Do you need all these light spells if all in your party are Half-elves or Elves?

[Lampros]

Since they all have some form of dark vision?

[Cartesian Duelist]

Light does a lot more than just make it so your party can see.

[View The Phenom]

No, Dark Vision makes lighting iirelevant unless you're fighting a handful of enemy types. You should take one or two spells, but it can be ignored until those encounters pop up (they're quite obvious).

[Ommamar]

I just went through such a fight where light makes it winnable, I wont' say it is not winnable without light. But it would take some very lucky rolls to get through it, I had to do a save revert and go get some spells I was missing that made things a lot easier.

[EdrickV]

Some types of enemies are sensitive to light, and against those enemies light spells can be very useful. That said, you don't have to take all the spells. For my wizards I usually take Dancing Lights, my Sun Cleric has Light, Sparkle, and gets Daylight as a domain spell. (Plus Channel Divinity: Indomitable Light.) There are some items you can get through quests that can give you ways to do light spells too. And of course there's always torches.

Edit: There's also an area of the game where you'll want some sort of light source outside combat, so that you can see where you are and where you're going.

[wendigo211]

I had a full Elf, 1/2 Elf party and, while there were a couple of fights where it was useful because the enemies had disadvantage if they were lit, it wasn't really necessary. In those fights the Paladin's Sacred Weapon ability was good enough. There were a couple of ambushes while travelling where my party had dark vision and the enemies didn't and it was in my interest to remain unlit.

Even if you're not using elf-bloods or dwarves, you can get rings of dark vision fairly early from the Antiquarians. They use up an attunement slot, but there aren't too many magic items that are actually worth attuning.

[EdrickV]

Originally posted by wendigo211:

They use up an attunement slot, but there aren't too many magic items that are actually worth attuning.

Have to say, I disagree about how many items there are that are worth attuning.

[Blackmage]

Some enemies are buffed in darkness and debuffed in light. But those fights are far from unwinnable in darkness. In fact, the buffs Soraks specifically get from being in darkness is mostly negligible. My Rogue is perfectly capable of one-hit-killing a Sorak in darkness. You can complete this whole game without ever casting a light spell if your entire party has darkvision: Elves, Half-Elves, and Dwarves.

TA had originally created a homebrew lighting system as a solution for this very problem. It imposed disadvantage on attack rolls for all characters in dim light, even if they had darkvision. Essentially, darkvision only allowed a character to perceive in darkness better when it came to finding traps, and that was it. It was a nerf that was fair to the vision of this game, as one of the key aspects of Solasta was managing light in dark dungeons.

But the purists hated the homebrew system because it wasn't RAW. Effectively, light spells have become an option that makes the game easier, rather than essential as a result. Those same people now also defend the human as still being viable because light is so easy to create. Well, if light is so easy to create, then why did you demand TA to revert Solasta to RAW lighting? The game would have actually been more challenging, and humans would actually not be completely useless.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by EdrickV:

Originally posted by wendigo211:

They use up an attunement slot, but there aren't too many magic items that are actually worth attuning.

Have to say, I disagree about how many items there are that are worth attuning.

How much stuff is there really? If you're a strength melee character you'll want the belt of Frie Giant Strength, a Rogue will want the Boots of Elven Kind, an Archer will want the Bracers of Archery, the caster Rogue and Fighter might want the Headband of Intellect and I suppose everyone can benefit from the Belt of Dwarvenkind, Ring of Abjuration, Ring of the Inquisitor and Cloak of Protection. The rest of the stuff is either situational (like the resistance rings) or useless (Boots of Levitation, Bracers of Sparkle).

[EdrickV]

My Fighter is a Dwarf, so he has Boots of Striding and Springing, along with a Cloak of Displacement, and Ring of Poison Resistance. He's also carrying the Boots of Elvenkind my rogue used to use before she got a Cloak of Elvenkind. My Sun Cleric is a human so has a Darkvision ring, along with Cloak of Protection and Gauntlets of Ogre Power that my fighter doesn't need anymore. My Rogue has Cloak of Elvenkind, Stone of Good Luck, and Bracer's of Archery. (Stone of Good Luck is about as non-situational as you can get, +1 to all ability checks and saving throws.) She's also carrying a Brooch of Shielding that got replaced. My Wizard has Cloak of Arachnida, Bracers of Defense, and Sigil Ring of Abjuration. He also has a Ring of Necrotic Resistance and 3 Rings of Poison Resistance that aren't attuned.

