Drow Tactics w/ Innate Abilities

[doktorstick]

Drow's innate abilities allow them to cast darkness, faerie fire, and dancing lights 1/day. They have SR and darkvision. Bowmen will have poisoned arrows.

What tactics do drow use with their abilities? Drow can't see in their own magical darkness.

On a related note, does darkness supress faerie fire? I think so, otherwise I thought drow would use a faerie fire + darkness combo followed by ranged or melee attacks. Or rather, this was until I realized the latter spell has a range of touch.

/ds

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Reread the entry in the PHB. Faerie Fire has a range of "Long" not "Touch." The tactic you outlined (Faerie Fire plus Darkness) is perfectly valid. The FF will negate the concealment afforded by the Darkness for the drow's enemies, while the drow themselves will still be fully concealed.

 

[doktorstick]

I'm sorry. When I said latter, I was referring to darkness; it has a range of "touch". I also thought that faerie fire worked in darkness, but several of my DND buddies disagreed. faerie fire doesn't have the light descriptor, but it notes that it is "light" in the text of the spell.

Does darkness only suppress spells with the "light" descriptor?

/ds

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I'm sorry as well. I took your reference as pointing to the original question, and I was wrong.

As to your question, from the SRD:

This spell causes an object to radiate darkness out to a 20-foot radius. Not even creatures who can normally see in the dark (such as with darkvision) can see in an area shrouded in magical darkness. Normal lights (torches, candles, lanterns, and so forth) do not work, nor do light spells of lower level (flare, light, dancing lights). Darkness and the 2nd-level spell daylight cancel each other, leaving whatever light conditions normally prevail in the overlapping areas of the spells. Higher-level light spells (such as the 3rd-level cleric spell daylight) are not affected by darkness.

 

[kreynolds]

What tactics do drow use with their abilities? Drow can't see in their own magical darkness.

If they have Blind-Fight, this is a very good tactic. While not fool-proof, it still works.

 

[Caliban]

I'm sorry. When I said latter, I was referring to darkness; it has a range of "touch". I also thought that faerie fire worked in darkness, but several of my DND buddies disagreed. faerie fire doesn't have the light descriptor, but it notes that it is "light" in the text of the spell.

Does darkness only suppress spells with the "light" descriptor?

/ds

Faerie Fire will negate the concealment miss chance from normal darkness, but not from the darkness spell. (Not that the term "darkness" in the faerie fire description is not italicized, and thus is not referring to a spell.)

 

[Napftor]

When playing the Sunless Citadel I added a few dark elves to the ending to spice things up a bit more. Of course, everyone at the table knows their powers. So, to give them pause, I had one of the attacking drow throw his faerie fire from a distance at one of the PCs. The individual dots of brightness shot at and encircled the character with increasing speed.

It may not have any game effect besides the usual, but I think it may have made some of the players wonder just what was going to happen next.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Faerie Fire will negate the concealment miss chance from normal darkness, but not from the darkness spell. (Not that the term "darkness" in the faerie fire description is not italicized, and thus is not referring to a spell.)

From the PHB pg 202:

Outlined creatures do not benefit from the concealment normally caused by darkness, blur, displacement, invisibility, or similar effects.

Caliban, don't you think the darkness caused by Darkness would qualify as a similar effect? Both darkness and invisibility are mentioned, after all...

 

[kreynolds]

From the PHB pg 202:Caliban, don't you think the darkness caused by Darkness would qualify as a similar effect? Both darkness and invisibility are mentioned, after all...

I'm pretty sure the darkness mentioned is mundane/normal darkness. It only refers to a spell when it is in italics. Note that displacement is not in italics because it encompasses both the spell and the ability of the displacer beast, both a spell and similar effect in this referrence. Also, Faerie Fire, like the Light and Daylight spell, is also an evocation spell. Though it doesn't have the [Light] descriptor, I would still have to say that it is definately a similar effect.

EDIT: Further explained myself (shock!).

 

[Caliban]

From the PHB pg 202:Caliban, don't you think the darkness caused by Darkness would qualify as a similar effect? Both darkness and invisibility are mentioned, after all...

No, I don't.

Mundane darkness is not similar to magical darkness, or darkvision would allow you to see in both of them. Magical darkness is not similar to invisibility either.

Faerie fire outlines you in glowing lights. Magical darkness prevents light from penetrating. Thus, the faerie fire glow is blocked.

Normal darkness is the absense of light, it doesn't magically block light. Faerie fire clearly illuminates creatures who are in normal darkness.

The invisiblity spell means that light is magically bending around you. You aren't blocking light (and it's kind of pointless to be invisible when there is no light to bend around you.) When you are hit by faerie fire, you are still invisible, but the faerie fire is not.