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1. I think that you either declare to be targeting a Darkness' spell source or area (for example, with Searing Light).
2. Here's where tags come in handy. Spells with the [Light] tag will have this property.
3. Since often times Darkness Effects are generated by spells or spell-like effects (with limited range and area) then the whole thing. However, it wouldn't be weird, at my table at least, for me to rule only the surrounding/line/point of light to clear up the darkness in a fully dark place (caused by whatever the dungeon demanded).
4. It's not the casting itself, but the effect of the magic. For example, you cast Light at a stone and chuck it in a globe of Darkness, once the Light's AOE overlaps with the Darkness' AOE, the Counteract check happens and whatever the results are (Light is engulfed by a stronger darkness, or Light dispels darkness).
That's how I rule things, at least.
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I personally am very apprehensive with allowing a cantrip to counter a non-cantrip spell.Really?
This is the whole reason my spellcasters always prepare light, rather than simply relying on an item like a wayfinder.
Yep, it's worth holding a slot, if only for that. And a Cantrip slot isn't nothing, plus you still have to be a dedicated caster so you can counteract, which is quite a trade off for enemies IMO. Minion casts token spell so PC caster has hard choice between Light or AoE? That's already a great trade for the villain, plus they're hindering the party until the darkness is alleviated.
With creatures that have "at will" Darkness, you get a counteracting war (interesting) rather than the often automatic shutdown of the party (*sigh*). Early PFS1 seasons had many examples of this where one item or so made a huge fluctuation in scenario results, including entertainment. Led to much resentment, and lots of gold spent on light items (which would be harder to afford outside PFS or under a tighter power curve like in PF2). This goes both ways too, w/ some PC groups too easily shutting down threats w/ a token spell. PF2 has addressed the darkness/light conflict well IMO.
That said, some creatures, i.e. Drow Priestess, cast Darkness above their level as that's so thematic to their tactics. Most Drow & Caligni can spam Darkness, so they're likely to steal several rounds from the casters, even if it takes several tries (often while still Striking). And I recently read a monster (I forget the name, sorry) whose Darkness was immune to Cantrip light spells, as well as those under 4th/4th & under (?). I believe it's because it's more of a boss, so unlikely to be fought as a minion spamming. In that case, it's the party that might be Light-spamming back, taking its actions. :-)
I personally am very apprehensive with allowing a cantrip to counter a non-cantrip spell.
This is a property of the [Light] Trait, not of a specific spell, here: https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=100
You can, however, ignore any rules that you want. But it's good to know that's how the system is set up.
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This video may help to understand how it's work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdCysHTI-JQ
This video may help to understand how it's work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdCysHTI-JQ
Great to know. I thought we could just use the Light Spell after the Darkness so that you could try to dispel it (basically a test to see if the Light or Darkness was "stronger").
1. I think that you either declare to be targeting a Darkness' spell source or area (for example, with Searing Light).
2. Here's where tags come in handy. Spells with the [Light] tag will have this property.
3. Since often times Darkness Effects are generated by spells or spell-like effects (with limited range and area) then the whole thing. However, it wouldn't be weird, at my table at least, for me to rule only the surrounding/line/point of light to clear up the darkness in a fully dark place (caused by whatever the dungeon demanded).
4. It's not the casting itself, but the effect of the magic. For example, you cast Light at a stone and chuck it in a globe of Darkness, once the Light's AOE overlaps with the Darkness' AOE, the Counteract check happens and whatever the results are (Light is engulfed by a stronger darkness, or Light dispels darkness).That's how I rule things, at least.
According to what YuriP has posted, then number 4 above is wrong. You would need to cast the Light cantrip itself on a possible source of Darkness (assuming it was a valid target for the Light cantrip).
Darkness "suppresses magical light of your darkness spell's level or lower", so if you're rocking a Level 5 light, you don't need to counteract it.