That's just the stuff I currently have. My Rogue actually could benefit from Boots of Levitation since she's a Darkweaver. My Cleric could certainly make use of Brightwall if I can get one. Amulets of Health could be useful to many characters. My Wizard certainly wouldn't mind if he could use a Ring of Protection, but he has no open attunement slots. Mantle of Spell Resistance could be useful to anyone in combat against spell casters. There's also Staff of Fire and Staff of Healing, both of which are 1 handed versatile weapons that can use multiple spells and also count as a spell focus, which I think would mean a cleric with a Staff of Healing and a Shield could cast VSM/VM spells without a free hand. For the utility slot there's Wand of Lightning Bolts. Sylvan Armor and Cloth of the Lightbringers (2 types of wizard clothing) both require attunement. And finally Gem of Seeing is very situational, but in those situations it could be very useful.

[View The Phenom]

Originally posted by BlackMage:

Some enemies are buffed in darkness and debuffed in light. But those fights are far from unwinnable in darkness. In fact, the buffs Soraks specifically get from being in darkness is mostly negligible. My Rogue is perfectly capable of one-hit-killing a Sorak in darkness. You can complete this whole game without ever casting a light spell if your entire party has darkvision: Elves, Half-Elves, and Dwarves.

TA had originally created a homebrew lighting system as a solution for this very problem. It imposed disadvantage on attack rolls for all characters in dim light, even if they had darkvision. Essentially, darkvision only allowed a character to perceive in darkness better when it came to finding traps, and that was it. It was a nerf that was fair to the vision of this game, as one of the key aspects of Solasta was managing light in dark dungeons.

But the purists hated the homebrew system because it wasn't RAW. Effectively, light spells have become an option that makes the game easier, rather than essential as a result. Those same people now also defend the human as still being viable because light is so easy to create. Well, if light is so easy to create, then why did you demand TA to revert Solasta to RAW lighting? The game would have actually been more challenging, and humans would actually not be completely useless.

To be fair, even with the original lighting system there's still little reason to take Humans over the others. They've always been incredibly weak in this game when compared to the other races because they're essentially templates with no special abilities; +1 to all stats in a game where you only need 2 (due to lack of skill checks) isn't very good.

I agree with your other points, though. Even made a mod to just remove dark vision from all races outright and things are immediately more interesting because a free racial feature that completely trivializes a core part of the game never made any sense.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by wendigo211:

Originally posted by EdrickV:

Have to say, I disagree about how many items there are that are worth attuning.

How much stuff is there really? If you're a strength melee character you'll want the belt of Frie Giant Strength, a Rogue will want the Boots of Elven Kind, an Archer will want the Bracers of Archery, the caster Rogue and Fighter might want the Headband of Intellect and I suppose everyone can benefit from the Belt of Dwarvenkind, Ring of Abjuration, Ring of the Inquisitor and Cloak of Protection. The rest of the stuff is either situational (like the resistance rings) or useless (Boots of Levitation, Bracers of Sparkle).

Why is the Boots of Levitation "useless"? Not a rhetorical question. I genuinely want to know, as I am a newbie, and I would think any movement items are valuable.

[Sambombe]

Levitation is just up or down right? I use it on my Rogue, so it get unreacheable for melees and use the predator feat (higher ground).

[Jack Hawklight]

The parts of the game where you are against the undead, you will want your light spells. Daylight in particular, or some of the 'boss' fights will be much more difficult. Fighting against most things that aren't undead you should be alright without them OP. Maybe still could use the cantrips that provide light, but if your entire group has some sort of vision in the dark then you are probably okay without it.

[Arlen]

elf/half elf party - I have the light cantrip and daylight on my cleric and just sparkle on my wizard. really do not need more then that in any party makeup