Post/Author/DateTime	Post
aerek 10-06-06, 12:18 AM	Our group had an encounter where some Dark Mantles attacked the party after they had cast Darkness. The Aasimar in the group then cast daylight on his necklace. There was some confusion as to what happens: A) Does the the spell cancel the Darkness and continue to shed light in the cavern as if there was never a Darkness spell cast. B)Does it temporarily counter the darkness, and then the torches they were carrying shed light. C)Or by casting the Daylight spell while in the Darkness spell work like a counter spell and cancel both spells. I ruled "B" and the Aasimar's player was arguing for "A".
Deathmond 10-06-06, 01:39 AM	Actually I'm pretty sure it's 'C' No, I'm absolutely sure it's 'C' SRD: Daylight counters or dispels any darkness spell of equal or lower level, such as darkness.
Seeker95 10-06-06, 09:50 AM	Daylight is a 3rd level spell. Darkness is a 2nd level spell. The caster of daylight can choose to either: * use daylight to dispel the darkness; or * use daylight to suppress the darkness. If the former, both spells are gone. If the latter, both spells are suppressed, and normal light conditions prevail.
CantripN 10-06-06, 10:38 AM	Daylight is a 3rd level spell. Darkness is a 2nd level spell. The caster of daylight can choose to either: * use daylight to dispel the darkness; or * use daylight to suppress the darkness. If the former, both spells are gone. If the latter, both spells are suppressed, and normal light conditions prevail. Aren't those two effectively the same? EDIT:Or do you mean that if you use it to suppress the Darkness, then whenever one of them runs out of duration, the other will start working?
Paxar 10-06-06, 11:35 AM	Ok, I've wrapped my brain around this one, and it hurt. To answer your question: Daylight brought into an area of magical darkness (or vice versa) is temporarily negated, so that the otherwise prevailing light conditions exist in the overlapping areas of effect. From the PHB pg. 217, daylight description. Now what was giving me trouble was the line that has already been quoted about countering and dispeling. That line means that daylight can be used as a counter spell for a darkness spell of the same level or lower, so a wizard could ready it to counter spell another wizard casting deeper darkness or darkness. The part about dispelling, I believe, has to do with casting the spells on the same object, if you cast daylight on an object, and then cast darkness on the same object, daylight stays active. But, if you cast darkness first, then daylight, the darkness gets dispelled, but daylight wouldn't then function on the object. That's how I read it. I wanted to put all that up there because it seemed weird to me that the spells would negate each other when darkness (it seemed) should not be able to cancel daylight, but that's not what the description was referring to. I hope all this is clear, it's early, if it isn't I'll try and explain it better.
Seeker95 10-06-06, 07:02 PM	Paxar, your confusion is coming in when you mix up spells with spell effects. The spell effects cancel each other out (suppression) if both are in effect at the same time. The daylight spell can be used to counter or dispel the darkness spell.
Paxar 10-06-06, 07:03 PM	Yeah I sorted it out thanks.
Father Dale 10-07-06, 01:30 AM	In the situation given, where the areas of the Daylight and Darkness spells overlap, the underlying light condition prevails. Thus, if it was normal light conditions before the Darkness, and a Daylight spell is brought into it, then normal light remains. Daylight can be used to counter or dispell Darkness. In orde to counter it, the caster would have to ready an action to counterspell, then if he made his spellcraft check to identify the Darkness spell while its being cast he could use Daylight to counter it. (Other spells and feats can make this process easier.) Or, he could dispell the Darkness with the Daylight by targeting the Darkness spell with the Daylight spell. In this case, both spells would be terminated in the process.
aerek 10-07-06, 09:39 AM	Well, in this case, the aasimar was using his ability to cast the daylight spell on something while he was already in the darknes. So the target would have been an object. The darkness was cast by the darkmantles in the area multiple times. So canceling one darkness wasn't an option. The player assumed that the spell, since it was higher level, would kill the darkness' and then still shine as the daylight spell afterward. Which I disagreed with. His argument was that in the last line of the discription of Daylight says that it counters or dispells darkness. I thought it similar to enlarge which says counter and dispells reduce. (I think here the "and" and "or" are the same.) He also argued that in the darkness description it says that darkness doesn't affect daylight. Still I think the answer depends on when it is cast. Which is brought into which. The confusion is with the daylight actually being cast inside the darkness. I ruled that it overpowered the darkness and the prevailing conditions (which were torches) reigned. But neither were canceled.
Seeker95 10-07-06, 12:43 PM	Still I think the answer depends on when it is cast. Which is brought into which.Nope. The only thing that varies is how it is cast. If you cast for effect, the prevailing (meaning "normal" light conditions exist everywhere the daylight spell and the darkness spell(s) overlap. If you cast for counter or dispel, then that is what happens. When has no impact on what happens. Only on how long it happens.