Dynamic Lighting - Magical Darkness

Add a Magical Darkness setting to tokens that would cancel out a token's Emits light setting

This is the best idea ever 11/10 I would rather have magical darkness than a girlfriend IGN 11/10.

+1, the main complications is you would have to add some priority to lights, magic light vs darkness, darkness vs daylight spell (speaking from pathfinder terms). But yes, creating magical darkness right now is impossible.

Your Suggestion for a change to Dynamic Lighting is valid. But there is currently a way to make a Darkness effect. This particular Darkness technique will create a darkness for Everyone (in fact even on the GM), so this may be different from your idea if you wanted a Darkness effect that could be overridden by some tokens sight, but kept darkness to others. Darkness Token GM can control a Large Black Circle Token (say 8x8 size, or whatever fits your darkness radius) and... The black circle token will function as a magical darkness. Light would still go "over" the black token but nothing of the map nor other tokens would appear visible under it, if the token is completely black and On Top of z-order of token layer. Here are some Marketplace graphics sets to help achieve this effect if you want to go beyond drawing your own black circle with the draw tool, Faster Caster's: Spell Fx 2 Author: Gabriel Pickard <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/468/fast" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/468/fast</a>... Dungeon Accessories 2 Author: Joshua Kurz <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/476/dung" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/476/dung</a>... Combat Magic I Author: Brass Badger Workshop <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/570/comb" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/570/comb</a>... Tek-magic Pack 2 - Sorcery Author: Alex Carmichal <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/497/tek-" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/497/tek-</a>...

That sounds like it would be a pain to arrange tokens under it.

Gold said: Your Suggestion for a change to Dynamic Lighting is valid. But there is currently a way to make a Darkness effect. This particular Darkness technique will create a darkness for Everyone (in fact even on the GM), so this may be different from your idea if you wanted a Darkness effect that could be overridden by some tokens sight, but kept darkness to others. Darkness Token GM can control a Large Black Circle Token (say 8x8 size, or whatever fits your darkness radius) and... The black circle token will function as a magical darkness. Light would still go "over" the black token but nothing of the map nor other tokens would appear visible under it, if the token is completely black and On Top of z-order of token layer. Here are some Marketplace graphics sets to help achieve this effect if you want to go beyond drawing your own black circle with the draw tool, Faster Caster's: Spell Fx 2 Author: Gabriel Pickard <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/468/fast" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/468/fast</a>... Dungeon Accessories 2 Author: Joshua Kurz <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/476/dung" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/476/dung</a>... Combat Magic I Author: Brass Badger Workshop <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/570/comb" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/570/comb</a>... Tek-magic Pack 2 - Sorcery Author: Alex Carmichal <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/497/tek-" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/497/tek-</a>... The main problem I have with that would be the fact that it blocks vision even for the DM, which would be a pain in any type of combat inside of it.

You can also make an aura around the object affected by Darkness, then change its color to black. It solves the problem of 1) indicating where the Darkness zone is, 2) keeping the tokens accessible, and 3) making your players feel like the zone is indeed darker. It's also very easy to set and change the size of the zone this way. It is especially useful for the D&D and Pathfinder version of the Darkness &nbsp;Spell, as it is centered around a touched object/person, instead of being static, and merely dims the light, meaning that yes, the players can still see the ennemies within most of the time. However if your setting/system uses a pitch black effect, it still divulges the token's location... I still voted for this, because there are other reasons to want it incorporated into Dynamic Lightning (like the ability to make a pitch black zone).&nbsp;

This would be useful, and I upvoted it, but I have another work-around: assuming the zone you need to have darkened is static, and impenetrable to all relavant forms of sight: turn on"fog of war" and reveal everything except your dark patch, boom, zoneofof darkness that the gm can see through and the players cant...

