Darkness is borked.

[Heryn]

At first I thought it was me, or the area I was in, after extensive testing I realized that it wasn't.

Here is what happens now:

Time and again I came up against enemies that don't have truesight or ultravision, yet they simply walk up to me and proceed to tear me a new one. The thing is, they simply interrupt their attacks every so often to leave the darkness, then come back inside and wail on me as if it wasn't there, I know it is a bug because they don't roll for the concealment, as they should unless they had truesight/ultravision.

P.S.: It has happened in the past (before the previous update), but very seldom, not to mention it could easily be fixed by replacing the previous cast with antoher one, which is no longer the case.

OBS.: I know undead are no longer affected by it, this doesn't concern them.

[CookieMonster]

This is intended.

Darkness has been nerfed for all spawns. The specific mention of Undead is to highlight that it is undead spawns, not summons, who ignore it entirely.

Is am unsure of the parameters or rolls involved, but all other spawns also will have the chance to penetrate the Darkness.

[ReverentBlade]

Can we get the formula used to determine whether a mob penetrates Darkness or not? I feel like it should be spell description information.

[Zahlfire_old]

Time and again I came up against enemies that don't have truesight or ultravision, yet they simply walk up to me and proceed to tear me a new one. The thing is, they simply interrupt their attacks every so often to leave the darkness, then come back inside and wail on me as if it wasn't there, I know it is a bug because they don't roll for the concealment, as they should unless they had truesight/ultravision.

I've noticed this often and it's been around for years. I imagine it's an AI issue rather than Darkness itself.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Can we get the formula used to determine whether a mob penetrates Darkness or not? I feel like it should be spell description information.

I'm normally all for mystery in Magic, but I strongly second this. If the entire purpose of a spell is for enemies to stop seeing the people inside it, then you should know before casting it when/why it won't work, or the spell becomes worthless - why would you slot a lotto chance spell to maybe do a defensive thing when you could just do a defensive thing with a different spell?

[Irongron]

The spell itself is unchanged.

100% of undead spawns have ultra vision applied (doing so on all summoned undead versions would be extremely time consuming, though I'm not totally against)

20% of other spawns do.

In both cases the vfx was intentionally removed.

Darkness, as a spell was way over-powered, making for boring game play, which simply exploited nwns poor AI.

With the roles reversed, players, even without ultravsion, still move out of the darkness zone, either to flee or engage enemies. This spell was simply not devised either the limitations of NWN in mind, and even after this change is still far, far too effective.

It badly needed this limitation, if not outright removal from the game.

Applying various low level spells, across creatures as they spawn has also been on my wish-list for some time, to make it both less predictable and more challenging.

After all, PCs have a similar advantage.

[ReverentBlade]

20% of spontaneous UV isn't so bad. Random low level spells on mobs would be interesting if kept low-key, too much could very quickly ramp up dungeon difficulty and time across the board. Individual encounters might still be defeatable, but it could make clearing a zone much, much more consuming in resources.

(A single random stoneskin on a goblin can be enough to kill smol PCs)

Why make the VFX invisible, though? Targeted dispels seems like a valid interaction and use of resources.

[Naiinara]

Darkness, as a spell was way over-powered, making for boring game play, which simply exploited nwns poor AI.

It's not entirely the spell so much as it is the spell ultravision. As far as I know ultravision is a neverwinter nights thing. The spell it seems to be taking place of is darkvision. The spell description for darkvision specifically states it does not pierce magical darkness, of which the spell darkness is. Well that and I suppose we have no spell daylight, which would allow an easy persistent counter to any monster group with a caster.

[Thalion]

my only issue with the darkness change is my poor true flame is just a pile of meat for mobs. darkness was my only defensive ability. none of my other spells are reliable enough for stuns, other than my lvl 7.8.9 spells, so now i am burning through components faster than i can replace them. and the aggro i generate is massive, so even in groups i get singled out even in darkness.

also is the wording a bit wrong on the other mobs that can see into darkness? cus i swear its on a roll now. ill fight a mob that cant see me in darkness, then randomly bum-rushes me.

[Nitro]

my only issue with the darkness change is my poor true flame is just a pile of meat for mobs. darkness was my only defensive ability. none of my other spells are reliable enough for stuns, other than my lvl 7.8.9 spells, so now i am burning through components faster than i can replace them. and the aggro i generate is massive, so even in groups i get singled out even in darkness.

also is the wording a bit wrong on the other mobs that can see into darkness? cus i swear its on a roll now. ill fight a mob that cant see me in darkness, then randomly bum-rushes me.

