The player thinks themselves clever and original by having their character wave around a...

>the player thinks themselves clever and original by having their character wave around a torch/lantern/sunrod/flashlight into the face of a powerful creature of shadow magic, expecting it to do something beyond mildly irritate the creature

Why does this always happen?

Wouldn't a strong, directional light source actually make a creature of shadow stronger?

>Having a creature whose mystical essence is "the absence of light"

You brought this on yourself

Less an attempt to be clever, more of a common association. What do you do when it's dark? You turn on a light. It'd be like splashing water on a creature made of fire.

>the player thinks themselves clever and original by having their character wave around a hose into the face of a powerful creature of fire magic, expecting it to do something beyond mildly irritate the creature
Why the fuck are you adding in what are basically elementals if you're not giving them an aversion/weakness to their opposite element?

>DM thinks himself clever and original when he makes the player shadow stab the character when the shadows could do that already since they were already behind the PCs before the light was lit
Why does this always happen?

>Spraying a hose into the god of fire will kill him
Holy fucking shit what? How? You spray some weak ass water into a living embodiment of fire and you expect it to instantly kill it?

>It'd be like splashing water on a creature made of fire.

Throwing a bucket of water on a fire elemental might do some damage, but hardly better than shanking it with a magic weapon or a spell.

Because it's worth a shot. That's how science works. If it works, keep doing it. If it doesn't, keep thinking.

It's more about the properties of x being weak to y, which is weak to z.
Water > Fire, light > shadow, etc. OP is a niggerfaggot for casting bait this awful and I'm retarded for falling for it.

Why do people play/ gm for people they don't like or play games they dont like?

I don't know about you guys, but when I see a fire my first instinct is to either douse it with water or smother it with something, not to hit it with a stick. It's common sense and a perfectly valid reaction for just about any character to have.

Fire elementals are not regular fires.

Well excuse the fuck out of me for thinking the thing that looks like fire, throws off heat like fire, burns things like fire, and altogether acts like fire might just be some goddamn fire.

>god
ah, the ancient art of moving goalposts.

>implying that darkness isn't the natural state of the universe

>The players think themselves clever for buying a 10-foot pole in the store to go dungeon delving and expecting to be immune to traps.

Sorry, mate, but the instant general stores start carrying something whose entire purpose is triggering a trap from further away is the instant anyone actually trying to stop people with said traps starts designing around it.

>suns are artificial
You've been drinking too much alt-history

>he doesn't just cast Light on the shadow creature
honestly

My exaggeration gets things in perspective. Admit it.

Do you want your players just to face tank every trap they come across?

No, it's shit. Being substantially stronger than something doesn't make it a nonthreat. Light might not instagib it, but it's reasonable to expect it to adversely affect it in a noticeable fashion.

no, it just makes it stupid.

People call the fire department instead of reaching for the extinguisher when the entire building's on fire and try to exit.

You are just being deliberately obtuse to shitpost.

I hope you die painfully.

I want them to actually look for traps instead of mindlessly trigger them from a slight distance because they think they're the only one to think of a long stick where dungeon delving is an actual thing.

Don't give them endless time to poke every surface with a stick.

That implies I do

10-foot pole mimics. Or tiles that release aggressive termite swarms when poked with a stick.

Call them a bunch of niggers
Call yourself a bunch of niggers
It will make you feel better

Then what's the issue.

The mindset surrounding it, mostly.

It's still a useful tool even if people make memes about it.

>humans die if shot
>n-no if you shoot the god of humans he would live!!1!

>Moves like fire
Are you mentally challenged? Just pretending? Does fire walk to you while you're invading a castle? You have schizopheria.

>God could probably take a bullet without any trouble
>Therefore strong humans are bulletproof

You might not know it but none of those posts are an argument.
You might not understand why but it is not.

Oh I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that it doesn't completely invalidate the concept of traps like basically everyone I run into thinks. Especially when it's a common enough tool to be sold in stores alongside shit like hammers and horseshoes.

