How many light spells cancel overlapping darkness spells?

[Piratecat]

Let's say you have a 20' sq. room with four stones, one in each corner. Each stone has a deeper darkness cast on it. A herd of adventurers enter the room and are covered in darkness.

"Aha!" says the cleric. "I'll cast daylight, and natural light conditions will return!"

Is he correct? Or does he need four daylights to cancel all the darkness?

Thanks for any thoughts!

 

[Furn_Darkside]

At first I was going to agree with the cleric, but then I thought of it this way-

If there was only one deeper darkness and daylight was cast- both would be countered and things turn natural. If another daylight or deeper darkness is cast, then they should not be immediately countered- they would take affect.

So- I would lean towards 4 daylights, but while that may be technically correct (or not, hehe)- I would rule along the following- the room returns to semi-natural conditions.. just very dark. I.E. a torch releases the light of a candle.

FD

 

[Ziggy]

I would rule this situation as follows:

If you want to dispel the deeper darkness I would require 4 spells, after all the spell is "consumed" when it dispels the first darkness.

However you could also cast the daylight in the center of the room, without dispelling the deeper darkness spells. Wherever the radius of daylight and deeper darkness intersect they cancel each other, and normal light conditions prevail. There is no mention that the deeper darkness stacks, thus only one deeper darkness can be "active" at one point in space.

.Ziggy

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Wherever the radius of daylight and deeper darkness intersect they cancel each other, and normal light conditions prevail.

The room is so small all 4 deeper darknesses overlap- I am not sure I follow why it would work in the middle and nowhere else in the room.

FD

 

[Ziggy]

The room is so small all 4 deeper darknesses overlap- I am not sure I follow why it would work in the middle and nowhere else in the room.

FD

Hmm, I might be on thin ice here, but as I understand the rules there are two different ways light and darkness spells might interact.

You can use a light spell to dispel (or conter, but that is another story) a darkness spell already in place. As long as the spell used is the same level or higher, the darkness is dispelled, and the light spell is "used", thus no magic is left.

Or you can just cast the light spell normally. If the area of effect of the light and darkness spells overlaps, they cancel each other (in the area only), and normal light conditions prevail. This situation is what I describe in my second paragraph.

.Ziggy

 

[Jotun]

I cast Deeper Darkness. A minute later I cast the same spell on the same area. Yes, only one can affect me because there's no stacking. Deeper Darkness's spell effects have no way to stack, even if they could, so it's moot. In the final minute though, when one Deeper Darkness wears off, the other Deeper Darkness continues. One goes away, one remains. They were layered. Instead of the spell duration being the indicator that limits the spell, what if it was Dispel Magic? I cast Dispel Magic on the area. Dispel Magic only affects one spell. What is the difference in effect between Dispel Magic being cast on Deeper Darkness and Daylight being cast on Deeper Darkness?

I'm taking a stand. I'm no waffle!

One Daylight = One Deeper Darkness. The only time a Deeper Darkness isn't cancelled out by a Daylight spell would be when it's got an extra Metamagic enhancement attached to it or something like that.

Of course, someone will see it the other way and have perfectly good reasons for doing so. That's why it's such a good question.

 

[Piratecat]

I guess it's a question of whether a sunlight spell cancels it, or just negates it temporarily. If you walk into a deeper darkness with sunlight, and walk out again, does the darkness return?

I believe it does, but I'd love a sanity check.

 

[Lothar]

It depends on how you cast the light spell. If you cast it specifically to counter a darkness spell, then both are gone. However, it would be difficult to target the spell directly since you likely won't be able to see the object that upon which it is cast. So generally the light spell will be cast on a different object or area. Then they would both be active, but would not have an effect in the areas that they overlap. There could be a single or multiple darkness spells in a single area, but they would all act identically. That is, they will have no effect in the area of a light spell of the same level or higher.

 

[Cheiromancer]

I'm with Lothar.

Identical spells do not have stacking effects. A daylight spell will trump any number of pre-existing deeper darkness spells, and vice versa.

 

[the Jester]

Well, if a daylight effect is brought into an existing darkness effect, they are both cancelled out where they overlap. On the other hand, if you cast the daylight to dispel the deeper darkness I'd say it would only get one of them. The difference being whether you bring down the opposing effect or leave it in place.

I have a spell that lets darkness effects "layer" imc, so you would need four daylights in your (ahem) hypothetical situation.