How important is light?

[FinaL]

I mean: When I'm in a dungeon, should I always use a light source? What's the actual bonus here? It's annoying to switch weapons every encounter ... : /

[steventirey]

You spellcasters should have a level 0 spell that creates light. You cast it on one of your characters, and you can only have one of those lights at a time.

[Fuinril]

Originally posted by FinaL:

I mean: When I'm in a dungeon, should I always use a light source? What's the actual bonus here? It's annoying to switch weapons every encounter ... : /

IIrrelevant. Past early prologue you'll not encounter dark evironment before a bit. At this point you'll not care anymore as you'll have way more pressing matters (like overpowered ennemies)

Edit: I realize why the two issues seems to be tied, but that's because you did not experience it. Basically every ennemy has 60+ AC with deplacement and camouflage (not affected by true seeing) plus a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of other buffs. At this point the light bonus / malus is irrelevant.

[FinaL]

Thank you :)

[water]

Originally posted by Fuinril:

At this point the light bonus / malus is irrelevant.

So what is the bonus for having a light source?

[Drake]

Originally posted by water:

Originally posted by Fuinril:

At this point the light bonus / malus is irrelevant.

So what is the bonus for having a light source?

Nothing really. In pnp if a character doesn't have low-light vision when in dim light, they get a concealment penalty to hit (20% miss) and if they don't have darkvision they can't see enemies at all in the dark and can't target them.
But that wasn't implemented ingame, maybe because people would pretty much always run see invisility, true seeing etc. anyway because most enemies are magically hidden anyway.

[hilburnashua]

There is, in pnp, a penalty for things like perception checks if you are darkness/dim illumination. Not sure if that was translated over or not, although I do seem to remember making a lot more perception checks to find traps and secret doors if I made sure I had a light source at low levels when I was running Tenebrous Deeps in Kingmaker.

[Duder]

Purely cosmetic. If you play with dim gamma/lowish brightness like I do it comes in handy.
Would have been nice if they added some modifiers like mentioned above with pnp to perception and such

[Schlumpsha]

Another related mechanic that Owlcat didn't implement in their games are the various weaknesses to strong light on drow, dhampirs, vampires and similar denizens of the dark.

[CookieMagic]

one of the reasons why Solasta combat mechanics is the best in 2022.