OK its 11.30pm here in the UK as I write this so I maybe over thinking things but I'm doing some prep for our groups annual Halloween adventure and got to thinking about the Light cantrip. The light cantrip states it creates and area of bright light in a 20ft radius with another 20ft radius of dim light beyond that BUT..you can also choose the colour of the light, so what if you choose black? What happens to the light? Now I know RAW the spell only does what the spell says it does but how do you then describe black light?
I was thinking it might be a sneaky way to get non-magical darkness in 20ft radius with another 20ft dim light beyond that. it shouldn't break anything as Darkvision would still see through it but it might get a bit more OTT if combined with the Shadowblade or Shadows of Moil spells.
You run into a similar problem with any dark colour such as Brown or Purple so I'm thinking the wording they really should have used in that description was "Tinted as you like" instead of "coloured as you like" and then have tints inline with Prismatic Spray/Wall so you can tinit the light to Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo or Violet.
Although I do like the idea of a cantrip creating dim light so I might just stick a homebrew cantrip in and call it Gloom.
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Spells do what they say they do. It sheds light in a 10' radius and dim light in another 10'. It doesn't create darkness, you can't create infrared light to sterilize something or give someone a sunburn, it is not daylight for Vampires or creatures with Sunlight Sensitivity.
There's a strong at-will you can use to create an area of dim light: an umbrella!
I agree with what others have posted. Black is not a color possible for light (a "blacklight" does not actually give off black light, but instead ultraviolet light). Black is the absence of light, and thus light cannot be colored black.
But say you decided that this is D&D, and therefore a world of magic and fantastical things! So because the spell doesn't specify it cannot emit black colored light, let us look at what would happen if it did emit black colored light:
We can actually do this in a very simple way. The spell says it emits bright light that can be "colored as you like". It does not say "emits any wavelength" or "emits light of any color", it specifically says "colored". Luckily, we have a way to "color" light in the real world that we can use for this example. Have you ever seen a red light? Or a blue light? Just a colored lightbulb that emits light of that specific color, usually due to tinted glass (although there are LED's that can produce a specific color as well). Find a dark blue or dark purple lightbulb, then turn it on in the dark. What do you see, but a kind of dim, colored light emanating from lightbulb. It mostly looks dim due to the darkness of the coloration. Now do the same thing in the middle of the day in bright sunlight. What happens? Is there a sudden region surrounding the lightbulb devoid of sunlight and instead permeated with dark blue or purple light? Nope! Because an object shedding light of a certain color will not nullify the natural light from the sun, or your office lights, or whatever.
TLDR: Light of a darker "color" does not nullify bright white/yellow/natural light.
Ah well this is what happens when i work into the night on something and my brain sees something odd and fixates on it!
Thank you for all the input.
EDIT as an aside and more of way to remind me future self should I ever think about this again......I just got back from taking my dog for a walk, its a sunny evening and I put on my sunglasses and promptly thought "yep...this is what I would see the world like if a light spell was coloured/tined black", so future self, stop thinking about opaque colur and think about tranpsarent colour and imagine the effect of a coloured light spell as looking through a tinted lens.
OK its 11.30pm here in the UK as I write this so I maybe over thinking things but I'm doing some prep for our groups annual Halloween adventure and got to thinking about the Light cantrip. The light cantrip states it creates and area of bright light in a 20ft radius with another 20ft radius of dim light beyond that BUT..you can also choose the colour of the light, so what if you choose black? What happens to the light? Now I know RAW the spell only does what the spell says it does but how do you then describe black light?
I was thinking it might be a sneaky way to get non-magical darkness in 20ft radius with another 20ft dim light beyond that. it shouldn't break anything as Darkvision would still see through it but it might get a bit more OTT if combined with the Shadowblade or Shadows of Moil spells.
Anyone got any thoughts or opinions?
In reality, black is not a valid color for light, as it represents the absence of light. Therefore, it should not be a valid option for the cantrip.
IMHO, if the spell is intended to create light, it shouldn't be allowed to produce darkness.
You run into a similar problem with any dark colour such as Brown or Purple so I'm thinking the wording they really should have used in that description was "Tinted as you like" instead of "coloured as you like" and then have tints inline with Prismatic Spray/Wall so you can tinit the light to Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo or Violet.
Although I do like the idea of a cantrip creating dim light so I might just stick a homebrew cantrip in and call it Gloom.
Spells do what they say they do. It sheds light in a 10' radius and dim light in another 10'. It doesn't create darkness, you can't create infrared light to sterilize something or give someone a sunburn, it is not daylight for Vampires or creatures with Sunlight Sensitivity.
There's a strong at-will you can use to create an area of dim light: an umbrella!
The light would be colored black, but would still allow people to see through.
I agree with what others have posted. Black is not a color possible for light (a "blacklight" does not actually give off black light, but instead ultraviolet light). Black is the absence of light, and thus light cannot be colored black.
But say you decided that this is D&D, and therefore a world of magic and fantastical things! So because the spell doesn't specify it cannot emit black colored light, let us look at what would happen if it did emit black colored light:
We can actually do this in a very simple way. The spell says it emits bright light that can be "colored as you like". It does not say "emits any wavelength" or "emits light of any color", it specifically says "colored". Luckily, we have a way to "color" light in the real world that we can use for this example. Have you ever seen a red light? Or a blue light? Just a colored lightbulb that emits light of that specific color, usually due to tinted glass (although there are LED's that can produce a specific color as well). Find a dark blue or dark purple lightbulb, then turn it on in the dark. What do you see, but a kind of dim, colored light emanating from lightbulb. It mostly looks dim due to the darkness of the coloration. Now do the same thing in the middle of the day in bright sunlight. What happens? Is there a sudden region surrounding the lightbulb devoid of sunlight and instead permeated with dark blue or purple light? Nope! Because an object shedding light of a certain color will not nullify the natural light from the sun, or your office lights, or whatever.
TLDR: Light of a darker "color" does not nullify bright white/yellow/natural light.
Ah well this is what happens when i work into the night on something and my brain sees something odd and fixates on it!
Thank you for all the input.
EDIT as an aside and more of way to remind me future self should I ever think about this again......I just got back from taking my dog for a walk, its a sunny evening and I put on my sunglasses and promptly thought "yep...this is what I would see the world like if a light spell was coloured/tined black", so future self, stop thinking about opaque colur and think about tranpsarent colour and imagine the effect of a coloured light spell as looking through a tinted lens.