Magical Darkness

[RObiN-HoOD]

How can a character see in magical darkness, ie from a darkness spell?

Any item or spell will do or any trick.

thx

 

[kreynolds]

How can a character see in magical darkness, ie from a darkness spell?

Any item or spell will do or any trick.

thx

Bring Daylight into the area, or use True Seeing, or use a Gem of Seeing. Also, some monsters have the See in Darkness ability.

 

[Caliban]

How can a character see in magical darkness, ie from a darkness spell?

Any item or spell will do or any trick.

thx

Blindsight.

 

[RObiN-HoOD]

Re: Re: Magical Darkness

Blindsight.

That's good but it's for creatures ... monsters if you like. Basically I want to create some drow elves being able to cast their innate Darkness and still be able to fight in it w/o any problem. Any ideas for that?

 

[kreynolds]

Re: Re: Re: Magical Darkness

That's good but it's for creatures ... monsters if you like. Basically I want to create some drow elves being able to cast their innate Darkness and still be able to fight in it w/o any problem. Any ideas for that?

You can get blindsight as a feat with a 5-foot radius. If you can wild shape, you can get a better version. It wouldn't be outta the question if you granted blindsight via a magic item either.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Magical Darkness

You can get blindsight as a feat with a 5-foot radius.

...if you have Wis 19+ and Blind-fight (IIRC).

 

[Iku Rex]

Re: Re: Re: Magical Darkness

That's good but it's for creatures ... monsters if you like. Basically I want to create some drow elves being able to cast their innate Darkness and still be able to fight in it w/o any problem. Any ideas for that?

Magic of Faerun has a blindsight spell.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

There's a nice spell in FRCS called "Blacklight."

The caster can see through it fine; for other creatures, it's a Darkness spell.

 

[kreynolds]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Magical Darkness

Magic of Faerun has a blindsight spell.

Yup. A player in one of my games asked if it would be possible to make a magic item that granted Blindsight, and I wasn't quite sure what to tell him. We found the spell later on. He's happy with his new helm.

 

[Pielorinho]

While it's true that Blindsight is available as a spell in MaoF, I recommend that DMs nerf it or ban it. Blindsight plus magical darkness is a ridiculously deadly combination, in many (not all) ways superior to improved invisibility:

Opponents not only can't see the spellcaster (or whoever is the lucky recipient of blindsight), but:
-They can't move quickly, due to the darkness.
-They can't be sure where effects are occurring from.
-They can't be sure which friends are being attacked.

Add to that the improved duration of the effect, and you have something really nasty. Blindsight is the only spell that I've introduced to my campaign and then removed.

As an alternative, consider reducing blindsight's duration to 1 minute/level and/or upping the spell's level. If you leave it at 1 hour/level, I recommend upping the spell's level to 5.

For your drow, consider giving them the following tactics:

-Area effect spells. Drop a darkness down, put up a wall of fire, and send a fireball through it. Follow up with a confusion spell.
-Traps. Covered pit traps in between you and the PCs; they'll probably try to run toward you out of the darkness, and they'll have a helluva time seeing those pits.
-Tremorsense allies. Monte Cook, I believe, suggested that insects oughtta have tremorsense, and if you can send some poisonous spiders with tremorsense into the darkness, terror just might ensue.
-Scent. Not as good as tremorsense, but if you can send in critters with scent, they should be able to pinpoint PCs and attack them (even if they still suffer the 50% miss chance).

Daniel