it's up to the character to ensure they're pointing it in the right direction at the right moment. Unless the player specifically states that they're pointing it at a certain area, like at an open door or something, in which case they probably wouldn't be penalised for a perception check to spot something happening in the doorway, but they'd get some kind of negative against the creature that's coming at them from the gloom behind them.
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It is important that you sometimes let your characters with Darkvision shine. Otherwise it is a wasted ability. These characters will occasionally see things the others can't. Think Riddick in Pitch Black.
Remember the range of the most common light sources (light spell, torch, etc.) and make sure you manage perception checks appropriately. Nothing more fun than having the party only able to make hearing perception checks because the monsters are outside their tiny sphere of light.
Most of the groups I've been with only use three kinds of light; Normal, and Darkness, and Supernatural Darkness
FTFY
It really depends on the tone I'm trying to set for the game. Generally light doesn't matter, but I've effectively run games with darkness and limited light sources are actually the primary obstacle.
It is important that you sometimes let your characters with Darkvision shine. Otherwise it is a wasted ability. These characters will occasionally see things the others can't. Think Riddick in Pitch Black.
/scribbles down idea for monster that is only visible to darkvision
It is important that you sometimes let your characters with Darkvision shine. Otherwise it is a wasted ability. These characters will occasionally see things the others can't. Think Riddick in Pitch Black./scribbles down idea for monster that is only visible to darkvision
You could argue that Darkvision sees Infrared light in addition to normal spectrum. Therefore Darkvision could see the "color" of the creature, but everyone else would see a black silhouette if only IR life shines from it. The reason they'd see the black silhouette is because its matter would still stop the light energy shining onto it, but it would absorb all of it.
Usually I don't worry about it too much, especially with any casters with the Lighr Orison/Cantrip.
Sometimes I design an encounter that relies on the light source being a hindrance or blessing so the rules will come up and some sight/light questions may be brought up.
Most of the groups I've been with only use three kinds of light; Normal, and Darkness, and Supernatural DarknessFTFY
I don't think you can fix my personal experiences...
How strict are you on light rules?
Varies. For the most part, the light rules are kinda ignored. If there's a situation where it really matters, like a haunted house or a dungeon at night, I am very strict to help with the atmosphere.
If your party is in a dark place, do you ask them which way their lantern is pointed?
Yes. Because the lack of facing in 3E was patently absurd, and Pathfinder only carried on a tradition that should have died in a fire instead of the 3.5 tradition of horses spinning in a circle at all times (that is pretty much the only way you can justify a horse of all things lacking facing; horses are not actually as adept at turning in place as a human).
Ironically, the vehicle rules in Ultimate Combat bring facing back in a limited manner to allow vehicle combat... which further shows how absurd the lack of facing actually is.
[/tangent]
Do you always make sure are are aware what their light source is?
Only at times when it matters.
Do you ever have a creature try to sunder a light source?
Oh yes ^^ It's also fun to have a creature try to extinguish a light source.
What is your overall advice for dealing with light rules?
Simple: When it matters, track it and track it hard. But make certain the PCs have clues, in-character, that the tracking will be happen. When it doesn't matter, handwave it.