Real Magical Darkness

[Pielorinho]

I once had a PC cast FR Blindsight and Deeper Darkness on himself: it was way overpowering in that fight, and turned what hsould have been a very difficult encounter into a complete rout. He and I agreed afterwards to ban the blindsight spell for just this reason.

We never had any problem with 3.0 darkness other than that.

Daniel

 

[Mercule]

My own experiences with 3.0 Darkness indicates that a dwarf with an everburning torch is pretty much immune to it, anyway, regardless of natural conditions. Actually, that's what prompted me to throw in the devil.

Anyway, what I'm hearing is that turning Darkness back into darkness probably wouldn't have any major negative impacts. Great. Hey, I'd be okay with upping the level of the spell by one or two.

 

[Testament]

3.5 Darkness isn't quite so bad if you rule that it can't increase the lighting in an area. As it was, I found 3.0 Darkness to be a real pain, especially when the Baatezu Devils or Blindsighters start running around.

I actually prefer the new one, since it's a pain for the party, but isn't an instant and total shutdown, that can lead to instant massacre against many opponents.

 

[Saeviomagy]

It was less powerful than fog cloud which is also a 2nd level spell. At least how I look at it.

Sorry, but you're just wrong. 3.0 darkness moves with the object it's cast on, AND it gives full concealment to everyone in it, regardless of the distance between them and their attacker.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Sorry, but you're just wrong. 3.0 darkness moves with the object it's cast on, AND it gives full concealment to everyone in it, regardless of the distance between them and their attacker.

And in my experience, you don't want to give your enemy full concealment. You want to surround one enemy without the others being aware of it with fog cloud, or you want to cast the fog cloud into a group of enemies and pick them off as they emerge from various sides. Casting darkness and actually staying inside it with everyone fumbling around doesn't really give you an advantage.

The touch range on darkness means there are three ways to do it. Either you cast it on an object and chunk it randomly, you cast it on an object and hold onto it, or you touch something an opponent is holding. The last one is theoretically the best option, but still seems pretty weak.

So yes it moves with you, which I see as a con, and it gives everyone concealment, which I also see as a con. So, no, I disagree.

 

[Kaffis]

And in my experience, you don't want to give your enemy full concealment. You want to surround one enemy without the others being aware of it with fog cloud, or you want to cast the fog cloud into a group of enemies and pick them off as they emerge from various sides. Casting darkness and actually staying inside it with everyone fumbling around doesn't really give you an advantage.

The touch range on darkness means there are three ways to do it. Either you cast it on an object and chunk it randomly, you cast it on an object and hold onto it, or you touch something an opponent is holding. The last one is theoretically the best option, but still seems pretty weak.

So yes it moves with you, which I see as a con, and it gives everyone concealment, which I also see as a con. So, no, I disagree.

The most evil thing a DM has ever done to me was cast darkness on a pebble and then teleport w/o error it into one of our party's pocket.

The point though, is that if your'e casting darkness, you typically will not be hindered by giving your opponent concealment. Because most of the time you cast darkness, you only do so when you have blind-fight/sense/sight and are thus less affected by it than your opponent(s).

 

[ThirdWizard]

The most evil thing a DM has ever done to me was cast darkness on a pebble and then teleport w/o error it into one of our party's pocket.

The point though, is that if your'e casting darkness, you typically will not be hindered by giving your opponent concealment. Because most of the time you cast darkness, you only do so when you have blind-fight/sense/sight and are thus less affected by it than your opponent(s).

Yes. It can be heavily abused by the DM. But, I have found that many many things can be abused by the DM, so I don't worry about that (I'm the DM anyway). With pure Core rules, though, I think it was a perfectly balanced spell. Yes, some FR spells gave you Blindsight, and some other stuff. But, I wouldn't say that the problem is with darkness, but its combonation with non-Core sources, and I don't think it should be balanced off of non-Core sources, which really is a whole different issue (ie Spell Focus).

The worst that can be done, that I can see, is to either have Blind-fighting (keep Dex to AC, 2 concealment rolls, still have to locate their square) or blind-sense via polymorph (know what square they are in, still 100% concealment). Combine both at level 7, at which point if your opponents are heavily hindered by a 40' globe of darkness I think something is wrong. You could add in web or similar spell to hold them there. And then if you are, what's the point of the darkness? You've lost line of sight for targetd spells, and only that one character can go in and fight. As a dire bat?

I just don't see the problem. Tell me some of these combos to munkin out the spell, please.

Also, I do find it odd that the wizard had a detailed description of the inside of your pocket.