>A combat was started indoors between the PCs and a heavily armed
>and armored group of guards. One PC cast a Darkwall, placed exactly
>between the combatants. The guards charged the Darkwall, trying to jump
>through. But the PC moved the Darkwall to always cover their eyes, so that
>they were never able to see the PCs. The guards charged anyway, trying to
>smash into the PCs with limited success.
This used to be a favorite tactic of our PC's. The trick is to be in contact with the enemy, so they can't push through. If you keep a straight line, the darkwall or lightwall will be between the two lines, and they will have to knock you back to break through.
The usual NPC answer was to dispel the magic. Our counter to _that_ was to double up the walls. In fact, for a while we had a troll and a Yelmalian in the party (don't ask - I don't remember, and you wouldn't believe it anyway), and we would cast darkwall, then lightwall just to our side of it. When the enemy dispelled the darkwall, they got blinded by the lightwall. This also worked if they broke through the darkwall.
How maneuverable is dark/lightwall? We used to allow one adjustment per round, as an action. This meant someone would likely not be fighting much, but our Yelmalian was a great archer, but only so-so at melee. So it was no loss to our melee strength to have him stay back and manipulate the lightwall. As I recall, we never had to do a lot of manipulating, as our line usually held. In any case, it was usually dispelled in a few rounds.
Ed Tonry
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