No, Umbral Sight only extends the range of your darkvision by 30 feet if it's a racial ability. This means it won't stack with the spell, but it will stack with goggles of night.
Darkvision doesn't care about obscurement. It only applies in Dim Light and Darkness. Note that, because creatures in the dark cannot see color, any challenges or information dependent on color become inaccessible.
No, there are no cantrips that reduce light. Some people will try to argue that dancing lights does this, but they are mistaken. Any existing Bright Light overrides the spell's Dim Light.
No, light levels are not synonymous with obscurement.
Yes, but... I use prestidigitation to put out torches, but there is also shadow of moil if you happen to be a level 7 warlock. There is no other spell like moil sadly (besides darkness, but that doesn't work with darkvision).
Okay, but 1 is actually worth a little more discussion...
If you're a human with Darkvision from a class that sets a flat amount, like let's say you're a Twilight Cleric.... sure, it isn't granted by race, obviously doesn't increase.
But, let's say you're a Dwarven Twilight Cleric. Your race gives you darkvision 60. Your class improves that to Darkvision 300. Now gloom stalker comes around... do you have a racial Darkvision 90, overwritten by the flat Twilight 300? Or do you have Darkvision 330 now?
The fact that gloomstalker increases "its" (the race's) darkvision range, and not "your" range, makes me think it would be the later interpretation and you'd still have a flat 300 darkvision from cleric, not 330. Right?
3. No, there are no cantrips that reduce light. Some people will try to argue that dancing lights does this, but they are mistaken. Any existing Bright Light overrides the spell's Dim Light.
Source? "An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness," but I don't see any language that bright light ALWAYS wins when magic is at play.
I'd like to think that a Twilight Cleric's Channel Divinity could be used to make a sphere of dim light in the middle of a sunny day
3. No, there are no cantrips that reduce light. Some people will try to argue that dancing lights does this, but they are mistaken. Any existing Bright Light overrides the spell's Dim Light.
Source? "An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness," but I don't see any language that bright light ALWAYS wins when magic is at play.
I'd like to think that a Twilight Cleric's Channel Divinity could be used to make a sphere of dim light in the middle of a sunny day
Once again, common language is making this difficult to argue. Light is either present or absent:
The presence or absence of light in an environment creates three categories of illumination: bright light, dim light, and darkness.
If something "provides" bright light, that area is bright unless something takes light away. Dancing lights shed (read: provide) dim light, it does not mention taking light away (as shadow of moil and darkness do).
Light illuminates darkness. Darkness "spreads" (or in your terms, provides) darkness, but can't be illuminated. Darkness doesn't create the absence of light, it creates the presence of magical darkness. Now obviously Darkness has its own special rule language making that explicit, but I wouldn't be in such a rush to assume that the interactions between natural bright light and magical dim light necessarily follow the same model that natural bright light and natural dim light do.
The usual context for using Dancing Lights is to illuminate darkness.... but are you so certain that it's unintended that an underdark creature might use the spell to make itself more comfortable in sunlight? A Cleric of Twilight, a powerful caster who is devoted to walking the middle path between light and dark... are you really going to say that their Channel Divinity feature is only useable in darkness, and not daylight?
I get why it's an intuitive position, based on real world logic. But from a game perspective, there aren't game rules which provide that hierarchy generally, let alone for magical lights. I wouldn't be in a rush to tell players "no it doesn't work that way" if their imagination suggests it does, and the rules leave that possibility open.
The presence of bright light creates bright light. The presence of dim light creates dim light. The absence of light creates darkness. And the presence of magical light, magical dim light, or magical darkness creates magical light, magical dim light, or magical darkness, regardless of what natural light is otherwise present or absent. That's how I'd play it.
The usual context for using Dancing Lights is to illuminate darkness.... but are you so certain that it's unintended that an underdark creature might use the spell to make itself more comfortable in sunlight? A Cleric of Twilight, a powerful caster who is devoted to walking the middle path between light and dark... are you really going to say that their Channel Divinity feature is only useable in darkness, and not daylight?
