Darkvision and the darkness spell

[tstan105]

I have a player who has darkvision, and also is a sorcerer who has the darkness spell. His plan consists of placing darkness on himself, and then using the darkvision to hide and cast spells which is awesome, but im concerned thats not how it works. In the spell, it says its magical darkness so i assumed darkvision wouldnt work, but it also says " Heightened (4th) Even creatures with darkvision (but not greater darkvision) can barely see through the darkness. They treat targets seen through the darkness as concealed." Doesnt that mean that darkvision works unless its heightened? and also could you actually sit in the darkness and cast spells at people out of it?

[Finoan]

Being in the dark and magical darkness are the same thing effectively. The Magical trait interacts with other things, but not with vision or lack thereof (magical darkness can be dispelled, for example).

So yes, the sorcerer casting darkness around themselves and using their darkvision to see anyway is a pretty common tactic. It doesn't work terribly well since there are a ton of enemies that also have darkvision and will similarly ignore the darkness. But it is quite effective against enemies that don't have darkvision. It can hinder the party as well though - the Darkness spell has a pretty large area and the size is mandatory, and the effect is immobile once cast.

The heightened version of Darkness will cause creatures with darkvision to suffer concealment instead of ignoring it entirely. That is the upgrade. That would also affect the sorcerer as well as the enemies.

Player Core does clarify some things regarding the difference between darkvision and greater darkvision.

Quote:

A creature with darkvision or greater darkvision can see

perfectly well in areas of darkness and dim light, though
such vision is in black and white only. Some forms of
magical darkness, such as a 4th-rank darkness spell, block
normal darkvision. A creature with greater darkvision,
however, can see through even these forms of magical
darkness.

Though the Player Core version of Darkness is nearly identical to the CRB version - including only applying concealment to creatures with darkvision at the heightened rank. Not blocking vision entirely like the rule clarification suggests.

[tstan105]

Okay that makes so much more sense. Thank you, I really felt like I was missing something and I was. I appreciate the help a lot!