Vampires Brighter In Darkness Cast
Macedonio Heninger
Edit: Yes i'm aware light vulnerability/sensitivity etc. doesn't apply in normal light. But those effects are far more minor than the effect of sunlight on a vampire. Best case scenario, houe-rule some decreased (but still crippling) effect for using darkness in the sun to lower the light level by one step.
(Emphasis mine.) So note that it won't turn full daylight into full darkness - just sort of dim the light to just normal levels of light (like, say, a cloudy day.) AUC.register('auc_MessageboardPostRowDisplay'); AjaxBusy.register('masked', 'busy', 'auc_MessageboardPostRowDisplay', null, null) Kevin Andrew Murphy Contributor Dec 24, 2010, 09:57 am What's the radius of the darkness and what's the size of the dragon, nose to tail?
If you read about vampire weaknes, it doesn't mention "bright light", it says "Exposing any vampire to direct sunlight ..."
So my interpretation is that dimmed sunlight still has the full potency, a really bright torch wouldn't hurt him at all.
Vampires are destroyed by direct sunlight, not UV rays. And the Darkness spell specifically states light vunerable creatures take no penalties.
Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:I'm thinking you've got this enormous undead monster trying to hide under this little tiny parasol. Like this Kevin? :) AUC.register('auc_MessageboardPostRowDisplay'); AjaxBusy.register('masked', 'busy', 'auc_MessageboardPostRowDisplay', null, null) Richard Leonhart Dec 24, 2010, 10:06 am th UV rays were perhaps not the accurate interpreation of the source of their weaknesses. However I still think that there is nothing physical blocking the direct sunlight.
Oh, I fully agree. I think it should only be for powerful vampires, like a dragon, to be able to cloak itself in shadows to stalk the day for an important reason. It's not something that should be done lightly, of course.
About broadness - I could split this question into several, asking about each of these situations - but that would not solve my problem of what the general rule is so I can make sensible rulings on the fly about odd variations of sunlight-redirecting that my players might try.
I rule that if the creature can see the (image of) the sun, they're in sunlight. How would this fit your examples? Reflections count if they're clear enough to see the image of the sun, so mirrors count, but a building or the moon would not. Wispy clouds would not block sunlight, but a thunderstorm would.
As a dm I would rule sunlight that would cause an area to be brightly lit, as opposed to dim or low-light, as a direct result of the sun would count. So enough mirrors would do it. But a sufficently stormy day could be safe.
The Sunlight Hypersensitivity (further: SH) is designed to make Vampires more nocturnal, so this leads me to believe the moon reflection and distant stars' light should not count for the Vampire's SH.
Other than that, it is in your purview as DM to decide what counts as "in sunlight" for the Vampire's SH, but you should most likely have a rule and have it discover-able to the players. For example, I would rule the Vampire's SH as being triggered by whenever light from "the sun" (as distinct from other stars) touches the Vampire with enough strength to cause a shadow. (This means all of your other bullets would trigger SH under my ruling).
Now, beyond that, I have a generic house rule that would apply here too, namely, I always say that any aspects of physics not explicitly covered by the rules behaves just like real life. Photonics (the study of light) is largely not covered by the rules, so most behaviors of light from real life also apply in game in my games.
Now, it's probably worth noting as well that I usually don't run 5e games (I do on occasion, but they're not the norm for my groups). In 3.5e, I handle things differently, because disadvantage isn't a thing in 3.5e, at least not like in 5e. There, you take numeric penalties on things. With 3.5e, I instead treat filtered sunlight (shadows, through colored or dark glass, through clouds, or reflected by imperfect mirrors) as applying a penalty on all rolls (not just attack rolls and ability checks, but also saves and damage rolls) scaled based on the 'purity' of the sunlight.
The other thing to consider here because I play older editions is that direct sunlight doesn't weaken vampires in earlier editions, it destroys them (on the second round of exposure). Quoting directly from the 3.5e Monster Manual:
This aspect of total destruction is a large part of why I'm so liberal about what counts as 'safe'. It makes things a bit harder for my players, but I have a couple of regulars who often voluntarily contract vampirism or lycanthropy (or become a lich) simply for the bonuses they provide, so I tend to rule in ways that don't make them completely useless except at night or indoors.
