Been going through the forums for an answer to this and a couple other questions. Can't find them, so thought I'd ask the community.
Scenario: So, Lets say I am in a room 30' x 30' with dim light, all window and doors are closed. I cast deeper darkness on a coin that is on the floor in the middle of the room. The light drops 2 levels to supernatural darkness.
1. Does the deeper darkness affect the area outside the room? If I flip the question and think in terms of light, I would think that light does not penetrate the physical walls of the room. Does this apply for deeper darkness?
2. If I cast deeper darkness outside of the room that is all sealed up, and the room is within the 60' radius area of effect of the spell. Does the deeper darkness affect the light level within that room?
3. If I cast deeper darkness on again, say a coin, and someone casts detect magic to try to locate the source of the deeper darkness will the coin glow, or ping? Will that glow be suppressed by the DD? Or does the fact that detect magic being a lower level spell than DD, and one of detect magic's main effects is the glowing (lighting up) of a thing that is magic, does that mean that the detect magic's glow is suppressed?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Ok, should have re-read the Darkenss spell description. It states this:
If darkness is cast on a small object that is then placed inside or under a lightproof covering, the spell's effect is blocked until the covering is removed.
Which answers both 1 and 2. My bad.
Any ideas on question 3?
Thanks again,
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Darkness is a Spread/Emanation. It will go around corners and fill the space of its AoE.
I don't think that Darkness will block the ability to detect magic. It isn't necessarily sight dependent, but is dependent on "line of sight.
Darkness does not block line of sight, just the ability to register light to see.
There is an old long standing myth that Detect Magic makes magical items "glow". It doesn't. There is no glow to see or not see. Nor is there a "ping". You simply know that there is something magical in the area of your spell in the general direction you're facing. You can spend more time and know how many and even where they are. None of this requires any kind of sense - nothing in the spell's description says you "see" or "hear" or "taste" magic, no sense is mentioned at all. So it just works.
Note that you need line of sight to make knowledge checks to determine the school. That's the only part of the spell that won't work in Deeper Darkness since that blocks Line of Sight.
Darkness does not block line of sight, just the ability to register light to see.
That's not correct.
Line of Sight
A line of sight is the same as a Line of Effect but with the additional restriction that that it is blocked by fog, darkness, and other factors that limit normal sight (such as Concealment).
Thanks for your responses. 'preciate it!
So to clarify, if I was to use detect magic to locate the source of a deeper darkness spell that had been cast on an object. I can.
To do this though, it would take more time or concentration on the detect magic spell to narrow down the location of the DD source. Have I got that right?
Or do I still need arcane sight as Nefreet mentioned to actually see or pin point the exact source?
Thanks again..
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Darkness does not block line of sight, just the ability to register light to see.That's not correct.
Line of Sight
A line of sight is the same as a Line of Effect but with the additional restriction that that it is blocked by fog, darkness, and other factors that limit normal sight (such as Concealment).
Well then. Detect Magic requires line of sight so it is blocked from working.
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Thanks for your responses. 'preciate it!
So to clarify, if I was to use detect magic to locate the source of a deeper darkness spell that had been cast on an object. I can.
To do this though, it would take more time or concentration on the detect magic spell to narrow down the location of the DD source. Have I got that right?
Or do I still need arcane sight as Nefreet mentioned to actually see or pin point the exact source?
Thanks again..
As shown by Blake's clarification you will not be able to use Detect Magic to try and pin point the object of the Darkness spell.
I doubt that Arcane Sight will help either as the glow it will use is most likely not a "Light" effect.
Burst, Emanation, or Spread: Most spells that affect an area function as a burst, an emanation, or a spread. In each case, you select the spell's point of origin and measure its effect from that point.
A burst spell affects whatever it catches in its area, including creatures that you can't see. It can't affect creatures with total cover from its point of origin (in other words, its effects don't extend around corners). The default shape for a burst effect is a sphere, but some burst spells are specifically described as cone-shaped. A burst's area defines how far from the point of origin the spell's effect extends.