If you walk around with a torch, outside and in the daytime, you're not creating an area of dim light 20 feet out from the bright light shed by the torch. The ambient bright light already supersedes it.
A torch is a mundane item, creating natural bright and dim light. I agree, it wouldn't be very reasonable to have a torch dim the sun.
An Everbright Lantern, however, sheds magical bright and dim light. And maybe the Everbright Lantern casts a different type of magical bright and dim light than a Driftglobe, or a Dancing Lights spell, or any number of other spells or items.
I'm not saying that RAW, the Everbright Lanternmust dim natural bright light 60-120 feet away. But, if a player and DM are interested in allowing Dancing Lights to work that way, that isn't a houserule contradicting RAW, it's that table's (reasonable) interpretation of a situation that the PHB doesn't detail. There isn't a RAW rule for every possible interaction, DM rulings fill those spaces. They are not "mistaken" for making a ruling that is different from the ruling you would make yourself.
That's generally what people do, yes. A spell does what it says it does and nothing else. An item does what it says it does and nothing else.
However you wish to trap the effect, the mechanics remain unchanged. Adding dim light to an area of already bright light doesn't dim the light already there. A bright full moon can cast dim light, just like the aforementioned spell. But if the full moon is out during the day, do you notice a change?
I agree that "dim light fills" an area does not mean that bright light does not.
If it said "that area becomes dimly lit", I think turning bright lighting to dim would be a viable interpretation. As DxJxC pointed out, Shadow of Moil does create a dim area within bright light, as an explicit feature. I see no viable interpretation of Moonbeam or Dancing Lights which are anything but additive.
So lemme get this straight... if a spell tells you “bright light fills” an area, bright light fills it. If it tells you “darkness fills” an area, darkness fills it. But if a spell says “dim light fills” an area, just go ahead and ignore that if it’s daytime because... well, not because any rules TELL you to ignore that, but because your understanding of real world illumination should be assumed to overrule and contradict the language of a magical spell in the D&D game system.
Give me a break you guys. You can see that there’s no written rule supporting your interpretation, and that that isn’t even how you generally interpret spell descriptions. Does create bonfire fail underwater, because that’s how fire normally works? No, spells do what they say they do, and very often behave in ways the world normally does not (magiiiic!)..
Trying to latch on to distinctions between “fills,” “creates,” “spreads,” etc. is grasping at straws to justify an assumption you’re making without actual meaningful rule text to back you up. Nothing says that natural light conditions invalidate or overwrite areas of magical dim light. Saying they do is at best your personal ruling, not a RAW rule.
So lemme get this straight... if a spell tells you “bright light fills” an area, bright light fills it. If it tells you “darkness fills” an area, darkness fills it. But if a spell says “dim light fills” an area, just go ahead and ignore that if it’s daytime because... well, not because any rules TELL you to ignore that, but because your understanding of real world illumination should be assumed to overrule and contradict the language of a magical spell in the D&D game system.
First, I'll point out that darkness absolutely will get illuminated by light under my (our?) interpretation unless otherwise stated (which all spells that "create" darkness state).
There is no difference in wording for magical light and non-magical light. That being the case, they work the same. And no one will believe that torched light dims the sun, so why should magic light?
Spells that have the effect of reducing/removing light, say they do. Light creating spells do not have this wording.
And yes, I realize that there is no rule that says "light sources don't dim other light sources," but why would there need to be?
If X creates bright light and Y creates dim light, what happens when X and Y overlap?
Part of rules discussion is discussing when attempts to overanalyze the rules results in something that detracts from the D&D experience. An area of magically created dim light like that of Moonlight or Twilight Domain CD is evocative and 100% in line with the concept and very arguably RAI.
What I'm hearing in this thread is an attempt to override magical effects with real world physics. There is no rule that explicitly says that natural bright light can override a spell that fills an area with magical dim light. It doesn't need to conform to how natural light works because it's magic. If the RAW is debatable and one choice is way cooler, just do your table a favor and choose the cool one.