Alexei Y-M. said: This would be useful, and I upvoted it, but I have another work-around: assuming the zone you need to have darkened is static, and impenetrable to all relavant forms of sight: turn on"fog of war" and reveal everything except your dark patch, boom, zoneofof darkness that the gm can see through and the players cant... That's a pretty good work around. I originally suggested it because my player carried a sword of darkness

I think I found a way to decently imitate Magical Darkness, so that players without Darkvision cannot see into/through effect, but players with Darkvision can. EDIT: Note, this is based on the Pathfinder 1st edition Darkness and Darkvision rules. There are probably differences between this, D&amp;D 5E, and other systems. First, draw an unfilled shape on the grid to size out the Darkness area of effect.&nbsp; I recommend you create a new map where you keep all your various templates, so later you can easily copy and paste the templates you need onto appropriate map. When you are ready to use Darkness in combat, paste this onto your combat map in the dynamic lighting layer. Now, create a token, which you will use as the Darkvision token, to imitate darkvision for PCs that have this ability. Double click token to edit, and enter DM and PCs with Darkvision into the Controlled By field. On Advanced tab, recreate your chosen Darkvision settings.&nbsp; Mine shown below. So, anywhere you place this token on the map, it essentially acts as a light source only your Darkvision PCs can see.&nbsp; This is how they will be able to: see into the Darkness area of effect (by placing these tokens within Darkness grid object) see through the Darkness area of effect (by placing these tokens behind the Darkness grid object) Create a Character in campaign journal, and save this token as default so you can easily drop it onto future maps. Map View of Dynamic Lighting Layer: Map view on Object Layer: View of PC without Darkvision: View of PC with Darkvision, tested by selecting PC and multiple darkvision tokens, and typing ctrl+l: Also tested by “Re-Join as player”, and since my DM name is in Controlled By for all Darkvision tokens, I can see normally. If my DM name was only in Controlled By for Darkvision token outside of area of effect, this is what I would see: You should set Dynamic Lighting for map to Restrict Movement.&nbsp; You will then as DM need to move your PCs into the area of darkness.&nbsp; When moving PCs without darkvision, you should disable their token’s Has Sight option: This will force PCs without Darkvision to make perception rolls, and rely on you as the DM describing what direction they hear combat and their ability to pinpoint combatants location. You should have the darkness object grid and darkvision tokens on the GM layer, in the map area where you plan to use Darkness, and then move everything to appropriate layers when Darkness is activated. I hope this helps you run Darkness vs. Darkvision vs. Normal Vision more successfully in your games.&nbsp; Please let me know if you think this is a good idea, if you have ways to improve upon it, or if there is an even better solution out there. Thanks!

That is really awesome, thanks Jonathan S! edit: (snipped out the quote due to length)

My pleasure!&nbsp; It created a bit of extra work managing the various tokens and me as DM manually having to move the players into and out of the Darkness area of effect, but it was well worth it. The players without darkvision became more reliant on those with, and made the fight against the Babau demons pretty harrowing and memorable.

Jonathan S. said: I think I found a way to decently imitate Magical Darkness, so that players without Darkvision cannot see into/through effect, but players with Darkvision can. ...snip... That is an awesome technique Jonathan S. I don't know how I missed seeing it, but it should immediately go into Stupid Tricks . It's a perfect fit for that thread.

Sorry for delayed reply - you have my permission to post this within stupid tricks if you haven't already.

Jonathan S. said: I think I found a way to decently imitate Magical Darkness, so that players without Darkvision cannot see into/through effect, but players with Darkvision can. ...snip... You should set Dynamic Lighting for map to Restrict Movement.&nbsp; You will then as DM need to move your PCs into the area of darkness.&nbsp; When moving PCs without darkvision, you should disable their token’s Has Sight option: ...snip... First and foremost, this a brilliant solution, and I am using it. However, I had one problem with it. When I turn off "Has Sight", my player can't see, but they can walk right through all of my dynamic lighting obstacles, regardless of the "Restrict Movement" settings. Surprised the heck out of me. I did find a fix, though. Instead of unchecking the "Has Sight" box, just change the "Angle" to zero. They still have sight, so the dynamic lighting controls still block their movement, but they can't see because you've collapsed their field of view to nothing. Works like a champ.

Todd H. said: When I turn off "Has Sight", my player can't see, but they can walk right through all of my dynamic lighting obstacles, regardless of the "Restrict Movement" settings. Surprised the heck out of me. Yeesh! That's a pretty serious bug. I guess a situation that would call for this has been pretty rare, else it would have been discovered before now. I just went and tried it out on the dev server and the new DL setup and it does not seem to have this same bug.

@Jonathan S: Thanks for posting this!&nbsp; I have a battle where everyone has darkvision, but some have See in Darkness and at-will Deeper Darkness.&nbsp; The area of effect will be larger, but in concept this should work the same way.&nbsp; And if some players resort to casting Daylight then hopefully the AoE will overlap in all the pertinent locations and I can just move the grid off the dynamic lighting layer.&nbsp; I certainly do not want to build dynamic lighting templates for every possible intersection of the 2 spells.&nbsp; roll20 was not designed for Venn diagrams!

