>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?
Jose Rivera
Wouldn't a strong, directional light source actually make a creature of shadow stronger?
Carson Sullivan
>Having a creature whose mystical essence is "the absence of light"
You brought this on yourself
Nathan Miller
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.
Elijah Taylor
>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?
Evan Brown
>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?
Benjamin Cruz
>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?
Eli Wilson
>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.
Dylan Harris
Because it's worth a shot. That's how science works. If it works, keep doing it. If it doesn't, keep thinking.
David Bell
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.
Gavin Baker
Why do people play/ gm for people they don't like or play games they dont like?
Michael Robinson
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.
Adrian Martin
Fire elementals are not regular fires.
Hunter Ortiz
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.
Logan Wilson
>god ah, the ancient art of moving goalposts.
Asher Howard
>implying that darkness isn't the natural state of the universe
Anthony Harris
>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.
Brody Phillips
>suns are artificial You've been drinking too much alt-history
Lincoln Lopez
>he doesn't just cast Light on the shadow creature honestly
Ryan Cooper
My exaggeration gets things in perspective. Admit it.
Alexander Allen
Do you want your players just to face tank every trap they come across?
Dylan Baker
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.
Parker Martinez
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.
Ethan Miller
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.
Kevin Cox
Don't give them endless time to poke every surface with a stick.
Angel Rodriguez
That implies I do
Isaiah Russell
10-foot pole mimics. Or tiles that release aggressive termite swarms when poked with a stick.
Chase Sanders
Call them a bunch of niggers Call yourself a bunch of niggers It will make you feel better
Luke Parker
Then what's the issue.
Julian Jackson
The mindset surrounding it, mostly.
Carson Perry
It's still a useful tool even if people make memes about it.
John Watson
>humans die if shot >n-no if you shoot the god of humans he would live!!1!
Owen Young
>Moves like fire Are you mentally challenged? Just pretending? Does fire walk to you while you're invading a castle? You have schizopheria.
Jordan Morgan
>God could probably take a bullet without any trouble >Therefore strong humans are bulletproof
Samuel Howard
You might not know it but none of those posts are an argument. You might not understand why but it is not.
Kayden Perry
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
Aiden Brown
Do you have an argument apart from "NUH UH THE SHADOW CREATURE HAS A SUPER INVINCIBILITY SHIELD SO LIGHT DOESN'T WORK"?
Carter Jenkins
Yes I do.
Kevin Smith
Present it, my son.
Daniel Gomez
I'd rather not, but have a snippet of it. "-really you just used the same-"
Bentley Harris
It's not ordinary darkness, it's elemental darkness, which means photons are slowed to a negligible speed upon contact.
Liam Butler
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?
Jacob Brown
I'm not making an argument, I just want you to die painfully.
Ayden Garcia
>shine light at shadow creature >it just grows larger because all shadows require light to be cast
Joseph Wood
>Are you mentally challenged? Are you? Because your quote doesn't exist.
Ayden Cox
He never said moved?
Isaiah King
>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
Josiah Hughes
Hey now, that does actually work in some settings.
You'd probably want a stronger light in both cases though.
Oliver Murphy
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.
Christian Gray
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.
Elijah Watson
Why not toss it into sunlight?
Jack Hill
> I've pulled something out of my ass and called it an argument.
Nolan Collins
>... And then I cast, Pyrotechnics.
Brody Murphy
Sure thing, then it's just a regular Pyrotechnics spell.
Kevin Williams
What if it's something that can be triggered with a pole, like tripwire or pressure plate?
Connor Sanchez
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?
Ian Bailey
>Seriously, there's no cost to that action so why not?
There's a cost: your action.
Jason Walker
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!
Owen Collins
Fine, a trivial one if you really insist on shining a flashlight on something taking an action.
Luis Watson
And yet throwing your torch at the wood golem is completely valid...
Joshua Richardson
Isn't that what Blade do?
Gabriel Martinez
That's why you make your wood golems out of petrified wood...
Nolan Parker
side note: what would throwing a lot of magnesium into a fire elemental do?
Tyler Sanchez
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.
Jonathan Anderson
Awooo
Parker Cox
The fire element is from then on resistant against foot cramp.
Julian Cox
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.
Leo Walker
Living wood doesn't burn like dry, dead wood. Also depends on the type of tree you're trying to light up.
Nathaniel Nguyen
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.
Noah White
Make cork golems instead.
Parker Torres
So to significantly harm the shadow monster you would need something like a searchlight?
Alexander Martin
Sounds about right. A flashlight might or might not be a distraction though, and there's only one way to find out.
Jeremiah Nelson
An action's a big cost.
The fuck is a wood golem.
Charles Hernandez
A golem. Made out of wood.
Ryder Parker
>n-no if you shoot the god of humans he would live!!1! But what if you shoot him with a nailgun?
Jaxon Davis
Taking a simple action like that doesn't consume resources so I wouldn't call it a 'big' cost.
Levi Rogers
Care to shed some light on why not?
Mason Bailey
seeing as its a fantasy setting and everything works according to the creator, it is an argument.
Joshua Wilson
This.
Jaxon Anderson
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.
Henry Wright
I feel your pain. I had a character being life drained by a 2 dimensional shadow. At first I tried to snap out of the obvious illusion by slapping myself in face, then I tried to illuminate the shadow, what also didn't work. Just before I went into negative con, I managed to crawl into the sunlight and it let me go.
Apparently it was a living shadow and I just had to wack it on the head with a sword.
What most DM's don't realise it that common sense doesn't work on magical creatures or magical effects. I never tried to attack the shadow, because it never crossed my mind that physical attacks can hurt 2 dimensional creatures.
Alexander Morgan
if you watch TV or movies or literally anything, then shadow creatures are invariably weak to light in some manner
you might not agree that it should, but thats what nearly everyone expects should happen
this kind of elemental rock paper scissors has been around since forever, and was even semi-mainstream idea in the 60s when elementals were defeated in the fantastic four by throwing their weakness onto them
Brayden Price
>the player thinks themselves clever and original by having their character wave around a torch/lantern/sunrod/flashlight in search of "man"
Nolan Mitchell
the question of "why does this always happen?" has been answered. I will not tell anyone what to do but i would highly advise everybody in this thread to either use it for venting or just stop replying as actual involvement in this thread may have slight psychological implications. This is not a healthy thread, please just let it die. OP will NEVER take no for an answer.
Kevin Davis
>>the PC waves 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? Because it's a reasonable idea to try.
>>the player thinks themselves clever and original >Why does this always happen? Because they're tools, which I suspect is why they can't find somebody better than you to game with.
Kevin Garcia
Light opposes dark on the elemental wheel, dumbass.
Cooper Robinson
If you're a good GM it should do SOMETHING. Bringing light to banish darkness makes sense. It shouldnt neutralize the entire threat, but you can have it both ways by just giving that character a TINY buff against the creature's mind effecting abilities, and balance it by having it use AOE to discourage everybody from crowding around the light.
You're not a bad DM, just not a great one. Improvising ways to make your players ideas work just enough that they feel like they did something is an important part of DMing.
Wyatt Ramirez
>Lords of Magic My brother of african american descent
Sebastian Lee
Ffs.. Let them trigger the mechanism that then trigger the Trap, located around the place they are standing. Maybe the Trap floods the entire floor with liquid, doors start closing, concealed monster fall out of the roof, fucking lightning bolts come through the hall. Not punishing your players for simply setting of traps nilly willy, instead of disarming them so their effect cannot be brought to bear is just plain lazy.
Nathaniel Collins
No OP
Tell me why is the cute wolfgirl holding a torch trying to be scary.