Hello all. Would like your thoughts on a rules disagreement between myself and my DM that occurred recently.
I am playing a Hexblade that uses (some might say exploits 😉) Devil’s Sight and Darkness cast on a carried object to gain advantage/disadvantage in combat against enemies. One of my fellow party members is a Wildfire Druid. After reaching 5th level and entering combat, my party member summoned her Wildfire Spirit in the same vicinity as my Darkness bubble and the DM ruled that the light emitted by the spirit was now of sufficient level to dispel my Darkness spell. This left the party rather dumbfounded. While a DM is of course welcome to run the game as he wishes, this one had recently committed to sticking close to RAW/RAI in order to avoid rules disputes. Thus, the rest of the party and I attempted to explain all of the following:
There’s nothing in the rules about the Wildlife Spirit emitting light in the first place (it has no bright or dim light radius). The DM was convinced that, as a fire elemental, it must since other creatures of that type do.
The Wildfire Spirit is a class feature and its summoning does not involve casting a spell. Therefore, even if it did emit light, that light would not interact with spell features like those of Darkness and Daylight that cause lower level spells of the opposite type to be dispelled. This is also why Darkness cannot “dispel” the spirit.
Even if we allow the Wildfire Spirit to emit magical light *and* be treated like a spell, there’s no rule that would give it the ability to dispel Darkness. This is a feature of the Daylight (and other?) spells specifically, not a property of magical light in general.
After some discussion, we settled on allowing the spirit to emit some light and for that light to be capable of illuminating the area covered by Darkness, but not dispelling the spell itself. While not strictly RAW, I feel like this is a reasonable extension of the rules and a reasonable interpretation of the intentionally ambiguous wording of the Darkness spell.
Your thoughts? Is there wording in source material that supports either position that I missed or is my reasoning off somewhere?
Your DM is opening themselves up to many shenanigans even by declaring that a spell-summoned creature is a spell (e.g. that means all such summons deal magical damage with their attacks), let alone a creature not summoned by a spell. But what's really bad form here is springing a ruling like that on the Druid as a surprise. It's fairly unreasonable for the Druid not to know how their own subclass ability works - they should be the expert on their own wildfire spirit. If the DM wanted this houserule, good form demands making the ruling ahead of time, or if necessary - if somehow it suddenly came up unexpectedly, and I don't see how that could be the case here - by warning the Druid before summoning the spirit into the Darkness bubble.
There’s nothing in the rules about the Wildlife Spirit emitting light in the first place (it has no bright or dim light radius). The DM was convinced that, as a fire elemental, it must since other creatures of that type do.
"You determine the spirit’s appearance."
Very literally, it looks like whatever you want it to. Tell him it is made out of smoke and coal. And then tell him to
2. The Wildfire Spirit is a class feature and its summoning does not involve casting a spell. Therefore, even if it did emit light, that light would not interact with spell features like those of Darkness and Daylight that cause lower level spells of the opposite type to be dispelled. This is also why Darkness cannot “dispel” the spirit.
Correct. Darkness can dispel spells of 2nd level and lower, and only if they create an area of light.
"If any of this spell's area overlaps with an area of light created by a spell of 2nd level or lower, the spell that created the light is dispelled."
3. Even if we allow the Wildfire Spirit to emit magical light *and* be treated like a spell, there’s no rule that would give it the ability to dispel Darkness. This is a feature of the Daylight (and other?) spells specifically, not a property of magical light in general.
Correct, what he is saying here is entirely invented whole cloth from nothing and I have nothing to quote to reference because nothing like that exists anywhere in the rules whatsoever. Pure fabrication.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
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Hello all. Would like your thoughts on a rules disagreement between myself and my DM that occurred recently.
I am playing a Hexblade that uses (some might say exploits 😉) Devil’s Sight and Darkness cast on a carried object to gain advantage/disadvantage in combat against enemies. One of my fellow party members is a Wildfire Druid. After reaching 5th level and entering combat, my party member summoned her Wildfire Spirit in the same vicinity as my Darkness bubble and the DM ruled that the light emitted by the spirit was now of sufficient level to dispel my Darkness spell. This left the party rather dumbfounded. While a DM is of course welcome to run the game as he wishes, this one had recently committed to sticking close to RAW/RAI in order to avoid rules disputes. Thus, the rest of the party and I attempted to explain all of the following:
After some discussion, we settled on allowing the spirit to emit some light and for that light to be capable of illuminating the area covered by Darkness, but not dispelling the spell itself. While not strictly RAW, I feel like this is a reasonable extension of the rules and a reasonable interpretation of the intentionally ambiguous wording of the Darkness spell.
Your thoughts? Is there wording in source material that supports either position that I missed or is my reasoning off somewhere?
Your DM is opening themselves up to many shenanigans even by declaring that a spell-summoned creature is a spell (e.g. that means all such summons deal magical damage with their attacks), let alone a creature not summoned by a spell. But what's really bad form here is springing a ruling like that on the Druid as a surprise. It's fairly unreasonable for the Druid not to know how their own subclass ability works - they should be the expert on their own wildfire spirit. If the DM wanted this houserule, good form demands making the ruling ahead of time, or if necessary - if somehow it suddenly came up unexpectedly, and I don't see how that could be the case here - by warning the Druid before summoning the spirit into the Darkness bubble.
You are right on all counts.
Sounds like your DM was sick of your cheese.
That was funny.
For the GM, there is more than one way to skin a darkness.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
"You determine the spirit’s appearance."
Very literally, it looks like whatever you want it to. Tell him it is made out of smoke and coal. And then tell him to
Correct. Darkness can dispel spells of 2nd level and lower, and only if they create an area of light.
"If any of this spell's area overlaps with an area of light created by a spell of 2nd level or lower, the spell that created the light is dispelled."
Correct, what he is saying here is entirely invented whole cloth from nothing and I have nothing to quote to reference because nothing like that exists anywhere in the rules whatsoever. Pure fabrication.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.