Permanent Darkness Pebble And Warlock / Rogue

[megamania]

Okay- as a DM I finally went too far. The group's fighter and the rogue have defeated a monk wight whom had a pebble of permanent darkness on it. The rogue took the pebble which scared me at first. Then another player said something about the warlock class.

So this month I will have a rogue warlock whom can see in the darkness spell effect and thus sneak attack whenever he wishes.

Options? Light spell to negate, lots of scent/blindsight foes and what else?

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

The 3.5 Darkness spell only grants 20% concealment, which isn't, IIRC, enough to make you lose your Dex bonus...

AR

 

[Taloras]

Precisely. its 20% miss chance, not enough for a sneak attack. However, it DOES allow you to make a hide check. Move action - hide check(vs spot check). standard action - attack.

 

[FireLance]

Guys, saying that it's 3.5 darkness probably isn't going to cut it since it has already been used as 3.0 darkness.

My advice is, let the rogue use it and feel good about it for a few times. Taking a level of warlock in order to use this tactic is a significant change for the character, and the player will probably feel rather cheesed off if his choice is arbitrarily nerfed.

Then, work in a logical reason why the pebble might be destroyed: combat against a high-level cleric or wizard that uses a [Light] spell to dispel it, or have the party find out that it works differently from a normal darkness spell because a shadow demon or some other fiend is bound to it, and it slowly corrupts its user.

Then, give the rogue a replacement item that still allows him to use his sneak attack in darkess tactic, but less effectively than a permanent darkness item: a regular darkness item that requires him to take a move action to hide (opposed by the opponent's Spot), or an item that creates total darkness for 1 round, but requires a standard action to activate (making it not very different in effect from a ring of invisibility).

 

[Crothian]

Well, pointing out the 3.5 Darkness does allow the DM to fix the mistake if there is one.

And how is the rogue getting around in this permanent darkness anyway? It seems that he doesn't have warlock levels yet since someone else had to point that out to him, plus a moving sphere of darkness is really suspecious I'd imagine.

 

[Artoomis]

Precisely. its 20% miss chance, not enough for a sneak attack. However, it DOES allow you to make a hide check. Move action - hide check(vs spot check). standard action - attack.

You cannot hide while oberved. I think you can be pbserved even in "shafowy illumination."

 

[KarinsDad]

You cannot hide while oberved. I think you can be pbserved even in "shafowy illumination."

True, but you could Bluff first in order to attempt to Hide.

 

[megamania]

Ah good point on the 3.0 vs 3.5. I created this NPC a long time ago and missed updating that aspect of his arsenal.

I had considered making a spirit dwell within the stone but was uncertain if that would irritate the player since I didn't have there before.

We have two weeks before play and possibly 4 before he levels up. I'll look around and see what else comes up here and talk with him about it more.

Thankyou for your input and especially reminding me of 3.5 version. I have not used darkness since going 3.5 and it obviously shows. My bad.