Thats also how we interpret it. Makes the light cantrip pretty powerful as darkness effects are usually not cast at highest level.
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Darkness "suppresses magical light of your darkness spell's level or lower", so if you're rocking a Level 5 light, you don't need to counteract it.Thats also how we interpret it. Makes the light cantrip pretty powerful as darkness effects are usually not cast at highest level.
This also keeps a low level spell from hindering a higher level party.
You want to hinder a higher level party? You'd better bring a spell of comparable power, even if just a heightened Darkness.It's much like how one must invest in a higher level Dispel Magic if one wants to dispel comparable magic. It'd be lopsided otherwise.
Scenario time:
An object affected by a level 3 (or higher) Light is in the center of a level 2 Darkness.
Since it's magical light, it successfully emanates light inside the Darkness area, and since it's higher level, it isn't suppressed. What does this look like for those inside the Darkness vs those outside?
If it's directly in the center there would be no darkness or dim light. If it's off center there would be dim light to one side.
Oh cool. The dim light part totally slipped my mind too.
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I have to comment that I strongly dislike the idea that many high level monsters simply cannot utilize any shadow based tactics because their Darkness (which takes 3 actions and lasts only a minute) does nothing because the party has an 8 hour cantrip active since the start of the day and very few monsters have their darkness heightened beyond at most 4th level.
For example a chernobue qlippoth, which is burned by bright light, would be incapable of facing even a lower level party without taking constant fire damage because it cannot cast an area of darkness higher than 4th level using its entire turn.
I understand that this seems like the most logical reading of the rules as written but given that very few monsters have any manner of Darkness above 4th level, rendering those abilities almost entirely nonfunctional at the levels these monsters are expected to be fought. I believe a valid, albeit challenging to intuit, reading of the Darkness spell emphasizes that light does not enter into the area at all. Nonmagical lights cannot emanate within the area but plausibly magical lights are also prevented from penetrating into the darkness even of they may still emanate from within the darkness.
I do not necessarily like this reading, but I like less that powerful monsters of shadow are predefeated in their element by a cantrip cast hours before their encounter.
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I have to comment that I strongly dislike the idea that many high level monsters simply cannot utilize any shadow based tactics because their Darkness (which takes 3 actions and lasts only a minute) does nothing because the party has an 8 hour cantrip active since the start of the day and very few monsters have their darkness heightened beyond at most 4th level.
For example a chernobue qlippoth, which is burned by bright light, would be incapable of facing even a lower level party without taking constant fire damage because it cannot cast an area of darkness higher than 4th level using its entire turn.
This seems like more of a problem in the monster design than the rules though. Especially with 2E's monster design, creatures could be given spells higher level than their CR would normally allow. Giving a CR 10+ monster level 4 darkness seems to be a mistake in the same vein as giving a CR 16+ monster Dominate at base level. Useful for how it functions in the world, but rarely relevant in a fight against PC that have a chance against it.
Yup. If the Darkness spell is essential to the creature's tactics, I just heighten the spell to the appropriate level.
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For the Chernobue, it's a level 12 creature with some spells going up to level 7. But it got Darkness as a level 4 spell. And it's going to have it always on. Meaning that if you don't bring a Light or something like it, you're fighting in the super-dark (darkvision doesn't work). So to have anything resembling a normal combat, you're going to have to get rid of it.
I suspect the way the encounter is meant to go, is that the party spots this dark blob and can't see what's in it. Spooooky. Then they go take a magical light into to it, but that has a good chance of bringing the light-bearer inside the monster's Aura of Order's ruin. Also, you can suddenly see the gross creature up way close. Yuck. Also you're now within about one move for the air-walking creature with a lot of reach who's going to be trying to poison-lick your backline characters.
So yeah, the darkness is supposed to fail because if it didn't it'd be a very irritating encounter. If they didn't want the darkness to fail, it could have been written as higher level, like the monster's other spells.
