Drow/Tief darkness vs Aasimar light

[Korr]

Ok, so I want to start by saying I cannot be 100% sure (I was blind alot of the time). I think the darkness(tief/drow) vs light (aasimar) auras need to be looked at again.

To keep it simple:

1) I was raiding with an aasimar against drow/tief. Between 1/2 to 3/4 of the time I was fighitng when I went into the darkness I got blinded. Aasimar aura up, UV on . . . everything. I am 95% sure the UV did not get dispelled (40th level arcane defense : abjuration caster) casted UV on me, so theres a 1 in 20 chance (roll of 20 on d20 on dispell) that my UV got dispelled. When I got blinded I am almost positive (because a few were using bows (who couldnt not re-attack if blinded unless withing 5 feet (where I could see them) of me) would continuously attack me) that my aura did not blind the drow/tief.

2) My aasimar aura was dispelled 2-3 times while raiding. I did not see a single darkness aura get dispelled, I dont know how many times they were mord'd. I do know I would cast greater dispell from a character that was dispelling focused (31 + d20 roll) on casters with 25/26 levels in casting (36/37 DC) and did not even receive feedback for a chance to dispell the darkness. I do not know how much these other mobs were mord'd either, I know a few times (we had atleast 1 mage with us).

It seems ridiculous to me that mordenkainen's disjunction would strip an aasimar of his light aura (or greater dispell, whatever it was) and not strip a drow/tiefling of his darkness aura. The only checks involved in dispelling (aside from anti-magic cone with players do not have access to) is DC caster level + 11 vs 25 + roll (+2/4/6 for spell/greater/epic focus respectively) but while I can easily dispell every buff from an enemy caster yet darkness remains and yet an enemy caster easily removes my 1 ability to keep from being blinded is a bit out of hand.

[Lokey]

It's where devs go to die.

Change anything involving them, massive whining. Maybe someday I'll fix it just to rip out those several hundred lines of AI devoted to darkness.

[Alkapwn]

I get blinded by aasamir light with darkness up all the time. It's always been like that. for the many years ive played here. Remember old Drow darkness . Now that would be fun to bring back!
Darkness can be removed pretty easily.
Oh wait I forgot this is the "Make My Aasamir Cot invincible please or I wont stop complaining" Forum. hehe

[Bargeld]

Try invis purge on darkness. Yet it has no effect on Aasimar aura.

[disastro]

linuxpup had a post where he explained how dispel works regarding the race auras. i'd look for it if i was less hung over, but the basic idea is that these auras get dispelled based on the "caster level" of the character. if the character has no caster levels (i.e. 30 levels of cot/10 fighter) then the common kobold can dispel it.

so if your opponents had a lot of caster levels then they'll get dispelled much less often.

i also dont recall seeing where focusing in abjuration would help your greater dispelling check.. i thought the level cap was simply raised to 25 for all casters?

[frogofpeace]

Oh wait I forgot this is the "Make My Aasamir Cot invincible please or I wont stop complaining" Forum. hehe

Well ... yeah? I see no problem with this approach.

Seriously, I haven't figured out aas light vs. drow dark, having been on both sides (both in party and fighting against). I was raiding with a drow the other day, and she was blind half the time - drow are so easy to blind. It's frustrating, but one of the great mysteries of life, IMO. I just assume that's why there's a respawn button. Gonna go use it now!

[Korr]

It just seems like its a little glitchy, for both sides of it. I have talked to people who get blinded by my aura when they have darkness up. For it to work straight between both auras would benefit everyone.

Somewhere in the changelog it tells you about abjuration focus helping greater dispelling, if you want proof I can cast a dispell from Deus to show you 31 + roll. And I stated that I know its a caster level thing, but when I dispell someone there isnt even a check for the darkness.

[Alkapwn]

If you want to dispel darkness you must ..... *bites tongue and smacks forehead* ... what am i doing.....

[LinuxPup]

I can make some tweaks and see if I can improve it further... I was under the assumption that it was working now...