This might be a DM ruling, but I think it's generally an easy one. Essentially, the sun is an effect that emits sunlight for an unlimited range (the range isn't actually unlimited, but when you need to get further than Mars before the effect wanes, it may as well be). Anything that impedes a path between the sun to a target, means that creature is not is sunlight.
I come to this conclusion by virtue of there being multiple elements within the game that specifically generate sunlight and do so for a specified range. For example, the sunburst spell deals a pile of radiant damage to creatures in a 60-foot radius and the light it creates is specifically stated to be sunlight. Were a creature behind total cover relative to a sunburst spell, they would be exempt from the effects of it.
Addition: If you see something illuminated by sunlight, then you are receiving that sunlight, why is this? Well, the sunlight is reflected over the material, which, depending on itself, can absorb some parts of the light (determining its colour), then the reflected sunlight goes to your eyes and your photoreceptor cells receive them (then your brain, uses the information received by the photoreceptor cells and defines the environment where you are, with its colours and all that stuff). Therefore, if something is illuminated by sunlight and you see it thanks to sunlight, then you are receiving that sunlight (this would be the explanation of a vampire being damaged if it goes to the exterior in a sunny day, even if he is under a shadow).
Sunlight Hypersensitivity. The vampire takes 20 radiant damage when it starts its turn in sunlight. While in sunlight, it has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks.
Sunlight Sensitivity. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of the attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.
Sun Sickness. While in sunlight, the myconid has disadvantage on ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws. The myconid dies if it spends more than 1 hour in direct sunlight.
From these examples, particularly that of the myconids, we can see that the rules distinguish between being in sunlight, and being in direct sunlight, with the second being a specific and more restrictive case of the first. We know that vampires are affected by the more general case, and thus their sunlight hypersensitivity is triggered not only by direct sunlight but by 'indirect' sunlight as well. We can take 'indirect' as synonymous with reflected or refracted sunlight, that is, any sunlight that arrives at the vampire without having a direct path (line of sight) to the sun. In the OP's list of cases, then, we know that vampires are vulnerable when (1) sunlight comes down from the sun and hits them directly [they are in direct sunlight], (2) sunlight bounces off a mirror (or several) and hits them [they are in sunlight], and (3) during the day, the vampire is under the shade of a tree but the area is not dark [they are in sunlight].
An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness. The soft light of twilight and dawn also counts as dim light. A particularly brilliant full moon might bathe the land in dim light.
Even though, for the sake of rules simplicity, there are just three categories of lighting, we understand that light is a gradient or continuum. The brightest light will, with distance and intervening obstructions, eventually become dim light and then darkness. What we call 'darkness' is not necessarily the complete absence of light, but simply lighting that is too faint to call dim - most moonlit nights, and all moonless but starlit nights, are in 'darkness', despite the fact that there are clear sources of light visible from within them. Likewise, artificial sources of light, such as torches, typically have a defined range in which they create bright light and a further range of dim light. But beyond this their light still travels a much farther distance. The DMG tells us that:
The light of a torch or lantern helps a character see over a short distance, but other creatures can see that light source from far away. Bright light in an environment of total darkness can be visible for miles, although a clear line of sight over such a distance is rare underground.
From this we understand that obstacles to sunlight, such as clouds or shade cloth or thick and colored glass, reduce the brightness of sunlight without affecting its 'directness'. Even a gloomy day is still bright, but when the sun has been reduced in intensity to a bright moon it is dim. Further reductions might reduce the intensity of the sun to that of a pale moon, and at that point a vampire would no longer be 'in sunlight' despite a visible sun in the sky. Thus the sun could be directly overhead, but if the air was obscured with thick thunderclouds and rain, or sufficient ash, dust, or smoke, then the vampire would not be affected by the wan light that remained because they would categorically be 'in darkness'.
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