Darkness - What is "shadowy illumination"?

[elijah snow]

What do characters see in an area of shadowy illumination created by a 2nd-level darkness spell? Is it pitch black, shadowy?

How about characters with low-light vision? Darkvision?

Thanks!

 

[Dracorat]

Its like light, but with a dark gray color instead. (I prefer the old style of it actually being darkness instead)

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Its like light, but with a dark gray color instead. (I prefer the old style of it actually being darkness instead)

Made it one of the most powerful 2nd-level effects known to man, though.

Our GM originally wanted to go with that ruling, as well, until it resulted in an arms race to obtain Darkness-generating items and effects for ourselves so we could lock the enemy down. The in-game penalties for operating in total darkness are such that the game slows to a crawl and we ended up going back to the 3.5 type.

--fje

 

[Dracorat]

Made it one of the most powerful 2nd-level effects known to man, though.

Our GM originally wanted to go with that ruling, as well, until it resulted in an arms race to obtain Darkness-generating items and effects for ourselves so we could lock the enemy down. The in-game penalties for operating in total darkness are such that the game slows to a crawl and we ended up going back to the 3.5 type.

--fje

My first group did that too. So I accomodated them. A few battles later, they decided to forgoe this tactic until absolutely necessary.

 

[Stalker0]

My biggest problem with the old way was how much it slowed down combat. Half movement, can't see the enemies, 50% miss chances everywhere, it made things take forever. And you always had the metagame aspect of what direction does a player go to find the enemy.

 

[RigaMortus2]

My biggest problem with the old way was how much it slowed down combat. Half movement, can't see the enemies, 50% miss chances everywhere, it made things take forever. And you always had the metagame aspect of what direction does a player go to find the enemy.

Listen checks are metagame

 

[Dracorat]

He means if a player looks at the board and moves that way. What I do is have them make a listen check and then if they fail, roll a D8. It's not in the rules, but I use the D8 to determine what direction they move toward. Sometimes, they stumble on the monster accidentally.

 

[KarinsDad]

Its like light, but with a dark gray color instead. (I prefer the old style of it actually being darkness instead)

I prefer Light becomes Shadowy, Shadowy becomes Dark.

The best of both worlds without overly slowing down the game.

 

[Cedric]

First of all...I house rule the spell to be actual darkness, not "shadowy illumination"..which I find ridiculous.

Second...I clear the mini's from the area of darkness, note where the players and bad guys are on graph paper personally, and make them talk through their actions which I track on the graph paper.

Yes, this sometimes means they've hit each other....but hey, they should be more careful.

 

[elijah snow]

I like Cedric's homebrew interpretation, but I'm still not clear what the actual, literal 3.5e game effect is- just shadowy illumination with 20% miss chance? Kind of dull...