Sun Rods are awesome!

[rounser]

Convenient and continual/continuous light sources have existed in D&D from the beginning.

As a side effect from a spell, it's okay. As a mass-produced magical item that's so common and cheap that every traveller should have one, and such that you have to come up with a contrived name like "sunrod" for it, it's lame.

 

[Najo]

I agree that sunrods are mood breaking. Personally, I think it is okay that they exist but they should be more expensive and created through magical rituals that make them rare for heroic level, uncommon for paragons and common for epic level. I like the idea of epic level heroes needing torches and lanterns. Sunrods make the party feel to godlike with vision and takes the creepiness out of the dungeon.

I would also make the sunrod durations lower at lower levels.

What if sunrods were magic items and their level range increased their duration, so at heroic levels they were more flare like and then as they get higher level become something that keeps darkness at bay for longer and longer periods of time?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Did anyone consider that the light radius on a sunrod might be a typo? "20 squares" looks remarkably similar to "20 feet" ... as if someone cut/pasted a description, then did a find/replace on "feet" to "squares".

I've got nothing against sunrods per se, alchemical items being a GOOD THING in a totally non-Martha Stewart sort of way, but 5x better than a torch they shouldn't be.

 

[Moochava]

Anything that turns "adventuring" from something you have to do because otherwise your village/your people/the world/the great dwarf-elf barbecue and friendship jamboree of '23 is doomed into something you do because you majored in philosophy and minored in dungeoneering and really, what else are you going to do without an MBA in today's economy?...is right out in anything I run.

Back in, like, 1994 it was clever to reinterpret adventuring as a career. Everything from Zork to Vampire$ to big swaths of Discworld worked the "ho-hum, another day at the dungeon/office" angle--which can be cool, but it was cool over 100 years ago when Van Helsing showed up with his vampire hunter's kit, and I think the novelty's worn off. What was once a subversion has become a somewhat uncritical default, and I'd rather avoid anything that emphasizes that assumptions, including specialized "adventuring equipment." For me it's not the magic-ness of the sunrod or its crazy range; it's the assumed idea that adventuring is a career with an industry dedicated to supporting it and specialized equipment for maximizing efficiency.

 

[catsclaw227]

Did anyone consider that the light radius on a sunrod might be a typo? "20 squares" looks remarkably similar to "20 feet" ... as if someone cut/pasted a description, then did a find/replace on "feet" to "squares".

Yea, I think it is too.

Back in, like, 1994 it was clever to reinterpret adventuring as a career. Everything from Zork to Vampire$ to big swaths of Discworld worked the "ho-hum, another day at the dungeon/office" angle--which can be cool, but it was cool over 100 years ago when Van Helsing showed up with his vampire hunter's kit, and I think the novelty's worn off. What was once a subversion has become a somewhat uncritical default, and I'd rather avoid anything that emphasizes that assumptions, including specialized "adventuring equipment." For me it's not the magic-ness of the sunrod or its crazy range; it's the assumed idea that adventuring is a career with an industry dedicated to supporting it and specialized equipment for maximizing efficiency.

Mercenaries have been professional soldiers/adventurers for a long time. It's still cool in 2008.

And who's to say that sunrods weren't invented by the alchemists for mining, foresting and other things where a bright light is handy.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Up until your last two paragraphs, you seem to have confused your subjective opinion with objective truth.

Not really, surpisingly enough. It's a fact that sunrods make other sources of light pointless and make tracking lighting pointless, and that's my main objection to them. Even people who like sunrods agree, to whit:

Sunrods light a large enough area that you shouldn't have to worry about lighting effects while you have one out. This is a Good Thing.

It's obvious, I think, that drothgery is correct in a sense, in that D&D's designers believed this was a "Good Thing" (I've been saying this all along) and it fits perfectly with 4E's "don't bother with the boring" design philosophy. However, if sunrods are going to be so powerful, they should have either dumped or altered other light sources to compensate, particularly magical ones.

I can respect that people like sunrods for their games, but I think they're a bit much for a default part of the gameworld. Not that Continual Light wasn't, either, but hey, I remember house-ruling that thing's radius down too and it got the chop in 3E. I do think they fit well into the Epic tier, however, and I might reintroduce them for that.

I do admit being personally offended by the lameness of the term "sunrod" (also rofl), but even if they were call "magic lanterns" or whatever, the radius and price would be Just Plain Wrong.

Edit - I'll give it one thing - at least it doesn't produce any "shadowy illumination"

 

[Particle_Man]

Edit - I'll give it one thing - at least it doesn't produce any "shadowy illumination"

That would be the Moonrod, coming out in the Equipment book.