Torches and Lanterns

[0-hr]

A torch sheds good light to 20 ft and a hooded lantern out to 30 feet. Why is that? Doesn't the lantern have a much smaller flame inside than a torch?

I can sort of understand the bullseye lantern casting good light out to 60ft because it is using a mirror or some such to focus the beam. A plain old lantern is 360 degree light though. How is that little flame on a wick outshining a big ol' torch? Differencing in flickering just can't explain that big of a discrepancey.

My main reason for asking is that I had Continual Flame cast on a ring of mine. I want to know if I could put that ring in a lantern in replace of the oil & wick and get similar light range.

 

[Laman Stahros]

A torch sheds good light to 10 feet, not 20 feet. Lanterns burn oil which produces a more intense light than a burning candle or torch. Less flicker caused by wind, also.

In my campaigns, Continual Lanterns are more common than Continual Torches. Though most players seem to prefer the bullseye version over the hooded version.

 

[XCorvis]

Lanterns use airflow to protect and improve the brightness of a flame. Torches gutter and sputter, producing variable amounts of light. Think of it more as a quality thing. Anyway, it's really just an arbitrary game mechanic.

Continual Flame just projects a flat amount of light and doesn't need air, so putting it in a lantern wouldn't improve the distance. If you were to put it in a bull's eye lantern, I would say it only casts light 40', because it's an inherently weaker source. In Eberron, there's a magic lantern that uses Continual Flame and produces full lantern light, but it's more expensive than a normal Continual Flame torch.

 

[Pickaxe]

A torch sheds good light to 10 feet, not 20 feet.

A torch burns for 1 hour, clearly illuminating a 20-foot radius and providing shadowy illumination out to a 40-foot radius.

--Axe

 

[0-hr]

It is strange that they would go through the trouble to make an image of a fire that guttered and flickered like a torch (even though it uses no oxygen and is probably unaffected by airflow) when that cuts the light it casts by by 33%. :\

I'll try to find that Eberron thing if I can't find a mage to cast a candle-like Continue Flame instead of a torch-like one.

 

[MarkB]

It is strange that they would go through the trouble to make an image of a fire that guttered and flickered like a torch (even though it uses no oxygen and is probably unaffected by airflow) when that cuts the light it casts by by 33%. :\

The spell description doesn't say it looks like a torch flame, just that it looks like a flame. It's simply a heatless, fuelless flame that happens to give the same overall brightness as a torch.

 

[0-hr]

A flame, equivalent in brightness to a torch, springs forth from an object that you touch. The effect looks like a regular flame, but it creates no heat and doesn’t use oxygen. A continual flame can be covered and hidden but not smothered or quenched.

If it looks like a regular flame and is equivalent in brightness to a torch, I don't think I'm going out on a limb to think it looks like a regular torch. If we're going to argue everything that the spell description DOESN'T say, we're in for a long discussion.