How dark is magical darkness?

[sithramir]

I love the 3.5 "Darkness" spell. Its great in total natural darkness. You can now cast "Darkness" to be able to see better!

This is truly my frustration. We need an absolute darkness spell. I don't care if it's gotta be 9th level it's just stupid that I can cast Wish spells with magic but not simply make it dark in a roomw.

The fact that a room with the darkness spell allows you to see is just pathetic. I mean if it was already dark this spell would literally help. It wouldn't allow other's to see persay but it's not enough. The drow steps in and casts darkness. You walk over and stab it saying" you need more than shadow illumination to stop me!"

 

[babomb]

Magic is magic, there's no doubt. But what does "radiating darkness" look like? How does it work? In the end, you'll just have to say "it's magic".....and I'm cool with that. But that explanation doesn't float my boat => I think it's even cooler when magic has some psuedo-science theory to back it up. YMMV.

How about this? You are aware of headphones with active noise cancellation? They produce the same sound, only out of phase, canceling out the sound. Well, Darkness radiates light that is somehow (magically) out of phase with any other light in the area.

By the way, as if this whole shadowy illumination weren't bad enough: suppose you are in a pitch back area and use Deeper Darkness to (shadowily) illuminate it. But then you need more light to read something, say. So you cast Daylight. That cancels out the Deeper Darkness and allows the normal lighting conditions to prevail: pitch black. And that's the word.

 

[Wraith Form]

Wow, I had no idea Darkness was so utterly, completely, thoroughly borked in 3.5. Thanks for....(wait for it)......illuminating me on the subject.