[Alkapwn]

2) My aasimar aura was dispelled 2-3 times while raiding. I did not see a single darkness aura get dispelled, I dont know how many times they were mord'd. I do know I would cast greater dispell from a character that was dispelling focused (31 + d20 roll) on casters with 25/26 levels in casting (36/37 DC) and did not even receive feedback for a chance to dispell the darkness. I do not know how much these other mobs were mord'd either, I know a few times (we had atleast 1 mage with us).

In this case it was the level of your mord'er vs the caster lvls of the wearers.
It functions fine as it always has. Mords pwns auras. I did quite a bit of testing with drow and aasamir to check it.

Which also makes me want to bring up another bug vs racial auras

- They are only calculated vs caster lvls and not total Character Levels like the descriptions say.
e.g. 40 lvl Fighter Aasamir/drow aura will have 11dc vs mord AOE
40 lvl CLeric Aasamir/drow aura will have 51dc vs mord aoe
- but the durations are calculated vs Character Levels?

Not that i would want it fixed or anything. I like how things work atm. Niether Aasamir or Drow/tiefling have an advantage over each other with the random blindness issue. So fixing one you would have to fix the other aswell.

[renarð]

Whether spell focus feats apply i'm not sure, I would think so.

Linuxpup:

Ok there is a save actually, but its based on your dispel resistance... dispel resistance is:

11 + Caster Level DC. With the possibility of an extra +2 if you have the Arcane Defense: Abjuration feat. This is how it works with any AoEs that are dispellable... which they pretty much all for PCs except a few (Fear auras, Water Genasi, pure Paladin's radiance aura, etc.).

Now caster level DC is calculated as follows:

+1 caster level per Wiz/Sorc/Druid/Cleric/Bard level.
+1 per 2 levels of Ranger/Paladin/Pale Master/Assassin.

EDIT: NOTE: Ranger/Paladin/Assassin levels do not stack with Wiz/Sorc/Druid/Cleric/Bard levels. Pale Master levels do however... Also, only the highest of the "real" caster classes are considered... so a 35 sorc/5 bard would have a caster level of 35, not 40.

Examples:

-Pure 40 Wiz dispel DC: 11 + 40 = 51 (53 with Arcane Defense: Abjuration)
-30 Sorc/10 Paladin dispel DC: 11 + 30 = 41 (43 with Arcane Defense: Abjuration)
-30 Sorc/10 Pale Master dispel DC: 11 + 30 + 5 = 46 (48 with Arcane Defense: Abjuration)
-Pure 40 Ranger dispel DC: 11 + 20 = 31 (33 with Arcane Defense: Abjuration)

So in theory a level 40 pure rogue Tiefling would have a DC of 11 (easily dispelled) since they have no caster levels. A level 40 pure wizard Tiefling *should* have a much more powerful darkness which is difficult to dispel. I realize this is kind of screwy since its an innate racial spell ability and not tied to a class, but that's how are system works right now and without a messy hack its going to stay like that.

Until then, the darkness ability is still good if your enemy can't dispel it, and enjoy the Tiefling's energy resistance, +2 hide/ms, and +2 dex/int. Definitely worth the ECL 2.

[Alkapwn]

I still think it should go off character levels regardless of Classes. Its "supposed" to be an innate ability. But arguably I guess some classes would have a better grasp of their inateness then others. IDK its been this way a long time and seems to work pretty good. The randomness of Aasamir vs. Drow is buggy but all mobile AOE's centered on casters are like that. I think its just the limits of the engine/hardware. Although Scilence is working 100% better since update.

*edit- I should be a politician. looking back at this post I relized I'm just arguing with myself and saying nothing at all hehe.

[Korr]

Yeah I know the darkness aura (and light aura) are mordable, but Ive seen toons take a mord with few to no caster levels and not get lost (this was a while back). I just think it would be nice to not randomly drop into blindness for no reason (if i were drow or aasimar).

[Amoenotep]

i thought it had to do with who entered who's aura

so if Aasimar entered a drow aura that was standing there the aasimar was blinded

if drow entered aasimar light who was standing there drow got blinded

can't remembere if thats what actually happens or not, but i think somewhere we were thinking thats what was happening.

[Alkapwn]

yeah if yer in motion the blindness happens more often. On rare occasions ive been blinded while standing still aswell.
It happens pretty rarely though.