Obscure and Darkness

[lvalero]

In the context of DF, but I suppose the answer would be the same in other campaigns: Do the attack penalties granted by Obscure (Vision) stack with the penalties granted by darkness (either normal or magical one)?

The quick & dirty answer is "you are the GM, make as you like" but I am interested in your opinion. If you can point to a page reference, the better. But, if not, I am interested as well.

Thx!

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by lvalero

In the context of DF, but I suppose the answer would be the same in other campaigns: Do the attack penalties granted by Obscure (Vision) stack with the penalties granted by darkness (either normal or magical one)?

I would say that they stack, yes. I don't know of a page reference for this, but I'm going to assume it's the case because of the wording of Obscure - it doesn't say it doesn't stack, so it should.

However, the special effects of Obscure are going to be important here. If you define it as a darkness power, removing light from the area, then it would still stack with "natural" darkness penalties, since you can generally make a dark area still darker, but things that negate darkness penalties (like the Night Vision advantage, night-vision goggles, etc.) will be able to see through it. Whereas if you define it as magic fog, Night Vision won't help, but a water-bender's "fog sense" ability to negate sensory penalties from fog and mist will help.

[Anaraxes]

The net total for all visual penalties has a floor of -10. (Enhanced Senses p13; maybe other places) So, penalties stack, but only up to the point where you're effectively blind. It doesn't get worse than that, no matter how many reasons there are that you can't see.

[JoelSammallahti]

I'd definitely let it stack, since it doesn't stay otherwise. I'd compare it to burning someone with a fire attack when they're already on fire: all the better. I'd say Doesn't Stack With Darkness would make sense as a limitation at -30% or so.

[lvalero]

Thanks for the replies!

[Anthony]

I'm not sure it's so much that penalties cannot exceed 10 as that you can always choose to behave as if the target is invisible (which is -6 or -10, if you can make a roll with another sense to determine where to attack).