D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] Darkness Spell 20% ?

[Cybern]

Re: Cloak of Shadows

One side effect of the Cloak of Shadows spell, err, the 3.5 Darkness spell, is that all characters can hide in plain sight because they have 20% concealment at all times while in the spell's area.

That's exactly what we'll do: Cloak of Shadows is a new spell, and Darkness is as in 3.0 PHB.

I agree that the spell description is incomplete, and it doesn't say if it looks natural, say, when casted at night.

Complete darkness was a part of D&D in 2e, and I guess 1e (haven't played it), so why did it disappeared like that? Monsters with blindsight were too powerfull? Darkness was too good a 2nd level spell? Players whined about the 50% miss chance?

Anyone who have read Drizzt's use of the spell know how useful it is, but I have yet to find the usefulness of the 3.5 version (if it does not illuminate complete darkness).

 

[Rashak Mani]

The only reason could be to speed game up... Darkness is notorious for creating some wierd situations. Player knowledge needs to be limited too. Still at 20' radius it wasnt a big deal.

I have seen a situation where a Darkness was cast by the Party and Silence by the evil Cleric in the same area. Royal mess for a DM to sort out.

I think Darkness was a good and balanced spell... great for creative spellcasting. Only Blindsight combos might have unbalanced things...

 

[Melkor]

I don't have my books with me, but does Darkness (in both versions) have to be cast on an object (via touch), or does it have a range ?

 

[kreynolds]

Touch.

 

[Philip]

I think Darkness was a good and balanced spell... great for creative spellcasting. Only Blindsight combos might have unbalanced things...

Balance was no too bad, expect for the whole 1 day/level duration thing. One particular cleric in my campaign regularly cast Deeper Darkness (3.0) on a stone, and as soon as combat occured, he revealed the stone, making everything dark. Then he kept on summoning things, like Thoqqua's or Dire Bats. Very effective against most enemies, but also VERY irritating to most other players, because most of their abilities relied upon sight. (Besides making the DM's job a lot harder and pretty much negating the need for miniatures). Balance was relatively ok, fun was definitely not.

 

[Urbannen]

If they have concealment, then they aren't exactly in plain sight.

It may not be a perfect analogy, but the darkness doesn't technically affect visibility. It allows people to make Hide checks even when they don't have anything to hide behind.

This becomes very dangerous in the hands of drow with good Hide checks, because unlike in 3.0, they can actually see through their own darkness. Yikes!

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Well, it would be dangerous if they could actually do sneak attacks in the darkened area too. But, since they can't, they don't really get much out of their ability to hide. (They can run away or pause combat for a little bit (possibly to chug down some potions of healing) but it doesn't have much offensive use).

It may not be a perfect analogy, but the darkness doesn't technically affect visibility. It allows people to make Hide checks even when they don't have anything to hide behind.

This becomes very dangerous in the hands of drow with good Hide checks, because unlike in 3.0, they can actually see through their own darkness. Yikes!

 

[Urbannen]

Your victim losing their Dex to AC and your getting +2 to hit for being hidden isn't much of an offensive use?

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Most of the time, I wouldn't think of that as an offensive use. I don't think it usually justifies all the risks and effort involved in hiding. (I say risks because, in order to have a chance at the bonus, you need to spend an action hiding which means that, unless you succeed--which is likely but by no means guaranteed--you've given up an action that could have been used for attacks. . . and your opponent hasn't).

Anyway, the main point of denying your opponents their dex AC is so you can sneak attack them. If you don't get sneak attack, there usually isn't much point to denying your opponent his or her dex.

Your victim losing their Dex to AC and your getting +2 to hit for being hidden isn't much of an offensive use?

 

[coyote6]

It may not be a perfect analogy, but the darkness doesn't technically affect visibility. It allows people to make Hide checks even when they don't have anything to hide behind.

This becomes very dangerous in the hands of drow with good Hide checks, because unlike in 3.0, they can actually see through their own darkness. Yikes!

Yeah, but everybody can see through their darkness, even the humans and halflings. Not too terribly effective.

kreynolds, did you ever find that quote about darkness not increasing light levels? 'Cause the phrase "radiate X illumination" sure sounds like it illuminates stuff, even if X="shadowy".

(Another thing that amuses me about the new light & darkness rules -- despite the fact that an area of "shadowy illumination" is an area that's low in light, low-light vision is no better than plain old vision in such areas. I suspect that the light & darkness rules were a bit last minute -- there's gotta be some reason they seem so incompletely thought out. Heck, they didn't even list deeper darkness as darkness, deeper. Or darkness, greater. )