The magical effect controls. Or, if both are magical, the higher level magical controls. It’s not the impossible quandary you make it out to be. “Magical light” and “natural light” (and magical vs natural darkness) are absolutely different concepts, which there are no shortage of features and abilities referencing.
Whats more reasonable? “There is no way to magically dim a natural light in 5E”, or “spells that create dim light can dim natural lights”? like, what’s the point of complaining about the system overlooking the need for that type of spell, when there are no shortage of printed spells and magic items that COULD fit that role, if you just don’t insist on limiting them with an unwritten rule?
Lots of characters and monsters want dim light. Lots of spells create dim light. I don’t see a problem with preferring a reading that sees the one as a solution to the other.
Hello, I have a question about umbral sight from Gloom stalker.
If a Gloom Stalker obtains the darkvision with a spell as darkvision or gardian of nature, does its range increase by 30 feet ?
Does darkvision function in a heavily obscured area by a fog spell ? Does darkvision function in dim light only ?
Are there cantrips to reduce the light as control of flames functioning on magic light ?
Okay, so three questions warrant three answers.
As jounichi said:
Okay, but 1 is actually worth a little more discussion...
If you're a human with Darkvision from a class that sets a flat amount, like let's say you're a Twilight Cleric.... sure, it isn't granted by race, obviously doesn't increase.
But, let's say you're a Dwarven Twilight Cleric. Your race gives you darkvision 60. Your class improves that to Darkvision 300. Now gloom stalker comes around... do you have a racial Darkvision 90, overwritten by the flat Twilight 300? Or do you have Darkvision 330 now?
The fact that gloomstalker increases "its" (the race's) darkvision range, and not "your" range, makes me think it would be the later interpretation and you'd still have a flat 300 darkvision from cleric, not 330. Right?
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Source? "An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness," but I don't see any language that bright light ALWAYS wins when magic is at play.
I'd like to think that a Twilight Cleric's Channel Divinity could be used to make a sphere of dim light in the middle of a sunny day
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Once again, common language is making this difficult to argue. Light is either present or absent:
If something "provides" bright light, that area is bright unless something takes light away. Dancing lights shed (read: provide) dim light, it does not mention taking light away (as shadow of moil and darkness do).
Light illuminates darkness. Darkness "spreads" (or in your terms, provides) darkness, but can't be illuminated. Darkness doesn't create the absence of light, it creates the presence of magical darkness. Now obviously Darkness has its own special rule language making that explicit, but I wouldn't be in such a rush to assume that the interactions between natural bright light and magical dim light necessarily follow the same model that natural bright light and natural dim light do.
The usual context for using Dancing Lights is to illuminate darkness.... but are you so certain that it's unintended that an underdark creature might use the spell to make itself more comfortable in sunlight? A Cleric of Twilight, a powerful caster who is devoted to walking the middle path between light and dark... are you really going to say that their Channel Divinity feature is only useable in darkness, and not daylight?
I get why it's an intuitive position, based on real world logic. But from a game perspective, there aren't game rules which provide that hierarchy generally, let alone for magical lights. I wouldn't be in a rush to tell players "no it doesn't work that way" if their imagination suggests it does, and the rules leave that possibility open.
The presence of bright light creates bright light. The presence of dim light creates dim light. The absence of light creates darkness. And the presence of magical light, magical dim light, or magical darkness creates magical light, magical dim light, or magical darkness, regardless of what natural light is otherwise present or absent. That's how I'd play it.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
If you walk around with a torch, outside and in the daytime, you're not creating an area of dim light 20 feet out from the bright light shed by the torch. The ambient bright light already supersedes it.
A torch is a mundane item, creating natural bright and dim light. I agree, it wouldn't be very reasonable to have a torch dim the sun.
An Everbright Lantern, however, sheds magical bright and dim light. And maybe the Everbright Lantern casts a different type of magical bright and dim light than a Driftglobe, or a Dancing Lights spell, or any number of other spells or items.