Oh certainly, the flaw is either with the monster design or the spell design. Knowing that some monsters, especially newer ones, seem to be getting published with heightened Darkness spells in their innate spells makes me believe it might be the flaw on the monster design more than spell design. On the other hand, for some reason the creatures described as the embodiment of shadow and death, the darvakka, only get 4th level Darkness. Since the weakest among these is 13th level, the spell cannot truly be useful to them unless the party somehow lacks the ability to cast Light as a cantrip.
I suspect the way the encounter is meant to go, is that the party spots this dark blob and can't see what's in it. Spooooky. Then they go take a magical light into to it, but that has a good chance of bringing the light-bearer inside the monster's Aura of Order's ruin. Also, you can suddenly see the gross creature up way close. Yuck. Also you're now within about one move for the air-walking creature with a lot of reach who's going to be trying to poison-lick your backline characters.
This is very plausible, except for the part where the party must approach within the Aura of Ruin in order to reveal the creature. At that level the Light cantrip has a radius of 60', well beyond the Aura of Ruin's ability to retaliate. Well beyond the chernobue itself's ability retaliate to the fire damage, for that matter, save for charging or phantasmal calamity. To run a chernobue, even as a modest boss encounter, either requires choice use of a close environment (which is perfectly in theme for a monster of the darkness) or requires that the party doesn't have the use a very common cantrip with extraordinarily longer duration and, at a certain level, greater area.
I move, a monster which has the Darkness spell on its list which is not heightened to at least its second highest slot has a flaw with its design, as it has no more practical use for that spell (assuming it is expecting to use this darkness in a context where there are light-wielding PCs present) than if it had a Dispel Magic or incapacitation effect of similarly low level--and at least the incapacitation spells plausibly have some kind of effect still!
Perhaps the problem with Darkness is that it is very all or nothing. A monster casts Darkness and you cannot see. If you can't counteract it, you at best have a 50% miss chance with no save. On the other hand, if there is a higher level cantrip in the area, the spell has no measurable effect in its intended niche (lowering visibility in an area) since the Light spell automatically penetrates the area.
So you're saying we should split the party so that if they don't have TWO Light Cantrips half of them are screwed? :-)
Actually, two would likely be wiser as parties often do spread somewhat.
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I think there's an element missing that we'd need designer input to clarify: What is the default fighting environment for these creatures?
Much like they've said that it's expected PCs will face Alghollthu Masters (a.k.a. Aboleths) in aquatic situations, and its difficulty reflects that.
Obviously w/ the newer critters w/ heightened Darkness, at least one whose is immune to Light Cantrips, they're meant to be fought in darkness, so deal with it. One would suspect that such creatures would have been built with a miss chance factored into their defenses...or maybe not?
Are they weaker, like a Will O' Wisp or Pixie? Okay, maybe not that fragile, but to some degree.
Is the Chernobue tougher, like a Troll that's built with the expectation it'll get burned? Doesn't seem so, yet maybe that's balanced more by Recall Venom & Resistance 10 rather that hit points. Maybe the math checks out that they're expected to burn X amount of rounds? And as mentioned, maybe it's assumed to fight in tight spaces because yeah, they aren't that fast for their level, lack grab despite it fitting their theme, and rely a lot on 30' effects.
Put it an environment with twists and corners and GULP!
So even though tied to the dark, some of these creatures might be too strong to be expected to fight in the dark, and their strength might be the more thematic part. One thing about Light > Darkness is that lit conditions are the default combat situation. Lighting a battlefield isn't typically an advantage (the Chernobue being a rare case that's worse than Light Blindness), but inflicting Darkness does have major ramifications. So yeah, there's an imbalance that reflects the underlying imbalance.
Maybe the better use of 4th+ Darkness for monsters is to be able to approach into melee range somewhat safely? And as an unknown entity, with unknown numbers. That seems pretty effective IMO.
"Oh, another blob of shadow? Easy peasy like that last one. Wait, WHUT?!"
