Darkness versus Light, Deeper Darkness Versus Daylight, and a LOT of uses of both

[Gwiber]

Situation is this. Part is underground in a massive Necropolis city.

The party is using Darkvision, a spell on each of the three party members.

They come into a fight with Dark Creepers and Dark Stalkers., Each of the being is able to cast Darkness and Deeper darkness (Respectively).

The fight starts, with Darkness being hurled. Expecting to blind the party the Dark Creepers and Stalkers are more or less surprised to get attacked back because Darkvision penetrates Darkness too.

The Dark Stalkers resort to Deeper Darkenss which then plunges the Players into Darkness as it over rides Darkvision.

This is when the shenanigan's begin.

Daylight counters Darkness, Darkness counters daylight. Deeper Darkness works like Darkness it just blocks Darkvision.

We got into a confusing mess as the players are desperately trying to keep their vision by throwing Daylight and light spells, and the Dark beings are throwing darkness and Deeper darkness to keep the Players blind.

Dark Creepers and Dark Stalkers are naturally able to see in Darkness, AND Deeper Darkness. So for them the dark is a no brainer, the darker the better.

The question is. Just how in the HELL should I keep track of the spells countering each other?

The players countered what if they came in with a bag of Daylight spells on coins ready and just dumped it on the ground..

My ruling of the time. Was that Any spell cast in the same action time of a round counted for his purpose as a single act. If two people cast light/.daylight in the same initiative moment, then a follow up deeper darkness would eat both spells.

The spells descriptions don’t say anything other than they counter one another, two Daylight spells,. or two Darknesss spells cast at the same time will achieve the same level of light when cast. So unless they are cast in separate order in counter to each other, casting tow of them isn't going to help you, in my opinion. Unless they “bookend” the spell to be countered..

Just how should I deal with this issue?

[Mojorat]

I had a longer reply but look for a post by jiggy on this topic. It answers everything.

[Belafon]

Lighting causes some of the biggest headaches in the game. So here's a summary of how the boards have generally come to a consensus on this. I apologize if I misunderstood your situation but I'll start with some terminology. An important starting point is that all the spells you mentioned are touch range spells.

1)Countering:

CRB wrote:

How Counterspells Work: To use a counterspell, you must select an opponent as the target of the counterspell. You do this by choosing to ready an action (see Combat on page 203). In doing so, you elect to wait to complete your action until your opponent tries to cast a spell. You may still move at your normal speed, since ready is a standard action. If the target of your counterspell tries to cast a spell, make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + the spell’s level). This check is a free action. If the check succeeds, you correctly identify the opponent’s spell and can attempt to counter it. If the check fails, you can’t do either of these things. To complete the action, you must then cast an appropriate spell. As a general rule, a spell can only counter itself. If you are able to cast the same spell and you have it prepared (or have a slot of the appropriate level available), you cast it, creating a counterspell effect. If the target is within range, both spells automatically negate each other with no other results.

So to counter deeper darkness with daylight you have to ready an action, make a spellcraft check, and be able to touch the caster or the object she is casting the spell on. (Since the spell is touch range.)

2. Dispelling:
Dispelling with the opposite spell works similarly. You have to touch the object that has the spell you wish to dispel cast on it. So if your PC has daylight on his armor, the Dark Stalker has to touch that armor to cast deeper darkness on it, dispelling the daylight.

3. If it's not actually countered or dispelled:
If the Dark Stalker casts deeper darkness on his sword and the party cleric casts daylight on his armor, they don't counter or dispel each other. Instead in areas where the spells overlap (60' radius on each) the prevailing light conditions take effect. So probably natural darkness or dim light in your necropolis.
-Let's take a hypothetical where the cleric and dark stalker are standing 60' apart. The area between them will be the prevailing light condition. The area behind the cleric will be bright light and the area behind the dark stalker will be supernaturally dark. (Determining where they overlap is not easy; spell shape templates can be very handy in this situation.)

Until one or the other is actually dispelled, that's how things will stay. Light, continual flame, and darkness will have no effect in the areas where the higher level spells are taking effect.

Edit: I don't think I made this clear initially, but it doesn't matter how many objects the dark stalker casts deeper darkness on. There can be 20 rocks with deeper darkness spread out over a 10' radius, but if one daylight spell is brought within range, prevailing (natural) light conditions take over.

Confusing enough for you?

[Jiggy]

You might find my guide helpful. :)

[Gwiber]

Looking it over, it doesn't necessarily answer my prevailing question though. Darkness/Deeper Darkness is in effect.

A daylight spell appears, negating the Darkness in the area of effect, Then some jerk (Namely the bad guy) comes in and drops ANOTHER Deeper Darkness on the Daylight holder. Trying to snuff the Daylight's effects and return the darkness level int he area to everyone being a blind person.

Does the additional spell coming in quash the Daylight's effects? Or does Daylight trump it period?

[Ravingdork]

When darkness/light spells overlap areas, the higher level spells take precedent, with darkness spells being favored in the event of a tie. In the scenario given, it sounds like deeper darkness would win out.

That's why I carry an ioun torch with a heightened continual flame spell set to 4th level or higher. It's cheap and keeps my character from being crippled by such shenanigans.

