[PF] Light and Darkness clarification

[DonDuckie]

I was looking over spells and items, and got to thinking. (Thinking is good)

Darkness spells(in this case Darkness and Deeper Darkness) say specifically that they don't stack with themselves.

Do they stack with eachother, ie. reducing light by three levels?
- to get to three levels steady reduction, Darkness would need to apply first in order to get to "supernaturally dark" more often, what are the rules for such stacking?

Light spells(Light, Continual Flame, and Daylight) don't have a non-stacking clause.

Do they stack with themselves. And can more(Light, Continual Flame or just common torches) make brighter light when there are several of them. Even though they don't increase light level, but give a certain amount of light(torch)?

My reasoning is more torches = more light. But I would like rules on it.

[The Random NPC]

I don't recall if they changed the wording in PF, but in 3.5 they wouldn't stack. In fact if cast in a pitch black area it would provide more light. As for light, while things probably would get lighter, the area of brightest light would be larger, if you spaced them out.

[Psyren]

I think they won't stack if cast on the same object, but will if cast on different objects that are then brought close together - just like casting Light on a torch won't do anything, but casting Light on a rock and holding it up next to a torch will make things brighter.


I don't recall if they changed the wording in PF, but in 3.5 they wouldn't stack. In fact if cast in a pitch black area it would provide more light. As for light, while things probably would get lighter, the area of brightest light would be larger, if you spaced them out.

Pathfinder fixed this - Darkness lowers the existing light level now, rather than producing its own low level of illumination (which may actually be higher than prevailing conditions.) However, you now need Deeper Darkness or more powerful spells to foil Darkvision. "Supernaturally Dark" is the level below pitch black, where Darkvision shuts off - but Darkness is explicitly too weak to reach it.