Checking to see if the monster's defenses account for a 50% miss chance is a good point, but also I don't think we should assume the Darkness must always be up. Unless the monster's has a clear time to prepare for the combat immediately before, Darkness only has a duration of 1 minute. Likewise it would cost the monster's entire turn to set up the spell, so the party can lay down as much AoE and attempt to swarm the monster's position before it can move. Nevermind that the Darkness can still be traditionally Dispelled, which would cost another entire turn to reestablish rather than actually fight or damage the heroes.
Darkness is valuable defensively (assuming you can see through it and the enemy can't... which is actually not a good assumption in many cases since Darkvision isn't too uncommon for the 2nd level version) but the set up and limited duration mean that a party can bide their time or even move out of the area with relatively little difficulty.
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Checking to see if the monster's defenses account for a 50% miss chance is a good point, but also I don't think we should assume the Darkness must always be up. Unless the monster's has a clear time to prepare for the combat immediately before, Darkness only has a duration of 1 minute. Likewise it would cost the monster's entire turn to set up the spell, so the party can lay down as much AoE and attempt to swarm the monster's position before it can move. Nevermind that the Darkness can still be traditionally Dispelled, which would cost another entire turn to reestablish rather than actually fight or damage the heroes.
Darkness is valuable defensively (assuming you can see through it and the enemy can't... which is actually not a good assumption in many cases since Darkvision isn't too uncommon for the 2nd level version) but the set up and limited duration mean that a party can bide their time or even move out of the area with relatively little difficulty.
If I could cast Darkness at will while being immune to it, I would have it always on. Even if it required recasting it every minute.
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It can only counteract something it can target, so it has to be coming from an object. There's a video above that explains it.I acknowledge that the rules allow the light cantrip to counteract magical darkness.
In my (non-society) games, I will probably rules that cantrips cannot counteract non-cantrip spells. I think it is an overreach on the power of cantrips.
That is correct, I misworded what I meant. I had meant to say that I would not allow a cantrip to override a non-cantrip effect. Meaning, light could not penetrate a darkness spell.
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If I could cast Darkness at will while being immune to it, I would have it always on. Even if it required recasting it every minute.Checking to see if the monster's defenses account for a 50% miss chance is a good point, but also I don't think we should assume the Darkness must always be up. Unless the monster's has a clear time to prepare for the combat immediately before, Darkness only has a duration of 1 minute. Likewise it would cost the monster's entire turn to set up the spell, so the party can lay down as much AoE and attempt to swarm the monster's position before it can move. Nevermind that the Darkness can still be traditionally Dispelled, which would cost another entire turn to reestablish rather than actually fight or damage the heroes.
Darkness is valuable defensively (assuming you can see through it and the enemy can't... which is actually not a good assumption in many cases since Darkvision isn't too uncommon for the 2nd level version) but the set up and limited duration mean that a party can bide their time or even move out of the area with relatively little difficulty.
Fair, though I know myself as a person who often fails to perform very routine actions even if they don't require minute by minute uses throughout the day. Remembering to take a medication every 6 hours is already an intolerable level of repetition and it barely takes a moment's thought and a glass of water to accomplish. Remembering to perform a 3-action spell every 30 actions would be far beyond something I personally would be willing to do if I were not actively expecting it to be a matter of life or death in a short period of time. That would be exhausting.
(on the other hand, yes, if I were a chernobue and thus could boil to death in the light for failing to upkeep this regimen I would probably manage it no matter how intolerable, but on the same token if I were a chernobue I would also not choose to spend very much time in places where I was very likely to be exposed to bright light for any reason)
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You are funny with your big blob of Darkness, just it will never happen.
Anyone with Darkvision sees inside level 4 Darkness as if it was just dim light. And by the time you face a Chernobue, I expect everyone in the party to have Darkvision.
So Light is mostly there to remove the annoying 20% miss chance.