An emanation spell functions like a burst spell, except that the effect continues to radiate from the point of origin for the duration of the spell. Most emanations are cones or spheres.
Detect Magic is an emanation. Line of sight is not required. As a bonus, unlike normal emanations, even Total Cover doesn't stop it.
The spell can penetrate barriers, but 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt blocks it.
And if it's not stopped by 11.5 inches of stone, I doubt darkness will give it much pause.
3rd Round: The strength and location of each aura. If the items or creatures bearing the auras are in line of sight, you can make Knowledge (arcana) skill checks to determine the school of magic involved in each. (Make one check per aura: DC 15 + spell level, or 15 + 1/2 caster level for a nonspell effect.) If the aura emanates from a magic item, you can attempt to identify its properties (see Spellcraft).
Detecting the location and strength of auras does not require LoS. Only identifying the school of magic requires LoS.
There is an old long standing myth that Detect Magic makes magical items "glow". It doesn't. There is no glow to see or not see. Nor is there a "ping"....
I think we can blame the later video game adaptations of D&D and other fantasy video games for that:
How else would you model the detection of magic in a game where the only senses you have to work with are video graphics and sound effects?
There are not too many other options for video games - make it glow, put its description in a different color, make a little magic sound effect, add "(magic)" to its name....
In a pen-and-paper game and other forms of face-to-face storytelling, there are many more options available: "You sense that the source of this darkness is magical, and that magic feels strongest somewhere in the heart of the darkest shadows, about 15 to 20 feet past the door northeast of your position...." Or, consider the way William Hope Hodgson describes Carnacki's astral detections of spirits and objects hidden in darkness.
We live in a video game age, though: a time when most pen-and-paper gamers are going to have at least a passing familiarity with video game tropes :)
I hesitate to show my age, but Nope, glowing detect magic pre-dates computer games.
As far as dispelling the darkness goes, I believe you'd need to see the coin to target it with dispel magic, unless you had an area dispel like the greater version off the spell.
Actually, nevermind. You should just be able to target the darkness effect directly. Probably don't need detect magic at all if you already knew it was a spell.
I hesitate to show my age, but Nope, glowing detect magic pre-dates computer games.
That's strange, I don't think I ever saw it in any of my RPG groups, but I saw it all the time in video games, so I assumed it was the computer games that did it.
If that's not it, then I have no idea where it might have sneaked into D&D before then.
A garbled misinterpretation of Tolkien, maybe? Though the glowing magic swords in that case were hardly the result of any sort of "Detect Magic" spell revealing their magical nature - rather, the magic weapons glowed to reveal the presence of Orcs.
Or maybe it's from some other fantasy fiction or film I'm not familiar with?
Or perhaps it got introduced really early in some third-party materials, or early editions of D&D that have since been superseded?
I can't imagine any obvious reasons why D&D players with nothing else in common might have jumped to the same conclusion, otherwise....
Edit to Add: The First and Second editions are kind of amusing in different ways: 1E has very little information - it more or less just says that you can detect magic in a straight line in front of you, and can turn in a circle in so many rounds to detect magic around you, with no real detail beyond that - it's surprisingly short and to the point. 2E says pretty close to the same thing, but the language is expanded to include references to "intensity of the magic" and "detecting magical radiation" - one almost imagines a magical Geiger counter.... In any case, a glance back at 1E and 2E does little to clear up the mystery for me of where the idea of Detect Magic causing stuff to glow came from.
Good example Yronimos: 'In a pen-and-paper game and other forms of face-to-face storytelling, there are many more options available: "You sense that the source of this darkness is magical, and that magic feels strongest somewhere in the heart of the darkest shadows, about 15 to 20 feet past the door northeast of your position...." Or, consider the way William Hope Hodgson describes Carnacki's astral detections of spirits and objects hidden in darkness.
My players have stumbled on some Dark Stalkers who have not yet bought out their DD trick. I want to make sure I understand how I should determine if they can find the source of the DD if the stalkers start placing it on object. I don't care if they find the source or not, thats up to them, I just want to be fair. Your example is great.
Thanks everyone for the input as well. Much appreciated.