Okay, I’m still confused about how to handle this.
LOW-LIGHT VISION
Characters with low-light vision have eyes that are so sensitive to light that they can see twice as far as normal in dim light. Low-light vision is color vision. A spellcaster with low-light vision can read a scroll as long as even the tiniest candle flame is next to her as a source of light.
Characters with low-light vision can see outdoors on a moonlit night as well as they can during the day.
The situation is as follows:
A mummy lord is sitting on the ground (darkvision only) while a trumpet archon is flying above at 250’ altitude. It’s night, and it’s rather cloudy. The mummy isn’t hiding so the archon would spot it if it were ‘a moonlit night’, right? Well, it’s not quite… therefore I ruled that he’d only be able to spot it at 120’ distance.
The archon then proceeded to attack the mummy at range. The mummy reacted by casting deeper darkness on a stone next to it. Now, the darkness line of spells only creates shadowy illumination… how does low-light vision work with this? Can someone with low-light vision look ‘into’ the dark area? If so, to what distance? Or is sight only hampered in that it all counts as shadowy which would mean that one could still see through it and would only suffer the miss chance to hit?
I’m not quite sure on how to handle the first part - seems 3.x doesn’t have outdoors range of vision rules, based on natural light, not that I could find on short notice. Anyway, I’d take that and either double the distance and/or “bump” the light conditions up (as in the “moonlight to daylight” thing). So, let’s call it equivalent to a cloudy DAY for someone with low-light vision… seems fair to me that the mummy is spottable, the only question is distance.
Tashalar - 08 September 2008 10:47 PM
The mummy reacted by casting deeper darkness on a stone next to it. Now, the darkness line of spells only creates shadowy illumination… how does low-light vision work with this? Can someone with low-light vision look ‘into’ the dark area? If so, to what distance? Or is sight only hampered in that it all counts as shadowy which would mean that one could still see through it and would only suffer the miss chance to hit?
Now this seems pretty clear to me. AFAIK, the Darkness spells create simply… darkness. And LLV doesn’t help at all there. LLV lets you make better use of “insufficient” light, by doubling illumination range and/or increasing environmental lighting conditions (of course, both of these only subjectively). However, in darkness, the light is zero, so there’s nothing to be improved. I may be wrong, but I think it might even hamper darkvision… but maybe I’m making a confusion with 2E infravision.
The 3.5 rules don’t adequately cover the spotting, so I’ll start with the darkness. All the spell does is magically enforce shadowy illumination, giving the mummy concealment that he can hide in. Because it is magical, neither the archon’s low-light vision, nor its darvision will aleviate that shadowy illumination condition. It’s daylight spell can, however, restoring the natural lighting conditions.
For the original spot, I’d probably use something like my Alternate Spot Rules. Using those rules and the situation you describe, I’d set the Terrain as open (the archon is flying so there is nothing really between him and the mummy in the way of obstruction) and the Weather as clear (you don’t describe it as raining or anything like that). The Light conditions are those of a No Moon night (the clouds block the moon. All together, that puts the vision increment at 10’. However, the archon has low-light vision, so we double the vision increment to 20’. We’ll assume that the archon is not distracted, and you’ve stated that the mummy wasn’t moving. With the archon’s +18 Spot, it can spot anything out to 200’ automatically. It has a chance to spot anything in the range from 200’ to 400’ with a spot check.
However, to pick out that what it spotted is a mummy the archon needs to beat the DC by 5, so the automatic range is reduced to 140’ and the check range is out to 340’. For the archon to identify the mummy (i.e. know that it is this particular mummy that it was looking for and not some other mummy) then the automatic range is reduced to 100’ and the check range is out to 300’.
Its magical darkness that block all “normal” visons, normal, low-light and even darkvision. Only thing that can see through it its some creature special abilities, tremor sense, blindsense and true-seeing. Why its confusing you? If you want it create a light of darkness, its probably the simplest way to put it.
The archon could simply cast AoE spells to hit the mummy in it or wait that the spell stop or dispel it with either dispel magic or daylight spell.
Its magical darkness that block all “normal” visons, normal, low-light and even darkvision.
Except that it’s not completely dark, just shadowy illumination. You’re referring to the 3.0 version of the spell. The darkness line of spells got toned down considerably in 3.5.
Edit: Cross-posting, heh. I’ll let it stand as is.
Its magical darkness that block all “normal” visons, normal, low-light and even darkvision.
Well, what BP stated, really. It’s not total darkness, it is only shadowy illumination.
Thanks for the explanation, BP - I’m still stuck on one point though. The mummy can hide as it is now within shadowy illumination. But… this means that the archon can still spot it normally, right? He suffers the miss chance as do creatures without darkvision or low-light vision, but he can still see into it?
If the mummy hides, add the result of its hide check to the Spot DC. With a +1 Hide, it probably won’t be much, but every bit forces that archon a bit closer.
As for the shadowy illumination bit, my alternative spot rules dictate that shadowy illumination is the equivalent of the “full moon” lighting condition. However, since the lighting conditions are already worse than that, I wouldn’t increase the light level at all.
This does imply that the mummy already had concealment when the archon first spotted him, and that he didn’t need to cast deeper darkness to start hiding.
The mummy has cast deeper darkness and the archon is wearing a helm of brilliance. The helm “emanates a bluish light when undead are within 30 feet. This light causes 1d6 points of damage per round to all such creatures within that range.”
Question: How does this ‘bluish light’ interact with the deeper darkness spell? Is it negated by it? Or does it push back the darkness? Only in the latter case would the undead be affected, as it is the light that causes the damage.
Question: How does this ‘bluish light’ interact with the deeper darkness spell? Is it negated by it? Or does it push back the darkness? Only in the latter case would the undead be affected, as it is the light that causes the damage.
This depends on the level of the effect that produces the light, since deeper darkness blocks light spells of lower level. It would be easier if it was the caster level, but it is the *level* of the effect. So, you’d have to try and estimate which spell produces the light (see the item description for required spells for creating it) and go from there.
These darkness effects led us to house rule the darkness spells in our 3.5e game by the way. They are just too vague and lead to odd results.
We decided that darkness is just pitch black darkness, except for squares adjacent to a creature in the spells area. The adjacent squares are just concealed (20% miss chance). This is just a lot easier. It makes the spells a bit better though. Also, we still used the rule that a higher level light spell counters the darkness effect in its area.
This depends on the level of the effect that produces the light, since deeper darkness blocks light spells of lower level. It would be easier if it was the caster level, but it is the *level* of the effect. So, you’d have to try and estimate which spell produces the light (see the item description for required spells for creating it) and go from there.
Spells needed for the creation of a helm of brilliance:
detect undead, fireball, flame blade, light, prismatic spray, protection from energy, wall of fire
=> From the above list I’d guess that detect undead and light are the spells that are needed for the effect and that it therefore does not work.
Yeah, none of the higher level spells needed for the helm don’t even have the light descriptor (did not check, but I am pretty sure). Light seems to be the only one that does have it.
been playign both for so long i sometimes make mistake like that 
