Demons, Devils, and Darkness (3.5)

[Gnorman]

So I'm paging through all sorts of information on devils and demons for my summoning handbooks, and I've come across an odd consistency:

Devils have the See in Darkness ability, but extremely rarely have darkness as an SLA. Nearly every single demon has it, however, but none of them can see in it. And the 'tactics' sections often talks about how much demons love to attack under cover of darkness because they have an advantage - but they don't, at least mechanically. No more than, say, dwarves.

Is this inconsistency strange to anyone else? Is there some sort of canon support for this that I've just missed? Or was it a design foul-up?

[Kaiyanwang]

Well, I played a long campaing with PC vs fiends, and I noticed the the thing bothered me at the start.

On the other hand, you can go around the thing pimping the demons with feats and buffs granting blindsense or similar things. A +2 (9) HD baubau can blindfight, an has good listen check.

A whole darkened area with Baubaus grinning at the PC, the sound of the drops of their ooze in the ground.. Someone strikes the darkness, striking the nothingness. Sometimes the weapon returns back consumed.. they are near...

Just an example. I second that it's an oddity, anyway.


In an alternative cosmology, the whole fiends could be a single "family". So, imagine combined forces of demons and devils..

[Amiria]

It is bad design, but it most likely happened because of edition switches (mainly from AD&D to D&D 3.x).

I think in older editions demons could see through darkness too. Necromancer Games has published a lot of D&D 3.x stuff in the spirit of 1st edition D&D and they too made that error when they wrote about the tactics of fiends in their modules.

Someone who is more versed in older editions of D&D should be able to say more.

[The Rose Dragon]

Of course, it is common knowledge that darkness is actually illumination. Since the spell states it creates poor illumination in the description.

And none of the fiends in the Monster Manual have deeper darkness, and only one demon has darkness as an SLA.

Weird, because all half-fiends get the latter. Where do they get this power over creating poor illumination if only babaus have it?

[Amiel]

So I'm paging through all sorts of information on devils and demons for my summoning handbooks, and I've come across an odd consistency:

Devils have the See in Darkness ability, but extremely rarely have darkness as an SLA. Nearly every single demon has it, however, but none of them can see in it. And the 'tactics' sections often talks about how much demons love to attack under cover of darkness because they have an advantage - but they don't, at least mechanically. No more than, say, dwarves.

Is this inconsistency strange to anyone else? Is there some sort of canon support for this that I've just missed? Or was it a design foul-up?

You may have to modify that statement or otherwise specify the edition you are discussing (3e as opposed to the revised edition), because it's not true anymore within 3.5e.

It is strange that the 3e and 3.5e devils seem to have a monopoly on being able to pierce deeper darkness/darkness despite not being able to cast it; however, having said that, you are wrong in stating that none of them can see in it, as many demons are able to true see, essentially combining both the see invisibility spell and the see in darkness quality/ability.

You are also somewhat wrong in claiming they don't have an advantage when fighting within it, as the spells bestow a 20% miss chance --concealment, to all creatures within the field.

You could edit your fiends with an ability similar or the same to what is written or intended...although probably not something as powerful as true seeing :smalltongue:


The designers may possibly have wanted the mechanics to 'balance,' to 'ensure' that the mechanical advantages from both 'sides of the equation' becomes negligible or thereof. Probably not.

[jmbrown]

Devils have the See in Darkness ability, but extremely rarely have darkness as an SLA. Nearly every single demon has it, however, but none of them can see in it.

What are you talking about? Only one demon can cast darkness and that's a babau. No devil can cast darkness.

[Amiel]

What are you talking about? Only one demon can cast darkness and that's a babau. No devil can cast darkness.

He most probably means the 3e demons and devils. See my above comment.

[Gnorman]

Sorry, yeah. 3.5.

And I'm not speaking of the Monster Manual specifically - I culled every 3.0 and 3.5 WotC source for demons recently, and about 50-60 percent of them could cast darkness, while still not having true seeing or see invisible. Zovvut, Jarilith, Kelvezu, Blood Fiend (okay so as I am naming these I'm starting to realize that most of them are 3.0). But there's plenty of 3.5 creatures with it, too, like the Babau, Bar-lgura, Chasme, Nabassu, etc...

Basically, it means that a babau can cast darkness, and it says that he prefers to, but he's still going to get the same 20% miss chance as everyone else, since his darkvision doesn't function in magical darkness.

So I just think it's a poor design choice in this case - they write tactics for the creatures as if they could see in the darkness they create. But they can't.

I guess I just found it odd, and I was wondering if anyone else had noticed the inconsistency. Either that, or I was thinking I just missed something. What can I say? I want demons to be able to see in darkness.

Hooooouse rule time.