But every single time, a new player will just blunder into a place they know is trapped and get upset when their long stick didn't work, even after being told that you'll have to be actually clever, and not just enacting tropes that have been around for decades at this point

Do you have an argument apart from "NUH UH THE SHADOW CREATURE HAS A SUPER INVINCIBILITY SHIELD SO LIGHT DOESN'T WORK"?

Yes I do.

Present it, my son.

I'd rather not, but have a snippet of it.
"-really you just used the same-"

It's not ordinary darkness, it's elemental darkness, which means photons are slowed to a negligible speed upon contact.

Well shit, how do I argue with that?
But on a serious note, I feel like the answer to the OP question is dependent on many factors we don't know about, like
-what kind of light?
-how big is the shadow creature?
-how dangerous is light to shadow creatures?
-does it just burn them or is it more like a poison?

I'm not making an argument, I just want you to die painfully.

>shine light at shadow creature
>it just grows larger because all shadows require light to be cast

>Are you mentally challenged?
Are you? Because your quote doesn't exist.

He never said moved?

>shine tiny light source capable of outputting at most a few hundred lumens onto powerful embodiment of spiritual darkness
>yeah that will totally hurt it.

Thats like shining a UV penlight at a vampire and expecting it to burst into flames

Hey now, that does actually work in some settings.

You'd probably want a stronger light in both cases though.

I think he's talking about entropy. Both entropy and non-entropy are natural, but Entropy, EG absolute nothingness with no light or anything, is the state everything will tun to eventually.

It's not though, if we extrapolate we have light = energy and 'dark' = absence of energy. The universe is just energy, if it weren't for giant ass balls of interweaved energy in an enthropy resistent state, everything would be illuminated. If enthropy eventually disperses all energy so much that nothing can ever become of the universe, the universe ceases to exist, thus 'dark' is the antithesis of the universe.

Why not toss it into sunlight?

> I've pulled something out of my ass and called it an argument.

>... And then I cast, Pyrotechnics.

Sure thing, then it's just a regular Pyrotechnics spell.

What if it's something that can be triggered with a pole, like tripwire or pressure plate?

Because there's no harm in trying, and maybe the GM will give the creature a penalty to hit if you're lucky? Seriously, there's no cost to that action so why not?

>Seriously, there's no cost to that action so why not?

There's a cost: your action.

Mythic pyrotechnics, which does 28d12 light damage, 28d12 fire damage, and permanently blinds any enemy in the area of effect.

Hey, even if it fails it's a pretty good opener!

Fine, a trivial one if you really insist on shining a flashlight on something taking an action.

And yet throwing your torch at the wood golem is completely valid...

Isn't that what Blade do?

That's why you make your wood golems out of petrified wood...

side note: what would throwing a lot of magnesium into a fire elemental do?

ITT: shit GMs think that making any monster type with a clearly or commonly associated weakness immune to it because reasons, not telling the players that, and then calling them stupid for thinking that using the common weakness of these creatures would do something, is somehow good GMing.

Wow I guess in my next campaign ice golems actually get stronger when you try and use fire or heat to melt them.

Awooo

The fire element is from then on resistant against foot cramp.

Presumably, the magical ice golems would not be reduced to a puddle just by being exposed to a mundane torch, just as the light from a regular lantern probably wouldn't do that much to the magical shadow monster. If they had magic fire or magic light, however, that's a different story.

Living wood doesn't burn like dry, dead wood. Also depends on the type of tree you're trying to light up.

A torch no, but a roaring bonfire should cause damage to an ice golem. Having enough of something mundane should be just as good as using magic.

Make cork golems instead.

So to significantly harm the shadow monster you would need something like a searchlight?

Sounds about right. A flashlight might or might not be a distraction though, and there's only one way to find out.

An action's a big cost.

The fuck is a wood golem.

A golem. Made out of wood.

>n-no if you shoot the god of humans he would live!!1!
But what if you shoot him with a nailgun?

Taking a simple action like that doesn't consume resources so I wouldn't call it a 'big' cost.

Care to shed some light on why not?

seeing as its a fantasy setting and everything works according to the creator, it is an argument.

This.

That's dumb.
>you've successfully illuminated the shadow creature.
>you now can no longer see it, and there's an invisible killer about to rip your guts out.