Try Bigby's Forceful, 6th level so you don't blow a bunch of components with a very good chance of knocking mobs down for a long long time.

Otherwise, make liberal use of fire/ice wall spells along with your summoned dagger to lure mobs into them. Darkness is still useful as a defensive spell, it just doesn't give you an "I win" button against 90% of mobs anymore.

[Void]

I posted feedback regarding the change earlier:
viewtopic.php?f=37&t=28032

my only issue with the darkness change is my poor true flame is just a pile of meat for mobs. darkness was my only defensive ability.

There are few more "Defensive" spells, but they are party unfriendly, require maxed charisma and GSF evocation (to max the DC) an some of them can easily get you killed due to short range.

Honestly, would be nice to have something like "wall of force" or have wall of fire fixed.

my only issue with the darkness change is my poor true flame is just a pile of meat for mobs. darkness was my only defensive ability. none of my other spells are reliable enough for stuns, other than my lvl 7.8.9 spells, so now i am burning through components faster than i can replace them. and the aggro i generate is massive, so even in groups i get singled out even in darkness.

also is the wording a bit wrong on the other mobs that can see into darkness? cus i swear its on a roll now. ill fight a mob that cant see me in darkness, then randomly bum-rushes me.

Try Bigby's Forceful, 6th level so you

This thing stops working reliably in minmir and has limited utility afterwards.
That's because on top of reflex save (which bigby spells do not have in PnP by the way) it has strength check. There are ton of enemies that win that strength check most of the time. To reliably pin things down you have to waste comonents and cast at least bigby 7.

[Nitro]

I've played a full CHA trueflame to 30 multiple times, and its a very reliable spell. The save isn't a big issue for you since it's pretty high and you can blast out 2 per round with a simple haste potion (which you can buy for a pittance from certain NPC vendors).

As for the STR roll, against medium sized targets you'll also win very reliably because you have a stonking +14 to your check, that's the equivalent of 34 STR, which I think you'll agree that the vast majority of mobs have significantly less than.

This isn't just theoretical either. Go to some epic area, say orclands. Orcs have pretty good STR, and count how many mobs could resist one or more bigbys forceful. Chances are it'll largely be the blackguards who have big saves and the ki fighters who have spell resistance.

So yes, you have to play a trueflame more carefully now. But I think that's fair considering the class is supposed to be a glass cannon, not an immortal PvE solo god who can take on any area on their own because they get to infinitely spam darkness.

[Void]

I've played a full CHA trueflame to 30 multiple times, and its a very reliable spell.

I believe that was before darkness change, and likely before introduction of yellow minibosses.

Autoquicken is granted at the end of your leveling journey, and there is a LOOONG time before that happen and during that period you only have one spell per round.

Bigby's six bull rush can be resisted 25..50% of times by minmir giants, 50% times by ettin poachers, and something like 80% of time by yellow minibosses. Those will have a high chance of resisting strength check. Wolves in the area have at least 25% of dodging the spell by succeeding on reflex save, and generally high reflex save enemies often will dodge it.

It is not reliable. It mostly works, but it is "fire and pray it works" kind of spell due to double fail condition. Unless you're dealing with weak targets.

[Nitro]

C'mon man, I specifically mentioned haste potions in my first post (seriously, they're 160gp from NPC merchants, there's no excuse). And minmir is a bad place in general, huge sized enemies that receive a size bonus to their STR check and otherwise high reflex enemies. The only reason you went there as trueflame was to abuse Empowered wall of fire vs undead in the endless battlefield for 120+ damage per wall from the safety of darkness.

[Void]

C'mon man, I specifically mentioned haste potions in my first post (seriously, they're 160gp from NPC merchants,

Which is as bad as wasting spell components.

The only reason you went there as trueflame was to abuse Empowered wall of fire

This is very rude.

The place was a great hunting ground and manageable to this day. The only issue is that with darkness change clearing it will take longer and will be more tedious.

And excuse me, if you "played true flame to 30 many times", then you should know how to clear something like that all by yourself and without any potions. Battlefield was always more dangerous than this.

[Nitro]

Alright, I'm out. If you want to self-flagellate by playing without using potions that's up to you.

[DM Rex]

Irongron said his piece, we're done here.