Magical Light v Darkness

[WhiteLily]

Traditional D&D has same level light spells and darkness spells simply cancel.

DFRPG doesn't have spell levels. So I'm left wondering how Darkness / Blackout interact with Light, Light Jet, and Continual Light.

If a caster shine a Light Jet into a Blackout, what should happen?

[Anders]

I'd have it resolved with a Contest or Quick Contest of spells. The most skilled magician wins.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

If a caster shine a Light Jet into a Blackout, what should happen?

The blackout/darkness wins. Spells that create light don't create magical light, they just create normal light at fairly ordinary intensities, so anything that stops sunlight will stop them too (however, darkness won't stop a sunbolt, as that's not normal intensity).

[ArchonShiva]

Anthony is correct. Unless the spell mentions something about x and y resisting each other, there isn’t an actual conflict, both effects exist at once and darkness effectively wins.

However, if a player says “I’ll use Glow to counter this darkness” or “lemme end a few maintained spells so I can get a high enough skill to beat that”, by all means, the GM can let them.

And NPC wizard’s can have strange and wonderful alternate versions of spells.

Otherwise, the game eventually degenerates to “Every light/darkness situation is solved Perfectly by the Dark Vision spell and not resolved by any other spell short of Dispel Magic, so let’s just make sure every party has Dark Vision on at all times”, which feels like a lot less fun.