I would allow three things. 1) tokens to emit darkness or light, (or possibly both for some reason if needed). 2) Have the ability to provide a numerical 'order of preference' to dark/light emitting tokens, you could emulate the ability for darkness and light of various types to negate each other.&nbsp; For instance, light of value 2 would negate darkness of value 1.&nbsp; This has nothing to do with the level or distance of dark/light. 3) The ability to draw darkness (like any other shape, or freehand) and allow characters to see through it if they have darkvision.

With the next release for Updated Dynamic Lighting, there will be a feature included that covers a significant portion of the functionality discussed here. A GM will be able to put down "Permanent Darkness" with the Hide/Reveal tool in a rectangle or polygon. When Permanent Darkness exists, a GM will be able to see through it, but Player's tokens will not automatically reveal this area. It must be manually revealed by the GM.&nbsp;

Neat!&nbsp; &nbsp;Do I hear API access...?&nbsp; =D

I'd like to see "Magical Darkness" as well but I'd like to point out a few things from a D&amp;D 5E perspective (other game systems may have different rules): 1.&nbsp; Characters with Darkvision cannot see into or in magical darkness as created by the Darkness spell (PHB p. 230).&nbsp; That spell is the most common way of creating magical darkness.&nbsp; In fact, I don't know offhand of another way that doesn't refer back to this spell. 2.&nbsp; Warlocks have an Invocation that, if taken as a character choice, allows them to see normally in magical darkness (PHB P. 110, "Devil's Sight") 3.&nbsp; Creatures with Truesight can see normally in magical darkness (PHB p. 195) Jonathan S.'s suggestion would work, I think, if you just give the light ability to Warlock's with the Invocation and creatures with Truesight but it's something of a pain to set up and I don't think it will work correctly because he assumes the fallacy (at least under D&amp;D 5E) that characters with Darkvision can see in or into magical darkness.&nbsp; What I do, at the moment, is just remove the "Has Sight" ability when the characters are in magical darkness since none of them are Warlocks or have Truesight.&nbsp; That seems to be the best current workaround from a D&amp;D 5E perspective.&nbsp; But it's not exact because if they are outside the field of magical darkness, they should still be able to see what's around them but not be able to see into the darkness.&nbsp; So, a better implementation is needed.

Theoretically, you could just simply have a black token that covers the designated area and then put everything that the players shouldn't see in that area into the GM layer

Cool! Hopefully this will eventually make my darkness script hack obsolete.

Great point.&nbsp; I have edited my original post to clarify my solution is based on the Pathfinder 1E rules of Darkness and Darkvision, which may be different from other systems. Saul J. said: I'd like to see "Magical Darkness" as well but I'd like to point out a few things from a D&amp;D 5E perspective (other game systems may have different rules): 1.&nbsp; Characters with Darkvision cannot see into or in magical darkness as created by the Darkness spell (PHB p. 230).&nbsp; That spell is the most common way of creating magical darkness.&nbsp; In fact, I don't know offhand of another way that doesn't refer back to this spell. 2.&nbsp; Warlocks have an Invocation that, if taken as a character choice, allows them to see normally in magical darkness (PHB P. 110, "Devil's Sight") 3.&nbsp; Creatures with Truesight can see normally in magical darkness (PHB p. 195) Jonathan S.'s suggestion would work, I think, if you just give the light ability to Warlock's with the Invocation and creatures with Truesight but it's something of a pain to set up and I don't think it will work correctly because he assumes the fallacy (at least under D&amp;D 5E) that characters with Darkvision can see in or into magical darkness.&nbsp; What I do, at the moment, is just remove the "Has Sight" ability when the characters are in magical darkness since none of them are Warlocks or have Truesight.&nbsp; That seems to be the best current workaround from a D&amp;D 5E perspective.&nbsp; But it's not exact because if they are outside the field of magical darkness, they should still be able to see what's around them but not be able to see into the darkness.&nbsp; So, a better implementation is needed.

I know this post is old, and dynamic lighting has been updated since Jonathan S. made his post, but I just followed his directions (slightly different menus with the update), and was able to set up an area of darkness which only the sorcerer using his Eyes of the Dark in 5e can see into/through. None of the other players can.&nbsp; I can post how I implemented if anybody is interested--not going to waste my time if not.&nbsp;

Oooh! I would be interested; thanks!

