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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Crichton" data-source="post: 1280805" data-attributes="member: 4779">Okay. Feel free to skip down to my point at the middle of this post but I need to vent... I have been reading, searching and scouring these and the WotC boards for a few hours now and I am thoroughly frustrated and just a little frazzed with a dash of annoyed. I'm doing some campaign playing for my FR run and doing a little NPC creation as well as jotting down some rules clarifications and corrections that I want to mention to my players next session. They fought a tiefling in the last run that had to withdraw from the combat because she was getting beaten down pretty badly by the PCs. She dropped a darkness globe (a la drow tactics) on the area and scampered away (the PCs did not persue because of a time related puzzle). Now, maybe I just getting old or perhaps I'm just tired at this point. My group is used to your good-ol Darkness spell. 20 foot radius, no one can see and all that. Mind you, it was never abused nor did we ever get too rules heavy as the party always left the magical darkness very quickly anyway. Now, I see that 3.5 Darkness creates "shadowy illumination." *sigh* <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" /> My eyes POINK open like in the cartoons as I realize that I've paid no attention to this until now. So I consult tables, read descriptions, check some message boards to get myself familiar with all the jargon and changes. The conclusion seems to be that Darkness is not actually darkness, at least not anymore. The Point - For those of you who skipped my ranting above. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> I'm not really worried about the change but especially because it is the FR and because we have been playing there for some time I am having a tough time convincing myself that the drow are throwing around globes of "shadowy illumination" that simply dim the small area and offer some concealment. Gone are the days of globes of darkness from the FR novels and my very own campaign so it seems. But since this is my game (not to mention the comfort level of my players) I really don't like this. After all the research I can see that the old 3e version was a bit too powerful but I never noticed it nor was it abused. Blind-fight still helps on the conceal roll and it does effect rogues (for good and ill so it seems) and the general mechanic seems pretty solid in comparison. I still don't like it. It's not Darkness anymore! I'm not complaining about 3.5, here. I am looking for some advice as I need some middle ground and want to see what others have done about this or if it is even a big deal. I guess they should have changed the name of the spell or something like because of the drastic (IMO) change and had the good ol globes of Darkness be higher level or something like that. Anyone out there want to help ease my frustration? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I want to keep balance while keeping the flavor (and general utility) of the spell in tact as it will be used with frequency in the coming weeks.</blockquote>

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