I'm not saying that RAW, the Everbright Lantern must dim natural bright light 60-120 feet away. But, if a player and DM are interested in allowing Dancing Lights to work that way, that isn't a houserule contradicting RAW, it's that table's (reasonable) interpretation of a situation that the PHB doesn't detail. There isn't a RAW rule for every possible interaction, DM rulings fill those spaces. They are not "mistaken" for making a ruling that is different from the ruling you would make yourself.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Can't just start carving out special rules where none exist. The game needs consistency.
I don't want to argue wether a light source reduces light...
Then don’t. Just accept that Moonbeam does what it says it does, regardless of the time of day or weather, and that it isn’t unique in that respect.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
That's generally what people do, yes. A spell does what it says it does and nothing else. An item does what it says it does and nothing else.
However you wish to trap the effect, the mechanics remain unchanged. Adding dim light to an area of already bright light doesn't dim the light already there. A bright full moon can cast dim light, just like the aforementioned spell. But if the full moon is out during the day, do you notice a change?
Nah.
I agree that "dim light fills" an area does not mean that bright light does not.
If it said "that area becomes dimly lit", I think turning bright lighting to dim would be a viable interpretation. As DxJxC pointed out, Shadow of Moil does create a dim area within bright light, as an explicit feature. I see no viable interpretation of Moonbeam or Dancing Lights which are anything but additive.
The darkness spell specifically says that it overrides non-magical light sources. No such wording appears in Dancing Light or Moonbeam spells.
Light sources do not darken things.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
So lemme get this straight... if a spell tells you “bright light fills” an area, bright light fills it. If it tells you “darkness fills” an area, darkness fills it. But if a spell says “dim light fills” an area, just go ahead and ignore that if it’s daytime because... well, not because any rules TELL you to ignore that, but because your understanding of real world illumination should be assumed to overrule and contradict the language of a magical spell in the D&D game system.
Give me a break you guys. You can see that there’s no written rule supporting your interpretation, and that that isn’t even how you generally interpret spell descriptions. Does create bonfire fail underwater, because that’s how fire normally works? No, spells do what they say they do, and very often behave in ways the world normally does not (magiiiic!)..
Trying to latch on to distinctions between “fills,” “creates,” “spreads,” etc. is grasping at straws to justify an assumption you’re making without actual meaningful rule text to back you up. Nothing says that natural light conditions invalidate or overwrite areas of magical dim light. Saying they do is at best your personal ruling, not a RAW rule.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
First, I'll point out that darkness absolutely will get illuminated by light under my (our?) interpretation unless otherwise stated (which all spells that "create" darkness state).
There is no difference in wording for magical light and non-magical light. That being the case, they work the same. And no one will believe that torched light dims the sun, so why should magic light?
Spells that have the effect of reducing/removing light, say they do. Light creating spells do not have this wording.
And yes, I realize that there is no rule that says "light sources don't dim other light sources," but why would there need to be?
If X creates bright light and Y creates dim light, what happens when X and Y overlap?
Part of rules discussion is discussing when attempts to overanalyze the rules results in something that detracts from the D&D experience. An area of magically created dim light like that of Moonlight or Twilight Domain CD is evocative and 100% in line with the concept and very arguably RAI.
What I'm hearing in this thread is an attempt to override magical effects with real world physics. There is no rule that explicitly says that natural bright light can override a spell that fills an area with magical dim light. It doesn't need to conform to how natural light works because it's magic. If the RAW is debatable and one choice is way cooler, just do your table a favor and choose the cool one.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
The magical effect controls. Or, if both are magical, the higher level magical controls. It’s not the impossible quandary you make it out to be. “Magical light” and “natural light” (and magical vs natural darkness) are absolutely different concepts, which there are no shortage of features and abilities referencing.
Whats more reasonable? “There is no way to magically dim a natural light in 5E”, or “spells that create dim light can dim natural lights”? like, what’s the point of complaining about the system overlooking the need for that type of spell, when there are no shortage of printed spells and magic items that COULD fit that role, if you just don’t insist on limiting them with an unwritten rule?
Lots of characters and monsters want dim light. Lots of spells create dim light. I don’t see a problem with preferring a reading that sees the one as a solution to the other.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.