Vampires and 'daylight' spell

[Celestian]

Does the daylight spell effect vampires like sunlight? The spell description seems to suggest it does but it really isn't sunlight.

Basically if you can get a vampire in the area of a daylight spell and he can't get out in 1 round he is dead. Well, if its like sunlight.

Anyway, what do you do in your games?

 

[CRGreathouse]

No effect - it takes real sunlight.

 

[KarinsDad]

You need a much higher level spell like Sunbeam or Sunburst to adversely affect a vampire.

 

[Darkness]

What Charles and KarinsDad said: if it takes at least a 7th-level spell (e.g., sunbeam) to deal damage to a vampire, a 2nd-/3rd-level spell like daylight of course can't damage - much less kill - one.

 

[Rpjunkie]

Well, My party was using an adventure from Dungeon that was about 7 vampires that you had to kill and one of the Npcs give you scrolls of daylight to use against the Vampires. That to me suggests that it will work. Why else would that be in the adventure? I would just have someone ask the SAGE.


RPJ

 

[KarinsDad]

Well, My party was using an adventure from Dungeon that was about 7 vampires that you had to kill and one of the Npcs give you scrolls of daylight to use against the Vampires. That to me suggests that it will work. Why else would that be in the adventure?

Maybe because the author of the adventure did not know the rules and neither did the editors?


Vampires are only affected by sunlight (with regard to light). Daylight adversely affects creatures who are affected by bright light (like Drow), but Vampires are not affected by bright light, only by sunlight. Possibly a subtle distinction, but a valid distinction nonetheless.

 

[Bronn Spellforger]

Daylight wouldn't affect vampires... but a clever mage could use it to try and distract a vampire for a few seconds. Enough to get the hell out of there if you're too low a level to beat it!

 

[Cpg327]

DM discretion, such as when Chris Perkins allowed character Evelyn to have her Moonbeam be morning light. But with less of a stretch, as a DM, I rule that if a spell is called something, it is that thing. Therefore if the spell is called Daylight, it is actually Daytime Light. If a spell is called Sunbeam, it literally is a beam of Sun (in terms of light, not a beam of the heat or raw energy of a whole star). Otherwise, they should have called the spell Radiant Light, and Radiant Beam, or something else not pertaining to daytime or the sun, since, well, one might think in dealing with Curse of Strahd, that'd be a blatantly obvious point of needed clarity.

 

[Cpg327]

Sorry for double post. Please delete this. Thanks.

 

[Cpg327]

Maybe because the author of the adventure did not know the rules and neither did the editors?


Vampires are only affected by sunlight (with regard to light). Daylight adversely affects creatures who are affected by bright light (like Drow), but Vampires are not affected by bright light, only by sunlight. Possibly a subtle distinction, but a valid distinction nonetheless.

In terms of language, not a spell's name, daylight is sunlight. All light of day as opposed to light of fire, generic magic light, etc, is light of the sun. Since sunlight and daylight are synonymous, calling a spell "Daylight" suggests it creates sunlight. So the author and editor probably knew the rules, and not just the rules of 5th edition, but of pretty much all vampire lore ever, and reasonably felt the spell's name implied what it was. This kind of assumption is easy to make without even stopping to question it because it's so intuitive. Assuming they didn't know the rules might not be entirely fair to them.