[Avatar-1]

If done correctly (as per Jiggy's guide), the new Deeper Darkness spell overrides the existing Daylight - they're the same level spell.

[Belafon]

Gwiber wrote:

Looking it over, it doesn't necessarily answer my prevailing question though. Darkness/Deeper Darkness is in effect.

A daylight spell appears, negating the Darkness in the area of effect, Then some jerk (Namely the bad guy) comes in and drops ANOTHER Deeper Darkness on the Daylight holder. Trying to snuff the Daylight's effects and return the darkness level int he area to everyone being a blind person.

Does the additional spell coming in quash the Daylight's effects? Or does Daylight trump it period?

This is where there's no clear-cut answer (as noted in Jiggy's guide, people play this differently).

daylight wrote:

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.

There are two ways of reading this:

1) The "area" of daylight is negated by a deeper darkness spell. It doesn't matter how many daylight spells you bring into or cast in the area. And vice versa. "Negated" means "the effect of changing the light level doesn't work but the spell is still functioning."

2) Daylight and deeper darkness spells negate each other. But further castings can change the light level. "Negated" means "the entire spell stops functioning so it can't affect other spells in the area."

There are many posts in the forums picking at the language for one interpretation or the other. I could spend thirty minutes telling you why 1 is wrong and another thirty for why 2 is wrong. Let's please not rehash the debate here. There are plenty of threads for that. Honestly, if Paizo was to rewrite only one section of the rules, my vote would be for how lighting conditions work.

I personally go with interpretation 1. I play a lot of PFS and almost every GM I have met who has given this some thought goes with 1 as well. I can't give you a "strict RAW" answer why 1 is better, but there are two main reasons why we use it.
A) It makes the game flow better. You got to experience the pain of keeping track of casting after casting after casting.
B) Interpretation 2 above makes an at-will deeper darkness SLA almost unbeatable without metagaming. The dark stalkers (or one of several other NPC creatures) can cast it round after round after round while the PCs *are* going to run out of daylight spells.

[TGMaxMaxer]

One Daylight spell will negate 15 darkness spells, cast either before or after it, in it's area. (Now, if you actually touch the item that the daylight spell is on in order to dispel the daylight with the Deeper Darkness casting, that's another story.)

This is because of the Daylight specifically calling out Deeper darkness in the spell description, since normally the higher level spell takes precedence.

[Jiggy]

Avatar-1 wrote:

If done correctly (as per Jiggy's guide), the new Deeper Darkness spell overrides the existing Daylight - they're the same level spell.

If you think spell level is relevant here, you understand neither my guide nor the daylight spell's text. :/

[Jiggy]

Gwiber wrote:

Looking it over, it doesn't necessarily answer my prevailing question though. Darkness/Deeper Darkness is in effect.

A daylight spell appears, negating the Darkness in the area of effect, Then some jerk (Namely the bad guy) comes in and drops ANOTHER Deeper Darkness on the Daylight holder. Trying to snuff the Daylight's effects and return the darkness level int he area to everyone being a blind person.

Does the additional spell coming in quash the Daylight's effects? Or does Daylight trump it period?

This is something that's not given to us explicitly. However, let's see how close we can get.

So what does it mean that the spells in question are "negated"? Well first, we can rule out the possibility that they're treated as though they weren't there at all. Why? Because daylight talks about the areas overlapping. That means the spells are reaching into each other's areas, rather than butting up against each other. The area of overlap, by definition, is a place where both spells are present and active.

So "negated" isn't the same as not being there at all. That means only part of the spell's effect is negated.

How much? Well, now we have to start inferring. Let's look again at what daylight says:

Daylight wrote:

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.

Let's zoom in a little:

Quote:

temporarily negated, so that the otherwise prevailing light conditions exist

That's the most guidance we have on what "negated" means in the text of daylight. My personal interpretation (not provable, just my view) is that the only stuff you negate is that which needs to be negated in order to return to the "otherwise prevailing" (not to be confused with "natural ambient") light conditions. So in my opinion, within the area of overlap, the following is negated:

• daylight's bright light
• darkness's reduction of light level by X steps
• darkness's suppression of light sources
All of those relate to the light level, so that's what I interpret to be "negated" in the overlap of daylight and a magical darkness effect. This still leaves all other aspects of the spells (such as radius, duration, the inability of multiple darkness effects to stack, and daylight's ability to mutually-negate darkness effects) still functioning.

The result of my interpretation, then, is that they can't simply cast a second deeper darkness to "win" against daylight; they'll have to actually get rid of (or block line of effect from) the daylight in order to get back to a supernaturally-dark light level.

Again, that last part is just my own interpretation, but hopefully it's helpful. :)

[thejeff]

So does that, in your opinion, mean that other light sources, like torches and lower level light spells, function normally in the overlap between Deeper Darkness and Daylight?

So that the final light condition in a cave (ambient darkness) with a torch, Deeper Darkness and Daylight, is normal?

[Jiggy]

thejeff wrote:

So does that, in your opinion, mean that other light sources, like torches and lower level light spells, function normally in the overlap between Deeper Darkness and Daylight?

So that the final light condition in a cave (ambient darkness) with a torch, Deeper Darkness and Daylight, is normal?

In my opinion, yes. However, it's not provably so. (Hence why I left it out of the guide and included a note to consult with one's GM.)