Vin A. said: I know this post is old, and dynamic lighting has been updated since Jonathan S. made his post, but I just followed his directions (slightly different menus with the update), and was able to set up an area of darkness which only the sorcerer using his Eyes of the Dark in 5e can see into/through. None of the other players can.&nbsp; I can post how I implemented if anybody is interested--not going to waste my time if not.&nbsp; I am interested.

Vin A. said: I know this post is old, and dynamic lighting has been updated since Jonathan S. made his post, but I just followed his directions (slightly different menus with the update), and was able to set up an area of darkness which only the sorcerer using his Eyes of the Dark in 5e can see into/through. None of the other players can.&nbsp; I can post how I implemented if anybody is interested--not going to waste my time if not.&nbsp; I'm also very interested!

Vin A. said: I know this post is old, and dynamic lighting has been updated since Jonathan S. made his post, but I just followed his directions (slightly different menus with the update), and was able to set up an area of darkness which only the sorcerer using his Eyes of the Dark in 5e can see into/through. None of the other players can.&nbsp; I can post how I implemented if anybody is interested--not going to waste my time if not.&nbsp; I know it's been a year, but I'm also interested and there's been no reply. Thanks in advance!

Bump.

Since I was just trying to figure this out for my game, I thought I would post my current workaround in the hopes that it helps someone (until there is a feature for "Magical Darkness"). What I do is the following: On the Lighting Layer I make a circle the size of the Darkness zone. Select "Wall" as the type option in the little popup that appears. You now have a zone of darkness you can move around. People cannot see into or past it. And if they are inside, everything will be black. That's because you basically made a circular room (from a lighting, not a physical wall perspective) with no doors and no light source. The only annoying manual aspect is that you will have to turn off normal darkvision for anyone who has it WHEN they are inside the darkness field. If the battle is happening somewhere outside where darkvision is otherwise irrelevant, then you could just leave it off for all of them for the whole battle. Note, this will NOT work if you have Daylight mode enabled for the map (found in the settings for the actual map tab). To simulate full daylight, I just make a light token with 500 ft of bright light and drop one in each of the 4 corners so the whole map has light coming from all directions (but walls, and more importantly the darkness zone) still block it, unlike when Daylight mode is on). If someone has Devil's Sight or some other "see in magical darkness ability: Create an invisible token (just use a transparent gif with nothing or very tiny graphics) and give it the "has sight" property on the lighting tab when you edit the token. Tie it to a character sheet (eg. edit the token and select the sheet you just made from the "Represents Character" dropdown); you can call it "Devil Sight" or whatever. On the sheet for the token, make it "Controlled By" the player who has the ability. What this means is that that player will "see" through their own character token AND the Devil Sight Token. Put the Devil Sight token inside the darkness zone and that player will now see what's inside the darkness, whether or not they are standing in it. Bonus tip: You can also use this trick if you have battle maps that have things like freestanding bookcases, columns, or other objects that you would want to block lines of sight at ground level, but you still want the players to actually SEE the artwork of the bookcase while it blocks vision. Just draw a continuous line (rectangle, circle, free draw depending on what the object is) around it on the Lighting Layer and make one of those "Devil Sight" tokens, but give every player the ability to control it (on the character sheet linked to the token). It will live on the light layer, so the players won't be able to accidentally move the vision token.

Nice. When blocking out the freestanding book cases, columns, etc, make the surrounding&nbsp; circle or rectange a one way barrier with arrows pointing inward. That way, all tokens with vision will be able to see the artwork, but it will still block visibility to anything beyond the feature. This way you don't need the "sight" tokens.

Oh! I forgot they added that feature! I think came up with this before that and then forgot they added the 1 way walls :)

The only problem with the given solutions is that if the tokens Are limited i their movement by The dynamic light walls, then they cannot move in or out of the Darkness area because the light wall blocks them. What is needed is The ability to only have a wall that only blocks light but not movement

I agree with the need for light-blocking but not vision-blocking barriers. Often with outdoor scenes I can just turn off "Dynamic Lighting Barriers Restrict Movement" allowing players' tokens to move past cliff sides, rocks and trees, but that doesn't work with indoor or combination indoor/outdoor encounters. Peter B. said: The only problem with the given solutions is that if the tokens Are limited i their movement by The dynamic light walls, then they cannot move in or out of the Darkness area because the light wall blocks them. What is needed is The ability to only have a wall that only blocks light but not movement