A Land Far Away

Is there any way to keep torches from becoming non-functional? 'cause It's getting to be really annoying.

I think that happens when torches are sold in stores as unlimited stacks?

Try not using them in the rain.

Have you checked the batteries are in the right way?

Aren't they made of wood, cloth, and pitch? Don't they burn out and you buy bundles of them for this reason?

"some cheap hydrophobic liquid that burns" would probably be more accurate. Pitch is usually cheapest, but wax and oil also work.

Anyhow, I believe it is by design that torches can't be reignited once lit, and lanterns can't be reignited until refueled. (and the fact that our minimum price on anything is 1 gp, instead of the 1cp that torches would cost in PnP, is no small part of the reason that magical light is so heavily incentivized; keeping both hands free and being unable to bash things for 1d4 blunt and 1 fire damage with torches being the others-- though I believe there have been discussions in the past about how "kill it with fire" is a surprisingly-good strategy in D&D)

However, there's no actual logic whether or not a torch will work. You can transition, and *poof* the thing lights up.

Eh... without a specific set of actions that cause unintended behavior, you're pretty much asking me to go find this goose you saw once and chase it-- probably won't end with fixed torches or happy people.

And I have no idea what torches are supposed to do (or not do).

• Is it normal behaviour for a torch to simply cease to function after having been unequipped and re-equipped once?
• Is it normal behaviour for a torch that has gone "dormant", to suddenly start working again?
• Can torches be refurbished with oil and/or rags?

I can't go geese-hunting until I can tell them apart from ducks, after all.

I would need to dig up old design documents to be absolutely sure, but from my own understanding of it:
-- A torch shouldn't be able to be lit again once extinguished or put out.
-- A torch shouldn't be able to be refueled (but a lantern should).
-- A torch should burn out after one hour of use, if not extinguished (pretty sure this is game hour-- but if it's real hour, I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it).
-- While lit, the torch should provide a moderate amount of white, yellow, or orange light. If the object in hand has an active node to attach a fire VFX to, it should also appear to burn. (pretty likely on torches)
-- A lantern should be able to be lit again once extinguished or put out.
-- A lantern should be able to be refueled, burning for 6 hours per pint of oil (again, game hour? real hour? Meh. It's a light source.)
-- Whilte lit, the lantern should provide a large amount of white, yellow, or orange light. If the object in hand has an active node to attach a fire VFX to, it should also appear to burn. (somewhat less likely on lanterns)

... and then the part that's annoying to everyone because it's just a needed technical specification...
-- we have no control over what a torch looks like when it exists, or whether any given object which looks like a torch is to be regarded as one by the scripts. (so a server could give you a lantern that looks like a torch, which you could refuel; it could also give you a flaming club and call it a torch, which we'd regard as an unpriceable weapon [or a very expensive one, if it had an enhancement bonus]; it could also slap light on an offhand item and call it a torch while pointedly avoiding any scripts -- but those last two you should be able to spot more easily, because we'd expect them to always be glowing and/or burning, per whatever specs the builder put on them).


From what I can dredge up from the history of discussion of torches, it looks like they've always been a bit quirky, but the people who got really fired up (pun intended) about it seem to have dropped it after a short time. Probably about the amount of time it took 'em to get to level 3 and buy a magic light.